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.
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.
Let your devs explore their wildest dreams! Nintendo gets it. Too bad they have too mny legal sticks up their ass…
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.
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.
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.
Certainly not the worst, I think they have good quality control. Quite similar to Disney, they are makers of good quality and safe products, able to satisfy the mass.
In addition to a number of products that push boundaries of what’s possible in the industry.
That star wars sequel really was something…
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.
I will give you that the first iteration of a series, like Mario Kart, is innovative, but the 16 next iterations, not so much. While Nintendo doesn’t make Pokemon, they are the publishers, technical platform provider and co-owner of the Pokemon Company, they would have all the leverage necessary to push the Pokemon games to innovate if they were interested in innovation.
Donkey Kong Bananza just came out.
Mario and Zelda games are constantly innovating.
Your complaint doesn’t align with reality.
Bananza is pretty darn similar to the studio’s last Mario game. Same gameplay loop at its core, but with a DK and map destruction skin thrown on top.
map destruction skin thrown on top
That doesn’t make sense if you think about it for a second. The entire game is designed around the destructible environments. One of the reasons it’s so good is that they use the interior of the landscape. And the gameplay loop is absolutely different.
But Nintendo also gets credit for Super Mario Galaxy; you’re right about that.
It’s a meaningful difference, but it’s still, at its core, “go into level, do little challenges to find a thing and progress the story”, except this time it’s banana instead of star.
I like how no one mentioned watered down donkey Kong rockband.
Anyone arguing against the fact that they’re milking dust out of their financial cow is delusional.
So I think what’s going on here is that you’re actually just a hater.
A little lol
wait, they made a portmanteau of bonanza and banana? HA! I have to play this game
What do you mean by first iteration of a series? Do you mean the first entry into the franchise?
I mean we can argue about the degree you can change a go-kart game but I think Nintendo does try different things. Mario Kart 64 was 3D with 4 players, Mario Kart DS did online play, Double Dash did the two drivers in one kart. Mario Kart Wii did motion controls. Mario Kart World Tour (I haven’t tried) but it has this open world driving concept, I think?
They also do milk their IP and they do release a lot of sequels like Mario Party and such.
However, at the same time Nintendo takes risks with their console/games like no other, I feel.
I won’t back their legal strategies though, I don’t think anybody should.
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.
dr mario was a tetris ripoff
Tetris was just a go fish ripoff.
Dr. Mario was clearly inspired by tetris, but it had enough of its own unique mechanics (using matching blocks to get rid of germs being the one I can think of) that it’s not just a shameless copy.
Uh-huh. But did you focus test that statement, though?
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’m thinking you can pay to have more chances to re-roll the dice.
I prefer to pray for that instead
I’d rather kill
Congrats, now you’re going to have a roguelike zombies mode where you progress off levelling instead of wall buys.
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 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.
So…Skyrim?
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.
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.
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.
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.
On that we can agree. The game is great at giving players a plethora of paths and options.
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?”.
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 manyMBAsanymoreFixed it for you ;)
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.
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.
Or “Ultra Realistic Graphics”
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.
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”.
Wasn’t that skull and bones?
Yes
Was both of them I think. And both were a joke.
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.
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.
which is a reskin of 1994’s Shariki which was a version of 1989’s Columns - both made by bedroom solo programmers.
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
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
