To be fair there is just too many weirdos making video games these days. Not the good kind of weird that is creative, the bad kind that makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
@@trentrissubsidiary4619the people who bullied you for playing video games are now the ones who are making them. The same thing can be said for Hollywood and comic book movies
@@Jerh1985 that’s what I’ve heard. It’s not my cup of tea anyways so I was already staying away. And I haven’t trusted Bioware for a long time. What do you think the primary reason is for why people are responding to Dragon Age in such a way?
Quality gameplay and quality WRITING for RPGs. New dragonage game proves that better gameplay doesn't = better game. If the writing sucks in a series that has always been NARRATIVE FIRST, people will not be interested. That's why a game like Dragon's Dogma 2, with TRASH AF writing can be successful, where as Veilgaurd can't. Because no one expected a masterclass in game writing from DD2.
@ You’re right for sure that both are important (how great games are made) but as a general rule gameplay is king. With veilguard the combat is mediocre and can’t carry for the drag that is the writing quality put on the game. Good enough gameplay however can carry for everything else wrong with the game. Both andromeda and anthem had more fans cause the gameplay was good and made up for basically everything else in those games.
@z28yeti The narrative of Veilguard was excellent. The character writing was "meh". If Bioware had shoved the cast of DA2 into the narrative of DAV...
29:00 Capcom did a survey a little while back on various metrics, such as what players look for in Capcom games. Number 1 was exhilarating gameplay, and number 2 was unique and attractive characters for the whole world. For Japan, it was the vice-versa (characters at number 1, gameplay at number 2). The top three favourite characters for the whole world were Dante (Devil May Cry) at number 1, Leon S. Kennedy (Resident Evil) at number 2, and Mega Man X (Mega Man) at number 3. So yeah, gameplay and character design are considered the most important, according to that survey. Sure, "unique" doesn't technically rule out "diverse and inclusive", but I doubt that's a very high priority for the average player based on the other stats. And even then, keep in mind that people also like attractive characters. There's a reason why the casts of games like Street Fighter and Overwatch have a lot of appeal, while the casts of games like Concord do not.
I mean, if that means hot men and robots are the future of gaming, as a gay guy, im in. I dont get how that removes inclusivity and diversiveness though, you realize a lot of hot and traditionally attractive men are gay?
@marmeat rods. Edit* not sure what my point was. Went off on a tangent. I suppose there is some audience for that. Women like to read about heroines getting boned by "hunky men". And guys like to watch beautiful girls get the business by guys or girls. But as soon as you make man on man, you start hearing "NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHO YOU FK" Oh really? I mean some people are prudes about sex in movies and videogames, sure. But sex sells. As long as it's boobs and butts. And not slinging meatrods.
My Rook in Veilguard looks exactly like Leon from Resident Evil (Biohazard). So i had a handsome character and fun gameplay. I guess that helped me enjoy the game and forgive the few minutes of cringe.
It is wild to hear IGN write an article describing the many issues with AAA gaming but still knowing full well they gave almost all the games they used as an example 7 out of 10s and up. IGN you puffing all these companies and defending is also really not helping them.
@@zelohendricks51 And? They are a company, they continuously glaze any AAA shovel ware before and directly after release, and afterwards they find another writer to write another opinion piece that follows the current more negative consensus. They are fence sitting shills as a company and what their individual writers think is barely relevant in comparison.
Up here in Canada, a lot of new AAA games are nearly $100 dollars. And as someone who lives in an "impossibly unaffordable" housing market, I cannot justify shelling out $94 for Silent Hill 2 Remake, or $90 for Flight Sim 2024, or $97 for Monster Hunter Wilds, etc.
it's like you said, they're chasing trends and trends never last. if these devs and companies could just figure out a way to block out that outside noise that is the media and were able remember why they started making games in the first place i bet they'd be able to come up with something people will play for years.
I've almost entirely pivoted to playing Indie games. They're a fraction of the cost and you get a much better experience They're also made by people who aren't chained to their f*cking cubicle until release then "laid off" after the money is made.
yea most indie games actually play the games, they listen to player feedback and learn from mistakes, look at that farming game, the guy is still going strong on it, terraria too, baulders gate, they allll listen and fix issues everyone sees
This is why the AA market is blooming. Literally 1/15th the budget and manpower yet infinitely better quality. Kingdom Come: Deliverance had a budget of $20M. Starfield cost $200M…let that sink in for a bit
That's part of the problem, yes. According to a Microsoft executive, games nowadays take 4-6 years to make. They take so long to chase trends that the trends die before the game even comes out.
@@flarestorm9417 It's so weird too. I always thought that advancements in technology would allow games to be made faster, but it was exactly the opposite.
Maybe there are just some people who work on games who hate gamers cause they can be a nuisance. Gamers don’t have to interact with the lost lot of the crowd. It’s those that don’t care for gamers are the worst.
@@himynameisaaron86 Because it’s not true. The same reason a lot of people who work in politics hate voters, though in that profession it’s damning to state it. A lot of professionals might harbour a hatred to their customers since they had to deal with the worst of the worst. That goes from retail, service jobs, construction, and etc. 100% doesn’t apply only to the entertainment industry. Most and vast majority of most developers don’t hate gamers but I don’t think the average person understands how infuriating people can be, especially those that give creative critiques when they lack all creativity. Now imagine being exposed to those types.
@@Bro-dot-maybe if they hate their customers so much they should find a different line of work. If you hate the people in your own industry maybe you don't love it as much as you think
Alot of narrative games at least feel more like shitty fanfic self inserts. Live service just seems to be a fever dream for a lot of companies who want to do the least to print money.
@@bronzin1445 Elden Ring, Baldurs Gate3 ? Cyberpunk 2077? God of war Ragnarök? What are these games to you? Amongst the biggest AAA games to release all with super passionate teams, huge financial successes and the highest talent within the professional scene.
Nice quote from helldiver's 2 dev team. Well just to be fair they also screwed up and lost half of their players because of more bugs then bug fixes, and changing the game from power fantasy to sweaty ass cheek clenching gameplay, which 95% of the players did not want.
You dont need to spend 100s of millions to make a good game. As a massive amount of the people who made up gaming get older, such as myself, we are finding ourselves wanting less mmos/live services and more single/co op games. Not every game needs to be a massive open world with 100s of hours of content. I think having a good mix of these titles with the occasional live service would help these companies but they dont just want money they want EVERY single thing they make to make the same amount of profit or more each time.
We forget many of the bad trends, there were a lot of brown/grey 6 hour melodramatic shooters with arbitrary tacked on multiplayer in those days. Some great stuff as well though for sure.
I agree with most of what you said, except maybe the whole "activist writer" bit. In my experience people who care about accessibility and representation in games also don't like games like Suicide Squad bc it's basically companies admitting they think marginalized people are dumb enough to fall for token shilling. Most would rather have a good game and have people find out after finishing a game that a character was gay or trans. Most writers I have seen who claim to be "activists" are trying to use identity issues of marginalized people as a shield from actual criticism of their game oe writting
nearly all the games that flop have 1 striking similarity, yet people online will still scream and claim that similarity is not a factor in the games flop
I never bought diablo 3 and 4 precisely because of that error 37, even as a teen I was raising my eyebrow to online only games. I didn't care how good reaper of souls supposedly is, I still didn't buy, and I'm glad enough people didn't to the point where there wasn't a second one, just the necromancer DLC.
AAA blockbusters overall are not in trouble, games with over inflated budgets and unrealistic expectations are which has always been the case really. The big thing now is the fall off of new live service games and the quicker that cancer is removed from the gaming industry the better.
36:40 The gender gap in gaming is much smaller than that nowadays when you look at the industry overall. Your audience is heavily influenced by the game genre; first-person shooters are heavily tilted with more male players, but catering for primarily men would be a big mistake for the Sims, for instance, which has a 60% female player base. The player base also has gotten older too; the NES-loving kids of yore are now in their 50s.
"Games are expensive to make" Over bloating the budget does not make it good I really want to know where that money is going, you watch this 200 million dollar movies and games and you just wonder "where the hell did the budget money go?" Clearly not on visuals or writing Did they spend 50 million on a consulting firm and 100 million on paychecks for the execs, and the rest devided on financing the game?
I've been making a list of game LOSSES not just general flops and 2023-2024 has had a ludicrous amount. The issue is finding out Budget costs. We don't know how badly they failed. We don't have budgets for: Unknown 9, Redfall, Veilguard, Until Dawn Remake, Lego Horizon. And we don't have sales numbers for: Immortals of Avernum, Skull & Bones or Dustborne.
A lot of those kinds of games cost more than average games to develop because of several factors including how long development took and extra people on the payroll. Microsoft bought the studio that made Redfall in 2023 for $7.5Billion. That is a lot of money to make back especially with so many failed games on your list.
The thing is there's always been big budget games that flopped, it's just that even just a few years later most get forgotten, never mind a decade or more later.
@@thebenc1537 that's not relevant to what I said though? Games flopped in the past and most are forgotten today, that's objectively true. You have the odd game like Brink that was so hyped it's still sort of remembered despite being a massive flop but most flops from this year won't be remembered in 5 years time. I'm struggling to think of one flop from 2019.
@@erg1947 That was the year Anthem and that awful Wolfenstein Sisters game failed miserably. Im sure you remember those games. Also it was the year of Stadia, a bigger fail than both those games combined.
As someone who's in several of those bubbles, representation is the icing on the cake. I want good games. I'm 10x more interested in games that let me play as a female or multicultural character because that produces storytelling that's less stale imo, but when the game's not good...10 x 0 = 0. And even when they do include my bubbles, they don't do it in a compelling way, so what's the point?
I've been playing video games since they were a thing (I'm in my 60's now). I never had a problem with relating to an acrobatic, globe-trotting British female archeologist to enjoy her stories. I was never under any delusion that I was a stealthy cat-person archer that could put an arrow through your eye socket from 300 yards away and then fill a gem with your soul. I didn't even need to be an angst-ridden Japanese teen boy with spiky hair who carried a sword you could cleave a bus in half with. I didn't need to BE any of those things to relate to the protagonist, so long as they told a compelling story. So why do I suddenly HAVE to be [insert "under-represented" class here] in order to relate to their character? Especially since more often than not their story isn't at all compelling, and they simply exist as a mouthpiece to sound a klaxon alert for the latest perceived socio-political flashpoint? Write a good story that invests me in a character first. And if it turns out that character is a non-binary quasi-dragon humanoid, okay fine, woohoo...bonus. But don't lecture us about your issues... I'm not your psychiatrist or your confessor, I'm your leader and all that crap gets left at home when we're all neck-deep in darkspawn. Or maybe you could just drone on to THEM about how your Mommy just doesn't understand you, and watch them all drop like flies out of sheer boredom!
I think you can dress it up all you like but having people who are ideologically captured by politics are so far out of touch with the average consumer you increase your chances of failure ten fold.
I genuinely want to see an audit of how these companies are spending above RDR2 budget, without delivering above RDR2 quality. Like how do you get a blank check that can be used to hire the best of the best and deliver a large mound of shit.
One thing positive about the whole debacles related to videogames is now I'm in a position of leadership so I have a lil bit of influence on the game I work on and the past years really helped to build my credibility with directors for our game. It's like everything I predict is happening exactly as I say while I only use common sense and when I do other work (not in a meeting), I spend all my time listening to a broad range of youtuber (like Luke) to know where the winds are going. One thing for sure within all the years I've been in the industry, the trend I noticed is people aging. It's not a problem by itself but games were previously led by passionnate young kids that didn't have much experience but LOVED videogames to experts in their 40's who enjoyed videogame but have little time to keep in touch. I'd say the industry went from wasting time struggling on how to stuff(overpromise) to know how to do incredible stuff but we're so misguided and out of touch that we spend so much time and money on irrelevant stuff that it's infuriating. With big budgets comes analytics and risk management and since people making decisions are out of touch, they tend to rely on these like crutches and following trends when the end goal is to surprise and delight our target audience rather than provide safe "comfort food" is ultimetely incredibly damaging for long term financial success. I'm a guy in my 40's, no kids and play games about 3-4h a day within every genre. I can't tell you how much I'm a outlier among the people I work with.
7:51 Yes. True. I still buy and play games. Gaming isn't dead. I think there's too many live service games that require your time and attention that I'm tired of ignoring the singeplayer ones that I feel deserve our time and attention as well. Stalker2 comes out next week and I couldn't be more excited for a new open world shooter that takes us back to when games were games...
It still has 3 different versions and a preorder bonus. Us old folks remember when you bought a game for one price and got the same game as everyone else.
29:16 It was said for music that old producers were open about not knowing what younger audiences wanted so they trusted artists more, they took more chances on artists. When younger producers came up the ranks, they claimed to know what audiences wanted and music has become what it is now. I would say movies, TV series and games are the same in some way. Games used to be run by nerds, now its run by money people who thinks they know what mainstream audiences want so these companies can keep growing.
I don't know man. You are saying that COVID and the increase in spending on video games is the reason, but games like Concord and Forespoken have been in development for like a decade. All of these decisions were made a decade ago... Mid 2010's Way before COVID
I just want to point out that this article exists merely to obfuscate the real issues, which were thankfully called out (especially in the final 3rd of the video).
There's almost no reason for me today to buy a game at launch. * games are overpriced so it's better to wait for a sale * games come out as broken and with missing features\story content so it's better to wait until that is sorted out * you often can't trust early reviews(good or bad) and it's better to wait a few months for a consensus * my backlog is big enough and games are way too long, for me to feel pressure to buy new ones (I'm only now starting to go through Cyberpunk)
And even for games that are relatively complete, they're going to have little extras. So you're still better off waiting a year or so to get the game when it is both cheaper and comes with more content, even if said content is just cosmetic stuff.
Unsurprisingly, when every single game wants to take ALL of your time, none can succeed. And when you force the player to be picky like that, quality matters much more... Which they have been dropping hard.
I‘m like literally afraid of the triple A industry! They’ll release a shit game and all of the marketing will center around the gay characters which will most likely be horribly written and not at all representative of me, a gay person. For the next few weeks I then can’t go on any social media without seeing hundreds of posts attacking people like me and making me responsible for a terrible game. Dear triple A publishers, please don’t try to represent me if that’s the outcome! I‘m just going to sink more hours into Cyberpunk.
@ No, because these poorly written characters aren’t at all representative of me and are rather very harmful stereotypes. Also if a game isn’t good, I’m not going to play it, regardless if it’s inclusive or not.
You're also slightly over looking the issue Luke. People do want to be represented but these companies have NO idea how to do that. Example would be making a strong female protagonist. AAA studios tend to take only 2 paths. Either make a male character and write out all the dialogue for him, then replace him with her; or make the lead a female but then she acts weak the whole time and can't do ANYTHING on her own. It's rare to get a female that just a woman who is also strong. That then applies to EVERYTHING else. Struggling college kid in Saints Row game? Have a class choice. Tech student - Start out at home with TV on and news about Saints gang active in the city and then reference big project to be unveiled later at the university. Drive to school with exposition on what's happened in the time skip. Get to school, go to class and learn about how hacking works. Get pulled away by friend to see whatever is being unveiled in the school. Saints show up and cause problems and main character hides in mcguffin. Saints take object, find the guy, he says he's a great hacker, Saints let him join as the new "Dexter" of the group. Athlete - change learning about hacking to how hand to hand combat/grappling works. So on. Don't just take kid next door story and then replace him with Saints Row and say "It just works!" because it fucking doesn't! I'm getting so annoyed by this pattern after watching it get worse over 20yrs of gaming. The only part of a game that should be hard is the programming and the details of a story. The major bullet points of games have ALL been done very well by past games. Just improve upon that. Stop trying to remake the freaking wheel! In Destiny, why did the Tower not have AI guardians that would warp in, run around to the various vendors, talk to some AI, and then warp out like the game .Hack//SIGN ?? It would make the tower feel more involved, show players where vendors are at, and can be used to create secret easter egg events. I have so much frustration at the modern industry and I want all of the current big names to fail and burn. We need new AAA people/companies to push through
“Creatively diverse”= “we used to have an industry based on people that were all highly and uniquely, if not esoterically wierd, game devs. Then we diversified by adding people with on talent or variety of thought.”
@@nickbrooks4993 The demographic that buys CoD is largely detached from the rest of the industry. The people who buy a console for that mostly play just that and sports games. They don't have to respect their audience because they're a large, casual audience with lower standards, who are far more willing to burn large amounts of money on literally the only game that they play.
@@nickbrooks4993 I mean he is kinda right. Ofc there are exceptions, but throughout my years in cod, the people I encountered the most are console players that just play cod and Fifa.
Blockbuster are just a part of word salad they are trying to portrayed. It meant something that crushing the popularity sales wise, not rating wise. They try to pretend these AAA flops are blockbuster which isn't. And they also pretend Wu Kong isn't a blockbuster while it actually is.
The 9/10 is a very valid score to many people, given by IGN to the masses, not so much. This game is polarising not objectivity bad. The scores vary. There is a lot to hate and a lot to love and people will latch on to either one, makes it easy for audiences to pick and choose, with a mountain of evidence to support why this game is amazing or why it’s not so good.
@@Bro-dot-That is incorrect. The score is NOT valid and the game IS objectively bad; regardless if you’re a fan or a casual newcomer. Not to mention that IGN themselves backpedaled on the original review. That alone speaks for itself
@@bronzin1445 So you are just intentionally being close minded and not understanding other people can have varying opinions to you. Saying it’s objectively bad is crazy work. How can you say that regardless if you are a fan or casual you must dislike this game?!?!? What gives you authority or makes you feel like you need to have it? Even with your score of 5-6 that still doesn’t qualify as bad.
Developers no longer represent or make games for the actual people who purchase them, that is the issue. If you spend 400 million on something that the vast majority of your potential customers find ugly, alienating, and insulting, it's entirely your fault. It's the same issue that's going on with Star Wars, and so many other things. People who have no business making this stuff want to make it for themselves, and they're shocked when the entire market gets up and leaves instead of accepting something they don't want. If you replace my double bacon cheeseburger with a veggie burger, I'm just going to go find what I want somewhere else. It's not rocket science.
I still refuse to consider Arkane Austin shut down deserved. If you ask a plumber to build you a roof, expect the roof to come down on your head. That´s how it works,.
Another interesting factor that I’ve seen about the AAA calculus came from a former Square Enix finance guy on Twitter. He was pushing back on the idea the Square Enix sets arbitrarily high goals. He said, “they may be high, but it’s genuinely what is needed when fully accounting for costs and the margin you need to generate to make it even more worthwhile that investing that money simply back into the market.” And he said that one thing that makes it especially hard to make games today is the impact of live service forever games. Back in the day, people went from one game to the next. You’d buy a game, beat it, and genuinely be in need of something new. But now, there are so many ongoing games that take so much of people’s time, that it makes new games a bit less necessary. It drives down demand. And so a new game has to be really compelling to get someone to go and pick it up vs continue playing Fortnite, Genshin, GTA Online, etc. There used to be a cycle that doesn’t really exist anymore.
Exactly! They are all doing the same cartoony graphics and are anti male and try to have this goofy comedic approach to everything. Of course it’s because they are all being pressured to hire mostly women and lgbqt folk. Most games lately with no identity politics that has a dark tone or hot chicks sales like crazy.
I disagree on Jak & Dax. Just look at how well the remakes of Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil, and more have done. J&D doing a remake and new entry would do really well imo. People's love for Ratchet and Clank shows that, as they're somewhat similar. The IP isn't the issue imo, the company involved has a larger impact on whether it's a success.
Eh, we've had some definite blockbusters these last few years. The difference is, the games that busted the blocks did it by appealing to gamers. Overall, I'd say this year has been a landmark year for educational lessons. You could make an entire semester at a gaming school on things to avoid doing, using this year's games as case studies: 1) Concord - character design matters; if you want to sell something, you'd better offer enough value over your cheaper alternatives 2) Suicide Squad - fit your game to your IP, as in, don't make a super hero game that's about guns. Also, don't pull an Anthem by forcing live service multiplayer on studios. Oh, and hire a competent UI designer 3) DA:tV - Writing matters, especially for RPGs; be true to your IP... don't turn your dark fantasy game into something that looks like something for kids; don't preach; if you aren't making games for 5 year olds, you probably shouldn't treat your players like they're five years old. 4) Star Wars Outlaws - Make sure your AAA priced game is actually AAA. And I'm sure there a few others that can be tacked on as well.
In all my years as a minority who's a gamer, I've never complained about having to play as some buffed white guy in most games. Luke's pretty much right, many people don't care about representation and making it blatantly a requirement just puts people off.
"A good game is what players want with a diverse cast being bonus points" Bro just described Metaphor: Refantazio. The game feels insanely good to play and every member of the party is a different race along with multiple of your non-party member social likes also being different races.
23:59 I really resonate with this part. I pnly play 2-3 games on Steam at most. Other times, I'm usually playing older retro games that companies no longer profit from. People don't have the time or money that these major corporations are wanting.
This is how big corporations can stop being so out of touch and reconciliate with young audiences: the executives need to make a videoclip with them singing a rap song and publish it on myspace.
Ya know people dancing on the graves of these games reminds me of that story... About a man who didn’t receive love of the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. That’s the relationship between the media/industry and its customers from the 90s/2000s.
13:25 I mean it DOES work. It’s just that they’re either misproducing products people want or overspending by an order of magnitude. Both are their fault. What they need to do is get some hyper productive employees who are god tier again, and actually be capable of making a full “polished” video game in 12-18 months. It CAN be done. They did it before. Graphical corners can be cut and still look modern-ish due to hardware power. There’s no excuse for these budgets and production timelines. For these games that are filled with absolute nonsensical unfun busy work.
what is truely odd about the industry is we have games such as Hades, Blasphimus, Ori and the Will of the Whisps, Minecraft, Roblox Fortnight and many others which play great on almost any hardware. People want to play games they dont have to be AAA to sell. Its the game studios that some how think only a 100 hour game with 8k scaled up graphics is gonna make money or some looter shooter where every player is nickle and dimed. We need these AAA studios to hire managers who know how a good game works and frankly more trust in the industry not less.
I think a massive reason is the economic down turn we are facing globally. We see these exact same failing trends in movies and tv shows as well. People dont have the money they did a decade ago and it will probably take 8 or so years of real change before people have the money to spend on "average" games
Meanwhile Deadlock thats not even in alpha have more players interest 😂. Its basically monkey throwing shit wishing some of them hit something at this point, so in short "out of touch" to aay it the nice way.
The problem nowday with Blockbuster games is that they invest 300 millions on a game but the product feels like a 10 millions dollar game... The graphics are ugly, they are full of bugs, basically they ship early indie acces games but they spend 300 millions on them.. where the money is going??? No one knows.
Beyond the obvious bloat of content meant to keep a player trapped forever, there's plenty of legitimate reasons why games cost so much to make. But I do feel a CEO walking into the room and saying "All new games will cost under $50 million and take 3 years or less." while also fostering creative direction and unique gameplay would be a smart move.
Maybe the game industry should back off on cramming graphical fidelity into everything. Not only would it bring costs down, but it would be accessible to more players, which would get them more sales. As is, games are getting way too demanding.
It’s funny how we hear of this “crisis” when TALENTED studios like Fromsoft and Larian grow bigger than ever and made their biggest games yet both in terms of scale, developers, time and of course budget and they were smash hits
Funny how Nintendo, who has always been open about their progressive politics in games, is doing great, it's almost like the issue is American Corporativism leading to very incompetent people being put in charge of games and not being willing to accept criticism from their clients and even other developers in their same companies. The problem is costs ballooning due to the focus on top of the line graphics and horrible business practices like hiring several teams of part time developers and rotating them in order to not give them benefits, which increases development time even more and leads to unpolished games that are barely stitched together. Let's be honest, most of the recent games aren't failing due to progressive agendas, they are failing because they suck at every level from ground up, Suicide Squad being a looter shooter to begin with made it a game no one would care about, imagine if instead you were using a self insert or random unknown character and established villains and heroes were companions that help you and give you upgrades like Batman's glide cape, Mr. Freeze gun or Poison Ivy giving you a pet giant Venus Flytrap that you can ride as a mount. In addition these companions all have mini stories where they can develop and show said characters in more personal situations. Something like Marvel Midnight Suns but with gameplay similar to the Arkham series but more modular.
Yeah. It goes deeper than the identity politics. I think that's only used as a shield from criticism. The games themselves are rotten to the core. From design to implementation. As if they hired hundreds of junior devs to build in eight years what would take senior developers two or three-- just to save money for the studio heads to pocket.
For the most part Nintendo's games are about as apolitical as you could reasonably expect a game to be. Nobody really plays Nintendo's games for a deep, engrossing story experience. People buy games from Nintendo because they are just pure and simple fun.
@@AbeFroman19861 You are confusing well written with not political, at least some of them like Thousand Year Door, I agree that some like Mario 64 don't have much if any story. But Thousand Year Door had Vivian, and she was a Trans character since the original game, not in name, but considering the term wasn't even widely used in USA until a few years after TYD came out I wouldn't expect Nintendo to use that term then. But writing wise she was a positive case of Trans representation in a time where that kind of representation wasn't a thing even in USA. Luigi is canonically good looking enough in drag to confuse a fair amount of people in the Mario and Luigi series. Birdo was one of the first trans/crossdresser representation in videogames. Nintendo doesn't necessarily put much emphasis on the politics in their games but they do have them and they lead way more to the left than they do to the right.
I think Rockstar was onto something with RDR2 how the game ends and then opens up almost directly into the original game. If they made the effort to remake the og with RDR2 engine they could’ve charged and additional $70 for the expansion and people would pay for it. Less games more commitment to making quality expansions.
3:30 "in the thralls of a paradox" this is nonsensical. I don't mean they're wrong in what they say, I mean what they say doesn't make sense. "thrall" is a state of being, you can't pluralise it, and you cant have "the thrall" or "a thrall". youre IN thrall to something or someone, when youre under their control or in their power. remember when journalists had fundamental literacy skills and knew what words mean? maybe they meant to say "in the throes of a paradox"? but even that would still be a weird and awkward phrase.
The AAA Studios dont care what gamers want, they have shareholders like Blackrock / Vanguard which push this stuff so the companies have to do it. Look at Disney for example every film that pushed it failed, except Deadpool vs Wolverine which was a Reynolds film and he refused to put that stuff into it.
"Studios (used to) know what customers wanted" Studios still know, they just want to inject weird out of place (Veilguard) politics into it, and that fails.
I'm buying a lot less games lately. New games are less interesting and way too expensive with much lower discounts than years ago while i have a lot of great, unplayed games in my backlog just waiting to be played. The time to go through the backlog has come.
Only the games industry can screw up easy money. Some how even yearly releases with barely any changes costs 300 million. Seriously, How the hell does an 8 hour campaign and mild multiplayer changes cost 300 million?
I’ve been asking for an infamous sequel or reboot for years. It’s almost too late now I don’t think Sony could even do the series justice if they wanted too. I do think sucker punch still has it in them but it’s hard to tell
Everything coming out of the AAA is a derivative of something already out. There are so few examples of these big companies taking a risk and not tacking on something that the average gamer doesn't want (micro transactions or unnecessary social commentary derailing a narrative, etc). Whenever they seem to have a new idea with potential, they shoot themselves in the foot. And that's a tiny minority, because most games in the AAA space aren't new or exciting (introducing yet another hero shooter or extraction shooter or [insert popular movie IP] open world game) And don't get me started on broken releases that kill any hype a game could have.
The problem is marketing, development pipelines are better than ever. This is all down to investors and third party agencies taking every dollar they can and fucking everyone over.
Just trust the Industry to correct itself. All these crappy games or existing IPs that have been ruined by a new generation of mediocre staff are actively losing their companies money. They will be flushed out simply out of necessity.
Each to their own, but I would rather content than graphics. Look at Space Marines 2, looks and plays great, but felt so unfinished. Was only like 10 hours of content and then just replay the same content over and over again.
To be fair there is just too many weirdos making video games these days. Not the good kind of weird that is creative, the bad kind that makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
@@AlwayzFresh what do you mean by this? Are you talking about any particular projects?
@@trentrissubsidiary4619the people who bullied you for playing video games are now the ones who are making them. The same thing can be said for Hollywood and comic book movies
What the hell you talk about @@bronzin1445. Also activists can make as many games as they want. That won't make me want to buy them.
@@trentrissubsidiary4619 I can't speak for Alwayz but Dragon Age was the must uncomfortable thing I've seen in years.
@@Jerh1985 that’s what I’ve heard. It’s not my cup of tea anyways so I was already staying away. And I haven’t trusted Bioware for a long time.
What do you think the primary reason is for why people are responding to Dragon Age in such a way?
AAA industry is cooked as along as it doesn’t prioritize quality gameplay over everything else.
Quality gameplay and quality WRITING for RPGs. New dragonage game proves that better gameplay doesn't = better game. If the writing sucks in a series that has always been NARRATIVE FIRST, people will not be interested. That's why a game like Dragon's Dogma 2, with TRASH AF writing can be successful, where as Veilgaurd can't. Because no one expected a masterclass in game writing from DD2.
@ You’re right for sure that both are important (how great games are made) but as a general rule gameplay is king. With veilguard the combat is mediocre and can’t carry for the drag that is the writing quality put on the game. Good enough gameplay however can carry for everything else wrong with the game. Both andromeda and anthem had more fans cause the gameplay was good and made up for basically everything else in those games.
Don't forget content. Games come out now unfinished and with next to no content. Space marines 2 for example.
@z28yeti The narrative of Veilguard was excellent. The character writing was "meh". If Bioware had shoved the cast of DA2 into the narrative of DAV...
I don't think so, it's like more mid game than good game.
29:00 Capcom did a survey a little while back on various metrics, such as what players look for in Capcom games. Number 1 was exhilarating gameplay, and number 2 was unique and attractive characters for the whole world. For Japan, it was the vice-versa (characters at number 1, gameplay at number 2). The top three favourite characters for the whole world were Dante (Devil May Cry) at number 1, Leon S. Kennedy (Resident Evil) at number 2, and Mega Man X (Mega Man) at number 3.
So yeah, gameplay and character design are considered the most important, according to that survey. Sure, "unique" doesn't technically rule out "diverse and inclusive", but I doubt that's a very high priority for the average player based on the other stats. And even then, keep in mind that people also like attractive characters. There's a reason why the casts of games like Street Fighter and Overwatch have a lot of appeal, while the casts of games like Concord do not.
I mean, if that means hot men and robots are the future of gaming, as a gay guy, im in.
I dont get how that removes inclusivity and diversiveness though, you realize a lot of hot and traditionally attractive men are gay?
@marmeat rods. Edit* not sure what my point was. Went off on a tangent.
I suppose there is some audience for that. Women like to read about heroines getting boned by "hunky men". And guys like to watch beautiful girls get the business by guys or girls. But as soon as you make man on man, you start hearing "NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHO YOU FK"
Oh really? I mean some people are prudes about sex in movies and videogames, sure. But sex sells. As long as it's boobs and butts. And not slinging meatrods.
My Rook in Veilguard looks exactly like Leon from Resident Evil (Biohazard). So i had a handsome character and fun gameplay. I guess that helped me enjoy the game and forgive the few minutes of cringe.
@markedone494 Hot men and robots works for me 😅
I dunno who told studios that women want ugly female hero's. We want himbos
@@RandomWandrerfew…minutes? What did you stop like ten minutes in?
It is wild to hear IGN write an article describing the many issues with AAA gaming but still knowing full well they gave almost all the games they used as an example 7 out of 10s and up.
IGN you puffing all these companies and defending is also really not helping them.
You do need to understand IGN isn't just 1 person.
@@zelohendricks51 And? They are a company, they continuously glaze any AAA shovel ware before and directly after release, and afterwards they find another writer to write another opinion piece that follows the current more negative consensus. They are fence sitting shills as a company and what their individual writers think is barely relevant in comparison.
@@zelohendricks51 isn’t that what the comment sayin
@@zelohendricks51 That's why they have these guys called editors that are supposed to be in charge of things.
7 out of 10 is bad. Means mediocre at best.
Up here in Canada, a lot of new AAA games are nearly $100 dollars. And as someone who lives in an "impossibly unaffordable" housing market, I cannot justify shelling out $94 for Silent Hill 2 Remake, or $90 for Flight Sim 2024, or $97 for Monster Hunter Wilds, etc.
Let me guess you live in the GTA or Vancouver which are where the main problems are.
If you do decide to buy one of those. Silent hill 2 is the best horror game remake since the resident evil 1 remake on GameCube.
Highly recc. It.
As an American from California i feel your pain
$119 AUD for some new games
it's like you said, they're chasing trends and trends never last. if these devs and companies could just figure out a way to block out that outside noise that is the media and were able remember why they started making games in the first place i bet they'd be able to come up with something people will play for years.
Well,cod has been going strong for ages and its still very popular despite not innovating much.
I've almost entirely pivoted to playing Indie games.
They're a fraction of the cost and you get a much better experience They're also made by people who aren't chained to their f*cking cubicle until release then "laid off" after the money is made.
yea most indie games actually play the games, they listen to player feedback and learn from mistakes, look at that farming game, the guy is still going strong on it, terraria too, baulders gate, they allll listen and fix issues everyone sees
Wtf is indie? Speak English, come on man!
Lose weight
There in trouble because it takes almost a decade to make one 😂
And after that decade, it’s still buggy and filled with monetization…
They’re*
This is why the AA market is blooming. Literally 1/15th the budget and manpower yet infinitely better quality.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance had a budget of $20M. Starfield cost $200M…let that sink in for a bit
That's part of the problem, yes. According to a Microsoft executive, games nowadays take 4-6 years to make. They take so long to chase trends that the trends die before the game even comes out.
@@flarestorm9417 It's so weird too. I always thought that advancements in technology would allow games to be made faster, but it was exactly the opposite.
Game studios hires people who hate gamers to make video games and then wonder why they're failing.
Hollywood is literally the exact same way. 2024 was the WORST year for the industry in the last 30 years
Maybe there are just some people who work on games who hate gamers cause they can be a nuisance. Gamers don’t have to interact with the lost lot of the crowd.
It’s those that don’t care for gamers are the worst.
Yes and Luke constantly avoids bringing it up
@@himynameisaaron86 Because it’s not true. The same reason a lot of people who work in politics hate voters, though in that profession it’s damning to state it. A lot of professionals might harbour a hatred to their customers since they had to deal with the worst of the worst. That goes from retail, service jobs, construction, and etc. 100% doesn’t apply only to the entertainment industry.
Most and vast majority of most developers don’t hate gamers but I don’t think the average person understands how infuriating people can be, especially those that give creative critiques when they lack all creativity. Now imagine being exposed to those types.
@@Bro-dot-maybe if they hate their customers so much they should find a different line of work. If you hate the people in your own industry maybe you don't love it as much as you think
Alot of narrative games at least feel more like shitty fanfic self inserts. Live service just seems to be a fever dream for a lot of companies who want to do the least to print money.
Give me independent games filled with passion any day
Indies and AA are going to rise to the top. It’s only a matter of time
What of AAA games with passion?
@@Bro-dot- Those haven’t existed for over a decade.
@@bronzin1445 Elden Ring, Baldurs Gate3 ? Cyberpunk 2077? God of war Ragnarök? What are these games to you? Amongst the biggest AAA games to release all with super passionate teams, huge financial successes and the highest talent within the professional scene.
@ my point exactly
when you hire people who don't know what a good game is, why are they surprised the game bombs?
When u make a game for everyone, you make a game for no one!
Wow 👌
Nice quote from helldiver's 2 dev team.
Well just to be fair they also screwed up and lost half of their players because of more bugs then bug fixes, and changing the game from power fantasy to sweaty ass cheek clenching gameplay, which 95% of the players did not want.
They aren't making games for everyone, they're making games for a "modern audience" which is close to no one.
@@pebe4793 The saying isn't original from Helldivers 2 dev team. It's a saying that existed well before their studio came around.
You dont need to spend 100s of millions to make a good game. As a massive amount of the people who made up gaming get older, such as myself, we are finding ourselves wanting less mmos/live services and more single/co op games. Not every game needs to be a massive open world with 100s of hours of content. I think having a good mix of these titles with the occasional live service would help these companies but they dont just want money they want EVERY single thing they make to make the same amount of profit or more each time.
Facts we are huge market, but because we won’t buy every color pack, they don’t care about us. We remember playing a game to unlock things
I really miss that late 2000s/early 2010s era of gaming. I honestly think it was the peak…
Also I'd include early 2000s ps2 was the best console ever imo
"I really miss that late 2000s/early 2010s era of gaming. ".
Yes - still playing (among other games) Skyrim and DA:O here 🙂
I miss the 90s
the end of the 2010 decade was the best in history. 2017-2020 was insane
We forget many of the bad trends, there were a lot of brown/grey 6 hour melodramatic shooters with arbitrary tacked on multiplayer in those days. Some great stuff as well though for sure.
I agree with most of what you said, except maybe the whole "activist writer" bit. In my experience people who care about accessibility and representation in games also don't like games like Suicide Squad bc it's basically companies admitting they think marginalized people are dumb enough to fall for token shilling. Most would rather have a good game and have people find out after finishing a game that a character was gay or trans. Most writers I have seen who claim to be "activists" are trying to use identity issues of marginalized people as a shield from actual criticism of their game oe writting
nearly all the games that flop have 1 striking similarity, yet people online will still scream and claim that similarity is not a factor in the games flop
is it live service garbage?
@@heroicgangster9981 There is a ton of successful live service games so can’t be that.
Is 1st Descendent similar to sny games?
Buggy mess on launch
@@heroicgangster9981 try again
I never bought diablo 3 and 4 precisely because of that error 37, even as a teen I was raising my eyebrow to online only games.
I didn't care how good reaper of souls supposedly is, I still didn't buy, and I'm glad enough people didn't to the point where there wasn't a second one, just the necromancer DLC.
AAA blockbusters overall are not in trouble, games with over inflated budgets and unrealistic expectations are which has always been the case really. The big thing now is the fall off of new live service games and the quicker that cancer is removed from the gaming industry the better.
36:40 The gender gap in gaming is much smaller than that nowadays when you look at the industry overall. Your audience is heavily influenced by the game genre; first-person shooters are heavily tilted with more male players, but catering for primarily men would be a big mistake for the Sims, for instance, which has a 60% female player base.
The player base also has gotten older too; the NES-loving kids of yore are now in their 50s.
This is true, which makes the heavy focus on the feminine in action games these days very odd.
"Games are expensive to make"
Over bloating the budget does not make it good
I really want to know where that money is going, you watch this 200 million dollar movies and games and you just wonder "where the hell did the budget money go?"
Clearly not on visuals or writing
Did they spend 50 million on a consulting firm and 100 million on paychecks for the execs, and the rest devided on financing the game?
I've been making a list of game LOSSES not just general flops and 2023-2024 has had a ludicrous amount.
The issue is finding out Budget costs.
We don't know how badly they failed. We don't have budgets for:
Unknown 9, Redfall, Veilguard, Until Dawn Remake, Lego Horizon.
And we don't have sales numbers for:
Immortals of Avernum, Skull & Bones or Dustborne.
A lot of those kinds of games cost more than average games to develop because of several factors including how long development took and extra people on the payroll.
Microsoft bought the studio that made Redfall in 2023 for $7.5Billion. That is a lot of money to make back especially with so many failed games on your list.
The thing is there's always been big budget games that flopped, it's just that even just a few years later most get forgotten, never mind a decade or more later.
@@erg1947 When in the past did game devs intentionally make their characters ugly?
Things are different today.
@@thebenc1537 that's not relevant to what I said though? Games flopped in the past and most are forgotten today, that's objectively true. You have the odd game like Brink that was so hyped it's still sort of remembered despite being a massive flop but most flops from this year won't be remembered in 5 years time. I'm struggling to think of one flop from 2019.
@@erg1947 That was the year Anthem and that awful Wolfenstein Sisters game failed miserably. Im sure you remember those games.
Also it was the year of Stadia, a bigger fail than both those games combined.
As someone who's in several of those bubbles, representation is the icing on the cake. I want good games. I'm 10x more interested in games that let me play as a female or multicultural character because that produces storytelling that's less stale imo, but when the game's not good...10 x 0 = 0. And even when they do include my bubbles, they don't do it in a compelling way, so what's the point?
I've been playing video games since they were a thing (I'm in my 60's now). I never had a problem with relating to an acrobatic, globe-trotting British female archeologist to enjoy her stories. I was never under any delusion that I was a stealthy cat-person archer that could put an arrow through your eye socket from 300 yards away and then fill a gem with your soul. I didn't even need to be an angst-ridden Japanese teen boy with spiky hair who carried a sword you could cleave a bus in half with.
I didn't need to BE any of those things to relate to the protagonist, so long as they told a compelling story. So why do I suddenly HAVE to be [insert "under-represented" class here] in order to relate to their character? Especially since more often than not their story isn't at all compelling, and they simply exist as a mouthpiece to sound a klaxon alert for the latest perceived socio-political flashpoint?
Write a good story that invests me in a character first. And if it turns out that character is a non-binary quasi-dragon humanoid, okay fine, woohoo...bonus. But don't lecture us about your issues... I'm not your psychiatrist or your confessor, I'm your leader and all that crap gets left at home when we're all neck-deep in darkspawn. Or maybe you could just drone on to THEM about how your Mommy just doesn't understand you, and watch them all drop like flies out of sheer boredom!
But the people creating them need to
I think you can dress it up all you like but having people who are ideologically captured by politics are so far out of touch with the average consumer you increase your chances of failure ten fold.
I genuinely want to see an audit of how these companies are spending above RDR2 budget, without delivering above RDR2 quality. Like how do you get a blank check that can be used to hire the best of the best and deliver a large mound of shit.
One thing positive about the whole debacles related to videogames is now I'm in a position of leadership so I have a lil bit of influence on the game I work on and the past years really helped to build my credibility with directors for our game. It's like everything I predict is happening exactly as I say while I only use common sense and when I do other work (not in a meeting), I spend all my time listening to a broad range of youtuber (like Luke) to know where the winds are going.
One thing for sure within all the years I've been in the industry, the trend I noticed is people aging. It's not a problem by itself but games were previously led by passionnate young kids that didn't have much experience but LOVED videogames to experts in their 40's who enjoyed videogame but have little time to keep in touch. I'd say the industry went from wasting time struggling on how to stuff(overpromise) to know how to do incredible stuff but we're so misguided and out of touch that we spend so much time and money on irrelevant stuff that it's infuriating.
With big budgets comes analytics and risk management and since people making decisions are out of touch, they tend to rely on these like crutches and following trends when the end goal is to surprise and delight our target audience rather than provide safe "comfort food" is ultimetely incredibly damaging for long term financial success.
I'm a guy in my 40's, no kids and play games about 3-4h a day within every genre. I can't tell you how much I'm a outlier among the people I work with.
This comment here is the one to pin 📌
7:51 Yes. True. I still buy and play games. Gaming isn't dead. I think there's too many live service games that require your time and attention that I'm tired of ignoring the singeplayer ones that I feel deserve our time and attention as well. Stalker2 comes out next week and I couldn't be more excited for a new open world shooter that takes us back to when games were games...
It still has 3 different versions and a preorder bonus. Us old folks remember when you bought a game for one price and got the same game as everyone else.
Devs developing their games around personal ideologies in echo chambers leads to stuff like concord
29:16 It was said for music that old producers were open about not knowing what younger audiences wanted so they trusted artists more, they took more chances on artists. When younger producers came up the ranks, they claimed to know what audiences wanted and music has become what it is now. I would say movies, TV series and games are the same in some way. Games used to be run by nerds, now its run by money people who thinks they know what mainstream audiences want so these companies can keep growing.
I don't know man. You are saying that COVID and the increase in spending on video games is the reason, but games like Concord and Forespoken have been in development for like a decade. All of these decisions were made a decade ago... Mid 2010's
Way before COVID
Well then its a good thing that they're losing so much money.
At some point they probably need to think abt the decisions that are being made 😂
I just want to point out that this article exists merely to obfuscate the real issues, which were thankfully called out (especially in the final 3rd of the video).
The budgets are huge. So they need to sell a ton of copies. This is the probblem.
There's almost no reason for me today to buy a game at launch.
* games are overpriced so it's better to wait for a sale
* games come out as broken and with missing features\story content so it's better to wait until that is sorted out
* you often can't trust early reviews(good or bad) and it's better to wait a few months for a consensus
* my backlog is big enough and games are way too long, for me to feel pressure to buy new ones (I'm only now starting to go through Cyberpunk)
Me also just started Cyberpunk lol
And even for games that are relatively complete, they're going to have little extras. So you're still better off waiting a year or so to get the game when it is both cheaper and comes with more content, even if said content is just cosmetic stuff.
Funny how these companies collect all this user data about how we play our games, but they don't know what we want.
They know what their customers want and they hate it.
Unsurprisingly, when every single game wants to take ALL of your time, none can succeed. And when you force the player to be picky like that, quality matters much more... Which they have been dropping hard.
I‘m like literally afraid of the triple A industry!
They’ll release a shit game and all of the marketing will center around the gay characters which will most likely be horribly written and not at all representative of me, a gay person. For the next few weeks I then can’t go on any social media without seeing hundreds of posts attacking people like me and making me responsible for a terrible game.
Dear triple A publishers, please don’t try to represent me if that’s the outcome!
I‘m just going to sink more hours into Cyberpunk.
Isnt this what you wanted though? You are finally represented in all media, you won. You should be happy.
@ No, because these poorly written characters aren’t at all representative of me and are rather very harmful stereotypes. Also if a game isn’t good, I’m not going to play it, regardless if it’s inclusive or not.
@@Ravix0fFourHornthe person you’re addressing NEVER SAID THAT! You’re addressing a figment in your head.
27:20 this part is absolutely spot on, great analysis of the whole pandering problem.
You're also slightly over looking the issue Luke. People do want to be represented but these companies have NO idea how to do that. Example would be making a strong female protagonist. AAA studios tend to take only 2 paths. Either make a male character and write out all the dialogue for him, then replace him with her; or make the lead a female but then she acts weak the whole time and can't do ANYTHING on her own. It's rare to get a female that just a woman who is also strong. That then applies to EVERYTHING else.
Struggling college kid in Saints Row game? Have a class choice. Tech student - Start out at home with TV on and news about Saints gang active in the city and then reference big project to be unveiled later at the university. Drive to school with exposition on what's happened in the time skip. Get to school, go to class and learn about how hacking works. Get pulled away by friend to see whatever is being unveiled in the school. Saints show up and cause problems and main character hides in mcguffin. Saints take object, find the guy, he says he's a great hacker, Saints let him join as the new "Dexter" of the group. Athlete - change learning about hacking to how hand to hand combat/grappling works. So on.
Don't just take kid next door story and then replace him with Saints Row and say "It just works!" because it fucking doesn't! I'm getting so annoyed by this pattern after watching it get worse over 20yrs of gaming. The only part of a game that should be hard is the programming and the details of a story. The major bullet points of games have ALL been done very well by past games. Just improve upon that. Stop trying to remake the freaking wheel!
In Destiny, why did the Tower not have AI guardians that would warp in, run around to the various vendors, talk to some AI, and then warp out like the game .Hack//SIGN ?? It would make the tower feel more involved, show players where vendors are at, and can be used to create secret easter egg events. I have so much frustration at the modern industry and I want all of the current big names to fail and burn. We need new AAA people/companies to push through
“Creatively diverse”= “we used to have an industry based on people that were all highly and uniquely, if not esoterically wierd, game devs. Then we diversified by adding people with on talent or variety of thought.”
Flops coming because companies not respect gamers
Call of duty dont respect no one and they don't flop
@@nickbrooks4993 The demographic that buys CoD is largely detached from the rest of the industry. The people who buy a console for that mostly play just that and sports games. They don't have to respect their audience because they're a large, casual audience with lower standards, who are far more willing to burn large amounts of money on literally the only game that they play.
@asdadsgsaadasf6043 so your basically say they're bots
@asdadsgsaadasf6043 more examples fifa apex NBA2k overwatch gta 5 online must I continue
@@nickbrooks4993 I mean he is kinda right. Ofc there are exceptions, but throughout my years in cod, the people I encountered the most are console players that just play cod and Fifa.
Blockbuster are just a part of word salad they are trying to portrayed.
It meant something that crushing the popularity sales wise, not rating wise.
They try to pretend these AAA flops are blockbuster which isn't.
And they also pretend Wu Kong isn't a blockbuster while it actually is.
They gave Dragn Age V a 9/10.
They can stfu.
I had to double-check just to make sure the 9 wasn’t a 6, which is what it ACTUALLY is and even that is being generous
The 9/10 is a very valid score to many people, given by IGN to the masses, not so much. This game is polarising not objectivity bad. The scores vary.
There is a lot to hate and a lot to love and people will latch on to either one, makes it easy for audiences to pick and choose, with a mountain of evidence to support why this game is amazing or why it’s not so good.
@@Bro-dot-That is incorrect. The score is NOT valid and the game IS objectively bad; regardless if you’re a fan or a casual newcomer.
Not to mention that IGN themselves backpedaled on the original review. That alone speaks for itself
@@bronzin1445 So you are just intentionally being close minded and not understanding other people can have varying opinions to you. Saying it’s objectively bad is crazy work.
How can you say that regardless if you are a fan or casual you must dislike this game?!?!? What gives you authority or makes you feel like you need to have it?
Even with your score of 5-6 that still doesn’t qualify as bad.
@@Bro-dot- Actually, is is bad, look into it, don't take my word for it, is IS bad.
This was a good video Luke! Every game studio should show this video to their devs in their firm!👍
Developers no longer represent or make games for the actual people who purchase them, that is the issue. If you spend 400 million on something that the vast majority of your potential customers find ugly, alienating, and insulting, it's entirely your fault. It's the same issue that's going on with Star Wars, and so many other things. People who have no business making this stuff want to make it for themselves, and they're shocked when the entire market gets up and leaves instead of accepting something they don't want. If you replace my double bacon cheeseburger with a veggie burger, I'm just going to go find what I want somewhere else. It's not rocket science.
I still refuse to consider Arkane Austin shut down deserved. If you ask a plumber to build you a roof, expect the roof to come down on your head. That´s how it works,.
Another interesting factor that I’ve seen about the AAA calculus came from a former Square Enix finance guy on Twitter.
He was pushing back on the idea the Square Enix sets arbitrarily high goals. He said, “they may be high, but it’s genuinely what is needed when fully accounting for costs and the margin you need to generate to make it even more worthwhile that investing that money simply back into the market.”
And he said that one thing that makes it especially hard to make games today is the impact of live service forever games. Back in the day, people went from one game to the next. You’d buy a game, beat it, and genuinely be in need of something new. But now, there are so many ongoing games that take so much of people’s time, that it makes new games a bit less necessary. It drives down demand. And so a new game has to be really compelling to get someone to go and pick it up vs continue playing Fortnite, Genshin, GTA Online, etc. There used to be a cycle that doesn’t really exist anymore.
I think saints row was the big turning point, and i don't know how its failure was ignored by everyone else developing those types of games
Egotistical CEOs in the mindset of "There's no way MY product would end up like that, that could never be me"
Exactly! They are all doing the same cartoony graphics and are anti male and try to have this goofy comedic approach to everything. Of course it’s because they are all being pressured to hire mostly women and lgbqt folk. Most games lately with no identity politics that has a dark tone or hot chicks sales like crazy.
I disagree on Jak & Dax. Just look at how well the remakes of Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil, and more have done.
J&D doing a remake and new entry would do really well imo. People's love for Ratchet and Clank shows that, as they're somewhat similar.
The IP isn't the issue imo, the company involved has a larger impact on whether it's a success.
Eh, we've had some definite blockbusters these last few years. The difference is, the games that busted the blocks did it by appealing to gamers.
Overall, I'd say this year has been a landmark year for educational lessons. You could make an entire semester at a gaming school on things to avoid doing, using this year's games as case studies:
1) Concord - character design matters; if you want to sell something, you'd better offer enough value over your cheaper alternatives
2) Suicide Squad - fit your game to your IP, as in, don't make a super hero game that's about guns. Also, don't pull an Anthem by forcing live service multiplayer on studios. Oh, and hire a competent UI designer
3) DA:tV - Writing matters, especially for RPGs; be true to your IP... don't turn your dark fantasy game into something that looks like something for kids; don't preach; if you aren't making games for 5 year olds, you probably shouldn't treat your players like they're five years old.
4) Star Wars Outlaws - Make sure your AAA priced game is actually AAA.
And I'm sure there a few others that can be tacked on as well.
I remember that blood diamond quote. “When’s the last time the world wasn’t coming to an end?”
In all my years as a minority who's a gamer, I've never complained about having to play as some buffed white guy in most games. Luke's pretty much right, many people don't care about representation and making it blatantly a requirement just puts people off.
I was interested in Suicide Squad until I found out it was live service. I got burned with Marvel Avengers and said never again.
Studios and devs these days : stfu and enjoy our game.. if not then don't buy it, we don't care
a month later: WHY DID YOU NOT BUY OUR GAME YA BIGOTS AND RACISTS?
"A good game is what players want with a diverse cast being bonus points"
Bro just described Metaphor: Refantazio. The game feels insanely good to play and every member of the party is a different race along with multiple of your non-party member social likes also being different races.
23:59 I really resonate with this part. I pnly play 2-3 games on Steam at most. Other times, I'm usually playing older retro games that companies no longer profit from.
People don't have the time or money that these major corporations are wanting.
Luke is definitely becoming the king of understatements 😂
Wait, Luke's eleven when obama won?! Boy am i old.......
I was 7 when Obama won just turned 25 last week
This is how big corporations can stop being so out of touch and reconciliate with young audiences: the executives need to make a videoclip with them singing a rap song and publish it on myspace.
Or just create games that let us create our own characters 😮😮😮
Final Fantasy XVI was carrying the Forspoken tax.
Ya know people dancing on the graves of these games reminds me of that story... About a man who didn’t receive love of the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
That’s the relationship between the media/industry and its customers from the 90s/2000s.
13:25 I mean it DOES work. It’s just that they’re either misproducing products people want or overspending by an order of magnitude. Both are their fault.
What they need to do is get some hyper productive employees who are god tier again, and actually be capable of making a full “polished” video game in 12-18 months. It CAN be done. They did it before. Graphical corners can be cut and still look modern-ish due to hardware power.
There’s no excuse for these budgets and production timelines. For these games that are filled with absolute nonsensical unfun busy work.
Can't be a blockbuster game without a blockbuster concept
what is truely odd about the industry is we have games such as Hades, Blasphimus, Ori and the Will of the Whisps, Minecraft, Roblox Fortnight and many others which play great on almost any hardware. People want to play games they dont have to be AAA to sell. Its the game studios that some how think only a 100 hour game with 8k scaled up graphics is gonna make money or some looter shooter where every player is nickle and dimed. We need these AAA studios to hire managers who know how a good game works and frankly more trust in the industry not less.
I think a massive reason is the economic down turn we are facing globally. We see these exact same failing trends in movies and tv shows as well. People dont have the money they did a decade ago and it will probably take 8 or so years of real change before people have the money to spend on "average" games
Meanwhile Deadlock thats not even in alpha have more players interest 😂. Its basically monkey throwing shit wishing some of them hit something at this point, so in short "out of touch" to aay it the nice way.
The problem nowday with Blockbuster games is that they invest 300 millions on a game but the product feels like a 10 millions dollar game... The graphics are ugly, they are full of bugs, basically they ship early indie acces games but they spend 300 millions on them.. where the money is going??? No one knows.
Beyond the obvious bloat of content meant to keep a player trapped forever, there's plenty of legitimate reasons why games cost so much to make. But I do feel a CEO walking into the room and saying "All new games will cost under $50 million and take 3 years or less." while also fostering creative direction and unique gameplay would be a smart move.
Maybe the game industry should back off on cramming graphical fidelity into everything. Not only would it bring costs down, but it would be accessible to more players, which would get them more sales. As is, games are getting way too demanding.
It’s funny how we hear of this “crisis” when TALENTED studios like Fromsoft and Larian grow bigger than ever and made their biggest games yet both in terms of scale, developers, time and of course budget and they were smash hits
Ubisoft: it's so frustrating that we can't scam consumers anymore 😂
Funny how Nintendo, who has always been open about their progressive politics in games, is doing great, it's almost like the issue is American Corporativism leading to very incompetent people being put in charge of games and not being willing to accept criticism from their clients and even other developers in their same companies.
The problem is costs ballooning due to the focus on top of the line graphics and horrible business practices like hiring several teams of part time developers and rotating them in order to not give them benefits, which increases development time even more and leads to unpolished games that are barely stitched together.
Let's be honest, most of the recent games aren't failing due to progressive agendas, they are failing because they suck at every level from ground up, Suicide Squad being a looter shooter to begin with made it a game no one would care about, imagine if instead you were using a self insert or random unknown character and established villains and heroes were companions that help you and give you upgrades like Batman's glide cape, Mr. Freeze gun or Poison Ivy giving you a pet giant Venus Flytrap that you can ride as a mount. In addition these companions all have mini stories where they can develop and show said characters in more personal situations. Something like Marvel Midnight Suns but with gameplay similar to the Arkham series but more modular.
Yeah. It goes deeper than the identity politics. I think that's only used as a shield from criticism. The games themselves are rotten to the core. From design to implementation. As if they hired hundreds of junior devs to build in eight years what would take senior developers two or three-- just to save money for the studio heads to pocket.
For the most part Nintendo's games are about as apolitical as you could reasonably expect a game to be. Nobody really plays Nintendo's games for a deep, engrossing story experience. People buy games from Nintendo because they are just pure and simple fun.
@@AbeFroman19861 You are confusing well written with not political, at least some of them like Thousand Year Door, I agree that some like Mario 64 don't have much if any story.
But Thousand Year Door had Vivian, and she was a Trans character since the original game, not in name, but considering the term wasn't even widely used in USA until a few years after TYD came out I wouldn't expect Nintendo to use that term then. But writing wise she was a positive case of Trans representation in a time where that kind of representation wasn't a thing even in USA.
Luigi is canonically good looking enough in drag to confuse a fair amount of people in the Mario and Luigi series.
Birdo was one of the first trans/crossdresser representation in videogames.
Nintendo doesn't necessarily put much emphasis on the politics in their games but they do have them and they lead way more to the left than they do to the right.
@@AbeFroman19861that depends on the genre lol. Would very much love if a Zelda game had political story. oooo that would be so good
Once shareholders are involved, the march downwards begins. The toll is due and it is time to collect.
I will never stop laughing about these billion dollar "safe bets" falling flat on their face
They really tried to sneak gamepass in as a “good option” 💀
I think Rockstar was onto something with RDR2 how the game ends and then opens up almost directly into the original game. If they made the effort to remake the og with RDR2 engine they could’ve charged and additional $70 for the expansion and people would pay for it. Less games more commitment to making quality expansions.
3:30 "in the thralls of a paradox" this is nonsensical. I don't mean they're wrong in what they say, I mean what they say doesn't make sense. "thrall" is a state of being, you can't pluralise it, and you cant have "the thrall" or "a thrall". youre IN thrall to something or someone, when youre under their control or in their power.
remember when journalists had fundamental literacy skills and knew what words mean? maybe they meant to say "in the throes of a paradox"? but even that would still be a weird and awkward phrase.
21:17 sounds like the place you grew up was ahead of the curve after what we witnessed the last 8 years 😂😂
Western AAA games? Yes. But asia is doing fine
Another MASSIVE issue is games being released COMPLETELY BROKEN
Release games when they're ready
this is a symptom of the wider issue that they dont hire based on merit anymore.
@Ravix0fFourHorn not really, patching games after release started in the X360/PS3 days, long before the modern world BS
Games' Companies made games they wanted us to like rather than games we would like. I guess they thought we were idiots.
The AAA Studios dont care what gamers want, they have shareholders like Blackrock / Vanguard which push this stuff so the companies have to do it. Look at Disney for example every film that pushed it failed, except Deadpool vs Wolverine which was a Reynolds film and he refused to put that stuff into it.
"Studios (used to) know what customers wanted"
Studios still know, they just want to inject weird out of place (Veilguard) politics into it, and that fails.
Smaller games, smaller studios, more single gamer content, focus on quality and find niches
I'm buying a lot less games lately. New games are less interesting and way too expensive with much lower discounts than years ago while i have a lot of great, unplayed games in my backlog just waiting to be played.
The time to go through the backlog has come.
Literally bought a 2nd-hand PS3 recently for that purpose expressly.
Game studios have developed a crippling FEAR OF FAILURE
Only the games industry can screw up easy money. Some how even yearly releases with barely any changes costs 300 million. Seriously, How the hell does an 8 hour campaign and mild multiplayer changes cost 300 million?
The cost to quality ratio isn’t trending in the right direction. Also, since my available time has decreased, I stopped gaming altogether
I’ve been asking for an infamous sequel or reboot for years. It’s almost too late now I don’t think Sony could even do the series justice if they wanted too. I do think sucker punch still has it in them but it’s hard to tell
I will not tolerate Jak & Daxter slander
Going back to the late 2000's sounds good to me.
Nothing wrong with the way games were made back then!
Everything coming out of the AAA is a derivative of something already out. There are so few examples of these big companies taking a risk and not tacking on something that the average gamer doesn't want (micro transactions or unnecessary social commentary derailing a narrative, etc). Whenever they seem to have a new idea with potential, they shoot themselves in the foot. And that's a tiny minority, because most games in the AAA space aren't new or exciting (introducing yet another hero shooter or extraction shooter or [insert popular movie IP] open world game)
And don't get me started on broken releases that kill any hype a game could have.
The problem is marketing, development pipelines are better than ever. This is all down to investors and third party agencies taking every dollar they can and fucking everyone over.
I can't think of a single release from Square that ever "met expectations". They have one of the most inept boards in the industry.
Just trust the Industry to correct itself. All these crappy games or existing IPs that have been ruined by a new generation of mediocre staff are actively losing their companies money. They will be flushed out simply out of necessity.
AAA is like a fish out of water now, they tryin to evolve forcefully putting legs on a fish and expecting it to run around.
Each to their own, but I would rather content than graphics. Look at Space Marines 2, looks and plays great, but felt so unfinished. Was only like 10 hours of content and then just replay the same content over and over again.
"It takes one and a half studios to complete the annual Call of Duty." Stop pushing a new Call of Duty every year, geniuses.