Because budget alone doesn’t make a good game. It’s a lack of creative vision and churning out safe bets that mean people just aren’t excited anymore.
Teams of thousands working on a game designed by committee means no single group really has a vision of the creative vision of the project.
I get it that the marketing budget is important, they need big flashy games to justify the marketing budget required to get cut-through.
Ultimately I think it’s the case that these dev teams are too large, and aren’t making true art anymore, because true art is risky.
Small studios are the ones making art, and some of them are getting cut through into the mainstream. This is where good games exist now.
These big companies have it all backwards. We don’t need them; they need us. I don’t suddenly like slot machine video games just because their fucking bean counters say so. Ever since I bought a Steam Deck, I’ve played nothing but indie and old games, and I ain’t going back. You can keep your 3 bundles and your $70-110 price tags. I’ll play 500 hours of Vampire Survivors before I’ll buy another casino that they happened to build a game around.
In the wise words of the Soulsbourne community: GIT GUD (at not making shitty games).
Speak it brother. I’m currently playing Far Cry 3 and other past greats. I have money in my pocket, happy to buy something worthwhile, but nothing new AND good is available. Nothing.
+1 for vampire survivors
It’s one of my favorite recent games. It’s so endlessly pleasing.
You should try bone keepers minions or peglin. I found both equally fun and challenging
Thanks! Bookmarking those for later.
It’s because the games are mid or worse. Took me one google search to find a plethora of games released in the last few years that had high budgets and sold very well. God of War: Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West, Doom Eternal, Hogwarts Legacy, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Last Of Us Part II, and so many more. These are just the ones I played. Just because the only game you guys make is Fortnite after abandoning all your IPs and that your Epic Games Store money isn’t as high as you thought it would be doesn’t mean other people aren’t making amazing games. It’s just you, my guy. I consider myself a patient gamer and I’ve bought more full price games over the last 5 years than I ever have.
Try having an original thought.
Make something NEW
Exactly. I haven’t bought a pre-release game in a while because most of it is buggy and bland. But I bought the new Zelda game at pre-release precisely because it does something new.
If they’re intent on spending more on graphics instead of actually innovating gameplay, I’m content buying older releases that provide the exact same gameplay for a steep discount. I don’t play MP games, so my selection is pretty broad.
But I will buy a compelling new game, I’m just more into story and gameplay than graphics. Most of my money goes to indies, most of the rest goes to Nintendo, and the dregs go to older AAA games that I can get for cheap.
I’m gonna take a wild guess that the games with high budgets that aren’t “selling”, are just not selling “enough” to cover the “costs” of the executives. I guess it wasn’t much of a guess:
and they’re not selling nearly as well as expected," Sweeney said. "Whereas other games are going incredibly strong
Do they think that these other games “going incredibly strong” are making the money they hope to make? They’re probably making much less but managing it much better. The savings are almost infinite when you don’t approve every executive bonus pay package.
Motherfucker… How many times do you you have to fail before you listen to your customers, who are screaming what they want?
This is why voting with your wallet is nonsense. They’ll never learn why they failed, only that they did
It is still important that they fail. If you buy their shitty games they will still think that they are right and they would have the profit to support their opinion
Well I wouldn’t say it’s important, because it doesn’t change anything
I would definitely say it’s a waste of money to buy their bad games. They deserve to fail. I’m not happy about it, because I want good games, not for IP to be stretched so far I no longer care about it
But it’s important to understand that AAA gaming is an oligopoly and not buying their games won’t change that. It will not improve gaming. Ubisoft will close another dozen studios, buy 13 more, and learn all the wrong lessons (see current situation)
“Voting with your wallet” does not give you any control, just like recycling does not save the planet. It’s a myth to redirect our attention
Structural problems can only be solved structurally.
You seem to be mad that this doesn’t give you instant results. It’s about the long term and sending a message.
Plus, what would be the alternative? What is this magical instant fix of the industry that you haven’t told anybody?
That’s not what I’m mad about. I’m mad that it won’t ever work - Ubisoft isn’t trying to figure out why their games are failing, they’re trying to figure out how to keep the stock price projections up
Hence this article, which is signaling to wall Street “we’re going to make layoffs and hire cheaper, less experienced people”. They’ll probably do it by closing studios and buying up new ones - that’s pretty much their standard operating procedure. They buy up a studio, take their IP to add to the pile, then turn it into a formula and churn out games until the players lose interest in the IP
What’s the problem? They’re too damn big. What’s the solution? Block them from acquiring more studios and they’ll die without leaving a swath of destruction on the way down. Ideally split them up. Do the same with Microsoft and EA, and we could save the gaming industry overnight (granted, more like over the course of a few years)
Voting with your wallet doesn’t work because to the leadership of a Corp, sales aren’t what matters. Stock price matters, which is only tentatively linked to how profitable the company is, which is only tentatively linked to the quality of their products
This is why voting with your wallet is nonsense.
Not buying Star Wars Outlaws had an effect on Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Maybe it won’t amount to anything meaningful in the end, but it did do something.
It undoubtedly burned out hundreds of game devs who wasted years of their work and improved nothing about the industry
Mission accomplished?
Mission failed successfully!
I disagree. Voting with your wallet is the only metric they understand. They just ascribe different analysis as to why it failed to their boardrooms. In the end, you put 70 million into the development and marketing of a game that doesn’t sell, that is going to get attention. Complaining on Reddit won’t.
They just ascribe a different metric as to why it failed
Yeah… That’s my point. They will never say “our game failed because it was overly formulaic, unpolished, and our customers are getting sick of our bullshit”
It doesn’t fit on the spreadsheet. They will never come to the correct conclusion. They structurally cannot
I liked it when they were Epic Megagames and made fun games about green rabbits, savage jungle women, and giant fighting robots
Well then. Why not make them not shitty?
It’s the players’ fault for not buying our game.
Maybe if they ran on Linux, people would buy it. Give it a shot there, Timbo
I’m with you as a Linux user but let’s be real, Linux support has an abysmal ROI: you put a lot of effort for less than a 1% increase in sales, it’s a no brainer.
One of the gifts that valve gave to the Linux ecosystem is having freed developers from the Linux burden. They just make windows games and voila for the most part they run on Linux. They spend less money, we get more games - win/win.
There are a bunch of games that had half-baked Linux ports and got so much better once you could just run the main build through proton, it doesn’t make sense to push developers to go back to native.
Yeah, people need to start reading past the headline.
He’s not complaining, he’s bragging.
His point is that people aren’t buying Sony’s big, expensive games, they’re playing Fortnite.
Yea, did he mention all the other successful epic games? No. There aren’t any. Or they’re dying.
Gotta read between the lines.
He did. Fortnite actually grew this year and hit 110 million monthly active users, according to him.
Fortnite isn’t dying, it’s killing everything else by absorbing the rest of gaming into itself like an alien blob. I don’t like it, but it’s happening and that’s what he’s talking about.
No, the other epic games. He only mentions one game, not the others.
Fortnite is all the Epic games. As in, there is a kart racing game, a survival Lego-licensed game and a Harmonix rhythm game in there, besides the bunch of shooters.
It’s a weird store-ception thing, but at this point if Epic is going to make a new game they won’t put it as a stand-alone thing in the Epic store, they’ll put it inside Fortnite. And it’s working, which is… kinda scary.
So it’s like Roblox?
Anything out of his mouth you need to take with a giant grain of salt. But exclusive salt.
Tim Sweeny when he notices that enshittification in games doesn’t seem to work very well anymore: industry is going through a “generational change”.
Yeah, it’s fucking awesome! Nothing makes me happier than seeing a AAA studio sink big bucks into a project that was destined to be a dumpster fire, then release it as a timed exclusive loaded with DRM for good measure. I really hate that there are developers falling victim to the overall shittiness of the games industry, but I don’t know how else studios are supposed to learn that people want to buy games, not lease online storefronts. On that note, anyone have any good indie recommendations?
Meanwhile all we need to keep us happy are AA budget games to perhaps dormant franchises which haven’t seen the light of day in a few decades.
We don’t need AAA or … Lol AAAA budget games every time
THQNordic and Nightdive have been carrying this sector of gaming for me lately
I don’t see Elden Ring devs complaining, maybe focus on gameplay and style more than graphics and MTX and hollywood actors?
‘A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they’re not selling’
The good ones are.
Well, when you invest $$$ into something that’s meant to be fun and it’s not fun, then there’s your problem. Why not invest in the game designers and scale down the graphics/fancy stuff and exec salaries?
