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[jigglet]

Why is an incompetent dev being used an example of why others should put our lesser games.

Halo is my most anticipated game this year but make no mistake I’m not letting 343i slide for the mess they’ve created. This is a seriously mismanaged project.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Agree with OP. Just campare RDR and RDR2. The scope of the latter was nice but it wasn‘t worth the wait.

I don‘t care hoe much bigger and more realistic or whatnot TES6 or GTA6 will be, it won‘t be worth waiting so long for them. My time on this earth is limited and as I age I find it harder and harder to dive into those games. Would have much rather had 2 or three entries with small improvements of both series in this time frame. It‘s such a shame…

At least Capcom is keeping up with their development teams when it comes to RE and I honestly do not see any negatives when I look at the frequent releases and their quality.

Just release the god damn games. Not every single ones needs to be a fucking world simulation. Which btw. makes them only harder to acutally play when you look at RDR2.

 

[supernova8]

When you’re finished on your phone can you come and see me in my office, we need to discuss your performance.

Yeah I think a lot of people come on here at work but are not silly enough to openly admit it ;D

 

[TheMay30thMan]

People used to pay $60 for Guitar Hero. Scope has always been an issue in some cases, but it’s not like every game is going through what Halo currently is. I can see how gamers would be pessimistic if they put gaming in a box like that though

 

[Team Andromeda]

At least Capcom is keeping up with their development teams when it comes to RE and I honestly do not see any negatives when I look at the frequent releases and their quality.

I remember the days when people here used to call Capcom 'Crapcom' Funny how things go.

I also see to remember people hating on the 4 player co-op in Halo 5, but now Halo is all about co-op?

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

100% we are heading for a new crash if this keeps up.

Super fidelity also kills creativity and only leaves the top dogs able to create something due to budget limitations for smaller devs. In essence you are left with only 6-7 studios that are making AAA games now due to the fidelity demands. And its all safe generic gameplay since they cant take any chances with a mega investment as AAA games have become. I will say it again, go back to PS2 level fidelity, imagine what the game world and ai would be like on these new machines with ps2 like fidelity, it would be insanely good, and it would also make smaler devs and a-aa games competetive again

Never happening. 4K becoming a standard killed that possibility. Even with the best AI upscaling tech, you’ll have the PC crowd clamoring for the best possible fidelity. Graphics are everything when it comes to wooing the crowds and convincing people to buy your game. Even Nintendo’s best games are basically AA these days, and the graphics gap between AAA and everything else is so large that the top devs have no chance but always go for the absolute best they can if they want to keep their status. Look at Ubi’s ”lesser” games - their two recent Rayman games were fantastic and stuff like Child of Light is heads above the indies of the time for production values, yet those games are barely remembered a few years down the line. There is no turning back on fidelity. Just look at how many people here try Demon’s Souls at 60fps and then quickly go back to 30fps for the sake of higher fidelity. That’s all you need to know. This is a visual medium first and foremost.

 

[Jeeves]

Never happening. 4K becoming a standard killed that possibility. Even with the best AI upscaling tech, you’ll have the PC crowd clamoring for the best possible fidelity. Graphics are everything when it comes to wooing the crowds and convincing people to buy your game. Even Nintendo’s best games are basically AA these days, and the graphics gap between AAA and everything else is so large that the top devs have no chance but always go for the absolute best they can if they want to keep their status. Look at Ubi’s ”lesser” games - their two recent Rayman games were fantastic and stuff like Child of Light is heads above the indies of the time for production values, yet those games are barely remembered a few years down the line. There is no turning back on fidelity. Just look at how many people here try Demon’s Souls at 60fps and then quickly go back to 30fps for the sake of higher fidelity. That’s all you need to know. This is a visual medium first and foremost.

You're right. Man I hate 4K so much. All these games suffering for the sake of a completely extravagant new standard that I never asked for. I've owned a 4K TV for close to a year now and still have yet to bother viewing anything in 4K on it. 1080p still looks fantastic and I feel like 4K was only ever pushed to get people to buy new TVs and monitors. Can't wait for it to get even worse whenever they arbitrarily decide to push for 8K or whatever's next.

 

[Kimahri]

I'm the opposite, I wish the final fantasy remake could have been way longer and let me explore each plate, I wished BOTW had 5x more sidequests and puzzle. I want more complex levels and more bosses to fight.

AND ontop of that I want more games in the series, throw some side teams at it.

So basically you jist want to play one game per year?

 

[Vaelka]

I just want some originality.
AAA gaming feels so insanely stale and repetitive.

The only stuff that even tends to interest me somewhat are remakes..........

 

[Hypereides]

If the gaming community started to readjust and loosen its graphical expectations then maybe AAA budgets could lighten and subsequently allow more risk. Extremely detailed graphics demand tons of ressources. That's a lot of money of the development budget.

I seriously can't understand how people can still throw tantrums about modern graphics when it has practically been more than satisfactory for years. Whenever I see someone moan about some modern game "not looking good enough" I completely zone out.

 

[Kenpachii]

Never happening. 4K becoming a standard killed that possibility. Even with the best AI upscaling tech, you’ll have the PC crowd clamoring for the best possible fidelity. Graphics are everything when it comes to wooing the crowds and convincing people to buy your game. Even Nintendo’s best games are basically AA these days, and the graphics gap between AAA and everything else is so large that the top devs have no chance but always go for the absolute best they can if they want to keep their status. Look at Ubi’s ”lesser” games - their two recent Rayman games were fantastic and stuff like Child of Light is heads above the indies of the time for production values, yet those games are barely remembered a few years down the line. There is no turning back on fidelity. Just look at how many people here try Demon’s Souls at 60fps and then quickly go back to 30fps for the sake of higher fidelity. That’s all you need to know. This is a visual medium first and foremost.

Lol dude most succesful games on PC are non lookers. Majority of PC gamers give zero fucks about visuals. They care about gameplay.

David Jaffe also had this concept in his recent podcast, and have to say it makes so much more sense - 5-6 years, 100-200M budgets, 12-20h playtime, 70$, cut everything in half and you'll have a perfect formula.

Hahaha imagine having a 6 hour game after 2-3 years of development with 100m budget and asking 35 bucks for it. Imagine thinking that's the goal to chase for.

Holy shit that david jaffe never amazes me on how idiotic his idea's are.

Maybe somebody should send him to ubisoft, so he can see why they can slam out a game that has 100-200 hours of content every 2 years with dlc's bigger then entire sony games just as extra's and have no issue's releasing them on time. They can drop games after games and games next towards it all without issue's.

Sony still has PS3 area development teams and it shows big time. Hell R&C was laughable short on content, Miles morales lol, dark soul remake, astro playroom short, returnal short. Then we got god of war 2 / horizon 2 all based probably on there last game assets on top of it, because simple no people working on it.

Then u got the studio's that all don't work together for shit, because they are all individual owned shops with there own ideology's with there own leaderships which results in everybody making the same chair 10 times over. inefficient as hell.

Same goes for nintendo, 10-300 people on breath of the wild. Took them many years to create a world that's practically empty with copy past content everywhere with 10 unique weapons and 10 enemy's. It shows barely anybody worked on it. Its embarrassing when u have something like phoenix risen or whatever its called being slammed out just as a cracker in between by ubisoft with far more content in its world present. They spend most of there time on top of it to figure out nich little things that they can claim as something unique in order for there product to stand a bit out which was physics this time so all the nintendo fans can cling towards it to defend there all mighty zero effort outputting company they love so much.

The problem isn't the cost or isn't the time, the problem is development teams are a joke and specially under sony. If i was the ceo there i would buy those company's up and merge them into basically 2-3 giant development teams and expand them drastically towards 10x the size that work on projects for a year and push out a game with tons of content as result + expand drastically and move into new markets like mobile / PC.

Jaffe lives in the past, so do many other people in those industry's and that's why they hit barriers and problems because they simple are working with outdated concepts that are no longer relevant.

 

[Panajev2001a]

6 years, that is the amount of time that will be between the release of halo 5 and halo infinite. One of those years was an entire extra delay year, and its still launching incomplete! Bioware launched 5 good games during the 360 era, last generation we got one okay one and two pieces of dog shit in the same amount of time. Rockstar put out two gta games, red dead redemption, and single player dlc from the years of 2008-2013. From 2013 to now rockstar has only managed to get out two games. We havent gotten a new mainline elder scrolls game in ten years. During the ps3 eranaughty dog released 4 AAA games, last generation we got 2.5. Bayonetta 3 and metroid prime 4 were announced 4 years ago...

The only AAA developers who seem to be able to release new games on a consistent basis now are part of activision (fuck them), insomniac, or one of Ubisoft's many teams.

I understand 4k visuals take a long time, but maybe this could be remedied by making smaller scoped games. Insomniac is able to get games out consistantly and without crunch because they are scoped appropriatley. They dont have massive dynamic open worlds. Spidermans ny looks pretty but its small, and serves as simple set dressing for a hand full of repeatable challenges and story missions. Ratchet and clank: Rift Apart was awesome, and really pretty, but it wasnt the biggest game in the world and that was fine, i didnt feel ripped off. Uncharted lost legacy was developed in like a year and a half and it was somehow better than uncharted 4. If big studios make smaller scoped titles we would get them more often. Id rather have a smaller more linear mass effect 5 (similar to mass effect 2) than wait 7 years for another obnoxious ubisoft style open world with mass effect set dressing.

sorry for all the grammatical errors, i wrote this quickly at work.

I think 343i had other issues than just making a 4K visuals powered AAA game that caused the issues you are seeing. Codebase rot and neglect maybe… rushed Development schedules before that made it worse… change in direction and ineffective management… team issues… who knows.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The problem isn't the cost or isn't the time, the problem is development teams are a joke and specially under sony. If i was the ceo there i would buy those company's up and basically 2-3 giant development teams that work on projects for a year and push out a game with tons of content as result + expand drastically and move into new markets like mobile / PC.

Please stay away from Sony then .

 

[Kenpachii]

Please stay away from Sony then .

Then stop bitching about it takes to long and costs to much. U want to wait on 300 people making god of war 3 in 6-7 years from now that is actually based around PS5 hardware and not the hybrid effort that is created right now at half the playtime. Good luck.

I rather have god of war 2 on my plate being twice as big as the last one next year builded on the PS5.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Then stop bitching about it takes to long and costs to much. U want to wait on 300 people making god of war 3 in 6-7 years from now that is actually based around PS5 hardware and not the hybrid effort that is created right now at half the playtime. Good luck.

I rather have god of war 2 on my plate being twice as big as the last one next year builded on the PS5.

I want PS5 native games, but I remain unconvinced about your “my way or the highway” reasoning there.Not sure why you are snapping at people, but .

 

[Banjo64]

The problem isn't the cost or isn't the time, the problem is development teams are a joke and specially under sony.

The problem isn’t just Sony though. Look at Bathesda, Starfield will release nearly 7 years to the day after Fallout 4. Rockstar North haven’t put out a game since September 2013.

Sony has Insomniac and Team Asobi who can release games very quickly. But it is true that their other studios are now in the same 5/6 year development process as most other large AAA studios.

I think the answer is more AA studios, as sadly no one will scale back AAA spending/time IMO. I hope MS keep some studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory quite small.

 

[Nezzeroth]

Maybe somebody should send him to ubisoft, so he can see why they can slam out a game that has 100-200 hours of content every 2 years with dlc's bigger then entire sony games just as extra's and have no issue's releasing them on time.

They do that by making ultra formulaic games that feel copy pasted from each other over and over again. If the entire AAA industry worked like Ubisoft does I would stop playing AAA games altogether.

Releasing 200 hour games is stupid anyway. The majority of people won't even come close to finishing them.

 

[Kenpachii]

I want PS5 native games, but I remain unconvinced about your “my way or the highway” reasoning there.Not sure why you are snapping at people, but .

Every company that ballooned there dev teams have no issue's everybody that didn't have issue's and that's the reality. People defending these company's and not straight up stating what it is is what holds back gaming.

We need to get games far faster out at a far faster pace, thise 4-5 year development cycle that soon will be even higher is laughable bad and the sole reason for that is, to small teams that work completely inefficient by recreating everything all over again endlessly is just a waste.

Your business grows = expand, u don't expand u can't serve and its the end. This is why u see switch a all in one device because they have no developers to serve there other platform anymore.

 

[Gameplaylover]

The problem isn’t just Sony though. Look at Bathesda, Starfield will release nearly 7 years to the day after Fallout 4. Rockstar North haven’t put out a game since September 2013.

Sony has Insomniac and Team Asobi who can release games very quickly. But it is true that their other studios are now in the same 5/6 year development process as most other large AAA studios.

I think the answer is more AA studios, as sadly no one will scale back AAA spending/time IMO. I hope MS keep some studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory quite small.

Personally i see the problem in the playtime and/or replay value of some games. You wait 5-6 years for a game that you can beat within 1-2 weekends and that's it. The replay value of heavily narrative driven singleplayer games is close to zero to me.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

I think what we really need is more mid-tier, or AA developers if you will. Back in the day, we had stuff like THQ and Midway, but nowadays, it seems like mid-tier developers are a dying breed. Sure, we still have devs like THQ Nordic and Sega holding down the fort, but it feels like anymore, it's mainly just AAA and indie devs.

A middle tier dev has the benefit of having a higher budget and bigger scope than indies (and I say this as someone who loves indie games) while still being able to take more risks than AAA devs because they don't have such an absurd amount of money invested in their titles that they could possibly lose if it doesn't quite pan out.

In a perfect world, we would have an equal balance of AAA, mid-tier, and indie. Sadly, this is not a perfect world.

SEGA's AA? In what fantasy world is Yakuza,Judgement and Total War AA?

Next you'll tell me Nintendo's AA LMAO!

 

[Lucky8BB]

These days people want more realistic and bigger open world games, but I think too much freedom is not always a good think, especially in racing games. For example I used to absolutely love racing games back in the early 2000, because each track was unique and gameplay was all about action (racing). In PS3/x360 era however more and more racing games started looking like GTA clones (big open world map), where you have to drive from point A to point B before races and I starting getting bored with such racing games. NFS underground 2, Most Wanted 2005, forza horizon series were still somewhat fun, but most racing games with open world map are just boring to me and I would rather play something like good old Burnout 3 (variety of beautiful tracks instead of one boring scenery). I bet it's much cheaper to create multiple beautiful and unique tracks than big open map with one boring scenery.

 

[Kenpachii]

The problem isn’t just Sony though. Look at Bathesda, Starfield will release nearly 7 years to the day after Fallout 4. Rockstar North haven’t put out a game since September 2013.

Sony has Insomniac and Team Asobi who can release games very quickly. But it is true that their other studios are now in the same 5/6 year development process as most other large AAA studios.

I think the answer is more AA studios, as sadly no one will scale back AAA spending/time IMO. I hope MS keep some studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory quite small.

I just googled bethesda there employee's and frankly now i am not shocked why there games are buggy as shit. they have almost no people working on there games.

The problem with sony is that everyone of there company's have to make everything all over again for the next title. The reason why death stranding came out so fast was because that guy from horizon basically gave him full access to all his shit which ballooned his development process forwards. Imagine cyberpunk having access to all GTA 5 data, yea that game would nto be anywhere near in the state we see it right now and probably would have released years early. U saw the same thing with returnal and R&C where other company's provided access towards there shit towards those company's.

This needs to happen on a far grander scale and they need to balloon there company's upwards towards curretn generation development teams if they don't want to be stuck with a decade of game development or endless bitsized games.

Just look at the employee's company's have and u soon realize why the issue exists to start with.

Blizzard 9500 employee's
Ubisoft 18.045 employee's
sony 3000 ?????? not sure here
bethesda 420 employee's
microsoft 2433 employee's
League of legends 2500.

Now imagine if god of war 2 dev group went from 300 towards 1500. that 5 year would straight up by 2 years max. And that's last generation wroth of team size as RDR2 for example was already sitting at 1500+ and gta on the PS3 was created with 1000 people.

Now if we see gta 6, u can bet its going to have 2,2k+ people or RDR2 and takes years to develop with tons of experience. So they are already lowballing it but it works for them. I am pretty sure ubisoft straight up puts 7k+ people on there AC main line games. its 15 studio's that work on it. yet they drop every year a full ac game almost as dlc's are basically already a full game by itself.

Now lets get back to 300 from god of war and jaffe saying "guys we need to make shorter games because its simple not sustainable anymore guys" rofl delusional.

 

[lh032]

make me appreciate Sony AAA exclusives even more.

 

[Gameplaylover]

They do that by making ultra formulaic games that feel copy pasted from each other over and over again. If the entire AAA industry worked like Ubisoft does I would stop playing AAA games altogether.

Releasing 200 hour games is stupid anyway. The majority of people won't even come close to finishing them.

Most high budget AAAs feel formulaic and the majoritiy of people don't finish games anyways, no matter how long they are. Only 34% finished Horizon Zero Dawn and this was in the Top 10 of PS4s most completed games.

 

[YoshiMadness]

SEGA's AA? In what fantasy world is Yakuza,Judgement and Total War AA?

Next you'll tell me Nintendo's AA LMAO!

Those may be great games, but in terms of budget, marketing, and mainstream popularity, they're nowhere near the level of something like Call Of Duty, Halo, Mario, GTA, Final Fantasy, Uncharted, etc.

Those games are popular with a certain niche, and that's it. I guarantee you few casuals even know what Yakuza is. Literally everyone knows Mario. You have to remember the majority of gamers aren't hardcore types that post on forums like this.

The closest Sega has to an AAA franchise nowadays is Sonic. He might be a bit of a laughingstock nowadays, but Sonic Mania was a bigger deal in the mainstream sense than any Total War game has ever been, and that was a retro throwback for crying out loud.

 

[yamaci17]

there's no 4k visuals most games run 1100-1400p on sx/ps5

unless u choose 30 fps

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

Those may be great games, but in terms of budget, marketing, and mainstream popularity, they're nowhere near the level of something like Call Of Duty, Halo, Mario, GTA, Final Fantasy, Uncharted, etc.

Those games are popular with a certain niche, and that's it. I guarantee you few casuals even know what Yakuza is. Literally everyone knows Mario. You have to remember the majority of gamers aren't hardcore types that post on forums like this.

The closest Sega has to an AAA franchise nowadays is Sonic. He might be a bit of a laughingstock nowadays, but Sonic Mania was a bigger deal in the mainstream sense than any Total War game has ever been, and that was a retro throwback for crying out loud.

Nope, what counts as a AAA game differs from one region to another.

For example The Witcher 3's budget was 81 million INCLUDING the marketing, compared to an average CoD or Rockstar game which costs over 250M without it! You can't think for a second The Witcher isn't a AAA game!

Same thing with Nintendo's IPs and Yakuza etc, they're considerd "prestige" games, FFS Tales Of, Musou and SMT/Persona are considered AAA by their publishes!

Japanese AA games are something like NiS games (Disgaea) Gust games (Ar Tonelico, Atelier series) Nihon Falcom (Ys, Trails) Compile Heart/Idea Factory games (Neptunia/Death end Re;Quest) etc.

 

[YoshiMadness]

Nope, what counts as a AAA game differs from one region to another.

For example The Witcher 3's budget was 81 million INCLUDING the marketing, compared to an average CoD or Rockstar game which costs over 250M without it! You can't think for a second The Witcher isn't a AAA game!

Same thing with Nintendo's IPs and Yakuza etc, they're considerd "prestige" games, FFS Tales Of, Musou and SMT/Persona are considered AAA by their publishes!

Japanese AA games are something like NiS games (Disgaea) Gust games (Ar Tonelico, Atelier series) Nihon Falcom (Ys, Trails) Compile Heart/Idea Factory games (Neptunia/Death end Re;Quest) etc.

That is a very fair point actually. I like to avoid being Americentric in my posts because I realize there's an entire world outside of the US, but sometimes I still tend to be Americentric. My bad.

I still stand by my point that we need more AA devs tho.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

That is a very fair point actually. I like to avoid being Americentric in my posts because I realize there's an entire world outside of the US, but sometimes I still tend to be Americentric. My bad.

I still stand by my point that we need more AA devs tho.

I agree, Obsidian and inXile for example were just that pre-acquisition.

Same with Larian Studios and the many acquired studios by the Embracer Group (AKA THQ Nordic) like Gunfire Games (Darksiders 3/Remnants From The Ashes)Volition (Saints Row), and the many independent "Eurojank" devs like Spiders (GreedFall/Bound by Flame/The Technomancer) and Frogwares (Sherlock Holmes games and The Sinking City) etc.

Believe it or not the industry is in a much healthier place than it was in the early 2010's, Japan is back BIG TIME after the dark ages of the 7th gen, AA games are back and stronger and more diverse than ever, long dead genres like CRPGs/Old School shooters are back and feel like a breath of fresh air after decades of corridor shooters.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Lol dude most succesful games on PC are non lookers. Majority of PC gamers give zero fucks about visuals. They care about gameplay.

BRB, gonna notify Durante all the people hailing him for fixing lazy PC ports of console games were actually perfectly happy with 720p in 2012.

Also I guess all the people happy about that "downsampling from infinity and beyond" thing, whatever it was called, were lying?

there's no 4k visuals most games run 1100-1400p on sx/ps5

unless u choose 30 fps

Yeah, consoles are a technical compromise.

Still, anything that doesn't look cutting edge on consoles is barely considered AAA by enthusiasts these days.


Some of the most heated threads around here are the weekly threads about 400% enhancements of photo mode stills of PS5 vs XSX while top PC users laugh from the balconies, while Nintendo is regularly laughed at for their "remasters". But please go on about fidelity not being the one most important feature for AAA devs and enthusiasts.

 

[Lethal01]

So basically you jist want to play one game per year?

I beat FFVII remake like 10 times in a month while having time for work exercise and a couple of indies, we don't all do 12 hour shifts. I'd love some longer games.

 

[akaFullmetal]

Those medium games are going away due to consolidation of game companies. We just lost a ton to Microsoft, some to Amazon, google stadia, Sony, ten cent, ea.
They've been getting gobbled up these last few years and now they are working on bigger but longer projects and now we have less games in-between.
This is what some people have been cheering for.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Those medium games are going away due to consolidation of game companies. We just lost a ton to Microsoft, some to Amazon, google stadia, Sony, ten cent, ea.
They've been getting gobbled up these last few years and now they are working on bigger but longer projects and now we have less games in-between.
This is what some people have been cheering for.

I hope microsoft lets double fine, obsidian and inexile continue to maker smaller aa games. Its good to have studios like that because it might allow them to have a more consistant influx of first party games complimented by the occasional halo/gears/bethesda/ Ninja theory, big AAA game. Consolidation isnt great, i agree. But i think microsoft will have a good first party presence this generation. I hope sony puts out more smallish titles like astrobot as well.

 

[V4skunk]

I don't even play "aaa" games any more outside of Soulsborne.
Play indies though.

 

[Nezzeroth]

Most high budget AAAs feel formulaic and the majoritiy of people don't finish games anyways, no matter how long they are. Only 34% finished Horizon Zero Dawn and this was in the Top 10 of PS4s most completed games.

And it wasn't that long. Why make it a 200 hour game then?

 

[ZywyPL]

I personally think this would backfire.

Short single player only games ( short for me is under 10 hours ) have topped out at around 5 to 10 million copies.

Halving the price would require doubling the sales which I think is unlikely.

Longer games have always sold better if you can hit your looking at around 10 to 30 million copies sold.

But that's going in circles... You double the length and cost of the game so in return it has to sell double as well. We read how the games that sell in just a couple of MLN copies are super successful, while how the 100-200M AAA that reach even 10-15M are unsustainable, let alone titles with such budget that fail to bit the mark.

So from a gamer perspective it would be IMO much better to get more games, more often. They might have been shorter, but that's good because that ensures consistency, many if bot most nowadays titles are simply too long, with oacing issues, forced/prolonged cut-scenes etc. so bo wonder only 15-20% bothers finishing those titles at all.

Give people solid 6-8h experience for 20-30h every 2-3 years and everyone will be happy, and if someone will feel the game could've been longer there's a sequel coming in 2 years.

 

[Gameplaylover]

And it wasn't that long. Why make it a 200 hour game then?

Finishing games has not necessarily to do with playtime since even at an easy and short linear level design 5h game like Uncharted: Lost Legacy was only finished by 50% of the players while much larger open world games like RDR2, Days Gone, Ghost or Death Stranding got between 30 and 40% For those who enjoy longer games it is a huge benefit. Shorter game do not automatically mean more players finish it.

 

[Banjo64]

I'm the opposite, I wish the final fantasy remake could have been way longer and let me explore each plate, I wished BOTW had 5x more sidequests and puzzle. I want more complex levels and more bosses to fight.

AND ontop of that I want more games in the series, throw some side teams at it.

Not being mean but are you single? Or if you have a partner, do they game?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

For some reason OP thinks proper development of Halo Infinite took 6 years. Nope. Combination of poor planning, 343incompetence, and multiple changes likely.

If they mess this up or it underperforms we will see 343i rude into the sunset. Right off a cliff. Pushed by Spencer himself.

 

[akaFullmetal]

I hope microsoft lets double fine, obsidian and inexile continue to maker smaller aa games. Its good to have studios like that because it might allow them to have a more consistant influx of first party games complimented by the occasional halo/gears/bethesda/ Ninja theory, big AAA game. Consolidation isnt great, i agree. But i think microsoft will have a good first party presence this generation. I hope sony puts out more smallish titles like astrobot as well.

Sure Microsoft will have more 1st party but things like Bethesda have started to kill off aa gaming. As well, I feel Microsoft haven't gained anything from that purchase. Microsoft was always going to have access to fallout, RPGs and things like Skyrim.

 

[Lethal01]

Not being mean but are you single? Or if you have a partner, do they game?

I do, and I'd never date someone who doesn't game honestly, Like I said, I can currently play the games I'm interested in with time to spare. Maybe if I had kids too this would be different but in my experience games aren't so long that I "can only play one a year".

 

[Banjo64]

Yes, Like I said, I can currently play the games I'm interested in with time to spare. Maybe if I had kids too this would be different but in my experience games aren't so long that I "can only play one a year".

I don’t mind a long game but only as long as BOTW, the Witcher 3, Skyrim, Spider-Man, Horizon, GoW etc. 20 or 30 hours is probably the sweet spot for those types of campaigns but now that I’ve got kids I love short campaigns like A Plague Tale, Ori, Ratchet etc. Fair play to you though, it’s nice having the time - cherish it!

 

[Notabueno]

What a mediocre take. Game scope should be reduced because they're terrible at conception, planning and management.

No, they should just get more serious at...conception, planning and management, the scope is not at fault.

 

[Kimahri]

I beat FFVII remake like 10 times in a month while having time for work exercise and a couple of indies, we don't all do 12 hour shifts. I'd love some longer games.

Lol, I'm not commenting on you work to life schedule man. Kinda impressed you did that ten times in one month though.

But I have many things i want to spend my time on, and games just keep getting more bloated. I don't like it. I wanna get in, have fun, and get out and move on. Game are increasingly making that more difficult.

So looks like you're getting what you want.

 

[The artful mincer]

But that's going in circles... You double the length and cost of the game so in return it has to sell double as well. We read how the games that sell in just a couple of MLN copies are super successful, while how the 100-200M AAA that reach even 10-15M are unsustainable, let alone titles with such budget that fail to bit the mark.

So from a gamer perspective it would be IMO much better to get more games, more often. They might have been shorter, but that's good because that ensures consistency, many if bot most nowadays titles are simply too long, with oacing issues, forced/prolonged cut-scenes etc. so bo wonder only 15-20% bothers finishing those titles at all.

Give people solid 6-8h experience for 20-30h every 2-3 years and everyone will be happy, and if someone will feel the game could've been longer there's a sequel coming in 2 years.

Sure I guess my main point was that most games long or short are sold for 60 dollars and you at least get a couple of months at that price before it comes down. Is this perhaps better for niche games that are never gonna reach mass market appeal? ( I don't know just throwing this out there).

I think what you suggest sounds good on paper but never seems to work when tried. Hitman tried it this gen for season 1 but went straight back to the old model for season 2 and 3.( If your aware of any episodic games that were successful please let me know.)

Personally I tend to prefer longer games on average ( 10 + hours) but in an ideal world I would like games of all lengths and price ranges to be successful.

Honestly 100 to 200 million budgets are currently completely sustainable. You only need to sell about 3 million copies at 60 dollars to break even on a 100 million dollar game even less if your first party. They can't keep going up forever but hopefully publishers will have the foresight to manage that before they truly become unsustainable.

 

[FStubbs]

SEGA's AA? In what fantasy world is Yakuza,Judgement and Total War AA?

Next you'll tell me Nintendo's AA LMAO!

I would definitely say most Nintendo games are, in fact, AA and that Nintendo is the king of that space. BotW is one of the few AAA games they make.

Their tentpole first party game this fall is - in terms of game budget - barely AA (Pokemon D/P remakes).

 

[Guardian's Light]

6 years, that is the amount of time that will be between the release of halo 5 and halo infinite. One of those years was an entire extra delay year, and its still launching incomplete! Bioware launched 5 good games during the 360 era, last generation we got one okay one and two pieces of dog shit in the same amount of time. Rockstar put out two gta games, red dead redemption, and single player dlc from the years of 2008-2013. From 2013 to now rockstar has only managed to get out two games. We havent gotten a new mainline elder scrolls game in ten years. During the ps3 eranaughty dog released 4 AAA games, last generation we got 2.5. Bayonetta 3 and metroid prime 4 were announced 4 years ago...

The only AAA developers who seem to be able to release new games on a consistent basis now are part of activision (fuck them), insomniac, or one of Ubisoft's many teams.

I understand 4k visuals take a long time, but maybe this could be remedied by making smaller scoped games. Insomniac is able to get games out consistantly and without crunch because they are scoped appropriatley. They dont have massive dynamic open worlds. Spidermans ny looks pretty but its small, and serves as simple set dressing for a hand full of repeatable challenges and story missions. Ratchet and clank: Rift Apart was awesome, and really pretty, but it wasnt the biggest game in the world and that was fine, i didnt feel ripped off. Uncharted lost legacy was developed in like a year and a half and it was somehow better than uncharted 4. If big studios make smaller scoped titles we would get them more often. Id rather have a smaller more linear mass effect 5 (similar to mass effect 2) than wait 7 years for another obnoxious ubisoft style open world with mass effect set dressing.

sorry for all the grammatical errors, i wrote this quickly at work.

I wish we still lived the world where we had a big AAA every 6 months or every year, and where every chapter in your favourite series was released from a minimum of 1 year, to a max of 3 on average

Four, five, in other cases even TEN years waiting - i'm talking with you Rockstar -, in other cases lots of promises who they couldn't obviously mantain - Cyberpunk - due to a scope too exaggerated

I don't give a fuck about enormous open worlds who bores the hell out of me, and it's empty like shit, super detailed, 4k to every single ass's hair etc.

I'd be happy with faster developing times, smaller games, but way higher quality, it's the content and not the scope of the project to make it or break it, but for some reason developers doesn't understand this anymore

Enormous open worlds stopped being fun in 2004-2005 at best

 

[Guardian's Light]

I would definitely say most Nintendo games are, in fact, AA and that Nintendo is the king of that space. BotW is one of the few AAA games they make.

Their tentpole first party game this fall is - in terms of game budget - barely AA (Pokemon D/P remakes).

Both remakes and legends are more of an A, rather than AA

A-disaster

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

I would definitely say most Nintendo games are, in fact, AA and that Nintendo is the king of that space. BotW is one of the few AAA games they make.

Their tentpole first party game this fall is - in terms of game budget - barely AA (Pokemon D/P remakes).

Nope, what counts as a AAA game differs from one region to another.

For example The Witcher 3's budget was 81 million INCLUDING the marketing, compared to an average CoD or Rockstar game which costs over 250M without it! You can't think for a second The Witcher isn't a AAA game!

Same thing with Nintendo's IPs and Yakuza etc, they're considerd "prestige" games, FFS Tales Of, Musou and SMT/Persona are considered AAA by their publishes!

Japanese AA games are something like NiS games (Disgaea) Gust games (Ar Tonelico, Atelier series) Nihon Falcom (Ys, Trails) Compile Heart/Idea Factory games (Neptunia/Death end Re;Quest) etc.

 

[Killer Sakoman]

While I agree with you to some extent, I also want to call this out.

Naughty Dog did reduce the scope of their game (Lost Legacy) exactly as you're suggesting. However, now you just termed that full game as half a game (or 0.5). No offense, but that's hypocrisy.

If devs don't reduce the scope, we get (valid) complaints like this. If they do and make a relatively shorter game (completely on par with PS2/PS3 gen games in terms of length and content), we don't consider that game as a full game.

As long as that happens, why would developers reduce the scope of the game?

Yes, he contradicted his own argument there. But, I agree that publishers should establish new studios that make smaller scope AAA games similar to PS3 era. Many people here loved RE8 village and RE2 remake, both AAA but smaller scope and likely much smaller budget than AssCreed.