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AAA Games are unsustainable.
- Thread starter tusharngf
- Start date
IAmRei
Member
Unfortunately for "some"... not...
But well, i guess to each to their own, for me its AAA enough for some of their games. Level of polishness is out of chart mostly (not counting PMSV)
Currently playing totk, and amazed with complexity of the gameplay.
KXVXII9X
Member
I've been asking the same question about online discourse for a decade now.
fart town usa
Gold Member
One thing I don't get is that so many gamers rightfully dump on EA, Ubisoft, etc. but then when a quality AA title releases from a small dev, they write it off because it's AA, or it costs $50-60 instead of $30.
The industry has no shortage of bad actors but gamers are a huge source of the problem too. Too much reliance on YT narratives and review scores. Not enough gaming.
If a small game looks interesting to you, try it out. Too many gamers have allowed themselves to be trained to be scared to death over taking a chance on a game.
The industry has no shortage of bad actors but gamers are a huge source of the problem too. Too much reliance on YT narratives and review scores. Not enough gaming.
If a small game looks interesting to you, try it out. Too many gamers have allowed themselves to be trained to be scared to death over taking a chance on a game.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
As for sustainability, there's two key things to remember.
1. Does the company care about profit $$$ or margin %? Lets say a game sells a ton, profits are high $$$ but a low margin %. Another games sells less, profits are decent but not crazy, but the ROI % is solid. Which does the company care more about? Taking profit dollars to the bank or about high margin? Which leads to #2.......
2. Let's face it. Most studios make games (especially sequels, whereas a new IP can be anything) where the next game has to be bigger and more badass. That means more costs, so more sales are needed to cover it. In other words, they are setting themselves up in a cycle where game budget and production values can only go up. And when that happens, you set gamers expectations things got to get huger and awesomer. Anthing else in life you buy how many fit this trend? Not many. Ok, maybe PCs get more powerful and cars should be better featured and look cooler. But most things are kind of similar. I dont see microwave or tshirt makers amping up the costs and expectation by 3x and then charging the same price, in hopes people now buy 3x the sales to cover it.
Unless gamers somehow skyrocket sales and mtx even more to cover costs, I see a lot more studios failing because I see entertainment industry as a whole... games, movies, sports as something they rarely go down in scope and production values and salary. It's one of those overarching industries where wow factor and costs only go up with hardly any controls. It takes crash and burn events wiping out companies or sports leagues going on management lock down to gets things back down. The industry is heavily skewed to selling a product with lots of production values and marketing to win sales. And that stuff costs money to wow factor people.
The problem with gaming is when games become AAA in scope, companies and studios skew to all eggs in one basket, where that game is make or break. Fewer products, in hopes they become giant sellers.
Other industries arent like that. You dont see Mars saying let's reduce our product lines from tons of chocolate bars and pet food into 1 Mars bar and 1 bag of Hills pet food, make them 10x the quality at a value price and hope streamling everything into 2 items is a good strategy.
If anything, big companies with money expand their product lines by inventing new brands or buy brands off companies who want to sell. It involves more people, work, and factory lines, but the sales are there and it spreads out risk. With so much work spread out it also reduces the tech and gaming trend of roller coaster hiring and firing since there's always work to go around as people can rotate brands.
1. Does the company care about profit $$$ or margin %? Lets say a game sells a ton, profits are high $$$ but a low margin %. Another games sells less, profits are decent but not crazy, but the ROI % is solid. Which does the company care more about? Taking profit dollars to the bank or about high margin? Which leads to #2.......
2. Let's face it. Most studios make games (especially sequels, whereas a new IP can be anything) where the next game has to be bigger and more badass. That means more costs, so more sales are needed to cover it. In other words, they are setting themselves up in a cycle where game budget and production values can only go up. And when that happens, you set gamers expectations things got to get huger and awesomer. Anthing else in life you buy how many fit this trend? Not many. Ok, maybe PCs get more powerful and cars should be better featured and look cooler. But most things are kind of similar. I dont see microwave or tshirt makers amping up the costs and expectation by 3x and then charging the same price, in hopes people now buy 3x the sales to cover it.
Unless gamers somehow skyrocket sales and mtx even more to cover costs, I see a lot more studios failing because I see entertainment industry as a whole... games, movies, sports as something they rarely go down in scope and production values and salary. It's one of those overarching industries where wow factor and costs only go up with hardly any controls. It takes crash and burn events wiping out companies or sports leagues going on management lock down to gets things back down. The industry is heavily skewed to selling a product with lots of production values and marketing to win sales. And that stuff costs money to wow factor people.
The problem with gaming is when games become AAA in scope, companies and studios skew to all eggs in one basket, where that game is make or break. Fewer products, in hopes they become giant sellers.
Other industries arent like that. You dont see Mars saying let's reduce our product lines from tons of chocolate bars and pet food into 1 Mars bar and 1 bag of Hills pet food, make them 10x the quality at a value price and hope streamling everything into 2 items is a good strategy.
If anything, big companies with money expand their product lines by inventing new brands or buy brands off companies who want to sell. It involves more people, work, and factory lines, but the sales are there and it spreads out risk. With so much work spread out it also reduces the tech and gaming trend of roller coaster hiring and firing since there's always work to go around as people can rotate brands.
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Negotiator101
Member
Laptop1991
Member
If AA studios can get to the point of making what was the tripe A studios output 10 to 15 years ago, then i'll be fine with that, because the current AAA games and these new AAAA Ubi games don't even deserve a single A imo.
digoutyoursoul
Member
The core user base of the likes of PlayStation and Xbox don’t buy these new consoles for AA gaming, they are one layer of many in terms of content, including indies, not the main attraction.
I wonder what the narrative will be for the Pro from PlayStation or if Xbox follow suit with a more capable machine.
You can’t expect to sell hardware to your core fan base if you are going to limit the experience particularly if the majority of your content is barely or if at all a step up on what the previous machines offered.
Be smarter with your resources and respect the consumer.
I wonder what the narrative will be for the Pro from PlayStation or if Xbox follow suit with a more capable machine.
You can’t expect to sell hardware to your core fan base if you are going to limit the experience particularly if the majority of your content is barely or if at all a step up on what the previous machines offered.
Be smarter with your resources and respect the consumer.
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Aces High
Member
Just to put GTA5 numbers into perspective:
Based on the numbers that are public, GTA5 had a nominal ROI of 3100%.
That's an annual return of 39% from production kickoff til March 2024.
Rockstar's annual ROI is in the same ballpark as PlayStation's cumulative ROI.
This is crazy.
three_muffins
Member
No it only proves that customer dont want half-baked bad AAA games that have no clear concept or are badly executed.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Then again, Helldivers won't make the sales that the AAA titles do.
How Sony and Disney make profit off Spider-Man on PlayStation
Then again, Marvel's Spider-Man is one of the best- and fastest-selling video game franchises and it's exclusive to PlayStation.www.xfire.com
So they made ~$285M in profit... over multiple years....off of something that cost them $226M to make.... after selling 21M copies......................
You can see why that isn't great business. Shareholders want return on investment. Which means time and effort must be worth it... These big games are super risky, and only break even after millions upon millions are sold.. and take a long time to generate profit.
Meanwhile, a game like Helldivers 2, comes out and sells ~4M copies at $40.. which is $160M...probably cost ~$30M to make, leaving ~$130M in profit.. within 1 month...
It's all relative.
Fact is, Sony's games are profitable.
The issue is development time, which is increasing and that is what makes it harder to run a business.
Gotta have games that keep people playing in between AAA titles and that generate steady revenue.
Aces High
Member
Sony's games have a positive nominal ROI.
But this ROI is lower than the opportunity cost.
From a business perspective, this shows an inefficient use of capital and implies a loss of potential income.
These games are underperforming. That's why Sony C suite is intervening.
Killjoy-NL
Member
We have almost no insight in what exactly is causing the inefficiency.
We have a few statistics and an accountant that stated that they could be more efficient.
Aces High
Member
I checked Insomniac's website and they have 12 paid holidays per year.
Which is below legal minimum for most 1st-world countries.
So maybe don't treat your workforce like slaves.
And don't waste your budget on sweet baby consultation.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Not for the US
Schmendrick
Member
well, he said 1st world countries.
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crackajack
Member
I have no idea how budgets are decided in games or in movies. Both seem to go overboard with their budgets more and more. With just everything. No matter the "quality". I would assume eg at least half of the Godzilla movies did not need to be made, especially the expensive Hollywood ones and Minus One proved that big budgets are just gambling bets by seemingly idiots. Hollywood started to be bonkers with probably Waterworld or Titanic, with cheaper streamed movies taking away attention, but huge budgets for TV- shows as another piece of insanity. But they usually try to cut everything down to more easily digestable two hours, possibly also reducing amount of costly CGI. Often sacrificing importing bits though. Games on the other hand mainly hurting themselves with open world bloat, doing the exact opposite to the cinema experience, and doing a ton of pointless quests and generally copy pasta. GTA's and Skyrim's success is probably the worst thing that happened in gaming. Everyone tries to do the same since. If it fits, actually serves a purpose and is even in the capabilities of the team does not matter. Hollywood at least does not commit entirely to Shaky cam, Snyder slow mo, Abrams Lens Flares, Bay spinning/hero shot like gaming does with this never ending fad.
No one seems to have a proper grasp on if a moviescript is actually good (or sometimes even if the core plot is actually finished to make sane decisions), or at gaming if the working alpha prototype deserves full steam ahead or should be finished with smaller scope and condensed to the good parts. Earlier we got a tacked on MP to have something on the box, now entire games feel tacked on, an afterthought to the profit expectation that is the weird new core in the development.
Sony eg has seemingly only sequels as their home made exclusives, and the assimilated kinda external Returnal, and those have worked to varying degrees but their payed exclusives this gen were either complete failures or just not hitting the audience well enough.
Destruction Allstars, Forsaken, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Foamstars were planned as the outsourced new IPs and potential new hits, with probably beefy budgets, but that plan did not work out well at all. Even though all were at least okayish in their execution. The big GaaS push with one of their premiere devs already throwing the towel, is not materialising yet and at least took away ressources for other less ambitious, traditional stuff.
Downsizing and cancelations while having nice profits reinforce the picture that making good games first and money following being reversed, which imho naturally cannot work equally good over several fiscal years.
AAA garbage will kill itself. AAA, when deserved, is easily still possible.
No one seems to have a proper grasp on if a moviescript is actually good (or sometimes even if the core plot is actually finished to make sane decisions), or at gaming if the working alpha prototype deserves full steam ahead or should be finished with smaller scope and condensed to the good parts. Earlier we got a tacked on MP to have something on the box, now entire games feel tacked on, an afterthought to the profit expectation that is the weird new core in the development.
Sony eg has seemingly only sequels as their home made exclusives, and the assimilated kinda external Returnal, and those have worked to varying degrees but their payed exclusives this gen were either complete failures or just not hitting the audience well enough.
Destruction Allstars, Forsaken, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Foamstars were planned as the outsourced new IPs and potential new hits, with probably beefy budgets, but that plan did not work out well at all. Even though all were at least okayish in their execution. The big GaaS push with one of their premiere devs already throwing the towel, is not materialising yet and at least took away ressources for other less ambitious, traditional stuff.
Downsizing and cancelations while having nice profits reinforce the picture that making good games first and money following being reversed, which imho naturally cannot work equally good over several fiscal years.
AAA garbage will kill itself. AAA, when deserved, is easily still possible.
Aces High
Member
I work in tech, but not in games or movies.
The common strategy in budgeting projects is:
1. Evaluate different approaches. In the context gaming this could be singleplayer vs multiplayer, live service vs remastering, whatever.
2. Select the approach with the highest ROI.
3. Incrementally increase budgets and monitor ROI.
4. Identify the point of diminishing returns.
5. Adjust and optimize.
So when you see that 150m budget has worse ROI than 100m budget, increasing the budget to 200m is not recommended. Instead you go back to point 1 and optimize your approach.
Killjoy-NL
Member
But Sony uses those games to get people into their eco-system, so it's more than just ROI per game:
Aces High
Member
The Sony Corp guys are obviously not happy how PlayStation has been handling things.
Businesses pursue growth because of an effect called 'economies of scale'.
Economies of scale basically means that by increasing its scale of operations, PlayStation can spread fixed costs over a larger number of units sold.
This will lead to higher margins.
PlayStation fucked things up because they achieved growth but reduced margins.
crackajack
Member
That seems like common sense, but it appears like gaming does miserable at those points, when they cancel stuff that got positive response, based on trailers that hint at pontetial games that should be possible with a reasonable approach to these steps, but simultaneously stubbornly continue with stuff that gets blasted from the very first trailers.
Many basically throwing money at the problems and hoping that the outcome will just magically grow equally like the increasing investments. Failing to forecast the market, which certainly is hard since good games not always perform well, but at least bad games almost never perform well and still get released. I guess we mostly remember cancelations of games that looked promising in our eyes, while possibly a lot more gets canceled before anything is even shown, but the industry seems to have a problem with investing already too much sometimes with no exit strategy, even swallowing costly delays on top of already years wasted on something that should have never been greenlit.
Seems like they have their Shen Mue moment if their huge budgets are what is needed to make these games, and when Sony HQ disapproves about this development and that even is a problem as the leading seller of consoles then something is just strange.
I thought media crossovers with TloU show and Uncharted and GT movie is what they aim at, beside expanding mainly with GaaS in gaming itself, but with abandoning Twisted Metal, they seem to be not entirely convinced with that either, or at least not with TM.
Topher
Gold Member
All of which points back to expanding to PC and mobile. That's the solution Sony presented. Sony hasn't questioned the sustainaibility of AAA games.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Don't forget GaaS.
Aces High
Member
Yeah because selling $70 AAA games with 100GB installation data to mobile phone users totally sounds like a viable business strategy.
Topher
Gold Member
That isn't a viable business strategy. Where did you get the idea that is what Sony has in mind?
Aces High
Member
You just said they will expand to mobile and don't question their AAA approach.
Wandering Leopard
Member
Everything was (kind of) ok while the industry was growing, now that it's shrinking, they have to take action like this. The good thing is that it'll force the major players to look closely at where money is being spent on their bigger budget titles.
It's also likely bigger studios will be even more cautious about developing new ips.
It's also likely bigger studios will be even more cautious about developing new ips.
Topher
Gold Member
You misread. I said Sony hasn't "questioned the sustainaibility of AAA games" and they are expanding to PC and mobile. None of that implies $70 AAA games on mobile.
Aces High
Member
PlayStation can open up new revenue streams by developing games for smartphones.
Or they can try to grow their cloud streaming services on smartphones.
Both ideas seem like they're from someone who's never touched a PlayStation game before.
Topher
Gold Member
Obviously their expansion into PC is a lot clearer picture, but what Sony actually has in mind when it comes to mobile is anyone's guess at this point. Could be first party themed games in the same vein as Fallout Shelter or something like that. No idea really. Not interested in it at all from a personal standpoint.
Holly fuck, Ghost of Tsushima, impressive. Insomniac are the stars at Sony now. Amazing delivery while mantaining quality.I dunno, all the ones below are/were profitable.
Topher
Gold Member
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Considering how well grand fate order has done….. something like $4 billion of sales revenue since it launched….. im surprised sony hasn’t tried more mobile games whether its Sony music handling it (like grand fate order) or their console studios taking a crack at it.
I haven't played all their games, but they seem to maintain a certain quality to them, but i reckon it might look better on the outside.
Quality has taken a step back, imo. But sales are huge so doesn't really matter.
I'm also very impressed with the speed they develop these games.
Topher
Gold Member
Unfortunately, it is pretty easy to see the stuff they contracted out to Sweet Baby and that's where I see the drop in quality. Shit writing and truly contrived political messaging in their side missions. Also, creating three Spider-man games in the exact same locale has helped a bit with their output, I'd say. Granted they did expand out in Spider-man 2, but I would like to see a different location going forward.
Generic
Member
Most single-player-only games flop. It's a very risky thing to create.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
100% we are doomed.
Ff7 rebirth and we hear the same rhetoric as with Elden ring. Bad graphics!!!!
Dude I am bawling my eyes out the game looks so amazing. I don’t care to inspect textures. All what matters is how it looks in the end. And cutscenes look almost like cgi quality.
They made this game in less than 4 years. If it took them 7-8 years and doubled or tripled the cost… how would that work if they are selling less than remake.
thank god they didn’t waste time making jump to ue5 or making crazy assets. Thanks to this the game have more variety. Imagine if every new asset and location was much more expensive and time consuming to make. They would probably cut some stuff from original.
Ff7 rebirth and we hear the same rhetoric as with Elden ring. Bad graphics!!!!
Dude I am bawling my eyes out the game looks so amazing. I don’t care to inspect textures. All what matters is how it looks in the end. And cutscenes look almost like cgi quality.
They made this game in less than 4 years. If it took them 7-8 years and doubled or tripled the cost… how would that work if they are selling less than remake.
thank god they didn’t waste time making jump to ue5 or making crazy assets. Thanks to this the game have more variety. Imagine if every new asset and location was much more expensive and time consuming to make. They would probably cut some stuff from original.
BabyfaceRe
Member
Wait, so AAA died literally two days after FF7R released? Barely a week after Elden Ring DLC dropped to extreme hype? Nah AAA ain't going anywhere.
Now spending over a quarter billion dollars on producing said AAA games might be dead, but that's hardly a bad thing. The vast majority of the budget is put towards marketing and graphical fidelity, with the scraps that are left used for game design.
Most AAA that put design or innovation first, still absolutely smash it.
Now spending over a quarter billion dollars on producing said AAA games might be dead, but that's hardly a bad thing. The vast majority of the budget is put towards marketing and graphical fidelity, with the scraps that are left used for game design.
Most AAA that put design or innovation first, still absolutely smash it.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
Not true really.
Forspoken is a fantastic game. New single player ip. Great gameplay. Something everyone should want. It failed.
Immortals of aveum is just a decent game. But it also failed miserably.
Truth it, if your game is not gaas that doesn’t catch on, it’s a huge risk to make. Especially new ip.
OrtizTwelve
Member
Whenever I see "AAA" being pushed as part of the marketing gimmick for an upcoming game or project, I already know the final product is likely to be trash.
Real devs and good creators don't use "AAA" as their description for their game, just business executives and marketing robots. This should tell you everything you need to know where the industry is heading, and it's not looking good. Games are being designed and created by committee now to check off boxes.
It wasn't long ago that we had good games and bad games. Nobody ever used "AAA" as part of the cultural lexicon. Good games got bought and played, bad games didn't. The reward mechanism was automatically built in, now we allow companies to release trash and we let them get away with it.
Real devs and good creators don't use "AAA" as their description for their game, just business executives and marketing robots. This should tell you everything you need to know where the industry is heading, and it's not looking good. Games are being designed and created by committee now to check off boxes.
It wasn't long ago that we had good games and bad games. Nobody ever used "AAA" as part of the cultural lexicon. Good games got bought and played, bad games didn't. The reward mechanism was automatically built in, now we allow companies to release trash and we let them get away with it.
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