Max Payne 2 budget: $8 million!

[Homoludens]

Max Payne 2 worth $8 million?

Take-Two Interactive has agreed to pay as much as $8 million to Apogee and Remedy to develop the sequel to last year's popular third-person shooter.

Take-Two Interactive has agreed to pay up to $8 million as incentive payments to Apogee Software and Remedy Entertainment for the development of Max Payne 2, the upcoming sequel to last year's popular third-person action game, Max Payne. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the incentive payments are based on both the timely development of the game and the game's sales.

Max Payne was released in July 2001 for the PC and later that year for the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2. The game, which has shipped more than 2.75 million copies worldwide since its release, lets players assume the role of an undercover cop on a mission to take down a mafia ring. It received numerous awards, including GameSpot's Readers' Choice PC Game of the Year for 2001. A Macintosh version of the game is in beta testing and is scheduled for release next month by MacSoft, a division of Infogrames.

Last month, Take-Two announced that it had purchased the rights to the Max Payne brand from Apogee and Remedy for $10 million and nearly 1 million shares of restricted stock. The company also announced that it would publish Max Payne 2 in 2003, although no details about the game were revealed.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">news story (http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2869750,00.html), 6/6/02

[Kalki]

So 3DR is in? What happened to Rockstar who were supposed to be co-developing along with Remedy?

[mixuk]

They are, but they're also a part of Take2.

[MikaRMD]

Even though this is not a biz forum, I would like to correct Homoludens' understanding expressed in the title of this thread. As stated in the quoted news piece, the $8 million is not the budget of Max Payne 2, it is incentive.

[Homoludens]

And what an incentive it is! http://www.cgreviews.com/cgrforum/images/smiles/icon23.gif

Mika, if the project ends up needing less than the projected incentive, I'll be happy to take the difference. images/icons/grin.gif

[ 06-07-2002, 04:12 AM: Message edited by: Homoludens ]

[Hatch]

The $8 million is not the budget of Max Payne 2, it is incentive. Roflmao!!! I'm gonna take some vacation when this game comes out. That's a hell of alot of incentive!! images/icons/grin.gif

[Mars]

I don't mean to be whiney, but why doesn't offer me $8 million dollars to make them a game? Perhaps it has something to do with my lack of knowing how to program, but I could get one of those Idiot Guides books and learn. images/icons/tongue.gif

[Gryph]

I didn't know that 3DRealms was still referred to as Apogee.


Last month, Take-Two announced that it had purchased the rights to the Max Payne brand from Apogee and Remedy for $10 million and nearly 1 million shares of restricted stock.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So I'm guessing Remedy will use some of their share for Max Payne 2's budget.


The company also announced that it would publish Max Payne 2 in 2003, although no details about the game were revealed. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Huh? What the hell? That would be VERY badass but what the hell happened to "When It's Done!"

That's the kind of incentive I need to complete medical school. images/icons/smile.gif 8 million...damn.

[Karthik]

Maybe the budget is only around 1 to 4 million. I mean they won't use CGI's. Compare this to FF7 which cost more than US$35million.
So far there was only one game(Japanese) which I forgot the title, had a budget of US$70million.(no bull)

[Guest]

I have questions when someone so hastily hands out "incentive" for sequels. This could be very bad news, especially when the developers put up no or almost-no public resistance. Publishers want $ale$ and couldn't possibly give a rat's backside whether or not our heros at 3D Realms had any plans to continue or add on to the newly manifested world of Max Payne. Yes, the game plays well into a sequel. But the trouble is that the game sold too well, became mainstream; and publishers now demand a cash-cow sequel regardless of quality. I honestly think it may be difficult to make a second Max Payne installment as intriguing as the first. I'm saying there's a possibility that under eight-meelion-dollar pressure to deliver-or-return, quality (not likely at all) or captivating attributes (more likely) of "Max Payne 2" could suffer turning 'Max Payne 2' into 'Max Payne 2003'.

</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Was there resistance? In a recently published Request magazine article discussing Men in Black II, Barry Sonnenfeld discusses his resistance to do a second MIB stating quite frankly that he didn't think he could make a second MIB as interesting as the first, and suffered under 'eye-poke-with-stick' commercial expectations because of his hesitation. Once again I wonder if the overall image of Max Payne will suffer from a rushed or even slightly forced sequel.</font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Request July/August 2002 page 21 line 11 "The pressure in making a film like [MIB: II] is like someone poking you in the eye with a stick non-stop for a year," Sonnenfeld says. "[With] the first one, we had originality on our side; there was nothing for anyone to compare it to. Along those same lines, we were under the radar. No one knew we would be this big summer movie." <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"></font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Is a sequel appropriate? Director Kurosawa Akira (The Hidden Fortress, Dreams, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood) made several movies with, for their characters, less-than-favorable endings. Max Payne ends up in jail and Western audiences may be not be satisfied until he gets the girl, but plenty has been said in that conclusion alone about heros more-often-than-not getting the shaft. Fairly powerful messages speak up throughout. With unfavorable endings not suiting Western audiences and open-mouth-shock alarming political messages shaking a finger at established Japanese culture and methods (Akira predicted his own fate in the first episode of Dreams entitled "Sunshine Through Rain" in which the underlying message was: "Tell the World our Xenophobic Secrets and Political Faults and You Will be Fzking Excommunicated") Akira was outcast and largely unpopular but his movies made their message clear. Max Payne did the same, though few-and-far-between. I honestly believe a sequel to Max Payne would be as inappropriate as a sequel to E.T. regardless of demand. But don't let a little rational thinking stop you from seeing Harry Potter II.</font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Perhaps Max Payne wasn't 101% original with the Bullet-Time-esque gameplay feature obviously inspired by The Matrix and the numerous references that were made on message boards about so many cop movies and Hong Kong blood operas but for the target audience and platforms, the material was at least 79.99% original. But what now? Will a second installment be merely a graphical facelift? I seem to be standing alone in walking against the gulleywasher river of frenzied excitement over this.
Much too soon. The anticipation seems like the unwitting excitement of shopping mall crowds and purely a matter of mob-pshycology; the time-frame of a sequel announcement, again, screams Cash-Cow More Money Now.
*Lick* *Lick* *Smack* Mmm... Golden Calf... Yet somehow I think a second Max Payne will sell on demand alone, inviting a third, and it may be I drinking the gold.

-ZombiZ

[ 06-16-2002, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: ZombiZ ]

[SkavenRMD]

Your concerns are understandable, but frankly I wouldn't be so worried. The shorter schedule for this game comes simply from the fact we're now working with already-built technology.

Pretty interesting, though, that you so extensively compare our game with movies. images/icons/smile.gif

A small correction:
Publishers want $ale$ and couldn't possibly give a rat's backside whether or not our heros at 3D Realms had any plans to continue or add on to the newly manifested world of Max Payne. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The heroes you're referring to are here at Remedy. 3D Realms are the supervising boss who watches the action from their secret underground hideout and radios in advice. images/icons/smile.gif

Our writer had the possible sequel in mind when writing the story for Max Payne and took it into account in the plot. You'll see.

[PetriRMD]

Originally posted by ZombiZ:
But the trouble is that the game sold too well, became mainstream; and publishers now demand a cash-cow sequel regardless of quality. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Nope. Rockstar people 'get it'. They're not pushing us into making a safe cookie-cutter game. Instead we're given total creative freedom to come up with a worthy way of fleshing out a new story.

Was there resistance?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">There wasn't. We wanted to do a second installment into the story (and I have a feeling that we only got started with the first one... the best is yet to come), and would've done it no matter what. In fact, we told you guys that Max would return at the end of the first game images/icons/cool.gif

[biXen]

The first one was just to get your appetite freshed, the next one will be the Empire Strikes Back of the Max Payne franchise... this is when we get "I'm your father" from Mr. Woden and "wipe them out, all of them" from some schmuck...

I'm so sure of it... Well actually I'm not, but I think Remedy has some feisty stuff in their sleeves, and to be honest, it's even more exciting to think of what the hell will happen now than what it was the first time. I always did suffer on the fact that I dug up so much about the game that I experienced a deja-vu when I played it the first time images/icons/smile.gif Still it was one of the best gaming experiences ever, only topped by GTA3 due to it's freedom. Max has a lot more personality though, not too hard considering mr noname in GTA3 doesn't even talk images/icons/smile.gif

[ 06-17-2002, 06:15 AM: Message edited by: biXen ]