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[peish]

I dont think numbers mean that much, after all i remember many old games were made by a small team and they were amazing. And the indie games like Outer Wilds prove that too.
Its just that a lot of devs and especially devs in the west are having their priorities on the wrong things.
When they make a game their sole and major focus goes into Twitter approved political and social values first and foremost, then after that (and after graphics and cinematics) they will try to think about making good and creative gameplay systems and creative worlds and great atmosphere.
For example they probably worry and put so much work and thought over voice acting being authentic in the sense that a latino voices a latino character, asian voices asian character and so on... Then they will try their best to insert every facet of life and diverse cultures in the game at the expense of coherent worldbuilding. They will try to do as much gender representation as possible, they will try to have the game SAY something, like have a political message or a social message or something, it cannot be just a story without those things, they have to think hard of a way to include them.
And just for the record im not dunking on those things, if they exist naturally cool, its hard for them to exist naturally all at once so hence why they go out of their way to force them all into a single product but yeah, i think some people got the idea.
What i mean is all of the stuff that actually matter in game quality come secondary.
And i obviously didnt tackle the microtransaction and scam part of the industry as well like Blizzaard.

So anyway what i mean by this post is that numbers of developers isn't really a huge factor imo, its just that some people are interested in making quality video games through talent, passion and love for the medium, and some other people are just interested in making money and appealing to social trends through virtue signaling and preachy activism.
If you play Bloodborne you notice its first about being a game, a creative lovecraftian nightmare with subtle storytelling, great art, intense atmosphere, great gameplay system and generally a lot of passion and talent. It doesnt matter who voiced who, or what gender or culture or whatever that thing was. Its art, its game quality.
Then you play a western game like the Saint Row reboot and its soulless crap filled with twitter tier writing and art quality, its junk.
P.S obviously i picked a somewhat extreme example to make the point more clear, but there exist more example too, just a bit more controversial.

there's the ratchet clank guy tearing down a poster and made a stink about boobs. how many development hours were wasted from this ?

 

[lughnasadh123]

I guess having such a tiny team of 300 is why we still can't get a 60 fps patch for Bloodborne.

From Soft is obviously a great dev refining their formula for decades now but they aren't without faults themselves. But if we're really going to be impressed by what an actual small studio can put out than I'm going to throw Team Cherry out there.

Carry on with the western AAA bashing, it never gets old.

 

[bitbydeath]

I read the same fawning over Insomniac here as well. There are no magic developers. There are no developers that just use unusual skill to make games every 2 years with less people.

It means the games are highly iterative and using a ton from previous games. FS are good, but they are putting out mostly the same game repeatedly with large elements of combat, enemy AI and assets reused over and over.

The devs that take years to produce anything are also highly iterative and use a ton from previous games, they’re just slower, likely due to their engine being a nightmare to code.

 

[Caio]

Elder Ring was made by 300 aliens, FIXED for you.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Lol... 300 core developers is A LOT, this is definitely not a scenario of pulling of something "just".
Also it's not that surprising, they make good games with good art direction, but the actual assets/character models, animations, lighting are all kinda janky

 

[The artful mincer]

Yes because I play conversations. If a game does have good conversations I'll skip it.
Fuck gameplay! Gimme conversations!

Annnnnnd goalposts are moved because you don't want to admit your wrong.Nice!

 

[Ar¢tos]

Annnnnnd goalposts are moved because you don't want to admit your wrong.Nice!

You want me to acknowledge the wasted time and resources in animations for dialogue as if it was something meaningful?
It's not.
In the end Forbidden West is SO similar to Zero Dawn that it feels like disc 2 of Zero Dawn instead of a sequel.
I would much rather they had spend those resources in improving the gameplay so it would actually feel like a sequel.

Your first posts was about money wasted on dialogue, the same thing we are still taking about, yet you accuse me 2x of moving goalposts when we are still talking about the same thing!

Are you high? Do you need to aggressively confront everyone in sight?

 

[The artful mincer]

You want me to acknowledge the wasted time and resources in animations for dialogue as if it was something meaningful?
It's not.

For you! Other players might appreciate it. It's a 30 million + unit franchise it's graphics are a massive part of it's success whether you like it or not.

In the end Forbidden West is SO similar to Zero Dawn that it feels like disc 2 of Zero Dawn instead of a sequel.
I would much rather they had spend those resources in improving the gameplay so it would actually feel like a sequel.

They did! FW is an evolutionary sequel like 99% of sequels it added alot of gameplay additions. Practically every game FROM has done been an evolutionary sequel/game Accept maybe Sekiro but even then it borrows tons from Souls.

Your first posts was about money wasted on dialogue, the same thing we are still taking about, yet you accuse me 2x of moving goalposts when we are still talking about the same thing!

It was to highlight the difference in priorities in dev resources. Just saying one dev can produce games more quickly and is therefore better is silly. You have to account for the full scope of each game. The dialogue was just one very obvious example. FW was a way more complex game than any FROM game ever

Are you high? Do you need to aggressively confront everyone in sight?

Whatever dude you poised the well with your comments about ragnarok and FW being DLC. Honestly I would have been fine if you won't jerking off FROM with your next breath the Hypocrisy was Staggering.

PS I actually enjoy Souls more than Horizon games.

 

[Ar¢tos]

For you! Other players might appreciate it. It's a 30 million + unit franchise it's graphics are a massive part of it's success whether you like it or not.

They did! FW is an evolutionary sequel like 99% of sequels it added alot of gameplay additions. Practically every game FROM has done been an evolutionary sequel/game Accept maybe Sekiro but even then it borrows tons from Souls.

It was to highlight the difference in priorities in dev resources. Just saying one dev can produce games more quickly and is therefore better is silly. You have to account for the full scope of each game. The dialogue was just one very obvious example. FW was a way more complex game than any FROM game ever

Whatever dude you poised the well with your comments about ragnarok and FW being DLC. Honestly I would have been fine if you won't jerking off FROM with your next breath the Hypocrisy was Staggering.

PS I actually enjoy Souls more than Horizon games.

They did Monster Hunter Diary and Déraciné. Those aren't souls games.
My initial post was comparing variety of games and development times, you were the one moving goalposts to compare dialogue of a game with active dialogue with a game with no real dialogue.

 

[The artful mincer]

They did Monster Hunter Diary and Déraciné. Those aren't souls games.

Okay fine

My initial post was comparing variety of games and development times, you were the one moving goalposts to compare dialogue of a game with active dialogue with a game with no real dialogue.

I'm repeating myself... FROM'S produce more games but they lack features and polish (Which you've made abundantly clear you don't care about that's fine) the dialogue is just one example.

When I brought this to your attention instead acknowledging it you changed tact saying conversations aren't important I can't play dialogue etc. Hence goal post moving you did this when another poster brought up polish and optimisation which is frankly even more ridiculous as both those things can effect gameplay massively.

This thread is about FROM producing 2 games simultaneously with 300 devs as if it was exceptional. Me and others are saying maybe they aren't if you consider what their games lack compared to other studios. That's it

Now If you want to argue that FROM focus on right things and other studios waste resources on unimportant stuff. Well that's a different more subjective argument but one I daresay I would agree with you on.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Yes development needs to reconsider. Ultimately does it matter how a game looks? I know I rather play Yakuza or Elden Ring than Horizon or or FFVII R. All that useless force walking and banter during gameplay. They focus on so many things I don't give a shit about, and then the actual games are very formulaic, hand helding and full of waypoints. I also feel FFXVI kinda suffers from this right now, it has shallow combat and almost non existing build variety, and no challenge on its initial playthrough whatsoever.

With some luck you get 3 FFVII games, which is largely based on an existing game to begin with, in the span of 8-10 years. Without factoring in FFVII R was officially announced in 2015. Thats ridiculous. And the end result is completely linear, even chapter based. Ok, the original Midgar part was completely linear too, but I doubt Rebirth will be as open as the original (and I'm not saying OG FFVII was an open world game or something, but more than these games), probably still chapter based too.

Naughty Dog released 2 Uncharted games on PS4, and one was a smaller game. And TLOU 2. Thats a whopping 3 games during an entire gen. And fairly linear gallery shooting games, though I liked TLOU2.

But FROM's output isn't as much as I think, they also slowed down, probably focused more on what they are best at. PS4 gen (2013-2020) saw 4 games not counting remasters. DS3, BB, Sekiro and Deracine. And MH diary for 3DS.

By next month however they have 2, albeit cross-gen, games out for this generation.

I can't really argue, and I'm not shitting on the last gen, even though the output was down on previous generations. I just think we're basically at that breakpoint where the standard for production values is meeting with a sustainability limit: consumer hardware is struggling to keep up (even in the early-to-mid-gen phase), development cycles are stretching almost the length of a generation and game design is becoming more constricted because of it.

I feel like twenty years ago, the ethos was, 'games are never going to be pretty so they have to be fun', whereas these days it's more 'games should be gorgeous to look at and last for hundreds of hours - there should be fun moments too'.

 

[Represent.]

300 is your typical AAA studio size. I don't know why yall keep praising this studio for the most basic things lol

 

[Belthazar]

Clearly something is seriously wrong and broken at studios like EA and Ubisoft where they cannot ship games with 3-4x the staff (incl contractors) and many more years.

What? Doesn't ubisoft ship like 10 AAA games each year?1