Why Modern Games Take FOREVER To Make

It has taken Bethesda the same amount of time to make Starfield as it did to make Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim — combined. So what happened? Why does it take so long? Where’s all the games?

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📃 Research Links
Rockstar game releases
Gaming growing faster than any other entertainment
PC Gamer Starfield
Fallout game size
Starfield IGN interview with Todd Howard
Skyrim challenge from DougDoug

[GoingIndie]

Do you think it's worth waiting 10 years for a game to come out?

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[living_phantom]

Back then, game companies were made by gamers, for gamers. Most game CEO’s today are from the company marketing team, and most haven’t even played a video game. There isn’t a passion for the craft anymore, games are just products to them.

[PaulRezaei]

This reminds me of a time around the span of N64 when pretty much all game developers were making only 3D games. It didn’t matter if the game was actually good or fun. What mattered was that it was 3D. Just being 3D was perceived value vs delivering actual value.

[thrashkwan]

If a game takes that long to develop and release, it better be a spectacle.

[LightTrack-]

Skyrim is also in a medieval style high fantasy world.

That's like...the perfect setting for a game designed around going on adventures and taking in the wilds and the snowy atmosphere.

[TrialzGTAS]

Game devs were gamers back them. Felt like 360/ps3 was the pinnacle of playing. It’s mind boggling what was released in 2007/08. Imagine if we had that now. I wouldn’t stop using my console.

[BartixShieldsmen]

With big studios now focusing on live service games it really is now the era of AA and indie games. They might not be the wide spread legacies of Half Life, Skyrim or Minecraft but the smaller more concise indie games really have something for everyone.

[dallas]

Nostalgia is what everyone wants to believe is the reason games don't feel the same, but it's not, the games are just getting worse because AAA companies have quickly realized the average gamer just wants what's "new" not what's good.

[DaWhisper]

I'm personally looking forward to Space Marine 2.
Its one of the only games coming out that isnt trying to be a forever game.

[JurorNumber]

A few years ago there was talk of AAA studios creating a small crew internally that would make smaller games based on concepts or experimental mechanics. The small team would have access to greater resources and their innovations could be built upon by the studio for larger projects. Guess that never really took off but it seems like it should be the way forward to me.

[ozymandias]

This is actually pretty common in the entertainment industry. A couple fantastic movies or shows, the industry explodes, the market becomes saturated, the quality plummets. The markets nosedives, and then the cycle continues.

It's happened thrice with Hollywood, twice with videogames, and once with music. Don't worry about it now. The market is about to crash, and we'll see new gaming Titans emerge.

[TZoomed]

I think fallout 76 is a perfect case study for exactly what not to do in game development. Saying that there are quite a lot

[MrMrfishy]

I’d take a good 8-30hour game per year than a 150 hour game every 5

[scizorzzz]

"I spent my money on cool horse armor in Oblivion"

That right there is the answer.

Once microtransactions and the F2P model took over in the 2010's, the amount and quality well crafted and finished games took a nose dive. Players showed they were willing to pay up for skins, battlepasses, lootboxes, 5 different currencies. Even worse, they showed they were willing to pay for unfinished games too. Gaming has become more mainstream too where the medium is reaching way more than the small percentage of gaming veterans.

Gone are the day where dedicated players seek after the most well-crafted and best designed masterpieces. We are living in the worst timeline, where companies can simply forget about us and seek after the cosmetic glugging whales, and the gambling and FOMO addicts who are convinced to play from a single deceptive trailer. Its far easier and more profitable for them to pump out surface level garbage for the uninformed masses.

[xgrandchampx]

I have been thinking about this.
The amount of absolutely banger games that released from 2007-2011 is mindblowing. They were so fresh and inovative I still go back and play them from time to time.

[iltenahmet]

A lot of people miss that the reason studios like Rockstar are releasing less frequently is that the standards for making AAA game has become incredibly complex. Any of the titles released in the early 2000's by Rockstar wouldn't even be considered AA by today's standards, and I'd even argue that making a game like RDR2 is probably more complex than all of their games combined prior to 2010's. And that's the standard expected of them now.

[MrNewVegas]

2005-2011 was amazing 6 years for games

[ionseven]

Jobless MBAs from the giant finance crash in 2008 came to the only industry booming during that time: gaming. A rough enonomy like right now meant more home entertainment. They brought all their banking, nickel and diming, fee model scheming like microtransactions and other monetizing which was a perfect storm intersecting iPhone's new in-app purchase models, which included games. By the end of Gen 7 microtransactions were everywhere and uninformed customers bought them up by the billions. Now they can drip feed content with some monetizing or when a game isn't monetized it's a rare release to keep gamers placated. They don't want to look too greedy. And one thing is for sure: industry darlings of its rise are long gone, eaten up by corporate interests. The pivot is measurable.

[Eternity]

Games have developed the same issues that movies have. Big studios don’t want to risk a loss by experimenting and falling flat, small studios aren’t spending as much and are often pure passion projects so therefore are much more willing to take riskes.

[suspiciouscheese]

A couple years ago I played through CoD:WaW, Black Ops 1-3 and Infinite Warfare as my first CoD games. I cannot express how refreshing it was to play through a complete story over the course of a single weekend.