Helldivers player numbers increase by 86% after latest update.

[mibu no ookami]

the problem with them is that their dev pipeline is a mess and it seems to shift goals weekly and overreact to feedback and or whims of the creative directors, which seems to have persisted throughout the dev process which is why it took 4 years longer than intended, and also why their code seems to be made out of pure spaghetti. also they just started hiring more people in february so integrating the new people should only start showing results around now or even in a couple months. At some point I think they should take like 6 months off of updates and just refactor all their code to not break as soon as you touch it.

6 months off of updates for a game that hasn't even been out for 6 months would be a death sentence.

Again, that is where the catch 22 comes into play.

They have a lot of hard decisions to make and if they come up with good solutions, they have a real chance at a top industry game, but if they choose wrong, it'll just be a footnote.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Helldivers 2 has been such a hit that I assume Sony already signed with them Helldivers 3 and started early work to make a movie/tv show adaptation.

I assume they'll continue growing to at some point being able to work at the same time in Helldivers 2 and 3, but seeng they had issue growing maybe they may wait and for a while they may only work in Helldivers 2 until some point.

If Helldivers 2 post-launch monetization is successful enough, onsidering that in the future will expand to mobile too I'd design Helldivers 3 since the start as a PS, PC and mobile (which now also includes Mac) F2P game.

Regarding them being acquired or not, we know Totoki wanted to pause the acquisitions to resume them a few years later once the market conditions improved, and also wants to complete paying the related costs of the previous ones to improve profitability. Plus they will also get extra cash from selling the banks late next year.

So who knows, maybe around late next year or in 2026 may consider the acqusition. Or who knows, maybe they really want to continue independent even so many years after working only for Sony.

The roadmap for the game is going to be interesting.

You look at Starship Troopers Extinction, that just came out and it probably couldn't have been timed any worse for helldivers.

A starship troopers crossover would be really healthy for the game and if you could get the original cast from the movie to do a spiritual successor through Helldivers, that would probably be huge.

They have to ask themselves do they keep updating Helldivers 2 for years or do they move to Helldivers 3 with a new engine.

How long would it take them to make Helldivers 3 at this point as an independent company or as part of Sony.

I believe you've mentioned that english is not your first language, but I think you've misunderstood Totoki's comments on acquisitions. There is certainly no pause on acquisitions. And while they're making them (the financial division) public, but it's not like they're going to divest entirely, so how much they actually get is in question.

I really dislike when someone creates an entire narrative out of misunderstanding a single statement.

 

[mibu no ookami]

@Yurinka

Here is a link to the question about whether a weak yen would cause Sony to delay M&A, particularly foreign MA

And the answer he gives is that they look at the hurdle rate to analyze any given acquisition and that the weak yen itself does not give them pause or reason to delay.

Here is the transcript answer that is a bit different from the audio answer.

Q: [Consolidated] Can you comment on media reports regarding the acquisition of Paramount group?
How would that fit in with your ambitions in your 5th Mid-Range Plan to strengthen your
entertainment businesses?

A: As we have not made any announcements, I will refrain from commenting on the reports.
However, as we see a lot of conflicting information, I would like to provide a comprehensive
explanation of our current strategy, including our approach to capital allocation. Creating synergy
through IP across G&NS, Music and Pictures is a unique strength of the Sony Group and a core part
of Sony’s growth strategy. Within this framework, SPE essentially serves as a hub for generating
synergies and plays an important role within our business. Therefore, if there are promising
opportunities in this field, we will consider them as long as we can expect appropriate value and
investment return. Having said that, in terms of capital allocation performance over the past three
years in the 4th Mid-Range Plan, strategic investments, excluding share buybacks, totaled 1.3 trillion
yen, of which approximately three quarters was allocated to the entertainment businesses. The
largest portion went to the Music segment, while the remainder was split approximately equally
between the G&NS and Pictures segments. In terms of investment purpose, the largest proportion
was allocated to IP acquisition. We currently intend to continue with this basic policy for the next
three years as well. The strategic investment framework for the 5th Mid-Range Plan is a target of
1.8 trillion yen, including share buybacks, over three years. Our basic approach under the
framework is to conduct strategic investments and agile share buybacks within this range over a
three-year period, without overly favoring any specific segment.

If you took that 1.8 trillion yen and assumed the difference between that and the previous 1.3 trillion was going to buybacks. That would be 500 billion towards buybacks.

With 1.3 trillion yen seemingly split between Pictures, Music, and Gaming, that would be approx. 433 billion yen towards gaming, which is about 2.7 billion USD, give or take for obvious opportunities in one segment or another.

I think in the next 3 years we can expect Sony to spend anywhere between 2-4 billion USD on expanding SIE through M&A. Which is why I think the obvious result will be Sony buying FromSoftware or Kadokawa.

Buying all of Kadokawa would cost between 3.5 and 4.2 billion, but it gives you a lot of things that helps Sony Pictures and Sony Music, so it wouldn't count just against SIE like maybe FromSoftware would or maybe SIE tries to buy just FromSoftware.

Either way, it still leaves Sony with more than enough money to buy studios like Ballistic Moon, Arrowhead, and Studio Gobo, which will be the highest targets Sony will probably be looking at for studios they're working with. Maybe S-Games as well.

 

[Yurinka]

They have to ask themselves do they keep updating Helldivers 2 for years or do they move to Helldivers 3 with a new engine.

It's a GaaS, which means that as long as it keeps generating enough money they'll keep adding and fixing stuff. Had a record start with awesome user retention, meaning make sure they'll keep working on it minimum half a decade.

But this is compatible with having a team who starts to work on HD3. Post launch content doesn't require the whole studio.

How long would it take them to make Helldivers 3 at this point as an independent company or as part of Sony.

I'd say it will take the same amount of time independently if being acquired or not. Even if not acquired, the 2nd party games who regularly work with Sony are basically part of the family and Sony helps, supports them as if they were internal studios. They have access to the same stuff etc.

And well, in these AAA games the lead studio provides only around 10% of the total amount of people who works in the game. The rest are people from other Sony teams or external outsourcing/support teams paid (and managed) by Sony.

Regarding the amount of years, it will depend on what they want to do. If it's the same but prettier will take less. If it's pretty different and more complex will take more. They will move to a new engine, so pretty likely will need some extra time of adaptation (way less if it's Unreal). If the game is also released on mobile will take more. If it's F2P too.

The AAA games released now take 5-9 years. Pretty likely will be longer when HD3 gets released. I'd say it will take 7-10 years assuming they start now with a small team while most of them continue supporting HD2.

I believe you've mentioned that english is not your first language

Yes, it's my 3rd language.

, but I think you've misunderstood Totoki's comments on acquisitions. There is certainly no pause on acquisitions. And while they're making them (the financial division) public, but it's not like they're going to divest entirely, so how much they actually get is in question.

A year ago he said this:

• In terms of strategic investment, since we decided to increase working
capital and capital expenditures, and in consideration of the current
M&A market environment, we decided to reduce the amount from the
initial plan of 2 trillion yen to 1.8 trillion yen.
• To grow over the mid to long term, we will continue to invest.
However, in the short term, we aim to carefully assess even more than
before the valuations and timing of investments given the recent
changes in the market environment.

Also this("Strategic investments" = acquisitions + investments + Sony stock repurchases):

More recently, in the Q2FY23 report said this:

They expect that SIE acquisition costs will decrease in the current FY24 compared to the previous FY. Which sounds as them don't planning to acquire this FY, or at least to make some very small one (as were iSize or Audeze).

FY23Q3 report (notice he mentions "past" acquisitions, not "past and potential future" acquisitions or something like that, in addition to mention again that the costs will decline):

So:

1. Mentioned multiple times that in the current FY they expect to see their acquisition costs reduced vs the previous FY, something will help them improve their profits
2. A year ago said they'll invest to grow in the mid to long term but in the short term will be more careful with the timing and valuation of the acquisitions
3. Not included here (didn't want to spend a lot of time) but he or the CEO somewhere also mentioned they plan to sell 80% of their banks division starting fall 2025, and that plan to use most of that cash on investments in their entertainment divisions

He didin't say it directly because everything is possible, but seems pretty clear to me that their plan is to don't make (meaningful) acquisitions for SIE until they get the money from selling their banks stuff.

 

[Yurinka]

@Yurinka

Here is a link to the question about whether a weak yen would cause Sony to delay M&A, particularly foreign MA

And the answer he gives is that they look at the hurdle rate to analyze any given acquisition and that the weak yen itself does not give them pause or reason to delay.

Here is the transcript answer that is a bit different from the audio answer.



If you took that 1.8 trillion yen and assumed the difference between that and the previous 1.3 trillion was going to buybacks. That would be 500 billion towards buybacks.

With 1.3 trillion yen seemingly split between Pictures, Music, and Gaming, that would be approx. 433 billion yen towards gaming, which is about 2.7 billion USD, give or take for obvious opportunities in one segment or another.

I think in the next 3 years we can expect Sony to spend anywhere between 2-4 billion USD on expanding SIE through M&A. Which is why I think the obvious result will be Sony buying FromSoftware or Kadokawa.

Buying all of Kadokawa would cost between 3.5 and 4.2 billion, but it gives you a lot of things that helps Sony Pictures and Sony Music, so it wouldn't count just against SIE like maybe FromSoftware would or maybe SIE tries to buy just FromSoftware.

Either way, it still leaves Sony with more than enough money to buy studios like Ballistic Moon, Arrowhead, and Studio Gobo, which will be the highest targets Sony will probably be looking at for studios they're working with. Maybe S-Games as well.

Lol I was writing the previous post with older quotes, which in any case are compatible with this newer one when he replies when asked about the Paramount rumors.

Yes, I expect them to spend maybe around aprox. $2-4B in investments and acquisitions for SIE in the 3 years period that started this April. Maybe a bit more. In the previous mid-term plan they spent a big chunk in music, maybe this one could be in gaming if the Paramount Group acquisition doesn't work out. Who knows.

But as he said when talking about Paramount Group (which also would include stuff for their music and game divisions, as he said) will depend on opportunities. They could make an exception, and even spend more.

In fact, this is the budget they plan now but the budget can be updated depending on stuff (like their profitability or important market or currency exchange changes on upcoming years) as did in the previous one.

But due to the quotes I shown before (plus the ones I didn't include related to the banks stuff and using that money on acquisitions mostly for entertainment divisions), I think he plans to spend most of their budget -at least for SIE- in the 2nd and 3rd fiscal year of the mid-term plan. Not in 2024.

Mostly because starting fall 2025/GTAV+Marathon Sony will have a lot of 1P bangers in a row during 2-3 years, and by then they'll have grow in PC even more and may also start to see money from mobile. So they will be extra profitable then, so starting fall 2025 he won't care about putting there acquisition costs.

But until then, even if there will be some bangers will be less and not as big and their short term focus is to improve profitability and as they also said to make room for future growth.

 

[mibu no ookami]

It's a GaaS, which means that as long as it keeps generating enough money they'll keep adding and fixing stuff. Had a record start with awesome user retention, meaning make sure they'll keep working on it minimum half a decade.

But this is compatible with having a team who starts to work on HD3. Post launch content doesn't require the whole studio.

I dont think you realize how small their studio is.

I'd say it will take the same amount of time independently if being acquired or not. Even if not acquired, the 2nd party games who regularly work with Sony are basically part of the family and Sony helps, supports them as if they were internal studios. They have access to the same stuff etc.

Whether they acquired may change the very dynamic of whether they prioritize a sequel vs continue building as many updates for the existing game. It's not just the support they get but how many people they can hire.

And well, in these AAA games the lead studio provides only around 10% of the total amount of people who works in the game. The rest are people from other Sony teams or external outsourcing/support teams paid (and managed) by Sony.

Regarding the amount of years, it will depend on what they want to do. If it's the same but prettier will take less. If it's pretty different and more complex will take more. They will move to a new engine, so pretty likely will need some extra time of adaptation (way less if it's Unreal). If the game is also released on mobile will take more. If it's F2P too.

The AAA games released now take 5-9 years. Pretty likely will be longer when HD3 gets released. I'd say it will take 7-10 years assuming they start now with a small team while most of them continue supporting HD2.

you've made a ton of assumptions here, but let me tell you that using a more modern engine would have vastly reduced the amount of time it took them to develop helldivers 2 and no estimate would be accurate if built against the time it took them to develop helldivers 2.

The outcome of saying 5-9 years doesn't take A LOT into consideration and just makes a pretty lazy analysis. First being that that range in itself is ridiculous, but it doesn't factor resources as a factor of time.

Yes, it's my 3rd language.

You need to be bit more careful.

A year ago he said this:

• In terms of strategic investment, since we decided to increase working
capital and capital expenditures, and in consideration of the current
M&A market environment, we decided to reduce the amount from the
initial plan of 2 trillion yen to 1.8 trillion yen.
• To grow over the mid to long term, we will continue to invest.
However, in the short term, we aim to carefully assess even more than
before the valuations and timing of investments given the recent
changes in the market environment.

Also this("Strategic investments" = acquisitions + investments + Sony stock repurchases):

More recently, in the Q2FY23 report said this:

They expect that SIE acquisition costs will decrease in the current FY24 compared to the previous FY. Which sounds as them don't planning to acquire this FY, or at least to make some very small one (as were iSize or Audeze).

FY23Q3 report (notice he mentions "past" acquisitions, not "past and potential future" acquisitions or something like that, in addition to mention again that the costs will decline):

So:

1. Mentioned multiple times that in the current FY they expect to see their acquisition costs reduced vs the previous FY, something will help them improve their profits
2. A year ago said they'll invest to grow in the mid to long term but in the short term will be more careful with the timing and valuation of the acquisitions
3. Not included here (didn't want to spend a lot of time) but he or the CEO somewhere also mentioned they plan to sell 80% of their banks division starting fall 2025, and that plan to use most of that cash on investments in their entertainment divisions

He didin't say it directly because everything is possible, but seems pretty clear to me that their plan is to don't make (meaningful) acquisitions for SIE until they get the money from selling their banks stuff.

No where here was there a suggestion of a pause. He said he expected existing acquisition cost to reduce nothing to do with future acquisitions.

The selling of their financial divisions doesn't mean they're going to wait until then to do strategic acquisitions.

 

[mibu no ookami]

But due to the quotes I shown before (plus the ones I didn't include related to the banks stuff and using that money on acquisitions mostly for entertainment divisions), I think he plans to spend most of their budget -at least for SIE- in the 2nd and 3rd fiscal year of the mid-term plan. Not in 2024.

Again, that's because you're not understanding what was actually said...

 

[Yurinka]

I dont think you realize how small their studio is.

They have 117 people in Linkedin and their website says "more than 100 people". And as I said they are a small part of the total team, you can see it in the game credits.

Whether they acquired may change the very dynamic of whether they prioritize a sequel vs continue building as many updates for the existing game. It's not just the support they get but how many people they can hire.

Their former CEO gave a talk recently where he did talk about the HD2 development and the issues they had growing, I suggest you to watch it. I don't think he wants to grow a ton fast again, or at least soon.

I assume they'll want to continue working mostly in HD2 for a while, as he mentioned spending more on it than initially planned (and making some related hirings) due to the huge success. While with a small team considering options for future projects.

Sony will decide the length of HD2 support and the amount of people working on it, either from Arrowhead or other teams. Sony is the publisher and who funds the project. I assume any decision will be agreed by both.

Same goes with HD3, Sony will decide when its development starts and its budget, and if will be developed by Arrowhead or not. I also assume that any decision will be agreed by both and will have a reasonable roadmap (which as always will get reviewed periodically), and I assume both will want to make HD3 at some point. In case Sony would want it but not Arrowhead, then Sony would find someone else to do it.

you've made a ton of assumptions here, but let me tell you that using a more modern engine would have vastly reduced the amount of time it took them to develop helldivers 2 and no estimate would be accurate if built against the time it took them to develop helldivers 2.

Yes, they are assumtions made after having worked 11 years making mobile games, half of them on a top publisher, and having many friends in many top AAA or mobile teams.

Some of whom are my colleagues as teachers in gamedevs universities or company incubators, or speakers in talks/round tables I coorganize and host.

Regarding their engine, it was modern when they started the game. To change the engine in mid development is a nightmare, and even more would be to do it having released the game just for post-launch content. In fact is so expensive and stupid idea that as far as I know nobody did it. To upgrade the game to a newer version of the engine in many cases already is a pain in the ass, but to migrate to a totally differnt engine is a nightmare (I'm in the process of migrating to a different engine for one of the projects where I'm working btw).

Make sure HD2 will continue with this engine until the end. Regarding HD3 yes, make sure they'll move away to something else, pretty likely Unreal Engine because a ton of people knows how to do use it, even the kids from the university. Unlike any propietary engine like Decima. The downside is that it's too bulky for mobile but not impossible.

Same goes with Unity, for AAA sucks and due the the stupid people in charge of it people are running away from it, but a ton of people knows how to use it and it's the best option for mobile, so could be a great candidate if go PS+PC+mobile. But again, if possible I'd skip it to avoid the morons in charge of it.

Programmers, level designers, artists, fx artists, UI artists, sound designers, etc. In all these areas you can easily find people with experience on it or at least that knows how to use Unreal or Unity.

Not the case of their potato engine or any propietary engine like Decima. Almost everybody in the areas I mentioned would need an adaptation period to learn and get used to the engine, and many people wouldn't apply because nowadays a ton of people only knows Unreal or Unity.

The outcome of saying 5-9 years doesn't take A LOT into consideration and just makes a pretty lazy analysis. First being that that range in itself is ridiculous, but it doesn't factor resources as a factor of time.

5-9 years is what AAA games being released these years are taking on average. Helldivers 2 took 8 years.

Obviously there always some exceptions above or below, but that is the average as of now. Obviously the specific length for each project depends on a lot of factors.

And well, every single generation AAA games took way more time than in the previous one.

You need to be bit more careful.

???

No where here was there a suggestion of a pause. He said he expected existing acquisition cost to reduce nothing to do with future acquisitions.

They expect acquisition costs to decrease in the currenf FY24 vs the previous FY23, which will help them improve their profitability.

You reduce them by to stop adding more new acquisition costs on top and instead pay the ones you had. Which is what they have been doing since he said it.

If you make new big acquisitons the acquisition costs don't decrease, they increase instead. So for this FY24 pretty likely they won't make (at least big) acquisitions, maximum some 20 people small startup as was iSize.

Because if they would it would increase their acquisition costs and would go against what he plans for FY24.

Fall 2025 is when they'll start selling their financials stuff, and that will be FY25, the middle of their mid-term 3 years plan. And will be two years and a half after (so no longer short term) his quote:

"To grow over the mid to long term, we will continue to invest. However, in the short term, we aim to carefully assess even more than before the valuations and timing of investments given the recent changes in the market environment."

The selling of their financial divisions doesn't mean they're going to wait until then to do strategic acquisitions.

True, this is why I posted all the other things. Because when putting them together is when you see it.

 

[mibu no ookami]

They have 117 people in Linkedin and their website says "more than 100 people". And as I said they are a small part of the total team, you can see it in the game credits.

117 is extremely small and that does not allow you to maintain a game like Helldivers 2 while simultaneously developing at scale a sequel.

At best I would assume Sony's goal would be to get a new version out for release on PS6 or shortly beforehand. That would be 3-4 years. I would be stunned if Helldivers 3 comes out in 9 years.

Their former CEO gave a talk recently where he did talk about the HD2 development and the issues they had growing, I suggest you to watch it. I don't think he wants to grow a ton fast again, or at least soon.

LOL. I've already watched it. It's funny that you assume that people don't consume the same things that you do. Especially when they write things suggesting that they've seen the same thing. You don't pick up on those cues very well. Again, likely because english isn't your primary language and because you're not looking for the cues. Listen more, speak less.

You don't even pick up on the fact that he is the former CEO for a reason. He was not up to the task to move this company or the game in the right direction and he did well to recognize that.

I assume they'll want to continue working mostly in HD2 for a while, as he mentioned spending more on it than initially planned (and making some related hirings) due to the huge success. While with a small team considering options for future projects.

Sony will decide the length of HD2 support and the amount of people working on it, either from Arrowhead or other teams. Sony is the publisher and who funds the project. I assume any decision will be agreed by both.

As I said, it's a balancing act as to how much effort to put into Helldivers 2 and how much effort to put into a new version or a sequel. The engine won't do them many favors as they ramp up in size and scope. This will generally dictate a smaller lifecycle for HD2 than it would otherwise.

Right now you're hiring people to get them up to speed on an engine that is no longer supported. That will ultimately limit their size and scope.

Same goes with HD3, Sony will decide when its development starts and its budget, and if will be developed by Arrowhead or not. I also assume that any decision will be agreed by both and will have a reasonable roadmap (which as always will get reviewed periodically), and I assume both will want to make HD3 at some point. In case Sony would want it but not Arrowhead, then Sony would find someone else to do it.

That's exactly my point. Sony will ultimately want Arrowhead to work on HD3 but their limited size and scope might make that difficult. That is where they'll have to make decisions as to how/when they grow and whether they focus on HD2 with their new hires or HD3. When looking to expand the game to other platforms, Sony will discuss with Arrowhead whether they're capable of doing it and my guess is that they currently aren't. Their roadmap is going to be hampered by their size.

5-9 years is what AAA games being released these years are taking on average. Helldivers 2 took 8 years.

Obviously there always some exceptions above or below, but that is the average as of now. Obviously the specific length for each project depends on a lot of factors.

And well, every single generation AAA games took way more time than in the previous one.

What you don't understand, and again where I think you really struggle with english is understanding why Helldivers took 8 years and why a sequel probably wouldn't.

???

Make sure you understand something thoroughly BEFORE coming to a conclusion.

They expect acquisition costs to decrease in the currenf FY24 vs the previous FY23, which will help them improve their profitability.

You reduce them by to stop adding more new acquisition costs on top and instead pay the ones you had. Which is what they have been doing since he said it.

If you make new big acquisitons the acquisition costs don't decrease, they increase instead. So for this FY24 pretty likely they won't make (at least big) acquisitions, maximum some 20 people small startup as was iSize.

Because if they would it would increase their acquisition costs and would go against what he plans for FY24.

Fall 2025 is when they'll start selling their financials stuff, and that will be FY25, the middle of their mid-term 3 years plan. And will be two years and a half after (so no longer short term) his quote:

"To grow over the mid to long term, we will continue to invest. However, in the short term, we aim to carefully assess even more than before the valuations and timing of investments given the recent changes in the market environment."


True, this is why I posted all the other things. Because when putting them together is when you see it.

You posted a lot of things, none of which suggested a pause. In fact if you read everything you posted you would see that they are in fact not pausing anything.

He said that past acquisition costs would decrease in FY24, he made no mention of future acquisitions. It's extremely frustrating to have to go back and forth with you because you don't understand English very well.

You're also oddly conflating statements from the past with the present and future, without understanding the passage of time.

 

[Vertigo]

The engine being extinct does bring up some interesting stuff.

Who owns it? Is Arrowhead still paying licensing? Can they move forward with all their games building on the bones of it as it becomes their own proprietary thing?

No matter what… to continue to support the current game or bankrolling a sequel… there’s no way Sony isn’t involved (aside from owning the IP) if they had any sense, which I believe they do.

 

[anonpuffs]

apparently based on reddit the devs test the game on prod lol

(read comments, wild ride)

 

[Yurinka]

117 is extremely small and that does not allow you to maintain a game like Helldivers 2 while simultaneously developing at scale a sequel.

At best I would assume Sony's goal would be to get a new version out for release on PS6 or shortly beforehand. That would be 3-4 years. I would be stunned if Helldivers 3 comes out in 9 years.

They don't need over 100 people at all to keep working on Helldivers 2, can be done with a smaller team at Arrowhead, specially considering Sony provides them a ton of support teams.

The first steps of a new project (first preproduction months) are normally done with a very small team of under a dozen people, plus more people in the publisher's side. Basically they have to research the market and its trends trying to guess how the market is going to be when the game will be released, and find a spot on it (and als in the publisher's roadmap) for the game.

Then some concept art, high level design, the main concept of the story and its main hooks, some basic prototypes of the main challenges (I assume in this case will be "like HD2 but F2P and with much better visuals running on UE5 targeting specs that could use PS6 and using base PS5 as minimum specs". And then to make the related business and marketing plan documents to budget everything and make a development roadmap.

And as they keep getting the checks/approvals the prototypes get combined into a first demo/mini vertical slice. As could be 1 Helldiver using 1 weapon and 1 stratagem against 1 enemy type in 1 placeholder planet using UE5 with Lumen and Nanite.

LOL. I've already watched it. It's funny that you assume that people don't consume the same things that you do. Especially when they write things suggesting that they've seen the same thing. You don't pick up on those cues very well. Again, likely because english isn't your primary language and because you're not looking for the cues. Listen more, speak less.

Well, seems you're the one who don't get the cues. I was trying to say in a polite way that clearly you have no idea what you are talking about regarding topics like issues related to growing a gamedev studio, resources needed for a preproduction, production or live ops of a GaaS, how these projects overlap with the next ones and their case in particular. Or the relationship with a publisher, how their roadmaps are build and how the resources are distributed. You're the one who have to listen more and speak less.

It's clear that you either didn't watch it or didn't get that they struggled growing the team, something typical of when studios grow relatively fast and move from certain sizes to certain other ones because there are management, workflow and studio culture changes required as the team reaches certain sizes.

Each team works on its way and also depends on the culture of the country, but typically teams of under 7 works better in certain way. Things change when it goes from 7 to 12 and the previous system typically doesn't work, must switch to another type to be efficient, work properly and don't have issues. Or between 12 and 20. Or when it's from 20 to 50. Or when it's over 50 and when over 100.

The optimal production methodology and internal communication changes for each group. Same goes with the number of games being develped at the same time inside the studio. I saw these issues in many teams, experienced them myself and even attended or gave conferences about it.

It requires time to adapt and many times thing go horribly wrong, or some people doesn't like the new method and there are related issues etc. I saw multiple teams who suffered it incluing some where I worked or supported and know cases where that even caused the closure of the studio.

And well, Sony funds HD2 and the potential HD3, or new IP if they decide to go this rout. So Sony will be the one paying the hired people at Arrowhead that they may need, independently if acquired or not. They broke the record for a Sony game, so make sure Sony will fund whatever they want to do next and will try to grow them as much as possible.

Other publishers pretty likely must be trying to poach them after the HD2 success, but on a few could have funded them a AAA GaaS coming from Helldivers 1, and nobody has the patience that Sony had to allow a 5 years delay to a initially 3 years long project, and they kept working with Sony for several project, which implies Arrowhead is happy with them. So it's very difficult that they'd go away to work with another publisher. Or to self publish now that they grew to AAA, because to self publish AAA. So it's super likely that they'll continue with Sony for the next game which they'll start at some point while they continue supporting HD2 to ideally have it ready before or soon after HD2 dies.

You don't even pick up on the fact that he is the former CEO for a reason. He was not up to the task to move this company or the game in the right direction and he did well to recognize that.

As he said, it's the typical case of a dev who what he wants is to focus on development, but started the studio as a small team and ran the company as CEO because someone in the team had to do it. As usual he ended being butthurted.

Now he got a super success, he had money to hire some top tier folk he trusts as CEO to let him handle all the management and business related burocracy, politics, paperwork and so on behind running a studio, while he can focus in what the wants: the creative side of making games.

As I said, it's a balancing act as to how much effort to put into Helldivers 2 and how much effort to put into a new version or a sequel. The engine won't do them many favors as they ramp up in size and scope. This will generally dictate a smaller lifecycle for HD2 than it would otherwise.

Right now you're hiring people to get them up to speed on an engine that is no longer supported. That will ultimately limit their size and scope.

The engine choice made sense back 8 or 9 years ago, because it was the engine they did use in their previous game, were happy with it, all their team was used to it, was still being supported and the game, as usual, originally had a smaller scope.

The engine is no longer supported and already looks old, so will look ever worse minimum 5-9 years in the future assuming they start now to work in their next game. So make sure they'll change the engine for their next game.

But for HD2, now that they shipped it, the engine isn't any issue to keep adding new weapons, armors, stratagems, enemies, mission types, skins, rebalancing, fixes plus additional features and content and so on. They can add as much as they want.

Regarding hirings, it's easier, faster and cheaper to find people to work on UE or Unity. Other engine means way longer adaptation/training period, so more time, cost and extra patience needed to reach the point when the new worker is productive and doesn't affect the productivity of whoever has to train and tutor that new dev.

That's exactly my point. Sony will ultimately want Arrowhead to work on HD3 but their limited size and scope might make that difficult. That is where they'll have to make decisions as to how/when they grow and whether they focus on HD2 with their new hires or HD3. When looking to expand the game to other platforms, Sony will discuss with Arrowhead whether they're capable of doing it and my guess is that they currently aren't. Their roadmap is going to be hampered by their size.

My bet is that both already agreed to start working on the preproduction of Helldivers 3 and a movie/tv show adaptation (plus maybe also a Helldivers board game/pen and paper RPG, since Arrowheads are fan of this stuff).

But Arrowhead suffered growing a lot during HD2, so I assume they agreed to grow slowly this time and with dedicated help and mentorship from different Sony teams who had been in the same situation of moving from having 1 project in production to have a GaaS live and having another one in production.

What you don't understand, and again where I think you really struggle with english is understanding why Helldivers took 8 years and why a sequel probably wouldn't.

Nah, I don't struggle with English. It's my informed opinion as experienced dev with friends in many places.

These are facts: nowadays most recent AAA games take around 5-9 years to be made, Helldivers 2 took 8 years and every generation AAA games take longer to be made.

So in the same way that Helldivers 2 took more time than Heldivers 1, Helldivers 3 pretty likely will take more time than Helldivers 2.

They struggled with some issues and challenges in Helldivers 2, and will stuggle with other ones in Helldivers 3. Devs almost always struggle with something, because to make games is hard.

Pretty likely this time they'll struggle requiring a big effort to keep training most on their team in the new engine (pretty likely UE) as these people keep slowly moving from HD2 to HD3, to achieve the basically photorealistic visuals people hope to see in PS6 AAAs, learn to use AI to help them in this area, to move from a paid GaaS to a F2P. And maybe they kept it for after launch but they may also consider since the start that at some point they may expand it to mobile meaning it must be scalable enough.

And obviously with the production and internal communication challenges and issues related to move to having two projects instead of one.

Make sure you understand something thoroughly BEFORE coming to a conclusion.

lol

You posted a lot of things, none of which suggested a pause. In fact if you read everything you posted you would see that they are in fact not pausing anything.

He said that past acquisition costs would decrease in FY24, he made no mention of future acquisitions. It's extremely frustrating to have to go back and forth with you because you don't understand English very well.

You're also oddly conflating statements from the past with the present and future, without understanding the passage of time.

Maybe you're the one who struggles with English and don't understand what means to be more conservative with acquisitions for the reasons he explained and to plan to have less acquisition related costs in FY24 than the ones they had in FY23 (a year where they didn't have any multi billion acquisition). And that they need to reduce the acquisition related costs because need to improve their profitability in the short term.

The engine being extinct does bring up some interesting stuff.

Who owns it? Is Arrowhead still paying licensing? Can they move forward with all their games building on the bones of it as it becomes their own proprietary thing?

No matter what… to continue to support the current game or bankrolling a sequel… there’s no way Sony isn’t involved (aside from owning the IP) if they had any sense, which I believe they do.

Well, the game started development in 2016, when the engine -owned by Autodesk it was still supported. It got discontinued in 2018, when devs still didn't even have the specs of PS5.

I assume Sony made a deal with Autodesk either to keep some people inside Autodesk still working on it to support PS5 just for this game, or maybe bought them the engine, or maybe once it got discontinued Autodesk gave the source to the devs still working on games for it. Someone must have been working on it after it got discontinued to add PS5 support, but who knows.

The thing is that for the next game people will expect things this engine won't be able to deliver: big ray traying support, proper real time global illumination, shadowing and reflections, at least some type of deep learning super sampling, some sort of real time streaming dynamic LOD calcualtion similar to Nanite and many other things that are coming like certain top tier fluids simulations and certain next level lighting stuff, AI applied to improved many things like animation including stuff like facial microgestures mocap and a long etc.

And well, if they decide to also support mobile that would be a huge topic and giant challenge on its own, which pretty likely would be outsourced to a separate specialized team.

 

[Monkeyclaw]

The Monkey and Spyx show part 1 - Clipped with Medal.tv

7 Views. Watch The Monkey and Spyx show part 1 and millions of other HELLDIVERS 2 videos on Medal, the #1 Game Clip Platform.

medal.tv

Im actually enjoying the game again with the latest patch!

 

[mibu no ookami]

They don't need over 100 people at all to keep working on Helldivers 2, can be done with a smaller team at Arrowhead, specially considering Sony provides them a ton of support teams.

Not if they want to deliver significant updates continuously throughout the year.

The first steps of a new project (first preproduction months) are normally done with a very small team of under a dozen people, plus more people in the publisher's side. Basically they have to research the market and its trends trying to guess how the market is going to be when the game will be released, and find a spot on it (and als in the publisher's roadmap) for the game.

We're not just talking about the initial phases of a new project. We're talking about supporting a full blown GaaS with significant content while simultaneously developing a successor. This is not something they did with Helldivers 2 after the first game and it took them 8 years to make the game.

Well, seems you're the one who don't get the cues. I was trying to say in a polite way that clearly you have no idea what you are talking about regarding topics like issues related to growing a gamedev studio, resources needed for a preproduction, production or live ops of a GaaS, how these projects overlap with the next ones and their case in particular. Or the relationship with a publisher, how their roadmaps are build and how the resources are distributed. You're the one who have to listen more and speak less.

Dude you're going to speak on what Sony did relating to the engine, when Arrowhead's former CEO has long documented how things went when the engine was discontinued. You continuously speak out of your ass and rely on chatgpt to write your arguments for you.

it's clear that you either didn't watch it or didn't get that they struggled growing the team, something typical of when studios grow relatively fast and move from certain sizes to certain other ones because there are management, workflow and studio culture changes required as the team reaches certain sizes.

A team of under 7 works better in certain way. Things change when it goes from 7 to 12, must switch to another type to be efficient, work properly and don't have issues. Or between 12 and 20. Or when it's from 20 to 50. Or when it's over 50 and when over 100.

It requires time to adapt and many times thing go horribly wrong, or some people doesn't like the new method and there are related issues etc. I saw multiple teams who suffered it incluing some where I worked or supported and know cases where that even caused the closure of the studio.

All you're doing here is rehashing the video, while not actually building your case. Your understanding of english is elementary level and that you feel your english is stronger than it is, is pretty problematic.

And well, Sony funds HD2 and the potential HD3, or new IP if they decide to go this rout. So Sony will be the one paying the hired people at Arrowhead that they may need, independently if acquired or not. They broke the record for a Sony game, so make sure Sony will fund whatever they want to do next and will try to grow them as much as possible.

The publisher/developer relationship is not quite that simple. Sony can greenlight funding that can in turn be used to hire staffing, but they aren't directly paying for people to be hired and all of this needs to be agreed upon in the budget approval process, which requires conversations about future roadmaps.

My point to you is that without being acquired, Arrowhead is not going to get nearly the greenlit they would get staying independent.

Other publishers pretty likely must be trying to poach them after the HD2 success, but on a few could have funded them a AAA GaaS coming from Helldivers 1, and nobody has the patience that Sony had to allow a 5 years delay to a initially 3 years long project, and they kept working with Sony for several project, which implies Arrowhead is happy with them. So it's very difficult that they'd go away to work with another publisher. Or to self publish now that they grew to AAA, because to self publish AAA. So it's super likely that they'll continue with Sony for the next game which they'll start at some point while they continue supporting HD2 to ideally have it ready before or soon after HD2 dies.

Other publishers can try to poach them after HD2, but they don't own the IP to HD2 and none of their previous games were nearly as successful. There is no guarantee that overpaying for Arrowhead (i.e. outbidding Sony) is going to result in a successful M&A nor is there any guarantee that Arrowhead would rather be purchased by another company let alone purchased at all.

What's more likely based on comments is that either they'll work on HD3 or they'll look to self publish in the future or get published by a 3rd party with favorable agreements to own their own IP.

Nah, I don't struggle with English. It's my informed opinion as experienced dev with friends in many places.

You definitely struggle with English. I see you CONSTANTLY misreading things and replying in ways that show you didn't understand and I think that is why you rely heavily on chatgpt.

These are facts: nowadays most recent AAA games take around 5-9 years to be made, Helldivers 2 took 8 years and every generation AAA games take longer to be made.

So in the same way that Helldivers 2 took more time than Heldivers 1, Helldivers 3 pretty likely will take more time than Helldivers 2.

This statement reflects a lack of understanding of what took Helldivers 8 years instead of 4 as originally planned. To assume those same factors would cause Helldivers 3 to take longer proves you have no idea.

Imagine that I was supposed to train for a half marathon and I was going to train for 6 months, but I broke my leg, which caused me to have to train for a year. In your mind training for a full marathon would take me two years, but in reality, it might still only take me 6 months or even less now that I've already built up my stamina and a routine.

Maybe you're the one who struggles with English and don't understand what means to be more conservative with acquisitions for the reasons he explained and to plan to have less acquisition related costs in FY24 than the ones they had in FY23 (a year where they didn't have any multi billion acquisition) because they want to reduce the acquisition related costs to improve their profitability in the short term.

It's definitely you buddy.

Well, the game started development in 2016, when the engine -owned by Autodesk it was still supported. It got discontinued in 2018, when devs still didn't even have the specs of PS5.

I assume Sony made a deal with Autodesk either to keep some people inside Autodesk still working on it to support PS5 just for this game, or maybe bought them the engine, or maybe once it got discontinued Autodesk gave the source to the devs still working on games for it. Someone must have been working on it after it got discontinued to add PS5 support, but who knows.

The thing is that for the next game people will expect things this engine won't be able to deliver: big ray traying support, proper real time global illumination, shadowing and reflections, at least some type of deep learning super sampling, some sort of real time streaming dynamic LOD calcualtion similar to Nanite and many other things that are coming like certain top tier fluids simulations and certain next level lighting stuff, AI applied to improved many things like animation including stuff like facial microgestures mocap and a long etc.

And well, if they decide to also support mobile that would be a huge topic and giant challenge on its own, which pretty likely would be outsourced to a separate specialized team.

Please look up the former CEO's statements on the engine. Had nothing to do with Sony.

 

[Yurinka]

Not if they want to deliver significant updates continuously throughout the year.

Yes, I meant a proper GaaS support. What they did until now plus some big feature/content addition maybe once or twice per year.

As an example, having the base game to make another warbond can be done with a dozen people, maybe maximum two, in way less than a month. Or even less if instead of doing everything in house they outsource part of the art related job.

As a reference, Keywords (the outsourcing company that owns Gobo, the studio working in Lego Horizon) did the concept art of many post launch Street Fighter V stages. Or the French studio Volta did work on post launch characters. They were two of the like a couple dozen studios they had, many of them from Asia.

We're not just talking about the initial phases of a new project. We're talking about supporting a full blown GaaS with significant content while simultaneously developing a successor. This is not something they did with Helldivers 2 after the first game and it took them 8 years to make the game.

True, it's something different from them and a big challenge, but also part fo moving to GaaS. They'll have to learn to properly support a GaaS, which is a big challenge itself.

To move from "we make a game and once shipped we move to the next one" to "we keep supporting a game while we start a new one" is an important challenge too because implies many things (one of them being growth).

But the thing is that once the game is shipped only part of the team is needed for the post launch support. There are members who get free, in addition to other people who got free way before. Some of them may help on post launch support, or can be put to research and learn something, and to prototype stuff to keep them doing something useful during some months, but at some point they need to move to a new project.

So pretty likely they already have been working on different Helldivers 3 ideas plus also several concepts for other potential games of this or other IPs for potential project pitches. Normally most of them end rejected and only a handful ones get pitched.

In the case of Haven, they shown 3 pitches to Sony. Sony wanted all 3 projects but Haven decided to start with only one of them.

Dude you're going to speak on what Sony did relating to the engine, when Arrowhead's former CEO has long documented how things went when the engine was discontinued. You continuously speak out of your ass and rely on chatgpt to write your arguments for you.

All you're doing here is rehashing the video, while not actually building your case. Your understanding of english is elementary level and that you feel your english is stronger than it is, is pretty problematic.

lol! sure, Jan

The publisher/developer relationship is not quite that simple. Sony can greenlight funding that can in turn be used to hire staffing, but they aren't directly paying for people to be hired and all of this needs to be agreed upon in the budget approval process, which requires conversations about future roadmaps.

My point to you is that without being acquired, Arrowhead is not going to get nearly the greenlit they would get staying independent.

In the publisher/dev relationship devs pitch (sometimes after the publisher offered or suggested them some particular one), let's say the development of Helldivers 3 or a year more of HD2 post launch development.

The publisher may greenlight it or not depending on many reasons, they main one being if the project has potential to be successful and if it wells on their strategy and roadmap. Normally there are months of negotiations and changes before the greenlight because maybe the publisher's strategy conflicts in some areas (maybe because it's pitched as a console+PC paid game but by the time it gets released Sony wants to have transitioned their GaaS to F2P and to have also included mobile as platform for some of their GaaS), or maybe stuff like the studio wanting to make a new IP but they have a lot of them by its planned release or the opposite. Or they pitch to release some year and the publisher has it too busy so prefers to release it whatever year instead.

They also make business and markeing plans budgeting the costs for their parts. One of them being development, that is split into the Arrowhead part, the Sony overhead part and the outsourcing part. They obviously consider their available resources in all 3 parts -may conflict with something else they have in their roadmap- and consider everything like discuss potential hirings needed or related growing pains issues.

That budget then is used by Sony to pay the Sony or outsourcing parts. And Arrowhead uses it to pay own their part, which includes salaries for the estimated development time.

This process is basically the same in a publisher vs dev case for 2nd or 3rd party cases, or when acquired in a editoral team/HQ vs internal development team.

The main difference is that if acquired the dev studio will only follow the publisher's strategy and won't have separate plans as could be to make a certain other game with other publisher or to go to self publish. And also the implications of to stop working with a dev team when not happy with them, it isn't the same to shut down an internal studio than to stop working with a 2nd party team.

Other publishers can try to poach them after HD2, but they don't own the IP to HD2 and none of their previous games were nearly as successful. There is no guarantee that overpaying for Arrowhead (i.e. outbidding Sony) is going to result in a successful M&A nor is there any guarantee that Arrowhead would rather be purchased by another company let alone purchased at all.

What's more likely based on comments is that either they'll work on HD3 or they'll look to self publish in the future or get published by a 3rd party with favorable agreements to own their own IP.

Yes.

You definitely struggle with English. I see you CONSTANTLY misreading things and replying in ways that show you didn't understand and I think that is why you rely heavily on chatgpt.

Lol. If I'd use chatgpt I would write English properly, and isn't the case. I constantly edit my posts after publishing them because I notice something was wrong or not properly explained.

This statement reflects a lack of understanding of what took Helldivers 8 years instead of 4 as originally planned.

To assume those same factors would cause Helldivers 3 to take longer proves you have no idea.

Sure, Jan.

Btw, originally was 3 years, not 4. The started in 2016 after shipping the PC version in December 2015, and originally planned to release HD2 in 2019.

Imagine that I was supposed to train for a half marathon and I was going to train for 6 months, but I broke my leg, which caused me to have to train for a year. In your mind training for a full marathon would take me two years, but in reality, it might still only take me 6 months or even less now that I've already built up my stamina and a routine.

The thing here is that the next one won't be a marathon, but an Ironman or World's Strongest Man competition instead. Not only bigger and harder stuff, but includes different very difficult things you aren't trained for.

To move from AA to AAA is a huge change. And to move to a bigger group of amount of team members, or to move from having the studio working in a single project to work in multiple. Or to move from game as a product to GaaS is a huge change too. Same from moving to paid GaaS to F2P. Or to develop for mobile. Or to move on and learn a new engine, and to have to learn many new techniques or tools that every new generation appear.

On top of that bigger horsepower and memory means art requires more time and quality because more detail is allowed per character/object. And also means there's more room to populate the worlds more, make them more dense and with more variety of everything.

Please look up the former CEO's statements on the engine. Had nothing to do with Sony.

All I know about it is what I said, got discontinued in 2018 so they had to handle with it. I didn't see or don't remember more details about it.

I assume they think the engine is a pile of crap that caused them a ton of problems, which is basically what almost every dev thinks about whatever engine they use.