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Originally Posted by Obltn Strand
I repeat and rephrase my original question: Can someone give me an estimation what would it cost to make a good subsim?
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That's not an easy question to answer because it really depends on the business model of the developer/publisher, and what conditions they are willing to work under. There is also the question of what "good subsim" is and what kind of skills are required for it. There is also the question of what platforms it's developed on, what licenses it might require (for example graphics engines, shaders, development and graphics software etc. cost money), etc. etc. Then there are marketing budgets and testing budgets. Those all can vary widely, depending on the business model adopted.
So the real questions to ask are: 1) What features do you want? What are your priorities? and 2) How are you planning to sell and make money from this?
It's no secret that a lot of what makes games expensive lately are extravagant art budgets (even if game artists themselves are often paid very poorly). All of those pretty graphics we're accustomed to from big-budget games cost a ton of money. They need very large teams to support. They also attract customers. SHIII would not have nearly been as successful had it not looked so good when it first came out. I strongly suspect that even for something like SH5, the art budget runs into 7 digits (i.e. over $1 million).
On the other hand, a couple of guys with no budget can develop a good subsim in the long term. It's not gonna look great and it's going to take them a while, but the actual budget will be very low. The main investment there is not money, but time and work. And as a result, the biggest problem is motivation. At the end of the day, thousands of man-hours of free work are difficult for a developer to justify. And it's very difficult to market a game that doesn't have pretty art.
So I think the problem is not budget at all. The problem is having a business model. Noone right now has a good business model for marketing a new submarine sim. Money isn't a problem in the first place anyway because a group of people can easily obtain business loans for even the most extravagant budget. But how do they make it back and not get burned?
That's the million-dollar question. Ubisoft nailed the answer with SHIII in 2005, but they haven't been able to repeat it since, because SHIII itself changed the market. Throwing money at it isn't really going to solve very much, and Ubi has learned that with SH4/5.