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[jcorb]

Sony and Microsoft are each sitting on a treasure trove of nostalgic IP's that I could imagine being exciting for a large number of smaller audiences.

Jak & Daxter, for example; it wouldn't make sense to make a AAA title in the series, but something with a smaller budget? I would think that would be an easy win.

Different industries are different, of course, but in my own professional experience, the idea of relying on a couple of narrow, extremely expensive campaigns is... well, in the fundraising world, you would never be hired at a larger organization with that mindset. Not unless it was a junior position, anyway.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend I don't enjoy the spectacle of a big-budget game when it's firing on all cylinders, but we've obviously seen those are often a gamble, so they try to be "safe" when it comes to content (ironically, usually making the game less unique and appealing).

Given how many studios Sony and MS have to play with, I would just think that leveraging all that talent properly, you could be pumping out a lot more smaller titles, to really fill in the gaps of those major blockbuster releases.

I dunno; even if you're ultimately just trying to appease shareholders, I would think "slow and steady" is going to be a lot safer than the "high risk, high reward" strategy that the major publishers keep pushing.

 

[tommyleelynn]

Sony also taking that route by remastering their games.

Honestly instead of making 1 failure of a franchise like Concord. They could revive half a dozen to a dozen dormant franchises with a far smaller scale than comparable AAA development modern games by just even chasing HD PS2 or PS3 graphics.

The hardest part of making these investments isn’t the money or risk to reward, it’s finding suitable devs that match their intentions with legacy franchises. Still, that should be easier that swallowing a billion dollar pill every financial year.

 

[Perrott]

If that was the case, then the Japan Studio wouldn't have faded into irrelevancy by the late 2010s due to the horrible sales performance of their original titles - even in their homeland.

On the other, Bend Studio, which pursued a AAA title at the time, managed to survive the generation.

 

[Alandring]

Sony had better success with their AAA than with their AA.

Yes, AA cost less to make, but if nobody buy them, you still loose a lot of money.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Sony and Microsoft are each sitting on a treasure trove of nostalgic IP's that I could imagine being exciting for a large number of smaller audiences.

Jak & Daxter, for example; it wouldn't make sense to make a AAA title in the series, but something with a smaller budget? I would think that would be an easy win.

Different industries are different, of course, but in my own professional experience, the idea of relying on a couple of narrow, extremely expensive campaigns is... well, in the fundraising world, you would never be hired at a larger organization with that mindset. Not unless it was a junior position, anyway.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend I don't enjoy the spectacle of a big-budget game when it's firing on all cylinders, but we've obviously seen those are often a gamble, so they try to be "safe" when it comes to content (ironically, usually making the game less unique and appealing).

Given how many studios Sony and MS have to play with, I would just think that leveraging all that talent properly, you could be pumping out a lot more smaller titles, to really fill in the gaps of those major blockbuster releases.

I dunno; even if you're ultimately just trying to appease shareholders, I would think "slow and steady" is going to be a lot safer than the "high risk, high reward" strategy that the major publishers keep pushing.

That's what Nintendo does, and it seems to work out pretty well for them.

Why few other publishers have a "Mario Party" or "Fire Emblem" to release in betweeen more expensive titles is beyond me.

 

[hemo memo]

Sony had better success with their AAA than with their AA.

Yes, AA cost less to make, but if nobody buy them, you still loose a lot of money.

How is canceling over 5 AAA games better success? That is a huge financial loss. As for the AA games failing, the marketing department failed those games, not their quality. People can't buy things they don't know about.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

That's what Nintendo does, and it seems to work out pretty well for them.

Why few other publishers have a "Mario Party" or "Fire Emblem" to release in betweeen more expensive titles is beyond me.

1st party studios aim to round out the library and give players more choices for their console.

3rd party studios aim for maximum profitability and efficiency. They also tend to focus on far less games than 1st party studios.

This is basically confirmed with SEGA, who had a small mountain of minor IPs that they used to release for their consoles. But once they turned third party a large section of their catalogue just disappeared or only show up in combo classic re-releases.

Xbox is also going that way. Games might be kept accessible via gamepass, but most smaller or neglected IPs will never be seen again.

 

[Trilobit]

I wonder what a new Sly Cooper game would cost.

 

[fart town usa]

I legitimately don't understand why people say that offering smaller games is a bad idea.

The alternative is what we're seeing now. In what reality are the current state of affairs a good thing?

The Japan Studio narrative is a terrible example IMO. Many of those games were handheld titles later ported to PS4, and PS4 was thriving with AAA, it didn't need AA. When it comes to this gen, AAA is largely a bust and AA from major publishers is near non-existent. My gaming diet is largely AA games from 3rd parties and I feel like I'm eating good.

I feel like many of you are suffering stockholm syndrome. "No Sony, please don't change course, I love remasters of old games and hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on cancelled games and trash studio purchases, AA is too risky!"

 

[Loomy]

We talked about this in the other thread yesterday. Yes, it would be great to have more. Yes, they'd come out more frequently than big AAA games. Yes, gamers will generally ignore them as they are today.

"No Sony, please don't change course, I love remasters of old games and hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on cancelled games and trash studio purchases, AA is too risky!"

AA is not risky. Join us in the next State of Play live thread. And watch how people react to anything that isn't a big AAA game.

Would I like to see more AA games? Absolutely. Do I understand why big publishers are reluctant to give $10-20m to a studio for a game that will maybe not get lost in the sea of shit and anime porn that is sub the $30 games category on Steam? Also yes.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Honestly I wouldn't mind shorter games with worse graphics as long as they are pretty and play nice.

 

[mopspear]

I definitely agree.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

I legitimately don't understand why people say that offering smaller games is a bad idea.

The alternative is what we're seeing now. In what reality are the current state of affairs a good thing?

The Japan Studio narrative is a terrible example IMO. Many of those games were handheld titles later ported to PS4, and PS4 was thriving with AAA, it didn't need AA. When it comes to this gen, AAA is largely a bust and AA from major publishers is near non-existent. My gaming diet is largely AA games from 3rd parties and I feel like I'm eating good.

I feel like many of you are suffering stockholm syndrome. "No Sony, please don't change course, I love remasters of old games and hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on cancelled games and trash studio purchases, AA is too risky!"

Are you going to sell "smaller" games at a 70$ price? There is a reason why AA and small AAA studios are closing down. The market for them just isn't there for many of them

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Just hire good devs who don't spend half the workday whining on Bluesky. Even better: hire devs who don't have a profile on Bluesky.

It will work like magic.

 

[Last Hearth]

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense, from a investor perspective, it's very different.

If A tells me to give him $100, and he can turn it into $200 in a month. B tells him to give him $10,000, he can turn it into $1,5000 in 2 month. Who do I give my money to? That's right, I give it to B, especially if I have $50,000 sitting in my bank I'm looking to place somewhere. A is great and can give me 100% return after 1 month, but I'm at 50,100 at the end of the month and I have to do this all over again. But if I give the money to B, I'll be at $55,000 after 2 months

And then C comes along as says, give me $50,000 and I'll turn it into $60,000 after 3 month, I give the money to him.

When these games developers were independent operations, their funding mostly came from smaller investors like A. Now then are owned by large corporations, and their money comes from huge investors who are looking to place billions of dollars, they don't have time to invest in $2 million dollar projects. Heck even $20 million projects are not big enough, they are interested only in $200 million projects.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Only someone ignorant of the business of gaming can make a claim like this.

It's about opportunity cost.

If I have a $1bn to invest in gaming. I can invest in 100 AA games that might make a 20 - 30% ROI, or I can spend it on 4 AAA Live Service games with MTXs that have the potential to generate a $bln in pure profit for me every year for the next 5yrs.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I think they are just too big for this business model to work correctly. When we talk about indies or AAs, the market for them is smaller and so need to be the operating costs.

The truth is there are very few people who know how to make good games, the successful cases of smaller titles usually involve such people making their projects within an affordable budget. You can't really scale up creativity to an industrial scope, and the likely result of trying to would be an a sea of failures, a small portion of successful releases, and a very small percentage of great hits.

I believe the reason companies like Nintendo, Capcom or Sega manage to do this, is because they've retained a lot of talent over many decades. And by talent, read "people" not studios. Western companies tend to bleed talent in favor of cheap labor, and this model works really poorly for creative mediums.

 

[fart town usa]

Are you going to sell "smaller" games at a 70$ price? There is a reason why AA and small AAA studios are closing down. The market for them just isn't there for many of them

I don't see why they would have to be sold for $70.

Smaller AA and AAA studios are indeed shutting down. I feel like a big factor is that many people overlook these titles due to them being written off without decent analysis, either by lazy games journalists or by YouTubers who are more concerned with the clicks that come with all the drama that big-tent AAA brings.

That in itself is a separate issue from the AA aspect of gaming but I do think it's a valid element of why the AA market is the way it is.

I'm mostly referring to big publishers, namely Sony, who should embrace AA. There's no reason why Sony can't make smaller games. Astrobot being the obvious example. People will say that they can't downsize because their business model calls for massive production values and large teams, but Sony is burning so much cash and it's completely unnecessary. I feel like a slight downsize, or at least allowing smaller teams to work on smaller games, would be worth the risk to see how it plays out.

I go back to the alternative. The alternative is what we currently have and I don't see how it's any better than what might happen if some AA games were made and they don't sell gang busters. At least then we'd know. For the time being it's a hypothetical and I think it's something worth pursuing, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen. All I can do is support the titles I enjoy and talk about them here on Gaf.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Only someone ignorant of the business of gaming can make a claim like this.

It's about opportunity cost.

If I have a $1bn to invest in gaming. I can invest in 100 AA games that might make a 20 - 30% ROI, or I can spend it on 4 AAA Live Service games with MTXs that have the potential to generate a $bln in pure profit for me every year for the next 5yrs.

Or flop and waste all that money like concord. Loose old school fans like me who hate multipalyer or gaas. If any games company went fully the gaas route they would loose a tone of mindshare and original supporters.

 

[Clear]

Doesn't work because the disparity in income generated between the "hits" and the "break-evens" and "fails" is so large.

Essentially the one or two break-outs have to fund the rest of the slate, and although risk is distributed by this approach it also prevents profits being maximized because additional marketing and attention not being given from the start to the successful properties.

 

[fart town usa]

Only someone ignorant of the business of gaming can make a claim like this.

It's about opportunity cost.

If I have a $1bn to invest in gaming. I can invest in 100 AA games that might make a 20 - 30% ROI, or I can spend it on 4 AAA Live Service games with MTXs that have the potential to generate a $bln in pure profit for me every year for the next 5yrs.

It's 2025 though. How many AAA games have to be cancelled until people, who apparently aren't ignorant of business, realize that it's not a good business move to burn hundreds of millions of dollars on products that don't see the light of day. It's not like Sony has unlimited funds. It'd be one thing if Concord was the first time Sony had a flop but it's been this way the entire generation with studio purchases not panning out and AAA productions being cancelled.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

You can still be AAA and not cost a massive amount.

Look at the AAA coming out of Japan.

The problem is there's so much bloat in western games, they focus on all the wrong things (inclusion, DEI, checklist fodder writing and missions). The Japanese only focus on making badass games and generally have none of the bloated crap that makes things like Ubisoft games so unappealing.

It ain't that complicated. The business suits and HR departments design western games, meanwhile Japanese game designers design Japanese games.

 

[fart town usa]

You can still be AAA and not cost a massive amount.

Look at the AAA coming out of Japan.

The problem is there's so much bloat in western games, they focus on all the wrong things (inclusion, DEI, checklist fodder writing and missions). The Japanese only focus on making badass games and generally have none of the bloated crap that makes things like Ubisoft games so unappealing.

It ain't that complicated. The business suits and HR departments design western games, meanwhile Japanese game designers design Japanese games.

Well said.

And Western execs tend to fail upwards whereas Japan/Asia tend to be realistic about changing leadership when the writing is on the wall.

 

[Flabagast]

Not sure, several recent AA games totally bombed and lead either to studio closure or huge financial difficulties (Banishers, Alone in the Dark), because they fail to catch market interest

 

[nial]

The Japan Studio narrative is a terrible example IMO. Many of those games were handheld titles later ported to PS4

Many? Dawg, only a few remasters that literally no one remembers about.

I'm mostly referring to big publishers, namely Sony, who should embrace AA. There's no reason why Sony can't make smaller games.

I feel like a slight downsize, or at least allowing smaller teams to work on smaller games, would be worth the risk to see how it plays out.

I mean, Sony does that, how gamers react to that is another thing.

Lego Horizon is gonna look like a bag of smashed assholes in comparison to this. Imagine being a kid at Christmas, all you want is Astro and your Aunt who doesn't know any better gets you freaking Lego Horizon. I cry rivers for those poor kids.

 

[chakadave]

Yes but that would require more skilled labor and actual managers that knew how to run a team. Not a conglomerate of unskilled people that just want to "make games".

 

[nial]

I believe the reason companies like Nintendo, Capcom or Sega manage to do this, is because they've retained a lot of talent over many decades. And by talent, read "people" not studios. Western companies tend to bleed talent in favor of cheap labor, and this model works really poorly for creative mediums.

I think this is a great point, but Capcom is a terrible example of the topic as a whole.
They're literally the entire definition of a pub putting all of its guns into AAA production.

 

[fart town usa]

Not sure, several recent AA games totally bombed and lead either to studio closure or huge financial difficulties (Banishers, Alone in the Dark), because they fail to catch market interest

AITD (pieces interactive) was also caught up with Embracers Saudi deal that fell through.

Who knows how much of a bomb it was but it's on all platforms and it goes on sale a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if it breaks even at some point. Shame we'll never get a sequel, one of my favorite games this gen. The discord is even relatively active for it.

 

[Dorfdad]

Yes more 10-20 hour games at 39.99 would be better for the gaming community. Allows them to take more bigger risks and put out more games as well.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

I don't see why they would have to be sold for $70.

Smaller AA and AAA studios are indeed shutting down. I feel like a big factor is that many people overlook these titles due to them being written off without decent analysis, either by lazy games journalists or by YouTubers who are more concerned with the clicks that come with all the drama that big-tent AAA brings.

That in itself is a separate issue from the AA aspect of gaming but I do think it's a valid element of why the AA market is the way it is.

I'm mostly referring to big publishers, namely Sony, who should embrace AA. There's no reason why Sony can't make smaller games. Astrobot being the obvious example. People will say that they can't downsize because their business model calls for massive production values and large teams, but Sony is burning so much cash and it's completely unnecessary. I feel like a slight downsize, or at least allowing smaller teams to work on smaller games, would be worth the risk to see how it plays out.

I go back to the alternative. The alternative is what we currently have and I don't see how it's any better than what might happen if some AA games were made and they don't sell gang busters. At least then we'd know. For the time being it's a hypothetical and I think it's something worth pursuing, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen. All I can do is support the titles I enjoy and talk about them here on Gaf.

Sony isn't burning cash. They are making record profits. Sony knows what sells their consoles and it's not AA games. Astrobot is without question the best platformer in the past 5 years and it sold between 2-3mil copies? The profits there are pretty negligible for Sony

It's funny when I hear "Sony can't sustain their 1st party business model". They are the one publisher that can. 1st party development and sales is a relatively small portion of their business. They generate the majority of their revenue through 3rd party sales, MTX, and network services. It's why a 400mil bath from Concord is a mere blip on their financials

Sony will continue to invest in gaas, because 1 gaas hit, like Helldivers 2, will provide long term revenue. And Sony will also continue to develop the biggest of AAA single player games, outside of Rockstar, because that is what sells consoles. Even if the 1st party single player games don't end up profiting, it still gets players into their ecosystem, to buy games, mtx, and use their service

Also, Remasters uses very limited resources. It takes a handful of developers per game to work on them. It's just an easy source of extra revenue for Sony

 

[fart town usa]

Sony isn't burning cash. They are making record profits. Sony knows what sells their consoles and it's not AA games. Astrobot is without question the best platformer in the past 5 years and it sold between 2-3mil copies? The profits there are pretty negligible for Sony

It's funny when I hear "Sony can't sustain their 1st party business model". They are the one publisher that can. 1st party development and sales is a relatively small portion of their business. They generate the majority of their revenue through 3rd party sales, MTX, and network services. It's why a 400mil bath from Concord is a mere blip on their financials

Sony will continue to invest in gaas, because 1 gaas hit, like Helldivers 2, will provide long term revenue. And Sony will also continue to develop the biggest of AAA single player games, outside of Rockstar, because that is what sells consoles. Even if the 1st party single player games don't end up profiting, it still gets players into their ecosystem, to buy games, mtx, and use their service

Also, Remasters uses very limited resources. It takes a handful of developers per game to work on them. It's just an easy source of extra revenue for Sony

I'm not saying Sony can't sustain their 1st party business model. I just think it's a flaming disaster this gen and the idea of allowing studios to make a few smaller games isn't a bad idea. No one is saying that's what Sony should focus on entirely. Movie studios do it too, horror movies are usually a way to get creative at a lower risk because they are relatively cheap to film, and first time directors get a chance, the potential return on investment is huge. There is no reason why Sony can't do the same with gaming. They did in the past, they just choose to not do it anymore.

I'm coming from a place of not being satisfied with Sony because I know they can do better. Them making bank off the backs of 3rd party games and PSN purchases doesn't do anything for me. It just shows me that Sony is directionless and getting by on others works.

 

[nial]

They did in the past, they just choose to not do it anymore.

Huh, they didn't.

 

[lh032]

Most AA games are trash , a lot of fun indie games I played were not AA .

Example of AA games are like unknown 9 right ?

 

[coachmcguirk91]

I'm not saying Sony can't sustain their 1st party business model. I just think it's a flaming disaster this gen and the idea of allowing studios to make a few smaller games isn't a bad idea. No one is saying that's what Sony should focus on entirely. Movie studios do it too, horror movies are usually a way to get creative at a lower risk because they are relatively cheap to film, and first time directors get a chance, the potential return on investment is huge. There is no reason why Sony can't do the same with gaming. They did in the past, they just choose to not do it anymore.

I'm coming from a place of not being satisfied with Sony because I know they can do better. Them making bank off the backs of 3rd party games and PSN purchases doesn't do anything for me. It just shows me that Sony is directionless and getting by on others works.

Fair. I really do wish Sony had a few studios that didnt lean heavily into cinematics and graphic fidelity. Give them the ability to release games every few years instead of every 5 or 6. Financials just don't seem to support it

I'm playing Returnal for the first time, currently. I'm excited for Saros, but at the same time I do wonder why a studio like Housemarque needs 5 years between games

 

[{insert code here}]

That's what Nintendo does, and it seems to work out pretty well for them.

Why few other publishers have a "Mario Party" or "Fire Emblem" to release in betweeen more expensive titles is beyond me.

Nintendo has been printing money with AA games since the Gamecube/Wii days and it's actually kinda crazy that nobody else has tried to apply that model.

 

[ungalo]

For this to happen we (the player base) should start valuing game-design or concepts and right now we're very far from it. I'm talking about the single player market.

Because just saying that we need to make smaller games, in itself sounds like regressing not going forward. Players just like investors will never accept that.

 

[fart town usa]

Most AA games are trash , a lot of fun indie games I played were not AA .

Example of AA games are like unknown 9 right ?

Just out of curiousity, what AA games?

I'm trying to think of a few specifics myself but I don't know if they would count as AA due to pricing. AITD was $60, and Outcast: A New Beginning was $70, and those games clearly are not at the level of what you expect from AAA, but those games are dimes IMO. Especially Outcast, it has some tech issues at times with the music not adjusting as it should but holy shit, one of the most fun games I've played in years. Adored every second of it.

Sand Land too, I don't know if that would be AA or AAA but that's a really charming game.

edit-

Is SH2 remake AA? I don't consider Bloober a AAA studio and that game is pretty basic when you take it for what it is, art style aside that is.

 

[lh032]

Just out of curiousity, what AA games?

I'm trying to think of a few specifics myself but I don't know if they would count as AA due to pricing. AITD was $60, and Outcast: A New Beginning was $70, and those games clearly are not at the level of what you expect from AAA, but those games are dimes IMO. Especially Outcast, it has some tech issues at times with the music not adjusting as it should but holy shit, one of the most fun games I've played in years. Adored every second of it.

Sand Land too, I don't know if that would be AA or AAA but that's a really charming game.

edit-

Is SH2 remake AA? I don't consider Bloober a AAA studio and that game is pretty basic when you take it for what it is, art style aside that is.

i just measure based on the production quality, example, variety of voice acting, animations, type of visuals etc....
for me SH2 is AAA due to production quality due to acting and visuals quality.

 

[ReBurn]

Whatever they did that led to Astro Bot being so awesome is what I wish they would do more of. I don't care how many A's they use. I want more games that are just fun to play.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Sony and Microsoft are each sitting on a treasure trove of nostalgic IP's that I could imagine being exciting for a large number of smaller audiences.

Jak & Daxter, for example; it wouldn't make sense to make a AAA title in the series, but something with a smaller budget? I would think that would be an easy win.

Different industries are different, of course, but in my own professional experience, the idea of relying on a couple of narrow, extremely expensive campaigns is... well, in the fundraising world, you would never be hired at a larger organization with that mindset. Not unless it was a junior position, anyway.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend I don't enjoy the spectacle of a big-budget game when it's firing on all cylinders, but we've obviously seen those are often a gamble, so they try to be "safe" when it comes to content (ironically, usually making the game less unique and appealing).

Given how many studios Sony and MS have to play with, I would just think that leveraging all that talent properly, you could be pumping out a lot more smaller titles, to really fill in the gaps of those major blockbuster releases.

I dunno; even if you're ultimately just trying to appease shareholders, I would think "slow and steady" is going to be a lot safer than the "high risk, high reward" strategy that the major publishers keep pushing.

Even with AAA SP in free fall, the success rate is still many times greater there than it is in the low budget space. Low budget games really struggle to make their money back on average.

 

[KimDongHwan]

They should be priced accordingly too. I would love some 4-8 hour games, looking super crisp for $10-$30

 

[BlitzerRadic]

If making smaller games is more profitable than AAA dont you think that Sony (the platform holder, who has all the data on games that people are buying and playing) would be doing exactly that right now?

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

The best approach is a balanced one. Shu or someone at Sony said during the PS3 or PS4 gen that something like 7 out of every 10 games don’t make a profit, but the ones that do, make more than enough profit to offset the losses from the other games.

This was before the explosion of service “evergreen” games we see dominating play charts today. It seems like in response to these titles constantly dominating people’s time and money, a lot of publishers have went all in on big AAA service games, looking to get a piece of that pie.

In the past, if as Shu said, 70% of games rely on the profits of the other 30% and suddenly those 30% aren’t selling or generating as much money as before, then it becomes a lot riskier to release as many of those smaller titles.

 

[namenotfound]

I think if a big publisher made a $20 million game, they'd have no confidence in their ability to market it. Either side-scrolling platformer small budget or go big. Maybe they think they have a higher chance of marketing a major profit out of a $200 million game than 10 $20 million games that they don't know how to market

 

[Scrawnton]

For this to happen we (the player base) should start valuing game-design or concepts and right now we're very far from it. I'm talking about the single player market.

Because just saying that we need to make smaller games, in itself sounds like regressing not going forward. Players just like investors will never accept that.

Nintendo has absolutely no problem with this. Sony just has to do it and train their consumers to accept it.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Nintendo has been printing money with AA games since the Gamecube/Wii days and it's actually kinda crazy that nobody else has tried to apply that model.

Nintendo has all the kiddie gamers that enjoy platformers and simpler AA games. That player base really doesn't exist outside of Nintendo. Astrobot in a Mario skin on Nintendo would sell 30mil copies. On Playstation, it sells 1/10th that. The audiences of these platforms demand vastly different games

 

[bitbydeath]

How is canceling over 5 AAA games better success? That is a huge financial loss. As for the AA games failing, the marketing department failed those games, not their quality. People can't buy things they don't know about.

GaaS only has two A’s and it’s lucky to be counted as that.

 

[64gigabyteram]

you have to make people want to buy the AAs and while there are people like you and me who like them enough to put our money where our mouth is, there are many others who say similar stuff and then proceed to not buy the AA games

 

[Crayon]

 

[Deerock71]

This should be a poll. A % poll.