AAA publishers get called out by Warhammer Space Marine 2, Metaphor Refantazio, & PlayStation devs

SOURCES

TOP PATRONS
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
[BOSS]
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
- Phil
[PRETTY LEGENDARY]
- azalea

[YongYea]

It's good to see some sensible takes among devs of high position who seem to have the right idea and intentions on how games should be made.


TOP PATRONS
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
[BOSS]
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
- Phil
[PRETTY LEGENDARY]
- azalea

[omniadoc]

When CEOs get huge paychecks but layoff people... yea, the gaming industry is fucked.

[juantony]

They treat us like we’re a bunch of idiots. All we ever asked for the past 10 years is for them to make a fun video game, apparently that’s too much to ask.

[whoahanant]

Alot of these "game companies" are no longer GAME companies. They're business, straight up. It's why their games keep coming out as crap to normal audiences. They're not making games. They're making money machines.

[maxderrat]

Thanks for highlighting Metaphor: ReFantazio. That game is, in my opinion, the essence of what hardcore gamers are asking for nowadays: content-rich single player experiences with an intriguing world/story, alongside great music, voice-acting, and art direction. I hope it, alongside game developers like Saber and Remedy can serve as examples for emulation as we move forward.

[awsm]

People like to say 'The gaming industry is screwed'. I like to say 'The AAA side of the industry is screwed'. Small teams. Indie teams. Studios who put their communities first, are all fine. They make a good product, it sells, they get paid grandly. What's Unsustainable is AAA producers pouring hundreds of millions in funds into projects that were doomed to fail from the start. Full of ideas no one wants nor cares for. Built to be more of a Live service investment rather than a world to get lost in. We're in no danger of seeing the Gaming industry failing.

But large names who keep getting it wrong again, and again, and again. Losing millions each time. Those are the ones who are going to burn out.

[mikkelnpetersen]

What game companies should do:
1. make good game
2. People buy good game because we like good products
3. Profits

What they're currently doing
1. Make sh*t game
2. People dosen't buy it because we don't like sh*t products
3. Blame everyone but themselves for not being succesful.

[simon]

I'm glad Atlus is seeing more success with their JRPGs abroad, hopefully helps secure future localization of SMT games.

[DragonAlchemist]

So why is there a lack of creativity?
Publishers trend chasing.
Not actually trying to just make a good game.
One that doesn't need to be focus on ALWAYS ONLINE.
Make a food fun game.
Damnit!

[starsuper]

Based Metaphor director. I think his comment should send a message that even though he works for a AAA company, he can still tell the difference between right and wrong

[arsmariastarlight]

The current trend in AAA games nowadays is having a leader that don't know about games. If you looked at good modern games that's succesful, most of the time, the leader of the game's development is someone that's truly know and passionate about games instead of overpaid CEO that only care about bottom line

[ardent]

I swear Saber Interactive is slowly becoming one of my favourite developers, they managed to do something that Coalition couldn't figure out with Gears of War.

[dovakeen]

As a dev.... scope scope scope. If it wasn't in scope to begin with it won't be there after.

[TakeARideWithMe]

When companies stop chasing trends and start working toward making games that start trends, that’s when the gaming industry will start taking steps in the right direction

[DarkstarArchangel]

People are tired of Live-Service crap, monetization schemes, rejection of common-demand, selective biases, terrible game directors, false promises, preferring investors over customers, the blatant ignoring of 90% of what gamers want that it makes AAA companies more blind than Helen Keller.

This is why Private/indie companies are succeeding, and public/big corporations are sucking hard. I expect the public industry to crash soon, too many garbage games have come out this year.

[ShuckleII]

3:39 Oh absolutely. Games that pay attention to every second of gameplay always are amazing to play. A lot of companies make different mechanic systems, stitch them together, and never check if the stitches are fun, tedious, infuriating, boring, glitchy, counterproductive, etc. When the full experience of a game is polished, all of it is fun and it keeps the pace of the interesting things going, it makes you more immersed. It's possible it's like a combo multiplier in a game, the more seconds you spend doing fun things with no interruption, the more fun the experience is.

[banyanyas]

Basically big AAA now:
300 millions budget
-250 millions = executive salary
-30 millions = 3000 employee's salary
-20 millions = actual budget for the game

[webbie]

Its about leadership, if you look at bethesda, todd howard spends more time smelling his own farts than actually leading his developers to making the game fun.

[FullMetalPanicNL]

One thing that helped out Space Marine 2 is that they showed it to a bunch of journalists, they actually went through all the previews and found out....our game needs more work. They ended up delaying for almost a year and improved the game.

If Sony actually had some outside critique maybe Concord wouldn't have been so crappy.

[Boss_Fight_Index_muki]

If Space Marine 2 was great because of the source material, then why wasn't Star Wars Outlaws an amazing game?