I'm walking away thinking someone out there is that type of person who is only playing AAA-titles and feels like gaming hasn't progressed in recent years.
bro in law was somewhat like that when it came to cod, then he wisened up when cod was really shitting the bed lately (especially after his account got hacked and lost everything in warzone).
A video game has to compete with optimal stock trading? Seriously? That's deranged. No wonder publishers drop all their IPs to focus exclusively on their biggest moneymakers. That's the only way to actually accomplish those insane financial goals.
But that's how western/American capitalism work, do you know that public companies are DEMANDED BY LAW to turn a profit each economic/accounting cycle?
This is also the reason why all good railway companies are goverment owned. Public transportation doesnt make a lot of money but is critical. So investors which say that non proffitable lines must be shut down must be told to get lost.
Man, I forgot about what happened to Vicarious Visions. I was just thinking about THPS the other day and wondering when we'd get another game. Total waste.
I completely agree with the conclusion. My favorite game right now is Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth1. It has less than 10 000 reivews on steam and costs a dozen euros, in this franchise the devs make money off selling bikini outfits for the Neptunia girls as DLC. Nieche games are defiently the way to go, not everything apeals to everyone, you must find what apeals to you.
While I think most AAA budgets are bloated and out of control because of idiot executives, I've also realised over the last few years that Satoru Iwata was right all along. People shit on Nintendo for using underpowered hardware, and have done so for years now, but if you go back and watch Iwata's two GDC keynote addresses from 2005 and 2006, the words he spoke and fears he expressed are even more relevant today then they were almost 20 years ago. Budgets are out of control, but by conceding the technological arms race Nintendo has been largely immune to the changes in the market. They've had hiccups, of course, most notably the Wii U; but since changing tactics Nintendo has released it's two most successful pieces of hardware with the DS and Switch, and the Wii managed to break the 100 million barrier. Nintendo is arguably the only publisher in the AAA space that manages budgets in a positive manner and also understands that variety is key when it comes to game releases.
Hell, his argument holds water even more when you really think back to the most successful consoles of all time, and how power =/= popularity. The PS1/PS2 were the weakest consoles of their respective generations, yet, trumped the competition. The PSP was objectively stronger in specs than the DS, yet the latter had the most sales. Hell,, even if we ignore the Wii, the 360 was weaker than the PS3, and still beat it up at first (Until the PS3 began recovering, but it was a very delayed process, and the definitive exception to the rule) People want fun experiences, and power can only carry a console so far.
The people who mostly go on about power are pc gamers. look at how the fanbase get when new consoles release PC gamers start to go on about how underpowered the consoles are compared to their RTX whatever number graphics card or whatever nonsense.
@@cedrikthibert7033they should just cut the over unecessary budget just to end up with trashy movie simualators or bad games Nintendo do carry this gen its not even close and i was never a big fan of the brand
@@baki484thats true i have seen that a lot I dont think platform matter that much anymore anyway it all come down to what you play I do think a low to mid tier PC is a better choice these days since you have free online a lot more options and games to pirate ect
Maybe big public companies requires so much expertise to manage, that it becomes basically impossible for someone to both be qualified in that, and also making games. So you end up with management that don't understand the games they're supposed to be making. Individual private owners can also get to a point where they're satisfied with monetary returns. Where as if you have a public company with thousands and thousands of investors, the collective will never be satisfied with their financial returns.
I like a lot of your points, but I have to interject at 1:00:13. They're not competing with high level stock trading (at least, not highly advanced, or making difficult or risky gains), they're competing with the equivalent of leaving that money in a high-yield savings account at a bank. Whatever they do with that money has to compete against basically doing nothing with that money over the same period of time. This isn't unique to video games, and isn't even unique to publicly traded companies, that's just basic time value of money; your budget isn't just the money you actually spent, but how much that money would have made if you'd just left it in the bank and collected interest instead of spending it. Honestly, even individuals should weigh that kind of calculation on any kind of investment or personal business decision, if your primary (or even secondary or tertiary) motivating factor is money However, both that point, and the rest of the thread tie back to your earlier points about AAA's unfortunate insistence on never being anything but AAA (in scope and budget), and the too-long development cycles. If both or either of those are reduced, the goal posts necessary to pass the bar of "made more money than doing almost nothing with the money spent on it" get a lot closer.
I think the AAA fall in quality is mostly due to whom the developing studios pitch their game/product. Now, some might think they're pitching it to the people who buy and play their games. That seems to be no longer the case. They're pitching their games to investors. Investors don't care about the product as long as it is getting their ROI. And when it doesn't - the sky is falling for some reason. p.s: you forgot to talk about the $520 Ahri skin. look it up. it's a doozy.
Also the fact that people only play the same garbage 24/7 Its baffling how bad gamer taste has gotten over the years just fortnite cod fifa and all the other crap When you see the numbers that cod or Fortnite make you cant have hope for this industry
As a rule of thum japanese companies actually give more money to the higher ups rather than the common workers who make the company function. The Bank of Japan absolutely hates this, for when they print money to invest in companies, they want this money to trickle down to the common people, so they would spend more, thus growing the economy. They dont want the money to be returned to them, the biggest shareholder in Japan, as "proffits".
Valve IMO isn’t a good counterpoint. They’re dabbling in some shady things with CS and TF2. IMO ultimately it’s leadership. If you have a C suite and board that have good leadership, a company can do decent if not good work whether public or private. IMO maybe it’s a silver lining if the video game industry collapses and everyone in it only for a buck flees. Then a generation of new upstarts without baggage can possibly take root. The destruction is terrible for employees but it’s the execs’ doing
Valve may be private but it uses a flat worker hierarchy. This has a different set of advantages and disadvantages compared to more typical company structures. Anyone can work on anything but tenure is tied to how other workers value one's work. Thus it's workforce can be unfocused as trendy projects come and go leaving some mundane things neglected. I am also told some employees write in spaghetti code or put in obtuse features as an insurance policy so if they leave no else one could make sense of it.
Indie and AA cannot fulfill every game request, you said that there isn't any game that comes close enough to be comparable with Elder Scrolls. Trends also exists on smaller markets, not every indie game is a "cozy platformer rogue-like with pixel art pastel PlayStation era graphics" but lots of them are, just like AAA games are seen as "story focused open world action adventure competitive live service with realistic graphics". The market needs more well-executed spiritual succesors of long dead franchises. It's good to encourage playing smaller titles but there are people are still waiting to this day on games that they want to play regardless of the size, there are still unfulfilled demands.
I bet those documents can show you the CEO pay as well. CEO pay and what Shareholders take are the biggest reason for these bloated costs. If you cut them out, the money can be put to better use.
35:30 Thankyou some people would opt to drown in ignorance as someone who only games on physical and barely if ever connect to the internet. My Xbox 360 has never been online my ps4 after owinging it for 7 years is when I finally opened a Playstation account to redeem a code for Spiderman remastered. Now we have uncapped wifi at home. So I know what you're talking about. The penny pinching is the reason I haven't bought starwars jedi survivor the rest of the game needs an online connection.
The Halo franchise would be a big giant money making machine for Microsoft if they gave them the treatment similar to what 40k fans are already getting. Like the blueprint is right there in front of you.
I dont see why, even if it there was a catastrophic fail the industry wouldn't just calibrate itself to be more economical. Nintendo has the sweetspot where power osnt everything so a game can still be profitable and less risky.
3:44 In other words, the shareholders TODAY are nothing but the middlemen! You go back 50 years (yes; FIFTY, after I played my first video game at 7), the shareholders didn't make the call or the decisions so; the people who ran the companies and the devs who built the games did. Shareholders back then (if they existed) had two choices: If they liked what the company was making, they could buy in; if they didn't, they can cash out, and maybe someone else will buy in. None of this bullshit anout how _they_ (who know almost nothibg about games) want the games to be built.
The most frustrating thing to me will always be that some people need multiple millions for some reason to be happy without a care for the people who made them that rich through these giant companies. Like...what dumbo decided that only those guys should be rewarded for the hard work thousands of others put into those games. It's no wonder that every employee just does a minimum of effort and brainpower to build something unique and interesting. But sure, here is another "third person open world looter shooter".
Absolutely love your positive shoutout to the worker co-op (socialist) model. They can still have issues of course, but at least the people being impacted by decisions are the ones making them.
People sayin "modern game sucks, classic game better" was totally the the equivalent of calling older games' real and newer games' fake, same kinda way to call indies' real and AA's real too. AAA was honestly of course oversaturated with especially business model and chasin relevancy of successful genres or games rn, while people as customers just abruptedly trash the game that either made or published by AAA companies and mostly monetization existed or even forced as a service (Can't blame people with video of them dumped the crap out of microtransaction to death way before and after 2017 Battlefront 2 came out tho). Have we all ever learn the lesson of fighting game saturation back in 90s? Let alone of depressed from repeating of it in many different ways
When you talk about the budgets and everything, have you had experiences with your videos being copyright stricken for charts? Also I think you could have itemized what the budget was spent on. For example when you talk about the spodermen remake, you said that all they changed was peter's model. But I would have liked to have seen a comparison of the model, and perhaps of the buildings/ how much it costs to implement raytracing, etc. I agree with your points its just that your not really providing the evidence. I haven't played control or spodermen and I can be wrong, but I would assume that control doesn't employ high profile voice actors, and doesn't spodermen devs have to pay to use the license? You did better when you showed how the tony hawk studio merged to activision. About the unreasonable wait times section. I believe this has a lot to do with 1, graphics, and 2, most importantly live services. Bethesda isn't just working on elder scrolls 6, they are also working on elder scrolls online, and also fallout 76, and also re releasaing skyrim.The same thing happened with gta and titanfall. If a company can milk a live service game, they would rather spend their dev team resources on that and run it in perpetuity than make a new game. Distentegration looks interesting. I've never heard of it before, I wonder if it's good or not. Shout out to legend of the dragoon
I'm past frustrated I've reached the point of apathy with this industry. You'll find yourself waiting (for 5-7 years) and getting excited for a broken or incomplete game and when that's case I end up not buying making my excitement go out like a fart in the wind. Then you have companies hiring writing firms with some message instead of hiring writers familiar with the source material among one of the many stupid decisions dev or publishers make. Oh and EA is looking integrate ads into their games As for devs like Sefton Hill opening a new studio after being screwing over his old studio (Rocksteady) with poor leadership and leaving them to deal with the backlash, Glen Schofield and his studio.
A market collapse is natural and while it shouldn’t be worsened, it shouldn’t be looked at as the worst case scenario. Great things are built after a fall.
Exactly. But the vast majority of folks don't care enough about the companies they buy from, which leads to the entrenched nature of these horseshit peddlers.
I just stick to Japanese developed games and avoid all free-to-play stuff and live service games. Couldn’t care any less for lost AAA games and trendy games. Never cared, never will.
Nintendo gets a lot right as a publicly traded AAA developer/publisher but still stumbles in some areas. For example, I am told they treat their employees very well (if only to prevent unionization) and not firing employees keeps talent and skills in house as well as maintaining internal relationships between workers. However, they have consolidated in house development to focus on flagship properties despite a plethora of historic IP, e.g. F-Zero. Of course with the right pitch and good timing, they may let an outside developer take a crack at one of their franchises. Sometimes they will even contract an outside developer to head or to provide major assistance in making a major game, e.g. Bandai Namco Studios was brought in to assist in the development of the last few Super Smash Bros. games. Then again this happy period could end someday; I shudder to think what will happen after Miyamoto retires or prematurely passes away.
27:53 see i do like CG trailers...but not because theyre indicators of good games, theyre indicators of good stories. If everyrhung abour the game lokks great and an epic CG trailer drops, im head over heals for it...but kf its just cg trailers that game is 100% hiding somrthing
Lost me at the physical release part. It is absolutely true that the disc does not contain the whole playable game... on PC. There are two conversations going on. PC players don't often even have disc drives anymore because they just aren't needed. Physical releases still require you to launch the game through the official launcher even for single player offline games, so the disc is just useless trash. Obviously everyone would rather this wasn't the case, but here we are regardless. On consoles it's a completely different situation, although patches and DLCs usually still need to be downloaded separately.
The problem is not studios wastes astronomic amounts to make AAA games that's their problem. The problem for us is that big game developpers closes studios in order to make their biggest profitable franchises. They stop making some very loved game sequels and this is bad.
Yea if a company ever wants me to buy a limited edission game it better have phisical items in it. Being rich and thus being able to waste money for my entertainment as I please, there is still only one game series I would preorder a limited edission for - Hyperdimension Neptunia - having watched reviews for the stuff I say yea, it would be nice to have if I wasnt poor.
Absolutely great taste This is what people should play instead of the same battle royale or whatever casuals play I recommend you atelier games/SMT if you didnt try ✨️
@@DOGEELLL I recomend everyone play trought Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete, and then Horn of the Abiss. Forged in Fire would be too hard for casual tho.
When I bought a physical copy of valve's collection many, many years ago, it took me into this newfangled weird thing called steam and just downloaded the game from the internet. Obviously, a different context than you were talking about.
24:06 i know this game isnt a great game overall, but i truly believe "the outer worlds"is one of the ONLY non fallout games to capsture the fallout vibe, due to it being made by the same devs as NV
I dont even know what to say because a lot of things have been spoken about here. But I'm definitely grateful that my favorite game right now is developed and maintained by an indie company that puts quality over anything. Because I used to be in love with overwatch, but ultimately it has gone the same road of battlepasses and shit, and with it being owned by Microsoft now it's just a game over for that game sadly. But with indie games having smaller playerbases and devs being way closer to people you can pass more ideas and request up the ladder. And most importantly there isn't a bunch or shareholders applying constant pressure to fire the whole dev team for not meeting the quarter expectations.
Right now I only play 3DS and Switch games. My PS4 and PC collect dust because Nintendo has more interesting games and the Switch is also my Indie machine.
@@Natalieowomeow Yeah but I can bring my Switch everywhere and a Steam Deck is just too big and expensive. This is the reason why I bought also an Anbernic handheld (RG35XX-H) because it's cheap and pocketable. And it's great! 😊
It's going to be weird question, and it would be never be answered. But I always asked myself why do people latch on to AAA gaming so heavily? When we know there's alternatives and the industry is too far gone. Despite, the events becoming less special. It's always been really interesting with these types of videos, of why we care so much about it? Yes, they are what keeps gaming going. But, it's never sat well, how much we get upset with the industry. It seems pretty clear their time is essentially up and they no longer there for the consumer's best interest outside the motivated by greed. I've seen these commentaries and talking points about why gaming is getting worse. But, can people just simply ditch AAA gaming altogether. It seems like a waste of time to invest in an industry which no longer respects you like it once did. I understand being frustrated. But, I always asked why it does matter to gamers if AAA rise or sinks when we already know it's a lost cause? Outside the layoffs of very talented people, I can't see the reason of why one would care about the state of AAA.
33:45 I had heard of Anthem but never played it, for the rest yea never heard of them before you liseted them. My one and only live service game is Dota2, despite being 23 Ive spent a literal year of my life in game. If devs want me to play a new game it better be finite and with a nice singleplayer story. I dont even care for high production values, the single player game Im playing trought right now is a Hyperdimension Neptunia, do wish the entire game was dubbed in english tho. Anime dubs suck so often so it pains me when an english dub superior to the japanese one isnt being utalized.
What ever the state , we the gammers are the reason , companies will do whatever to make money , and as long as we gammers preorder , buy madly monotised games , and keep going back for more and the companies keep making money , they will keep doing the same thing , untill most of us say {fk off , I aint paying for this , ) and a game does,nt make money , nothing will change
No mention of DEI consultancy firms, and the related push to appeal the "modern audience" that is political activists on social media. As for the crash, given the number of AAA studios going under and mass layoffs, it could be argued the crash is already here. There's even the ET-like dumping unsold games in landfills, with The Last of Us 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda being dumped in Goodwills and discount resellers.
I don’t like DEI consultants but people overvalue their powers. The problems with gaming don’t start and end with DEI. It’s an overplayed issue that it overshadows everything else
I also think we're at the point where there is no longer...Any studio you can trust, if you love their games. I have been a big Supergiant fan for the last decade, but both HADES games are nothing like the creative ambition of the earlier Supergiant titles, and frankly their design is lackluster. I am happy the studio is so commercially successful now, but my trust in the studio is gone, and the expectations have been reset accordingly. FromSoft released a copypasted mess of a game, but the presentation works, so Elden Ring is beloved, even though, again, the design problems of the series have been piling and piling up, which led to the design of the game turning in on itself in multiple areas. Baldur's Gate 3 is a commercial hyper-success, which is completely deserved, but Larian are selling an alpha or, at best, beta build as a full game for the third time now. They also still haven't learned to cut some corners to avoid doing this exact thing, and their release dates are dictated by how close the studio is to bankruptcy. For the Third Time. They won the lottery three times now, but they can't keep doing this forever. What I mean is, the gaming market is so high stakes at the moment, even trusted studios are forced into extreme risks, and even they WILL at one point or another, slip up. I am glad all these studios got their commercial success, now it's time to upgrade their development process and make better games. p.s. I would also like the add the forced longevity cap on the older console generations. PS4 can run PS5 exclusives just fine, but that's only thanks to the optimisation work needed to make this happen. Many games can't even get proper optimisation on release, let alone be optimised to work on previous gens, even if the hardware requirements are absolutely met. Physical releases are also the only reliable way to get games in countries outside of USA and EU
21:07 i feel like rhe problem of long wair times in video games solves itsled over time if we dress the other issues of every company wanting tomake a new innocatve game every year instead of finish the ones theyre making
God, Spider-Man Remastered with the additions that are made yet costing $39 million smells like tax fraud. I mean who else is gonna know how much adding those features is gonna cost? It sure as hell isn't the IRS and as long as it's not them they're home free, but that's just insane to hear. I straight up don't believe it.
If I said Nintendo Switch was the best console 5 years ago everybody would have laughed at me, now it's not even close. Nintendo is killing the competition.
Completely agree Sony fell off so hard same for xbox The chart he showed of sony past library really prove how dead gaming is There was so many innovation passion and creativity different games on a genre that shaped the gens Now you get trash after trash
22:06 for real. Oblivion was my first introduction into qhat id say are REAL rpg games and ive been chasing that hogh ever since. Oblivion and skyrim are the ONLY games that scratch that itch. Ill buy elder scrolls 6 thr day it comes out but itll probably be ass :/
It's going to get increasingly harder to invest in half baked experiences that have been done better when the psychologically overengineered microtransaction free to play model has so many people entranced. It's just about the same way Social Media has everyone fooled by being less social. Free games have people fooled despite being more expensive. But the fact still stands that if gaming is only valued by it's social price tag, then people have absolutely no reason to abandon their most receptive games when it comes to their friend circles. I think that aggressive hold over so much of the gaming space is why Tim Sweeny buys all the addictive games he can and makes them free forever. And if gaming will continue the trend of costing less money as time goes on, the people who can peacefully play those free games until the price comes down can enjoy the products for less. I think if Nintendo would have earned people's trust dealing with their digital storefronts then we wouldn't have this problem. Nintendo is basically the king of not owning your content despite the fact that it almost seems by mistake while other publishers like Ubisoft do it on purpose. There have been many times where games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 have been on better sales digitally and I haven't bought it because of the issue of the store shutting down right in my face. Ubisoft being able to delete your account after inactivity is another issue that has earned a similar level of disdain.
If people stop playing free 2 play crap it would change a lot of things Bad monetization like gambling would go away same for battle pass and other garbage cost fallacy trick they use Its a joke how stupid current gamer are
@@ninochaosdrache3189 Im an adult. I have to go shoping for food quite often. And I live in Rīgas metro area and there are no bigger stores in Latvija, bought a teacan today. Things are differnet here. I think the EU single market is to blame. For goods we get charged the same price you do despite having 1/3 of the income. Would you buy many videogames if they cost a 180 euros?
Public companies are owned by the public by proxy of the government. Publicly traded companies have their shares for sale to the highest bider and thus they are owned by private investors with the cash to buy them. People confusing what a public company is do to incorrectly shortening [private] publicly traded company annoys me.
You're right, but no one watching this is going to actually confuse the two. When someone says "public company" in reference to Microsoft, we know what they mean.
every kid out there today will NEVER hold a video game in their hand EVER today and be like "Is this game any good?" before playing. Never. Because they are all online playing with virtually nothing.
Facts They also wont ever play anything more than recycled bad trendy crap Its insane how everyone play the same thing nowadays I can tell you that 85% of gamer at this very moment all play the same things fortnite ,Cod,fifa,league,genshin Just the same regurgited garbage
@@DOGEELLLI mean f2p gets more of an audience both with females and males like not even with sales sometimes do people stop to switch to something else
I'm walking away thinking someone out there is that type of person who is only playing AAA-titles and feels like gaming hasn't progressed in recent years.
bro in law was somewhat like that when it came to cod, then he wisened up when cod was really shitting the bed lately (especially after his account got hacked and lost everything in warzone).
Only dorks do that
Indie games are generic
@@linklickzofc they are but indie fans wont ever bring that up
They cant accept that indie in the end are just taking from old quality games
@@linklickzwell sure, lots are. But the whole point of indie games is that there are a ton of them, and you can just play the good ones.
Stock markets are cringe. Imagine having your economy run by gamblers.
Investors should have to know the company whos stocks they are buying.
Anyone who involves themselves with a jewish casino find out it's a lose/lose situation
@@sean7221 What the f*ck?
@@sean7221 as a Jew A JEW WROTE THE FUCKING COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. That’s all I’m gonna say
A video game has to compete with optimal stock trading? Seriously? That's deranged. No wonder publishers drop all their IPs to focus exclusively on their biggest moneymakers. That's the only way to actually accomplish those insane financial goals.
But that's how western/American capitalism work, do you know that public companies are DEMANDED BY LAW to turn a profit each economic/accounting cycle?
This is also the reason why all good railway companies are goverment owned. Public transportation doesnt make a lot of money but is critical. So investors which say that non proffitable lines must be shut down must be told to get lost.
The problem is and always will be CAPITALISM.
Thank you for this detailed, balanced analysis of the “AAA” industry. No culture war BS, no fanboying, just cold facts.
Man, I forgot about what happened to Vicarious Visions. I was just thinking about THPS the other day and wondering when we'd get another game. Total waste.
I completely agree with the conclusion. My favorite game right now is Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth1. It has less than 10 000 reivews on steam and costs a dozen euros, in this franchise the devs make money off selling bikini outfits for the Neptunia girls as DLC. Nieche games are defiently the way to go, not everything apeals to everyone, you must find what apeals to you.
While I think most AAA budgets are bloated and out of control because of idiot executives, I've also realised over the last few years that Satoru Iwata was right all along.
People shit on Nintendo for using underpowered hardware, and have done so for years now, but if you go back and watch Iwata's two GDC keynote addresses from 2005 and 2006, the words he spoke and fears he expressed are even more relevant today then they were almost 20 years ago.
Budgets are out of control, but by conceding the technological arms race Nintendo has been largely immune to the changes in the market. They've had hiccups, of course, most notably the Wii U; but since changing tactics Nintendo has released it's two most successful pieces of hardware with the DS and Switch, and the Wii managed to break the 100 million barrier.
Nintendo is arguably the only publisher in the AAA space that manages budgets in a positive manner and also understands that variety is key when it comes to game releases.
Hell, his argument holds water even more when you really think back to the most successful consoles of all time, and how power =/= popularity.
The PS1/PS2 were the weakest consoles of their respective generations, yet, trumped the competition. The PSP was objectively stronger in specs than the DS, yet the latter had the most sales.
Hell,, even if we ignore the Wii, the 360 was weaker than the PS3, and still beat it up at first (Until the PS3 began recovering, but it was a very delayed process, and the definitive exception to the rule)
People want fun experiences, and power can only carry a console so far.
It's easier for third party studios to make games for the Switch than games for X Box and PS5.
The people who mostly go on about power are pc gamers. look at how the fanbase get when new consoles release PC gamers start to go on about how underpowered the consoles are compared to their RTX whatever number graphics card or whatever nonsense.
@@cedrikthibert7033they should just cut the over unecessary budget just to end up with trashy movie simualators or bad games
Nintendo do carry this gen its not even close and i was never a big fan of the brand
@@baki484thats true i have seen that a lot
I dont think platform matter that much anymore anyway it all come down to what you play
I do think a low to mid tier PC is a better choice these days since you have free online a lot more options and games to pirate ect
Maybe big public companies requires so much expertise to manage, that it becomes basically impossible for someone to both be qualified in that, and also making games. So you end up with management that don't understand the games they're supposed to be making.
Individual private owners can also get to a point where they're satisfied with monetary returns. Where as if you have a public company with thousands and thousands of investors, the collective will never be satisfied with their financial returns.
I like a lot of your points, but I have to interject at 1:00:13. They're not competing with high level stock trading (at least, not highly advanced, or making difficult or risky gains), they're competing with the equivalent of leaving that money in a high-yield savings account at a bank. Whatever they do with that money has to compete against basically doing nothing with that money over the same period of time. This isn't unique to video games, and isn't even unique to publicly traded companies, that's just basic time value of money; your budget isn't just the money you actually spent, but how much that money would have made if you'd just left it in the bank and collected interest instead of spending it. Honestly, even individuals should weigh that kind of calculation on any kind of investment or personal business decision, if your primary (or even secondary or tertiary) motivating factor is money
However, both that point, and the rest of the thread tie back to your earlier points about AAA's unfortunate insistence on never being anything but AAA (in scope and budget), and the too-long development cycles. If both or either of those are reduced, the goal posts necessary to pass the bar of "made more money than doing almost nothing with the money spent on it" get a lot closer.
I glanced at the title and thought this was a critique of AAA Baseball…clicked and was pleasantly surprised. Good vid
Is AAA baseball still a thing?
I think the AAA fall in quality is mostly due to whom the developing studios pitch their game/product. Now, some might think they're pitching it to the people who buy and play their games. That seems to be no longer the case. They're pitching their games to investors. Investors don't care about the product as long as it is getting their ROI. And when it doesn't - the sky is falling for some reason.
p.s: you forgot to talk about the $520 Ahri skin. look it up. it's a doozy.
Also the fact that people only play the same garbage 24/7
Its baffling how bad gamer taste has gotten over the years just fortnite cod fifa and all the other crap
When you see the numbers that cod or Fortnite make you cant have hope for this industry
Really like how you put budget inflation into perspective with the Spiderman examples. Good work!
As a rule of thum japanese companies actually give more money to the higher ups rather than the common workers who make the company function.
The Bank of Japan absolutely hates this, for when they print money to invest in companies, they want this money to trickle down to the common people, so they would spend more, thus growing the economy. They dont want the money to be returned to them, the biggest shareholder in Japan, as "proffits".
You're doing great work producing these high quality videos! I appreciate it brother!
Valve IMO isn’t a good counterpoint. They’re dabbling in some shady things with CS and TF2.
IMO ultimately it’s leadership. If you have a C suite and board that have good leadership, a company can do decent if not good work whether public or private.
IMO maybe it’s a silver lining if the video game industry collapses and everyone in it only for a buck flees. Then a generation of new upstarts without baggage can possibly take root. The destruction is terrible for employees but it’s the execs’ doing
Valve may be private but it uses a flat worker hierarchy. This has a different set of advantages and disadvantages compared to more typical company structures. Anyone can work on anything but tenure is tied to how other workers value one's work. Thus it's workforce can be unfocused as trendy projects come and go leaving some mundane things neglected. I am also told some employees write in spaghetti code or put in obtuse features as an insurance policy so if they leave no else one could make sense of it.
Indie and AA cannot fulfill every game request, you said that there isn't any game that comes close enough to be comparable with Elder Scrolls.
Trends also exists on smaller markets, not every indie game is a "cozy platformer rogue-like with pixel art pastel PlayStation era graphics" but lots of them are, just like AAA games are seen as "story focused open world action adventure competitive live service with realistic graphics".
The market needs more well-executed spiritual succesors of long dead franchises.
It's good to encourage playing smaller titles but there are people are still waiting to this day on games that they want to play regardless of the size, there are still unfulfilled demands.
The best Elders Scrolls game is Morrowind, and Bethesda had like 30 emploies when they made it.
this is false
I bet those documents can show you the CEO pay as well. CEO pay and what Shareholders take are the biggest reason for these bloated costs. If you cut them out, the money can be put to better use.
what even does aaa mean anymore?
wasnt it supposed to be a mark of quality? (most triple a games dont feel triple a anymore]
its pretty much just marketing budget
@@whentheyD and id say how many people working on it i personally feel like around 50 -100 is no longer indie and is instead AA and over 100 is AAA
Literally it is a bank rating.
This is the sort of video essay I want, subbed!
35:30 Thankyou some people would opt to drown in ignorance as someone who only games on physical and barely if ever connect to the internet.
My Xbox 360 has never been online my ps4 after owinging it for 7 years is when I finally opened a Playstation account to redeem a code for Spiderman remastered.
Now we have uncapped wifi at home. So I know what you're talking about. The penny pinching is the reason I haven't bought starwars jedi survivor the rest of the game needs an online connection.
The Halo franchise would be a big giant money making machine for Microsoft if they gave them the treatment similar to what 40k fans are already getting. Like the blueprint is right there in front of you.
your channel is so insanely underappreciated i can't believe i stumbled here by accident. subbed and liked, thank you for everything
"the warhammer community is drowning in games"
dam near chocked on my drink when you said that
I dont see why, even if it there was a catastrophic fail the industry wouldn't just calibrate itself to be more economical. Nintendo has the sweetspot where power osnt everything so a game can still be profitable and less risky.
Always glad to see you upload.
One of the best video on the topic you deserve million subs !
I wouldn't trust Jason, he said that Sweet Baby and all their flaws as an "hallucination"
If you can’t trust a guy OVER ONE SINGULAR TAKE reconsider your take.
3:44 In other words, the shareholders TODAY are nothing but the middlemen! You go back 50 years (yes; FIFTY, after I played my first video game at 7), the shareholders didn't make the call or the decisions so; the people who ran the companies and the devs who built the games did. Shareholders back then (if they existed) had two choices: If they liked what the company was making, they could buy in; if they didn't, they can cash out, and maybe someone else will buy in. None of this bullshit anout how _they_ (who know almost nothibg about games) want the games to be built.
The most frustrating thing to me will always be that some people need multiple millions for some reason to be happy without a care for the people who made them that rich through these giant companies. Like...what dumbo decided that only those guys should be rewarded for the hard work thousands of others put into those games. It's no wonder that every employee just does a minimum of effort and brainpower to build something unique and interesting. But sure, here is another "third person open world looter shooter".
I only play AAA games because I pirate them
Why don't I pirate AA or indie
Because I have standards goddammit
The problem is and always will be CAPITALISM.
Absolutely love your positive shoutout to the worker co-op (socialist) model. They can still have issues of course, but at least the people being impacted by decisions are the ones making them.
People sayin "modern game sucks, classic game better" was totally the the equivalent of calling older games' real and newer games' fake, same kinda way to call indies' real and AA's real too. AAA was honestly of course oversaturated with especially business model and chasin relevancy of successful genres or games rn, while people as customers just abruptedly trash the game that either made or published by AAA companies and mostly monetization existed or even forced as a service (Can't blame people with video of them dumped the crap out of microtransaction to death way before and after 2017 Battlefront 2 came out tho). Have we all ever learn the lesson of fighting game saturation back in 90s? Let alone of depressed from repeating of it in many different ways
When you talk about the budgets and everything, have you had experiences with your videos being copyright stricken for charts? Also I think you could have itemized what the budget was spent on. For example when you talk about the spodermen remake, you said that all they changed was peter's model. But I would have liked to have seen a comparison of the model, and perhaps of the buildings/ how much it costs to implement raytracing, etc. I agree with your points its just that your not really providing the evidence. I haven't played control or spodermen and I can be wrong, but I would assume that control doesn't employ high profile voice actors, and doesn't spodermen devs have to pay to use the license? You did better when you showed how the tony hawk studio merged to activision.
About the unreasonable wait times section. I believe this has a lot to do with 1, graphics, and 2, most importantly live services. Bethesda isn't just working on elder scrolls 6, they are also working on elder scrolls online, and also fallout 76, and also re releasaing skyrim.The same thing happened with gta and titanfall. If a company can milk a live service game, they would rather spend their dev team resources on that and run it in perpetuity than make a new game.
Distentegration looks interesting. I've never heard of it before, I wonder if it's good or not.
Shout out to legend of the dragoon
I'm past frustrated I've reached the point of apathy with this industry. You'll find yourself waiting (for 5-7 years) and getting excited for a broken or incomplete game and when that's case I end up not buying making my excitement go out like a fart in the wind.
Then you have companies hiring writing firms with some message instead of hiring writers familiar with the source material among one of the many stupid decisions dev or publishers make.
Oh and EA is looking integrate ads into their games
As for devs like Sefton Hill opening a new studio after being screwing over his old studio (Rocksteady) with poor leadership and leaving them to deal with the backlash, Glen Schofield and his studio.
Incredible video
Positively surprised by the quality and this is the first video I watch from your channel
A market collapse is natural and while it shouldn’t be worsened, it shouldn’t be looked at as the worst case scenario. Great things are built after a fall.
Exactly. But the vast majority of folks don't care enough about the companies they buy from, which leads to the entrenched nature of these horseshit peddlers.
Subbed. You deserves more subs!
I just stick to Japanese developed games and avoid all free-to-play stuff and live service games. Couldn’t care any less for lost AAA games and trendy games. Never cared, never will.
22:51 Bro...brutal, haha
Nintendo gets a lot right as a publicly traded AAA developer/publisher but still stumbles in some areas. For example, I am told they treat their employees very well (if only to prevent unionization) and not firing employees keeps talent and skills in house as well as maintaining internal relationships between workers. However, they have consolidated in house development to focus on flagship properties despite a plethora of historic IP, e.g. F-Zero. Of course with the right pitch and good timing, they may let an outside developer take a crack at one of their franchises. Sometimes they will even contract an outside developer to head or to provide major assistance in making a major game, e.g. Bandai Namco Studios was brought in to assist in the development of the last few Super Smash Bros. games. Then again this happy period could end someday; I shudder to think what will happen after Miyamoto retires or prematurely passes away.
27:53 see i do like CG trailers...but not because theyre indicators of good games, theyre indicators of good stories. If everyrhung abour the game lokks great and an epic CG trailer drops, im head over heals for it...but kf its just cg trailers that game is 100% hiding somrthing
Lost me at the physical release part. It is absolutely true that the disc does not contain the whole playable game... on PC. There are two conversations going on. PC players don't often even have disc drives anymore because they just aren't needed. Physical releases still require you to launch the game through the official launcher even for single player offline games, so the disc is just useless trash. Obviously everyone would rather this wasn't the case, but here we are regardless. On consoles it's a completely different situation, although patches and DLCs usually still need to be downloaded separately.
The problem is not studios wastes astronomic amounts to make AAA games that's their problem.
The problem for us is that big game developpers closes studios in order to make their biggest profitable franchises. They stop making some very loved game sequels and this is bad.
Yea if a company ever wants me to buy a limited edission game it better have phisical items in it. Being rich and thus being able to waste money for my entertainment as I please, there is still only one game series I would preorder a limited edission for - Hyperdimension Neptunia - having watched reviews for the stuff I say yea, it would be nice to have if I wasnt poor.
Absolutely great taste
This is what people should play instead of the same battle royale or whatever casuals play
I recommend you atelier games/SMT if you didnt try ✨️
@@DOGEELLL I recomend everyone play trought Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete, and then Horn of the Abiss. Forged in Fire would be too hard for casual tho.
When I bought a physical copy of valve's collection many, many years ago, it took me into this newfangled weird thing called steam and just downloaded the game from the internet. Obviously, a different context than you were talking about.
Valve is possibly the worst example you couldve brought up lol
What game is that at 52:22?
24:06 i know this game isnt a great game overall, but i truly believe "the outer worlds"is one of the ONLY non fallout games to capsture the fallout vibe, due to it being made by the same devs as NV
I dont even know what to say because a lot of things have been spoken about here. But I'm definitely grateful that my favorite game right now is developed and maintained by an indie company that puts quality over anything. Because I used to be in love with overwatch, but ultimately it has gone the same road of battlepasses and shit, and with it being owned by Microsoft now it's just a game over for that game sadly. But with indie games having smaller playerbases and devs being way closer to people you can pass more ideas and request up the ladder. And most importantly there isn't a bunch or shareholders applying constant pressure to fire the whole dev team for not meeting the quarter expectations.
Square Enix is still selling phisical copies of there ps2 and ps1 games. Thats awesome and i wish more companies did that.
Right now I only play 3DS and Switch games.
My PS4 and PC collect dust because Nintendo has more interesting games and the Switch is also my Indie machine.
trust me literally every indie game you can get on switch is on pc
@@Natalieowomeow Yeah but I can bring my Switch everywhere and a Steam Deck is just too big and expensive. This is the reason why I bought also an Anbernic handheld (RG35XX-H) because it's cheap and pocketable. And it's great! 😊
Fire the artist, hire more gameplay programmers. Because we need fun games.
They’d have the budget for more artists and gameplay programmers if ceo budgets were cut
Embracer Group reminds of a 'roided up Perfect World
It's going to be weird question, and it would be never be answered. But I always asked myself why do people latch on to AAA gaming so heavily? When we know there's alternatives and the industry is too far gone. Despite, the events becoming less special.
It's always been really interesting with these types of videos, of why we care so much about it? Yes, they are what keeps gaming going. But, it's never sat well, how much we get upset with the industry. It seems pretty clear their time is essentially up and they no longer there for the consumer's best interest outside the motivated by greed. I've seen these commentaries and talking points about why gaming is getting worse. But, can people just simply ditch AAA gaming altogether. It seems like a waste of time to invest in an industry which no longer respects you like it once did.
I understand being frustrated. But, I always asked why it does matter to gamers if AAA rise or sinks when we already know it's a lost cause? Outside the layoffs of very talented people, I can't see the reason of why one would care about the state of AAA.
Its a minor issue but im tired of digital art books as a preorder bonus or whatever. Its a bunch of jpegs.
A lot of pre-orders feel like fomo, in my opinion. I don't think it's very different from those kickstarter games
33:45 I had heard of Anthem but never played it, for the rest yea never heard of them before you liseted them. My one and only live service game is Dota2, despite being 23 Ive spent a literal year of my life in game.
If devs want me to play a new game it better be finite and with a nice singleplayer story. I dont even care for high production values, the single player game Im playing trought right now is a Hyperdimension Neptunia, do wish the entire game was dubbed in english tho. Anime dubs suck so often so it pains me when an english dub superior to the japanese one isnt being utalized.
THAT THUMB IS 3D!!!
51:58 what game is this?
Returnal maybe
What ever the state , we the gammers are the reason , companies will do whatever to make money , and as long as we gammers preorder , buy madly monotised games , and keep going back for more and the companies keep making money , they will keep doing the same thing , untill most of us say {fk off , I aint paying for this , ) and a game does,nt make money , nothing will change
Thank you Fromsoftware
No mention of DEI consultancy firms, and the related push to appeal the "modern audience" that is political activists on social media.
As for the crash, given the number of AAA studios going under and mass layoffs, it could be argued the crash is already here. There's even the ET-like dumping unsold games in landfills, with The Last of Us 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda being dumped in Goodwills and discount resellers.
I don’t like DEI consultants but people overvalue their powers. The problems with gaming don’t start and end with DEI. It’s an overplayed issue that it overshadows everything else
I also think we're at the point where there is no longer...Any studio you can trust, if you love their games.
I have been a big Supergiant fan for the last decade, but both HADES games are nothing like the creative ambition of the earlier Supergiant titles, and frankly their design is lackluster. I am happy the studio is so commercially successful now, but my trust in the studio is gone, and the expectations have been reset accordingly.
FromSoft released a copypasted mess of a game, but the presentation works, so Elden Ring is beloved, even though, again, the design problems of the series have been piling and piling up, which led to the design of the game turning in on itself in multiple areas.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a commercial hyper-success, which is completely deserved, but Larian are selling an alpha or, at best, beta build as a full game for the third time now. They also still haven't learned to cut some corners to avoid doing this exact thing, and their release dates are dictated by how close the studio is to bankruptcy. For the Third Time. They won the lottery three times now, but they can't keep doing this forever.
What I mean is, the gaming market is so high stakes at the moment, even trusted studios are forced into extreme risks, and even they WILL at one point or another, slip up. I am glad all these studios got their commercial success, now it's time to upgrade their development process and make better games.
p.s. I would also like the add the forced longevity cap on the older console generations. PS4 can run PS5 exclusives just fine, but that's only thanks to the optimisation work needed to make this happen. Many games can't even get proper optimisation on release, let alone be optimised to work on previous gens, even if the hardware requirements are absolutely met.
Physical releases are also the only reliable way to get games in countries outside of USA and EU
21:07 i feel like rhe problem of long wair times in video games solves itsled over time if we dress the other issues of every company wanting tomake a new innocatve game every year instead of finish the ones theyre making
Are you also the youtube channel ratoraskor? Your voice sounds very similar
EA is guilty of this for decades look up Mass Effect 2 and 3 scandal.
God, Spider-Man Remastered with the additions that are made yet costing $39 million smells like tax fraud. I mean who else is gonna know how much adding those features is gonna cost? It sure as hell isn't the IRS and as long as it's not them they're home free, but that's just insane to hear. I straight up don't believe it.
If I said Nintendo Switch was the best console 5 years ago everybody would have laughed at me, now it's not even close. Nintendo is killing the competition.
Completely agree
Sony fell off so hard same for xbox
The chart he showed of sony past library really prove how dead gaming is
There was so many innovation passion and creativity different games on a genre that shaped the gens
Now you get trash after trash
22:06 for real. Oblivion was my first introduction into qhat id say are REAL rpg games and ive been chasing that hogh ever since. Oblivion and skyrim are the ONLY games that scratch that itch. Ill buy elder scrolls 6 thr day it comes out but itll probably be ass :/
No problem. I'm a AAAA gamer😂🥲
It's going to get increasingly harder to invest in half baked experiences that have been done better when the psychologically overengineered microtransaction free to play model has so many people entranced. It's just about the same way Social Media has everyone fooled by being less social. Free games have people fooled despite being more expensive.
But the fact still stands that if gaming is only valued by it's social price tag, then people have absolutely no reason to abandon their most receptive games when it comes to their friend circles. I think that aggressive hold over so much of the gaming space is why Tim Sweeny buys all the addictive games he can and makes them free forever. And if gaming will continue the trend of costing less money as time goes on, the people who can peacefully play those free games until the price comes down can enjoy the products for less.
I think if Nintendo would have earned people's trust dealing with their digital storefronts then we wouldn't have this problem. Nintendo is basically the king of not owning your content despite the fact that it almost seems by mistake while other publishers like Ubisoft do it on purpose. There have been many times where games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 have been on better sales digitally and I haven't bought it because of the issue of the store shutting down right in my face. Ubisoft being able to delete your account after inactivity is another issue that has earned a similar level of disdain.
If people stop playing free 2 play crap it would change a lot of things
Bad monetization like gambling would go away same for battle pass and other garbage cost fallacy trick they use
Its a joke how stupid current gamer are
Ive never seen a phisical game coppy in my life (with my own eyes). Everyone I know uses a mix of Steam, GOG and torrents.
@@ninochaosdrache3189 Im an adult. I have to go shoping for food quite often. And I live in Rīgas metro area and there are no bigger stores in Latvija, bought a teacan today. Things are differnet here.
I think the EU single market is to blame. For goods we get charged the same price you do despite having 1/3 of the income. Would you buy many videogames if they cost a 180 euros?
Play emulators bro
@@DOGEELLL Doxbox for the win!
@@DOGEELLL YT cant even handle me naming my favorite emulator god this place is going down.
Thankfully there is no Hi-Fi Rush Footage all throughout the Video. Pew ^^
I can't stand those Visuals.
Public companies are owned by the public by proxy of the government.
Publicly traded companies have their shares for sale to the highest bider and thus they are owned by private investors with the cash to buy them.
People confusing what a public company is do to incorrectly shortening [private] publicly traded company annoys me.
You're right, but no one watching this is going to actually confuse the two. When someone says "public company" in reference to Microsoft, we know what they mean.
@@hazrd182 It annoys me all the same.
every kid out there today will NEVER hold a video game in their hand EVER today and be like "Is this game any good?" before playing. Never. Because they are all online playing with virtually nothing.
Facts
They also wont ever play anything more than recycled bad trendy crap
Its insane how everyone play the same thing nowadays
I can tell you that 85% of gamer at this very moment all play the same things fortnite ,Cod,fifa,league,genshin
Just the same regurgited garbage
@@DOGEELLLI mean f2p gets more of an audience both with females and males like not even with sales sometimes do people stop to switch to something else
Those same kids are running around the internet saying it's been like that since the ps3 and Xbox 360 era.
What game is that at 26:11?
Forspoken