Too Many Games on the Market

LukeTbk said:
It was just not to reput the whole video in there, lot of good points (not sure which you meant obviously has you do not point which one?), a lot of misinformed points as well....
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- One I already made two posts ago - games do not have to have huge budgets to be enjoyable.
- As many of those franchises become popular, they are often guilty of becoming extremely formulaic (Assassin's Creed). This is a problem with American cinema as well, and why a lot of people are growing tired of the superhero and Star Wars crap that keep getting endlessly rehashed. This causes a lot of gamers to go and seek out new, fresh and exciting experiences in other games that aren't bound to existing sets of lore that have been beaten to death over the past 20+ years. Games that weren't bound by huge corporations, DEI initiatives, and most importantly shareholders where profit comes above ALL else, fun and creativity included.
- Actually, after seeing the stats on Americans who are fine eating McDonald's and don't travel, read, or experience incredible indie films...it's no wonder so many are happy with overpriced, undelivered games that cater to the lowest common denominator.
- There's more but I've already burned 20 mins of my lunch on this. :p

Mr Evil said:
AAA games are by definition high-budget, so they will always at the very least look better than indie games, but they are also very conservative, targeting established markets and producing very little that is new. Indie games on the other hand span a wide range from Babby's First Gaem with literally 0 budget, up to games from well-established developers with relatively large budgets that compare well to AAA games. They frequently stray far from the beaten path, which means a lot of failures, but also some great successes.


Take a game like a pet shop after dark. It's poorly drawn, has barely servicable writing, and is very short. Nonetheless it has gameplay that you will never, ever see in an AAA game. It's a game that made me smile all the way through. That's not a double-standard, it's judging it by how much I enjoyed it.

And there are quite a few indie games that can be compared more directly with AAA games. For instance, I think Trepang² is a better single-player FPS than most AAA games. While not quite as pretty, it looks good enough, and it's a full-sized, smooth experience.

In the end, I think if I was forced to choose between only ever playing AAA games or indie games, I would choose the indie games because they are so diverse, while most AAA games are just more of the same.
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Extremely well said.

There are, for sure, a plethora of indie games that will never interest me.
There are also, for sure, AAA games like RDR2 that completely eclipse the writing, story, graphics and gameplay that you'd typically expect to see in an indie game. But I don't want every game to be RDR2. I don't want every game I play to cost $70 or be a 30/50/100 hour experience.

I've never played A Pet Shop After Dark, but I agree with the premise behind your statement 100% based on some other indie games I've played. There are a ton of fresh and interesting ideas that you will never see in an AAA game. Contrary to some opinions, that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. There are a plethora of reasons that a developer might not be associated with a large studio and I'm willing to bet that raw talent isn't the only one.

I welcome all the things happening in independent spaces right now as I think they're vital to the industry. I think overall, gamers benefit from having both camps to influence each other. It drives some indie devs to make games with more quality while also keeping some of the big boys in check when they blow hundreds of millions on something that "doesn't meet shareholder expectations" and bombs, forcing layoffs.
 
M76 said:
Quite funny that the thumbnail for the video that laments the end of AAA gaming contains two of the best games I ever played.Cyberpunk 2077 even in its launch state was a great game that I enjoyed very much, and now after the release of Phantom Liberty I enjoy it even more, I put 200 hours into the game recently, which is very rare for me. And The Last of Us 2 is only ever mentioned for how bad supposedly the story is. Everyone ignores that it's a technical marvel, the animations are far ahead of anything else I've played. And for a console game even the mechanics are amazing, it is the only console game where I actually enjoyed the gameplay and wasn't cursing the controller to hell and back all the time.

So if those are your best evidence for the AAA industry killing gaming, boy you have an uphill battle ahead of you to convince me.
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You missed the entire point of the thumbnail. It wasn't to say those are or were bad games, but to point out that these increasing massive budgets are inherently risky and probably cannot continue at the current pace without some form of correction.

M76 said:
Smaller budget games can be fun, but they are not the same quality as big budget games. The current flawed state if we want to call that is due to out of touch investors and execs with too much sway on game direction, not due to big budgets.
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I agree with this and probably around half of what you write on the forum overall btw, just not seeing it the same way as you here and don't really care to spend my day debating it tbh. It's fine, we aren't all here to agree all of the time on everything.
 
Lateralus said:
You missed the entire point of the thumbnail. It wasn't to say those are or were bad games, but to point out that these increasing massive budgets are inherently risky and probably cannot continue at the current pace without some form of correction.
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I think this is a fair assessment. With costs for almost everything going up at almost a record pace, I think offloading more tasks to AI is the only real solution to this in the short term. Of course, companies will want to use it for everything which will be disastrous at first but there are things that can be done with AI that make sense.
 
Lateralus said:
You missed the entire point of the thumbnail. It wasn't to say those are or were bad games, but to point out that these increasing massive budgets are inherently risky and probably cannot continue at the current pace without some form of correction.
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He is still trying to demonstrate that the risk is not worth it with games that were financially successful. There is no point here, big budget games that fail, fail because they suck or nobody cares about them. If forspoken had half the budget it would still have been a garbage game for example. His idea is literally make games for cheaper so making bad games doesn't hurt the industry that much. F that, I think making a bad game should hurt those who made it. If I make a blunder of my job I'll face consequences too, IDK why the games industry should be spared the consequences of their bad work. Studios that make bad games deserve to be closed down.
 
While not a AAA game, apparently the Tomb Raider remastered used AI on the textures to upscale them. I think it did a pretty good job and was obviously curated by the developers. So hat's off to them. Nothing wrong with using AI so long as it's done tastefully. Now AI generating an actual game? That would be interesting. But if it's the same AI that powers Google's Gemini then I'll pass. :)
 
jbltecnicspro said:
While not a AAA game, apparently the Tomb Raider remastered used AI on the textures to upscale them. I think it did a pretty good job and was obviously curated by the developers. So hat's off to them. Nothing wrong with using AI so long as it's done tastefully. Now AI generating an actual game? That would be interesting. But if it's the same AI that powers Google's Gemini then I'll pass. :)
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I've been saying this since forever, AI is an excellent tool, but nothing more than a tool. Unfortunately some misunderstand this, including creators.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
. Now AI generating an actual game? That would be interesting. But if it's the same AI that powers Google's Gemini
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Genie.

https://www.technologyreview.com/20...el-makes-super-mario-like-games-from-scratch/

Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch​


Right now you can describe (text or hand drawing part of it) a clasic platform mario type game.

We went from text to video to text to game fast:
https://sites.google.com/view/genie-2024/home
 
It just hit me. If they remastered those 90s Playstation games and nail them, in terms of preserving the original gameplay, I would be all over that. Those games were so much fun. Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk, etc. I know some franchises were remastered but still. It feels like games had more "soul" back then.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
It just hit me. If they remastered those 90s Playstation games and nail them, in terms of preserving the original gameplay, I would be all over that. Those games were so much fun. Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk, etc. I know some franchises were remastered but still. It feels like games had more "soul" back then.
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Tomb Raider 1-3 just got a remaster like a week ago.

Games were less serious back then, the gameplay was less in service of a narrative. It was the end, not a means to an end. But since I like narrative driven games more, I really don't want to go back to that. Soulsborne games are kind of a return to that already, and I don't like them, not even a tiny bit.
 
M76 said:
Tomb Raider 1-3 just got a remaster like a week ago.

Games were less serious back then, the gameplay was less in service of a narrative. It was the end, not a means to an end. But since I like narrative driven games more, I really don't want to go back to that. Soulsborne games are kind of a return to that already, and I don't like them, not even a tiny bit.
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Yep. Been playing it for a couple of weeks now. Exactly what I wanted from it. Fair enough, I like narrative-driven games too but if the gameplay loop isn’t satisfying I could care less.
 
PC Gamer landed an interview with New Blood CEO Dave Oshry.

'You will not enjoy videogames anymore if you work in a big game studio:' New Blood's boss weighs in on what sets it apart amid an industry crisis

In a recent interview with members of indie collective/developer New Blood, I asked them how they attribute their current success in the face of so much misery, layoffs, and studio closures in the industry. "We're not beholden to shareholders or investors or anything like that," said studio boss Dave Oshry. "We get to make what we want⁠..."
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Oshry contrasted this with the growth at all costs mindset he sees on the corporate side of the industry, which he argues is detrimental to making good games and enjoying yourself while doing so. At around 30 people, Oshry's content with the size of the fully remote developer: "I care personally about our developers and everybody working at New Blood, making sure everybody's happy and having a good time, and making sure that everybody's voice is heard."
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Growth is something to be considered and contained at New Blood, versus an attitude of "More people, more game, more stuff, more features, more loot box, more transaction, more money, more line go up," as Oshry characterizes it, arguing that people who love games should avoid getting sucked into that trap.
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Like I said, I think the work and ideas of (quality) indie devs/studios are desperately needed - possibly now more than ever. The grind and crunch at bigger studios is nothing new, but at least their games didn't suck as badly and with the frequency that we've been getting over the past several years.
 
If it's a good game, it's a good game, whether indie or AAA.
 
Agreed, DooKey.

I realize the issues we're discussing aren't limited to Ubisoft, but this guy has a pretty accurate take IMHO. Many have had no real interest in any recent Ubisoft game despite not all of them actually being bad per se. He does a good job articulating why.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSeKnsLb6IQ
 
Most AAA games i see just look like stale conservative rehashed with slightly better graphics. It's much easier to find fresh ideas and creativity in indie to AA games
 
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