A good series ruined (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, August 25, 2016, 13:10 (3016 days ago) @ someotherguy

I admire the purity of principle on display, but there's an ongoing problem with AAA games. They're very expensive to make and the margins for profit seem to be getting thinner.

This right here is the problem, honestly. The AAA industry is horribly bloated and thinks just throwing obscene amounts of money at things will make the product better. Look at Hitman and Tomb Raider (both Square Enix, unsurprisingly). They both sold several million copies, but were considered a failure because so much money had been spent on sodding HairFX and what-have-you. It's reached the point now where you have to sell your game to everyone if you want to make any money. Hardly surprising then that so many AAA games are so homogenous now - they're trying to appeal to everybody, doing everything passably rather than doing any one thing well (Ubisoft springs to mind as the biggest example here).

Compare and contrast with Demon and Dark Souls from From Software. Lower budget titles with reasonable expectations from a studio that put all their focus on making games that would have a large appeal to a very specific audience. They sold far fewer copies and still made a profit, because they didn't let their budget balloon over the vain assumption that they'd make it all back.

It's complicated. Graphics help to sell games. Big games cost big bucks. I think Cody has said as much. 90% of the games I've finished since Destiny came out have been indie or psuedo-indie. It's one reason I probably won't buy Deux Ex for a while. Don't know if I want to pay full price for a game I don't end up finishing. I bet players like me are part of the issue of thinning profit margins.