How and where is a video game produced? And what about the Tax Shelter in all this?
Over the past two decades or so, video games have become an integral part of many people's daily lives. In the Western world, it is not easy to find a person under the age of thirty who has never touched a video game in his or her life. From the moment they entered the market in the 1970s, in the form of consoles or arcade games, they have continued to be developed, improved and diversified. With the development of personal computers and consoles, video games have followed the trend. A game produced today has very little in common with a game from the end of the twentieth century. What's interesting too is that the market share hasn't stopped growing! If at the beginning they only generated marginal revenues, they are now competing with the powerful machine of cinema. But for a product that is this liked, it is still very badly known. How and where is a video game produced? How many people work on it? And what is the cost of production?
To get to the heart of the matter, we first need to understand what a video game consists of.
A video game, in its simplest form, is the interaction between a user, an image, a soundtrack, and the code that makes it possible for these three factors to work together. Any production of a video game must necessarily start with the development of the idea. This is the work of the game designer. This person will think about the story the game will tell, but also about the characters in the game, the genre the game will belong to... In short, he does the work of a playwright or a screenwriter. From this preliminary work derives the game design document, the script if you like. The document in question is then transferred to the teams that will realize the game designer's vision. These include the art team, the sound team and the computer engineers. Depending on the size of the studio, these teams can number several people, dozens or even hundreds.
The art team will work to bring the game designer's vision to life by creating the game's levels, the environment in which the player will play and all other visual elements. These elements can be relatively simple (such as "Super Mario" in 2D) or extremely complex and sophisticated (such as in the latest generation of games where the characters seem almost "filmed"). If you're ever incredulous about how real the image looks, you should know that studios often use real actors, which are filmed in motion capture, and then transformed into computer-generated images to match the gestures of real human beings as closely as possible. Examples include the controversial Kevin Spacey in "Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare", or Ellen Page in "Beyond Two Souls".
The audio team produces the game's soundtrack. While sound is an essential element in a film, it is just as important in a video game. Would The Lord of the Rings have been such a success without the masterful music written by Howard Shore? Nothing is less certain! In video games, the role of the soundtrack is to give the player the impression of belonging to the world of the game. It therefore comes in many different forms. Each of these, from the snap of a character's fingers, through the singing of birds to the music itself, must either be selected or directly recorded. Well-known actors can also be found here. Did you know for example that Luke... sorry, Mark Hamill lends his voice to the Joker in "Arkham Asylum" and "Arkham City"? And what about the participation of Liam Neeson in "Fallout 3" or Martin Sheen in "Mass Effect 2"?
Of course, we shouldn't forget the developers either! They're the real Rosetta Stone between computers and humans, and they're the ones who make a game's release possible. It's also here that certain details will be refined, such as the link between certain game levels and the rest of the universe.
All these teams work simultaneously, with their own producers, composers and chief developers forming the link between the different teams. Of course, we've only mentioned the main members of a development team. We could also mention more specialised individuals, such as historians who work as consultants for historical games, or car experts who explain to developers how a particular car should feel in a racing game.
Last update on : 14.04.2020
The geographical location of a video game's production offices is relatively free. We can see that the major production studios are often present in several cities, or even several countries at the same time... with offices in Los Angeles if you need actors, but also in cities with a thriving IT sector such as Montreal or London.
Last update on : 14.04.2020
And what about the most complicated question in all of this? How much does it cost to produce a video game?
The price is obviously variable. Between a studio with three people working on an indie game and a studio with hundreds of employees producing a triple A[1] game... there's obviously a difference of night and day in terms of costs. However, one must be aware that costs have risen dramatically over the last twenty years. Today, the average budget is between $18 million and $28 million. However, the giants of the industry regularly exceed this budget: a good example is the development of "Gran Turismo 5", which cost no less than 60 million dollars. However, it must be stressed that the global market is very lucrative. In 2018, gamers spent no less than $137.9 billion on video games. Film revenues for the same year were only $136 billion, counting all forms of the seventh art, from the big screen to VOD platforms.
[1] This designates the games that have the highest development costs in the industry.
Last update on : 14.04.2020
That's all very interesting, of course, but you may be wondering where the connection with the Tax Shelter can be found?
In March 2019, the Belgian legislator decided to extend the Tax Shelter regime to video games. Pending the acceptance of this change in the law by the European Union, we can already think about its implementation. As we have seen, a studio sets up where it can benefit from the best working conditions. It is not impossible to imagine that in a few years’ time many studios will be able to choose Belgium as their operational base. Our small country already has everything it takes to make this a reality: a strong economy and a large number of people trained in development and graphic arts. With the arrival of the Tax Shelter regime for video games, the situation will be even more interesting for the studios since we will be the only country to have such a system. The benefits that the Tax Shelter has brought to the Belgian cultural sector are no longer in doubt. The system will undoubtedly be able to benefit video game developers and all those who envisage a future in this profession in the same way.
Last update on : 14.04.2020