Two reasons:
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The money is mostly spent on visual production, graphics, and big name actors to voice characters, which doesn’t automatically make a game good.
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Season passes, MTX and other bullshit being shoved down our throats in big budget games is getting even worse.
I will always choose a smaller project of passion over a lackluster, watered-down AAA game with an overinflated budget.
When I open a steam page for a game that looks interesting to me, and I find out it has 3 versions at wildly different prices and 10+ other DLC, I just pass and move on. I’m not doing external research to find out what is the difference between the complete and ultra complete and definitive deluxe director’s cut editions and whether it’s worth it, or whether I “need” such and such DLC to get the full experience. I’m instantly and thoroughly turned off by it, and I’m just not bothering. Fuck that whole mess.
For real! I have the biggest issue on that with the PlayStation store. The main list of titles only shows the most expensive version and you have to dig deeper to find the regular, lowest priced option. I swear, when I first got my PS5 and was interested in getting NHL23 I damn near had a heart attack seeing it priced over $100. Ended up just going to GameStop and picking up a used physical copy for $10.
It’s like the corporate world has made gaming into a twisted version of THEIR game. How do we grind money out of these idiots?
Well, I think that they will probably work it out in the end by going bust. Every CEO - in the end - blames the consumer, not the product nor the service.
Ultimately it is about the money and effort being put into the wrong parts of the game, which coincidentally is the part that is easiest to show off to investors and C levels.
Yeah honestly AA games deliver the experience AAA games gave 15 years ago, and that’s what I want way more than whatever AAA is today.
I wish I could get it through to my dumbass friend. She says that a game must have good graphics or else she won’t play it.
Stardew valley? Nope. It’s too blocky. Undertale? Nope. Might as well be an NES game.
Your friend is entitled to her own opinion and I somewhat get her. Good graphics are really nice and can add greatly to a game.
While I understand your feelings (I have such a friend myself), if graphics are most important to them, they are perfectly entitled to that opinion! I always interject, that my friend is missing out on great gameplay experiences but it is on them what they like and value most.
My god, the games she’s missing out on…
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Has nothing to do with ‘generation’ anything and everything to do with bean counters. The fact that Minecraft is still beating them all is everything they need to know but refuse to listen to.
Investors be like: “MineCoins you say🤔”
They don’t mean boomers, millennials, etc. When you consider games from Atari, to genesis, to 360, to what we have now with microtransactions and season passes after unloading $60+ for a premium game, there are clear “generational” divides.
These big companies have it all backwards. We don’t need them; they need us. I don’t suddenly like slot machine video games just because their fucking bean counters say so. Ever since I bought a Steam Deck, I’ve played nothing but indie and old games, and I ain’t going back. You can keep your 3 bundles and your $70-110 price tags. I’ll play 500 hours of Vampire Survivors before I’ll buy another casino that they happened to build a game around.
In the wise words of the Soulsbourne community: GIT GUD (at not making shitty games).
+1 for vampire survivors
It’s one of my favorite recent games. It’s so endlessly pleasing.
You should try bone keepers minions or peglin. I found both equally fun and challenging
Thanks! Bookmarking those for later.
Speak it brother. I’m currently playing Far Cry 3 and other past greats. I have money in my pocket, happy to buy something worthwhile, but nothing new AND good is available. Nothing.
“We didn’t listen to what people actually want and now less people are buying! It’s not our decision-making, it’s ‘generational change.’”
I mean, if studios are doing it more and more and have been doing it across a whole generation, it probably is generational change. Games take 5+ years dev time to make so high budgets are a given. If uch a game fails, it is more likely to tank a studio now. I think hes just making an observation. Nothing too shocking about that.
What Im observing though is more and more indies filling the void with smaller and cheaper games due to easy access to digital distribution. Not exactly a new take as its been hapening for over 15 years now. Interestingly, Epic seems to not take the same stance as Steam does in this space. Where steam gives pretty much any shovelware the same chances, Epic wants to be super picky about these low budget titles. Where is Epic’s Balatro?
If Tim is so focused on publishing/distributing these overblown budgeted games, Epic will miss out on the secondary gaming market where actual fun games truly live. Imo, the generational change is actually indie titles becoming the norm and AAA taking a step back.
What Im observing though is more and more indies filling the void with smaller and cheaper games due to easy access to digital distribution. Not exactly a new take as its been hapening for over 15 years now. Interestingly, Epic seems to not take the same stance as Steam does in this space. Where steam gives pretty much any shovelware the same chances, Epic wants to be super picky about these low budget titles. Where is Epic’s Balatro?
This reminds me a lot of the days of the original PlayStation (PS). Nintendo was the large, dominant company. But, they were also really, really picky with the games they let on their platform (still are). Along comes Sony with a better physical format and a willingness to let just about anything on their system. And there were a lot of terrible titles on the PS; but, there were also some real gems from smaller devs and lots more choice for people to find what they wanted to play. That openness and plethora of options drew people to the system. Sure, Nintendo is still around and still a juggernaut, but they gave up a lot of market space to Sony.
Sweeney and many of the big studios seem dead set on trying to replicate lightning. They keep churning out Fortnight clones, live service games and lootbox infested grind fests. None of this is because they want to make a game for players, it’s all a bald-faced money grab. And it comes across so clearly in their games. Yes, big budget games cost a lot of money and I don’t begrudge studios trying to make money. I’m more than happy to throw money at devs who make a great game (I just pledged ~$250 at the Valheim Board Game project, based mostly on the fact that I fucking love Valheim). I’ve also bought into way too many Early Access games, because they looked like they had the bones of good games. But, the big budget games seem to get lost trying to pump every last dollar out of your wallet and just quickly become a turn off.
I remember one particular instance in Dragon Age, where an NPC had a “Quest Available” marker floating above his head. When you talked to him, you quickly discovered that you could buy his quest and the game was happy to kick you over to the EA store so that you could buy his quest right there. Fuck that noise. I’m not against DLC, but that sort of “in your face” advertising pisses me right off. Hell, I’m one of those weirdos who likes the Far Cry series. I put tons of hours into Far Cry 5 (seriously, the wing suit was just good fun). Far Cry 6 was ok and I did finish it, though the micro-transaction spam grated on me hard. After that experience, I’m not sure I want a Far Cry 7.
And I think that points to the elephant in the room. Big publishers, like EA are so focused on making profits, they have lost sight of making a good game. Give me a solid, complete experience. Give me good controls, enough story to hold the action together and just a general sense of fun. Once that is in place, then maybe throw hats for sale on top of that. But, when lootboxes and micro-transactions are core to the gameplay and the game is balanced to force you in the direction of buying that crap, fuck your game. If the core gameplay is designed to suck so much that I want to buy cheats to bypass that core gameplay, I’ll save myself a bunch of money and just skip the game entirely. There are way too many options available out there, which don’t suck, for me to waste my time and money shoveling your shit.
Nintendo consoles and handhelds have almost always had a shit load of shovelware. What the fuck do you mean they are really, really picky with the games on their platform? The GBA, Wii, and Switch alone have enough to disprove this
They aren’t selling because they are designed as money machines first and games second.
Do I get to be the next Tim Sweeney now? As far as I can tell the bar is pretty low.
They could make so many moderate games that would sell amazingly if they just tried to… Make games instead of casinos. But no, profits must only go up, can’t have a flat year with only great success - they have to outdo themselves financially every year and squeeze everything
They could make so many moderate games that would sell amazingly if they just tried to…
100%. That’s the kind of nuanced thinking you won’t get from corporate America at this point.
Can’t have 5 semi good games that sell pretty well, can’t only be moderately profitable! Have to shoot for the moon, have only 1 game that we bet the whole farm on!
You have to sue every single storefront first as well and go cry to the press that companies don’t want to do business with you when you break their ToS.
Actually I just need to stop buying garbage (which I have done). The power sits with the purchasers in this case.
Well, then you can’t be the next Tim Sweeney :(
Wait i thought you had to go over the bar, not straight into it
People don’t want to pay for Disneyfied corpo slop that the HR department and advertisers signed off on. A public company lacks the soul to imbue into a creative project.
When you try to make literally everyone your target demographic then nobody will be your target demographic
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Not that odd. Seems like a decade and change ago it became common knowledge that market-tested, sanitized content wasn’t really resonating with “core gamers”, but we don’t even call the demographic that anymore. Not really sure how we got here
Well, gamers includes anyone sliding their finger on a phone screen now playing Farmville and stuff…and that is a looooooot of people. So that moves the needle on the average gamer a lot towards that end. And I think there is limited overlap between the people that use it as a time suck and the people that sit down and turn on their console/pc to play a game as a hobby.
So if the MBAs looked at statistics too much… you also get a warped idea.
It seems that stuff that gets people most excited are the inspired games made by creative people because they had a vision for their game…
Farmville players do not buy AAA games. We need to get this idea that mobile games and other forms of video games are connected out of our collective heads.
I know… but plenty of writers of articles seem to use the term gamers to identify everyone that plays any game… so of you don’t identify your target audience good enough you run the risk of making something that on paper will appeal to everyone but in practice to no one.
And also successes of iterative games like fifa run on the fact that real world changes to for example teams players are in drive sales… Because the player base is invested in the real world sport… so they want this year’s game because now the players shifted teams. But a new iteration of other games will not have that external pull.
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Are you SERIOUSLY this stupid and triggered? They’ve said NOTHING about “woke” anything, and your dumb ass goes off like this is gamer gate? Fuck you. Fuck you, you illiterate moron.
This is about how Epic, the corporarion Tim Sweeny leads, a corpo that’s a big player in the games industry, is FAILING to identify that it is quality, not budget that determines if a game sells.
… and then you come in here saying GamerGate shit. Fuck off, you inflammatory dumbass. Seems like you need to get past Reddit culture, troll.
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Someone needs to go for a walk
Yes, the guy I replied to. They need to walk to their nearest college and learn how, “reading between the lines” is NOT about applying any and all conspiracy thinking to a subject…
I saw your reply and regret to inform you the other folks are right, I’m no gamergater and the context isn’t even right. Woke is a descriptor that causes me to buy a game. “Core” referred to gamers that were willing to grind, basically; it was a useful demographic for describing players and I don’t really know what has replaced it.
This ain’t that
Well then. Why not make them not shitty?
It’s the players’ fault for not buying our game.
Modern Ubisoft are the prime example of this. They churn out loads of games every year and they’re just the same old formulaic crap that you’ve seen before. How can you have so much money and so many studios but you can’t get decent voice actors or writers? How can your AAA games still have clunky mechanics and absolutely no original ideas?
Oh look, it’s another shitty enemy outpost, let’s scout it with my drone/bird/binoculars and mark all the enemies so I can see them through walls. Maybe I’ll not use stealth on the next one because it’s a waste of time as the game is piss easy anyway and I’ll be able to kill all of the enemies in a straight fight. And the reward is the same either way. Now I’ve found [collectible item] 37 of 200, I wonder where the rest of them are in this massive vapid open world?
I lived the collectibles in Anacronox, they were little golden taco trophies and their lore was that they used to be highly sought after until it came out that TACO stood for Totally Arbitrary Collectible Object and it tanked the market.
You meet a guy that held on till the bitter end but finally had to sell off his collection because he needed the money, so you give him any you find for trinkets and stuff to help him rebuild his collection.
I played this as a kid, now I feel old. Was a great game but the ending made a sequel necessary, which as far as I know never happened.
I always wondered if I’d like to write for video games (I write sketch, character, musical comedy) but honestly there’s probably very little fun in it, as you’re writing 95% one-sided conversations that are variations on “go to place, bring hack item”
The best written games are all indies now. Text and story heavy games are pretty common, with varying amounts of “game” to carry the story. Check out Citizen Sleeper, Disco Elysium, or Book of Hours.
A reminder, AAA, means nothing. It is a self-appointed term for marketing. Because it means nothing customers apply whatever they think it means. Just like AAAA is also pointless, and stupid.
It’s the ubisoft lookout tower sinulator, you will like it while you mindlessly run around the map to fulfill idiotic chore tasks that trigger your ocd
Open world just somehow means placing the exact same mid gameplay events far apart so you have to spend a minute walking from one to the next.
Fuck you Tim Sweeney. Fuck the fortnite model and fuck you for delisting and shutting down the Unreal franchise.
Just curious as to what you think the Unreal franchise could provide the modern gaming landscape that we aren’t getting now. It always struck me as pretty bland.
The Unreal franchise can provide the Unreal franchise. There was no real reason for epic to delist the games from all the store fronts and shutdown the master servers other then wanting to control their brand. It was costing them pennies to keep that stuff up and to even shudown the single player games was completely.
As far as “the modern gaming landscape” goes, it can suck it. I’m not interested in playing modern multiplayer shooters. I’m tried a few and they come across as walking simulators and fidget spinner simulators.
Oh you meant like…the old games. I thought you were like dying for the Unreal story to continue or something.
Yeah. Epic delisted the old games. You can not purchase a new copy on any of the digital store fronts, even the single player games. They also shutdown the servers that listed the available open servers. Not the game servers themselves that had map files stored on them. The master server was just a list of IP addresses that cost next to nothing to run. You can configure your install of the games to point to community run master servers, but no new players will know how to do that without someone helping them.
Try having an original thought.
Make something NEW
Exactly. I haven’t bought a pre-release game in a while because most of it is buggy and bland. But I bought the new Zelda game at pre-release precisely because it does something new.
If they’re intent on spending more on graphics instead of actually innovating gameplay, I’m content buying older releases that provide the exact same gameplay for a steep discount. I don’t play MP games, so my selection is pretty broad.
But I will buy a compelling new game, I’m just more into story and gameplay than graphics. Most of my money goes to indies, most of the rest goes to Nintendo, and the dregs go to older AAA games that I can get for cheap.
Those studios have been pouring huge amounts of money on graphics under the assumption (i.e. idiocy) that better graphics = more sales. Tim Sweeney is shifting it towards yet another assumption/idiocy: that more forced socialisation = more sales.
And they still don’t get the picture. People won’t buy your games if they’re boring, if they’re too expensive, or if they think that you’re an arsehole. Roughly in this order. That’s it.
How’s about you guys spend some of that budget on QA?
Or like the game instead of the credit card collection form.
Or how about they start making games people want to actually buy?
How about truly new games instead of zero-risk remakes/reboots/sequels or truly awful slop like Concord?
It’s because the games are mid or worse. Took me one google search to find a plethora of games released in the last few years that had high budgets and sold very well. God of War: Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West, Doom Eternal, Hogwarts Legacy, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Last Of Us Part II, and so many more. These are just the ones I played. Just because the only game you guys make is Fortnite after abandoning all your IPs and that your Epic Games Store money isn’t as high as you thought it would be doesn’t mean other people aren’t making amazing games. It’s just you, my guy. I consider myself a patient gamer and I’ve bought more full price games over the last 5 years than I ever have.
Buying a Triple A Game has become a liability:
Online Only
Limited Lease via Digital Store with unknown lifespan
User Account Activation
Actual Fucking Rootkits
Trouble is, companies with shareholders have to chase the profits, and they have to protect them at all costs, which leads to a situation where the AAA companies feel like they have to lock their shit down tight. And that ain’t compatible with 100% of their markets.
It’s become an arms race because they can’t just accept that people will pirate their games regardless of what they put in place. But the more they put in place, the more likely people are to want to pirate.
I just don’t understand how “line go up” is a thing when so many refuse to buy because of stupid DRM. I know we’re in a minority, but surely the DRM doesn’t actually increase sales, right? People who would pirate will just wait, so I doubt it’s actually translating to more sales than if they courted the anti-DRM people.
Yep this right here. The moment they appear like they don’t care about red line going up or CEO saying “no” they’ll remove them from the company and appoint someone who will
I’m gonna take a wild guess that the games with high budgets that aren’t “selling”, are just not selling “enough” to cover the “costs” of the executives. I guess it wasn’t much of a guess:
and they’re not selling nearly as well as expected," Sweeney said. "Whereas other games are going incredibly strong
Do they think that these other games “going incredibly strong” are making the money they hope to make? They’re probably making much less but managing it much better. The savings are almost infinite when you don’t approve every executive bonus pay package.
