Sony PS5 2

[x Tame Impala]

it cost 400 million for THAT? That type of wasteful spending would make government officials/departments blush with envy.

I thought Spider-Man 2 being over 300 was absurd. Not a bad game by any means, but my thought playing through it was "man this really cost that much? it feels too similar." That's even worse.

This entire damn industry needs a wakeup call. There's so many studios/devs out there doing way more, with way less. Astro Bot probably cost a fraction of that to make but got universal acclaim from both critics and users for being what a video game should be; fun.

Gamers and especially PC gamers need to chill the hell out over graphics and FPS. I'm on a soapbox about this for sure but I can't imagine how it doesn't stall and drag out development to try and squeeze all the game mechanics into a system that's already near max potential because of trying to crank out ultra-realistic graphics.

Make games more fun. They don't need to look stunning.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Gamers and especially PC gamers need to chill the hell out over graphics and FPS. I'm on a soapbox about this for sure but I can't imagine how it doesn't stall and drag out development to try and squeeze all the game mechanics into a system that's already near max potential because of trying to crank out ultra-realistic graphics.

Make games more fun. They don't need to look stunning.

I fully agree. There's a great case to be made for art design > graphics and i think there's no better example to look at than Nintendo.

They've been running on underpowered hardware for decades at this point, but no one gives a shit because they probably understand better than most how to weaponize art design to cover for perceived graphical shortcomings. Mario Odyssey is probably the best looking Mario game to date. Vibrant, brightly colored landscapes with eye catching stuff in the environment that makes everything pop right down to Mario himself. Both Switch Zelda games look gorgeous using a similar philosophy. That's also the reason why most of Nintendo's back catalog, even right down to the older Super Nintendo stuff holds up.

Other games (mostly Japanese) have been doing this for a while too. the Yakuza devs are probably the most shameless assets recyclers in the business to the point their games have looked almost the same since the PS3 era but once again, no one cares because the games have usually engaging stories and gameplay ranging from great, to goofy fun. Then there's anything with an anime inspiried art style like Granblue, Persona, etc.

I'd go as far to say it's this, and other reasons are why the Japanese game industry is currently dancing circles around the North American contingent outside of basically Playstation studios. Fun comes first instead of stupid shit like HYPER REALISTIC EYELASHES

 

[PeteWorrell]

I believe that there is a creativity problem in parts of the industry and i think it has to do with the work conditions. Employees are being crunched to death and many talented people quit after the game is done.

Too many executives don't understand that you need talented people to make good games and they think that people quitting in masses is no big deal. That every employee is just another cog in the machine and that they are easily replaced. That's how we end up with something like Concord.

Japanese developers don't really face that problem since the employees are conditioned to accept their notoriously brutal work culture and being crunched is just another day at work. That makes them less likely to lose talent unlike western developers.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I believe that there is a creativity problem in parts of the industry and i think it has to do with the work conditions. Employees are being crunched to death and many talented people quit after the game is done.

Too many executives don't understand that you need talented people to make good games and they think that people quitting in masses is no big deal. That every employee is just another cog in the machine and that they are easily replaced. That's how we end up with something like Concord.

Japanese developers don't really face that problem since the employees are conditioned to accept their notoriously brutal work culture and being crunched is just another day at work. That makes them less likely to lose talent unlike western developers.

To be fair we're not in the studio working with these devs. Not declaring anything here but what I tend to gather from general internet discourse has taught me anything there may be a non-insignificant amount of devs with poor work ethics, unable to meet demands and deadlines, unable to take direction and corrections, etc...

Maybe that plays some part in it as well. I can't say for certain and it's really just based on spending too much time on Reddit this past year and watching a few Timothy Cain videos about the industry.

Point being I wouldn't put it entirely on crunch and unruly studio higher-ups. I'm sure it's a combo of both. Maybe Japanese developers have accepted and embrace the fact that developing videogames requires a crazy amount of effort and focus, usually in a short time-span. It just goes with the territory of making something incredible. Maybe there's a clash with expectations of studios trying to get games out in a specific time and developers not wanting to work more than 40 hours a week in order to make it happen.

As I've mentioned before I'm sure there's a "too many cooks in the kitchen" aspect here that is a major culprit as well. How can these studios have hundreds (thousands?) of people on their team and still have these games take 6+ years to finish. It's not like they're all pumping out masterpieces like RDR2 on a constant basis either so I'm not sure what happens.