In addition to a number of products that push boundaries of what’s possible in the industry.

Even in your case, it’s still about feelings—although different ones: you’re expressing yourself through your farm, instead of focusing on the romance. “See, myself, this is what I built! Good job, me.” and the likes.

Neither is the “right” or “wrong” emotion, mind you. But a game needs to trigger at least some within you, to be a good game. And that’s what corporations don’t get: they’re chasing mensurable things. More graphics, presence/absence of a mechanic, even gameplay length can be measured; but you can’t really measure someone’s emotional experience.

Donkey Kong Bananza just came out.

Mario and Zelda games are constantly innovating.

Your complaint doesn’t align with reality.

That star wars sequel really was something…

Which made billions of dollars for them, that they then put towards things like Andor and Encanto and at least a third to half of the more recent Pixar movies.

No one’s saying they don’t also produce shit, but often that shit bankrolls the things that aren’t.

So…Skyrim?

Idk why people are giving you shit on that, you’re right. Not necessarily indie-level right, but people hired to do the next Mario or Zelda are given remarkable freedom. I read up on the BotW development and they pitched their crazy idea, got green lit, and when leading their team they took suggestions from every part of the team (quite literally, artists, marketers, localization specialists, etc.). If I could remember the link I’d share it, but it’s straight up good AAA management.

Though, to be fair it’s really team by team and it’s quite possible they got lucky with some of these. There are plenty of misses, after all. I’m kinda glad I’m off the Nintendo bandwagon after the whole Yuzu/Ryujinx legal crap.

we don’t need so many MBAs anymore

Fixed it for you

Y’know, from a risk assessment standpoint, you can’t be too surprised they over rely on data since AAAs cost so much to make an a flop can lose millions, and sometimes even billions of dollars. Mediocre can still sell, and you and I both know they aren’t doing it for art or expression.

I do want to make one other point about survivor bias, though… there are plenty of crappy indie games, too. We focus a lot on the greats (and trust me, I hunger for the Silksong) but it makes up a pretty small percent in a world where everyone can make something. I sometimes will spin up a random game from regrettable purchases (like, indiegala bundles or those “mystery game” purchases) and some of them are really, truly horrible. I try to give is as much respect as I can, and sometimes I do find a few gems that nobody has played, but like… not every passion project is Undertale, lol.

Although tbh, I like streaming a bad game for friends because they can watch me suffer, haha, so I still appreciate the, uh, effort.

On that we can agree. The game is great at giving players a plethora of paths and options.

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.

They made it so you couldn’t save scum killing her? lol

This is a no-go unless COD has a fortnite death ring. Add 30 of those and maybe we might have an original idea on our hands.

I like how no one mentioned watered down donkey Kong rockband.

Anyone arguing against the fact that they’re milking dust out of their financial cow is delusional.

You can save scum and she’ll be back, but one of the characters highlights it:

Clever. Verrrryyy clever. You think you’re really smart, don’t you? In this world, it’s kill or be killed. So you were able to play by your own rules. You spared the life of a single person. Hee hee hee…

But don’t act so cocky. I know what you did. You murdered her. And then you went back, because you regretted it. Ha ha ha ha…

And the whole game is full of situations like this. Highlighting that your actions actually have some impact, even if you can reload or start a new game.

Stardew Valley’s success had more to do with smart marketing than anything. The game has the exact same formula as Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, which are very corporate-run series, just not at AAA scale. The difference was Eric Barone cultivating word-of-mouth marketing via influencers and online communities to reintroduce the genre to the Western market (along with lucking into capitalizing on what was then a more nascent pixel art indie gaming trend).

Undertale’s a good example, though (I’ll still note this particular example is a huge spoiler). I did the thing and it was a very fresh idea, and one of the best hooks I’ve seen in a video game. Thing is though, I doubt even 10% took that route to see it. That’s something the game has in common with Baldur’s Gate 3, which is full of those low-percentage moments. AAA devs don’t like investing a lot of resources into things most people aren’t going to see.

They could go for more double A games. Still more budget than indies, not as risky or innovative, but not as big of an investment as AAA. Studios could work on new IPs in shorter cycles and smaller games, and eventually release big AAA sequels to the successful ones.

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.

Good marketing and luck do play their roles, but aren’t enough by themselves. With those two but without pulling your emotional strings, SV wouldn’t be seen nowadays as a “spiritual successor” to Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons, but rather as a “cheap knock-off”.

Doubly so for an indie game - indie devs don’t have enough money to make shit look like ambrosia, unlike AAA studios.

Also note HM/SoS did not start as a corporate-run series. The formula was already there in the SNES game, developed by a rather unknown studio (Amccus). Apparently Yasuhiro Wada came up with the idea because he wanted to try something different, and he’s from a rural background.

Corporate is kind of lucky the formula is enough - to make someone feel proud of their farm (like in Ech’s answer) or relate to the characters (interacting with them often, giving them gifts, seeing cutscenes etc.), otherwise it would’ve ruined it with “more graphics! 9001 love interests! 9001 crops! …what do you mean, the characters aren’t relatable?”.

The suits always dictate what sells, and they’ll look for anything that would keep revenue coming.