When it comes to big budget open world games, the thing is part of the marketing of the game is often "bigger is better". More land to explore, more towns to visit etc... How many big open world games have gamers played where it turns out the new game content is smaller and shorter?
He's probably expecting it to be a casual gamer system seller. Then they will inevitably buy more than 1 game.
It's what happens when you beloved fumbles the ball with AAA for over a decade.
yep. no one goes to movie theaters wanting a 4 hour movie. if anything studios cut the crap out of their movies to stay around 2 hours.
Literally has nothing to do with it. I was a huge fan of Sony when they had AA games. I've literally always loved AA games and publicly argued for more of them on all systems. If anything, I like Xbox more this gen because they've had more AA games.It's what happens when you beloved fumbles the ball with AAA for over a decade.
Seems really far-fetched and unsubstantiated. Hardware adoption has been fairly good this gen. The problem is that people don't see any incentive to venture outside their comfort zones. Those comfort zones that big publishers spent billions creating. IMO this is all just poetic justice. They cultivated this system for more than a decade and a lot of us were vocally against it from the start. But short term profits mattered above all.
Sony still has tons of AA games. They even fund a ton of them.
All the production values into tons of cut scenes and VA has got to be a pricey slog too.
Nobody but unfortunately like most things in life the VCs are out there to make money and when they see "flat or declining" numbers they just don't back or fund things anymore.
I think the fact that Sony cinematic games went from selling 3-5 million in the PS3 era to 20-30 million in the PS4 and now PS5 era shows that there is a demand for these narrative driven high production value games even among casuals.
Ok. But supposedly the industry reported record income during 2020 and 2021 due to COVID, so publishers should be able to invest in their own growth without the help of VCs, by expanding into new markets, developing new kinds of products or otherwise coming up with new business opportunities - the very thing execs are paid to do.
Good point. It might be one of things like MTX.
Games are $90-95 CDN. Add tax and it breaks $100. lol Ugh.
If people cant accept smaller/shorter games.. thats the future.. real close
yeah, gamers are a hypocritical bunch. just look at how much they shat on suicide squad and then bought helldivers literally a week later. At this point, everyone on gaf knows Sony games have a lot of cutscenes but they buy them anyway because they like them. I am frankly sick of the walking segments in their games but i wont lie, i loved spiderman 2 after almost a year of games with no proper storytelling. the best i got was re4 which is a cheesy B story and star wars which goes like 5 hours in between cutscenes. I enjoy both but i prefer the more curated sony experiences. makes me a hypocrit after bitching about gow ragnorak for a year, but sometimes you dont know how mcuh you appreciate something after you go a year without it.
The publishers themselves aren't doing great to back projects either according to the general feeling from D. I. C. E:
I heard the writing in Sm2 is really shitty... loved the first game though... Im waiting to play on ps5 pro maybe with psplus who knows
Skip all side content and you are good. Main campaign is written rather well and aside from MJ acting like an action movie hero, it isnt all that woke either.I heard the writing in Sm2 is really shitty... loved the first game though... Im waiting to play on ps5 pro maybe with psplus who knows
So after two years of record revenue (and I assume also profits), publishers are cutting back because they can't get VCs on board?
Not due to VCs there. The publishers themselves are like the VCs when they back a studio to make a game with their money. So publishers aren't funding more things or at the level they did before because they don't see growth in the market right now. At best they will fund at the same level or less knowing it's flat or declining. They are cutting costs and bunkering up.
A rising tide lifts all boats. People who were on the fence could buy a PS5 or Xbox for it, and then discover other games and buy them etc etc.
Bunkering up for what exactly?
Isn't the new Robocop and A Plague Tale also considered 'AA'?
For lower interest rates partially but I'm not sure how much it will help. Basically they're just trying to survive this year and keep the lights on. Mostly by cutting costs where they can and not funding a lot of new projects or cancelling the more risky ones due to lowered investment. When there is no growth there is less investment both from publishers and VCs. The hope is that in 2 years it will be better again. This is a fairly good article on it here:
www.gamesindustry.biz
From the article:For lower interest rates partially but I'm not sure how much it will help. Basically they're just trying to survive this year and keep the lights on. Mostly by cutting costs where they can and not funding a lot of new projects or cancelling the more risky ones due to lowered investment. When there is no growth there is less investment both from publishers and VCs. The hope is that in 2 years it will be better again. This is a fairly good article on it here:
Games industry leaders braced 'for up to two years of pain'
Games industry bosses thing 2024 will be 'the year of closures'
I would definitely say it was mismanagement by embracer but no funding and not greenlighting new projects isn't really mismanagement. We're getting into economics but higher interest rates always influence spending and investment. The example the article gave is
I didn't notice this edit.
You literally think I only like AA games because MS supposedly has no AAA games? What kind of console warrior bullshit is this? You should be banned or blocked from the thread. You're an asshole and you don't know the first thing about what kind of games I like.
Bro, you are literally lost in the sauce right here. Stop projecting.
AA and A indies have always been in the mainstream. For decades.
100% agree. It kills me that there are quality AA games and dip shit gamers are like, "this is like a PS3/360 title, it's trash!"
Publishers responded to COVID by funding unsuccessful games which are now - two to three years later - saturating the market. In response they are cutting back on investment and shutting down studios so that in the next two years they will have less output. The pattern is the same in both cases - failing to predict the market correctly.
Capitalism and greed is a bitch. C-Suite cunts saw the massive abnormal growth during the lockdown and in their swiss-cheese "can only see to the end of the quarter" brains assumed that this was the new normal and fucked themselves and everyone else in the industry.
Then those "brains" need to be let go. Most of us are not brain-trusts in companies, and even we all saw that printing money, giving money as handouts to stimulate, locking down entire countries, etc., etc., would lead to massive inflation and corporate takeover of the little guy, on top of stores having to close for rampant theft losses being allowed to fester.
