Triple AAA Amiga games?

[Marcuz]

Imho, from the consumer and marketing point of view, as Bippy says, they are two different world by orders of magnitude; from the studios point of view, however, it's mainly a matter of hours of work: "big" games from that time were I believe still a kind of investment that no indie today game could approach, unless they have large publisher banking.

Plus, even just phisical distribution was probably a huge cost.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

As a curiosity, it would be nice to know the length of the development of these games, and how many of the devs were fulltime from start to finish.

Let's say, we use today's money for simplicity, and the same gross pay for each dev; between 30.000 and 40.000 € gross yearly; let's say that the dev time is 2 years, and, - let's be generous - , that all the team worked from start to finish; then, the first game of that list, with 14 devs in multiple roles, would cost today 840.000€ plus testing, plus study location rent, materials, software licensing fees, electricity, other expenses etc, plus distribution (disk printing, boxing shipping), marketing and publishing fees... Still, under 5.000.000, in today money probably.

That's not today biggest titles from largest studios, but it's definitely not indie. They are for sure AAA, considering that time period, and how much money games could probably get from investments partners.

Those wage do not seem realistic if you are saying are converting into today's money. They would be rather low for talented coders. A junior java developer will get paid about that,.

[Marcuz]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

Those wage do not seem realistic if you are saying are converting into today's money. They would be rather low for talented coders. A junior java developer will get paid about that,.

I did an average on today's graphic artists according to Payscale using Germany as reference, it having a healthier job market than Italy; for instance, a senior Java programmer in Italy is €37,453: https://www.payscale.com/research/IT...veloper/Salary

A software engineer, even less: https://www.payscale.com/research/IT...grammer/Salary

I also thought not to factor pay negotiation and career, as in early 1990s, I think, I could be wrong, that the people employed in making games were basically inventing those jobs, as we know them now.

That said, yeah, if I'm mistaken on the side of caution, then those projects cost even more, as a whole.

[amigang]

Originally Posted by BippyM

I don't think the two time frames can be compared. Gaming didn't become mainstream until the ps1, and that's when the industry literally exploded.. Today's big budget, aaa titles cost a fortune because of size and scope. Marketing is also massive, and that is the one thing that can make or break a game.

True but it just fun speculating what could kind of been classed a big AAA title.

like many pointed out I doubt many games went over budget of say £200,000 to pay all the staff, art work, music etc needed for a game.

I guess Adventure games where pretty big projects for the time.

Maybe we should think of who where just the triple AAA studios making Amiga games

i would think
Team17, Bullfrog, Sensible Software, Lucus Arts & Psygnosis would be on that list.
Other close studio to the mark would be EA (before they went evil), Westwood, Gremlin, Ocean, Sierra, cant think of any other off the top of my head.

[Hewitson]

Just because a game was "AAA" on other platforms doesn't make it so on the Amiga. Yes a game like MK2 was certainly AAA on the SNES, the poor quality Amiga port was far from it. Ugly graphics, poor quality sound, constant disk swapping, unplayable with 1 button, not HD installable... An absolute piece of garbage.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Just because a game was "AAA" on other platforms doesn't make it so on the Amiga. Yes a game like MK2 was certainly AAA on the SNES, the poor quality Amiga port was far from it. Ugly graphics, poor quality sound, constant disk swapping, unplayable with 1 button, not HD installable... An absolute piece of garbage.

I disagree, if a game is AAA then it is AAA... Just shit AAA!!!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Just because a game was "AAA" on other platforms doesn't make it so on the Amiga. Yes a game like MK2 was certainly AAA on the SNES, the poor quality Amiga port was far from it. Ugly graphics, poor quality sound, constant disk swapping, unplayable with 1 button, not HD installable... An absolute piece of garbage.

The reality is it was AAA. It was marketed as such, it was expected to sell well, and it did sell well.

That MK2 wasn't all it could be, that still doesn't detract from it being an AAA title.

Frankly, at that late stage in the Amigas life, it was incredibly fortunate to get it at all.

[d4rk3lf]

Don't pay much attention to Hewitson rants about Amiga.
Did he ever say anything positive about it?

Mortal Kombat 2 was most important game that brought me to the Amiga, after I saw it on my friend's A500. It was (and still is) beautiful, very responsive. Amazing gameplay.
I still play it often on my Amiga to this day.
Richard Costello did amazing job in this port.

[Torti-the-Smurf]

Seriously, MK2 ? It run´s only in half frame. MK1 on the Amiga is better

Anyway, IK+ is still the best IMHO hehe
(sorry, way of topic, i know) Greetings and keep away from those AAA BS Games

95% of them suck anyway Blessed be the "indie" scene.
If not for them i would not play "new videogames" anymore.

Torti

[amigang]

I agree that triple AAA games dont have to be good games, what make it a triple AAA game is that it was pushed to be a big release, had a big budget, hyped and kind of expected to be amazing, some times they missed that final mark.

Rise Of the Robots really fits, as it was heavily marked, high teased by the graphics, had a big budget, but failed on gameplay.

Ocean Epic i another that would qualify, big graphics, big promises, loads of adverts in the magazine, but failed on gameplay. Love Amiga Power review of it ( http://amr.abime.net/review_1146 )

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Don't pay much attention to Hewitson rants about Amiga.
Did he ever say anything positive about it?

I've said plenty of positive things about the Amiga.

Quite simply, anyone saying the Amiga version of MK2 is good is wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. It's fact. The game sucked, and the fact that you consider it to be better than the almost arcade-fucking-perfect MS-DOS port is laughable.

[d4rk3lf]

@Hewitson
I was talking about MS Dos version back then. Not now.
Here is the issues:
- On my friend 386 it was changing speed all the time, it ruined gameplay
- The second (very big) problem is if you play with friend on a keyboard (yes, many people back then didn't have expensive joystick's on PC's - it was the only way to play). So, if you both hold more then 3 keys, it stopped responding on 4th key. Do I have to explain how that affects gameplay?
- The tiny 14" monitor had huge un-antialiased pixels, and looked much more uglier, then A500 version on a big home TV, where TV sort of, hardware blurred the pixels.

The Amiga drawbacks are definitely disk swapping, but with HD (there was a hack to install it, very early, on A1200), so that's solved.
About 6 buttons controls - Tell me one move that I can't pull with ease on Amiga? That is really exaggerated. I agre that beat em up like Final Fight should have second button for jump, and with one button is really hard to play, but MK makes the best of one button controls. For me, it's hardly noticeable. Btw, there is also option for 2 buttons. Personally, never felt the need to try it.
EDIT:
If there were MK3 for the Amiga, THEN one button controls would be awful choice, because of all the combos in the game. But not with MK2 and 1.

And yes, I played A LOT of MK2, both on Arcade too, and on my own Megadrive, and on my friend SNES. Actually, I am still quite good at that game, on any hardware, 6 or one button.
So, I know what I am talking about.

Mk2 is absolute AAA title on Amiga.

[Etze]

Originally Posted by amigang

Rise Of the Robots really fits, as it was heavily marked, high teased by the graphics, had a big budget, but failed on gameplay.

Not to forget: paid good reviews... (-> Amiga Joker -> Never forget )

[Tigerskunk]

I don't know how MK2 plays on the Amiga, but I am really amazed at how great it looks watching videos from it on YouTube.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I don't know how MK2 plays on the Amiga, but I am really amazed at how great it looks watching videos from it on YouTube.

You should try it.

Anyway, here Richard Costello, explains a little bit, how they used colors for MK2 on OCS. He even attaches Scorpion sprite.
Hopefully, it's an interesting read:
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...9&postcount=26

[Gribnitz]

I would consider the Ultima games as big budget, especially after III.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I've said plenty of positive things about the Amiga.

Quite simply, anyone saying the Amiga version of MK2 is good is wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. It's fact. The game sucked, and the fact that you consider it to be better than the almost arcade-fucking-perfect MS-DOS port is laughable.

Amiga Format (the worlds biggest selling Amiga mag at the time) would disagree with you on this. They gave the game the star treatment: They had Sub Zero on the front cover (very few games on the Amiga got that honour), gave it a rare four page review and a very high 92% rating. Well deserved though I think. It's certainly much better than all the lame SF2 ports.

http://amr.abime.net/issue_222_pages

[gsoravil]

It probably doesn't officially count as "AAA" but I was shocked at the size and depth of Bloodnet (AGA) on the Amiga. It really felt like the closest thing to AAA that I've played on it so far. Surprisingly long, decent graphics, tons of story line, lots of exploration, distinct interface, an inventory system, etc.

Greg