Try having an original thought.
Make something NEW
‘A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they’re not selling’
The good ones are.
Maybe if they ran on Linux, people would buy it. Give it a shot there, Timbo
I’m with you as a Linux user but let’s be real, Linux support has an abysmal ROI: you put a lot of effort for less than a 1% increase in sales, it’s a no brainer.
One of the gifts that valve gave to the Linux ecosystem is having freed developers from the Linux burden. They just make windows games and voila for the most part they run on Linux. They spend less money, we get more games - win/win.
There are a bunch of games that had half-baked Linux ports and got so much better once you could just run the main build through proton, it doesn’t make sense to push developers to go back to native.
Yeah, people need to start reading past the headline.
He’s not complaining, he’s bragging.
His point is that people aren’t buying Sony’s big, expensive games, they’re playing Fortnite.
Yea, did he mention all the other successful epic games? No. There aren’t any. Or they’re dying.
Gotta read between the lines.
He did. Fortnite actually grew this year and hit 110 million monthly active users, according to him.
Fortnite isn’t dying, it’s killing everything else by absorbing the rest of gaming into itself like an alien blob. I don’t like it, but it’s happening and that’s what he’s talking about.
No, the other epic games. He only mentions one game, not the others.
Fortnite is all the Epic games. As in, there is a kart racing game, a survival Lego-licensed game and a Harmonix rhythm game in there, besides the bunch of shooters.
It’s a weird store-ception thing, but at this point if Epic is going to make a new game they won’t put it as a stand-alone thing in the Epic store, they’ll put it inside Fortnite. And it’s working, which is… kinda scary.
Two reasons:
-
The money is mostly spent on visual production, graphics, and big name actors to voice characters, which doesn’t automatically make a game good.
-
Season passes, MTX and other bullshit being shoved down our throats in big budget games is getting even worse.
I will always choose a smaller project of passion over a lackluster, watered-down AAA game with an overinflated budget.
Ultimately it is about the money and effort being put into the wrong parts of the game, which coincidentally is the part that is easiest to show off to investors and C levels.
When I open a steam page for a game that looks interesting to me, and I find out it has 3 versions at wildly different prices and 10+ other DLC, I just pass and move on. I’m not doing external research to find out what is the difference between the complete and ultra complete and definitive deluxe director’s cut editions and whether it’s worth it, or whether I “need” such and such DLC to get the full experience. I’m instantly and thoroughly turned off by it, and I’m just not bothering. Fuck that whole mess.
It’s like the corporate world has made gaming into a twisted version of THEIR game. How do we grind money out of these idiots?
Well, I think that they will probably work it out in the end by going bust. Every CEO - in the end - blames the consumer, not the product nor the service.
For real! I have the biggest issue on that with the PlayStation store. The main list of titles only shows the most expensive version and you have to dig deeper to find the regular, lowest priced option. I swear, when I first got my PS5 and was interested in getting NHL23 I damn near had a heart attack seeing it priced over $100. Ended up just going to GameStop and picking up a used physical copy for $10.
I wish I could get it through to my dumbass friend. She says that a game must have good graphics or else she won’t play it.
Stardew valley? Nope. It’s too blocky. Undertale? Nope. Might as well be an NES game.
My god, the games she’s missing out on…
Your friend is entitled to her own opinion and I somewhat get her. Good graphics are really nice and can add greatly to a game.
While I understand your feelings (I have such a friend myself), if graphics are most important to them, they are perfectly entitled to that opinion! I always interject, that my friend is missing out on great gameplay experiences but it is on them what they like and value most.
Yeah honestly AA games deliver the experience AAA games gave 15 years ago, and that’s what I want way more than whatever AAA is today.
-
I don’t see Elden Ring devs complaining, maybe focus on gameplay and style more than graphics and MTX and hollywood actors?
It’s because video games turned into investment vehicles where companies want to make at least 50% return on their investment instead of create a fun and engaging peice of entertainment.
Video games are an art form, there’s no art i’ financial vehicules
Yeah, it’s fucking awesome! Nothing makes me happier than seeing a AAA studio sink big bucks into a project that was destined to be a dumpster fire, then release it as a timed exclusive loaded with DRM for good measure. I really hate that there are developers falling victim to the overall shittiness of the games industry, but I don’t know how else studios are supposed to learn that people want to buy games, not lease online storefronts. On that note, anyone have any good indie recommendations?
Meanwhile all we need to keep us happy are AA budget games to perhaps dormant franchises which haven’t seen the light of day in a few decades.
We don’t need AAA or … Lol AAAA budget games every time
Nah man, what we need is an AAAAAAA+ game. Price will be $3400 so the company can recuperate the cost of making the game, and everyone will buy it! It’s how
slavesgamers work, right?Cool. Now where’s my $102 million bonus for reinventing the gaming market?
THQNordic and Nightdive have been carrying this sector of gaming for me lately
People don’t want to pay for Disneyfied corpo slop that the HR department and advertisers signed off on. A public company lacks the soul to imbue into a creative project.
Lol this reads like a “wOkE GaMEs ArE KiLLiNg thE InDuStrY” level reddit/xitter comment.
Not that odd. Seems like a decade and change ago it became common knowledge that market-tested, sanitized content wasn’t really resonating with “core gamers”, but we don’t even call the demographic that anymore. Not really sure how we got here
Oof looks like the gamergate community has popped over here. RIP.
I’m sure seeing minorities represented is the problem, not stale ass copy-pasted games that nickle and dime everyone. /s
I saw your reply and regret to inform you the other folks are right, I’m no gamergater and the context isn’t even right. Woke is a descriptor that causes me to buy a game. “Core” referred to gamers that were willing to grind, basically; it was a useful demographic for describing players and I don’t really know what has replaced it.
Are you SERIOUSLY this stupid and triggered? They’ve said NOTHING about “woke” anything, and your dumb ass goes off like this is gamer gate? Fuck you. Fuck you, you illiterate moron.
This is about how Epic, the corporarion Tim Sweeny leads, a corpo that’s a big player in the games industry, is FAILING to identify that it is quality, not budget that determines if a game sells.
… and then you come in here saying GamerGate shit. Fuck off, you inflammatory dumbass. Seems like you need to get past Reddit culture, troll.
First person used terms that are normal dogwhistles for gamergate groups, second person agreed with that interpretation after I pointed out it was suspicious.
And I’m the illiterate one and triggered and a troll? Mirror much? Did you even read your comment lol?
Someone needs to go for a walk
Yes, the guy I replied to. They need to walk to their nearest college and learn how, “reading between the lines” is NOT about applying any and all conspiracy thinking to a subject…
Well, gamers includes anyone sliding their finger on a phone screen now playing Farmville and stuff…and that is a looooooot of people. So that moves the needle on the average gamer a lot towards that end. And I think there is limited overlap between the people that use it as a time suck and the people that sit down and turn on their console/pc to play a game as a hobby.
So if the MBAs looked at statistics too much… you also get a warped idea.
It seems that stuff that gets people most excited are the inspired games made by creative people because they had a vision for their game…
Farmville players do not buy AAA games. We need to get this idea that mobile games and other forms of video games are connected out of our collective heads.
When you try to make literally everyone your target demographic then nobody will be your target demographic
Fun beats pretty.
Is this for video games or romantic advice?
Not only that, but pretty much everything else, including weapons and cars.
How’s about you guys spend some of that budget on QA?
Or how about they start making games people want to actually buy?
How about truly new games instead of zero-risk remakes/reboots/sequels or truly awful slop like Concord?
Or like the game instead of the credit card collection form.
If they want me to buy AAA releases when they come out; they need to be actually fun, no rootkits, no microtransactions.
Exactly. And no game-breaking bugs at launch.
Nintendo for all the awfulness that is their legal department got this right. I pre-ordered Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and it worked absolutely fine when I plugged it in. Yeah, there was a day 1 patch (didn’t check the state of things before the patch), but I haven’t had any issues with it so far.
Indies also often get this right. There are plenty of devs I trust to have a solid product day 1. No stupid DRM, microtransactions, etc, just a fun game.
I don’t care too much about graphics, I just want a fun game to play, and I’m unwilling to pay to be a beta tester.
Right? Why should I pay full price for a game and it’s a buggy mess, sometimes even unplayable past a certain piont? All this has done has made me wait a year or two for games that I want, so I can get functional games, which is the opposite of how the studios want to make money.
Fuck Tim Sweeny
More like Slim Weeny
Chikka chikka Slim Weeny!
Maybe instead of playing with money, the money people should come up with ideas. I can’t think of a time where more budget meant more fun.
the money people should come up with ideas
I’m sure « Financial Market Simulator 3000 » could be fun but … meh… :)
I already play Eve. Ideas gotta be new!
Has nothing to do with ‘generation’ anything and everything to do with bean counters. The fact that Minecraft is still beating them all is everything they need to know but refuse to listen to.
They don’t mean boomers, millennials, etc. When you consider games from Atari, to genesis, to 360, to what we have now with microtransactions and season passes after unloading $60+ for a premium game, there are clear “generational” divides.
Investors be like: “MineCoins you say🤔”
Gee, I wonder fucking why Tim. What a clown.
