The thing is that by and large, only #2 out of your list is included in the big profits of these companies.
The other thing is somewhere between 1 and 3, namely grown-ups with cash from work but who find it absolutely normal to pay a certain amount per week for their favorite game. Because they’ve never known different.
And then of course, there’s the really fucked up group: problem spenders. Who are explicitly targetted and exploited by these shit companies.
You know, in a world of dozens and hundreds of game makers losing their jobs on relatively short notice because some rich fart gambled too high on a potential buyout, the lesson should really not be “They’re killing your favorite video games”. I’m sorry, but that’s just in poor taste.
I mean, personally it just feels like there’s too many games. And consequently too many game studios.
On top of that, the cleft between the production value of a triple-A game and anything not that is gotten so big that the moment you aren’t some Call of Duty or Dragon Age or something, you might as well be a 1-person hobby project that as a result has no need to keep making money as it can trivially just go at whatever pace it wants. Add that it’s not uncommon to make the vast majority of your money via an unfinished game that you can then leave unfinished so you can reduce costs while making most of the money, and you got a recipe for disaster for any A or AA development studios wanting to scrape by.
You basically got to have your own little reliable niche, while also being lean enough so you can make games with extremely little cost per game. Hence everyone turning to mobile, where exactly that MO has become established.
Still need to play that. But soooo much to play, and I already got a few games I’m actively playing. And I stopped buying onto backlog when I said I’ll need to improve that spending habit of mine on NY 2015. Heh, actually stuck to one of my NY promises for once. 😅
Yeah, far as I know they also started to struggle with Risen already, as cost started going up for 3D RPGs with open worlds. If you are a niche creator, that’s a problem as your niche cannot be endlessly expanded.
I never tried ELEX or ELEX 2 (kinda should, but eh, bit late now), but they looked fine. Nothing noteworthy, but decent. But the thing is, I have a long long list of just RPGs that I still want to play that are on my backlog, like even Baldur’s Gate 3. And now Dawntrail for FFXIV just released. It’ll be years more before I get around to ELEX. I wish they had gone more something more artsy in style than just generic-3D open SciFi world, as that ages badly. Look at Mass Effect 1 and so on.
Definitely. Age of Wonders 4 was awesome to play at launch, but it definitely feels more “complete” now that all 4 DLCs are out. It feels like it was clearly hacked to pieces to be sold separate.
Geezus fucking hell, 40 minutes. For the answer that is just “do the same thing as the first Switch because that thing prints money despite what everyone predicted”.
I mean sure, someone needs to make a decent Left 4 Dead 3, yeah. But that should not be Resident Evil, especially considering how mediocre the action-centric titles were in hindsight (they were good for their time though, granted).