Celebrities in Video games a Good Idea?

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You realise that game development is not about throwing a certain amount of money at a problem/issue?
I'm not sure about that. Development has costs. Motion capture for example is extremely expensive, same for salaries. If you have 100 millions (and you have a fixed amount, investors are not giving you infinite money), you need to make the best out of them. When they decide how to allocate budget, managers divide those costs, say 50 millions for marketing, 50 millions for development (usually it's 50-50). Of those 50 millions 1 goes for voice acting in 10 languages, 1 goes to lady gaga (she is expensive for sure), 5 go to multiplayer R&D, beta testing, optimization... You can use gaga's million to hire 5 devs that work full time on motion capture to add several contextual animations for V and address mechanics' issues. Of course lady gaga has a direct impact on marketing and sales, so she has the priority over minor issues.

I honestly don't work in the gaming industry, but if their R&D is the same as pharmaceuticals' R&D, that's exactly how it works: we need to make more compounds or tests? We ask managers for money. They do their calculations and decide how much to give or to close the project at all.

I.e. Warhorse was forced to release KCD in that ridiculous buggy state because they finished their budget and didn't have the money to pay salaries and bills. With sales' money they started working again on bug fixing and DLCs. Not great results anyway :(
Probably the same happened to TW3 which was finished to be fixed only by the end of august. I still remember king's gambit quest. I had to restart the game for that.
 
I'm not sure about that.

It's pretty simple - more money (The Old Republic, Anthem, Andromeda) does not mean a better game.

You need talent and drive and vision. And money. And time. Money is just one part. CDPR is very good at what they do not because they throw money at problems, but because they have the first three in spades.

Money doesn't create artistic inspiration, although it can facilitate the space to do so.

Money, as Bioware/EA's titles above demonstrate, does not a classic make. And all three of the above games had/have many many bugs. Many, many bugs.

It's never just money. Not even close.
 
I'm not sure about that.

You need money to succeed, but money is not a GUARANTEE of success. Otherwise there wouldn't be all those Hollywood flops with budgets of 100s of millions.. In game industry its also not a case of just throwing more people at a problem to make it linearly improve. Certain jobs cannot be divided into small pieces.
 
It's pretty simple - more money (The Old Republic, Anthem, Andromeda) does not mean a better game.

You need talent and drive and vision. And money. And time. Money is just one part. CDPR is very good at what they do not because they throw money at problems, but because they have the first three in spades.

Money doesn't create artistic inspiration, although it can facilitate the space to do so.

Money, as Bioware/EA's titles above demonstrate, does not a classic make. And all three of the above games had/have many many bugs. Many, many bugs.

It's never just money. Not even close.
You need money to succeed, but money is not a GUARANTEE of success.

never said or thought otherwise, but if you don't have a lot of money you can't make a AAA game. RDR2 is that technically good because they had a ridiculous budget. And yes, CDPR has talent, drive and vision, but if they had more money geralt's animations would have been much better. Look how geralt opens doors on "next-gen" and how trevor/mike/franklin open doors on ps3/xbox 360 in 2013. TW3's budget was 80 millions, GTA V 250 millions IIRC. Not CDPR's fault for that.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that allocating budget is a thing and when you do that you decide priorities.

Personally, any game mechanic is more important than any possible lady gaga's cameo. Maybe a VERY GOOD actor, like jack nicholson or christoph waltz doing the voice over for a main character would be an real improvement, even though rockstar has shown that you just need the right actor more than a famous one (they had samuel l. jackson in san andreas, great, but not worthy; the unknown guy for arthur morgan was perfect and cheap). Anyway, as I said before, as long as the soundtrack is not a cyberpunk version of poker face, I don't have any problem. She can be an important or minor character, just singing a song, part of a live action commercial for the game or whatever as far as I'm concerned. It will help sales, that's the important thing.
 
Mybrokenenglish is not arguing that money is the most important factor.

(EDIT: He [she?] beat me to it).

EDIT 2:

And I completely agree with everything you just said here, @Mybrokenenglish.

I love, love, loved all of RDR2's little details, but as you said, that would not have happened had it not been for Rockstar's massive budget (and, of course, the blood, sweat, and tears of the devs - nobody is denying that).

It's like this...

If you have $5 to spend on ingredients for a cupcake, your personal skill as a baker matters - you can make that the best damned cupcake in the world.

But if you have $20 to spend on ingredients, maybe you can take your skill as a baker and make an entire cake, or a multi-layer cake with different types of frosting. And maybe it's just as good, if not better-tasting than the cupcake.
 
The problem I have with using celebrities is your familiarity with their personalities and voice crowds out the character they're supposed to portray, especially in a game. If she's supposed to be Lizzy, all I'll be seeing when I interact with her is Lady Gaga. It's great marketing though, I'll give them that.
 
I dont honestly get it when people say this is great marketting, if it was why companies doesnt use celebrities? Gameplay, combat, lore, features, world, story, company, etc goes way before. I would use celebrities differently, but thats just me.
 
My only exposure to the celebrity in question was that one season of American Horror Story. I don't think I've ever heard even one piece of music from her that i could identify as being from her., but, I don't actively listen to modern music except on rare occasion.
I really don't have any opinion about the lady. I'm Gaga-agnostic.

As far as celebrity personalities in general, I'm sure there's places, and characters that actors and people of celebrity can contribute value-added content.
Isn't there a game coming up what has the guy from Boondock Saints and The Walking Dead as a main character in visual and voice?
It's not a foreign concept. Get actors and people that have acting, and performance experience to do ... acting and performance things? Typically that profession comes with a tiny bit of public exposure that leads to celebrity in some cases if I'm not mistaken. It'd be a little odd to pre-judge someone in a profession for their "success" in that profession as a negative value, I would think. I can, however, see where an actor's celebrity as a person might bias some against any characters that person might portray, because baggage or something, but, I don't really understand it.
 
Just to clarify are we talking about Gaga`s face in the game or just her voice in the game?

I don`t really want " stars " in the game but it would be okay to me for them to do a bit of VAing. If Gaga was Lizzy Wizzy VA okay . Don`t forget Hayden Panettiere has done a lot of VAing in games and has a sexy voice.
 
Now that I think about it, Lady Gaga's image was/is the epitome of Style over substance.
 
Just to clarify are we talking about Gaga`s face in the game or just her voice in the game?

I don`t really want " stars " in the game but it would be okay to me for them to do a bit of VAing. If Gaga was Lizzy Wizzy VA okay . Don`t forget Hayden Panettiere has done a lot of VAing in games and has a sexy voice.

Hayden Panettiere is hot as fuck though thats the difference
 
Hayden Panettiere is hot as fuck though thats the difference

Cyberpunk isnt about hotness, its about style. Not that I know Lady Gaga much, but isnt she quite wild and crazy when it comes down to style. But gotta say she has changed from her Poker Face times.
 
Cyberpunk isnt about hotness, its about style. Not that I know Lady Gaga much, but isnt she quite wild and crazy when it comes down to style. But gotta say she has changed from her Poker Face times.

I dunno man, shes just a name I wouldn't want to be associated with
 
I would say that it depends, if you are spending precious budget to bring a celebrity to the game, then it is not worth it, on the other hand what if the celebrity reached out and its willing to participate, games with the level of hype and reach like the ones that CDPR is making are a very good way for some artist to try and get new "customers", also you need to remember that famous artist are still humans and sometimes they wont do something just based on financial decisions (does not happen often but it happen) a perfect example was Raul Julia, amazing actor and he ended up making the role of M. Bison in a Street fighter movie because a member of his family asked, yeah he got paid but as far as i know (i could be wrong) it was not an excessive amount (also that movie was not very good).

So having a celebrity on a video game, depends but as long as you are not wasting precious budget on them, why not?

P.S. for those of you that do not know who Raul Julia is? check IMDB, his most famous role was as Gomez Adams from the Adams Family Movies in the 90's
 
Maybe she will make just a few gags in the game while passing by as a reference :)
 
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My sense is that CDPR would not involve her without a solid rationale for doing so. We don't know the particulars... how she will participate, to what extent she is involved, etc. Hell, we don't even know if this is more than a rumor.

I'm willing to give CDPR the benefit of the doubt on this.
 
Night City's best club has Gaga? Sure its more exciting to go there when you know if shes there.

In 2077? She would be a granny by then...This serves no purpose.
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Again, if they had spent those money to make a better progression system in TW3 I'd have been happier.
Of course the progression system doesn't sell as much as a famous actor, but the game has more benefits.

Anyway, as long as the soundtrack is not a cyberpunk version of poker face and alejandro roberto fernando I don't have any problem.

What was wrong with the progression system?
 
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