Why did it become time-consuming when engines have evolved considerably to develop games easily like UE5(even tho it's not a great performative engine)?
It still needs a tone of work and optimisations. UE gives people a lot of functionality and makes ideation process easier and faster. In the end thought programmers and technical staff need to write a lot of code and make proper optimisations. That's why many UE games made by smaller studios aren't on the same level (visually or performance) as those from bigger companies (well, it's one of the reasons why).
Corporations used to make a big game every 2 year or so and those game were harder to make because artists had to fake realistic lighting and whatnot. Now with raytracing it's much easier. Sounds like bs.
Well, lighting is only one of the many parts that makes a game. But even if we'll stick to that - do we have RT in every game? In games where there is RT, do we have a full package, or only parts of it? Are those games are using RT only or have a older solutions as fall back for GPU's that don't have RT acceleration (or are just weaker). You can say that dev's have now more work to be done - you need to make lighting the old way and the new one in one game. Usually it means that RT is made with lesser effort.
I think it was still too early for RT implementation. Nvidia forced it and it became more popular and some gamers can enjoy it, sure. But I think that until you can't have it in the cheapest GPU's with good results (so like 'for everyone'), then it's not worth it. Consoles can push that better, but the technology is too expensive and frankly still not good enough for dev's to use it freely like, let's say normal maps.
Some users here are writing that dev's should go back to PS4 era visuals. Let's take characters for example. The way we are making models for PS4 and PS5 is the same. We are sometimes pushing the high poly meshes more, but usually this transition means that we can bake higher resolution textures. We can be less picky about polygon budgets. But the time that we spend on making those character models didn't changed much during those 12 years. We still have more or less the same time budgets. The process is a bit more complicated (like cloth simulation, hairs from splines, etc.) but the same time it can be a bit less in other departments.
I would argue that we would need to get back to PS3/X360 generation for better time savings. Or better, to PS2 - this is where we could make models faster. On the other hand less complicated work would mean that we would need to pay attention of other things (but still it sould be faster).
Anyway the main issue is time - it cost's money. Through years our salaries went up, because the cost of living went up too. From my perspective - I'm earning money that I wasn't imaganing when I started my carear. Do I feel it in my life, especially through last eight yeras? No, I feel that I'm still on the same level but I earn more then I was. You can't do anything about it, not in game dev at least. Well, you can fire most of employees and replace them with an AI. Some day at least
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