I want you to answer some simple questions:
Why 2D games died? Would you like to see big game developers making good old 2D games?
Maybe died is not the right word, maybe it's having a little nap. Because it's not completely dead. But playing Sam & Max in 3D does not make me have the same feeling as good as first game. You know, 2D games had a very different look and feel. They did not require a 512MB graphics card. They were gorgeous crafts of pixel artists.
Nowadays, 2D gaming is generally kept alive by independent surroundings. Like AGS community etc. I think possibilities to make a different 2D game has increased because of physics engines.
My only complaint is commercial game developers have mostly yet almost completely went to 3D. It would be good to have old feelings in new technology. Or maybe I'm wrong and I'm a completely dino ( altough I'm only 19! ). Correct me if I'm wrong and tell me if you have some kind of similar feelings like me.
My opinion about my question:
2D games are a bit dead because pixel art is very time consuming and 3D is easier to animate and shade. Dev's can focus more on programming and photoreality. They make hardware intense games and graphics card manufacturers can sell more complex cards, and thay can have more $$$. So, it's about money more than art!
2D gaming has not YET died, even commercially.
Buy a gameboy. Or a DS. Or one of the more popular phones. Many of the games will be in 2D :D
2D dead?
Flash!
Why vectors took over sprites, I see well - it's so helluva easier to animate.
But 3D? I wouldn't say that 3D replaces or is any alternative to 2D really. Atleast full, 360-degrees 3D. It's a thing by itsself and everybody played Wolfenstein 3D even at the time when 2D graphics was at its peak and raycasters had no competition in terms of looks. I mean, early 3D games were really UGLY.
But why then? Realistic freedom, I think. Instead of looking at a room at given angle and see what you are meant to see, you can actually move around the room and look things from your own angle. It makes things more interesting, exciting, etc.
See, and out of 10 game developers, how many would choose more interesting over less interesting? Gamers do not really need photorealism, but something interesting and new to do.
Like physics. 2D physics never get even near 3D physics. Half-Life 2, in terms of playability, is actually quite average, has boring and seen-before weapons and mostly generic enemies. But what difference physics makes!
I we'd list most exciting things in gaming world, things that really made difference and are sometimes even loved if rest of the game sucked, it would be something like cursing and flying in Duke Nukem 3D, bullet time in Max Payne, gravity gun in Half-Life 2, etc...
Also, 3D was destined to come. Even if first-person-shooter genre would never happen, every driving/flying/etc simulator is unthinkable in 2D. Without them going 3D, we'd be still in 1980.
Long story short, 3D has more chance to have something exciting in it, and even if not, ability to freely explore game world counts very heavily.
I still enjoy a well-drawn 2D game, and I never erase my NeoGeo roms (2d animation without vectors near it's highest humanly limit). But now it's feeling more like looking at art in a museum, not everyone "gets" that.
3D is more often than not... cheap. No amount of shaders and hi-res photo textures can really make up for artistic 2D drawing. But you see, gaming industry is money industry. And art costs too much to make.
2d games haven't died. In fact they are starting to popular again. And I don't know why lots of people say 3d is cheaper to make. This is so not true. If you wanted to make Kings quest in the VGA style for example it would be much easier and cheapter to do then make Gears of war 3. Adventure games are not really popular in general but does it need to be? We have Adventure games paradise right here :)
Aye, 2D is neither dead nor dormant, it has just shifted focus. Back when I was a lad you could buy a slew of 2D games in the shops, now it's all on the internet, and actually the number of 2D games has increased in the past few years.
As for that decond part- 3D being easier and so on, have you ever thought how much time you need to model, texture and animate even a simple 3D character? I daresay a spriter could achieve great results in pretty much the same time and on a lower budget!
Quote from: Ghost on Mon 09/02/2009 21:08:47
As for that decond part- 3D being easier and so on, have you ever thought how much time you need to model, texture and animate even a simple 3D character? I daresay a spriter could achieve great results in pretty much the same time and on a lower budget!
It is not comparable. For example, giving 2D character all animations typical 3D character has would take LOT more time.
And what if you after animating decide to change something? Or simply put other clothes on character?
It is not comparable. 3D has it's own ups and they seem to be huge pretty often.
For another example, 3D levels. You can draw few days a high-res background and decide that no, that tree or house won't go there and light is all wrong.
In 3D, you simply move house to new location and change light.
In 2D, you hang yourself from mouse cable.
Again, it's not that simply comparable.
I'd love to see a 2D renaissance though. With modern high resolution and much more powerful tools, it would be wonderful.
Interesting, I feel that modern big question is not 2D vs 3D, but in programming: new games suck, no matter what graphics.
Nobody is able to remember what made games actually fun and how little of graphics did it really need.
I see good points and bad points here.
You see on a graphical aspect, setting up the world works kind of like a movie. You actually can use lights and the lights will light the objects and cast shadows.
But I think creating models that work well takes just as much time and patience and really is a different work ethic.
You can give objects different surfaces that will change how light will effect it, define how it is shaped, how it looks, etc.
It's really a more detailed process in general, however with easier functionality, I feel it can allow developers use more of their creativity.
2-D or 3-D is not what makes a game great, it's up to the developer and what he/she does with those things.
Quote from: InCreator on Mon 09/02/2009 22:40:39
It is not comparable. For example, giving 2D character all animations typical 3D character has would take LOT more time.
And what if you after animating decide to change something? Or simply put other clothes on character?
Point taken, but count in stuff like motion capturing, equipment and processing of 3D models, and you still get a LOT of overhead to deal with (texturing alone!). You're right in saying that 2D graphics require a lot of "hand-crafting" while a 3D model, once created, can save you time, but I think people really underestimate the time a model takes to be made.
Quote from: InCreator on Mon 09/02/2009 22:40:39
Nobody is able to remember what made games actually fun and how little of graphics did it really need.
And that sentence, in these forums, just makes me smile in a good way. We're keepers of the flame, ain't we? ;)
To answer the question (why commercial 2d gaming died): companies make games not to entertain people but to make money. And the most money is made using as much eye-candy as possible (same concept works for Apple, btw, think iPod: the most expensive & restricted way ever of hearing music outside the house, but everybody bought the little pieces of colored shit).
My roommate, who certainly isn't the ego-shooter-only gamer, keeps telling me that game_x would be better/more fun if they had made it a 1st-person game, regardless of the genre, age or game play.
When I showed him Fallout 3, he complained about the combat being too slow or something stupid like that; when I explained to him that it's a fuckin' RPG, he kept blabbering about how they could've made it better by making a shooter out of it. He wasn't able to grasp that the game is of a completely different genre.
He loves the old Age of Empires Games, or Indy3 (not as much as Indy 5&6, of course), so not all hope is lost, but he's pretty much the average gamer out there today.
Show him a random screenshot of a "rich 3d world" and he'll go "ahh, uuhh, me wanna play" without even having a clue what the game's about or how good it is.
People like him are the reason MI, GK, StS and other series went 3d, and downhill. To them, 2D = old = bad. Unfortunately, they are the majority of potential buyers.
There are exceptions though, check out Crayon Physics (http://www.crayonphysics.com) and World of Goo (http://www.worldofgoo.com), two prime examples of excellent, recent, commercial 2d games.
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Tue 10/02/2009 04:22:17
the most money is made using as much eye-candy as possible [...]
Show him a random screenshot of a "rich 3d world" and he'll go "ahh, uuhh, me wanna play" without even having a clue what the game's about or how good it is.
This is pretty much it.
Most people buy games based on very little information - a couple of screenshots, a trailer, maybe a short demo - and graphics are the first impression the games give.
It doesn't matter if the gameplay's pants, because by the time they figure that out they've already bought the game.
Conversely, a game could be the best in the world ever, but nobody will know that if they don't buy it.
Graphics are like the picture on the box, it's just a shame that lately the prettiest boxes have had turds inside them.
Can't judge a book by it's cover, and all that.
I ask another question: what can be done about the fact that the only preview that your going to get of a game before you buy it is a graphic one?
To me, the answer is borrow the game from a friend first, or buy a well pronounced classic that people were raving about 5 years ago.
I find it sort of works, and thanks to this method, I've come across games like Myst and Heroes Of Might and Magic 3.
but that's not a real answer to the problem, is it? No.
you could always try the reviews, but however funny Yahtzee and other reviewers might be (no offence), few are actually useful when it comes to actually forking out $100 for a game that someone you hardly know raved about.
That's probably why I'm such a big fan of Shareware...
Exactly. Modern gaming people buy games because of their looks, not because of their gameplay. People wouldn't play an old game even if it has superb gameplay, because it looks old.
That's why I still have pieces like Floor 13 around on my HDD and others don't even know what Floor 13 is.
Quote from: InCreator on Mon 09/02/2009 22:40:39
It is not comparable. 3D has it's own ups and they seem to be huge pretty often.
For another example, 3D levels. You can draw few days a high-res background and decide that no, that tree or house won't go there and light is all wrong.
In 3D, you simply move house to new location and change light.
In 2D, you hang yourself from mouse cable.
I can't tell you how much I disagree with that statement.
Firstly, you would plan your location properly. Make sure your composition is right.
It would be about 10 minutes work to move a tree in 2D.
And about 8 of it would be deciding where to move it to.
But yes, 3D assets are great since you don't have to redraw that lamp-post 18 times, you just import your pre-made lamp-post model. But the time to model, unwrap, texture, normal map and spec map and whatever other maps your engine uses, you would spend a looooot more time on that lamp-post than you would if you had to draw that lamp-post 38 times.
I've seen some very artistic 3d models. Not necessary from games, as unfortunatly most commercial games ARE about how many minute details can I fit into this SUPER BUFF SOLDIERS armour, regardless of how impracticle it may be for Gorthor to be wearing decorative armour with sharp bits that have the potential to dig into ones skin, or shoulder pads with 13 spikey spiraled appendages which would poke your eyes out if you looked left. But returning to my original point, I've seen 3d that looks like an illustration due to very artistic texturing. Never see a realistic human character since no-one can pass the uncanny valley.
Back on track, 2D games are being made and released every day. Just go to any casual game portal and look at the screenshots. Very rare for a casual game to use 3d graphics, as the audience, according to our friend Dave, does not like 3D graphics and associate such as 'gamer' games... Which they do not play. Or want to be associated with. And unlike gamers, the casual audience are pretty choosy. They get a great variety of games, they get to try said games for 1 hour.
So no, 2d games are not dead.
'nuff said.
QuoteAs for that decond part- 3D being easier and so on, have you ever thought how much time you need to model, texture and animate even a simple 3D character? I daresay a spriter could achieve great results in pretty much the same time and on a lower budget!
Plus there is also a ecological loop between the manufacturers and developers. Most of them advertise ATI or NVIDIA or INTEL at intros of games. So 2D games changed dimension by the natural selection =)
With the flash revolution, 2D games morphed into vectors and that really sucks. I know, we are in 2009 and it would be a shame if we were playing still 2D game. Maybe, soon a virtual reality machine will pop from somewhere.
Only brilliant 3D ultrarealistic graphics doesn't make a game beautiful. A game must also have a spirit. You know, while playing Yahtzee's games, I feel I'm going to shit in my pants. Does it use Source engine or something? Todays game developers must think that way and maybe invent some different genres or make it unique. Because it's getting too repetitive.
Quote from: Layabout on Tue 10/02/2009 10:13:36
But yes, 3D assets are great since you don't have to redraw that lamp-post 18 times, you just import your pre-made lamp-post model. But the time to model, unwrap, texture, normal map and spec map and whatever other maps your engine uses, you would spend a looooot more time on that lamp-post than you would if you had to draw that lamp-post 38 times.
So we never agree on this. What if you have 30 lamps? What if the light they get is all different? Shade & color 30 times? Or simply duplicate 30 times and get automatic light & shadow?
I'm a personally able to model this lamp with all needed maps quicker than draw some.
XFader tiles your photo texture in 2 clicks. NVidiaNormalMap plugin creates nice-looking fake normalmap in 2 clicks also. Specular maps is a bit of desaturation and adjustment in photoshop. It's not THAT time-consuming! Even if you make normals out of high-poly models (normal way), check out on videos on Zbrush. It takes minutes to make heavy stuff. Taken you have a company and ten modellers / artists under command, in pure 8 hours, I believe progress would be noticeable and probably bigger than giving em' tablets and forcing to draw.
Ever made heightmaps? A whole land (area) from World of Warcraft can be made in hour or two.
Unless you're making some sick artistic billion-poly stuff (http://www.3dtotal.com) that you cannot even render in real-time. But we're talking about games, aren't we?
Bah! Using a photo texture is cheating. I may as well use my stock 2d lamp-post photo, copy and paste a few times and adjust the lighting and highlights. Bob's your Fannies Uncle.
Depending on the technique used, 2d and 3d scenes can take a similar amount of time. Esp with photoshops vanishing point thingmabob and layers. 2d artists don't have to draw what the camera can't see, where as 3d, the camera can see every angle.
Even Sam and Max, which primarily uses a fixed point camera which only really dolly's left and right with the occasional pan. Cutscenes you can see the background.
I have no idea what my point is other than to agree with you that they aren't comparable.
2d can be crap or it can be sexy.
3d can be crap ot it can be sexy.
Quote from: Layabout on Tue 10/02/2009 15:04:30
2d can be crap or it can be sexy.
3d can be crap ot it can be sexy.
I like that so much that I'm gonna make that my new quote!
I don't think it died, it's just that unlike in the older days, makers can now choose between 2D and 3D while in the past they didn't have that choice. With the rise of casual gaming and indie games like Braid, World of Goo or Crayon Physics in the video games related medias and the fact that recently some developers have finally realised that some genres are better off in 2D and other genres are better off in 3D, like Capcom did with Mega Man 9, I believe 2D has a very bright future in front of it. At least brighter than 8 or so years ago, back when everyone mindlessly jumped in the 3D bandwagon, at the detriment of many genres and franchizes.
The majority of low budget shareware games ar in 2D.
Probably because 2d is much easier to think in.
Quote
It would be about 10 minutes work to move a tree in 2D.
And about 8 of it would be deciding where to move it to.
I would agree with this if you design your composition with layers, and thereby can more easily remove something from an image and relocate or redraw it elsewhere. For more traditional artists, removing a house from a scene (let's say the director decided it needed to be relocated, rather than there being a visual issue with the background) meant hours of additional effort before layering support, or you'd scrap the image entirely and start over. Add to this the additional effort caused by traditional handpainted artwork being scanned and tweaked and you've got a considerable amount of work to do to fix a problem that is fairly trivial in 3D. Even if you are using layers, in 2D you'd most likely need to redraw the house to fit the new perspective, whereas with 3D you could rotate and adjust it until it matches the preferred orientation. 3D is much, much more user-friendly and forgiving in this regard.
Quote from: wonkyth on Thu 12/02/2009 00:30:38
Probably because 2d is much easier to think in.
Producing 2D is much cheaper. To make a decent 2D game with beautiful animations and backgrounds, all you need is a talented artist and a program.
To make same in 3D, you expenses vary from texturer to moddeller to live actors & motion capture equipment (COSTLY!!!) or multiple animators to studio to photographer to different programs to keep it all together etc
Of course this is graphics only. Both would also need sound effects, live actors for speech, music, programmers, testers, etc. So before this huge load of expenses, going 2D is a considerable save on budget.
I do believe 2D didn't and will never die. Not only because of the total awesomeness of 2D games and that I am a HUGE fan of 2D and 2.5D games :P, but for the fact that many people (mostly from older generations, played them and will always remember what it was to play them. Even now there are many companies that make 2D games (occasionally though). 2D are:
1)Cheaper to produce.
2)Still have lots of fans all around the world.
3)You don't need (usally) a couple of GHz and GBs to run them.
4)I can't remember what I was going to add in the list lol
3D was just the next obvious step although I do think that at the time first 3D games showed up, 2D was at its culmination. Amazingly drawn 2D pixel art, innovative gameplay, cool stories. As most of you might have noticed playing some new 3D shiny games, old things have been remade only visually. Back in the old times when 2D gaming was so popular, there were dozens of unbelievably fun and thrilling games. 90% and maybe more of the "new" 3D stuff is a 2D stuff + 1 dimension as a bonus :P No new ideas. Stories are as good as the same in every second game (zombies, US soldiers rescuing the human race from vicious aliens etc. etc.) Kind of boring. Games nowadays are like a balloon - shiny and cool to watch, but with nothing in there as substance.
Quote from: rbaleksandar on Sun 15/02/2009 16:15:08
Games nowadays are like a balloon - shiny and cool to watch, but with nothing in there as substance.
Clearly, you've never played and finished Kane and Lynch (and finished it with the good ending). It's got an excellent story about a broken man fighting to protect those he loves, and the ending is just a perfect fulfilling end to it.
Also, Far Cry 2's main antagonist (the Jackal) is what makes the story of Far Cry 2. Admittedly, the game itself isn't as heavy as K&L, but the Jackal brings to it a uniqueness that is starting to be found in videogames.
What I'm trying to say is that games 'were' like a balloon, and all though there are still plenty that are just like that, not all are as stale as you make out. There are some ones that shine, and their numbers are increasing.
To me it seems that the golden age of PC gaming was somewhere between '98 and '03-'04.
Some cool games were coming out back then, true games made not only to shine with their marvelous xyz super-hyper-engine and super-hyper-effects. The vast majority of games I play comes from that period. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but to me it really seems that nowadays, it's not what it used to be back then.
why that is not true, like some people have already said, there's gameboy and ds games and there's also the xbox360 arcade games some of them a must admit are just 3d but put side ways. but i mean there's games like worm's on the xb360 and there also streetfighter i think. also there ton's of flash games. :o
but i supose there are less 2d games being made commercialy these days. :'( :P
Quote from: Oliwerko on Mon 16/02/2009 07:59:58
To me it seems that the golden age of PC gaming was somewhere between '98 and '03-'04.
Some cool games were coming out back then, true games made not only to shine with their marvelous xyz super-hyper-engine and super-hyper-effects. The vast majority of games I play comes from that period. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but to me it really seems that nowadays, it's not what it used to be back then.
This is pretty funny because I personally feel that this mystical "golden age" of gaming was between 1995 and 2001 - which is kinda funny because that's roughly 3 years earlier than your "golden age" of gaming, and I am 3 years older than you judging by your age thingo.
Maybe that's just an age where we find ourselves particularly impressionable?
It'd be interested to hear whether people who are 3 years older than me thought that the golden age was between '92 and '97 and whether people 3 years younger than you find it is between 01 and 06 :=
Oddly enough, I don't really consider there to have been a golden age of gaming. Maybe a golden age of console wars-style gaming, when Nintendo and Sega went at it and really fought for your money. PC gaming has always been hit and miss, with some brilliant games and lots of really mediocre ones.
Quote from: Ben304 on Mon 16/02/2009 13:40:02
It'd be interested to hear whether people who are 3 years older than me thought that the golden age was between '92 and '97 and whether people 3 years younger than you find it is between 01 and 06 :=
As far as I'm concerned the "golden age" was from about 89 to 99, and thus I prove your point in a way. But it's only logical that we remember games from our youth as extremely impressive- when we saw them they were novel, we had little to compare them to, and over the time we paint layer after layer of nostalgica over it. I always jump a little when I reinstall Lemmings and see how simple the graphics are, compared to what I see in the theatre of my mind.
Progz: I agree that there's always been a lot of average stuff especially for the PC, but there was a time when so many titles were released that you could, on a monthly base, count for at least three or five games that were to your liking. More mediocre stuff as well, but also more "good 'uns".
For me the "golden age" was when I could walk in any store and select from a large number of budget games that were not that old, and I still had to hardware to run them.
Heck, I even played Forsaken. :-[
ProgZ: I have to agree with you, there were a LOT of really, really crap games in my 'golden age' that I listed, but it was the period where the games that I find the most inspirational come from. Sure, there were a lot of turds in between the gems, but the gems back during that period shine brighter than what some people consider the gems today.
There's still a lot of games around today that I really enjoy, and there are a lot of games back then that sucked, but almost all of the games that made me say "I wanna make games!" come from that time period.
Ghost: Yeah, nostalgia is often a depressing thing. A few months back I reinstalled Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (which was my entire life for a disturbingly long period of time) and... wow, the graphics kinda sucked. And the physics kinda sucked. And some of those levels were hard - frustratingly hard, but somehow back then I had the determination to sit there and replay over and over until I got it.
Then again, the original Simon the Sorceror will never cease to amaze me with it's visuals, so I guess nostalgia ain't all bad :D
I never stop to wonder how good are the old games I found good back then. NFS 5 or Thief always fills me with joy of that feeling.
Quote from: Dudeman Thingface on Sun 15/02/2009 23:23:18
Quote from: rbaleksandar on Sun 15/02/2009 16:15:08
Games nowadays are like a balloon - shiny and cool to watch, but with nothing in there as substance.
Clearly, you've never played ...
What I'm trying to say is that games 'were' like a balloon, and all though there are still plenty that are just like that, not all are as stale as you make out. There are some ones that shine, and their numbers are increasing.
I answer only with a quote from my post:
Quote90% and maybe more of the "new" 3D stuff is a 2D stuff + 1 dimension as a bonus :P No new ideas.
:) I have also 3D games that I love to play (like Freelancer, which whoever played it, will agree has a story worthy of being filmed (hope this sentence doesn't have that many mistakes as I think it has ;D). Call of Duty is again one of my favourite 3D games. Story is good and the action is non-stop :)
My favourite game for all times is AOE 2 (with the expansion). Single campaign - great, multi - can't live without it once you've started it :)
But you have to admit that most 3D games nowadays are stealing with full hands from their older pioneer 2D brothers. And since visual effects can't make want to play a game, there's nothing to offer. One gets tiered of the same stories coming again and again with the only difference - visuals. :(
PS: I'll try the first game you wrote about. Hope there's a demo :)
Quote from: rbaleksandar on Mon 16/02/2009 19:06:08
But you have to admit that most 3D games nowadays are stealing with full hands from their older pioneer 2D brothers. And since visual effects can't make want to play a game, there's nothing to offer. One gets tiered of the same stories coming again and again with the only difference - visuals. :(
I do not understand your point. Could you please give me examples of some modern (maybe even next gen) 3d games that are clearly stealing from older "pioneer" 2d games.
If what your saying is that 3d games are stealing from 2d games because 3d came second, then that's like saying all movies now are stealing from the first few silent movies. There have to be similarities, because it's a form of media, but that doesn't make it outright copying.
Just bought Street Fighter 4 for the PS3. It might be 3d rendered, but it's still as old school as the 'true' 2D beat em ups. Just the way I like it.
I truly miss isometric graphics and tycoon games.
Last one I played and loved was Rollecoaster tycoon... ages ago. Well, SimCity 4000 was about okay too. Nothing great but better than the last leftovers of genre and style.
Nothing playable after this. Tried this and that, and no, nothing.
Also, where's deep technical turn-based strategies?
Jagged Alliance 2 + half-assed expansions, that 3D game about WWII with robots that started to suck quickly - Silent Storm - and... end of the genre?
Russian enthusiasts, keepers of the genre - pump out Jagged Alliance inspired games all the time (including mentioned Silent Storm), but they rarely reach quality of western ones and translations are almost always terrible.
For example, how come no one hasn't made decent XCOM sequel yet? Microprose, releasing that awful UFO 3 (XCom: Apocalypse) seems to have killed its own franchise or cursed it... even though I know that there's LOADS of hardcore fans for this insult of a game too.
If someone can prove me wrong and name some gems, please do!
Quote from: Arboris on Tue 17/02/2009 16:27:08
Just bought Street Fighter 4 for the PS3. It might be 3d rendered, but it's still as old school as the 'true' 2D beat em ups. Just the way I like it.
I was about to mention Street Fighter IV as a good example of a game that 'gets' it. 3D fighting games are what they are, but the 'real' Street Fighter experience is on a 2D playing field. 3D or 2D don't make the game. The artstyle itself does, and the gameplay does.
If a game isn't fun, I don't care how many dimensions it has. It can have all 5 of them, but if it ain't fun, it ain't gonna be played by me.
And there was no 'golden age' of gaming as far as I'm concerned. There have always been good games and terrible games, as well as all the options in between. This will never change.
Quote from: InCreator on Sat 14/02/2009 15:39:11
Producing 2D is much cheaper. To make a decent 2D game with beautiful animations and backgrounds, all you need is a talented artist and a program.
To make same in 3D, you expenses vary from texturer to moddeller to live actors & motion capture equipment (COSTLY!!!) or multiple animators to studio to photographer to different programs to keep it all together etc
Why can't you make 3D with just a talented artist and a program?
And on the other hand you can make 2D with concept artist(s), character artist(s), background artist(s), character animator(s), background animator(s). And maybe if you decided to use rotoscoping you would also need live actors (when your animators are not talented enough).
So with these arguments the cost comes pretty much from the scale of the production?