Support NeoGAF

[MagusMajul]

Gaming studios today are massive, with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions. Why don’t these studios focus on releasing two or three great games every year on a consistent basis?

These games wouldn’t need cutting-edge graphics AA or single A titles like Trepang2 or Mad Jack Mullet prove that quality doesn’t require a massive budget. They should focus on fun and, affordable-to-produce games. Studios could reliably recoup costs rather than risking $200 million on a single game every decade that might flop or be quickly forgotten.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Gaming studios today are massive, with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions. Why don’t these studios focus on releasing two or three great games every year on a consistent basis?

These games wouldn’t need cutting-edge graphics AA or single A titles like Trepang2 or Mad Jack Mullet prove that quality doesn’t require a massive budget. They should focus on fun and, affordable-to-produce games. Studios could reliably recoup costs rather than risking $200 million on a single game every decade that might flop or be quickly forgotten.

I dont disagree but AAA is in a state where they focus on diminishing return graphics and stale gameplay due to being risk adverse

 

[kevboard]

you and me both.

having a steady atream of AA titles should be a no-brainer. especially now where AA quality games can be made by super small teams.
Pumpkin Jack here for example is an Indy title that is pretty much an homage to PS2 era platformers, and was made almost entirely by a single developer, with only a tiny amount of additional credits for preliminary stuff like music and VA.



and yeah, the game has issues and is far from perfect. but it's made by basically 1 guy... imagine what a team of 10 or 20 professionals could do compared to this 1 dude.

 

[LectureMaster]

I think the general idea is that when you release next game, you need to have perceivable improvements over previous ones, in terms of gameplay, scope, depth, etc. Otherwise it's likely to be criticized as "more of the same" or "that's not a sequel it's a DLC".

So even if you started with a quality AA game, after several iterations, the latest game would inevitably accumulate to a large project that requires hundreds of million to produce.

If we have to find some rare unicorns to fit your description, I think this one. Quality and stable releases every year, at the cost that they had to re-use a lot of assets so it's hard to say each installment is a brand new refreshing experience.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I dont disagree but AAA is in a state where they focus on diminishing return graphics and stale gameplay due to being risk adverse

Because nobody is interested in making them in these large companies. The same way Microsoft went third party - the returns from a small Xbox ecosystem were not up to Microsoft ambitions.

 

[ZehDon]

Slight correction, OP: budgets in the hundreds of millions. There aren't many AAA games left whose budget clocks in under $100m. In terms of what we're seeing, it comes down to being able to reliability deliver what the market has shown willingness to buy so you can consistently make money. With that in mind, what's a safer bet for a publisher:

1. Trust Developers can make a creative game that players will resoundingly applaud such that word of mouth will drive sales
2. Throw another 50 people on the team to pump up the visuals and "cinematic presentation" so you can sell the game using trailers and screenshots

Developers have demonstrated that they cannot consistently deliver Option 1, while gamers have shown they will consistently buy Option 2. Hence, prettier games with more cutscenes - which just so happen to be the most expensive aspects of a modern video game.

In terms of profits, a AA game can make 5-10 times its budget, but that might still only be $15 million profit. One big Assassin's Creed success can bring in north of $500,000,000 profit. Even if you made four AA games a year, and every single one brought in maximum revenue, you're not even 10% of what a single big AAA game can rake in.

 

[MagusMajul]

I think the general idea is that when you release next game, you need to have perceivable improvements over previous ones, in terms of gameplay, scope, depth, etc. Otherwise it's likely to be criticized as "more of the same" or "that's not a sequel it's a DLC".

So even if you started with a quality AA game, after several iterations, the latest game would inevitably accumulate to a large project that requires hundreds of million to produce.

If we have to find some rare unicorns to fit your description, I think this one. Quality and stable releases every year, at the cost that they had to re-use a lot of assets so it's hard to say each installment is a brand new refreshing experience.

Atlas is another amazing studio, they release kick ass rpgs year in year out as dose arcsystemworks. Some of the Japanese studios have things on lock down.

​

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Gaming studios today are massive, with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions. Why don’t these studios focus on releasing two or three great games every year on a consistent basis?

These games wouldn’t need cutting-edge graphics AA or single A titles like Trepang2 or Mad Jack Mullet prove that quality doesn’t require a massive budget. They should focus on fun and, affordable-to-produce games. Studios could reliably recoup costs rather than risking $200 million on a single game every decade that might flop or be quickly forgotten.

i think the reason is just business. I was going to write them, but is easier to use Chat GPT and it's very well explained.


Yes, there are several business and marketing terms that encapsulate the strategy of focusing on high-budget, high-return projects rather than multiple smaller ones. Some key terms include:

1. Tentpole Strategy​

• This term is widely used in the film and entertainment industry. A tentpole movie is a major release that supports the studio's overall revenue, much like a tentpole holds up a tent. These films are designed to generate massive profits, sustain the brand, and fund other, less-profitable projects.

2. Event Marketing​

• This refers to creating a sense of occasion around a product, making the release of a big-budget movie feel like a cultural event. This drives audience engagement and ensures high visibility.

3. Economies of Scale​

• This business principle involves maximizing efficiency by focusing resources on fewer, larger projects to reduce per-unit costs and achieve higher returns. Disney applies this by channeling its resources into big projects that can dominate global markets.

4. Blockbuster Strategy​

• In broader marketing, a blockbuster strategy focuses on producing a few big hits rather than diversifying into many smaller efforts. It's a high-risk, high-reward approach.

5. Brand Amplification​

• This term refers to leveraging large projects to enhance brand visibility, loyalty, and engagement. Big-budget movies often become vehicles to strengthen Disney’s overall brand (e.g., Marvel or Star Wars).

6. Winner-Takes-All Market​

• In industries where the top performers capture the majority of the market share, companies often focus on creating "winners" rather than spreading out their investments.

 

[MagusMajul]

Slight correction, OP: budgets in the hundreds of millions. There aren't many AAA games left whose budget clocks in under $100m. In terms of what we're seeing, it comes down to being able to reliability deliver what the market has shown willingness to buy so you can consistently make money. With that in mind, what's a safer bet for a publisher:

1. Trust Developers can make a creative game that players will resoundingly applaud such that word of mouth will drive sales
2. Throw another 50 people on the team to pump up the visuals and "cinematic presentation" so you can sell the game using trailers and screenshots

Developers have demonstrated that they cannot consistently deliver Option 1, while gamers have shown they will consistently buy Option 2. Hence, prettier games with more cutscenes - which just so happen to be the most expensive aspects of a modern video game.

In terms of profits, a AA game can make 5-10 times its budget, but that might still only be $15 million profit. One big Assassin's Creed success can bring in north of $500,000,000 profit. Even if you made four AA games a year, and every single one brought in maximum revenue, you're not even 10% of what a single big AAA game can rake in.

damn I never thought of it that way. We are in a dark place, it's the same reason why most movies nowadays suck too.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Because retards are zooming in on Naughty Dog Bald Lady Peach Fuzz Rendering Tech.

 

[squidilix]

Because AA is more expensive than before and do not recovery all cost from developpement / marketing.

 

[nemiroff]

GTAV made ~8 Billions.

 

[Haint]

Because studios that cost $60+ million US dollars a year to operate can't survive on releasing a couple indie games a year. Every single release would require catching lightning in a bottle, which is effectively impossible. These multi-hundred million dollar AAA blockbuster games you're referring to are expecting to generate like $1 billion+ in revenue, and the CoD's, GTA's, and Sony's Tentpole titles have like a 99% win rate on achieving and exceeding that goal. Your proposed scenario would be like 0.001%.

 

[Rockman33]

If Xbox or PS puts out a game with not great visuals it will get shit on. Unfortunately that’s just the way things are.

 

[Laptop1991]

We've been asking for great games being released regularly for years now, and the industry is ignoring us, they just want live service cash cows constantly with crappy gameplay, they don't want to make them at present, hoping we all get addicted to one of them and handing over money for new content all the time.

 

[Last Hearth]

Because games are no longer made by small teams who are content with turning a profit. They are made by studios that are owned by international publicly traded companies who compete for capital and investment in the biggest capital markets in the world, where you have to out perform all the other corporations. Why should some one give you money to make a game when they could be giving the money to Apple, or Amazon, or NVidia, or Google, etc? Your game better be expected to generate returns that is competitive with what those corporations ROI.

 

[Parazels]

I don't think it's possible to make a good game
for 6-12 month.

 

[Kataploom]

The philosophy behind this approach taken by AAA studios is that they are supposed to be so out of reach technologically compared to anyone else that they remain virtually untouchable in the market, this is why cutting edge tech is so important for them, and that worked in 7th and kinda in 8th gens, but with Nintendo and the many skillful indies out there doing the exact opposite it has became a burden imo, people these days expect more a non photorealistic great art direction rather than more realistic graphics, many players are burnt out of artificially lengthy experience and prefer more focused ones, etc. So all these AAA studios do just started to lose any sense in current days market imo.

 

[Chukhopops]

I think the main reason is that the market is saturated and you can’t really be visible as a AA game without a large marketing budget. They come out without any fanfare and are drowned out in the AAA releases: look at games like Alone in the Dark, Kunitsu-Gami, Visions of Mana, Ys X and how quickly any discussion died about those.

It doesn’t help that AA games are often reviewed by AAA standards.

 

[Thief1987]

I also don't understand why they don't release new games every month, every week even, there are so many developers working in these studios.

 

[EDMIX]

Slight correction, OP: budgets in the hundreds of millions. There aren't many AAA games left whose budget clocks in under $100m. In terms of what we're seeing, it comes down to being able to reliability deliver what the market has shown willingness to buy so you can consistently make money. With that in mind, what's a safer bet for a publisher:

1. Trust Developers can make a creative game that players will resoundingly applaud such that word of mouth will drive sales
2. Throw another 50 people on the team to pump up the visuals and "cinematic presentation" so you can sell the game using trailers and screenshots

Developers have demonstrated that they cannot consistently deliver Option 1, while gamers have shown they will consistently buy Option 2. Hence, prettier games with more cutscenes - which just so happen to be the most expensive aspects of a modern video game.

In terms of profits, a AA game can make 5-10 times its budget, but that might still only be $15 million profit. One big Assassin's Creed success can bring in north of $500,000,000 profit. Even if you made four AA games a year, and every single one brought in maximum revenue, you're not even 10% of what a single big AAA game can rake in.

Thread.

A fucking underrated comment.

 

[Starbuck2907]

I don’t understand how they blow a $100 million on marketing when all I ever see is a couple of YouTube ads for most AAA games. Sure, a few make a big splash, but a lot of them have huge marketing budgets and I don’t see where it’s being spent.

 

[Ozzie666]

Stock holders aren't happy with such small profit margins. Big companies were happy wiith profits on 3DS for example, they weren't large enough. However the development cost and risk was much lower. Blame share/stock holders wanting crazy ROI.

 

[Wildebeest]

The reason why is Final Fantasy 7 in 1997 and its success. Marketing people want a huge tent pole release that they can push and push, so as many people know about it as possible. They want every game to be a huge make-or-break event for the studio or even the platform it launches on. This is a model copied and understood from the film industry.

 

[existensmaximum]

I'm not sure what you consider "great games" are the profitable ones. Profit is the one and only driving force for companies.

 

[FunkMiller]

Because share prices don't go up on modest profit.

 

[elbourreau]

Shareholders are the problem.

Keep studios away from shareholding process. Keep their freedom.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Is it because nerds use digital foundry to tell them if they can like a game or not?

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I don’t understand how they blow a $100 million on marketing when all I ever see is a couple of YouTube ads for most AAA games. Sure, a few make a big splash, but a lot of them have huge marketing budgets and I don’t see where it’s being spent.

Just for fun - number of billboards in America (Google) 354,000. If you put $100m into billboards in the USA and ignored the rest of the world, what would you get?

Cost to hire a billboard (per month, Google) $1-14k

100 million divided by 7k = 14285.

354000 divided by 14285 = almost 25.

So, your $100million dollars will buy you one in every 25 billboards, in the USA for a month and nothing in the rest of the world.

If those numbers from Google are accurate and my maths haven't embarrassed me, $100M doesn't do as much as you might think is the answer, I guess.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

On top of what has been said in the thread already, let's add the fact that pumping out good games regularly is NOT easy. You need actual talent to do so and that is missing in the present industry.

 

[LazyParrot]

Nintendo is already doing that, more or less. But industry rules don't apply to them, anyway.

Sony and MS, on the other hand, are basically at war and both have historically used hardware power as their main weapon. They will always push push cutting edge graphics and production values to "win" the generation and justify newer, more expensive consoles. And if this board is anything to go by, there seems to be no shortage of fans who not only like it that way, but will actively complain if the visual difference to games from the previous generation is too small.

 

[bitbydeath]

Studios are bloated which slows down development. They intentionally hire people that don’t know anything (eg. how to code) because they are cheap, they then hire managers to look after the people who know nothing and the actual developers who know how to code are forced to babysit the staff who know nothing instead of actually coding themselves.

 

[MarV0]

Steam has a constant flow of AA games for every taste, you couldn't keep up even if you dedicated all your time to playing those games.

I feel for console bros though at the mercy of AAA woke trash.

 

[Sakura]

I do think a good alternative would to maybe have 1 smaller team work on a AA or A budget game, even something like Stardew Valley tier budget/workload. Maybe have an event or something where devs put together prototypes of game ideas (kind of like a game jam I guess), and if any of them are good ie employees vote it the best, etc then create a small team with a small budget of 1-10 mil or something and have them put out the game. If it fails, whatever, it was a low budget endeveour and you still have your flagship titles in production, if it's a hit then gamers are happy, you made a bunch of money, and now you have another franchise you can milk.

 

[Fbh]

Because the major fuckup most big devs did was not setting the right expectations for their audience.
They've spent the last 15 years focusing primarily on every new game needing to have better graphics, more content and a longer runtime with as little recycled content as possible.
And now they can no longer go back because if you don't give your audience what you've essentially trained them to expect from you, they are going to be upset.

Notice how the studios that didn't fall into this trap don't struggle nearly as much with this.
Yakuza fans don't mind mid graphics and tons of recycled assets because Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has never really given us a reason to expect something else. And it allows them to release games on a steady and frequent pace.
Same with From Software and even massive companies like Nintendo.

 

[Skeptical]

Ask Ubisoft, which released an excellent Metroidvania a year ago in a critically acclaimed franchise that flopped.

Or ask Square, which released Diofield Chronicles, Harvestella, the Voice of Cards trilogy, and other small projects over a period of a couple years, all of which flopped. Or speaking of Square, consider the short, sad, history of Tokyo RPG Factory.

Unfortunately, the economics aren't as simple as you might think. People balk at $50 AA games, and even $30 AA games generally don't get much visibility. Sadly there are plenty of people who would look at a big studio doing an AA game and declare that it sucks and they should be making a AAA game instead (seriously, go look back and read through some of those Prince of Persia Lost Crown threads). There are a lot of indies that are passion projects; people who do it in their spare time while keeping a day job. Indie companies that try to keep a team together on a payroll and string together multiple hits struggle too.

The reality is that the market is oversupplied. There are just so many games out there of all sizes to play. Regardless of whether you think your game is great, it may just not catch on. Sometimes you get lucky. Despite all of Square's other bombs in the AA world, Team Asano got a bunch of goodwill with Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler that has given them a string of decent successes. But that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Paperboy]

They are companies first and foremost. Bigger games mean potential for bigger profits. I'm sure every studio would like to release great games on a consistent basis, but just because the budget is smaller doesn't mean it will become succesful. Concord proved that you can't fabricate hits, such things need to come from bright people with creative ideas.

 

[Pandawan]

Gaming studios today are massive, with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions. Why don’t these studios focus on releasing two or three great games every year on a consistent basis?

These games wouldn’t need cutting-edge graphics AA or single A titles like Trepang2 or Mad Jack Mullet prove that quality doesn’t require a massive budget. They should focus on fun and, affordable-to-produce games. Studios could reliably recoup costs rather than risking $200 million on a single game every decade that might flop or be quickly forgotten.

I thought so too. Why the hell did Sony invest 400 million in one Concrd if they can make 10 games with a budget of 40 million with a smaller scale, but if even a few of them are successful, it will still make them more

 

[tmlDan]

they do that an then they only sell a million copies and the studio has layoffs, both strategies come with huge risk to the studios - for the larger publisher? they want to make more money and higher returns but its higher risk higher reward in most cases.

The games you describe? very unlikely to get a huge hit because there are SO MANY of these games on steam and on the PS, xbox, and Ninty stores from indies and others. High budget is not possible for most devs, so they're actually more unique from a graphical perspective (likely not gameplay of course, could be unique or shallow, really depends)

 

[tmlDan]

I thought so too. Why the hell did Sony invest 400 million in one Concrd if they can make 10 games with a budget of 40 million with a smaller scale, but if even a few of them are successful, it will still make them more

Sony didnt, it was less than half that, thats just how much was supposedly invested into the studio since it became a thing but that wasnt even Sony related.

 

[Horseganador]

Because people want AAA with great graphics, announce an AAA with a low production level and you will be crucified by the entire network.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Like filming all 3 Lord of the Rings Movies back to back.

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

I'll be fine with a lot more focus on great AA games like Stellar Blade and Granblue Fantasy Relink or smaller budget AAA games like Resident Evil games so we could get games faster. And leave the really long ones for things like GTA, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout.

 

[Pandawan]

Sony didnt, it was less than half that, thats just how much was supposedly invested into the studio since it became a thing but that wasnt even Sony related.

That is not the point. Even if so the question remains. I can rephrase it. Why the hell did Sony invest 200 millions in one Concord if they can make 5 games with a budget of 40 million with a smaller scale, but if even a one of them is successful, it will still make them more.

The same can be said about Spider Man 2. The first game's budget was one third of the second's, and SPIDER MAN 2 is basically just a big expansion for the first game (same city, same mechanics, same everything, just a new part of town, activities and story - that is WoW expansion tier content). Why spend 300 million on a Spider Man expansion when they could have spent half that amount - 150 million on Spider Man 2, and the other 150 million on three smaller games for 50 million each.

Something is broken in their planning. They clearly need to change something.

 

[ExtendEmbraceExtinguish]

Gaming studios today are massive, with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions. Why don’t these studios focus on releasing two or three great games every year on a consistent basis?

These games wouldn’t need cutting-edge graphics AA or single A titles like Trepang2 or Mad Jack Mullet prove that quality doesn’t require a massive budget. They should focus on fun and, affordable-to-produce games. Studios could reliably recoup costs rather than risking $200 million on a single game every decade that might flop or be quickly forgotten.

These games still have to sell against AAA juggernauts. The real question is where is this money coming from as investors do not like risk hence AAA being too similar.

 

[OccamsLightsaber]

That's not what the shareholders want lmao.

 

[rkofan87]

I think the general idea is that when you release next game, you need to have perceivable improvements over previous ones, in terms of gameplay, scope, depth, etc. Otherwise it's likely to be criticized as "more of the same" or "that's not a sequel it's a DLC".

So even if you started with a quality AA game, after several iterations, the latest game would inevitably accumulate to a large project that requires hundreds of million to produce.

If we have to find some rare unicorns to fit your description, I think this one. Quality and stable releases every year, at the cost that they had to re-use a lot of assets so it's hard to say each installment is a brand new refreshing experience.

like loztok some did say its just 70$ stand alone dlc

 

[LectureMaster]

like loztok some did say its just 70$ stand alone dlc

Yes while I think the game is as awesome as the first one, I do understand the criticism as they re-used the entire map. Even though there are huge evolutions in terms of gameplay, the magic sense of exploration did fall flat compared to Breath of the Wild.

 

[Last Hearth]

I don’t understand how they blow a $100 million on marketing when all I ever see is a couple of YouTube ads for most AAA games. Sure, a few make a big splash, but a lot of them have huge marketing budgets and I don’t see where it’s being spent.

Part of that is really just to keep the marketing department running. They allocate the cost back to individual games, but the department with all of its employees are a constant running machine and you just stick the next product onto to that marketing conveyor belt.

 

[PeteBull]

I feel u, OP, some games we consider AA made great profit and still look very good, but the dev studios were smart with budgeting them, fairy recent example is latest Robocop:Rogue City game from polish dev:

RoboCop: Rogue City - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It only got metascore in 70s but thx to only 3years of dev time, in poland(no dei, relatively low salaries) it was very profitable from the get go despite not having crazy sales

Łatocha revealed in an interview that it took the team a total of three years to fully develop the game

In the United Kingdom, RoboCop: Rogue City debuted at fourth place in the physical charts.[37] The next week, the game fell to 13th place, after a 64% decrease in sales.[38]
Rogue City exceeded Nacon's expectations and was the publisher's biggest launch, with the game reaching 435,000 players in its first two weeks since release.[39]