It seems to me there is a bit of a schism in modern games, now of course this is going to be overly general and not every game will neatly fit this, but I feel as if many games these days fall into either “AAA” - highly funded, highly produced amazing graphics with weak-ish story and simplistic game play, OR the passion projects from Indies and smaller studios that can sometimes be built around a really compelling story and/or gameplay (yes a lot of indie games are bad too), but tend to lack funding and production value so just don’t have the eye candy of the bigger (often hollow feeling games)
Clearly not all games fit neatly into these boxes BG3 being a good example, but it seems to be an outlier. How do we send the message to the big studios and VCs out there that we want eye candy AND compelling story and gameplay?
Easy, by not paying for lackluster products and speaking with our wallets. Sadly though this can only be done at an individual level. Any attempts to try to get the masses involved will fail.
To be fair though we’ve already seen it other games that have come out this year that have just flopped. Concord anyone? Consumers have always held the power, it’s just a matter of realizing it and putting it to action.
With your wallet. Don’t buy the pretty game with the shallow gameplay or bad story. Buy the indy title that’s not as pretty, but has compelling gameplay or interesting story. The big devs will eventually notice.
And they’ll try to buy the indy or muscle into the indy space. Then we’ll be able to see if they learned anything or if they are just chasing trends.
The trend chasers will put out a slightly prettier indy title with mediocre gameplay and a story that falls short. These will be filled with unnecessary microtransactions. Game might be worth playing. Individual call.
But we might start seeing some indy titles with a big budget publisher behind them. Meaning we get good graphics to go along with the compelling story and solid gameplay. The indy studio will have to fight the big publisher to maintain their vision and stave off predatory microtransactions. Watching Arrowhead Studios (developer of Helldivers 2) do this with Sony (the publisher and IP holder) right now.
Yeah, I hear this. But the hype machines are so good! They always seem like they are going to be amazing and sometimes they actually feel that way when you start playing them, but for me at least that only seems to last a few hours/days/weeks these days.
I have been disappointed by so many of the games i have played in the last 2-3 years. I miss finding a game I love and playing it for years and still loving it. nothing ive seen recently has the staying power of UO, or CS or Diablo, or DAoC, for me at least.
This is the correct answer. These big studios only understand two things. Money and login metrics. The problem is there are too many non gamers playing games today.
Hey man thanks for sharing that link about MoonBeast! This has got me excited. I’ve been diving deep in their discord and reddit and what i see is encouraging.
Agreed, as glamorous as Richie Rich’s pool with all the depth of a puddle.
Also agree. Depending on the game of course for me, but I’ve found far more entertainment in indie games lately than from big studios.
The only game I’m looking forward to grinding next is the new Monster Hunter. I loved Worlds, spent a good amount of time in that game and kept coming back. I know it’s not for everyone, but I love it.
Aside from that though, I can’t think of any big studio games coming out I want to play.
As fans, unfortunately we don’t have much choice to influence that. It’s the free market doing the heavy lifting. For example, the more Concords, and Suicide Squads, and Anthems, or even D4s to a certain extent are made and eventually fail spectacularly because the free market rejected them, the more those companies will start investing in hopefully better projects.
AAA companies can afford to hire talented artist as permanent employees or just for the duration of a project. They have resources, more time to spend on the visuals and the details. Promoting their product is usually done with “eye candy” as you call it.
For compelling story and gameplay, you need talent to manage the project and it is certainly a lot more difficult to find. Talented artists usually don’t disappoint. The outcome is a lot more difficult to predict when it comes to game direction. There is sometimes a lot of talent in indy companies and they release fantastic games. When hired by AAA companies it does always give the same result.
Because thats where these studios throw their money around… into marketing. Instead of paying talented developers they buy streamers and commercials and make deals with KFC, etc. Marketing runs these big studios nowadays.
I watch 3 different games this week on twitter. Game 1 has an ad for a new mount in their cash shop. Game 2 has an ad for sale on some game combos. Game 3 has a link to some good patch notes.
These large studios waste millions of dollars due to corporate greed and they make decisions because they want more money, not more fans.
I know that sounds contradictory but the reality is that decisions often get made based on a metrics system that is meant to maximize profits instead of fun.
I suppose this makes sense. after all Talent is self-evident with a composer or visual artists portfolio, but success of lore/gameplay is usually achieved by a team and maybe not so easy to identify the right individuals.
I tend to think it may live a tier higher than the lead dev/ game director level, like C-Level direction being short sighted and preferring to target a million players today instead of 100K for the next 5 years, but that is an unqualified assessment based on an outsider’s observations.
Just buy game from studio who has proven record of making good game. Fromsoftware, Larian studens cd projekt red and few Japanese game makers. Don’t buy any game with Game of Service, those are game which release first then fix later. Many game made by Japanese studios are good, because they focus on making a good on release instead of rely on on-going MTX to maintain the game.