Right I get that, but the entire point of the post is supposed to be reasons why AAA games are "stagnant" and none of his examples even remotely prove that claim.
Why is the Western AAA game industry stagnating?
- Thread starter Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)
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I'm not saying Japan doesn't have its own dirty practices, Gacha games are a blight on man and pachinko can rot in hell but I feel like this type of micro-transaction has not had as much impact on the releases on the AAA titles as Western ones.
(Throw up in mouth at this possible future)
The industry is constantly changing, I hope that Japanese developers don't try to chase a trend like that but that's probably wishful thinking.
I was talking about publishers thinking single-player games are dead not that they are actually dead. Also, I forgot about Jedi fallen order, a great game and a good counterargument example, I'm honestly shocked that came from EA.
I would also note as I was excluding Japanese developed games and praised Sony for being an exception earlier in my post, Sony has been killing it. I would also note besides Jedi all those games you mentioned are you from the Japanese or from Sony, (red dead redemption 2 is probably also another point towards AAA Western development favor.)
They can make back their budgets but the more money you have into a project the less you want to take risks on it, the more budgets increase the safer they want to play it. Being able to make more money with a.k.a. micro-transactions makes it a much easier venture.
I disagree with that assessment but I also think where I went wrong is that it isn't Japanese AAA devs that do this kind of thing but Nintendo specifically and I know it's not just a one off thing because attempting to do more with less has been Nintendo's MO from the Gameboy to the Wii to the Switch and can be seen all over their games too.
Sure, but games like Final Fantasy and stuff like Nier (Automate) are more the exception than the rule. That's not really 'constantly'. If you look at Square's output from the past 5 years or so, the vast majority of it is remasters and rereleases of games from their 16-bit to PS2 era golden age. Or remakes of games from that golden age. Or games that are deliberately trying to invoke that golden age, like I Am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, Octopath Traveller and Project Triangle. And of course tons of iterative sequels to established franchises, a good number of which have been around since that golden age, if not longer.
I've had a look at Activision and EA's output during the same 5 year span, and ... sequels, remasters, remakes, the occasional new thing. And yeah, their yearly franchises, but if Square had such a franchise and the ability to put one out every year, what would be the odds that they wouldn't? My guess? Non-existent. Other than that, I don't really see them as being meaningfully different in terms of innovation, or lack thereof. If anything, I'd argue no other company is overall banking quite as hard on nostalgia as Square, other than Nintendo, and I'm saying that as someone who has enjoyed Square games these past years, while vehemently refusing to even touch anything Activision or EA.
If this is meant as another argument in favor of innovation in Japanese AAA, it's not as good as you might think it is, because both of those games were made by Western studios.
Santa Monica is American, while Guerilla is Dutch. In fact, most of Sony's first party studios are Western. Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog and Bluepoint are all American. Media Molecule is British, as is Sumo Digital. The San Diego, San Mateo and London studios, obviously. The only notable non-Western studios are Polyphony Digital and Japan Studio, one of which exclusively works on a single franchise (Gran Turismo), while the other was the studio that used to make all the quirky, innovative but unfortunately not hugely successful 1st party games, but who these past few years have been pretty much relegated to basically doing mercenary work for other studios, and who not too long ago came into the news because Sony decided to downsize them.
So, not really a glowing endorsement of innovation in the Japanese industry when the majority of Sony's output is by Western studios.
Again, a single departure does not a trend make, and it came after almost a decade of mostly doing the same. I mean, look at how much more diverse their portfolio was before Dark Souls and how that petered out to just Soulslikes soon after, until Sekiro. Then again, Miyazaki has called Elden Ring "the natural evolution" of Souls games, so I'm taking that as meaning they went right back to making a Souls game, except this time open world. It remains to be seen whether that is a good or bad thing.
Also, I'd like to point out that Sekiro was published by Activision.
My point was not that AAA never innovates, but that Japanese AAA is not particularly more or less innovative that its Western counterpart. Overall, it might actually be more traditionalist, rather in keeping with Japanese culture as a whole. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Generally means they're less prone to pulling as much of the same AAA bullshit as their Western peers, which is why 90+ percent of the AAA games I bought these past years were Japanese.
I use Square as a general for Japanese development. But you can still see the wild ideas coming from other places too. Atlus, FromSoft, Team Ninja, Ninja team.
And i don't really disqualify remakes personally. There is very decent merit recreating games with a modern look. Things like Resident Evil 2, Final Fantasy 7 remake allow these games to be revitalized with the full scoop of vision that wasn't possible before. Just because a game came out in 1997 doesn't mean that concept is any less good 25 years later.
i know they were. But because they are owed and funded by a Japanese company, I didn't think it was fair to lump them into pure Western Development, because they aren't under the same pressures that a studio owed by EA of Activision would be under. So i didn't count them even though they are technically WEstern developers sure. And if you want to include them, then that further ruins the OP's original point.
Well I'd make the argument that the weren't all that successful until they found a winning formula. I know Armored Core games have a Niche following, but nothing has been successful as the Souls stuff for them. At least they were the originators of the formula. Not many development studios can claim they've started an entire genre of game. And while they might be the same in feel, I would argue that every game in the "series" has tried different things. Bloodborne is not the same as Dark Souls, and Sekiro is not the same as either of the others.
Elden Ring....well whho the fuck even knows at this point. That game might as well be abandonware for how long it's been hidden.
Point being, just because they are making the same type of game, doesn't mean that progress of improvement of that game type can't be made.
Hell most games that come out as "innovative" are just gradual improvements over a similar game design formula. Is Mario Odyssey all that different from Super Mario World? Is Breath of the Wild all that different than Windwaker? Settings change but moment to moment gameplay doesn't change much between games even when you cross over from series to series.
How much different is the gameplay of Street Fighter, versus Mortal Kombat? Stylistically maybe, but the core concepts of fighting games don't change much game to game.
Which is why I don't really understand these threads as a premise. Because if you are going to talk about the lack of progress, yet don't offer some sort of examples of how progress should move forward than you are basically complaining about being stuck in the mud while you yourself are stuck in that same mud.
Because the kind progress they say is lacking in AAA is the big kind. Not iterative evolution of existing ideas. Or creating 'new' things by combining existing ideas. No, sweeping change and fully new ideas. But AAA is often not where to look for that kind of progress, and I already explained why I believe that is. You'd have better luck looking for that in indie and modding. Not that there isn't a whole lot of derivative stuff in those realms either, but the odds of something that hasn't been done before in some form happening there is simply larger for the same reason it's not in AAA.
And that's the kind of progress the vast majority don't realize they want until they are presented with it.
You are right big innovation happens in the indie space. Minecraft, PUBG, etc.
And there is a reason for that. Indie games are like proof of concept. The idea has to be shown to work before you get the backing to blow that idea up.
The problem with that chain of thought, is that change happens gradually. Every year a game does something slightly different but interesting enough to get carried forward to another game that also slightly changes it. And on and on it goes.
Very rarely....if ever...does a game come out that is like nothing to ever come before and is so radically different that it changes the face of how the industry develops games going forward.
You see innovation DOES happen in the AAA space, however it happens slower at a more measured pace to not jarringly alienate consumers. The perfect example can be seen in last week's Mass Effect Legendary Edition. You have three games in a single package that showcase what figuratively small steps each game takes to innovate. And the thing about that is each innovation has pros and cons, which is why it feels like it's so slow in the AAA space.
It's easy to look at the Mako and say, "Man that's shit." But you ignore the innovation it took to make how many explorable planets each with things to discover on them, and the vast majority of them having nothing to do with the core concept of the game in general. Then in ME2 they took it away completely, instead working with the story telling and trying to improve the features that were better liked from the first game, while making the gunplay feel better and streamlining the RPG elements which were mostly unhelpful in ME1. And on and on it can go.
The Final Fantasy series is another good long running example of how they've tried to innovate with each entry. Playing with different systems to try and find the best RPG system they could, and sometimes they find a hit, and other times a system stumbles, but they always try something different.
So ultimately the problem is, innovation in the indie space is obvious and large. But in the AAA-space it's baby-steps. But the trade off with that is this.
On one hand you have big innovations that often times don't work over the course of a whole game. Many great concepts and gameplay ideas, but a lack of experience holds those games back.
While on the other hand, you have consistent games that evolve slowly, however they maintain a level of quality and reliability as they do so.
Because everyone involved in the Dev to customer process is acting with short-sightedness.
Gamers being a diversified group want different things, but there are a number that just plays COD, and sports games which are mainly predatory, the pirates who pirated single-player games vs finding ways to compete with modded multiplayer assets to modded games(Skyrim) so now live service games run amok with no competition, the live service people who like me just want to have their time respected will do anything to get their progressed saved and play the same or similar game forever are not helping, the single-player people just buy their games but have lost the paid skin, DLC wars, and now DLCs run amok which is the least bad thing, but DLCS in my opinions should use be another game, or free, but DLC kind of lead to the Overton window to MTX.
On the Dev side, live service devs are folding to their bosses most of the time instead of fighting to make their games better. As a dev you want people to enjoy your game not get as much money, then let marketing handle the backlash.
Marketing too is bad, they just want clicks, but if they simply showed gameplay, and gave information to consumers we could increase the quality of the game, also we need less CGI, and more gameplay, and trusted reviewer scores.
Testing has died and has been given to beta people who sometimes paid for it. The company sets their cake and eats it too. Players should boycott betas, I did for Ubisoft's game Division MMO despite liking the company.
The biggest offenders are the execs. Like every other corporation, they want money as money is power and a useful hedge against bad times. But they think in years at best, to months, and then just leave with bonuses. Also, stock buybacks just give money to the executives, and shareholders, but not stakeholders which are everyone else. We need a more customer-friendly policy to stop short-sight thinking.
In the newspapers, it's the editors that are the problem with quality, and framing here it's the executives.
And you know what I think about most if not the vast majority of games journalists.
Gamers being a diversified group want different things, but there are a number that just plays COD, and sports games which are mainly predatory, the pirates who pirated single-player games vs finding ways to compete with modded multiplayer assets to modded games(Skyrim) so now live service games run amok with no competition, the live service people who like me just want to have their time respected will do anything to get their progressed saved and play the same or similar game forever are not helping, the single-player people just buy their games but have lost the paid skin, DLC wars, and now DLCs run amok which is the least bad thing, but DLCS in my opinions should use be another game, or free, but DLC kind of lead to the Overton window to MTX.
On the Dev side, live service devs are folding to their bosses most of the time instead of fighting to make their games better. As a dev you want people to enjoy your game not get as much money, then let marketing handle the backlash.
Marketing too is bad, they just want clicks, but if they simply showed gameplay, and gave information to consumers we could increase the quality of the game, also we need less CGI, and more gameplay, and trusted reviewer scores.
Testing has died and has been given to beta people who sometimes paid for it. The company sets their cake and eats it too. Players should boycott betas, I did for Ubisoft's game Division MMO despite liking the company.
The biggest offenders are the execs. Like every other corporation, they want money as money is power and a useful hedge against bad times. But they think in years at best, to months, and then just leave with bonuses. Also, stock buybacks just give money to the executives, and shareholders, but not stakeholders which are everyone else. We need a more customer-friendly policy to stop short-sight thinking.
In the newspapers, it's the editors that are the problem with quality, and framing here it's the executives.
And you know what I think about most if not the vast majority of games journalists.
Gaming has horrendous problems, but my problems with gaming is a puddle compared to my problems with film and tv these days.
I am more excited for more new games then I am for new movies and TV.
I am more excited for more new games then I am for new movies and TV.
I mean, I don't think being controversial is a sign of stagnation (if anything, some controversies are about games that tried to do something different or ambitious and failed miserably at make it good).
I think the AAA was more stagnant by the end of the PS3 / XBOX 360 era, when AAA games tried to be more like Call of Duty and was saturated with cover-based shooters (they seemed like new and different titles; but if you had played one of them, you had played them all).
It varies with me. Most movies, I don't bother watching or don't give a shit. TV, even less. I watch what interests me. I don't get excited for most games in the AAA space, but there are still a few. My excitement mainly comes from the AA, B-Grade, and indie.
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The thing there is that at this point Sony’s gaming division especially is more a western company than Japanese. Even before moving their PlayStation headquarters to LA they were trending in this direction. It’s one of the later examples of what happens when companies follow the money but it also involves a considerable cost to their heritage and by extent, reputation.
Anyways, I’ve posted this before a few months back but don’t recall where; the most comprehensive study/analysis I’ve ever found on the cost of games, broken down to the dollars per megabyte (also purposefully excluding marketing costs) along with reasoning behind current trends. It’s pretty exhaustive but kinda needs to be to clear the air about this often misunderstood issue.
The cost of games
Yesterday I was in Anaheim giving a talk called “Industry Lifecycles.” (click here for slides and video). It was intended to be a brief summary of the blog post of the same title, with …
www.raphkoster.com
AAA has been trying to make the game that makes all the money and that's the problem. Whether you go back to trying to be the next COD or now with the chase being the next looter shooter or battle royale or open world (w/ stealth elements, crafting, collectibles as Yahtzee likes to put it). The games are trying to be as broad as possible instead of being a focused experience. That's another thing Yahtzee talks about. I've been listening to the recent Escapist stuff like Slighty Something Else and the occasional stream (since I have to drive 3 hours on Mondays and Fridays the last month). AAA games are rarely focused on their gameplay loop nowadays and add in a ton of shit that only hinders the overall game just because that's what everyone else does.
I really don't agree with Souls being a genre, it's a dungeon crawler with a couple unique additions. Both Bloodborne and Sekiro especially was hurt by the Souls elements that really didn't have much of a place in those worlds. Then, there's the Game Maker's Toolkit about how making a souls-like a genre is a really bad idea because it will be like rogue-likes before they finally became more than just copies of Rogue.
This is literally the definition of how genres evolve.
Is Diablo a dungeon crawler? Or an RPG? Or a Looter game?
Is Destiny an FPS? RPG? Looter shooter?
You can break down any game to it's core elements and argue how they are just the same shit as something before it. But it's games that take the existing thing and add onto it, change it, that redefine or invent new genres.
The reason why I argue that Souls has become it's own genre is because before Souls was popular, there was nothing like it. Now all kinds of Souls knock-offs get made. I've previously listed a bunch of titles that wouldn't be the same if Souls and souls SPECIFICALLY hadn't come before it.
I think it's actually in a better shape than it was few years ago. Not great, but better. The monetization is here to stay, but many of these studios atleast try to throw a bone in the form of sp games, from time to time.
The journos aren't fellating every AAA release, just because "wow it's like a hollywood blockbuster, but for games"
It's also nice to see japanese devs got their shit together.
There's no comparison with 76 which was a dumpster fire at launch(greatly improved since, or so i heard.)
As for why wouldn't they release next entries: Same reason why Rockstar doesn't release GTAV. Fan sympathies have little to do with it.
The journos aren't fellating every AAA release, just because "wow it's like a hollywood blockbuster, but for games"
It's also nice to see japanese devs got their shit together.
What are you talking about? Skyrim was incredibly received on the launch. Most of the complaints nowadays are memes about the countless re-releases.
There's no comparison with 76 which was a dumpster fire at launch(greatly improved since, or so i heard.)
As for why wouldn't they release next entries: Same reason why Rockstar doesn't release GTAV. Fan sympathies have little to do with it.
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If you wanna call it a subgenre, fine but it's not some new genre. The way I explained Souls to a friend way back was just picture DnD in essence but it's just going through a dungeon on your own, there's traps and enemies, ambushes, and bosses and you might now know where to go. In DnD you have to be careful and in video game RPGs that's rarely the case, which is why I compared it more to DnD than like say Diablo but without the loot.
I personally have a very specific definition of what an RPG is and most video game RPGs aren't RPGs as they usually strip out the actual role-playing, just keeping the progression systems. To me, the core of an RPG is the world reacting to my actions/decisions, and very few video game RPGs are strong in that regard. With every game nowadays having a progression system, it basically shows that either "RPG systems" don't make a game an RPG or every game is an RPG. I don't see looters as a core element so it's not a genre on it's own but something you tack on to something else (shooter, dungeon crawler, etc.). For example, Borderlands would still be Borderlands without loot IMO as that game is far more about the skill trees and building your character that way and the loot really just accentuates your build vs makes it. Take the skill tree out of Borderlands and it's far less of an interesting game than if you took the loot out.
Diablo is one I would give the pioneer status too generally, as a LooteRPG or whatever you want to call it. Its only real predeccessor was Gauntlet, and it adds so many layers of complexity on to that formula that its hard to really put the two side by side.
Destiny is an FPS through and through. The RPG elements are almost opposed ot the game, and largely exist to drive FOMO/player login retention with how little impact they land on the game at all.
Souls.... does nothing terribly dissimilar from the other ARPGs of its era. Its unique mechanic is literally retrieving your souls after you die. Which ironically, given its reputation... is just a *less* punishing take on checkpoints. All your other "Souls" like stuff, dodge rol,s stamina bars, etc was prettymuch already embedded in the ARPG genre (hell, I think stamina bars came from Elder Scrolls, if anything).
Which in itself, is actually why "Souls-like"'s are so obvious and easy to label. They're copying this one highly specific mechanic (And usually a drab desturated gothic art style, as a side order). Which you can slap that mechanic into prettymuch any actual genre. Hell, that mechanic is in Minecraft and I'm not sure if Minecraft XP balls might even predate Souls.
Games as a service and smartphone games are much more lucrative than high budget, story driven, single player games that enthusiasts like at a fraction of the costs or risks or development time. For any kind of business person the choice is easily made. You really need companies with affinity for gaming or who don't expect immediate return on investment who are still willing to pursue their vision. Companies that only care about money like konami for example opted out of AAA game development completely(after only hanging on to Metal Gear for the preceding decade). Even the biggest western publishers like EA, Activision and Ubisoft only re-release their annual crap(with the vast majority of their profits also coming from mobile).
If there is one thing I would say that is the most important contributer to the lack of innovation or output of AAA games it is the popularity of smartphones. That is simply the biggest market by far and unlikely to change anytime soon.
If there is one thing I would say that is the most important contributer to the lack of innovation or output of AAA games it is the popularity of smartphones. That is simply the biggest market by far and unlikely to change anytime soon.