So basically he said that the entire game industry leans towards… Fortnite?
‘A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they’re not selling’
The good ones are.
Yeah, it’s fucking awesome! Nothing makes me happier than seeing a AAA studio sink big bucks into a project that was destined to be a dumpster fire, then release it as a timed exclusive loaded with DRM for good measure. I really hate that there are developers falling victim to the overall shittiness of the games industry, but I don’t know how else studios are supposed to learn that people want to buy games, not lease online storefronts. On that note, anyone have any good indie recommendations?
Meanwhile all we need to keep us happy are AA budget games to perhaps dormant franchises which haven’t seen the light of day in a few decades.
We don’t need AAA or … Lol AAAA budget games every time
Nah man, what we need is an AAAAAAA+ game. Price will be $3400 so the company can recuperate the cost of making the game, and everyone will buy it! It’s how
slavesgamers work, right?Cool. Now where’s my $102 million bonus for reinventing the gaming market?
THQNordic and Nightdive have been carrying this sector of gaming for me lately
Remove all the garbage. The DRM, the proprietary launchers and the requirement to constantly pay to win.
When I buy a game, I want a game.
Not yet another platform to bleed my wallet dry.
I also don’t want to be forced to use some stupid storefront just because the publisher wanted an extra 18% cut or whatever. If your game lives and dies by that 18% cut, perhaps you should make a better game.
If I want to use EGS, GOG, or Steam, that should be my choice, don’t force me to switch to something else just because you want higher margins.
If they want me to buy AAA releases when they come out; they need to be actually fun, no rootkits, no microtransactions.
Exactly. And no game-breaking bugs at launch.
Nintendo for all the awfulness that is their legal department got this right. I pre-ordered Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and it worked absolutely fine when I plugged it in. Yeah, there was a day 1 patch (didn’t check the state of things before the patch), but I haven’t had any issues with it so far.
Indies also often get this right. There are plenty of devs I trust to have a solid product day 1. No stupid DRM, microtransactions, etc, just a fun game.
I don’t care too much about graphics, I just want a fun game to play, and I’m unwilling to pay to be a beta tester.
Right? Why should I pay full price for a game and it’s a buggy mess, sometimes even unplayable past a certain piont? All this has done has made me wait a year or two for games that I want, so I can get functional games, which is the opposite of how the studios want to make money.
Buying a Triple A Game has become a liability:
Online Only
Limited Lease via Digital Store with unknown lifespan
User Account Activation
Actual Fucking Rootkits
Trouble is, companies with shareholders have to chase the profits, and they have to protect them at all costs, which leads to a situation where the AAA companies feel like they have to lock their shit down tight. And that ain’t compatible with 100% of their markets.
It’s become an arms race because they can’t just accept that people will pirate their games regardless of what they put in place. But the more they put in place, the more likely people are to want to pirate.
I just don’t understand how “line go up” is a thing when so many refuse to buy because of stupid DRM. I know we’re in a minority, but surely the DRM doesn’t actually increase sales, right? People who would pirate will just wait, so I doubt it’s actually translating to more sales than if they courted the anti-DRM people.
Yep this right here. The moment they appear like they don’t care about red line going up or CEO saying “no” they’ll remove them from the company and appoint someone who will
Fun beats pretty.
Is this for video games or romantic advice?
Not only that, but pretty much everything else, including weapons and cars.
Gen 9 has been a complete failure. PS5 and Xbox Series are not delivering a next generation experience and the companies that produce those consoles have insulted the intelligence of their player bases for too long.
I’ve been a console gamer since the PS1. I’ve also gamed on computers for way longer than that. I just find the consoles easier, as it’s plug and play, and no need to constantly upgrade my computer.
This has been a fact for me until now. Got the PS5 2 years after release, and had a fucking blast with it, while the computer I built 13 years ago is used for other stuff than gaming. It took it’s last breath about two months ago.
I then got myself a brand new computer with a RTX4060ti, and I installed RDR2 to see how it compared to the PS4 version, and it blew my mind when I added mods (fucking hell, mods are easier to install today than 15-20 years ago lol). Then I bought Baldurs Gate 3.
The price of the PS5 Pro comes out more expensive than my computer. I’ll continue playing some games on the PS5, but the pro can fuck off, and the PS6 will probably never come into my house, as I am done with consoles. I’d rather buy ANOTHER gaming computer and hook it up in the living room.
Tim Sweeny when he notices that enshittification in games doesn’t seem to work very well anymore: industry is going through a “generational change”.
I don’t see Elden Ring devs complaining, maybe focus on gameplay and style more than graphics and MTX and hollywood actors?
People don’t want to pay for Disneyfied corpo slop that the HR department and advertisers signed off on. A public company lacks the soul to imbue into a creative project.
When you try to make literally everyone your target demographic then nobody will be your target demographic
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Not that odd. Seems like a decade and change ago it became common knowledge that market-tested, sanitized content wasn’t really resonating with “core gamers”, but we don’t even call the demographic that anymore. Not really sure how we got here
Well, gamers includes anyone sliding their finger on a phone screen now playing Farmville and stuff…and that is a looooooot of people. So that moves the needle on the average gamer a lot towards that end. And I think there is limited overlap between the people that use it as a time suck and the people that sit down and turn on their console/pc to play a game as a hobby.
So if the MBAs looked at statistics too much… you also get a warped idea.
It seems that stuff that gets people most excited are the inspired games made by creative people because they had a vision for their game…
Farmville players do not buy AAA games. We need to get this idea that mobile games and other forms of video games are connected out of our collective heads.
I know… but plenty of writers of articles seem to use the term gamers to identify everyone that plays any game… so of you don’t identify your target audience good enough you run the risk of making something that on paper will appeal to everyone but in practice to no one.
And also successes of iterative games like fifa run on the fact that real world changes to for example teams players are in drive sales… Because the player base is invested in the real world sport… so they want this year’s game because now the players shifted teams. But a new iteration of other games will not have that external pull.
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Are you SERIOUSLY this stupid and triggered? They’ve said NOTHING about “woke” anything, and your dumb ass goes off like this is gamer gate? Fuck you. Fuck you, you illiterate moron.
This is about how Epic, the corporarion Tim Sweeny leads, a corpo that’s a big player in the games industry, is FAILING to identify that it is quality, not budget that determines if a game sells.
… and then you come in here saying GamerGate shit. Fuck off, you inflammatory dumbass. Seems like you need to get past Reddit culture, troll.
Someone needs to go for a walk
Yes, the guy I replied to. They need to walk to their nearest college and learn how, “reading between the lines” is NOT about applying any and all conspiracy thinking to a subject…
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I saw your reply and regret to inform you the other folks are right, I’m no gamergater and the context isn’t even right. Woke is a descriptor that causes me to buy a game. “Core” referred to gamers that were willing to grind, basically; it was a useful demographic for describing players and I don’t really know what has replaced it.
This ain’t that
Fuck you Tim Sweeney. Fuck the fortnite model and fuck you for delisting and shutting down the Unreal franchise.
Just curious as to what you think the Unreal franchise could provide the modern gaming landscape that we aren’t getting now. It always struck me as pretty bland.
The Unreal franchise can provide the Unreal franchise. There was no real reason for epic to delist the games from all the store fronts and shutdown the master servers other then wanting to control their brand. It was costing them pennies to keep that stuff up and to even shudown the single player games was completely.
As far as “the modern gaming landscape” goes, it can suck it. I’m not interested in playing modern multiplayer shooters. I’m tried a few and they come across as walking simulators and fidget spinner simulators.
Oh you meant like…the old games. I thought you were like dying for the Unreal story to continue or something.
Yeah. Epic delisted the old games. You can not purchase a new copy on any of the digital store fronts, even the single player games. They also shutdown the servers that listed the available open servers. Not the game servers themselves that had map files stored on them. The master server was just a list of IP addresses that cost next to nothing to run. You can configure your install of the games to point to community run master servers, but no new players will know how to do that without someone helping them.
I’m gonna take a wild guess that the games with high budgets that aren’t “selling”, are just not selling “enough” to cover the “costs” of the executives. I guess it wasn’t much of a guess:
and they’re not selling nearly as well as expected," Sweeney said. "Whereas other games are going incredibly strong
Do they think that these other games “going incredibly strong” are making the money they hope to make? They’re probably making much less but managing it much better. The savings are almost infinite when you don’t approve every executive bonus pay package.
“We didn’t listen to what people actually want and now less people are buying! It’s not our decision-making, it’s ‘generational change.’”
I mean, if studios are doing it more and more and have been doing it across a whole generation, it probably is generational change. Games take 5+ years dev time to make so high budgets are a given. If uch a game fails, it is more likely to tank a studio now. I think hes just making an observation. Nothing too shocking about that.
What Im observing though is more and more indies filling the void with smaller and cheaper games due to easy access to digital distribution. Not exactly a new take as its been hapening for over 15 years now. Interestingly, Epic seems to not take the same stance as Steam does in this space. Where steam gives pretty much any shovelware the same chances, Epic wants to be super picky about these low budget titles. Where is Epic’s Balatro?
If Tim is so focused on publishing/distributing these overblown budgeted games, Epic will miss out on the secondary gaming market where actual fun games truly live. Imo, the generational change is actually indie titles becoming the norm and AAA taking a step back.
What Im observing though is more and more indies filling the void with smaller and cheaper games due to easy access to digital distribution. Not exactly a new take as its been hapening for over 15 years now. Interestingly, Epic seems to not take the same stance as Steam does in this space. Where steam gives pretty much any shovelware the same chances, Epic wants to be super picky about these low budget titles. Where is Epic’s Balatro?
This reminds me a lot of the days of the original PlayStation (PS). Nintendo was the large, dominant company. But, they were also really, really picky with the games they let on their platform (still are). Along comes Sony with a better physical format and a willingness to let just about anything on their system. And there were a lot of terrible titles on the PS; but, there were also some real gems from smaller devs and lots more choice for people to find what they wanted to play. That openness and plethora of options drew people to the system. Sure, Nintendo is still around and still a juggernaut, but they gave up a lot of market space to Sony.
Sweeney and many of the big studios seem dead set on trying to replicate lightning. They keep churning out Fortnight clones, live service games and lootbox infested grind fests. None of this is because they want to make a game for players, it’s all a bald-faced money grab. And it comes across so clearly in their games. Yes, big budget games cost a lot of money and I don’t begrudge studios trying to make money. I’m more than happy to throw money at devs who make a great game (I just pledged ~$250 at the Valheim Board Game project, based mostly on the fact that I fucking love Valheim). I’ve also bought into way too many Early Access games, because they looked like they had the bones of good games. But, the big budget games seem to get lost trying to pump every last dollar out of your wallet and just quickly become a turn off.
I remember one particular instance in Dragon Age, where an NPC had a “Quest Available” marker floating above his head. When you talked to him, you quickly discovered that you could buy his quest and the game was happy to kick you over to the EA store so that you could buy his quest right there. Fuck that noise. I’m not against DLC, but that sort of “in your face” advertising pisses me right off. Hell, I’m one of those weirdos who likes the Far Cry series. I put tons of hours into Far Cry 5 (seriously, the wing suit was just good fun). Far Cry 6 was ok and I did finish it, though the micro-transaction spam grated on me hard. After that experience, I’m not sure I want a Far Cry 7.
And I think that points to the elephant in the room. Big publishers, like EA are so focused on making profits, they have lost sight of making a good game. Give me a solid, complete experience. Give me good controls, enough story to hold the action together and just a general sense of fun. Once that is in place, then maybe throw hats for sale on top of that. But, when lootboxes and micro-transactions are core to the gameplay and the game is balanced to force you in the direction of buying that crap, fuck your game. If the core gameplay is designed to suck so much that I want to buy cheats to bypass that core gameplay, I’ll save myself a bunch of money and just skip the game entirely. There are way too many options available out there, which don’t suck, for me to waste my time and money shoveling your shit.
Nintendo consoles and handhelds have almost always had a shit load of shovelware. What the fuck do you mean they are really, really picky with the games on their platform? The GBA, Wii, and Switch alone have enough to disprove this
While indie studios have popped up and filled some of that void.
