Baldur's Gate 3 dev says AAA is "perversely fascinated" by indie games, because those devs still understand how to make good ideas that aren't reliant on data
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Donkey Kong Bananza just came out.
Mario and Zelda games are constantly innovating.
Your complaint doesn’t align with reality.
wait, they made a portmanteau of bonanza and banana? HA! I have to play this game
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There can be originality within franchises. Dr. Mario vs. Luigi’s Mansion vs. Mario Kart vs. Super Mario Maker (etc, etc). No, it’s not always an industry busting idea, but you can’t say it’s all rote repetition. It’s the same universe, but that’s ok. Not everything has to be a whole cloth original idea.
I will give you Pokemon, though. Outside of Snap and (kind of) Legends, it’s pretty clearly lazy, by the number installations, which is a shame. The universe clearly appeals to and inspires so many people. They deserve better.
dr mario was a tetris ripoff
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I’m hoping Baldur’s Gate 4 has a battle royale mode with different skins you can buy, and crossovers with Star Wars, Monster Energy, and Nike. And a Season Pass you can buy monthly for early access to each seasons cool new crossover!
i won’t play it unless there are verification cans you drink for spell slots
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They’re not soulless game farms churning out shit for the large non-gamer audience of video games. Indie is like an Oregan alehouse; AAA is like a Vegas game bar.
dammit i will make that trip up to the pie shop and let y’all know how it is in a few months okay
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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.
there are plenty of crappy indie games, too
This is a massive understatement.
There’s this fantasy that indie = high quality, but just look through Steam chronologically. 95%-99% of indie games seem to be good ideas that faded into obscurity, buried under the tidal wave of other games, that their creators probably burned out making for little in return. Many are just… not great. But others look like bad rolls of the dice.
Basically zero indies are Stardew Valleys or Rimworlds.
This is the nuance the Baldurs Gate dev is getting it. It’s not ‘games should develop like indies’; they literally can’t afford a 95% flop rate.
But that doesn’t mean the metrics they use for decision making aren’t massively flawed.
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That star wars sequel really was something…
So are we admonishing “playing it safe” here or are we shitting on attempted innovation? You don’t get to do both.
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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.
So don’t spend so much that a bad release will sink you. Spread it out over multiple projects. It’s not that hard.
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BG3 if that counts as AAA
Outside Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a triple A release since 2017.
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dr mario was a tetris ripoff
Tetris was just a go fish ripoff.
Dr. Mario was clearly inspired by tetris, but it had enough of its own unique mechanics (using matching blocks to get rid of germs being the one I can think of) that it’s not just a shameless copy.
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I think assets being rolled over from one title to the next is what makes a game aaa, which bg3 didn’t do too much (I didn’t notice)
That’s not what AAA means…at all.
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Art and profit are inherently incompatible.
You can have a safe profit, or you can have artistic integrity and vision.
One will always have to be the true purpose of the work at the expense of the other.
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Art and profit are inherently incompatible.
You can have a safe profit, or you can have artistic integrity and vision.
One will always have to be the true purpose of the work at the expense of the other.
Art and profit are very compatible. But nepotism and profit even more.
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Yeah. AAA higher-ups are very rarely gamers or actually interested in playing video games. They’re just business people who I think mostly want to chase the profitable trends and recreate whatever successes they had in the past under projects with actually decent leadership.
Indie devs also generally aren’t concerned with stretching the runtime out over return limits or in a way that will prevent people from reselling the game.
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It is this exactly, and is the same problem film, tv, and music has. They are all populated by people who are good at becoming and staying at the exec level, not people who are good at whatever field they are working in. Often the really creative are difficult to work with, they do not make a “good fit” with other execs, particularly when they actually understand the medium.
Its the same group of people who are heavily invested in AI to replace creative people in these fields as they do not understand the difference between AI doing a passable copy of someone elses style and someone actually creative creating a new style or approach.
the other thing is that you don’t actually need to rise the video game hierarchy to get an executive position like you might expect. You just need a business degree and some examples of successful leadership at other companies, even ones totally unrelated to video gaming
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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.
It’s not just risk, you also can’t really target a narrow audience. Indies can afford to make a game that only 1/100th of people will be interested in. Even if the AAA studio was 100% sure they would succeed and gain a loyal fanbase, they won’t do that if the potential fanbase is pulled from too small of a group.
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Indie devs have a vision
triple A games just feel so bland and corporate these days, no passion
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Indie devs have a vision
triple A games just feel so bland and corporate these days, no passion
The smaller the dev team, the more pure the vision. Doesn’t always mean it will be good, but the good ones are great. The best AAA game still looks and feels like all the rest.
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Sometimes buy a used ps5 game just so I can feel somewhat justified in buying the stupid thing. Otherwise it’s almost all ps4 and indy games.
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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.
What do you mean by first iteration of a series? Do you mean the first entry into the franchise?
I mean we can argue about the degree you can change a go-kart game but I think Nintendo does try different things. Mario Kart 64 was 3D with 4 players, Mario Kart DS did online play, Double Dash did the two drivers in one kart. Mario Kart Wii did motion controls. Mario Kart World Tour (I haven’t tried) but it has this open world driving concept, I think?
They also do milk their IP and they do release a lot of sequels like Mario Party and such.
However, at the same time Nintendo takes risks with their console/games like no other, I feel.
I won’t back their legal strategies though, I don’t think anybody should.
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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.
