Why Are AAA Games Getting WORSE?!
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2024
- It seems like AAA games have gotten worse lately. They are too safe, they don't take enough risks and are excessively monetized. Why have AAA games gotten worse? After watching this video, you'll know...
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___TIME STAMPS___
Introduction - 0:00
What Does ‘AAA’ Actually Mean? - 3:45
Games Have Gotten TOO Big - 5:33
Why So Many Layoffs? - 7:49
AAA Games Are TOO Safe - 9:23
We Need More AA Games - 13:45
Indie vs. AAA - 15:35
Lack of Creative Control - 17:35
Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen - 19:08
Conclusion - 22:35 - Hry
Pre-order a like for this video, only $10!! What a steal!!
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Will there be gold and ultimate editions for preorder too?
Why would I do that if you haven't already made 2 dlcs
I like how he's talking shit about PlayStation even though he made a video about enjoying helldivers 2 MADE by PlayStation aka SONY.
Join the server today!!
@@gizmo2006 not made. PUBLISHED
It’s actually insane that people had to get completely burned 11 years in a row just to actually realise there was a huge fire going on.
The power of denial is strong my friend. Too strong I'm afraid.....
11 years? 11 years ago we had great games. It's more over the last 5 or 6 at least not 11 lmao
@@manzac112sadly, it will get worse.
@@devizesolstice4617go back and watch videos from 2013 (and prior years) and you will see several rants about on-disc DLC in capcom games, stupid cosmetic DLC for Fable III and Final Fantasy, and server instability for Sim City and Diablo III. Maybe also actually listen to people next time.
@@devizesolstice4617go look up videos from 2013 and prior. Several rants about DLC, server instability, and patch dependency are still up.
Ubisoft got a Pass. Since they create AAAA games nowadays.
we are all so blessed
I hate so much the fact that Ubisoft is now just as bad as Activision and EA. I'm not even mad, just incredibly disappointed by how they fell down. They used to be one of my favorite videogame companies.
@@omega6749 yeah that’s a shame. They want faster downhill than France during the 2nd world war 🏳️
@@TheActMan You are blessed my man. Your video content pipeline should be stacked for years to come 😎
It's categorized as AAAA since they wasted more budget than AAA all these years 😂
I miss getting a game, beating the story, playing the MP for a couple weeks, then moving on to the next game. Now every game wants me to make it my life, with unrealistic chore like grinds.
This. It's like the games are being made by drug peddlers.
It has an effect on the core gameplay too. Like the gameplay itself isn't prioritized as much as everything else. They cut corners, get lazy, focus more on how to increase engagement (make you addicted to mundane shit)
Plague Tale: Innocence and Plague Tale: Requiem are perfect examples of this style of game.
After finishing FF7 Rebirth I never want to play another modern game again lol. That game followed the ubisoft formula to a T. By Chapter 12 I just wanted the game to end and was going through the motions. Now I'm just really burnt out by modern games. The last thing I want to do is invest another 60 to 80 hours in another open world game. I just don't have the time and energy for these types of games anymore. I might go back to these types of open world games in the future but right now I am only playing games that respect my time. I am actually going back and playing a lot of older games on the PS2 and 360.
Not just that, but they can and will take it all away in a few years because its not making profit anymore and and shut the servers down, so all the time and effort is lost to time.
I used to work in Programming. Once when the client asked for a change, I was assigned to add the code for it and it took me 1 hour with the testing (being generous). My supervisor told me I should not report right away it’s done because I had to take 2 business days to do it and now I (we) had to pretend we were still working on it to make the client realize the code was not that easy to work on therefore we should still be paid to be on hold for future changes. I realized a lot that day about “business”.
Do the same in fabrication. Not all the time but if it’s like a project for the city, or a large company. the finish product will sit in the shop for days or a week plus if we finish to fast.
I'm glad you were able to fix a bug in 1 hour... takes me quite a bit longer to fix bugs in my programmes😂
@@user-sy4ec3em5o it was not a big it was a new function, super basic, literally just letting the user add a variable to a formula
This is the case for every software development outsource/outstaff company that all AAA studios employ and even their own developers. As my team lead said once, it’s better for client/PO/PM to think that you are working on something, than know that you are sitting around waiting for specifications for a new feature, because this one took less than expected.
well...sounds like a lack of project management and BA staff.
your manager most likely doesn't want business to get used to changing requirements mid development.
we have a rule where if they do change requirements we push it to next release. it forces business to focus more on what they want instead of putting in a random ticket without thought
It's funny how the movie industry is paralleling the video game industry during the same time period. Big budgets, lots of greed, zero inspiration.
I thought the same thing while watching this. It's truly a shame
At the end of the day, it makes them money. More money than they did when they “tried”
tv show industry as well with how many shows are getting too expensive for their own good in order to offer a maximum of 8 episodes of story content. I consider that a ripoff tbh
same with almost every type of media, games, movies, shows, music, general websites, programs, not even just media, but even real physical products like cars, houses, phones. It's only getting worse all across the consumerist capitalistic world.
if they lose profits it'll add up, but if you buy the slop they can keep doing it.
I’m going to quote EmpLemon here because he summed it up brilliantly
“People are so focused on making a product Profitable, that they forget to make it Valuable”
That's a great quote.
There is this thing with late stage capitalism, that profit gain in the short term tends to put firms into this death spiral because they completely destroy their long-term legacy.
Reminds me of Steve Job's product people vs marketing people explanation.
That is a dynamite quote, imma put it on a tee, please buy it! (Sleeves as DLC)
Which video did he say that on?
Not "forget", it's on purpose. They know it's not worth trying, that people will buy it anyway
I'm an indie dev myself. I keep looking at how impressive all these character movements and interactions are made, but only to realize that a single player linear game with a team of 500 employees takes them years to make. If they actually stopped overthinking everything to the degree of "will HR approve of my code?", they would be released in months. It's really sad.
Hell no. Adding more people doesn't magically make things progress faster. This is literally the corner stone of software development. After certain point adding more people just slows project down since you can't have too many people smoothly work on the same project.
@@JushakFdebatable. As someone who’s worked in the industry game devs issues come from the culture that’s developed recently. Because you’re working on a 100 million dollar game nobody wants to fuck anything up, so most people try and dodge responsibilities or take more time than necessary to make it 100% perfect. Tim Cain did a video talking about this as well if you’re interested, he told a story where this exact scenario played out with a dev saying something that should take a few hours would take a week or two, and Tim calling them out and having to go through middle management to barter with them about it. I’ve experienced the same with coworkers. Not saying that too many cooks doesn’t hurt things, but it isn’t that simple
@@oldylad Not really debatable. That is just basics of software development, literally some of the first things we were taught in university that has stayed true for the software industry as a whole for decades.
Also, developers are notoriously bad at estimating time spent, especially anything below one day and anything above one week. It's a half-joke with pretty much every developer I've talked with is that you first make an estimate and then multiply it by your preferred magic number (2,5 usually for me) to account for all the things you didn't expect going wrong, testing that it actually works and so on. It's a half-joke because of how often it ends up being true.
.@@oldyladWhat you said is really hard to believe.
"They want it to be 100% perfect" but the games, and generally software, was never in a worse and more broken state at launch than it is today.
Shareholders. The reason major studios are doing it is because if they don't show growth, or at least the illusion of growth then the shareholders don't make profit on their shares. Shareholders who aren't profiting tend to leave, causing the estimated value of the studio to decline, meaning that management can't get 7 figure bonuses.
The pandemic ruined growth forecasts. They made more money than ever during that time and they still expect lockdown profits, despite the fact we're all back to work. It is disgusting greed.
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE?!
ROCK AND STONE!!!!!!
ROCK AND STONE!!!!
ROCK AND STONE!
ROCKITY ROCK AND STONE! ⛏️
IF YOU DON'T ROCK AND STONE, YOU AIN'T GOING HOME!!!
We're also at fault for continuously purchasing their overpriced games, and the quality of AAA games has declined in recent years. Oh, wait. AAAA games : /
"We"
Speak for yourself, consoomer.
@@jffry890I don't think you understood what he was saying
Nah, fam, never blame the customer, the system is rigged to sell any garbage to everyone. By blaming consumers, you only increase your own guilt and hopelessness. It's like victimblaming, but for gamers honestly
Speak with our wallets guys 👋
Honestly I think one of the main problems is that people keep buying the pre-orders, which helps exacerbate the problem as it's telling these studious who make awful games that they make money by just generating hype, make false promise and/or lie. Not only that, but by pre-ordering, this can cause a company to have their unfinished game stay unfinished cause they already got the money from pre-orders. If players stop buying pre-orders, and wait for the game-day release, I think this would cause studios to be more careful with how they make their games, and force them to have their games finished.
Star Wars Battlefront Collection is a very good example of why no one should be pre-ordering anymore, a game that came out in 2005 got revamped in 2024 and was worse than 2005 in almost every aspect, with gameplay somehow broken. We as players need to collectively stop buying pre-orders, else nothing will really change much.
as someone who has way too many hours in drg:
ROCK AND STONE OR YER' AINT COMIN' HOME
Twenty years ago, a game called GTA San Andreas was released. Even today, I still play it for its arcade-style car physics, six-star wanted level, RPG elements, and the ability to use lots of cheats. I enjoy playing it offline because it's a single-player game.
Yeah, I like single player games and games that don’t require internet. It is bad when a game requires the internet. Games should not require internet to be playable.
Greed is one of the reasons why modern gaming isn’t fun anymore.
Edit: No I don’t play Fortnite and COD. Even the recent COD games suck. I don’t play live service games in general. Yes there are good games that have came out last year in this year. But I mainly avoid the bad or mediocre ones.
Agreed👍
Obviously
Just play good games man.. There is more than enough out there, modern gaming is better than ever just don't always look at the biggest TripleA companies and you can find some awesome gems..
Yep 🙂↕️
@@deliriushunter I agree but that is copium, the state of the game industry its shit even If u play good games or not
AAA games are all morphing into the same game.
Battlepass ✅
Crossover ✅
Cosmetic store ✅
Macrotransactions ✅
Excessive in game advertising ✅
Horribly goofy cosmetics ✅
Content paywalls ✅
These are literally the biggest and only issues affecting gaming right now. It’s insane how simple it is, yet so many people just scream wokeness and ignore the issues you pointed out
Network connection requirement for solo game ✅
Well, they do want to build the metaverse, or Ready Player One - the actual game.
Nobody else really wants that, but they sure do. The amount of cashflow they could gain from it would be... insurmountable.
There’s a reason games keep releasing like this, it’s because like it or not it’s what the masses want
Don't forget about every game twisting their established models into 'hero shooters' or 'commanders' in RTS so they can sell a bunch of cosmetics for them specifically. Bonus points for making every one of your heroes insufferable douches.
The two BIGGEST problems I have with AAA games is lack of creativity/fun & ridiculous prices like $70 - 120 for most games on release date. Then in some cases a patch has to be installed while trying to install the actual game on a system.
Best example if a triple A game done right is the witcher 3! Incredible visuals, fairly priced dlc, great gameplay, large world, replayability, attractive characters, lots of things to do outside of the main story, fairly priced, great dailogue etc.
Witcher 3 is shit
CDPR is an indie studio (debatable now, really, but they more closely qualified at the release of Witcher 3)
That was 10years ago...
baldur’s gate 3 is a better indie game imo. i didn’t like the combat in witcher 3.
At release witcher 3 was not a AAA game, bdpr was pretty much what larian is now.
I saw a tweet a couple months ago that said something along the lines of how because of all the layoffs, employees are now competing against each other in an attepmt to keep their job, rather than working together as a team, which is cultivating a toxic and non-productive work enviroment
Competition is inherently destructive. See "No Contest" by Alfie Kohn.
No it's not, there is so such thing as healthy competition. It's just the kind that's fostered in the modern workplace is toxic.@@rabbitcreative
@@rabbitcreative Competition is AMAZING in a marketplace where similar products exist and offer difference features at different price points where a consumer can make a decision based on their choice of which one to buy.
Competition within your company creates this, where nobody can agree on anything and are trying to 1-up each other in order to keep their jobs. Creating terrible products where no vision exists and hoping that the die-hard fans buy it. It's toxic and un-needed and I hope these companies eventually realize this or the indies are gonna come and take their places very fast.
Yep it's all a pointless thing. I hate capitalism
Thing is gaming is making more money than ever but thanks to both advance in technology and AAA sucking, smaller studios are thriving.
In reality AAA are cannibalizing themselves with LIVE SERVICE like streaming wars. People just don't have enough time.
You will also notice alot of DEI firings, which 9/10 times is just redundant HR. This is mostly due to ESG funding which is failing because the grifters who it attracted divided playerbases and more often then naught were too incompetent too make successful products.
They’re conditioning the younger generation to think this is how games are at launch these days and it wasn’t ever different. We’re the old guard, it feels like we’re losing 😢
We're not. Dude, AAA games are collapsing. The industry is likely going to implode and restart again very soon.
@ElvenRaptor No, it won't. Kids are the majority of the consumer base. The adults have more important things to do, like feed those kids. All it shows is that kids now are dumber than we were because our education system has become a political indoctrination camp.
@@ElvenRaptorlike the 80s but on a much larger scale 😂
If you want to win, don’t support mediocre releases, and don’t pre order games. Get over the FOMO of not owning a game the night of release. A bad game will expose itself rather quickly.
@@ElvenRaptor many of us are working to ensure exactly that. ;)
I think people are mis-identifying fun with addiction in GAAS games. People talk different when they talk about games now even to the point to seemingly be unhappy with a game they constantly play.
If you don't Rock and Stone, you ain't comin' home!!!!!!!!!
10:20 DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE? ⛏️
IF YOU DON'T ROCK AND STONE YOU AINT GOING HOME
Rock and Stone!
YOU BET YOUR SWEET GODDAMN BEARD YOU DID
ROCK AND STONE!
If you dont rock and stone, you ain't coming home
I am an indie dev. The amount of bureaucracy and red tape in AAA studios is mind-boggling to me. If we encounter an issue, we fix it. Or if it requires more thought or collaboration, we make a trello card and talk about it in our weekly meeting. That's the beginning and end of the process.
I mever want to work for a AAA studio if they won't let me do my job.
You guys are the real heroes.
I think actman is just repeating things he heard about the absolute worst case scenarios.
As someone who works in 3A I can tell you that the only paper work is your Jira tasks and sprints. Developers have free hands in how they want to fix issues and Ive seen them being even encouraged to fix low priority issues if they have time.
The corporate process is mainly connected to game design and direction - that is heavily enforced by publisher and management. But not the individual work of a dev.
The future is with Indie devs, by far the best games in the past decade. Rust, Tarkov, Dark and Darker, Terraria, the list goes on. Keep doing what you do.
Sounds like government work. There's just too many employees, off in their own silos.
@@silvach2in ActMan’s example - it was a very simple request that the initial dev was probably thinking: I can’t touch it if it ain’t in Jira and we’re mid sprint and next sprint is already locked in so…4 weeks.
Makes sense when you’ve had to work in those environments. Most companies doing “agile” do it wrong.
The biggest problem with Triple A games is that they're far less interested in making them for gamers and more interested in making them for investors and shareholders who don't even play video games because they're 70+ year old boomers who still think games are stuff like Pac-Man and Galaga. That and they're afraid of controversy and lawsuits, wanting to avoid another "Doom" situation where the game is accused of causing violence in the real world, or worse, a "South Park 201" situation.
Thats crazy, its almost like the greedy, crusty old man in suits that are in charge of games nowadays are not as capable of making games fun like the developers did when videogames where about fun and most of the decisions where just made by them and not by a comitee worried about money
They said Skull & Bones was a AAAA game. I suggest that Helldivers 2 is a AAAAA game. And not just because my Democracy Officer told me to.
Yeah but it's not even A game tbh who makes a pirates game solely focussed on boats
helldivers 2 is not worth buying on pc after the recent controversy. sony is trying to force people to make playstation accounts just to play the game. even if you have never owned a ps5
Hoo boy. This isn't aging well like you think it is.
@@HealerType0079 Not arrow heads fault ppl need to use a psn account. Its forced by Sony. They even demand ppl give the game bad reviews so they can force Sonys hand...
@@thestar37 I know it's not their fault but it will damage the game regardless as unfortunate as it is..
There's almost a paradox of success where something goes from too big to fail, to too big to afford to fail.
Makes sense, what started off as something popular by creative design, becomes corrupted by committee design.
It's not a paradox really. There is a pivot in every industry whoih happens when you become big enough that your primary stakeholder changes from customer to investor. Your goal goes from quality product at any cost so you stay relevant in the market, to ensuring you that you keep increasing value to shareholders.
Basically there is a point of critical mass of capital. Mass which when it is reached shifts the primary target from consumer to investor, from creating product for A consumer to accumulation and generation of capital. This is also a point where a company becomes oddly self sustaining, no person in it is critical for the existence of the company. When you are below this point a loss of a key figure basically means you are out of business.
So... what ruined video games? Capital did... no... not "capitalism" or "capitalists", but capital itself. Games market became so capital heavy that it started to collapse under it's own weight. It started to pull other markets into it (hardware and tangential software sectors) and started to be pulled into the even bigger market of finance.
There is a odd case to be made for that if gaming was less "valuable", games could be better. There is a reason for the smaller capital or no-capital companies are able to make better games than big capital. (No-capital is the... 1 dude in their bedroom making a passion project and releasing it).
Sounds like Pokemon
The higher budget you have, the more you have to cater to casuals and the lowest common denominator just to break even. So you make a game for "everybody" which is just another word for generic.
@@One.Zero.One101Companies cater to the majority and the casuals are the majority.
I've been playing indie titles for last ten years, and even the indie titles come victim to the "safe" route as patch after patch things get closer to "what would [similar AAA title] do" and the charm of what the original idea that gave life to that indie title fades.
I've held sentiments for the last couple of years about AAA games that closely echo the points you've stated here, but i struggled to put it all together to express it properly. So it's very refreshing to have you arrange all of these thoughts together so cleanly, and in such a digestible and understandable format.
As a senior engineer that worked in the gaming industry for over a decade, I can say one thing: You hit the nail on the head.
He is absolutely right, the corporate structure ruining games. Its such a massive problem, its hard for me to even get excited for any AAA games now because they are just such uninspired trash. Devs cant create anymore at these massive corporate companies, all they do is put terrible managers terrible ideas into games. What could possibly be more uninspiring than that. Each of those devs probably has a fantastic idea for a game that they got into the business to get an opportunity to create but never will because they have no freedom to make anything beyond what Billy wrote on the board today. I honestly dont even blame that dev that said it would take 4 weeks to write 10 lines of code, first off he could not give a fuck less about those lines that you could have written by the afternoon. That's straight up job security right there in a market that is super volatil for devs. That dev probably could have written it in the afternoon as well but why should he when he will get canned the second the job is finished.
Hey what kind of work did you accomplish
can you describe a possible process why it would take 4 weeks to implement the AI Change ?
I have a few Ideas because I know people developing business software but I would like to hear your take.
( my ideas revolve mainly around time management, change request ticketing and ticket based billing
also versioning, milestones and testing
and finally the length of the ticket pipeline the programmer has .. . )
Can you explain why games come out so unpolished if every single change has go to through multiple quality checks? Its so controversial and I never understood why.
playstation putting bangers after bangers... still PS in the thumbnail 👏👏
It’s crazy that it took skull & bones, what people call the 1st “Quadruple A game”, took 11 fucking years and your ship has a fucking stamina bar on it. Incredible
11 fucking years to copy the AC4 boat bits into another story without assassins in it. And they still fucked it up.
At the end the poor bastard was just spawned out of contractual obligation and it shows
@@sebastianvroom7595 Skull & Bones was funded by the government of Singapore and like most government projects the execs at Ubisoft just embezzled the money until it ran out and had to release something.
Wait, is this real? It sounds like a joke
Wait wat?! Your ship has a stamina bar??? Just do Black Flag with some QOL improvements, implement multi-player and BOOM, but no, let's put a fucking STAMINA BAR on your SHIP. Good Lord.
A What! How the ever-loving Fuck does a Ship have a STAMINA BAR? IT'S A SHIP! It's an inanimate object, a vehicle. Like I get having a Health meter so we know how much Health we got left before the ship is destroyed. Oh my brain hurts.
Moral of the story AAA is corporate spoiling gaming for us. I played suicide squad for all of 10 mins and deleted it. How could they put out a game that is so bad. No developer comes away thinking that they did a great job.
Great video and excellent analysis, keep up the good work! That AC Unity nightmarish glitch is probably the most damaging thing Ubisoft ever released, and that is saying something. It's still a meme.
If you give a studio millions of dollars, its like removing the limits that normally breed creativity. It just leads to inefficiency.
WERE RICH
Tbf that game was a shit concept to begin with. Shoot dudes with hand cannon? Wow, amazing...
People are acting like they didn’t just get done shitting all over AC and Farcry. Why would anything they put out be good
No it’s dei consulting ruining gaming
@@thetrashcanman7537 lmaoooooo what a clown
In the movie industry the exact same thing is happening. But one studio that goes against the grain is Blumhouse Productions who only spends a few million dollars per movie so when they bomb they barely loose money, but when they succeed, they make their money back upwards of 100 times over. Their studio has been very profitable. I'd like to see some game developers try this approach.
I agree let's go back to ps2/ps3 times and actually make good games with less time and way cheaper
I don't think the game industry need more companies shitting out dozens of awful titles just to hope one hits gold. We already have been over saturated with slop for 10+ years
@@williammartin500 You don't understand. Less people working on it and less money doesn't mean a worse game by necessity.
If they aren't stupid, they will reduce the scope of the game, and/or plan for a longer development time, and it will be easier for them to make their intended product because they won't have to deal with the problems that Act Man brought up in this video that large development teams face.
How very hipster off you.
@@redridingcape what ? What you said has nothing to do with what I said ?
I hear the Phoenix Wright music on the background clearly now. Your parody on the Quantum TV video made me get the Trilogy and finished the first one!
First step is: they gotta stop with 120GB + sizes and unoptimized games..lazy to compress and optimize games nowdays.
"Why is (thing) getting worse?"
Greedy companies and dumb consumers.
It's like democracy, except everyone is spending their money on predatory slop.
Oh, wait...
AAA Games = Monetization is the main priority and gameplay was the afterthought. I've played some games where my thought was "I bet they spent 95% of their board meetings on microtransactions and live service and only 5% on gameplay".
And wokeism that infected the whole entertainment industry.
@@One.Zero.One101 And the only discussion on gameplay is: "Will this end in a lawsuit?"
Capitalism.
Big corporations ruin everything. Hollywood is experiencing the exact same issues. It's actually kind of insane just how similar their declines are. They'd rather dump a gazillion dollars into the same ip over and over rather than invest a fraction of it into smaller games/movies that could ultimately turn into massive franchises if they gave them a chance.
It's the same with the mainstream music industry. It's almost as if that's not how art is supposed to be created.
same investors that really like people pushing "good thing" on to projects they fund
Only one to be blamed is us, we dictate the market with our money.
Hollywood is failing because they make dumb shit nobody wants to see.
The game industry isn't really failing. Companies just make live service games because everyone plays them
For years money men have been trying to crack the creative process problem. The video game space is definitely the creative industry they've come the closest.
If Bethesda just stuck with the elder scrolls they would have had more respect from the community
mark my words, if one day, the Triple A industry gets his shit together and start pumping out decent games all around, ill eat my shoe.
Imagine telling Timothy Cain, the man who used to be a programmer / lead programmer since 1997 that he doesn't know how to do his job, and what he's asking is impossible. The nerve of these people.
Imagine yelling at Tim Cain for asking you to do your job, he seems like a pretty nice dude
Go ahead. He has a CZcams channel /s
@@Double-Dubz Yeah, he's nice until you're Chris Avellone and he refuse to pay you and your entire writing staff for over an entire year.
Tim Cain is a bad dude, he doesn't deserve to be pedestalized.
@@Eye_Of_Odin978 that's actually the first I've ever heard of this, and I can't find any sources anywhere for it
Got anywhere I can read more about it, or know any of the particulars?
Guarantee the person was a DEI hire.
The entire point of a pre order is to secure your physical copy of a game before it comes out. Pre order for digital content makes zero sense.
Its literally why they have started doing things like early access. To offer something extra.
@@lutherheggs451 Let me help, you pay extra for physical media because it's someone's job to drive to your house and give you the game 1 week early. You pay extra for digital media because the game company makes more money and they get to test out their first draft on you.
I always thought it was so multiplayer games could gage interest and how many servers they needed... which is laughable when the games come out and their is not enough server capacity.
@@arkalileSo a beta tester?
The only reason I like pre-order is if they allow you to pre-install the game before it is officially released. It allows me to play the game the day it is released rather than waiting like 35 hours for an 100gb game to download. Doesn't super matter if it is a single player game, but live service multiplayer games it can matter a little.
Internally: Trend chasing, bloated management, unwilling to foster new talent instead of hiring the latest out of calarts, trying to make more money for less content
Externally: microtransactions and live service fatigue
This video was shown to me by algorithm to make me know about kingMakers, I rarely see so MUCH fun packed in 10seconds of presentation.
Ubisoft is also the same company that wanted gamers to get comfortable not owning their games while, at the same time, also shutting down The Crew while also removing access to the game.
"An executive at Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft has said gamers will need to get “comfortable” not owning their games before video game subscriptions truly take off." ... this is taken way out of context. It looks shitty with them removing the crew, but that's not what the guy meant when he said it.
@@makoaki9071 Well Ubisoft has to get comfortable not selling anything then.
Just think about how comfortable you'd have been in that situation if you never owned that game to begin with 😂
Don't worry, this same youtuber and others will be selling you that idea in 2-4 years. Mark my words. "Oh, it's great guys. You get a free battle pass access if you revoke your rights."
@@makoaki9071 Lol you're a Ubisoft apologist. It's not taken out of context, the context is obvious to everyone with a brain. He was complaining that people have accepted Netflix and not owning movies, and they wanted to replicate that business model in video games. That was the context and everybody is aware of it.
Showed my brother the "i need 4 weeks" clip and his response was "why are they paying these people"
To fill quotas. They're called "green plants" at Ubisoft.
4 weeks for 10 line of codes. Might as well higher someone that has zero knowledge of how to code
Diversity hire
@@ahmadimran5262 19:48
ya i was very confused why it would take 2-4 weeks? did he have to go into every single enemy individually?
Video extremely well done. Holy Moly. That was a good video I especially like the way you walked us through all aspects of gaming development.
For some reason this is the one video that made me realize all of actman's camera footage is INTERLACED lmao
dunno why but I love it
It’s ironic, the more devs try to make a game safe and profitable, the more skeptical I am of its quality.
“Hey, megasean3000, wanna check out this game? It’s helluh profitable!” You’re telling me that isn’t a convincing sales pitch?
~Andrew Wilson
They want to play it safe, but somehow make it worse lmao.
playstation putting bangers after bangers... still PS in the thumbnail 👏👏
Simple. Shareholders. Agenda. Destroying the White race. BlackRock. VanGuard.
The ridiculous thing is the banal mediocrity of standout titles like BG3. That a title that steeped in virtue signalling and poor writing is considered a modern masterpiece is a testament to the depths to which we've declined.
They're completely out of touch. They don't know what gamers want. But the companies know that they want money. That's the one thing they know.
Bingo. It has become all about what the corporate suits want as opposed to what the actual audience wants. Heck the "modern audience" has basically become the corporate ideal audience, not exactly one that actually exists. It's all about big corporate ego and investor pandering these days.
But are they outta time?
@@Mrmidknight-yx9pg Yes, they are out of touch with reality and their consumers. Halo forgetting what Halo even is, 343i making "their" own Halo and it is on every platform know to humans and nobody cares. It's like the game is having an Identity Crisis, it doesn't even know what it is or wants for that matter. The ostracized adopted kid nobody likes nor wanted for that matter. Out of time because they are outdated by now. Just like "Girl Boss" term dying the Live Service games is just a crap shoot and fake just for MUNNEH. Fortnite got it right, problem is that too many people copy/paste that shit like it is candy. Had they read even one fucking book from the source material, the Halo Encyclopedia, Halo Legends, Halo The Fall of Reach, The Cole Protocol, or just simply anything at all they would have had a great series. Hear a lot of people are liking the Fallout Series and it is actually good. Never mind Kenobi and The Rings of Power from the past, The Mandalorian falling off, Bad Batch being great, Survivor and Fallen Order. Sick ass SW games. Do they hold up to Kotor and stuff, no but you can actually jump finally, and video game trope Double Jump/Air-Dash. Playing with the Force Push/Pull was better in Fallen Order, you just don't have the boxes around to do that anymore, exploiting the slow down on a box that is thrown you can do some real black magic with that kind of exploit in Fallen Order. I have even seen Survivor broken to all means by just skipping whole sections on the map and sequence breaking it all to shit.
It's always been like that.
This is my introduction to your channel... I love it! Subscribed!!
I was a bit sceptical of your attitude in the beginning then every point you made was a 100% hit. Killer video man. Keep these coming.
If AAA studios will continue as they have been doing, they'll cease to exist sooner or later. Then when Indie-studios grow and become the new AAA studios, they'll suffer the same faith and someone else will take their place. Thus completing the cycle.
Weak men make hard times. Hard times make strong men, strong men make peaceful times. Peaceful times make weak men. Or something like that
Agreed. I believe that will be the cylce eventually.
Greedy AAA fell, indie grow due to more employee coming to them, they become big, eventually they (might) lose their head and become greedy, then eventually fall, so on and so on.
I think you are confused.Since we live on planet earth and not your brain place , AAA studios continue to make money and get bigger and bigger no matter what a youtube video or a comment on it says.AA studios get bought out and dismantled by big companies because in the end its all about the money.
This, Sooner or later Larian will fall just like CDPR before it
No they won’t people keep buying their shit including me and probably you and everyone that watched this video that why developers haven’t changed anything
"A game for everyone, is a game for no one." - Arrowhead company motto
Yet the combat is bland and casual focused, clearly showing they are throwing as wide as possible net with it...
Peak of gaming is farming season passes BUT hey they are cheap(free if you farm hard)!😮😂
@@pullthatup2973 real
@@pullthatup2973 Oh, if you haven't played Helldivers 2, then I highly recommend it!
@@pullthatup2973bro the grind on helldivers is extremely easy what are you on about? Are you playing on easy difficulty expecting it to be more then casual?
Helldivers 2 is owned by Sony....It literally says at the start up screen Sony Interactive Entertainment, Licensed to Arrowhead games.....Its Sony's IP licensed to Arrowhead, they have ZERO say over what happens with the game, they have to get Sony's approval for everything.
It’s all about how much money can it generate instead of how much value it actually brings to the table
With the success of Helldivers, BG3, and now Manor Lords and hopefully Kingmakers, idk how the hell AAA producers haven’t even started to learn their lesson yet.
Because they said setting standards based on those games are unrealistic and they will continue to push slobs out because a lot of people will still buy them
Helldivers is live service something which AAA games have long done and you cried over
@@vidmasterK1 yea. Actual decent live service.
@tearex8688 but still live service. Your praises for this particular instance only encourages its presence even further
@@vidmasterK1 there's nothing wrong with live service in fact live service means year and years of content it's when they go and charge you for EVERY LITTLE THING that it becomes a problem helldovers doesn't push its battle pass in your face every chance it gets you don't get out of a mission to get a huge pop up saying BUY OUR SPECIAL EDITION FOR A FREE MONTH OF BATTLE PASS!!! you don't have skins shoved down your throat at every possible moment and they also do balance patches and additive patches often and for free
Remember everyone for an $120 Star Wars Game, you can also buy KOTOR 1&2, Forced Unleached 1&2, OG Battlefront 1&2, Republic Commando, AND the entire Jedi Academy collection, and still have about $4 left over. And this list isn't even counting the Lego or the EA Games.
KOTOR KOTORRRR GANG KOTORRR *froths at the mouth and dies
(I heavily agree with this comment)
Star Wars Outlaw Gold Edition is $159.90 (Digitally) where Im from and with that kinda of money, I can literally buy Stellar Blade AND Helldivers 2 (Digitally ofc).
Physical discs is sometimes cheaper where Im from too.
People that are big enough fans to get the 120 dollar version probably have those other ones 😂 nobody drops 120 on a game they're not familiar with
@@nickguzman1734 They do it all the time, for some people money like that isn't an issue.
We needed that bigger picture ty!
It's gotten worse because gamers have let it. They've tolerated this greed for years and actively bought into it, with many games even aggressively defending these companies and shelling out hundreds of dollars on MTX and loot mechanics..
And now the whole model has become normalised and will likely never go back.
Gaming will be more or less dead in another decade as more and more people finally give up on it.
21:34 this is honestly the same exact thing that happens in construction in, it used to be “oh its broke lets fix it before lunch” now its “ oh its broke well we have to get it fixed by having it approved by 19 different corporations and just maybe it will be fixed”
Bro this is why I have to fix things in secret by myself if I can or it may nerver be fixed. Complete nonsense
@@sv-et7gq lol yeah I do that alot, knock off early then come back later to finish it while no safety inspectors are present
Do you think that's why infrastructure has gone to shit? And if not would the government increasing funding solve that?
lol honestly at that point, Just fix it in secret and nobody has to know haha They wouldn't even realise it.
It's not just triple A games, it's big budget movies, music...
Hell even just house/kitchen appliances, electronics etc.
In 80s,90s people got what they paid for and things worked for decades...
Yeah without greed the world would look very different. And work more efficiently.
We can't forget gems like Final fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, Elden Ring, Baldur's gate 3, and The Breath of The Wild series for being gems of the modern gaming era. People complained about FF7 rebirth having "too much content", "too much variety", "too much quality of life" in the game but when lackluster games that actman mentioned comes out or greedy games that are pointed out in the video, people gobble it up like left over dunkin donuts. Honestly FF7 rebirth is Game of this year. Can't forget Elden ring and BG3 for being revolutionary, BG3 was so ahead of last year other game devs admit they can't compete. Shoutouts to the FGCs devs for making great games, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive and Grandblue fantasy versus rising are Fighting games I recommend, personally it's Tekken and Guilty gear for me. At the end of the day, we can point out more flops than gems like I mentioned. But it's never too late to appreciate these AAA games. The gaming devs should learn from RPGs are FGs if they want to make a change, have a great one.
@@ambrosianapier7545 people were greedy in the 90ies as well.
The corporate buerocracy is the issue.
Greed is killing everything. Welcome to the end.
I had actual metal Tonka Toys that my dad got for me, best toys ever.
awesome videos you made lately!!!
One hell of a video. Thanks!
Here's why:
1) CEOs can only fail up because they are hitting really good numbers via cutting corners and exploiting live service
2) CEOs have a great exit: golden parachute
3) CEOs actually get a higher paying job lined up after they get fired because of the stats that they have
4) consumerist mentality: they just whine but still buy
5) despite being informed about the dangers of spending money unnecessarily, they still do it because they're addicted
In other words, consumers are to blame for making CEOs look good on paper which attracts investors which attracts more of this.
Also, corporations tend to promote to your level of incompetence. For example, a good worker might get promoted to team lead, a good lead might get promoted to management, but once you get promoted to a job you're no longer good at, you'll stop catching promotions and find yourself stuck at a position you suck at. Skills don't always transfer between positions, a good worker might be a garbage manager but they'll be promoted based on their good work and now you're down a good worker and you have a subpar manager instead.
🐑🐑🐑🐑
It's the consumers fault companies are allowed to operate like this? Is it also the victims of scammers faults for getting scammed? Or addicts faults for becoming addicted? What colour is the sky in your world?
@@toolittletoolate Comparing drug addiction to somebody willingly supporting a company is wild. Then again, considering you play DI2, you're probably insulted that we're laughing at you for buying slop.
yessir :DDDDD, you know and i know most will cope to these facts, but I'm fortutantly we weren' born as a male hypogonadism, AHmen
My take on the "game as content" approach that started with CD-based consoles:
1995: We doubled the budget for our next game, and our profits increased 100x!
2005: We doubled the budget for our next game, and our profits increased 50x!
2015: We doubled the budget for our next game, and our profits increased 2x!
2023: We doubled the budget for our next game, and our profits is half of the previous game!
Over the past decade, it has ben seen by the (non-Nintendo/non-indie) game industry that it is more risky trying to make a game that requires talent than simply dumping more and more content into games. It requires more talent to get it right to produce a great story and great gameplay. Whereas mindlessly adding more and more items, visual effects, sound effects, , things to distract you, quests, epic soundtrack, voice lines, maps, weapons etc simply equals more success. But now story and gameplay is getting more repetitive and consumers are tired of it.
you it the nail on the head some time in the 00s the law of deminshing returns started to hit hard
That’s because despite more and more investment by game devs the customers keep on refusing to pay for the games because they expect them to be cheaper but not lesser. Doesn’t sound like it’s a dev problem sounds like a freeloader problem.
@@ironhell813 Not hardly. Computers are far more capable and graphically things are modelled extremely well. But the stories suck, the gameplay is wooden, and usually a lot of shit gets gutted. Easiest thing to look at is EA's Sims franchises-- SimCity 4 was solid, SimCity (2013) was a broken buggy mess with limited gameplay, limited map sizes, and was a single player only always-online game. It took a full YEAR for EA to offer a stinkin' offline mode! If you were on an airplane or out in the country, you simply couldn't play it.
@@aboutwhat1930 yeah that sounds great except sim city stopped being a triple a license decades ago, unlike The Sims, which is where all of the dev time was being spent. This is why I’ve advocated against hostile take overs for years, because if you’re aren’t aware, maxis is part of EA but it’s still a separate company (team) within EA, and EA only gives them so
Much as a budget.
To understand how the industry works is to understand why it is the way it currently is, and it’s all based on monopolies and consumer demand. So in other words, it is you the customer buying games from monopolies that does this.
7:30 There's a video on YT by that title. I don't recall the channel, but I liked the video. (Maybe there are more than 1 video covering that idea. I dunno.) -- EDIT: Lextorias! That's the channel's name.
Whether it's games, movies, or music. Whenever corporations try to formulate art into a business model. It always fails. Inevitably.
Ive worked for many pest control companies over the years, and the bureaucracy is the exact same. At the larger companies any time I asked for a specific tool or chemical for a job it could take weeks to get it, or never at all. At my current mom and pop job the difference is incredible. If I need something I buy it myself and get reimbursed instantly, or they order and it's delivered to me within the week. No questions asked, they'll tell me to get what I need to do the best job I can. The quality my customers receive is night and day.
I will offer a counter argument: I work in cyber security for a health care provider in the USA. Any change to an application/system etc needs to be presented to a Change Approval Board. The board meets twice per week. Changes must also be performed after close of business in order to limit the impact to patient care etc. We can't have Joe Blow "making a quick change" in the middle of the day, finding out that he "goofed," and having servers/applications offline while he "tries to figure out what he did wrong." We have "test environments" but our network team is currently fighting an issue that "works in the test environment but fails every time it's deployed into production." The change has had to be rolled back 3 times now. They're going to re-test but will not be able to deploy until the go before the board again because we can't have them upgrading out routers in the middle of the day. Especially when "whoops! It's not working." It sucks that it takes a long time to get approval, but it's often to keep cowboys from getting gung-ho. I worked at a hospital where in the middle of the day the director of IT decided he was going to "test" the fail over circuit for the internet without planning or announcing it. He simply went to the server room, disconnected the primary internet and "Waited to a few minutes" to see if the fail over circuit came online. It didn't. Then it took several more minutes for the primary to be restored. The entire regional hospital was without internet all because this guy had a hair up his ass and didn't want to "wait for corporate" to approve. Hell brook loose but it wasn't the IT director that got in trouble for it. He threw his subordinate, the network admin, under the bus. The networking admin quit the job a few months later.
It sucks, but sometimes there are very good reasons these safeguards are in place.
It’s funny how whenever I show my younger cousins indie games and such, they say “why are the graphics so trash?” Or “this game looks like ass why would I play it.”
We officially live in a world where kids are being brought up in AAA garbage and when something of actual quality comes up, they think the opposite
Because the exterior appearance is being valued more than gameplay quality, wrap a shit in shiny gold foil and you can sell to people who see graphical quality as the main denominator of quality
This is an interesting point and for example Final Fantasy 13 was a terrible title because most of the maps were just straight lines, the writing was trash, gameplay was lackluster but for the time it had the best graphics around. Squaresoft sunk a lot of money towards the graphics alone and everything else got heavily cut and this strategy seems to be the predominant one used. Corporations and large budgets are typically needed for the high polish and CGI, same goes for hollywood, but it will often be heavily sanitized. Theres more to a game than how it looks, polish a turd all you want, put sprinkles on it, its still a turd. But with indie games, its a chocolate icecream that to these kids, just looks like a turd but tastes great haha indie games make up for the lack of graphics with epic retro gaming features. But when all you know is crap, and don't give high quality a chance theres no reference point for these kids to realize the new games are trash.
There is a very high quality bar games need to hit before they can even have the chance to be successful now. There is also an appeal factor that the game needs to be communicated right away in a clip they might scroll by in social to be even considered. Attention economy is tough right now for entertainment.
We shouldn't have to compromise on Gameplay, Performance and Graphics.
Makes me glad mew and my cousins grew up playing on trash school pcs so bad graphics is just a part of life lmao
It’s corporate greed. That’s literally THE reason why everything goes downhill.
The answer is quite simple:
Corporate Greed
I’m sure there are people who still have a passion for gaming that are working with these companies but they have no say in the final product at the end of the day.
This f*ckin' guy who's only experiences with Fallout are New Vegas and the show even manages to differentiate Interplay/Obsidian RPG's with Bethesda RPG's. Love this guy.
Love you too man
He should play Fallout 4. It doesn’t deserve to get lumped in with 76 as the “new fallout”. (Also Fallout 3 isn’t too bad)
Eh, I remember selling Bumble to Eulogy Jones, and then eating a ghoul after selling his ear to a wandering merchant. Can't sell a kid drugs if you already sold the kid
@@irarelyupload69304 is a bit worse from what I've heard, but not bad. Fallout 3 is great
@irarelyupload6930 fallout 4 sucks lol yeah sure if you add 1000 mods it's fun but that's a complete overhaul of the game
From a personal perspective, the $70 price tag doesn't help. Unless it's on steam where I can get a refund if I don't like the game, $70 makes me hesitant to buy games anymore, let alone pre order. I have to see it first then decide.
I quit pre-ordering anything once I got good enough internet to buy digital. I used to pre order games because some big releases my local Gamestop would sell out so the pre order guaranteed me a copy. And back then I bought a lot more games in general because I had the time to play them
Tbf, games have always been so expensive. A 30 dollar game in 1991 would be 70 dollars today
Actually no, this proves how out of touch consumers are. With the cost of making games, the development time, staff over heads and everything you factor in to market the game, games are technically meant to cost $200 each 😂.
In fact that $200 is actually a bit out of date too, based on figures from the previous generation, not even from this current generation.
"$70 iS ToO mUcH" 😂
@@rezarfarTechnology evolved so much that half of the money invested in an AAA is just wasted. Modern AAA games run so bad, have so many bugs and are so anti-fun that is surprising people still buy them for 70$.
@@nasfoda_gamerbrbigproducti5375 thats actually partly our fault though, let me show you why.
Do you expect the PS6 to be more powerful than the PS5? Yes you do, not only do you expect it to be more powerful, but you also expect it to have a modern chipset thats made in the year it was released.
These are all expectations you have, i even have the same expectations. But this has become a problem, it's caused a bottleneck, the technology has advanced faster than what developers are able to reliably develop for, the risk factor also gets too big, the bigger the cost of the gake, the less risks developers are able to take and the less innovative games become, this is why Indie games are so popular now.
Our expectations for more powerful hardware is actually the root cause of this issue in the gaming industry, technically we should still be using PS4 and Xbox One technology to make video games, the PS5 and Xbox Series shouldn't be on the market, at least not since 2020, maybe by end of 2023 or even end of 2024.
We jumped from one generation to the next faster than we were supposed too, hence why we now have this situation with AAA games. It's also why Nintendo are doing so well, because they recognised this problem and they planned for it.
First time seeing your channel and took me too long to realize that is NOT a Plastic Man plush on the shelf.
When i think of kotor, the original battlefront games and the jedi knight series i get fuzzy nostalgia. Whenever a new star wars game is announced i get anxious and proceef to wait a month before even considering purchasing
Arrowhead Games needs to be the reference point we judge companies by from now on.
Because they aren’t even doing anything that crazy they’re just being ethical and chill.
Thank god for Sony Playstation for creating Helldivers….. yet Act Man is so pro-xbox he never even mentioned Sony owns Helldivers in his 2 video reviews of Helldivers. H1 and H2 are such good and fun games that put a smile on people who play them…. yet he’s lumping in Sony Playstation with MICROSOFT TRASH…….
@@LyonPercival console wars are for fucking idiots grow up.
Do you have to make everything negative in life?
@@LyonPercival No. Wrong.
Sony financed Arrowhead.
Arrowhead created Helldivers.
Sony simply owns the ip. Without the creators at Arrowhead, Sony would open the floodgates to activists. God bless, Arrowhead.
@@LyonPercival Pipe down Sony pony, no one asked you to meat ride a corporation. You're exactly part of the problem why gaming is going the way it is.
@@LyonPercival This might shatter your world but I think you need to hear this; Not everything is a console war
As someone who works for a major tech company, the way I see games come out looks a lot like how other major corporations release products: It's just a product and we're completely disconnected from the customer. The company I work for is trying to release a new product right now, and it is so disjointed, terribly put together. And we're selling it! It's in ALPHA and we're selling it. It's not just gaming corporations, It's ALL corporations. This is just how they do things now. "I want my money and I want it now"
Thanks for the insight. Been thinking the same for some time...Games as an industry have only recently become the focus of shareholders and investors, in contrast to, say, Chemicals or Cinema. It is pretty jarring sometimes to watch Capitalism turn your passion into soulless profit :(
We are learning, though.
... Thx for the honesty, sadly it's obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub..
the thing is.. it's MY money.. and y'all will never get any it - if I'm not getting something of solid quality.. 🤷🏻♀️ lol
Can't see one downside to everyone in every industry having that same attitude at once. Not one.......
That Fallout New Vegas joke made me subscribe. Now i look forward to the next videos
There was something satoru iwata said a couple years before he passed and that was having a fully staffed company would not not only give you a chance to rebound but get also shit done quicker. Or at least something similar to that
Not all games which are made by passionate developers turn into great games, but all great games are made by passionate developers.
Without passion you're never gonna create magic, and without creative liberty you're not gonna have passion.
Creative liber-tea.
Which is why AAA games are garbage. Capitalism cannot inspire passion.
@@thomasnielsen5580i wish i could like that comment twice !
@@thomasnielsen5580Not all.
@@Diogo85 Almost always the case. The exceptions are where the management is healthy.
I used to love exploring open world games, but these days they’re just so big for the sole purpose of being big. It became really exhausting traversing these games which is conflicting because I’ll be invested in the story, but get bored from exploring.
Yeah I think that's why I lost interest in most modern open worlds, especially ever since they decided they needed to become online games. I just like to explore the worlds in these games and play them at my own pace, doing what I want to do. When it goes online, a lot of that seems to go away and you're forced to play at other people's pace. Only so many games just let you relax and enjoy them.
I found a solution in some of the open world games like the massive assassin's creed rpg trilogy with Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla.
Remove the compass from your HUD and remove the map markers for question marks and then only do quest and whatever open world activity you come over while travelling to said quest, I didn't do this during origins and got burned out by exploring ancient Egypt, but I did this during Odyssey and am still enjoying Odyssey and Valhalla by replaying them a lot as I always discover something cool and new.
@@zombrexozelexi9069 Yeah but you forgor you can't just simply DO THAT in other games. Fallout 4 doesn't let you remove quest markers and stuff, unless you mod it in there or get a mod for that.
@@zombrexozelexi9069
Lol, AC Origins is the one I always think about. I loved it and I loved the scenery and settings but those damn question mark markers on the maps were just too much. I couldn't stop playing until I went to one more area...well, one more after that one...just one more then I am done...
Yeah Big empty and lifeless same with corpa practice 😂
Well, done, act man! I feel like the AA space lately has been incredible.
Man. I agree with this so much. And I have a hard time understanding how AAA game developing entities don't see it themselves. There appear to always be smaller gaming companies willing to put out good games at a compelling price. Meanwhile, AAA studios are banging their collective heads against a wall trying to figure out how to more thoroughly shake down their customer base.
I'd say most of the time, it's why we see publishers focus so heavily on marketing of a game. If they can drum up enough hype, they can sell enough copies of the game either through pre-orders or on day 1 enough to potentially make a profit before players even realize what they actually bought.
Just one of the many ways in which companies choose to compete on literally _anything_ except quality
And sunken cost fallacy drives them the way.
Then, when they get defunct, start a new studio or get absorbed by a bigger one and start all over again.
Back then games were made by passionate small teams, Now they are made by hundreds of overworked devs micromaged by large publishers
And temporary contracted employees, don't forget them
@@Klepto2322 Are those the consultant firms?
This, Actman only eludes to the demoralizing effects the AAA game space, but that is why these games suck.
Companies need to hire gamers and put them in charge of PR, and Marketing and not any damn snowflakes
I am a veteran engineer in the gaming industry and now work for a AA-AAA-ish company and the things you mention here make me curl up into a ball due to how true they are.
Most of my work consists of implementing third-party software that is used to track the player's actions in order to provide personalized in-game purchases. It's horrible and boring work and and I feel like a shill every time I have to update one of those APIs which end up introducing a ton of bugs that we don't have time to fix because management wants another yacht.
Don't get me started on marketing buzzwords that get thrown around by people who have no idea what they're saying - e.g.:
-"Hey, everything is now open world let's do that!"
-"Sir we make match-3 games"
-"What's the problem? Do I need to hire more people? Just do it!"
Please keep supporting smaller studios, otherwise the future of this industry looks bleak.
"AAA is derived from the US system of grading where A is the highest possible mark. Each A has a different meaning: the first A denotes “critical success”, the second A marks “innovative gameplay”, and the third is meant to signify commercial success."
None of these "AAA" companies even deserve a single A anymore. Hell, demote them to B and even that will be a disservice to indie game companies.
And nowadays they added a fourth A to it, what does that fourth A stand for?
@@WokioWolfyAss-blAsst
@ss
@sinine
So, I've always been in favour of ditching "AAA." I've been lobbying to get people to call them "big corporation games."
AAA implies a great product or great company, but the meaning has changed. Nowadays, people use it to mean something with a huge budget. Ergo, something backed or produced by a big corporation.
Is it me or people mix what "Indie" and AAA means. An indie developper like Larian had AAA budget thanks to partners like Google Stadia. Helldivers 2 is not an indie game, it's a Playstation and Sony IP, funded by Sony investors with a AA budget. Arrowhead is an indie developper hired by Sony.
At 16:15 he mentions HD2 monetization and makes it like it was Arrowhead who had the last word on monetization, how is that, can someone please educate me ?
This is why I consider the 2000’s to be the the era where gaming peaked. The 6th generation(ps2,xbox, gamecube, and dreamcast) had some of the best releases where we got new IPs and new entries from older IPs. There was more risk=reward when it came to game development and gaming culture was the perfect balance between niche and mainstream. This was also present in the first few years of the 7th generation(ps3,x360, and wii) but gaming started to get bigger and more mainstream towards the end of that generation where we entered the dark ages where there was less risk, more monetization, and the franchises were going in directions that muddied their reputation
7:55 holy shit it's Jake Marshall's theme so slept on i'm in shock
i love how you put ace attorney music in the background
The 'too many cooks in the kitchen" analogy works really well.
When one person makes a game, its their expression and theirs alone.
When 50 people make a game, it's a mesh of a small, like-minded group's ideas and expressions, making something entirely new but still personal.
When 10k people make a game, its a incoherent mess of conflicting ideas, desires, and misplaced priorities. So much so that the finished product has no real identity of it's own.
And this is especially apparent when you can clearly see that, the main purpose of a creative project, is not the production of the creation itself.
Another awful part of having so many people is that some will poison the game with their personal agendas or ideology when the few people who came up with and pitched the concept initially were like, " Let's make something fun that WE would want to play."
Too many incompetent DEI cooks to be exact
Large teams have leads for each division who are responsible for making sure everything their division puts out meets a design brief that will have been predetermined in the planning phases of each project.
Games are made alongside something called a game design document (GDD), which serves as a guide for everyone to stick to. The lead signs off everything people put out, to ensure consistency.
The reason a lot of AAA games feel soulless is because they're made to be safe, with the belief that this appeals to more people.
It's the same reason Hollywood franchise films all feel the same. Risks aren't taken enough, creative exploration is almost zero, and so all these types of games start to feel like the exact same thing in a different skin.
Yeah and throw in some millionnaire CEO who barely understands anything about games to manage those 10k people teams with their trusted friends in suits to call the shots and no matter how talented the 10k people are, it's going to be a disjointed effort that'll need luck to gain any sort of a coherent vision...
@@MC_HammerpantsMinorities having jobs has no negative impact, quite the opposite even since there are more perspectives and hobbies to help diversify the pool of experience to pull from.
Greed, on the other hand…
I love how companies have to push pre-orders out like crazy because that's the only way to get money from an inevitable bad launch.
Yeah the only sales that happen are before word of mouth spreads
No most companies make their money after launch
@@ni9274it's to show numbers to shareholders.
@ni9274 launch day sales + pre orders dictate whether its a financial loss or they should keep pushing for the pay dirt.
They would do it anyway. I’m sure their research has shown a person who preorders is less likely to ask for a refund because of a bad launch, and that’s all they really need to hear.
Dude excellent video I, subscribbing
Passion was traded for a paycheck
It's not that AAA games are getting worse, it's that many of the established AAA companies are getting worse as they overvalue themselves and their products and think they can get away with selling trash and thinking players will eat it up. Not realizing that smaller studios are now able to compete with them
I heard someone the other day saying that the biggest difference is the shift to monetisation within the game. Previously the entire focus was on getting that customer to buy your game which meant it was either good or it wasn’t. Now it’s about getting them in and to keep paying
@darthconquerus I think that's half right but most of the monetization isn't a problem, just the prices are. like there's nothing wrong with OW2 selling skins, there is a problem selling them for $25 dollars. there's nothing wrong with say skull n bones as a game. but there is a problem with being $70
@@grimsdol4665 if you’re monetising within the game though then gameplay has likely been affected in one way or another. The most common way is to make it grindier to get ‘free’ XP/rewards because they want you to pay more. The amount of hours you have to put into completing a season’s battle pass in whatever game is deliberately lengthy to try and encourage people with less time or patience into paying for that skin they really want
I doubt that's the case (them overvaluing themself). I think we will see them revert back to basics in the coming years, or they will be eaten by the smaller studios.
they definitely are getting away with it tho
"... Game didn't just die, it was murdered." Thanks for bringing it back, Act Man. I'm elevated
To your point about making a couple (or even a few) AA games rather than one giant AAA game, I honestly think IO Interactive’s approach with Hitman was ideal-at least for a game like that which benefits from each level being replayed over and over.
They released 1 in 2016 (episodically… which is a whole other story… one I actually think was best but just misunderstood/slightly miscalculatedly implemented… but we’ll ignore that variable for the moment 😅), 2 in 2018, and 3 in 2021, each with the levels of the previous game(s) playable and enhanced in the next iteration.
And with the release of 3 (and especially with their Freelancer mode later on), they’ve effectively made 1 full, amazing, incredible game in 3 installments!
I’m not sure that’s the right fit for *every* type of game, but it certainly ended up working well for Hitman (in the long term), and could be a path for bridging the gaps on a lot of the nagging issues plaguing video game development in the future 👍
My 1st time watching one of your vids bro you funny asf💀😂💯