Probably why Lethal Company, a game made by one person with little experience, is the 9th highest selling game on Steam.
I hope this happens more often and AAA studios realize they can also make small experimental games with small budgets and few staff. They don’t need to spend 10 years doing nothing but work on their next monolithic title. Give some passionate staffers a chance with their unique idea and release smaller games along the way.
Give some passionate staffers a chance with their unique idea and release smaller games along the way.
Naah, I’d rather see those devs find a way to break away from the major studio and actually get rewarded for their work. I think I would hate to see a single-dev labor of love end up owned by a mega-publisher without having to compensate the dev properly (and I have zero faith in the mega-publishers doing so voluntarily).
So I partially agree with you, but there is something to be said about doing it under a financially secure company. The company could eat all the risk and let the devs make what they want without fear of failure meaning they don’t eat. They could work full time on the project and if it doesn’t work out then they can move onto the next thing. Sure, the company is going to take some of the profit, but the ideal model for this would be they use the profit to mitigate risks for the devs, not to just make themselves rich.
This isn’t going to happen with any of the existing large game dev companies obviously, but if a smaller studio runs as a coop (or similar employee run business) and becomes successful I could see it happening.
All excellent points. My comment was definitely colored by imagining current mega studios and I’d hate to see them rake in millions after paying a dev a regular salary to single-handedly conceive and develop a game.
Some sort of indy d3v incubator or co-op would be great – spread out the risk, but also the reward. I’m not opposed to a financial backer receiving a slice of the pie, just not the entire pie in exchange for a meager salary.
It’s pretty sad that I can’t tell if this list was made yesterday or four years ago. If people are able to have fun despite a stagnant industry, all power to them, but I haven’t seen a good game out of AAA in a long while.
I really hope one day business schools will start teaching people that trying to blindly follow trends in art has literally never worked. Hasn’t worked for all the film studios trying to make their own cinematic universes, hasn’t worked for game studios trying to chase the new live service dragon, but still we get braindead suits getting senior level positions approving derivative drivel.
Alright, new theory:
You guys don’t play too many games, right?
For the record, the best selling games of this year had fewer live service games than last year and the year before. The top of the charts was consistently single player games without microtransactions and this is one of the main GOTY candidates of 2023 following trends from “business schools” straight into… eh… a climactic absurdist musical number.
I’d tag that as spoilers if I could because, as I said, it’s increasingly clear you guys haven’t been playing this stuff.
You’re right, the best selling games have been single-player focused. So why has Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, ActivisionBlizzard, Warner Bros, and Sony Interactive been pushing to jump on the recent extraction shooter trend? Hell, find me a triple A publisher that does not have a live-service game being maintained, I’ll wait.
If you’re argument is that AAA is not wasting millions of dollars on chasing trends, you’ll have to find more evidence than all their projects being failures.
Because they’re not all failures, they’re also making single player games and you’re assuming that the one example of publishers wanting to tick a box in their lineup is somehow all they (let alone the entire industry) are producing.
The fact that people are making extraction shooters doesn’t mean they’re not making anything else. Warner’s biggest game this year is a narrative RPG. EA’s biggest game is (as always) a sports game, and their highest reviewed games are a Star Wars single player action game and a single player horror game. Sony’s biggest game is an open world superhero action game. I don’t know about Ubi’s sales off the top of my head, but what they’ve shipped recently is a 2D metroidvania and a throwback to classic Assassin’s Creed.
I don’t understand why you want publishers to be judged by what they don’t make, as opposed to what they make. Major publishers are billion dollar companies that put out many games. I have zero problems with EA running Apex Legends if I get to play Dead Space. I have zero problems with Sony trying to get a live service game going if they keep making insanely refined narrative action games. I don’t enjoy every game people make, but I don’t hate that people make games that are not for me if there are also games for me happening at the same time.
Larian
I just had someone telling me if I can’t tell the new street fighter installment from the old one then i must not have eyes. It looks practically identical to the previous three installments. I think I’m done trying to interact with gamers for literally anything.
You have to take a very cursory glance to not find differences between Street Fighter 5 and 6. The gameplay systems are very different, 6 has an actually good single player mode, the net code is vastly improved. If you’re just looking at the graphics, you’re doing the same thing this post is criticizing but for the opposite goal. Street Fighter 6 is one of the AAA home runs, especially when you consider the disasterous launch of SF5.
it’s a niche game that i know little about, have no interest in, and definitely am not going to shell out money for; he’s bitter that I don’t care and I’m not impressed that a franchise older than I am shat out another entry.
Do you even like video games? Judging by your comments in this thread, they make you angry and bitter, so I don’t know why you bother to post about them.
I don’t play a niche game franchise enough to see the difference between last year’s iteration and this one, therefore I must not like games at all. It’s FIFA with anime characters to me, doesn’t mean I don’t like other things.
“A niche game franchise” lmao Street Fighter is one of the most popular and well known game series in the world. I won’t say it’s the best fighting game franchise, but it is very much a household name just as much as Mario or Pokémon are.
…it’s a niche genre bro. That’s not the same as being obscure.
Street Fighter 1 was from 1987. Street Fighter 5 is from 2016. This is hardly a yearly franchise. Each release is a cornerstone of the fighting game genre. If you don’t like them or are uninterested, that’s obviously fine. But you’re using your ignorance to justify hating Street Fighter. That just doesn’t make sense and makes you come across as bitter. I would urge you to play the games you like, and ignore the games you don’t like. You’ll be generally happier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Street_Fighter_video_games also i went and checked just to see because i was curious, and it has seen near-annual releases since 1990. So like when I said anime fifa i meant like more my attitude towards it, but apparenty it’s also (nearly) true the way you took it.
of course it isn’t annual, who said that? I never said I hated it either, I’m just not interested. it’s like nobody in here understands things like hyperbole, or figures of speech, or not caring about a niche genre. weirdos
It’s not great! 2023 games that I have really enjoyed this past year have been Tears of the Kingdom, Cassette Beasts, and Hi-Fi Rush.
Oh, man, I had forgotten those were this year.
My list also includes:
Pikmin 4
Baldur’s Gate 3
Spider-Man 2
Street Fighter 6
Mortal Kombat 1
Dead Space and RE4 remake
The Talos Principle 2And I didn’t even get around to Alan Wake 2, which everybody’s been raving about. Or that Dave the Builder thing. Or Lies of P. Or Jedi Survivor. And I guess I’m not counting the new Prince of Persia because that’s this year, technically. And I’m not into 2D Mario games, so I’m guessing skipping Super Mario Wonder makes me a bit of an outlier.
Look, I know it feels good to be jaded and edgy and cynical, but… yeah, no, it was an all-time great year for games in 2023. And a terrible year for the games industry. But the games? So good.
… your list is basically all “20+ year old franchise/licensed property”. bruh if there’s that little that’s fresh or origninal then I’ argue that’s a terrible year for games.
Talos Principle 2 does demand my attention though, the first one was stellar and still looks gorgeous.
That is a very weird take.
So let me get this straight, Street Fighter 6 is a “20 year old franchise” so not fresh and original (it is maybe the biggest redefinition of the series since SF3, but hey). Somehow The Talos Principle 2, a direct sequel to a 10 year old game… not that.
But also, Dave the Builder, Sea of Stars, Hi-Fi Rush, Life of P, Lethal Company, Terra Nil, Humanity, Against the Storm… even going by new IP alone it’s been a great year. Not that I accept your premise, sequels and licensed games can obviously be, and indeed have been, fantastic and innovative.
I am very confused and you are either being disingenuous or so comitted to arbitrary requirements that any year is an equally good year.
“the nth iteration of sold-out BRAND that’s older than most people reading this that belongs to a genre so niche only its dedicated fanbase can tell what the hell is even different from the last entry is at least as fresh and original as the sole sequel to a one-off game that was actually made in this century” and “looking forward to an original game you liked getting a single sequel makes you a hypocrite for not also thinking the 2893598th BRAND niche game most people can’t tell from its predecessor is equally exciting” strike me as outright bizarre things to say and it’s weird and sad that when you reach for “fresh and original” the thing you come up with is [moldy franchise] [#].
After Cyberpunk I decided to be done paying $50+ to take up a quarter of my disk with a highly-acclaimed game that turns out to be the same old cookie-cutter 3D game with an expensive makeover. Anymore I mostly just play small indie games that friends recommend, and generally have a way better experience for it.
After this supposed stellar update dropped that overhauled the game or when the game initially came out?
This was back when it was new - my thoughts the entire 30 hours I was playing were things like:
“Johnny Silverhand is more annoying than Jar Jar and I will do anything to not hear his stupid fucking voice anymore” “this ‘hacking’ is one of the worst minigames I’ve ever seen” “the setting is ripped straight from PK Dick and doesn’t feel like it really lends anything to the story besides ‘high tech stuff that looks flashy on screen’” “oh the background i spend ten minutes consiering before choosing does fuckall about shit except slightly reword a few dialogs” “my god, every single character is insufferable” “oh wow, my inventory is full again already, and not a single thing in it is worth fuck for shit” “these physics are just as shitty as that Witcher 3 game I wasted money on last year” “this button feels really awkward to press when i need it but i don’t feel like editing the config by hand again” “holy shit when will this cutscene be over? There we g- DAMN IT THERE’S MORE? STFU ALREADY”
It was buggy but the bugs were the least of my worries. I came away feeling like I was promised Mexican food and then was given a cold soggy leftover Taco Bell burrito, and frankly after having basically the same experience with the super-awesome totally-finished fully-patched all-dlc-included GotY version of The Witcher 3 I really don’t trust CDPR to fix shit.
Thanks for the write-up, sums up my experience with both games
I couldn’t get behind Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what it was, just didn’t draw me in. Couldn’t keep at it. Put in 10hrs and haven’t picked it up in…3 months?
The steam reviews for cassette beasts drove me away from it, what did you like about it? Also what’s your in game time, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m curious considering it’s currently at 96% positive, what about the reviews drove you away? For me, the game captured the feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time (Heart Gold) again. It was similar enough on a basic level to draw me in, but all the fundamentals and mechanics are totally different and bring a wave of fresh air to the stale Pokemon formula.
If you’ve played Pokemon on the DS and didn’t like it, this game probably won’t be your kind of thing. If you did though, Cassette Beasts has a lot going for it. It has creative monster designs, a cast of unique side characters with their own story quests, a very memorable soundtrack (including my most played song of 2023), a not-overwhelmingly-massive open world with plenty to do, and just a smidge of analog horror.
I have ~30 hours in it iirc.
If this is turning into an indie/AA game recommendation thread, I highly recommend RAILGRADE. I bought it Sunday night and put in 13 hours between that and the next day and I’m only like 1/4 of the way through the campaign.
It’s basically like Satisfactory meets Mini Metro and it’s so goddamn addicting.
TBH I had a pretty good time since the CRPG-resurgence.
I’m glad you’re finding content to your taste, but I kind of have the opposite problem: I find RPGs exhaustingly tedious and convoluted, and every genre is infected with its worst parts - grinding and levels and crafting and loot and fetchquests and equipment - because it’s the “in” thing to do. everything feels so damn confused about what kind of game it’s trying to be and ends up doing nothing well.
Have you tried playing CRPGs instead of RPGs? They tend to be a lot less heavy on grind and crafting, and the combat systems are usually much more fun IMO (though I totally understand if you’re not into that style of combat).
Diablo 2, skyrim, oblivion, the witcher 3… all felt like having a crappy boring job where i have to interact with people i don’t like all day and nothing really feels worth doing but i gotta pick something and do it anyway. it also doesn’t help that 90% of the genre is indistinguishable tolkien knockoff worlds either making no effort or trying way too hard to stand out as unique and I’m beyond sick of that crap.
Those aren’t CRPGs. I’m talking the likes of Baldur’s Gate, Divinity: Original Sin or Shadowrun. Completely different gameplay.
I looked up CRPG because to me it mean “computer role playing game” but apparently now it refers to top-down point-and-click games under the heading “classic role playing game”, like that’s any more descriptive or clearly defined. Because this disjointed, confused genre needed more vaguery in the names of its subgenres.
Anyway most of these examples look like Diablo 2 so I’m going to assume that’s the type of game you mean - and I think it’s the same crap from a different camera angle. I don’t think I could say it’s “completely different gameplay” to something like Skyrim without feeling like a liar because the loop is bang on the same.
This stuff is pretty much the opposite of Diablo. Honestly insulting that you assume that I wouldn’t recognize that.
I’m sorry the terminology is so vague and inconsistent, and I’m so disengaged from “gaming” culture and behind on genre labels that I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you mean the genre formerly known as “point-and-click adventures”, like Disco Elysium?
The top-down isometric RPG experience is what it always meant, because it’s a computer replication of the original tabletop RPG experience. TTRPGs were just called RPGs, and adapting them to game format added the c, therefore becoming cRPGs.
I’ve never been into big A games. I’ll pay them if they’re highly reviewed and end up on sale, but I guess sim games are my thing. NFS underground me would never believe the driving sims I do with a sim rig and vr headset.
Simple solution, do not play triple AAA games. Find newer studios, indie devs, or smaller publishers who have yet to have private equity sink their teeth in to them.
no you must be shamed into compliance with my opinion that Age Old Franchise 5 (the fifty-fourth Age Old Franchise game) was decent and acceptable therefore AAA is good.
ITT gamers melt down and act like rowdy children when other people have opinions about games
edit: guys guys guys Larian studios will be fine, you don’t need to defend them or shame me into compliance because BG3 doesn’t look enjoyable to me. Jesus christ you’d think I was trying to take the game away from everyone.
edit2: guys capcom isn’t going to sleep with you because you bravely defended the literally 40th Street Fighter title against some rando’s disinterest and failure to hail it as a great moment in gaming or something. sheesh.
Be glad the points aren’t:
-ads
-microtransactions
people who complain about ads and microtransactions in games are confusing to me. just don’t buy it -> no ads no microtransactions ezpz. people really be throwing money around every year out of FOMO and complaining about the thing they knew they were buying afterward.
