Game Delays And Remakes? Welcome to Consoles In 2015

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When it comes to AAA games these days, remakes, remasters, reboots and retreads are running rampant and, as far as anyone can tell, this is the new "norm" for consoles in 2015.

No matter what happens in the future: Welcome to triple-A videogames in 2015. You demand to be wowed by ever-increasing graphics fidelity; publishers need more ironclad guarantees that those investments are going to pay off. This means fewer games, more licenses, and more remakes. This is not a problem that Sony and Microsoft are on the verge of solving. This is the new normal.
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What about the big push for indie game developers with this generation? Is that just failing miserably?

Yea, it costs a lot to make an official non-indie game. The new consoles just don't have the same market penetration. So, it's sell a ton or it's a failure. Those niche games aren't going to see a lot. Even if 10% of users buy, it's 10% of a small amount compared to other generations. I'm sure as time goes on it will get better as sales increase.

I just want GOOD games. Not Call of Battlefield: Hardnose Hi Fidelity Upgrade Edition with $49 season pass....
 
I think it is more a symptom of the size of the market vs the total investment ... the ultimate PC market is in the billions ... although not every PC is used for gaming and not every user is a gamer, the overall market size makes it easier to find a niche where your title can be profitable ... also, with no licensing costs and with digital distribution the entry cost is very low for Indie or lower cost titles

The total console market is large (around 100 million, depending on the platform) but it is also composed of a large number of hard core gamers (relatively speaking) and that limits what titles will be of interest to them ... add in licensing costs, distribution costs, and the extremely high cost of developing the AAA titles that have the best chance of attracting market interest, and you have an environment where the developers and publishers try to minimize risk (much like the film market has become)
 
Ur_Mom said:
What about the big push for indie game developers with this generation? Is that just failing miserably?

Yea, it costs a lot to make an official non-indie game. The new consoles just don't have the same market penetration. So, it's sell a ton or it's a failure. Those niche games aren't going to see a lot. Even if 10% of users buy, it's 10% of a small amount compared to other generations. I'm sure as time goes on it will get better as sales increase.

I just want GOOD games. Not Call of Battlefield: Hardnose Hi Fidelity Upgrade Edition with $49 season pass....
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Yeah the article covered the indie games angle, basically the argument made is sound: Thank god they exist but still... you don't spend $400 on a new console to play super pong, you can just play most of them fine on a 5 year old pc with integrated graphics.
 
Delays and lame remakes of old stuff for consoles? It's just like being a member of the PC master race. :D
 
Wierdo said:
Yeah the article covered the indie games angle, basically the argument made is sound: Thank god they exist but still... you don't spend $400 on a new console to play super pong, you can just play most of them fine on a 5 year old pc with integrated graphics.
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Yea, I read that. It just seems like the few that come out are like they say - not worth buying a $400 console. With Unity/Unreal Engine being available, and some indies doing some amazing work on PC with them, I'm not seeing those high quality indie games on consoles.

Both Sony & Microsoft were pushing indie developers, and still are, but nothing "great" has happened. Good, sure. But, nothing that would break out of indie and break any records.
 
I'm so sick of multi-generational titles and remakes. Even for games that I like, I don't need a remake or "definitive edition" of a 360/PS3 title. It's just laziness and a money grab.
I really do feel this is the worst generation of new consoles I've seen. There's just way too little new content and such a small bump in quality over the last generation.
 
Ur_Mom said:
What about the big push for indie game developers with this generation? Is that just failing miserably?
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people are probably sick of pixel vomit that is sold as "retro" and "8-bit" while true pixel art from back then looked a hundred times better.
 
Yeah this has been happening forever. Same with the movie industry. Low risk high reward is the name of the game for the big developers who need consistent positive forecasts for shareholders. It's much safer to push a new Call of Duty or Avengers movie every year that you know is going to hit >$x no matter what, than take a risk on something new.
 
illram said:
Yeah this has been happening forever. Same with the movie industry. Low risk high reward is the name of the game for the big developers who need consistent positive forecasts for shareholders. It's much safer to push a new Call of Duty or Avengers movie every year that you know is going to hit >$x no matter what, than take a risk on something new.
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Yep, and sadly we, as game buyers, reward that behavior by buying these retreads, so of course we are going to see more and more of it.

It's just like day one dlc, as long as we keep buying it, it will become more and more common.
 
temujin987 said:
people are probably sick of pixel vomit that is sold as "retro" and "8-bit" while true pixel art from back then looked a hundred times better.
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Mostly because pixel art back in the day was designed to be viewed on CRTs. Most indie devs are obsessed with the look of 90's games as played on early 00's emulators, for some reason, when that was obviously never intended.
 
Yeah we lap it up. It's kind of ridiculous if you think about it. The Call of Duty franchise essentially just makes some new maps, a 5 hour single player campaign, maybe pay some actors to do some voice overs, recycles almost everything else from prior iterations (game entities, sounds, portions of maps, mechanics, the engine) and it doesn't just sell every time, it breaks freaking records on how much it sells.

When you have these cash cows why bother with anything else?
 
illram said:
some new maps, a 5 hour single player campaign, maybe pay some actors to do some voice overs
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So basically everything we love about COD and the reason to play the next sequel.

it maybe the console speaking , but for me games are a lot more than just new graphics or even changing the mechanics with every sequel.
 
The switch from innovative gameplay to "just do the same thing with better graphics" happened over a decade ago.
 
Look, i'm COMPLETELY ok with someone released the same game with better graphics and new levels. That is why i want a sequel... so that i can play the SAME FUN GAME with more new assets to explore and etc. *BUT* when that model gets broken by, well, the game functionality/code being fundamentally broken (eg. bad network code that makes 1990's dialup gaming look awesome) and bugs that just still stay unfixed and cheaters running mods on a paid service and nothing being done about them. Now its infuriating and unacceptable.
 
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