A thought I had yesterday playing Starfield, sighing with frustration as janky, broken system after janky, broken system sucked the fun out of my session…
All these different game devs, pouring all these funds & resources / hours into each creating their own special little bespoke game systems, mostly I assume to avoid paying licensing fees to Unity / Unreal. Imagine if they all pooled their resources and knowhow into making one stable, insanely-powerful, insanely-well-funded engine with limitless creative possibilities.
Starfield looks like a game from 10 years ago. Shitty character animations and weird-looking ‘people’. CDPR are, imo, making the smart decision moving over to Unreal for future games. It works, it looks fantastic, it’s very stable. More money and resources to put into the actual process of game dev rather than reinventing the wheel each time.
I don't think you'd ever want an engine level monopoly to that degree, even Unreal isn't by itself capable of the systems that allow Starfield to work the way it does, and would require serious modifications to do so, and not every studio would perform those modifications necessary to complete their game's vision, and then just give all of that to everyone else to piggyback off of for free, there are a lot of reasons to not do that, specifically, what Unity is doing now.
It only seems cool to do that with Unreal because they haven't pulled anything like Unity... yet. Not having done that yet doesn't preclude them from doing it, that's the scary thing about the Unity debacle, anyone engine could turn around and make a horrible change, we just have to trust that they won't, and being given monopoly power makes it too tempting to trust forever.
Nothing about Starfield is that amazing that you couldn’t replicate it in something like Unreal or even Unity.
Graphics are dead easy on either. Exploration is faked, it’s fast travel to a procedural terrain/level, with a few hand made destinations in between, nothing hard. Modular ship design? Simple. FPS RPG system, simple. Physics engines already exist, storing the location of player placed objects is trivial.
What exactly about Starfield makes you think an engine would need serious modifications for a SF-like game?
Check out my reply to the other person who asked the same thing, it's more of a thought experiment of the limitations of OP's idea that all studios could use one engine to accomplish any game. Starfield features some mechanics and systems that are almost vestigial at this point to the engine, but don't exist inherently in Unreal.
Unreal isn’t by itself capable of the systems that allow Starfield to work the way it does, and would require serious modifications to do so
Can you back that up? Nothing I’ve seen of Starfield indicates it couldn’t be done in UE.
Please check out Angels Fall First and Renegade X, they’re made with Unreal Engine 3 and are not AAA titles, so they can give you a glimpse of what even older versions of UE can do.
I'm talking about the Creation/Gamebryo specific sets of mechanics like NPC schedules and the radiant AI or quest systems, those specific things that needed to be created that aren't inherent in the engine. Not that Starfield is really the best show for those anymore, not by a long shot, it's more of just an example of a limitation of OP's idea of all devs using one engine.
Developers could all use Unreal, but if someone wanted to make Oblivion on Unreal they'd have to program and create those systems and mechanics because they don't just "come with the engine". If they made those, and all devs use Unreal, should they be folded into Unreal for future devs to use? Should Unreal program those mechanics or something similar for future devs to use? At what point does it become too complex to bolt on certain systems to an existing engine instead of make one explicitly for it, depending on the type of game?
I don't have a great example for a game so novel in its execution that it would be truly limited by Unreal, because that engine is absolutely powerful, it's more thinking about what would happen in a world with a single engine monopoly. Some studios would end up with their own proprietary offshoot modded engines like all the engines that spawned out of modified Quake engines back in the day, for instance, goldsrc.
It only seems cool to do that with Unreal because they haven’t pulled anything like Unity… yet
Good point. Though, you’d hope they would’ve looked at the current Unity debacle and thought “fuck that for a game of soldiers”, the backlash was resounding and rightly so.
Not sure if I offended some Bethesda fanboys or my idea sound too much like communism but people don’t seem to like it haha.
Starfield is basically a game that's impossible to have an unbiased discussion on. Just by criticizing it you paint a target on your back, and same for when I praise it, though it does have a lot of flaws. I think for the Creation engine in particular it's not only about dodging royalties from using another engine, it's about what they've already put into that engine, and how comfortable the team already is working on it, and the proprietary parts of it that allow for the modding community, console command knowledge, and radiant systems to come along into new Bethesda games.
I would be quite interested to see them attempt working with a new engine and getting over the speed bump of adding these specific systems and implementations into a new engine that works better to begin with, but only time will tell when they finally find that worth it.
Not to mention a lot of them are still crappy at best: Fallout 4 is ridiculous, Fallout 76 is even more ridiculous, Assassin’s Creed turned into a conveyor joke, Cyberpunk 2077 was just insultingly bad at launch and remained that for a long time (haven’t played 2.0 yet, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt), Starfield is another sandwich full of lies, Redfall is not even worth talking about akin to Deathloop, Diablo 4 is a machine to vacuum money on a schedule, online FPS has been nothing but battle royale for what feels like almost a dozen years and now they’re testing the waters with “extraction shooters” looking at Escape From Tarkov (the extraction aspect alone won’t bring them the same fame), and all of that is coupled with ever-increasing system requirements and prices, making gaming the most expensive it’s ever been for really no good benefit.
The only AAA game that left me satisfied on launch in the recent years, like in the days of buying boxes, was DOOM: Eternal; to a lesser extent, Hogwarts Legacy was good, but the story felt lacking and really took away from the fun.
I personally blame the managers in the AAA gaming for not managing the scope creeps that obviously happen in many of these games, stretching the development resources, yet resulting in another “mile wide, inch deep” discourse time after time. Again, DOOM: Eternal is a great example: no crafting, no open world shenanigans, no multiple choices all leading to the same outcome (while not being a conceptual story-telling instrument) - just a focused game with multiple elements that make up the linear progression and gradually increase the possible complexity of one’s experience, finally culminating in a complete FPS sitting atop impressive optimization and great visuals.
AAA is just not worth it these days and hasn’t been for several years, neither in terms of hardware, nor software.
You make some true points, but it's hard to take them seriously when you blanket dismiss entire games that are enjoyed by many as crappy or entire franchises as a joke.
That can’t be the sole metric. The POSTAL series is widely regarded as one of the worst franchises to ever happen in video games, and yet, I and many others are big fans of the entire series in general and are especially fond of some entries in particular; but it certainly doesn’t make these games less janky and subpar in many regards - at the very least, none of them was advertised as something “for the next gen” or “groundbreaking” or any of the big words the AAA industry likes to throw around when advertising.
entire franchises as a joke
Thanks for that, though, I didn’t meant to call the entire AC series a joke, only multiple of its entries after the first games.
I'm just particularly fond of Assassin's Creed Odyssey due to it being the only open world game that is playable as a stealth game with stealth game specific mechanics and a world designed for stealth traversal, there has not yet been any other game designed that way that isn't just light stealth elements that fall apart when you inevitably get caught in two minutes, until someone shows me another game like that, I honestly feel that game to be pushing the stealth genre, which is honestly not hard to do because of the dire state it's in.
And I'm glad you expand on Postal particularly, it goes to show that even games that are despised by many have their own meaningful aspects to be gleaned with the right mindset and with their flaws in mind. I think that when it comes to games of this size it is very hard to be able to say they are crappy, full stop, especially ones like these, or even Deathloop, which I enjoyed. Not as much as Arkane's Prey or Dishonored, of course, but it was still an enjoyable game with an excellent art style and soundtrack that heavily tapped into my love of the 70s, and featured a very nice multiplayer mode that simply doesnt exist in any other game.
I’m totally fine with you enjoying whatever games you enjoy, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. My opinion is that of the corporations and their practices only, not the consumers that happen to find something dear to them in the final product.
Granted, we, as consumers, have - or at least should have - certain ways to leverage the industry and let it know explicitly what we appreciate and like, and what we absolutely hate, but that’s much easier said than do on the scale of modern gaming in general, let alone the AAA gaming, the massive beast it is and the sizes of its many audiences. I do what I can to influence the industry, whenever I can, and that includes talking about it with my fellow gamers to maybe spark the same tendencies in them - but I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from having fun.
Off the thread topic, yeah Prey and Dishonored are definitely one of the greatest games we’ve seen in 2010s, especially Prey.
I think you do bring up some good points about how a lot of the weakest AAA games now are either extremely over-iterative and lose appeal by virtue of sharing large parts of their design with their past iterations, diluting the novel good bits (Assassin's Creed), and trend chasers (that most popular online FPS games chase battle Royale and extraction shooter genres, though battle Royale seems to be finally dying off.
It takes something like Doom, a game that bucks the trends, but doesn't stumble on the execution of something fresh, but rooted in strong game direction and execution. Or something like Hogwarts Legacy, a rote-on-paper genre of game (open world) kept fresh and interesting because of its long-time-coming incredible choice of setting and the ways that it uses that setting to benefit the gameplay and immersion (the magic combat system, broom riding, and lots of sprinkled bits of lore that reward long time fans of the world)
But even then... imagine ten years down the line if there's a Doom 6, and they let history repeat itself...
Its not AC anymore though, they should have made a new IP instead of using an existing one on games that are completely different to the originals in the franchise.
I would agree with that, but then there's a whole debate to be had about whether Odyssey would receive the same funding if it weren't an AC game, and whether it wouldve been executed as well or has as much content in that alternate reality Odyssey.
I guess. I mean thats why they keep using the AC name though isnt it, they had no faith in their products to stand on their own.
I think all the recent AC games could have been a new franchise, they all are pretty much the same base game. I wouldnt even count AC4 as a AC game personally, I guess I just crave that beautiful AC2/Brotherhood experience again that we will never get.
You can enjoy stuff that’s objectively bad. Like fast food. The problem is less the individual games and more the state of gaming as a whole.
It’s not that one game launches as an unfinished buggy mess, despite having a paid for early access period. It’s not that one game increases the cost of entry, and further augments that with season passes, microtransactions, preorder bonuses, always-online requirements and all other bullshit that is modern AAA gaming.
The problem is that it’s the norm. If someone who doesn’t play a lot of games picks up a copy of the Ubisoft game they will probably have a blast. The systems in the game were fun when they were novel fifteen years ago. It’s when you see the same games released year after year, with the same issues, and the same predatory monetisation schemes that it gets trite.
It’s perfectly fine to enjoy Starfield. I hope those who waited so long for it do. For me personally there’s just nothing to get excited about because it’s just another version of the Bethesda game. I have already played it a dozen times before, and while twelve year old me enjoyed it immensely, thirty year old me can find better things to do with his time.
In short, it’s not that fast food is hard to enjoy, it’s just that every restaurant serves the same boring old burger.
What it's really about now is the combination of certain game mechanics. You've played a Bethesda game, and you've played a space sim, but you haven't played a Bethesda game in a space setting with ship construction, planet exploration and resource extraction outpost building, or really any light space sim with solid first person shooting at all.
To me, that combination is novel. Just like AC Odyssey's fusion of a true stealth game and an open world setting is novel and doesn't exist. The particular parts that make up the whole are not novel, the combination and execution are. There is still new ground to cover there.
Its mixed, naughty dog tends to have new, while technically speaking, God of War and Spiderman is considered old IP in the case for Sony.
The statement is nostly true for Nintendo, as the only new IP for Nintendo that went anywhere was Splatoon, and Ring Fit to some extent. While ips like Arms, Boxboy, Astral Chain, Ever Oasis, Sushi Striker fell out of relevance.
This opinion is in no way unpopular. Valve is privately owned and headed by a single individual with tremendous purpose of will, which is how they’ve done so many great things for the gaming industry. The issue lies with said leadership vacating their role (GabeN is getting old) and some greedy bastard taking the company in a wholy different direction. tl;dr: we need a strong competitor, but not now, and ABSOLUTELY not Epic.
There needs to be a strike and a boycott of video games. I believe everyone is absolutely sick of being beta testers for unfinished AAA game releases.
I have been a Diablo fan for years but my last straw was Diablo IV. Not only is the game incomplete, Blizzard is going to charge for yearly expansions. If there was actual content in D4 to start, I would have gladly bought an expansion later. If future seasons anything like Season 1, Blizzard can fuck right the hell off.
What is sad is that Blizzard threw so many employees under the bus by having them lie about the game as well. That is seriously fucked.
I don't think a strike really has anything to do with that. It has to do with treating the workers better.
Now if that also came with extending the time for releases (yes, even the really long AAA development cycles) that could probably improve the quality of said games.
Proof of exactly how important unions are. I never got into gamedev because of its well-earned reputation of being a meatgrinder full of underpaid, overworked devs who never get credit and are the first to be laid off.
It’s for voice actors’ IP rights for AI and non-existent residuals, according to the article. It’s basically about the same issues as the writers/actors strikes.
Though it’s interesting because games have a legitimate use for AI voiceovers. I hope they can negotiate for per-title AI training and residuals, and not just eliminating AI altogether. The potential situational and reactive voiceover seems amazing for games - or even just having an NPC speak your unique name.
IMO the devs could stand to unionize and strike too. God knows gamers all have a backlog and many would hopefully support them for the long haul.
"Eliminating AI" would probably just mean that game studios would stop using SAG actors entirely in the future. There's limits to the power of unions like these.
Unfortunately, that has been proven false many many times. Even if by some miracle online communities manage to organize to that extent, and they manage by some miracle to actually follow through with it... it is still a drop in the ocean compared to the casual market that doesn't care at all.
I think 180k people disagree with you each day playing starfield.
Tho I myself agree that lots of recent AAA games don’t value their 60$ price or whatever. The low effort and quality put into them at launch is just not worth the money.
Maybe sometimes in the future when they are fixed and on discount they could be better value.
Tho hogwarrs legacy for example did not see any update since 4-5 months. And it’s still cursed with bugs. Maybe it’s what we could see with other recent releases too.
I think 180k people disagree with you each day playing starfield.
As a developer myself, I consider Starfield to be a fairly finished product in terms of quality. The outstanding bugs I’ve seen are uncommon and the type I would expect to end up in a production product.
My complaints about Starfield are fairly specific. I don’t like how they built the bounty and forgiveness process, as it’s a bit unpredictable and simultaneously gamable. I can pirate a ship and rack up a $650 bounty, or get a $30000+ bounty pirating the same ship. The way stealth works is comical (if not buggy) in that it’s stealthier to be seen throwing a grenade into a room and running than to shoot someone from hiding. But those (presumably) aren’t bugs or incompleteness, they’re side-effects of the designed systems working as intended.
I’m not a developer, for the record, but I was also pretty impressed with Starfield’s lack of bugs. It’s still got some, but it’s definitely at the ‘normal and acceptable’ level. Not how Bethesda usually releases games.
It’s not about the bugs. I have no idea what bugs are in the game.
The game was advertised as “next gen” priced as a high quality AAA, then it’s just not next gen, it’s last/previous gen with s* optimisation, and bad physics on many parts. And not delivering well on the rest either.
NikTek did some videos on starfield. The channel is mostly news as meme or similar things : youtube.com/
It’s a bit extreme, but we can see the care put into the character, weapon and static object physics and interaction is nothing. It’s year 2000 type of quality, even then there was maybe better character physics.
They didn’t even bother to add a brightness control in the game. No hdr (even if I can’t run it, is a f 60+$ game !). And the start screen could have just been a style, to be “empty”. But with all of this, it’s more likely they just didn’t bother.
And there is plenty more complaints on the game quality.
The game was advertised as “next gen” priced as a high quality AAA
I mean, they were very clear that it was Creation Engine 2, a new iteration on the Creation Engine. What were you or anyone expecting except another iteration on the Creation Engine?
it’s last/previous gen with s* optimisation, and bad physics on many parts
This is a surprise or a disappointment? Nobody plays a Bethesda game for the physics.
And not delivering well on the rest either.
What “the rest” did they not deliver well on? Consensus seems to be that if you like Bethesda games, you love Starfield. If you don’t, you don’t. I mean, I don’t buy the fancy new Madden Football. You know why? I don’t like Madden Football. When Madden 2077 comes out with a new “throw the ball” engine, I’m not getting all amped up that this is finally the Madden Football I’ll want to play. They promised us Skyrim in Space. They gave us Skyrim in Space. The only let-down is that it didn’t have nearly as many “signature bugs” as I would expect from Skyrim in Space.
It’s a bit extreme
Extreme is an understatement. I love CP2077, but they made terrible design decisions and most gamers would have been happier if we got a little less “physics realism” and a lot more game at release. Call me old school, but I feel like “Realistic Physics Simulation” is something that doesn’t belong in most games, and it’s often the cause of bugs and detracts from the game itself.
but we can see the care put into the character, weapon and static object physics and interaction is nothing
You probably want to separate all those other things from interaction. You kinda shoehorned that in at the end of the rant about physics. Even that Nik guy focuses on physics mostly (and drugged out people dancing).
It’s year 2000 type of quality, even then there was maybe better character physics.
I’m thinking you’re a fairly young gamer. You clearly don’t remember year 2000 quality. Morrowind came out in 2002 and Vampire Bloodlines cames out in 2004… Starfield definitely feels like a game 20 years newer than those.
They didn’t even bother to add a brightness control in the game
…full tilt, here? Sounds like you’re looking for a year 2000 game. More and more games leave out brightness control the last decade because you can do it at system level on tv or computer. When I see one of those brightness control gauges, I think “early-mid 2000s”. Bioshock 1 comes to mind.
No hdr (even if I can’t run it, is a f 60+$ game !).
That’s a very cherry-picked feature. HDR is not “the big buzzword of the future of gaming” or some shit, it’s just a color range technology. Big deal? The lack of native RTX/DLSS (otoh) is a bit disappointing, but not exactly unique to Starfield. Most new games don’t have it, and it generally has to do with vendor/API lock-in (something I can respect)
And the start screen could have just been a style, to be “empty”. But with all of this, it’s more likely they just didn’t bother.
Or it was just a style to be “empty” since that was a signature of Skyrim and they were trying to give us Skyrim in Space.
And there is plenty more complaints on the game quality.
Go on. None of your complaints have had to do with game quality so far. They were that it isn’t a Physics Simulator, and that it doesn’t have certain vendor-lock video features you admitted you can’t even run on your system.
I don’t call such a game “finished”.
I think you need to look up what “finished” means. None of your complaints are about an incomplete nature to the game, but for decisions not to include things that were unnecessary to the game’s vision. This isn’t “they left out major questlines halfway through to save money” or “they were 6 months short on QA time”. This was “I want a physics simulator with my cheesy poofs!”
EDIT: Just to add a bit more. I find it interesting everyone wants Bethesda to be a physics simulation. Nobody expects that of a Diablo, or a Baldur’s Gate, or even a GTA. A few FPS games added it. So what? Truth is, people are falling into this “FPS rut” where every game is expected to have (and lack) the features the a few FPS franchises spearheaded. I literally spent my entire life avoiding FPS games because I hate them, and everyone bitches at the good and original games for every time an FPS has a feature they don’t.
You know what else doesn’t have a physics simulator built in? Microsoft Excel.
Sounds like you’re looking for a year 2000 game. More and more games leave out brightness control the last decade because you can do it at system level on tv or computer.
I’m sorry, but not everyone has a high brightness display. Adding a brightness gauge can be very useful for those people.
The rest is just nonsense and Bethesda fanatism. Like
if you like Bethesda games, you love Starfield
Is one of the worst take possible to save your wallet.
Like if they come out with a broken game at 150$ you are going to buy it because you like Bethesda? I cannot agree with this, and lots of steam comments neither. People are complaining about issues with the characters, broken launch mission launch bugs and bad quest variety.
And maybe you need to take a new look at what “finished” means in a dictionary. Because quest breaking bugs and missing features don’t seem to mean “finished”.
I’m sorry, but not everyone has a high brightness display. Adding a brightness gauge can be very useful for those people.
Sure… but that’s not an indicator if a game is complete or if it’s “like a circa 2000 game”. I don’t fault you for wanting a feature that’s not present. But that’s not an objective measure of the game.
The rest is just nonsense and Bethesda fanatism. Like
You know how you can tell someone is approaching toxicity? They fault people for liking things. I disagree with you, therefore I must be a stupid fan who would accept anything.
if you like Bethesda games, you love Starfield Is one of the worst take possible to save your wallet.
Not sure what you mean here. Bethesda flagships are equational games. You expect “X”, so if you want “X”, you give them money for “X”. I dunno about you, but I used to “demo pirate” games because you never knew what you were getting and nothing sucks like blowing $50+ hoping for “X” and getting “Y”.
<span style="color:#323232;">ME: "I want Skyrim in Space"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Them: "Here you go, Skyrim in Space"
</span>
I call that a breath of fresh air. You’re actually holding that against them and me. Why? Have you never bought a game that surprised you unpleasantly?
Like if they come out with a broken game at 150$ you are going to buy it because you like Bethesda?
That’s the opposite of what I said.
Let’s put it this way. I don’t like McDonalds. But I know people who do. When they order a Big Mac, it is exactly the same every single time. So if you’re craving a Big Mac, you will never be disappointed when you buy a Big Mac. I’m not saying a McDonalds fan should drop $150 on a flaming bag of crap. I’m saying that you don’t get a “flaming bag of crap” when you order a Big Mac. You get a Big Mac.
Bethesda didn’t come out with a broken game at $150. They came out with Skyrim in Space. If you don’t like McDonalds, don’t buy McDonalds. But stop treating people who happen to like McDonalds like there’s something wrong with them, or like they’re zealous superfans.
People are complaining about issues with the characters, broken launch mission launch bugs and bad quest variety.
Do you know what moving the goalposts is? It starts with the line “It’s not about the bugs. I have no idea what bugs are in the game.”. Make up your mind, because we’ve had a fairly heated discussion where you chose to make no meaningful statements about bugs. You don’t get to just drop that line, now. And you were smart to do so, because overall consensus seems to be that Starfield is overall less buggy than the new Gold Standard AAA (BG3). I’ve been playing it since release, and have found exactly ONE frustrating bug (related to outpost building), significantly lower than my gaming expectation of ANY game over the last 20+ years.
And maybe you need to take a new look at what “finished” means in a dictionary. Because quest breaking bugs
Let me reiterate your words: “It’s not about the bugs. I have no idea what bugs are in the game.”
…and missing features don’t seem to mean “finished”.
As a developer, someone whining to me that my product isn’t “finished” because it doesn’t have this silly feature they want that was never on our roadmap is annoying as hell. Can you imagine that? Is your house “finished”? I don’t see an indoor pool or sauna, so it can’t be.
First, you can disagree with my opinion and it’s totally fine.
Not sure what you mean here.
Sencond stop commenting every line out of the context of my answer. It makes your answer extremely long to say nothing.
I was saying that the arguments didn’t make sense other than “buy it and ignore the issues” mentality, now maybe I understand better your point.
For my my point? It’s on the Niktek channel.
Whatever the game is. It could cost 60$ whatever I don’t care if it’s bad or not, it’s just a game. What I care about is if the game is worth that amount of money. And in my opinion it isn’t, or maybe if you just want to play a sandbox with loading screens.
If you want game faults it’s mostly on the technical, immersion + developer implication in story telling.
Just look at the latest video on that channel (don’t if you don’t want to get spoiled) : It presents a part of the game where you get chased. You are supposed to get fast to your ship with your crew. The crew does run, but it stops at tables, people… Like everyone is chill jogging. And there is just some cries just for “ambiance”. The run is interrupted by 4 loading screens. When in the ship it’s like nothing happened outside and everyone is chill around the chaser. And keep in mind it’s a f story mission!
I myself cannot call such thing exciting (for a chase part) or something good quality.
Nvidia issues were present on “lower” spec cards with plenty enough vram. Not even sure if they fixed anything. (youtu.be/lGL3fczSXaI?si=C2bAg_k77CAkhfcN) Nvidia could also have been at fault (nvidia deivers aren’t always perfect).
Starfield is overall less buggy than the new Gold Standard AAA
Call finished whatever you want, but a game slightly better than others recent releases isn’t “finished” just because it’s better. It’s a company experimenting at what extent they can screw you before they get hurt. And companies have been doing this for a lot of time, each time, screwing up people’s preorders and hopes.
Now if starfield has everything you need, it’s fine. But if it doesn’t have everything someone else needs to play it at a good quality, the it isn’t fine by my standards of quality.
I’m sorry to feel that way. Looks like sticking to the topic isn’t working. Cheers.
One point, though. You punctuate your point with a statement that sounds like you think no game is to your “standards of quality” if there exists a gamer somewhere in the world who doesn’t get what they want out of it. Seems a weird type of measurement. I usually consider “mostly positive” on Steam a fairly decent bar for quality. But you can consider whatever you like, of course.
Indeed, who are they even going to piss off, it’s not like there’s a ton of people playing in Ukrainian who’ll be offended by the localization choices. (Although maybe in 20 years or something, references to the warship and such might be harder, but I imagine the crimes one will make even more sense)
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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.
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