I think it’s more that the megacorp business model is fundamentally incompatible with making good video games. Their only reliable competitive advantage is money, they can spend more on a single project. But if they spend so much, they can’t go as risky as indies go. A ton of indies publish shit games, it’s just that some are absolute gems.

Point is, AAA games can only match indies in originality if they are okay with tanking the IP and the studio just to make something original. But since they are megacorps, they will never be okay with that. The also can’t amortise the risk over a lot of small projects, because then they lose the ability to outspend indies and would have to compete with them directly.

It’s like a sort of inverse economies of scale.

Indie devs have a vision

triple A games just feel so bland and corporate these days, no passion

I will give you that the first iteration of a series, like Mario Kart, is innovative, but the 16 next iterations, not so much. While Nintendo doesn’t make Pokemon, they are the publishers, technical platform provider and co-owner of the Pokemon Company, they would have all the leverage necessary to push the Pokemon games to innovate if they were interested in innovation.

Remember when they said “we’re unable to make a game like BG3 consistently” and then 2 years later ClairObscure Expedition 33 releases, made by even less people than BG3.

Those games aren’t AAA, they’re S+ games.

They also miss really bad why those games become popular on first place.

For example, the text mentions Minecraft, and all that “crafting” trend. What made Minecraft great was not crafting - it was the feeling that you’re free to express yourself, the way you want, through interactions with the ingame world. If you want to build a huge castle, recreate a wonder you love, or a clever contraption to bend the world’s rules to do your bidding, you can.

Or, let’s pick Undertale. It’s all about the mood, the game pulls strings with your emotions. Right at the start the game shows you Toriel, she’s a really nice lady, taking care of you as if she was your child. And being overprotective. Then the game tries to make you kill her, and your first playthrough you’ll probably do it. And you’ll feel like shit. Then you load the save back, and… the game still remembers. You’re still feeling like shit because you killed Toriel.

Stardew Valley? At a certain point of the game, you start to genuinely care about the characters. Not just as in-game characters, but as virtual people with their own backstories, goals, dreams. You relate to them.

It’s all about feelings. But corporations are as soulless as their “art”; and game corporations are no exception. Individual humans get it.

Corpos can’t make good games because they’re sociopaths who don’t understand art, only products. Understanding art requires a functioning connection to humanity and emotions, which they lack.

Games aren’t only products; they’re art. Good art is not capable of universal appeal. The more demographics you try to appeal to for the sake of appeasing your shareholder overlords, the more dogshit your game will be.

Games made to support the interests of mentally ill rich people cannot be well made categorically. This is why AAA has sucked ever since wall street took over every studio.

A reminder that AA-AAA is basically just specifying how much money has been poured into its development. Not how much love, passion and hard work went into creating it.

Baldurs gate 3 is made by an indie game studio.

As in they’re independent and are not beholden to a publisher or external revenue sources that own their idea and forces them to take business decisions they don’t want to due to monetary reasons and outside pressure.

And yes, absolutely S+ tier games.

Donkey Kong Bananza just came out.

Mario and Zelda games are constantly innovating.

Your complaint doesn’t align with reality.

CandyCrush would like a word

Bananza is pretty darn similar to the studio’s last Mario game. Same gameplay loop at its core, but with a DK and map destruction skin thrown on top.

map destruction skin thrown on top

That doesn’t make sense if you think about it for a second. The entire game is designed around the destructible environments. One of the reasons it’s so good is that they use the interior of the landscape. And the gameplay loop is absolutely different.

But Nintendo also gets credit for Super Mario Galaxy; you’re right about that.

It’s a meaningful difference, but it’s still, at its core, “go into level, do little challenges to find a thing and progress the story”, except this time it’s banana instead of star.

Next you’ll tell me they both have jumping!

I mean that’s all really high level stuff.

The cycle of megacorps- this works in most industries with a lower barrier of entry.

First the industry begins as a bunch of small competing startups that build a shit ton of absolute trash. Eventually a few companies find the right formula and start to find some medicum of success. Innovation is rapid but quality is low.

Next the industry consolidates in a feeding frenzy of mergers and aqisitions. During this time innovation is high but demands for quality is also high. New startups are constant as the forming megacorps pay high prices to control innovation or suppress competition.

Then the consolidation reaches a peak. At this point innovation almost completely ceases as megacorps refuse to pay out any more. Quality rapidly decreases as the few remaining megacorps try to maximize profits. The entire industry turns to shit products and high prices.

The only thing that can save the industry from stagnation is government anti-trust action breaking up the megacorps into smaller competing companies like in the second stage.

A reminder that AA-AAA is basically just specifying how much money has been poured into its development. Not how much love, passion and hard work went into creating it.

Baldurs gate 3 is made by an indie game studio.

As in they’re independent and are not beholden to a publisher or external revenue sources that own their idea and forces them to take business decisions they don’t want to due to monetary reasons and outside pressure.

And yes, absolutely S+ tier games.