1w ago

Baldur's Gate 3 dev says AAA is "perversely fascinated" by indie games, because those devs still understand how to make good ideas that aren't reliant on data

www.gamesradar.com Baldur's Gate 3 dev says AAA is "perversely fascinated" by indie games, because those devs still understand how to make good ideas that aren't reliant on data

The best ideas come from the heart

Baldur's Gate 3 dev says AAA is "perversely fascinated" by indie games, because those devs still understand how to make good ideas that aren't reliant on data

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I think it's more that the megacorp business model is fundamentally incompatible with making good video games. Their only reliable competitive advantage is money, they can spend more on a single project. But if they spend so much, they can't go as risky as indies go. A ton of indies publish shit games, it's just that some are absolute gems.
Point is, AAA games can only match indies in originality if they are okay with tanking the IP and the studio just to make something original. But since they are megacorps, they will never be okay with that. The also can't amortise the risk over a lot of small projects, because then they lose the ability to outspend indies and would have to compete with them directly.
It's like a sort of inverse economies of scale.
- The cycle of megacorps- this works in most industries with a lower barrier of entry.
  First the industry begins as a bunch of small competing startups that build a shit ton of absolute trash. Eventually a few companies find the right formula and start to find some medicum of success. Innovation is rapid but quality is low.
  Next the industry consolidates in a feeding frenzy of mergers and aqisitions. During this time innovation is high but demands for quality is also high. New startups are constant as the forming megacorps pay high prices to control innovation or suppress competition.
  Then the consolidation reaches a peak. At this point innovation almost completely ceases as megacorps refuse to pay out any more. Quality rapidly decreases as the few remaining megacorps try to maximize profits. The entire industry turns to shit products and high prices.
  The only thing that can save the industry from stagnation is government anti-trust action breaking up the megacorps into smaller competing companies like in the second stage.
  
  Capitalism.
- Not only good videogames. Good art in general. Music, text, movies, tv series and videogames all go for the "mid" nowadays. Offend noone, include everything and everyone and above all: make no hard choices which others haven't done already.
  Which results in data driven hollow 1000 in a dozen AI "caught in the algorithm" trash. Just look at most what comes out of Netflix "studios" these days. It will be the end of them.
  And you hear it in music too: everything sounds the same these days. Everything.
  And you see the same in writing: more and more generic stuff. The big names pump out more and more of same-ish stories. Say what you like about Prime Stephen King for example, but what he wrote during his crazed coke/whiskey fueled years... It was original. And weird.
- Megacorp business model is incompatible with every industry, it’s entirely based on what is the absolute bare minimum that will still make money. Absolutely no passion in the work, no interest in quality, and no care for the people getting trampled to make it.
- They could go for more double A games. Still more budget than indies, not as risky or innovative, but not as big of an investment as AAA. Studios could work on new IPs in shorter cycles and smaller games, and eventually release big AAA sequels to the successful ones.
  
  Having trouble finding the link now, but apparently at a big dev conference with a bunch of the business suits involved, they want to make games faster. But not make them smaller or have worse graphics. Just faster.
  And yes, shoving AI slop into everything is part of that plan.
  In other words, the industry is completely lost, and I will continue to spend the majority of my gaming time on indie titles.
  
  Yeah, but there's the catch, they would have to compete on equal footing with indies then. Money is their only advantage.
- It's not just risk, you also can't really target a narrow audience. Indies can afford to make a game that only 1/100th of people will be interested in. Even if the AAA studio was 100% sure they would succeed and gain a loyal fanbase, they won't do that if the potential fanbase is pulled from too small of a group.

Indie devs want to make a game
AAA devs want to make money
It's that simple.
Also, I can't remember the last time I played a AAA game that was anything more than alright.
- BG3 if that counts as AAA
  Outside Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom I don't think I've enjoyed a triple A release since 2017.
  
  I think assets being rolled over from one title to the next is what makes a game aaa, which bg3 didn't do too much (I didn't notice)

Honestly I'd like it if the Balders Gate 4 was a little bit more like COD.
- BG4: Modern Warfare will be a fantastic take on the D&D ruleset.
  
  BG4: Torment(ing players) will be fun
  
  So an eberron game?
- I wish I could buy the exact same Balders Gate next year, but with just different bald people based on the data of which bald people was shown most in the media this past year.
- Congrats, now you’re going to have a roguelike zombies mode where you progress off levelling instead of wall buys.
- I’m thinking you can pay to have more chances to re-roll the dice.
  
  I'd rather kill
  
  I prefer to pray for that instead
- So...Skyrim?
- This is a no-go unless COD has a fortnite death ring. Add 30 of those and maybe we might have an original idea on our hands.

I love the data callout so much. I wish I remember the article I read this in, but there was a researcher who said we're living in an age of data-driven stupidity and that's stuck with me ever since.
It's not that data is bad in all cases, but data aggregation is inherently reducing fidelity of detail in the process. When you're approaching human-centric issues, such as making something fun and meaningful, data really can't help you that much. You've boiled the messy human elements, the elements most crucial to a powerful result, out of the conversation.
- Yeah. You use data to target the most common factors to make your audience as broad as possible, and you end up making the most bland slop that nobody actually cares about.

They also miss really bad why those games become popular on first place.
For example, the text mentions Minecraft, and all that "crafting" trend. What made Minecraft great was not crafting - it was the feeling that you're free to express yourself, the way you want, through interactions with the ingame world. If you want to build a huge castle, recreate a wonder you love, or a clever contraption to bend the world's rules to do your bidding, you can.
Or, let's pick Undertale. It's all about the mood, the game pulls strings with your emotions. Right at the start the game shows you Toriel, she's a really nice lady, taking care of you as if she was your child. And being overprotective. Then the game tries to make you kill her, and your first playthrough you'll probably do it. And you'll feel like shit. Then you load the save back, and... the game still remembers. You're still feeling like shit because you killed Toriel.
Stardew Valley? At a certain point of the game, you start to genuinely care about the characters. Not just as in-game characters, but as virtual people with their own backstories, goals, dreams. You relate to them.
It's all about feelings. But corporations are as soulless as their "art"; and game corporations are no exception. Individual humans get it.
- Stardew Valley's success had more to do with smart marketing than anything. The game has the exact same formula as Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, which are very corporate-run series, just not at AAA scale. The difference was Eric Barone cultivating word-of-mouth marketing via influencers and online communities to reintroduce the genre to the Western market (along with lucking into capitalizing on what was then a more nascent pixel art indie gaming trend).
  Undertale's a good example, though (I'll still note this particular example is a huge spoiler). I did the thing and it was a very fresh idea, and one of the best hooks I've seen in a video game. Thing is though, I doubt even 10% took that route to see it. That's something the game has in common with Baldur's Gate 3, which is full of those low-percentage moments. AAA devs don't like investing a lot of resources into things most people aren't going to see.
  
  Good marketing and luck do play their roles, but aren't enough by themselves. With those two but without pulling your emotional strings, SV wouldn't be seen nowadays as a "spiritual successor" to Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons, but rather as a "cheap knock-off".
  Doubly so for an indie game - indie devs don't have enough money to make shit look like ambrosia, unlike AAA studios.
  Also note HM/SoS did not start as a corporate-run series. The formula was already there in the SNES game, developed by a rather unknown studio (Amccus). Apparently Yasuhiro Wada came up with the idea because he wanted to try something different, and he's from a rural background.
  Corporate is kind of lucky the formula is enough - to make someone feel proud of their farm (like in Ech's answer) or relate to the characters (interacting with them often, giving them gifts, seeing cutscenes etc.), otherwise it would've ruined it with "more graphics! 9001 love interests! 9001 crops! ...what do you mean, the characters aren't relatable?".
- Stardew Valley? At a certain point of the game, you start to genuinely care about the characters. Not just as in-game characters, but as virtual people with their own backstories, goals, dreams. You relate to them.
  I just like to make the cute farm go brrrrrrrr. Honestly, I'm annoyed that marriage (or "roomieship" with the monster) is required to 100% the game.
  
  Even in your case, it's still about feelings—although different ones: you're expressing yourself through your farm, instead of focusing on the romance. "See, myself, this is what I built! Good job, me." and the likes.
  Neither is the "right" or "wrong" emotion, mind you. But a game needs to trigger at least some within you, to be a good game. And that's what corporations don't get: they're chasing mensurable things. More graphics, presence/absence of a mechanic, even gameplay length can be measured; but you can't really measure someone's emotional experience.
- They made it so you couldn't save scum killing her? lol
  
  You can save scum and she'll be back, but one of the characters highlights it:
  Clever. Verrrryyy clever. You think you're really smart, don't you? In this world, it's kill or be killed. So you were able to play by your own rules. You spared the life of a single person. Hee hee hee...
  But don't act so cocky. I know what you did. You murdered her. And then you went back, because you regretted it. Ha ha ha ha...
  And the whole game is full of situations like this. Highlighting that your actions actually have some impact, even if you can reload or start a new game.
- Reminds of how Delta Heavy - Ghost got recommended to many people on YouTube recently, because the ever-present soulless algorithm detected people mentioning Clippy, engaging with videos mentioning Clippy, putting Clippies as their profile pictures, etc. - despite the fact that the entire Clippy surge is entirely against the endless data vacuuming and the algorithmisation of everything.
  I really hate what data has become for the modern consumer at large - something's everybody after to try and capitalize for, at an active disadvantage for you.
  Cue the still growing thirst for more control, more data, more censorship.

Let your devs explore their wildest dreams! Nintendo gets it. Too bad they have too mny legal sticks up their ass...
- Nintendo, the company that released dozens of sequels and remakes of Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, right? I guess my wildest dreams are a bit more wild.
  
  That's wildly unfair. Even the games within those franchises are often wildly different from each other and many are widely considered hallmarks in game design. Plus, Nintendo doesn't make Pokémon.
  
  There can be originality within franchises. Dr. Mario vs. Luigi's Mansion vs. Mario Kart vs. Super Mario Maker (etc, etc). No, it's not always an industry busting idea, but you can't say it's all rote repetition. It's the same universe, but that's ok. Not everything has to be a whole cloth original idea.
  I will give you Pokemon, though. Outside of Snap and (kind of) Legends, it's pretty clearly lazy, by the number installations, which is a shame. The universe clearly appeals to and inspires so many people. They deserve better.
  
  Yeah, my wildest dreams are a bit more Expedition 33 or Chants of Sennaar.
  
  ... in addition to a number of other games that have iterated on the ideas.
  I'm not gonna say that Nintendo is some saint of game design and innovation, but they're nowhere near the worst, either.
- Idk why people are giving you shit on that, you're right. Not necessarily indie-level right, but people hired to do the next Mario or Zelda are given remarkable freedom. I read up on the BotW development and they pitched their crazy idea, got green lit, and when leading their team they took suggestions from every part of the team (quite literally, artists, marketers, localization specialists, etc.). If I could remember the link I'd share it, but it's straight up good AAA management.
  Though, to be fair it's really team by team and it's quite possible they got lucky with some of these. There are plenty of misses, after all. I'm kinda glad I'm off the Nintendo bandwagon after the whole Yuzu/Ryujinx legal crap.

Corpos can't make good games because they're sociopaths who don't understand art, only products. Understanding art requires a functioning connection to humanity and emotions, which they lack.
Games aren't only products; they're art. Good art is not capable of universal appeal. The more demographics you try to appeal to for the sake of appeasing your shareholder overlords, the more dogshit your game will be.
Games made to support the interests of mentally ill rich people cannot be well made categorically. This is why AAA has sucked ever since wall street took over every studio.
- CandyCrush would like a word
  
  Candy crush is just another reskin of bejeweled; a game made by an indie developer in the year 2000.

They can be fascinated all they want, but I don't think that'll help them much, because they're after a different thing. Indie games are fun, because people who make decisions about them largely like games and want to make games. With AAA, the decision makers are soulless MBA leeches that largely like money and want to make more money...
- So then sit back and let the makers make their shi--oh we don't need so many MBAs anymore? Oops!
  
  we don't need ~~so many~~ MBAs ~~anymore~~
  Fixed it for you ;)

Y'know, from a risk assessment standpoint, you can't be too surprised they over rely on data since AAAs cost so much to make an a flop can lose millions, and sometimes even billions of dollars. Mediocre can still sell, and you and I both know they aren't doing it for art or expression.
I do want to make one other point about survivor bias, though.... there are plenty of crappy indie games, too. We focus a lot on the greats (and trust me, I hunger for the Silksong) but it makes up a pretty small percent in a world where everyone can make something. I sometimes will spin up a random game from regrettable purchases (like, indiegala bundles or those "mystery game" purchases) and some of them are really, truly horrible. I try to give is as much respect as I can, and sometimes I do find a few gems that nobody has played, but like... not every passion project is Undertale, lol.
Although tbh, I like streaming a bad game for friends because they can watch me suffer, haha, so I still appreciate the, uh, effort.
- there are plenty of crappy indie games, too
  This is a massive understatement.
  There's this fantasy that indie = high quality, but just look through Steam chronologically. 95%-99% of indie games seem to be good ideas that faded into obscurity, buried under the tidal wave of other games, that their creators probably burned out making for little in return. Many are just... not great. But others look like bad rolls of the dice.
  Basically zero indies are Stardew Valleys or Rimworlds.
  This is the nuance the Baldurs Gate dev is getting it. It's not 'games should develop like indies'; they literally can't afford a 95% flop rate.
  But that doesn't mean the metrics they use for decision making aren't massively flawed.
- So don't spend so much that a bad release will sink you. Spread it out over multiple projects. It's not that hard.

Indie devs want to make a game they themselves actually want to play. They’re usually massively more open to user feedback and generally aren’t weighing that feedback against profitability.
- Yeah. AAA higher-ups are very rarely gamers or actually interested in playing video games. They're just business people who I think mostly want to chase the profitable trends and recreate whatever successes they had in the past under projects with actually decent leadership.
  Indie devs also generally aren't concerned with stretching the runtime out over return limits or in a way that will prevent people from reselling the game.

The suits always dictate what sells, and they'll look for anything that would keep revenue coming.
- Probably because the suits don’t play games, so they have no clue what makes a game good or not. All they have is data, but data without context is just numbers.
  
  It is this exactly, and is the same problem film, tv, and music has. They are all populated by people who are good at becoming and staying at the exec level, not people who are good at whatever field they are working in. Often the really creative are difficult to work with, they do not make a "good fit" with other execs, particularly when they actually understand the medium.
  Its the same group of people who are heavily invested in AI to replace creative people in these fields as they do not understand the difference between AI doing a passable copy of someone elses style and someone actually creative creating a new style or approach.

Triple A devs will spend six years building every aspect of a game perfectly attuned to terrabytes of marketing data to have as mass appeal as possible and then quietly turn off the servers six months after release.
- The sad thing is none of them want to make a bad game. They just cit so many rough edges off so nobody cuts themselves that they all end up making the same ball.
  Much rather have a game like Death Stranding that half the players are going to bounce off and the rest are going to love all the more for it.
- perfectly attuned to terrabytes of marketing data
  My friend works as software dev and he can attest the exact same thing. He has better ideas as a software dev, but marketing and sales people disagree and the management listens to them because all they see are numbers and money. MacNamara fallacy is epidemic in private industry.

Indie devs have a vision
triple A games just feel so bland and corporate these days, no passion
- The smaller the dev team, the more pure the vision. Doesn't always mean it will be good, but the good ones are great. The best AAA game still looks and feels like all the rest.
- Corporate art will always be underwhelming.
  
  Corporate art. Now that's a good oxymoron.
  
  Yup. Just looks so stiff and uninspired. Part of the reason why I miss those old 3D art character portraits of the early 2000's, they looked goofy in a good way

Art and profit are inherently incompatible.
You can have a safe profit, or you can have artistic integrity and vision.
One will always have to be the true purpose of the work at the expense of the other.
- Art and profit are very compatible. But nepotism and profit even more.

Remember when they said "we’re unable to make a game like BG3 consistently" and then 2 years later ClairObscure Expedition 33 releases, made by even less people than BG3.
Those games aren’t AAA, they’re S+ games.
- A reminder that AA-AAA is basically just specifying how much money has been poured into its development. Not how much love, passion and hard work went into creating it.
  Baldurs gate 3 is made by an indie game studio.
  As in they’re independent and are not beholden to a publisher or external revenue sources that own their idea and forces them to take business decisions they don’t want to due to monetary reasons and outside pressure.
  And yes, absolutely S+ tier games.
  
  Number of As also don't say anything about how skilled the developers/designers/writers are, or to what extent they've been allowed to cook without chains or directions.
  A lot of AAA games would have been amazing, if it wasn't for this meddling. The sad part of it, is that they've probably made the shareholders more money because of it. They've of course traded in brand value and goodwill for short term profit.
  Consumers still preorder en mass. Buy the always-online single player games with DRM, and micro transaction stores. Then in the same breath, complain about the situation.
  
  Seeing Ubisoft describe Far Cry 6 as AAAA made a mockery of the whole A-rating system anyway. It never really meant anything other than "erm, we're charging more for it this year".

Uh-huh. But did you focus test that statement, though?

Or "Ultra Realistic Graphics"

They're not soulless game farms churning out shit for the large non-gamer audience of video games. Indie is like an Oregan alehouse; AAA is like a Vegas game bar.
- dammit i will make that trip up to the pie shop and let y'all know how it is in a few months okay

I'm hoping Baldur's Gate 4 has a battle royale mode with different skins you can buy, and crossovers with Star Wars, Monster Energy, and Nike. And a Season Pass you can buy monthly for early access to each seasons cool new crossover!
- i won't play it unless there are verification cans you drink for spell slots

Indie games reasonably start with more fleshed out and committed to ideas of what the game will look like in the end than AAA games. Constraints of money and less cooks in the kitchen
AAA games sound like it's years of expensive pitches for gameplay and narrative, can be years of that even after publicly announcing the game, and then picking one and then deciding nevermind the markets hot on this so pivot. Rinse and repeat until cancellation or a stir fry of what's about to expire in the fridge

Because the decision makers aren't making games they want to play. There just making business decisions on what they think sells more. It's not rocket science to make a game that's fun but it takes a lot of involvement and passion, something that CEOs and other C suites don't have time for.

Sometimes buy a used ps5 game just so I can feel somewhat justified in buying the stupid thing. Otherwise it's almost all ps4 and indy games.

maybe if they were more focused in storyline, and gameplay. and not breaking through the uncanny valley, while squeezing gamers for every last penny, they could understand....whats its like....to be.......human

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