When is it ok for big budget games?

[Haakmed]

So I was thinking after reading how much GTA 5 is supposed to have cost to make. And I was thinking "When is it ok to spend that kind of money to make a game?"

My train of thought goes a bit like this. If a game like COD, Battlefield, GTA etc that have a healthy following and every year sell more games than the last one, it seems right that they get a bigger budget. Now that being said, yes there are examples of bigger budget games going wrong (I'm looking at you Rome...) That is not what I'm asking about.

What I want to know is,
1) How others feel about games getting bigger budgets as they get more popular.
2) Where would you like to see that money go in to? AI, maps, graphics etc.
3) Do you think at some point they should put a cap on it?

If you got something else I didn't list, feel free to add it!

 

[skurz]

These questions were a lot more difficult to answer than I initially expected!

1) I feel that it's inevitable to reward success. A CEO sees the figures that certain games bring in, and wants to continue the success to keep their company alive and their employees paid. I like the idea that a bigger budget could inspire a more creative game, but when sequels are being spewed out with little to no consideration for the players - considering Dragon Age 2 - it's difficult to feel too happy by a budget increase.
I would like to see bigger budgets for indie developers, which is why Kickstarter is so great! Something about the fans supporting the developers through production, and being rewarded with the game, makes for a really beautiful system.

2) As of right now in this moment, I would like to see better maps. I'm still left feeling burnt by Fable 3's atrocious map system. I would also like to see a more rigorous debugging system- Assassin's Creed III's 360 version had so many glitches that it ruined a lot of the enjoyment (after all, how can I enjoy running through the frontier when I keep getting clipped into trees? But maybe I was just extremely unlucky with that game.)

3) Nah. No caps. If someone has the money, it's their right to make as big a budget as they'd like.