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[cormack12]

Still standing for Concord man.



Video games have never been more popular, technically impressive, easily accessible to players, but the games industry has certainly seen better days. Skyrocketing budgets of AAA projects and diminishing returns on live-service games have resulted in over 23,000 jobs in the video game industry were lost in the two years. Over 30 video game development studios have ceased operations including Arkane Austin, Volition, and most recently, Firewalk Studios. While games as a service can be extremely lucrative, some projects never see the light of day, like Naughty Dog’s cancelled The Last of Us Online. On the other hand, some games do come out in some form, only to be pulled offline, like SEGA’s Hyenas, which never made it past a public beta, or PlayStation’s massive flop, Concord, which was completely taken offline just two weeks after launch. What’s the solution? There’s no clear answer, but smaller projects could allow for more innovation - after all, look at recent indie hits, like Balatro, Animal Well, or UFO 50, which were made by small teams.

 

[Generic]

Two more weeks.

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Sounds like "singleplayer games are dead" from years ago.

 

[AMSCD]

Shorter (lower budget) episodic games are probably the answer.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

Have my prayers been answered?

 

[ReyBrujo]

but smaller projects could allow for more innovation

So it's about the time of the decade where Nintendo is right again.

 

[Wolves hunt in packs]

They spin it as they want.. like last year didn't Hogwarts Legacy sold more then 20m copies? Make a good game and it will sale.

 

[{insert code here}]

Oh no, not yet not even close .

 

[Crew511A]

I think a better title would be "Players' tolerance for garbage has run out." Hyenas and Concord are probably perfect examples of this. I'm sure GTA6 and COD still have licenses to print money.

 

[RagnarokIV]

it's just shit games (and DEI). Plenty of AAA games are doing fine.

 

[Doom85]

Saying stupid shit like this when Marvel Rivals comes out in a few days and has been getting mostly positive reception?

 

[clarky]

Bubbles burst on selling turds they mean.

 

[mayham2199]

I think a better title would be "Players' tolerance for garbage has run out." Hyenas and Concord are probably perfect examples of this. I'm sure GTA6 and COD still have licenses to print money.

I think it's more that there is just to many great games out there that if something is just ok/good it might not be enough most of the time.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Most triple a games today fucking blows, outside a select few, which for me has mostly been high quality remakes of old games. New IPs are far and few between, and most have zero to none innovation or risk taking, feeling stale and boring. Indie and AA is where the magic happens these days.

 

[Skifi28]

Oh look, IGN farming for clicks.

 

[Snowdonhoffen]

I'm sure neither BG3 nor Wukong had 100+ million dollar budgets to be fair. Which is a talking point in the video.
If anything, the lesson to learn is you don't need to spend 150+ million, let alone 200+ million in a AAA game to make something people want to play

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Shorter (lower budget) episodic games are probably the answer.

Or...make games people want to play like Elden Ring, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Wukong, etc...

Imagine a game like TLOU, GTA, RDR, Ghost of Tsushima, etc as episodic. The nightmares...

 

[TintoConCasera]

If anything, the lesson to learn is you don't need to spend 150+ million, let alone 200+ million in a AAA game to make something people want to play

Amen.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

 

[analog_future]

It's not just Concord though.

Just over the past couple years, it's

• Final Fantasy XVI
• Dead Space
• Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
• Alan Wake 2
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

etc.. etc..

That's a lot of good-to-great AAA games not finding the audiences that the devs/publisher was hoping for, and it's concerning. At least for me it is.

 

[Ozriel]

We all know why Black Myth Wukong succeeded. China did a lot of the heavy lifting…it’s drawing from massively popular Chinese mythology.

There’s a reason why you don’t have Stellar Blade or Rise of Ronin up there in that meme.

 

[TintoConCasera]

It's not just Concord though.

Just over the past couple years, it's

• Final Fantasy XVI
• Dead Space
• Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
• Alan Wake 2
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

etc.. etc..

That's a lot of good-to-great AAA games not finding the audiences that the devs/publisher was hoping for, and it's concerning. At least for me it is.

Maybe neither of those games are very good nor fun to begin with? Because other games do find their audience.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Most triple a games today fucking blows, outside a select few, which for me has mostly been high quality remakes of old games. New IPs are far and few between, and most have zero to none innovation or risk taking, feeling stale and boring. Indie and AA is where the magic happens these days.

Yes! AAA have stopped taking risks for the most part. They know the recipe of games since roughly PS3 era and apply a new coat of paint. Remasters, remakes, sequels. It's filled to the brim with safe, budgeted and designed by committee games.

AA and indies are where its at for the most part.

edit : Wukong is the very definition of AA. Game science's first big game but they are a tad over 100 employees, started with 7. This is small.

Baldur's gate 3 while it had massive success, is pretty much indie. Larian is just that based. They risked the house on it from DoS sales. They developed it, published it.

BG3 is III, Triple-i.

"III" (Triple-I) has been used to refer to independently funded ("indie") games that meet an analogous quality level in their field; i.e., indie games that have relatively high budget, scope, and ambition;[31] often the development team includes staff who have experience working on full AAA titles

 

[Punished Miku]

Everyone can go buy Slitterhead now I guess.

*crickets*
*tumbleweed*

 

[tkscz]

The phrase AAA came about when it came to budget, not really quality. The point of the video was that games don't really need a $200 million budget to be of great quality. That this model is unstable and to only pay attention to two games and bring up one failure ignores the bigger picture. Ubisoft, WB, Square-enix and EA among others are also having issues with games not meeting expectation or outright flopping after having huge amounts of money put into them. Hell Square is the funniest here as it puts out smaller games that do gang busters for them but their bigger games never seem to reach expectations.

The AAA or extreme budget game bubble, if not already popped, will eventually pop like the big budget movie bubble did. It's unstable to expect to keep profiting off games while having their budgets skyrocket so badly.

Maybe neither of those games are very good nor fun to begin with? Because other games do find their audience.

FFVII: Rebirth and Dead Space remake were incredible games and same with Rift Apart. But reaching audiences who want to play JRPGs, survival horror or action platformers is getting more difficult over time, especially with the price of games going up. $150 - $250 million budgets require games to sell way more than they normally would. This issue has little to do with the quality of the game

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Shorter (lower budget) episodic games are probably the answer.

This is absolutely not the answer. If anything, the studios that develop these type of games are the ones that are getting shuddered. Big AAA games are doing fine for the most part. It is the lower budget AAA and AA studios that are getting the axe. Big AAA games are getting greenlit quite well, and there is still a lot of money to be made

 

[Horseganador]

Just because some games failed doesn't mean anything, Concord was a disaster but Helldivers 2 worked incredibly well, let's not lump everything together.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Bad AAA games do not equate to a AAA bubble bursting, lmao.

 

[intbal]

IGN?

Oh, you mean one of the many mouthpieces of Ziff Davis (not the full list).

 

[Buggy Loop]

P.S. Also fuck Bethesda for making Prey team work on GAAS for chasing a bubble. Just like Square Enix pretty much killed Eidos Montreal by making Deus Ex developer make GAAS shit.

and FUCK you gamers for not buying Prey 2017 or immersive sims in general. That's why we don't deserve nice things.

Thankfully indies have taken the genre and done amazing things with it in the past years, but you won't buy that either will ya.

 

[Mercador]

What about Ubisoft's AAAAs ?

 

[Impotaku]

Back in the day they were known as shovelware now they just cal them AAA.

 

[TintoConCasera]

But reaching audiences who want to play JRPGs, survival horror or action platformers is getting more difficult

Why would that be the case? Baldur's Gate 3 sold a lot and it's a CRPG, which imo is way more of a niche genre.

If those games you mention didn't sold that much, imo, is because one is a remake and the others are console exclusives.

 

[HJuggernaut]

I find indie games more interesting anyways

 

[Arsic]

Burst? No.

It’s just finally showing proof that you can’t keep doing 5-7 year 500 million development cycles of trash and expect sales.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

The phrase AAA came about when it came to budget, not really quality. The point of the video was that games don't really need a $200 million budget to be of great quality. That this model is unstable and to only pay attention to two games and bring up one failure ignores the bigger picture. Ubisoft, WB, Square-enix and EA among others are also having issues with games not meeting expectation or outright flopping after having huge amounts of money put into them. Hell Square is the funniest here as it puts out smaller games that do gang busters for them but their bigger games never seem to reach expectations.

The AAA or extreme budget game bubble, if not already popped, will eventually pop like the big budget movie bubble did. It's unstable to expect to keep profiting off games while having their budgets skyrocket so badly.

Or, it's companies like Ubisoft, WB, Square Enix, and EA that believed gamers were gullible enough to keep buying mediocre games with very little to no innovation that are the actual problem.

recent failed big AAA games such as Star Wars Outlaws, Suicide Squad, The Avengers, Dragon Age Veilguard are not signs that the industry is in trouble. It's a sign that gamers won't put up with mediocrity

This year just looks bad in a vaccum because pretty much every big AAA game was mediocre and "failed to meet expectations", except for FF7 Rebirth. Talk to me next year when Doom, Mafia, GTA, Borderlands, Death Stranding, and Kingdom Come, Ghost of Yoeti, Assassins Creed Shadows get released. We won't be talking about a AAA bubble

 

[GHG]

People have had enough of shit AAA games and aren't easily fooled by marketing and fake/paid previews anymore.

It's not an industry wide crash, yet.

 

[Esparadrapo]

It's not just Concord though.

Just over the past couple years, it's

• Final Fantasy XVI
• Dead Space
• Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
• Alan Wake 2
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

etc.. etc..

That's a lot of good-to-great AAA games not finding the audiences that the devs/publisher was hoping for, and it's concerning. At least for me it is.

Going by the inclusion of two S:E games I'd say that for those two and at least a couple more, the expectations set by the suits were unrealistic to begin with. Alan Wake 2 was an effort to hurt Steam and hurt itself in its confusion. Dead Space was a 1:1 remaster, of course it wasn't going to sell.

 

[SF Kosmo]

This feels more like when the MMO bubble popped. Live service games can make a killing but the market can't support that many at once. When you go into a niche that's already being served adequately, gamers are liable to ignore you.

People didn't ignore Concord because it was it was woke or because it was AAA, they ignored it because it was pretty much the same thing as Overwatch but worse, and who gives a fuck about that?

 

[StereoVsn]

Hogwarts sold 30mil copies. Cyberpunk sold 30 mil copies. BG3 sold quite a bit over 10 mil copies. Wukong sold over 20 mil copies. Ghost of Tsushima sold very well (don't remember the exact numbers).

Shit like Concord crashed. Veilguard, Suicide Squad, Outlaws under-performed.

IGN - The WORLD IS ENDING! AAA IS DEAD!

Edit: Despite my dislike for the new Sony crap, Horizon/Niche-Man 2/TLOU2 all sold like hotcakes too.

 

[kevm3]

AAA gaming hasn't burst. Woke, agenda driven games with ultra safe and repetitive gameplay mechanics has failed.

 

[Kataploom]

While I think people here are right, I think also IGN is right on this one too. I mean, AAA publishers can't throw 200M to everything and expect everyone to buy it "just because it's the newest and shiniest" thing, I think the wow factor already changed, specially for younger people that are more impressed by art direction than empty fidelity

 

[Ozriel]

Maybe neither of those games are very good nor fun to begin with? Because other games do find their audience.

That's quite the pivot from your earlier position.

FF7R underperformed: who cares if it is fun to play?
Dragon's Dogma 2 disappointed: true, but still was fun to play imo.
Stellar Blade is irrelevant: ok but was it fun to play?

And the same with the rest.

It's fine we disagree, I think it's just that we have a different idea for a "good year" is. For me, as a user, a good year means getting a lot of releases that are fun to play. And I got them for sure.

 

[Fabieter]

They spin it as they want.. like last year didn't Hogwarts Legacy sold more then 20m copies? Make a good game and it will sale.

So many good games sold absolut dog shit over the years so I dont think its that "easy".

 

[StereoVsn]

So many good games sold absolut dog shit over the years so I dont think its that "easy".

Which AAA great games sold like dog shit over last few years?

 

[Alexios]

There were always flops and there were always overlooked games chasing a trend they didn't catch, even if good. Don't see what's different now when there are legit game quality reasons for most current AAA failures as others still stand tall and do offer things lower budget games can't.

Just as folks were saying B games were gone but they never were as we got plenty of good shit higher budget than Joe Indie working from his basement (and not only from small indie studios, look at Square's many low, mid and high budget JRPGs), now they say this for AAA, clickbait bs.

 

[Fabieter]

Which AAA great games sold like dog shit over last few years?

The first one that comes to my mind is a bit older, but everyone cheerleads sleeping dogs nowadays and it's an absolute awesome game and no one appreciated it at release.

 

[jakinov]

People need to stop using terms like "bubble". Whether or not AAA is declining, dying or whatever. it's not because it's a bubble. People like throwing around the term bubble because it pops and bad things happen. But lots of industries see consumer shifts and disruptions that lead to at least parts of it declining/dying that's just life/business.

A bubble would be for example if gaming was doing so well the stocks of companies became worth so much money that the value of the industry was way more than the industry is actually worth. Making it extremely fragile like bubble and having really negative affects (not just job loss like most people have in mind) once the bubble bursts because a lot of people relied on it being worth a certain amount.

 

[TintoConCasera]

That's quite the pivot from your earlier position.

Different topics and even different games being talked about.

Hope that at least you had some fun delving into my post history lol.