Support NeoGAF

[64bitmodels]

Thing is that most of the people that talk like the OP - if you suggest indie games they will just say they aren't interested in that indie shit.

what, you think i'm like those morons?

 

[Not_A-Cop_Maybe]

i just hate people.

 

[Chronicle]

I don't. Why would I? They have helped create and drive 4 generations of consoles for me and thousands of hours of fun!

 

[bender]

We want bigger/more ambitious things in term of productions, we want people to invest in risky projects, the video game industry can't be considered alive without it.

I'd argue we are turning the corner and are getting tired of bloat, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part. I'd further argue that for the most part, the bigger the budget, the more risk adverse developers and publishers have become. Games are so expensive and take so long to develop that one dud can end a company. There are exceptions of course, Kojima made a big budget game centered around package delivery. And yet further, I'd argue there is more risk taken from indie and smaller developers. That's not to say they don't chase trends like AAA and you could argue they are much worse in this regard due to how quickly things can be turned around, but most of the weird and wonderful seems to come from this space.

 

[ungalo]

I don't. Why would I? They have helped create and drive 4 generations of consoles for me and thousands of hours of fun!

Except Microsoft, Microsoft didn't create shit !

 

[Chronicle]

Except Microsoft, Microsoft didn't create shit !

Yes. That's right! Lol

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I see that on Resetera a lot, lol.

 

[64bitmodels]

I don't. Why would I? They have helped create and drive 4 generations of consoles for me and thousands of hours of fun!

the studios and developers did. the c suite mostly sit around and do jack shit

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I don't give enough of a fuck these days to hate on such unimportant things as toys and the people who run them.

 

[Shadax the wizard]

The thread title was almost perfect. If only you’d included ”gamers” in it as well

 

[ULTROS!]

I dunno but I feel like Western publishers are the ones I hear having layoffs and a lot studio closures. Nom-Western ones… Not really, I don’t really hear much.

This is why I don’t support Western publishers much nowadays.

 

[TintoConCasera]

The AAA videogame western industry sure seems like a joke nowadays. They spend +5 years and multiple millions to make games with 0 innovation that plays just like any other game or worse. And that's if the game ever gets to see the light of day and isn't cancelled in favor of the next FIFA/COD or whatever season pass infested crap they think is going to make them earn the next million.

Indies, japshit and eurojank is where it's at, because videogames need tons of talent, creativity and passion, and I don't see the people that have those precious traits subjecting themselves to suits and their corpo crap, but rather try and do it on their own, unless they can't or really need to sell themselves to the devil.

 

[K' Dash]

this is happening to tech companies all over the world... games are software.

 

[64bitmodels]

I don't give enough of a fuck these days to hate on such unimportant things as toys and the people who run them.

we aren't talking about toys though

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

This comic makes no sense. Like a feudal serf had any choice in how they lived their lives. I always see this one pulled out by wannabe Marxists who drink Starbucks and complain about Capitalism on their Macbooks

 

[64bitmodels]

This comic makes no sense. Like a feudal serf had any choice in how they lived their lives

that's literally the point.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

that's literally the point.

The point is that people now have far more choice. It's absurd to compare the situation to that of a peasant 100's of years ago (also a bit dramatic).

 

[Topher]

i just hate people.

You put Killjoy-NL down

 

[Kataploom]

You may not like this, but everything starts by consumers absurdly unreal demands: Exponential graphical improvement each gen, bigger games, more complex simulations, more content, online, etc... And everything at the same time with pristine performance and IQ in a $500 machine.

Of course corners must be cut and bs will be done in order to keep the neverending growing demands.

Everything is set in place for companies to try and get more control over an industry that fall in pieces under its own weight so it's others and not them the good ones that fall.

This shit is unsustainable, that's why AA and indie studios don't suffer so much from these trends.

 

[simpatico]

I hope this happens and there's a shift in output of quality games back to independent devs. I mean, you can publish yourself on Steam these days, if your game is good enough the marketing will take care of itself. Just need to make a great game that people enjoy.

We’re already seeing tiny teams come out with some really impressive stuff the past few years. Turbo Overkill was made pretty much by one guy. The game is massive in scope. Factor in the force multiplier of AI and guys like that can compete with what we consider AAA now. Right now the only thing separating it from modern Doom is textures and poly count.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

We’re already seeing tiny teams come out with some really impressive stuff the past few years. Turbo Overkill was made pretty much by one guy. The game is massive in scope. Factor in the force multiplier of AI and guys like that can compete with what we consider AAA now. Right now the only thing separating it from modern Doom is textures and poly count.

Yeah, I heard that Manor Lords is essentially one dude. Whilst it's not AAA action or anything, it does bode well that the tools are making things easier for small teams to realise grand visions.

 

[Not_A-Cop_Maybe]

You put Killjoy-NL down

 

[simpatico]

on the contrary, AI is going to enable shit fuck publishers to pump out their mass market slop at rates never seen before all while laying off every single developer, artist and designer inside of the inevitably dying studio. Everyone who wants to make games will have no money and can't get any money because they can't get hired.

That's the point. They won't need to get hired. AI could be rocket fuel to indies. Think about how much more powerful small art departments got already. Once that spreads to other areas, visionary devs won't have to work for publishers to make a game that meets their vision. You could make an RPG with Skyrim levels of dialog without a massive VA budget.

 

[odhiex]

It's kinda dumb to hear them like this now

 

[ProtoByte]

layoffs, studio closures, forced account creations, lawsuits over dumb shit. These past 5 months have exposed how disgusting corporations are. They are the single biggest thing ruining the fucking hobby. I sincerely wish they'd all crumble into massive piles of dust and all those higherups to lose all their fucking money.

You don't want that.

They serve hardly any purpose, the studios do all the work, and even then they get spat on and stomped on, and we suffer as players too due to less games being made.

No, there are more new games than there ever have been. That's actually one of the problems this industry is having.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

Gaming industry needs to go back to basics, or revive the 83 crash 1000 times more devastating.

 

[Loomy]

Shareholders is who you hate. They don't care about the product, as long as they're seeing a return on their investment. Of course you have CEOs that are happy to play along with their fucked up games as long as they're being paid tens of millions a year.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

we aren't talking about toys though

Don't get me wrong, I love my toys, my tools, my other hobbies, and even you guys and this board. I just don't get too invested in the heavy details like some of you guys do, and there's nothing wrong with that. I've just never concerned myself with how they're made or managed, just if they're fun, pass the time, and how they make me feel.

 

[Trogdor1123]

nothing wrong with any of that imo. These are businesses. They are not your friends. If you get so attached to them emotionally that these changes bother you I’m very sorry for you (honestly ) and you should separate your emotions from it.

 

[ZehDon]

I don't hate them, because they're just the mechanism to achieve whatever the goals are. The goals are generally: make a good product and use it to make money. This has been pretty beneficial for everyone invovled.

For Xbox, the first goal must have been smudged on the whiteboard, because they seem to be attempting to make money without making the thing people want to exchange their money for: high quality games. With that said, if you employ people to make high quality games and you ultimately get Halo Infinite and Redfall, I wouldn't continue to employ those people either.

 

[Northeastmonk]

It’s stuff like this:

One Nintendo Investor Says He Doesn’t Even Understand Video Games

We’ve heard that investors are determined to get Nintendo games on smartphones, but one investor doesn’t even understand the basic appeal of video games. The investor genuinely felt angry that time…

mynintendonews.com

that makes me wish video games could get funded by someone else. Money is money, but this attitude sucks. I never felt this way growing up as a Nintendo and Sega fanboy. I didn’t think about the men and women who sell the product. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to realize that this entire industry is about making money. There are people who run game companies who never turn on a video game console. I assume this, so it’s not a fact. All the pieces add up when you’re a hardcore fan and you see these companies fail to do what they were known for in the first place. It’s discouraging, but I am happy to say that I still enjoy gaming (probably more than I ever did). Are some things better left in the past? Probably and some things do get better even when you see the money hungry sharks take over.

 

[Felessan]

layoffs, studio closures, forced account creations, lawsuits over dumb shit. These past 5 months have exposed how disgusting corporations are. They are the single biggest thing ruining the fucking hobby. I sincerely wish they'd all crumble into massive piles of dust and all those higherups to lose all their fucking money.

Best case scenario, you get to publish your product with compromises and splotches mandated by the greedy publisher, and they keep the rights to your IP to do whatever with it they wish.
Worst case scenario, You can make a transcendental masterpiece that's gaming's equivalent to the godfather, the great gatsby, Star Wars, and Shakespeare and they will throw it, you and your team in the dumpster because it didn't sell enough units or make enough money. And that's assuming they didn't handicap the potential revenue your product could generate by strapping it to some bung subscription service- if they did you may as well already kick the bucket.

They serve hardly any purpose, the studios do all the work, and even then they get spat on and stomped on, and we suffer as players too due to less games being made.

Devs agreed to it. And gamers agreed to it by buying games from devs who agreed to it.
Some people just feel entitled to criticize corps doing AAA games as if they owns thems. You can always go back and support self-published indies. You will be straight into the future you want.

Corps do a lot stuff actually - they bear the most risk, they do marketing, they actually pay for the job done. As in any contractual job - you can lose your job, but you can't lose your money. And those who do investment into the game - they lose money itself when game fails.

 

[Hudo]

I hate consumers, not corporations. Corps only do what they ought to do. Which is to get money. Sure, there are "good" ways to go about that and "bad" ways. Bad ways are often easier, which is how Paradox Interactive, for example, can even exist. And that's how EA are also still a thing; they're getting hard carried by the EA Sports games and their monetary extraction schemes.
But consumers will really buy and pay for anything end even associate their personality with the brands. So it's not surprising that corps are doing what they're doing; they're just exploiting people who want and like to be exploited.

 

[Danjin44]

I hate consumers, not corporations. Corps only do what they ought to do. Which is to get money. Sure, there are "good" ways to go about that and "bad" ways. Bad ways are often easier, which is how Paradox Interactive, for example, can even exist. And that's how EA are also still a thing; they're getting hard carried by the EA Sports games and their monetary extraction schemes.
But consumers will really buy and pay for anything end even associate their personality with the brands. So it's not surprising that corps are doing what they're doing; they're just exploiting people who want and like to be exploited.

In all honetly you have a point......If crappy COD sells lot of copy of course big corporation is gonna try sell you more of it.

At end of the day consumer demand and corporation supply.

 

[JimmyRustler]

In all honetly you have a point......If crappy COD sells lot of copy of course big corporation is gonna try sell you more of it.

At end of the day consumer demand and corporation supply.

Yup, stop buying games from these greedy corpos. As we’ve just recently seen with Helldivers 2 the gaming community can achieve quite a lot when they unite. If we don’t and most people continue to buy that trash for the quick fix there is no one else to blame but us.

 

[arkhamguy123]

These past few months? Gaming has been taken over by suits decades ago.

It's like everything that is good and becomes popular, big multinationals will want to profit from it. The main draw from having these huge corporations backing them is the fact that they foot the bill and allow for games that would never be possible otherwise. The drawback is of course the fact that they own gaming.

It was awesome when gaming was owned by nerds and people with a genuine passion for the medium, but this hasn't been the case in well over 20 years. The problem with artists and creators is that they ain't got a fucking clue on how to manage money. The problem with suits is that they have no fucking soul. In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves. This is seldom the case these days, however.

Decades? Nah I’d say the corporatization of gaming was completed somewhere in the 2017-2020 space. With early precursors present 2014-2017.

 

[Pejo]

This is exactly why I've been hoping for a crash of the industry sooner than later. A crash is necessary in capitalism, it's a correction. Infinite growth is literally impossible when you're marketing to a limited number of potential customers.

• When growth was up during COVID - cool! "it's organic"
• Then people stopped being cooped up, so maybe DLC/Microtransactions were the big thing to drive growth. Season passes and hooking gamers with FoMO - Less cool!
• Then those are down, so how can we get cheap money - ESG Funds - Uh oh! Cheap loans for compromising your artistic vision, but it's for a good cause right?
• People getting sick of that? Time for Layoffs! Less employees => More short term profit => "growth" on financials.

At this point it seems to me that they're using every avenue they can to pump stock and show growth before the inevitable crash happens. I don't know how much worse it can realistically get before the crash and then reset and grow again.

 

[ahtlas7]

You forgot forced

 

[SHA]

hm

Who doesn't like watermelons?

 

[Toons]

OK.

You'll get called a commie for saying things like that.

(I agree with you)

Been saying for years graphics aren't as important as gam3play and people having fun making games make more fun games.

 

[March Climber]

we aren't talking about toys though

His comment might have a double meaning and be a reference to the past, when the powers that be categorized video games under the toy industry.

If that had never happened, game preservation, licensing, and I.P. importance might have been just as strong as the movie industry. Instead to this day, there are still massive publishers and platforms who treat games like toys. You know, something to have light fun with and then chuck aside into a bin, never to be purchasable again once it leaves store shelves.

 

[The_Observer]

I fully agree OP but unfortunately, this is how everything works in the world, not just gaming.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil”

 

[M1chl]

 

[FunkMiller]

I don't. Why would I? They have helped create and drive 4 generations of consoles for me and thousands of hours of fun!

No they didn’t.

The people who did do all that left the industry a long time ago.

Now, much like the entertainment industry, video gaming is full of tech bros, middle management cunts, and people from other sectors like banking and investment, who have only come in because they smell a short term personal profit. None of them have a creative fucking bone in their cancerous, bonus chasing bodies.

 

[SHA]

These past few months? Gaming has been taken over by suits decades ago.

It's like everything that is good and becomes popular, big multinationals will want to profit from it. The main draw from having these huge corporations backing them is the fact that they foot the bill and allow for games that would never be possible otherwise. The drawback is of course the fact that they own gaming.

It was awesome when gaming was owned by nerds and people with a genuine passion for the medium, but this hasn't been the case in well over 20 years. The problem with artists and creators is that they ain't got a fucking clue on how to manage money. The problem with suits is that they have no fucking soul. In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves. This is seldom the case these days, however.

I agree, but what stops a new passionate team from gathering and make something completely new? I support this approach over capitalizing from creative artists and preventing them from making something new, cause they have these qualities.

Back in the 90s and late 80s in some rare cases, nobody got a clue about expectations, new contents just kept releasing one after the other, I think we still got the chance to get that in modern games as long as capitalists don't put their hands on these guys, right now it seems indies is the safest approach for that to happen.

 

[Skifi28]

It's never too late to find a new hobby. I've recently started building model kits on the side. If things go bad, I can always go full time.

 

[nkarafo]

I hated them ever since Bullfrog and Westwood died.

 

[IDKFA]

No they didn’t.

The people who did do all that left the industry a long time ago.

Now, much like the entertainment industry, video gaming is full of tech bros, middle management cunts, and people from other sectors like banking and investment, who have only come in because they smell a short term personal profit. None of them have a creative fucking bone in their cancerous, bonus chasing bodies.

Without corporations video games wouldn't exist as an industry.Companies like Nintendo, Sega and Sony pumped a lot of money into the industry to make it the industry we all love today. It takes a lot of money to design, produce and release a video game console.

Publishers also played a vital role in growing video games. Before online gaming stores, publishers were needed to fund the publication of physical video games. Without them a vast amount of studios wouldn't be able to afford to publish their games.

 

[FunkMiller]

Without corporations video games wouldn't exist as an industry.Companies like Nintendo, Sega and Sony pumped a lot of money into the industry to make it the industry we all love today. It takes a lot of money to design, produce and release a video game console.

Publishers also played a vital role in growing video games. Before online gaming stores, publishers were needed to fund the publication of physical video games. Without them a vast amount of studios wouldn't be able to afford to publish their games.

The fact you put all that in past tense speaks volumes... and backs up my point. Thanks!

 

[BbMajor7th]

I see that on Resetera a lot, lol.

No they didn’t.

The people who did do all that left the industry a long time ago.

Now, much like the entertainment industry, video gaming is full of tech bros, middle management cunts, and people from other sectors like banking and investment, who have only come in because they smell a short term personal profit. None of them have a creative fucking bone in their cancerous, bonus chasing bodies.