Support NeoGAF

[64bitmodels]

layoffs, studio closures, forced account creations, lawsuits over dumb shit. These past 5 months have exposed how disgusting corporations are. They are the single biggest thing ruining the fucking hobby. I sincerely wish they'd all crumble into massive piles of dust and all those higherups to lose all their fucking money.

Best case scenario, you get to publish your product with compromises and splotches mandated by the greedy publisher, and they keep the rights to your IP to do whatever with it they wish.
Worst case scenario, You can make a transcendental masterpiece that's gaming's equivalent to the godfather, the great gatsby, Star Wars, and Shakespeare and they will throw it, you and your team in the dumpster because it didn't sell enough units or make enough money. And that's assuming they didn't handicap the potential revenue your product could generate by strapping it to some bung subscription service- if they did you may as well already kick the bucket.

They serve hardly any purpose, the studios do all the work, and even then they get spat on and stomped on, and we suffer as players too due to less games being made.

 

[Guilty_AI]

hm

 

[Gaiff]

These past few months? Gaming has been taken over by suits decades ago.

It's like everything that is good and becomes popular, big multinationals will want to profit from it. The main draw from having these huge corporations backing them is the fact that they foot the bill and allow for games that would never be possible otherwise. The drawback is, of course, the fact that they own gaming.

It was awesome when gaming was owned by nerds and people with a genuine passion for the medium, but this hasn't been the case in well over 20 years. The problem with artists and creators is that they ain't got a fucking clue on how to manage money. The problem with suits is that they have no fucking soul. In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves. This is seldom the case these days, however.

 

[ReBurn]

 

[West Texas CEO]

Is supporting more indies the answer?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

dont be hateful. thats bad.

 

[nani17]

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

These past few months? Gaming has been taken over by suits decades ago.

It's like everything that is good and becomes popular, big multinationals will want to profit from it. The main draw from having these huge corporations backing them is the fact that they foot the bill and allow for games that would never be possible otherwise. The drawback is of course the fact that they own gaming.

It was awesome when gaming was owned by nerds and people with a genuine passion for the medium, but this hasn't been the case in well over 20 years. The problem with artists and creators is that they ain't got a fucking clue on how to manage money. The problem with suits is that they have no fucking soul. In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves. This is seldom the case these days, however.

Even back in the 80's / 90's there were nerds being exploited by suits who made money off their passion. It's just much much bigger money these days.

 

[simpatico]

We’re getting closer and closer to not needing them. AI is going to be an ultra boost for indies. Animation, rote texture work, a lot of mundane tasks that mandated teams in the hundreds are going to become automated. We’ve got a golden era just over the horizon. This era hurts because we’re in the death throws of the 20th century model. There’s going to be a lot of pain between now and then if you make your living in the industry, but great stuff is on the horizon.

 

[64bitmodels]

In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves.

There is no best of both worlds. Either the creatives dominate or the cancer leech parasite suits do. And the way gaming is looking it's veering too far into the latter.

we need more BG3s to shake the gaming industry into a creative dominated field like web animation or indie music

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I'm just happy that I can provide shareholder value

 

[Danknugz]

These past few months? Gaming has been taken over by suits decades ago.

It's like everything that is good and becomes popular, big multinationals will want to profit from it. The main draw from having these huge corporations backing them is the fact that they foot the bill and allow for games that would never be possible otherwise. The drawback is of course the fact that they own gaming.

It was awesome when gaming was owned by nerds and people with a genuine passion for the medium, but this hasn't been the case in well over 20 years. The problem with artists and creators is that they ain't got a fucking clue on how to manage money. The problem with suits is that they have no fucking soul. In the best of both worlds, the corporate assholes empower the creative people and stop them from hurting themselves. This is seldom the case these days, however.

it's true but generally what happens is a small dedicated studio with a lot of talent and little corporate oversight gets eventually bought up and that's the beginning of the end in terms of quality. ID software comes to mind as well as oculus before faceboo.

 

[64bitmodels]

We’re getting closer and closer to not needing them. AI is going to be an ultra boost for indies. Animation, rote texture work, a lot of mundane tasks that mandated teams in the hundreds are going to become automated. We’ve got a golden era just over the horizon. This era hurts because we’re in the death throws on the 20th century model

on the contrary, AI is going to enable shit fuck publishers to pump out their mass market slop at rates never seen before all while laying off every single developer, artist and designer inside of the inevitably dying studio. Everyone who wants to make games will have no money and can't get any money because they can't get hired.

 

[64bitmodels]

hm

I don't know what you mean by this but Touhou is one of the best examples of how a property can flourish when NO corporate fucknugget is trying to muck it up. Had ZUN sold this to some megacorp like Konami or Square enix years ago it would be a dogshit franchise now.

 

[bitbydeath]

Is supporting more indies the answer?

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

We’re getting closer and closer to not needing them. AI is going to be an ultra boost for indies. Animation, rote texture work, a lot of mundane tasks that mandated teams in the hundreds are going to become automated. We’ve got a golden era just over the horizon. This era hurts because we’re in the death throws on the 20th century model. There’s going to be a lot of pain between now and then if you make your living in the industry, but great stuff is on the horizon.

I hope this happens and there's a shift in output of quality games back to independent devs. I mean, you can publish yourself on Steam these days, if your game is good enough the marketing will take care of itself. Just need to make a great game that people enjoy.

 

[Gaiff]

There is no best of both worlds. Either the creatives dominate or the cancer leech parasite suits do. And the way gaming is looking it's veering too far into the latter.

we need more BG3s to shake the gaming industry into a creative dominated field like web animation or indie music

I’d say you need people with a business acumen to run a business. You can’t run a multi-billion dollar corporation with artists at the helm.

If you want creatives back in the driver’s seat, then the industry would have to be much smaller and games’ budgets would fall accordingly.

 

[RoboFu]

It's a billion dollar industry with multi millionaire ceos and board members who get millions a year for nothing. It also has a sub industry of consultants and third party devs/animators/modelers.

It's nothing like it was in 90s

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I hope this happens and there's a shift in output of quality games back to independent devs. I mean, you can publish yourself on Steam these days, if your game is good enough the marketing will take care of itself. Just need to make a great game that people enjoy.

If the AI art scene is anything to go by all we'll see is an industry even more creativly bankrupt and rife with theft

No thanks

 

[OverHeat]

Gaming sucks now I have more fun with Indy games then AAA games…

 

[Guilty_AI]

I don't know what you mean by this but Touhou is one of the best examples of how a property can flourish when NO corporate fucknugget is trying to muck it up. Had ZUN sold this to some megacorp like Konami or Square enix years ago it would be a dogshit franchise now.

Do not invoke touhou's name, for i shall turn this into a touhou thread.

 

[64bitmodels]

If you want creatives back in the driver’s seat, then the industry would have to be much smaller and games’ budgets would fall accordingly.

OK.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

 

[StereoVsn]

on the contrary, AI is going to enable shit fuck publishers to pump out their mass market slop at rates never seen before all while laying off every single developer, artist and designer inside of the inevitably dying studio. Everyone who wants to make games will have no money and can't get any money because they can't get hired.

Yep, what’s going to happen is that Corpos will use AI as an excuse to fire a shitload of developers and creatives, and not just in gaming. That goes double for MS which investing hundreds of $billions into AI.

All these devs won’t be able to just create indie games with AI and have a good life… because they won’t sell. You already see over-saturation with games and content in general. AI is going to make it 10x worse.

I expect a terrible time for many folks in upcoming years.

 

[Wastelander92]

You can probably find a shack in Somalia for $2.

 

[64bitmodels]

this video is funny, but also it doesn't ALWAYS have to end like this. Valve knows to respect their consumers and Nintendo despite their missteps still know to just make good video games.

Private companies in general seem to be a lot smarter with their decisions than the publicly owned shareholder hellholes

 

[StereoVsn]

Yep, what’s going to happen is that Corpos will use AI as an excuse to fire a shitload of developers and creatives, and not just in gaming. That goes double for MS which investing hundreds of $billions into AI.

All these devs won’t be able to just create indie games with AI and have a good life… because they won’t sell. You already see over-saturation with games and content in general. AI is going to make it 10x worse.

I expect a terrible time for many folks in upcoming years.

As a small example. My company started to use GitHub Copilot and a few other AI tools (Enterprise versions with data protection). We are getting less interns and hiring less junior people already and that’s only a year in.

This is due to the fact that AI tools are starting to be good enough to take on junior jobs in a lot of tech fields. Throw in training models on local data and it gets even worse.

Again, this is about a year into this experiment. We have of course used previous AI/ML tools but nothing hit to this extent. I am not in gaming but do work in a decently large multinational corpo (about 100k people), which does a fair amount of high tech related work. You can also look at IBM, MS, Oracle and other large tech corpos hiring patterns.

 

[Guilty_AI]

OK.

I understand the spirit of this phrase, but i also think it misses the main idea.

Smaller dev teams with smaller budgets will more often than not create more interesting and unique games. But that won't necessarely mean the games would have worse graphics or be shorter.

 

[squidilix]

Grow up.

 

[bender]

Gaming sucks now I have more fun with Indy games then AAA games…

Lucas Pope is dope. Fuck him though, he's going to make me buy a Playdate.

 

[StereoVsn]

I understand the spirit of this phrase, but i also think it misses the main idea.

Smaller dev teams with smaller budgets will more often than not create more interesting and unique games. But that won't necessarely mean the games would have worse graphics or be shorter.

Usually it does mean that though unless you get to Larian’s level. Note that indies also rarely pay well for their devs unless they manage to hit it big.

And the more indie companies start (globally), the more competition there will be and it’s going to be even harder to survive.

There are good and even great games being released which will flop. There is too much content of all kind being generated already and we are barely starting in the AI era.

 

[64bitmodels]

I understand the spirit of this phrase, but i also think it misses the main idea.

Smaller dev teams with smaller budgets will more often than not create more interesting and unique games. But that won't necessarely mean the games would have worse graphics or be shorter.

true. However shorter games are also considered a plus these days due to overwhelming bloat in modern video games and the fact that not everyone has time or the attention span to grind out a 40-60 hour long RPG. Plus, most indies already tend to be shorter than AAA on average, due to having actual genre variety and not trying to shoehorn everything into being an RPG with an overtly long story.

But yeah. Gaming returning to the days of when AAA was merely 1-30 million in budget and teams were mostly comprised of 50-400 people would be a major plus.

Grow up.

ok. Adults hate corporations and C-suite too. Everybody does.

 

[Topher]

Grow up.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I had more fun with Balatro than any AAA western game this gen

 

[feynoob]

Be like me.
Hope for nothing and expect nothing. Life would be wonderful that way.

 

[Topher]

Be like me.

 

[64bitmodels]

Be like me.
Hope for nothing and expect nothing. Life would be wonderful that way.

PFP checks out

 

[feynoob]

PFP checks out

I am just sexy that is all.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Usually it does mean that though unless you get to Larian’s level.

You're not seeing wide enough. It's perfectly possible to create games that can be played for really long with just a really good formula without the need of ultra-curated content every step of the way (see: Factorio, roguelites, minecraft, etc).

Even with story-driven games too. Visual Novels are pretty cheap to make but can easily extend for 50-100 hours. Games where it's easier to make more content for essentially.

Note that indies also rarely pay well for their devs unless they manage to hit it big.

And the more indie companies start (globally), the more competition there will be and it’s going to be even harder to survive.

There are good and even great games being released which will flop. There is too much content of all kind being generated already and we are barely starting in the AI era.

Unfortunately that's just the reality of entertainment as a whole. Books, music, video, etc; all suffer from the issue of visibility.

In the end these products are just luxuries appealing to the whims of a public that doesn't really need them, while at the same time being something a lot of people want to be part of.

true. However shorter games are also considered a plus these days due to overwhelming bloat in modern video games and the fact that not everyone has time or the attention span to grind out a 40-60 hour long RPG. Plus, most indies already tend to be shorter than AAA on average, due to having actual genre variety and not trying to shoehorn everything into being an RPG with an overtly long story.

There are different sorts of tastes out there. Even focused experiences that do not add unnecessary bloat can be very long, and still very popular.

 

[RoboFu]

Gaming sucks now I have more fun with Indy games then AAA games…

Even indie games are falling into the templated rut. Everything is either a rogue like or dating sim / novel.

 

[bender]

 

[Guilty_AI]

Even indie games are falling into the templated rut. Everything is either a rogue like or dating sim / novel.

eh

 

[Danjin44]

 

[bender]

 

[MrRenegade]

Go out, touch grass. There is steam, with lots of fine indie games for you. Forget the drama, don't read the news, why care about trillion dollar companies and their shenanigans? Just enjoy what's out there.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You hate the system that grew the very industry you love.

 

[ungalo]

Indies are good, but we don't have to ask ourselves how we can have more games that cost nothing to make, this kind of games will always exist anyway. There's already too much.

If we were to take all the people currently working in big studios, spliting them into very small entities, sure there would be more good indie games but i'm not sure it would be that interesting for video games really.

We want bigger/more ambitious things in term of productions, we want people to invest in risky projects, the video game industry can't be considered alive without it.

As for the layoffs, that would not be realistic to expect something from juggernauts like Microsoft, 4 studios is just a detail for them and the chain is monumental in scale. They spend their time cutting, reinvesting, reallocating looking at the big picture, plus it's the western mentality of short term, fiscal year and dividends compared to the "real" corporate attitude that companies like Nintendo have (which favored stability). It's a cultural thing, i'm not sure the C-suites in the West like their company more than we do.

 

[64bitmodels]

You hate the system that grew the very industry you love.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Gaming sucks now I have more fun with Indy games then AAA games…

Preach the good word.

Beside if the AAA magically collapsed tomorrow, there are multitudes of AA and Indies that will fill the ranks. Many of them deserve the eyes of the consumer base far more than the shit being churned out by the top now. Secondly, there is enough of a backlog of amazing AAA games from years past that should get a lot more attention. There will never be "a gaming drought."

The Next New AAA Thing has been mostly shit for the past couple years. Hope the industry has to reshuffle the deck of publishers.

 

[poppabk]

Is supporting more indies the answer?

Thing is that most of the people that talk like the OP - if you suggest indie games they will just say they aren't interested in that indie shit.