The wild successes of Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 send a clear message: Let devs cook
The studios behind these mega hits spent more than a decade iterating on their favorite design ideas until they went supernova.
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Here's the thing though, these games are highly reviewed and played but it may still in fact be more profitable to keep pumping out mid tier trash. For companies that have long forgotten the time when they had a soul and were a group of passionate gamers, that's all that matters.
Im starting to believe the big triple A game industry is starting to collapse, not the gaming industry it self, but the big companies that make generic after generic blockbuster kind of games. They keep getting more and more desperate and predatory in order to appeal to the share holders and maximize profits because their type of games have become so expensive to produce.
Remember when games didnt have to put the same amount (or even more) of the development cost into marketing? Good games sells themselves, every gamer knows it, but the monkeys with suits who run the companies nowdays cant compute that. Instead they keep coming with more and more shitty ways to steal our money. They will try anything instead of listening to their developers ( who are the actual gamers that know what works and what dosnt).
And so here we are. Just in this year I have seen a single player game put a mechanic like the NG+ mode only availible for the deluxe edition (yakuza), an extra save game file or fast travels as microtransactions (dragon dogmas 2), extra missions and a 3 days early launch acces for single player game only allowed in the 110$ edition (star wars outlaws), and a company literally changing their former terms and conditions in order to sell a 250$ p2w pack and killing it self and the work of the last 5 years? in less than 24h (tarkov)
Im starting to believe the big triple A game industry is starting to collapse, not the gaming industry it self, but the big companies that make generic after generic blockbuster kind of games.
I'm not that hopeful, casual gamers keep buying the same low effort games like Fifa, NBA, Pokemon every year even though they got enshitified 10 years ago. The opinion of game-educated and demanding people that represent a minority of their market will not change those game companies. It's like asking fat food chains to get into Michelin ranking, they don't care. All we can do is allow good quality independent game makers to exist by giving our money to them instead of the fast food games companies.
When i was a kid we made fun of hipsters, but as I've matured and examined the world with a critical eye, I've realized that hipsters are entirely correct. Popularity is a bad thing for the health of anything you're into. It's a very rare creator that can become as big as Tolkien or Larian and not go to the dogs.
Exactly. Ubisoft is the perfect example of this. Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, R6. They used to take risks and try to push gaming forward with amazing ideas and design that made my kid brain explode.
Now those IPs are dead or extremely stale. And it's because releasing an AC with microtransactions makes them more money than making an offline single player Splinter Cell. Or releasing a skin for 20 euros for R6 siege makes them a huge profit for the time invested in creating it.
God I wish we'd get a new single player Splinter Cell. Some of my best memories I have as a kid are playing the original Splinter Cell. Even if we do, it'll be riddled with microtransactions and will fail to capture the magic of the original games.
Yup. The go-to example is that Blizzard made more money off of a single $5 mount in World of Warcraft, than it made on the release of Diablo 3. An entire fucking game launch made less money than a $5 microtransaction. Why would a publishing company bother with creating solid self-contained games, when a single micro transaction can make more money for far less dev time?
Players need to stop purchasing shitty games and shitty microtransactions, because it only encourages devs to keep making them.
It's strange though, because Ubisoft on paper should be something I hate, but when I actually play one (and I'm a single player gamer), they've got fun gameplay, and the store, although it is there, generally keeps out the way and when I accidentally press the button in the menu that goes into it, there's nothing I'd ever consider handing over actual money for. The game never points you at it, or makes you feel it's needed.
I don't even know who it's for. Who buys cosmetics in a single player game? It genuinely feels like it's just been put in to appease the beancounters.
That said I don't get excited enough to buy them at full price, and normally wait until they're on PSPlus or something. There's nothing in most of these AAA games to truly love. They're a sea of merely "alright", and they're all way too long.
There's nothing in most of these AAA games to truly love. They're a sea of merely "alright", and they're all way too long.
But why bother with alright when there's thousands of highly regarded indie games out there for a quarter of the price?
Probably same reason people go to McDonald's.
The largest issue with indie games is simply discoverability. I’m sure there are tons of amazing indie games out there. But you need to wade through a sea of complete fucking garbage to get to them. Meanwhile, AAA studios can spend thousands of dollars on marketing. Unless an indie game goes viral, there’s very little chance that I’ll ever hear about it in order to consider buying it.
Meanwhile, AAA studios can spend thousands of dollars on marketing.
I don't really get the notion of listening to some marketing department lying through their teeth. It's not like AAA games ever deliver on their marketing promises.
Unless an indie game goes viral, there’s very little chance that I’ll ever hear about it in order to consider buying it.
You don't have to go dumpster diving in order to find awesome games, somebody already did. A good starting point is the top rated games list for Steam: https://steamdb.info/stats/gameratings/
90% of them are indies and there is something for everyone on those 3 pages.
That's honestly what astounds me sometimes, but I guess it makes sense. There's heart, soul, and passion in an indie game made by a small team.
AAA games fall victim to the "designed by committee" sameness and just-good-enough gameplay.
There's nothing in most of these AAA games to truly love. They're a sea of merely "alright", and they're all way too long.
Captures Ubisoft's philosophy on one sentence. But it's what makes them money, so they'll keep doing it.
Character creation in single player games is often a big thing and considered in a lot of reviews. I played a lot of midnight suns, and while I would never actually buy any cosmetic stuff, I definitely liked unlocking the skins and had ones I particularly liked. I even changed up once in a while. I would think even in multiplayer games, people aren't generally buying the skins for other people, but because they like to look that way.
It comes as no surprise that single player cosmetics is a source of revenue.
To be honest, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint was the most mid, regular, non-surprising game I've played in years. I know they tried later to make it better, but it was just so empty and repetitive, like The Division 2.
Wildlands surprised me multiple times, Breakpoint only made me ask myself multiple times: why is this not possible?, why do I have to do this all over again?, why do we have vehicles if most of the places can't be reached normally?
Also, The Division 2 was incredibly boring. I really want to like it, but I have to repeat the same things over and over, and you don't even get good rewards, farming is boring and doesn't compensate the time spent, at least not like in The Division 1 and its incursions, you were at least guaranteed something.
I haven't bought any game from Ubisoft after TD2 and Breakpoint. I can already spend time in those games if I want the ubisoft experience. I
Especially as Michael Ironside seems to have gotten over his medical troubles. I know he's 74 now but one last outing as Sam Fisher? Imagine?
At some point it's really up to the consumers to stop buying shit games
This is it. The reviews only matter to the extent they affect sales. Many shit-scored titles make billions for the suits (eg. FIFA, COD), and do so year after year without significant risks involved
I, for one, intend to stop paying for mid tier trash
This is modern and late stage capitalism in general
