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9:55 *BINGO!* 30 and _40_ years ago, game devs and their heads were not concerned about the shareholders and _their_ "well-being"; i.e., how much of the cut---$$$$$$--was going into their pockets! Their first priority was whether the gamers themselves were going to _like their games!_ 10:54 Tell that to the guy who created _Balatro!_ Big things do, can and _will_ come in small packages! Money (especially obscene if not _unacceptable_ amounts) isn't everything!
The ship of Theseus is a perfect analogy for Triple A companies like Bioware. They are no longer the gold standard for modern RPGs, because everyone who made that company successful already left.
The sad thing is that this even applies to companies such as Atlus. Yes, they had a hit with Metaphor, but that one was made by one of their only remaining veterans. Their output changed quite substantially in the 2010's when a lot of their old talent left with a lot of older fans feeling like they lost their touch. Take Persona 3 Reload for instance. While it was a competent remake, many noticed that it was clearly using the old game as a crutch and even then it struggled in terms of directing and tone compared to the original even if the gameplay and graphics were more modern. And the less said about Soul Hackers 2 the better.
Baldurs Gate is a AAA RPG and it maintains the gold standard. The only reason I have not invested in that game is because the combat system is a turn based mechanic that breaks the realism for me.
I prefer the skinsuit analogy myself. AAA companies have been infected by a parasite that wears their skin (brand name and owned franchises) to try and pass as the real deal and keep getting money from loyal fans.
I can't wait to watch Call of Duty go through this.. if you ask my former childhood self. Imagine Call of Duty 20 years from now. It sure as shit did not look like this in my mind. The game is designed by psychologist
imagine living in 2005, playing first two COD games that were WW2 shooters and thinking that 18 years from now Call of Duty will sell pop music celebrities as playable characters. Or humanized cats. You would wonder what the fuck are they smoking.
@@YaaSalty...0_o Call of Duty's never dying, mate. Black Ops 6 sold 20 million copies in its first week. This franchise is like The Simpsons. Nobody likes it anymore and it's outstayed its welcome 10 times over, but it somehow keeps making bank.
2024 was very cathartic. Games that deserved to succeed succeeded, and games that deserved to fail failed. For the first time in... God only knows how many years, it actually felt like the AAA games industry is healing. The bubble had finally burst. Predatory live service slop dropped like flies, and the smaller scale darlings got all the praise and sales for doing what should be the industry standard. I dare say I'm actually a bit optimistic for the future! 2025 is already looking great with its lineup! I can't wait to play Monster Hunter Wilds and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii!
Unicorn Overlord was Vanillaware's highest selling game, and it deserved it. The more time that passes, the more I realize just how much I loved that game.
You know whats tiresome? I can already predict how the media is going to act for the next 2 years. Big upcoming AAA games are going to fail, and theyll blame it on the consumers. Because they always double down. They never take a step back and reflect. Insert Principal Skinner meme.
2024 is the year nobody is buying AAA crap anymore and that’s a good thing for the future of gaming. But there will definitely be great AAA games in the future but probably from different studios.
I lost a lot of interest in AAA gaming this year. I changed my focus to smaller studios and wow, I didn't know I was missing so much; Wartales, Inscryption, Dredge, Indika, Drova. Happy new year everyone and to Mugthief; I'm glad I found your channel.
war tales is amazing and i can recommend any of the DLC yet i still need to buy the rest of the DLC myself also if you like war tales battle brothers is also great
It's nice to have the smaller studios but i see in time them being kicked off the consoles in a few years so the bigger companies have no real competition. Enjoy em while you can imo. I'm sure that's really the next big move since their stuff isn't working anymore.
@@Kevfactor they take a 30% cut off everything sold on their digital stores, that’s why they’re phasing out disc drives. They make way too much money off 3rd party to do that. If anything we’ll get even fewer 1st party titles in the future because they spend so much time and money producing them that it’s become too much of a risk if/when they flop. There’s already been considerably less 1st party games on PS5 compared to the amount on previous gen consoles.
Indies are amazing, glad you found them. I see so many people distraught over AAA games and I'm like, these people really need to find indies. Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever btw, amazing game.
Video games are not cars, they aren't movies, they aren't consumables. A small team can compete with big teams. The corporate model of scale up and push the small guys out isn't working. They can't regulate new competition away like they can with other industries
They are going to try to prevent you from playing that eventually.. Nintendo is doing what it can kill emulation but Sony and Microsoft might join them just so it's harder to find when that does happen. They either you to buy their merch(Nintendo) or on their live service. They'll even prevent you from buying retro TVs and consoles eventually :)
AAA gaming is actually in good condition, but there is a certain part of AAA that is visibly struggling. It's Western AAA gaming. Because we did receive a lot of top-tier releases from Eastern studios that are clearly high budget. Astrobot, Stellar Blade, Wukong, Elden Ring DLC etc. Most games nominated to GOTY 2024 were from Asian developers. They don't actually fuck around though. Astrobot was developed by a Japanese dev team "Asobi". This team is 65 people, even though the budget of this game was high, at 50-75M. They actually made the god damn game good and fun instead of relying on overbloated company structures with layers upon layers of useless middle management. No one cares about ubisoft having 20 000 mouths to feed. They make crap games for non-existent "modern audiences", they are suffering a flop after flop. I won't miss a company like that being wiped off the face of this earth.
Black Myth, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Ballatro, just to name a few. I don't think there has been a year in gaming that shows how important indie games and inovation is as 2024 did. Black Myth Wukong showed us an amazing world, Helldivers 2 showed COD and other live service games how it's done and Stellar Blade showed the "modern audience" that attractive people DO exist. 2025 already has some big titles coming, with the new Monster Hunter or GTA 6, but i really really hope we get more great indie games this year.
No way you're calling BMW, Helldivers and Stellar Blade "indie". Those are all made by sizeable studios and Helldivers 2 is pretty much a Playstation IP. Real indie is stuff like Balatro, Penny's Big Breakaway, UFO 50 and Antonblast.
@@lorenzobiondijimenez6138Only because there are so many indie games and many of them are made by novice game devs or hobbyists. There are far more good indie games than good AAA releases.
What we see today has been described by Schumpeter "kreative Zerstörung" (creative destruction), but the concept has been used by Marx + Darvin as well. What it epulates is quite easy: To make room for new, innovate and better stuff, the old stuff must be destroyed in the process. And that's exactly what is true in the gaming industry. The destruction of Bioware, Bethesda, Ubisoft... will leave room for smaller and / or new companies. They can evovle, get more money from the gamers and grow. How many copies did Failguard sell? 1 Million? 1.5? Outlaws was 2 Million? Abysmal sales for those budgets. But huge sale numbers for indy-studios. Imagine all these AAA games NOT being made - it would result in millions of sales not made. But instead gamers would have bought other games. From smaller studios. And for them, selling an additional 100k copies is great. They will prosper with these additional sales. Looking forward to it, IMO we are at the dawn of a new gaming industry. We are at a point where we have been back in the 90s. Gaming was new and small, but it was growing. And then it soared in the 2000s. We all know what great games and franchises came during these decades. Then it turned sour and went downhill. But IMO we will soon have reached the bottom and the "kreateive Zerstörung" will then result in the birth of a "new age" and new developers. I think we'll see great games in the next decade, great new franchises. Gaming today is in a way better state than it was since 10 years. Happy new year! Happy new gaming!
Props to anyone that mentions Marx in a comment, I can see what you’re saying but we’ve had massive consolidation in gaming with ms buying up lots of studios to try to increase scale and become a de facto monopoly, which is ideal state for any business. So the size of the companies is much bigger than it was back in the day and maybe they can survive a lot of flops before they collapse. Well either they learn from that gamers don’t want GAAS or they don’t, and they go the way of Ubisoft.
What the hell? No one needs AAA studios. AAA studios just don't pop into existence out of thin air. They're grown from, and this may shock you, AA studios. A good example is R* and GTA. Have you played the first 2? They were nothing like we know current iterations. But when R* gathered enough experience with 3D, they released GTA3 and they weren't AAA back then. They grew to be. Innovation doesn't exist only in AAA studios, see how Battlebit went beyond what Battlefield lacked AND THEY WERE 3 DUDES. Trying something different doesn't rely on AAA studios either, hell, YOU mentioned Balatro. Who TF actually plays card games in an electronic system?! YET it is right there among the top and best sellers of the year. All you need to make good games is: - Passion - Innovation - Willpower - money - Time See how Larian managed to make BG3. They didn't "just" make it. They came from Original sin 1, which the fans liked. Then they freely improved it after listening to feedback. Then they launched original sin 2, BUT IN EARLY ACCESS. Kept improving first on the first OS, then based on player's feedback of early access, then it became one of the year's best. Theeeen they repeated the formula with BG3, early access then full launch. And we know how that went. NO ONE needs AAA studios. We need great games. We need passionate studios. We need studios that actually deliver. And we need to support those studios. That's what we need.
But are people supporting these studios is the real question? Feels like I've seen tons of AA studios closed or struggling recently. AAA companies can eat losses a lot better than AA ones can. And it's a sad fact that marketing budget is a big reason why so many AA games get overlooked compared to AAA.
Out of all AAA studios Nintendo's the best one for good games and your most likely going to have a fun time playing their games even if you don't like them and on top of that they don't call their games AAA
Calling it AAA was pretty much the beginning of the end to be honest. AAA is a finance investment grade term for a locked in big win investment, nothing to so with quality. I'm not sure who coined the term but it definitely wasn't meant for public ears, it's something that would have been banded about in earnings calls and investor conferences to garner more money from people that wanted more money, not high art form video games. I've always been slightly confused why a term that actually means that something is supposed to be a big windfall for investors somehow came to mean high quality video games. Ironically, it could be argued that because the term literally means 'big win investment' that anything produced by Ubisoft is incapable of being AAA, let alone AAAA.
Space Marine 2, Silent Hill 2 remake, Shadow of the Erd Tree, PoE2 early access, Helldivers 2 and Soul Reaver remastered are my highlights of the year. It proves AAA isn't dead (even from the west) but it also proves there is a hell of a lot of garbage out there you have to wade through to find the good games.
Helldivers 2 lost me when they protected their Discord moderators even after they became power tripping maniacs, and when it came to light Arrowhead knew about the PSN requirement months in advance and didn't tell their players. There comes a point where I just can't support a developer when they openly hate their own players.
AAA and AAAA gaming is a lot like a forest. It needs the occasional fire to get rid of the old to make way for the new. I don't mean modern audience stuff. I mean these old dead studios going away to make room for the new actually game oriented studios.
For a AAA experience from a smaller studio: Helldivers 2 / Arrowhead are literally saving multiplayer live service games with their approach. They’re the most hands on, engaged, fun, responsive, gamer-loving developers I think I’ve seen in my entire life. They give us what we want. They try new things. They apologize for messing up, and do their best to make it up to us. They revel in the little details and polish, the mechanics, the animations, the FUN that make the game feel truly unique and loved. They want games to be fun and give us goofy emergent moments, not tightly scripted “movies” that preach a message.
i like that you remain optimistic in spite of everything bad/wrong that happened this 2024 is such a refreshing prespective nowadays sadly... Still it's hard to be looking forward to a lot of things but i am sure a lot of good things will also come this 2025.
Happy News Years, Mug! This channel just hits the nail when it comes to making sound reflections about games. Gaming is healing, as they say. We really needed these mistakes to happen, in a way.
Watching AAA crash and burn has been beautiful. We’re still getting great games, we’re just getting them from small devs who actually deserve the money.
We're glad having based content creators & channels like your's, Mug. A happy & healthy 2025 to you, good sir! 🥂 To be honest, at first it concerned me seeing western companies like CD Project Red, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft or Rockstar Games announcing their new projects being already dead before arrival bringing the inevitable downfall of the companies & the needed change to the videogame medium. I guess it's time to let go and see what "you reap what you sow" will bring to the table in the future besides the rise of new developers creating traditional gaming experiences like we're still having from the east, Nintendo delivering good traditional fun besides games like Metaphor ReFantazio, FFVII Rebirth or Stellar Blade in 2024.
that game nailed the coffin for atlus for me, the story and characters are horrendously bad and even hypocritical yet everyone grovels at its feet just bc it's atlus. also forces you to argue in favor of taxes. f off with that
im so ready for these greedy huge companies to fail hard, i feel bad for anyone who works actual game dev positions at these companies but it should be clear by now that they need to get out and go somewhere better. just sucks for everyone involved who actually cares about the integrity of the medium
Wester games have been pretty bad in recent years. But the Eastern games industry is doing better than ever. Games like Elden Ring/Shadow of the Erdtree, Stellar Blade, Ys X: Nordics, Trails Through Daybreak, Black Myth Wukong, and Metaphor were all fantastic. Eventually the western games industry will kill itself off and be replaced by someone who actually wants to make money. In the mean time we have all these bangers coming out of the east, so I really don't see a problem.
found your page recently & i just gotta say man I appreciate how you cover things, honest & direct but still maintaining a focus on the positive aspects of games and looking for the good im really grateful for your videos
As far as gaming news content or content about the community as a whole, Mug is a refreshing change of pace from the usual “everything and everyone sucks” nihilistic crap, one of my favourite creators on the scene right now for sure
The combined losses for Concord, Outlaws, Dustbin, and Failguard have to be over a billion. Im very excited for Avowed and Shadows in February. It should be a great month.
2024 was great for gaming because consumers were finally voting with their wallets and they weren’t listening to the opinions of mainstream gaming journalists. In many ways in gave me hope, because it says that people aren’t as dumb as corporations would lead you to believe.
I'm constantly being reminded that time is flying by so the fact that Self End Squad only came out last year is reassuring, feels like it's been around for 2-3 years.
Love your humble attitude Mug, keep doing your thing. As for the state of the industry, I disagree with the general idea that the industry should focus on "smaller" projects, that kind of scenario will only benefit the companies, not the consumers. Let's say Sony scale down things and develop Spider-Man 3 with lower production value if compared to the original PS4 game, we all know Sony will charge $70 all the same, so the consumers will receive a inferior product who is sold at premium prices anyway. If the price was adjusted, let's say this same example of Spider-Man 3 sold at $40, now that is the win-win scenario, but it will never happen. So, I think the ideal solution is for the industry to focus all their resources on game engines, maybe go full open source, all the devs and even consumers contributing with the Decima engine for example. Capcom is the highest standard, they came up with the Re Engine for RE7 and, ever since, they are going through a golden age. Capcom only faced a roadblock with Dragon's Dogma 2 and the new Monster Hunter, because of the same old problem, the scope of these games is too exaggerated, the Re Engine is showing major flaws as a "open world" engine... so really, if the industry focus on making more efficient engines, that can save the triple A industry. If not, it's going to implode sooner or later, they will be forced to cooperate or go small, only Nintendo consumers are brainwashed to a point of paying $60 for a Mario game that belongs in the PS3 era, so good luck trying to convince people to pay premium prices for double A projects in the 2020s
“Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they’re going to be gray and old.’ - Rick Patino
I started watching ur channel a few months ago, and it’s given me such a refreshing perspective on the games industry. Giving into the “gloom and doom” is really easy to do, but ur channel being based in truth and logic was really comforting and refreshing. So thanks, Mug! Keep up the great work!
I mean, the Pokemon company produced Pokemon Legends Arceus and Scarlett, and Violet completely revamped new ideas for the series, changing the series for the worst. I wish they could at minimum Live up to their former self. The Pokemon company has fallen off hard ever since Generation 6. And this is proof. They completely reworked the Pokemon IP into something completely new, yet it was so unpolished and so unremarkable that people still are craving that new experience and asking for it. My gaming system of the year is a Modded 2DS XL. I've put almost a thousand hours of game time since April into my handheld.
And palworld gave people that new experience, and in return nintendo is attacking them with something that could set a precedent which would result in the annihilation of the entire game industry
@@kaden-sd6vb What Nintendo and Game Freak are doing to Pal World is absolutely ridiculous. The games are not even similar. Other than catching monsters.
Overall 2024 was a very strong year for games, we'll see if game publishers and developers keep deluding themselves into thinking people who unironically hate gaming should he the ones in charge of major franchises and large development teams
You are one of my absolute favorite channels right now. Your videos and topics that you discuss are laid out so nice and are great to listen to; I'm always looking forward to the next one! Happy New Year Mug and heres to a great 2025! ♥️♥️♥️
Happy new year mug and all of you folks, with love from Germany (yes you reached this far). Thanks for your great coverage last year and best of luck to you. And yes, great games the past year
Finally a positive voice in a fearmongering dystopian sea of noise. This can definitely look bad but I appreciate you being reasonable and continuing to put these videos out for some perspective. Definitely a better place to get my gaming news from than most
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has no online integration and heavily features stealth, exploration, and puzzles. Its charting at number 2 apparently. I take that as a win for old school game design as well
Honestly I am glad. Too many incompetent people in studios, gaming has to become not so-profitable again so they actually change jobs and don’t pick it first.
Hopefully these companies will listen to players about what games they actually like to play. We can't have more failures like Concord and Suicide Squad. Publishers like Ubisoft and Square Enix failing to meet sales expectations needs to change. AAA games need innovation.
@@Epitome_Ms and sony will probably survive, given games are a subset of their products. As for those who focus only on games, EA and 2K will probably survive too unless something bad happens to their sports games. As for the others, they're brown bread if they don't change.
@@Epitome_ Agreed. Like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Tencent are probably gonna stick around regardless of what happens. But Everyone else.... They can BURN for all I care. Ubisoft is on their way out, Bethesda is probably next on the chopping block but that depends on Microsoft. And everyone else, time will tell.
I am definitely looking to take advantage of this time of falling giants and put together games that try many new things to try. Yes, I have a lot ahead of me in the road to making a game, but I am still happy to have the opportunity available.
Yes ...Brands don't matter, people matter, think about that, when you consider gta6 , who's really making it? What are their values? Are they pro gamer....are they politically correct? Are they corporate drones?
All of customers' goodwill is gone, the talent is more or less drained out of the current AAA, the greed took priority over fun. Yes, we are very much probably going to see yet unprecented rise of indie games and I believe we will see two very different AAA markets, one that will thrash around as it dies on the hill its built for itself and another one slowly form that will once again prioritize reasons why we love video games, fun, immersion and stories made with passion instead of ulterior motives.
Happy new year mate. Thank you for your research and commentary. I love your channel because you talk about games I a way that is critical but also hopeful in a sense. And I love that there is no rage bait, no clickbait titles and thumbnails but you don't shy away from commenting on the political side of things. But with a measured approach. I'm sick of the Endimyons and Yellowflashes of youtube. I find your and Legendary drops commentary on gaming much more constructive and intelligent and im here to stay. Thank you mate, have a great year!
It is kinda hard to look at business' on a larger timescale, but they behave very similar to organisms. If it survives the beginning stage, where most die off, they will experience rapid growth & maturity. Then as an adult/mature organism, it dominates other similar entities. Eventually, it gets too big, bloated, overweighted under its own weight, a younger entity that is nimble, energetic & agile replaces it as the dominant entity in the ecosystem. Business grow, using their small size as its advantage against an incumbent opponent that is much slower to react to changes. But eventually they too will be the one who is encumbered & slow to act, replaced by the next. All business will die eventually, its kinda by design really. So we should not be overly invested in the nostalgia of their existence.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
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9:55 *BINGO!* 30 and _40_ years ago, game devs and their heads were not concerned about the shareholders and _their_ "well-being"; i.e., how much of the cut---$$$$$$--was going into their pockets! Their first priority was whether the gamers themselves were going to _like their games!_
10:54 Tell that to the guy who created _Balatro!_ Big things do, can and _will_ come in small packages! Money (especially obscene if not _unacceptable_ amounts) isn't everything!
Don't forget about the AAAA game industry also collapsing. With one game. Lmao
First quad A game will probably be gta6, but they won’t call it that themselves
@@Maxsmack or any one else because it's the death of the franchise
@@MargotDobbie If GTA VI is released as an unplayable game that will never get patched and optimized for older devices, yes.
Don't worry. Ubisoft is already working on their next AAAA hit.
@@Maxsmack no the first one was skull and bones
I'm proud of gamers for saying "NO" loudly to a majority of the AAA slop thrown at us, it feels great
AAA collapsing but gaming has been healing
Fucking eye roll. Say shit that at least makes sense.
Years of greed and constant self foot shooting, are finally backfiring.
And that's a good thing.
The ship of Theseus is a perfect analogy for Triple A companies like Bioware. They are no longer the gold standard for modern RPGs, because everyone who made that company successful already left.
The sad thing is that this even applies to companies such as Atlus. Yes, they had a hit with Metaphor, but that one was made by one of their only remaining veterans. Their output changed quite substantially in the 2010's when a lot of their old talent left with a lot of older fans feeling like they lost their touch.
Take Persona 3 Reload for instance. While it was a competent remake, many noticed that it was clearly using the old game as a crutch and even then it struggled in terms of directing and tone compared to the original even if the gameplay and graphics were more modern.
And the less said about Soul Hackers 2 the better.
Baldurs Gate is a AAA RPG and it maintains the gold standard. The only reason I have not invested in that game is because the combat system is a turn based mechanic that breaks the realism for me.
I prefer the skinsuit analogy myself. AAA companies have been infected by a parasite that wears their skin (brand name and owned franchises) to try and pass as the real deal and keep getting money from loyal fans.
The Studio of Theseus is more like it lolz!
@@itsjusterthought7941 I used to think the same tbh until I played it, I actually found the combat pretty fun when I actually played the game
Reach the top, become idle, bloated, and indulgent. When the beast becomes too gluttonous to feed itself, it dies the slow death of starvation.
I can't wait to watch Call of Duty go through this.. if you ask my former childhood self. Imagine Call of Duty 20 years from now. It sure as shit did not look like this in my mind. The game is designed by psychologist
imagine living in 2005, playing first two COD games that were WW2 shooters and thinking that 18 years from now Call of Duty will sell pop music celebrities as playable characters. Or humanized cats. You would wonder what the fuck are they smoking.
Cod players are too dumb to let that happen@@YaaSalty...0_o
Very much like an Empire at some point they always get too large , degenerate, and collpase
@@YaaSalty...0_o Call of Duty's never dying, mate. Black Ops 6 sold 20 million copies in its first week. This franchise is like The Simpsons. Nobody likes it anymore and it's outstayed its welcome 10 times over, but it somehow keeps making bank.
2024 was very cathartic. Games that deserved to succeed succeeded, and games that deserved to fail failed. For the first time in... God only knows how many years, it actually felt like the AAA games industry is healing. The bubble had finally burst. Predatory live service slop dropped like flies, and the smaller scale darlings got all the praise and sales for doing what should be the industry standard.
I dare say I'm actually a bit optimistic for the future! 2025 is already looking great with its lineup! I can't wait to play Monster Hunter Wilds and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii!
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is my BIGGEST hype right now! Can't wait
Unicorn Overlord was Vanillaware's highest selling game, and it deserved it.
The more time that passes, the more I realize just how much I loved that game.
Problem is incompetence in executives and greedy shareholders. Those two things should never be involved in art.
Well, you do need someone to remind the artist that making money ensures the continuation of their artwork but I agree with u mostly
You know whats tiresome? I can already predict how the media is going to act for the next 2 years. Big upcoming AAA games are going to fail, and theyll blame it on the consumers. Because they always double down. They never take a step back and reflect. Insert Principal Skinner meme.
2024 is the year nobody is buying AAA crap anymore and that’s a good thing for the future of gaming. But there will definitely be great AAA games in the future but probably from different studios.
I lost a lot of interest in AAA gaming this year. I changed my focus to smaller studios and wow, I didn't know I was missing so much; Wartales, Inscryption, Dredge, Indika, Drova.
Happy new year everyone and to Mugthief; I'm glad I found your channel.
war tales is amazing and i can recommend any of the DLC yet i still need to buy the rest of the DLC myself also if you like war tales battle brothers is also great
It's nice to have the smaller studios but i see in time them being kicked off the consoles in a few years so the bigger companies have no real competition. Enjoy em while you can imo. I'm sure that's really the next big move since their stuff isn't working anymore.
@@Kevfactor they take a 30% cut off everything sold on their digital stores, that’s why they’re phasing out disc drives. They make way too much money off 3rd party to do that. If anything we’ll get even fewer 1st party titles in the future because they spend so much time and money producing them that it’s become too much of a risk if/when they flop. There’s already been considerably less 1st party games on PS5 compared to the amount on previous gen consoles.
Dredge is brilliant. I remember playing the demo and immediately recognising it's quality, that's very rare these days.
Indies are amazing, glad you found them. I see so many people distraught over AAA games and I'm like, these people really need to find indies. Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever btw, amazing game.
Video games are not cars, they aren't movies, they aren't consumables. A small team can compete with big teams. The corporate model of scale up and push the small guys out isn't working. They can't regulate new competition away like they can with other industries
Who needs AAA games when you have cheap and fun eurojank games from 2 decades ago
Wouldn't be surprised if we see a resurgence of the eurojank market once the war is over.
They are going to try to prevent you from playing that eventually.. Nintendo is doing what it can kill emulation but Sony and Microsoft might join them just so it's harder to find when that does happen. They either you to buy their merch(Nintendo) or on their live service. They'll even prevent you from buying retro TVs and consoles eventually :)
@Kevfactor Thank god for PC gaming... Modern Gaming and its Consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Painkiller 🐐
Still go back to KF2 from time to time
Absolute BLAST
"Tango game works closing"
There's an update, the studio is officially back, they just released a statement a few days ago
AAA gaming is actually in good condition, but there is a certain part of AAA that is visibly struggling. It's Western AAA gaming. Because we did receive a lot of top-tier releases from Eastern studios that are clearly high budget. Astrobot, Stellar Blade, Wukong, Elden Ring DLC etc. Most games nominated to GOTY 2024 were from Asian developers.
They don't actually fuck around though. Astrobot was developed by a Japanese dev team "Asobi". This team is 65 people, even though the budget of this game was high, at 50-75M. They actually made the god damn game good and fun instead of relying on overbloated company structures with layers upon layers of useless middle management. No one cares about ubisoft having 20 000 mouths to feed. They make crap games for non-existent "modern audiences", they are suffering a flop after flop. I won't miss a company like that being wiped off the face of this earth.
I would argue that only 2 of those are even AAA. Astrobot, Stellar Blade and Wukong are AA.
Black Myth, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Ballatro, just to name a few. I don't think there has been a year in gaming that shows how important indie games and inovation is as 2024 did.
Black Myth Wukong showed us an amazing world, Helldivers 2 showed COD and other live service games how it's done and Stellar Blade showed the "modern audience" that attractive people DO exist.
2025 already has some big titles coming, with the new Monster Hunter or GTA 6, but i really really hope we get more great indie games this year.
GTA6 more than likely isn't coming until 2026, but I don't have much hope for it being any good seeing how Rockstar's founders are both gone.
Most indie games suck too, especially since 2016
No way you're calling BMW, Helldivers and Stellar Blade "indie". Those are all made by sizeable studios and Helldivers 2 is pretty much a Playstation IP.
Real indie is stuff like Balatro, Penny's Big Breakaway, UFO 50 and Antonblast.
@@lorenzobiondijimenez6138Only because there are so many indie games and many of them are made by novice game devs or hobbyists. There are far more good indie games than good AAA releases.
I was with you until the stellar blade part because what does that mean
What we see today has been described by Schumpeter "kreative Zerstörung" (creative destruction), but the concept has been used by Marx + Darvin as well.
What it epulates is quite easy: To make room for new, innovate and better stuff, the old stuff must be destroyed in the process.
And that's exactly what is true in the gaming industry. The destruction of Bioware, Bethesda, Ubisoft... will leave room for smaller and / or new companies. They can evovle, get more money from the gamers and grow.
How many copies did Failguard sell? 1 Million? 1.5? Outlaws was 2 Million? Abysmal sales for those budgets. But huge sale numbers for indy-studios.
Imagine all these AAA games NOT being made - it would result in millions of sales not made. But instead gamers would have bought other games. From smaller studios.
And for them, selling an additional 100k copies is great.
They will prosper with these additional sales.
Looking forward to it, IMO we are at the dawn of a new gaming industry.
We are at a point where we have been back in the 90s. Gaming was new and small, but it was growing.
And then it soared in the 2000s.
We all know what great games and franchises came during these decades.
Then it turned sour and went downhill.
But IMO we will soon have reached the bottom and the "kreateive Zerstörung" will then result in the birth of a "new age" and new developers.
I think we'll see great games in the next decade, great new franchises.
Gaming today is in a way better state than it was since 10 years.
Happy new year!
Happy new gaming!
Props to anyone that mentions Marx in a comment, I can see what you’re saying but we’ve had massive consolidation in gaming with ms buying up lots of studios to try to increase scale and become a de facto monopoly, which is ideal state for any business. So the size of the companies is much bigger than it was back in the day and maybe they can survive a lot of flops before they collapse. Well either they learn from that gamers don’t want GAAS or they don’t, and they go the way of Ubisoft.
@@pbeeby Yeah, the "too big to fail" concept is definitly a threat, especially with Ubisoft.
It’s been a long time coming and by god, it’s glorious.
😂😂😂😂
What the hell?
No one needs AAA studios.
AAA studios just don't pop into existence out of thin air. They're grown from, and this may shock you, AA studios.
A good example is R* and GTA. Have you played the first 2? They were nothing like we know current iterations. But when R* gathered enough experience with 3D, they released GTA3 and they weren't AAA back then. They grew to be.
Innovation doesn't exist only in AAA studios, see how Battlebit went beyond what Battlefield lacked AND THEY WERE 3 DUDES.
Trying something different doesn't rely on AAA studios either, hell, YOU mentioned Balatro. Who TF actually plays card games in an electronic system?! YET it is right there among the top and best sellers of the year.
All you need to make good games is:
- Passion
- Innovation
- Willpower
- money
- Time
See how Larian managed to make BG3. They didn't "just" make it. They came from Original sin 1, which the fans liked.
Then they freely improved it after listening to feedback.
Then they launched original sin 2, BUT IN EARLY ACCESS. Kept improving first on the first OS, then based on player's feedback of early access, then it became one of the year's best.
Theeeen they repeated the formula with BG3, early access then full launch. And we know how that went.
NO ONE needs AAA studios.
We need great games.
We need passionate studios.
We need studios that actually deliver.
And we need to support those studios.
That's what we need.
Completely agree👏
But are people supporting these studios is the real question? Feels like I've seen tons of AA studios closed or struggling recently. AAA companies can eat losses a lot better than AA ones can. And it's a sad fact that marketing budget is a big reason why so many AA games get overlooked compared to AAA.
Out of all AAA studios Nintendo's the best one for good games and your most likely going to have a fun time playing their games even if you don't like them and on top of that they don't call their games AAA
I'm hoping to get into game development starting next year. I want to make games I wish were being made.
Good luck ❤
Start small, initially your ambitious will exceed your abilities. I recommend Godot Engine to learn the fundamentals
Please do it. The game engine Construct Classic is completely free and already perfect.
Good luck, games made by people passionate about games like yourself rather than profit-driven executives are what the industry needs more of.
Or: The year that AAA studios destroyed themselves.
I really hope 2024 has proven that the AAA slop model of game development is no longer sustainable.
We dont need AAA games. We need good games.
Calling it AAA was pretty much the beginning of the end to be honest. AAA is a finance investment grade term for a locked in big win investment, nothing to so with quality. I'm not sure who coined the term but it definitely wasn't meant for public ears, it's something that would have been banded about in earnings calls and investor conferences to garner more money from people that wanted more money, not high art form video games.
I've always been slightly confused why a term that actually means that something is supposed to be a big windfall for investors somehow came to mean high quality video games.
Ironically, it could be argued that because the term literally means 'big win investment' that anything produced by Ubisoft is incapable of being AAA, let alone AAAA.
Space Marine 2, Silent Hill 2 remake, Shadow of the Erd Tree, PoE2 early access, Helldivers 2 and Soul Reaver remastered are my highlights of the year. It proves AAA isn't dead (even from the west) but it also proves there is a hell of a lot of garbage out there you have to wade through to find the good games.
Helldivers 2 lost me when they protected their Discord moderators even after they became power tripping maniacs, and when it came to light Arrowhead knew about the PSN requirement months in advance and didn't tell their players.
There comes a point where I just can't support a developer when they openly hate their own players.
LET THE AAA GAMING CRASH CONTINUE!!
You've quickly become one of my favorite youtubers over the past few months I've been watching. Here's to another great year!
You know you’re an addict when you recognize the Balatro music 3 seconds in.
AAA and AAAA gaming is a lot like a forest. It needs the occasional fire to get rid of the old to make way for the new. I don't mean modern audience stuff. I mean these old dead studios going away to make room for the new actually game oriented studios.
happy soon to be new year, mug.
For a AAA experience from a smaller studio: Helldivers 2 / Arrowhead are literally saving multiplayer live service games with their approach. They’re the most hands on, engaged, fun, responsive, gamer-loving developers I think I’ve seen in my entire life. They give us what we want. They try new things. They apologize for messing up, and do their best to make it up to us. They revel in the little details and polish, the mechanics, the animations, the FUN that make the game feel truly unique and loved. They want games to be fun and give us goofy emergent moments, not tightly scripted “movies” that preach a message.
The thing i miss most about video games is the couch
i like that you remain optimistic in spite of everything bad/wrong that happened this 2024 is such a refreshing prespective nowadays sadly... Still it's hard to be looking forward to a lot of things but i am sure a lot of good things will also come this 2025.
Happy News Years, Mug! This channel just hits the nail when it comes to making sound reflections about games.
Gaming is healing, as they say. We really needed these mistakes to happen, in a way.
The reason is that all the competent writers and devs are swapped with DEI hires.
Larian Studios is for sure one of the next AAA
Watching AAA crash and burn has been beautiful. We’re still getting great games, we’re just getting them from small devs who actually deserve the money.
We're glad having based content creators & channels like your's, Mug. A happy & healthy 2025 to you, good sir! 🥂 To be honest, at first it concerned me seeing western companies like CD Project Red, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft or Rockstar Games announcing their new projects being already dead before arrival bringing the inevitable downfall of the companies & the needed change to the videogame medium. I guess it's time to let go and see what "you reap what you sow" will bring to the table in the future besides the rise of new developers creating traditional gaming experiences like we're still having from the east, Nintendo delivering good traditional fun besides games like Metaphor ReFantazio, FFVII Rebirth or Stellar Blade in 2024.
2024 is when Metaphor refantazio came out and hence a great year for gaming. Is Altus considered a AAA studio?
For sure.
Atlus has definitely been scaling up lately; but I think it’s still on the relatively smaller side of AAA.
They are, but aside from some of their naughty dlc practices they mostly do it right.
@@blaze595 they are similar size to Bethesda Games Studios iirc, both have around 400.
that game nailed the coffin for atlus for me, the story and characters are horrendously bad and even hypocritical yet everyone grovels at its feet just bc it's atlus. also forces you to argue in favor of taxes. f off with that
im so ready for these greedy huge companies to fail hard, i feel bad for anyone who works actual game dev positions at these companies but it should be clear by now that they need to get out and go somewhere better. just sucks for everyone involved who actually cares about the integrity of the medium
Wester games have been pretty bad in recent years. But the Eastern games industry is doing better than ever. Games like Elden Ring/Shadow of the Erdtree, Stellar Blade, Ys X: Nordics, Trails Through Daybreak, Black Myth Wukong, and Metaphor were all fantastic. Eventually the western games industry will kill itself off and be replaced by someone who actually wants to make money. In the mean time we have all these bangers coming out of the east, so I really don't see a problem.
Triple-A business is starting to remind me of that bit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
"Bring out your dead!"
Found the channel earlier this year and it quickly became my favorite way to get news, keep up the good work Mug!
found your page recently & i just gotta say man I appreciate how you cover things, honest & direct but still maintaining a focus on the positive aspects of games and looking for the good im really grateful for your videos
Once hack and slash games make a comeback The gaming industry will be completely healed
They are still being made
As far as gaming news content or content about the community as a whole, Mug is a refreshing change of pace from the usual “everything and everyone sucks” nihilistic crap, one of my favourite creators on the scene right now for sure
The retro game aftermarket prices are skyrocketing on Ebay while our entire collection are slowly rotting away.
The combined losses for Concord, Outlaws, Dustbin, and Failguard have to be over a billion. Im very excited for Avowed and Shadows in February. It should be a great month.
Dude, your videos are awesome! Thanks for all the content this past year! Hope this 2025 is even better 👍🏼
Yeah AAA needs to stay where its at which is away from my wallet
2024 was great for gaming because consumers were finally voting with their wallets and they weren’t listening to the opinions of mainstream gaming journalists. In many ways in gave me hope, because it says that people aren’t as dumb as corporations would lead you to believe.
Ubisoft will not be missed
I'm constantly being reminded that time is flying by so the fact that Self End Squad only came out last year is reassuring, feels like it's been around for 2-3 years.
Love your humble attitude Mug, keep doing your thing. As for the state of the industry, I disagree with the general idea that the industry should focus on "smaller" projects, that kind of scenario will only benefit the companies, not the consumers. Let's say Sony scale down things and develop Spider-Man 3 with lower production value if compared to the original PS4 game, we all know Sony will charge $70 all the same, so the consumers will receive a inferior product who is sold at premium prices anyway. If the price was adjusted, let's say this same example of Spider-Man 3 sold at $40, now that is the win-win scenario, but it will never happen. So, I think the ideal solution is for the industry to focus all their resources on game engines, maybe go full open source, all the devs and even consumers contributing with the Decima engine for example. Capcom is the highest standard, they came up with the Re Engine for RE7 and, ever since, they are going through a golden age. Capcom only faced a roadblock with Dragon's Dogma 2 and the new Monster Hunter, because of the same old problem, the scope of these games is too exaggerated, the Re Engine is showing major flaws as a "open world" engine... so really, if the industry focus on making more efficient engines, that can save the triple A industry. If not, it's going to implode sooner or later, they will be forced to cooperate or go small, only Nintendo consumers are brainwashed to a point of paying $60 for a Mario game that belongs in the PS3 era, so good luck trying to convince people to pay premium prices for double A projects in the 2020s
Happy new year buddy🍻 - great content over the last year,keep it on👍🏻
Happy new year Mug.
I like your optimistic attitude. Keep making vids. Cheers and a happy new years! 🥳
“Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they’re going to be gray and old.’ - Rick Patino
I started watching ur channel a few months ago, and it’s given me such a refreshing perspective on the games industry. Giving into the “gloom and doom” is really easy to do, but ur channel being based in truth and logic was really comforting and refreshing. So thanks, Mug! Keep up the great work!
To heck with AAA and long live the Indies.
Except id it’s multiplayer, thats hit always sucks
Nah, it hasn't collapsed until games become games again .
Good games almost always win out. The industry will learn that one way or another
And I feel it’ll be collapsing unto itself throughout 2025. AAA companies need the reality check that we the players are DONE WITH THEIR CRAP!
Yes you did!
Thanks Mugthief, and Happy New Year!
I mean, the Pokemon company produced Pokemon Legends Arceus and Scarlett, and Violet completely revamped new ideas for the series, changing the series for the worst. I wish they could at minimum Live up to their former self. The Pokemon company has fallen off hard ever since Generation 6. And this is proof. They completely reworked the Pokemon IP into something completely new, yet it was so unpolished and so unremarkable that people still are craving that new experience and asking for it.
My gaming system of the year is a Modded 2DS XL. I've put almost a thousand hours of game time since April into my handheld.
And palworld gave people that new experience, and in return nintendo is attacking them with something that could set a precedent which would result in the annihilation of the entire game industry
@@kaden-sd6vb What Nintendo and Game Freak are doing to Pal World is absolutely ridiculous. The games are not even similar. Other than catching monsters.
@@YaaSalty...0_o If they weren't similar people wouldn't be referring to Palworld as "Pokemon with guns".
Overall 2024 was a very strong year for games, we'll see if game publishers and developers keep deluding themselves into thinking people who unironically hate gaming should he the ones in charge of major franchises and large development teams
Mug, I’m so happy to have stumbled upon your channel at some point this past year. Love your show! 🎉
For the first time in 12 years i actually feel excited for the future of games, literally ANYTHING could happen!
2025 isn’t going to be much better for western studios. Starting off with avowed and ac shadow failures.
You are more specifically talking about AAA games
I need more games like anno1800
But without the 100 dlc like ubisoft does
You are one of my absolute favorite channels right now. Your videos and topics that you discuss are laid out so nice and are great to listen to; I'm always looking forward to the next one! Happy New Year Mug and heres to a great 2025! ♥️♥️♥️
Happy new year mug. Thanks for being you
Happy new year everyone god bless
Happy new year, one of the best channles ive found this year
You've helped me out while I was listening to you at the gym 😁
Happy new year mug and all of you folks, with love from Germany (yes you reached this far). Thanks for your great coverage last year and best of luck to you.
And yes, great games the past year
Happy New Year, dude! 🎆
hundred million dollar gaming studios : let's take the most beloved game formulas and throw them out the window.
also gaming studios : BANKRUPTCY .
Thanks for a year full of great content!
Happy New Year man. Thanks for the informative videos.
Happy New Year, Mug!
Finally a positive voice in a fearmongering dystopian sea of noise. This can definitely look bad but I appreciate you being reasonable and continuing to put these videos out for some perspective. Definitely a better place to get my gaming news from than most
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has no online integration and heavily features stealth, exploration, and puzzles. Its charting at number 2 apparently. I take that as a win for old school game design as well
Honestly I am glad.
Too many incompetent people in studios, gaming has to become not so-profitable again so they actually change jobs and don’t pick it first.
Giving us a Top 10 news and stories of the year will be much appreciated
Hopefully these companies will listen to players about what games they actually like to play. We can't have more failures like Concord and Suicide Squad. Publishers like Ubisoft and Square Enix failing to meet sales expectations needs to change. AAA games need innovation.
I hope that 2025 is the Renaissance year for AAA gaming.
I hope they all go under and we get a new set of AAA gaming studios
@@Epitome_Ms and sony will probably survive, given games are a subset of their products. As for those who focus only on games, EA and 2K will probably survive too unless something bad happens to their sports games. As for the others, they're brown bread if they don't change.
Only if we get NEW AAA studios that are not driven by Profits alone. Cus the ones we have.... are dying under the weight of their own greed.
Severely doubt so
@@Epitome_ Agreed. Like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Tencent are probably gonna stick around regardless of what happens.
But Everyone else.... They can BURN for all I care. Ubisoft is on their way out, Bethesda is probably next on the chopping block but that depends on Microsoft.
And everyone else, time will tell.
I am definitely looking to take advantage of this time of falling giants and put together games that try many new things to try. Yes, I have a lot ahead of me in the road to making a game, but I am still happy to have the opportunity available.
Yes ...Brands don't matter, people matter, think about that, when you consider gta6 , who's really making it? What are their values? Are they pro gamer....are they politically correct? Are they corporate drones?
thanks for the video Bob Wulff 😁
Thank you, Mugthief! Yes, you entertained me. Keep it up.
All of customers' goodwill is gone, the talent is more or less drained out of the current AAA, the greed took priority over fun.
Yes, we are very much probably going to see yet unprecented rise of indie games and I believe we will see two very different AAA markets, one that will thrash around as it dies on the hill its built for itself and another one slowly form that will once again prioritize reasons why we love video games, fun, immersion and stories made with passion instead of ulterior motives.
Hippie New Year Mug-jin
Happy new years to you Mr. Mug. I subbed a while back and enjoy your content, here is hoping to another good year of your videos and your ramblings.
Riot games still beating everyone let’s be real
In what?
Majority of AAA is souless corpo slop. i am good.
Happy new year mate. Thank you for your research and commentary. I love your channel because you talk about games I a way that is critical but also hopeful in a sense. And I love that there is no rage bait, no clickbait titles and thumbnails but you don't shy away from commenting on the political side of things. But with a measured approach. I'm sick of the Endimyons and Yellowflashes of youtube. I find your and Legendary drops commentary on gaming much more constructive and intelligent and im here to stay. Thank you mate, have a great year!
It is kinda hard to look at business' on a larger timescale, but they behave very similar to organisms. If it survives the beginning stage, where most die off, they will experience rapid growth & maturity. Then as an adult/mature organism, it dominates other similar entities. Eventually, it gets too big, bloated, overweighted under its own weight, a younger entity that is nimble, energetic & agile replaces it as the dominant entity in the ecosystem. Business grow, using their small size as its advantage against an incumbent opponent that is much slower to react to changes. But eventually they too will be the one who is encumbered & slow to act, replaced by the next. All business will die eventually, its kinda by design really. So we should not be overly invested in the nostalgia of their existence.
Gotta love that octopath 2 bgm in your vids
2024 was one of the best years for games. Specifically if you LOVE JRPGs.