Hypothetically I don’t see a problem with things like a new entry in Elder Scrolls. The problem (to me) seems more like constantly remaking Skyrim into new editions and for each new console.
That’s pretty much Starfield in a nutshell, Skyrim in space. Don’t get me wrong it’s a fun game but it’s basically reskinned Skyrim with a few new systems bolted on. I’m also noticing some reused assets from Fallout, pretty sure the noise the scanner makes when opening is the same as opening the PipBoy.
“These AAA publishers have, mostly, used this production scale to keep their top franchises in the top selling games each year.”
I never quite understood, why it’s not more popular among big publishers to create smaller games throughout the year. You can have risky AAA titles in development and compete in the AA market at the same time.
It's just easier to advertise a single big game rather than several smaller ones. Even if you are interested in games it's impossible to keep track of everything that's being released. More casual players are aware of even fewer games. That's why AAA games still sell so well because they are the only games a lot of people are even aware of.
If the companies have to split their marketing budget between multiple titles, they would reach a much smaller audience. And even if one of the smaller titles would be a hit, it probably sells fewer copies for a lower price.
Half the cost of the game is marketing. And marketing is an effort that builds upon itself
The more smaller games you have, the more you have to market to niches from scratch. And niches are generally more inclined to be informed users. And it takes a developer with vision to make a satisfying niche hit. Well it always takes vision but…
Meanwhile one big bombastic game will get a bunch of mainstream folks hyped over qualifiers of scope instead of quality. Yes, I am saying hype culture is primarily an idiot’s hobby, but idiots still got cash.
Plus, plus, most studios don’t really see their junior devs as something worth fostering. Better off burning them out and replacing them.
Because the first job of anybody who is responsible for green lighting game development at these huge publishers is to not get fired. Making a game that only just breaks even or even worse makes a loss puts you at risk of getting fired. Even a relatively small game from a large publisher costs a ton to develop and market and has increased risk that nobody will actually buy and play it, at least in the most profitable first few months.
Franchises are so popular with this crowd is because they do not have to worry about name recognition. Hardest thing about getting a brand new title out is just getting people to know it exists and then to be excited about it. Franchises you hardly have to to do any work for that, you know you are going to get press and gamer interest, they sell themselves right up until they release and people get the chance to see if its a house of cards or not.
Its that front loading of sales that they are after, the shops having to buy in stock, idiots who pre order or buy before its clear if the game is broken in someway. Its the most profitable time as the game is at its most expensive, and it enables rapid repayment of the development costs. Games that start slow and have a very long tail of sales do not interest them anywhere near as much as they have already moved onto the next project and already been judged on the initial (under) performance of the game.
Yeah, the first and only time I did a pre-order, the company went bankrupt. I was thinking of pre-ordering something from EA in case there was a curse on me and they would go bankrupt as well.
Everyone will call me naive again but how about we actually hold people to their word?
Why is it not illegal for say politicians to say one thing and do the opposite?
If a game studio says „we‘re gonna make the greatest game ever!“ I would like to make them prove it or refund everyone.
You can’t say „contains no nuts“ and put nuts in it, why is there a caveat for other stuff? Just keep to the truth. Why is it so hard to normalize advertising without tons of hyperbole?
(I‘m autistic and I see telling the truth as a good thing. I don’t understand why someone would like to be lied to. Omit something to not hurt them, ok. But outright lying is wrong on a binary level imo. As in not ok ever.)
You're right, they should be held accountable. Unfortunately, the easiest and most effective way to hold them accountable for the average person is to not blindly trust them. There just isn't good forms of recourse for us to challenge things like this when it happens, so the best bet is to not preorder things so that they have to prove it is what they say it will be.
I agree. But I also believe that we give up to easily because „thats the way it is“. My point is we should push more in the other direction and try to go binary (right/wrong) as much as possible. If something is morally wrong, it needs to be put into law asap nearly no matter the cost.
I agree 100%. In business, you have to prove your innocence when subject to a lawsuit. Same goes for lying imo.
If you ran out of money to keep your promise, you will be able to prove that. Same goes for having to compromise to get some other benefit.
The initial point I was trying to make is that we are so accustomed (imo) to being lied to that we don’t make people prove that they didn’t plan that from the beginning.
For example: where I live, it is common practice to make food pictures for ads or menus that a) dont resemble the final product and b) are made with completely different, often inedible substances to look like a better version of the real deal. Something that an hones picture can never achieve. This needs to be illegal. This is not someone running out of money or compromising but premeditated lying.
They use ai to generate inaccurate pages, cover up text with egregious ads and refuse to remove content written by dissatisfied, migrating users but mostly just make unusable websites in general (I’m sure there’s even more reasons to boycott however)
And before that the majority of their content was scraped from other, well-meaning sources. They just have great SEO, don’t mind copy+pasting, and hope that the network effect makes them to de facto source for [insert topic] while serving you ads.
Their website is also extremely laggy with all the boatloads of ads they keep covering their pages with. The ads really got extremely out of control and made the entire website completely unusable for me - at least it’s possible to bypass that with BreezeWiki for now…
Unity Technologies, known for its Unity game engine, has been facing severe backlash for its recent decisions. Unity adjusted its fee structure, now charging game developers per install with retroactive terms of service changes. This move is expected to negatively impact numerous game projects. In addition, Unity removed their transparency GitHub repo and reversed previous community-centric commitments, leading to widespread industry anger. The CEO’s past decisions to maximize revenue raise eyebrows. Unity rejected a $20 billion acquisition offer from AppLovin in favor of a $4.4 billion merger with Iron Source, a mobile game development monetization company. Tomar Bar Ziv, CEO of Iron Source and a Unity board member, has notably sold around $20 million in Unity stock following the merger. Recent aggressive pricing models seem to mirror those adopted by Twitter and Reddit. Unity’s shift seems aimed at promoting Iron Source’s Level Play service and could significantly harm developers, especially in the mobile sector. Companies like Azur, Voodoo, and Century Games have retaliated by disabling Unity and Iron Source ad monetization. Unity’s recent closure of two offices due to threats from its own employee underscores the depth of its internal and external crises.
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