FunkMiller
Gold Member
Where are you getting stats to suggest standards of living and salaries are lower in Belgium than in the USA?
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Bloomberg at GDC: creativity way too risky as AAA budgets hit 300 mil, painting bleak future with mostly safe IPs
Where are you getting stats to suggest standards of living and salaries are lower in Belgium than in the USA?
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Have you not seen California?
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
In the new GAAS era, those bets are looking worse and worse. GAAS revenue disproportionately goes back into GAAS.
Actually, PlayStations single player games funded their GAAS initiative. The opposite won't happen.
Helldivers 2, Lethal Company, The Finals, Last Epoch, Enshrouded, Palworld...all in the last 6 months...
There's always a scientist trying to warn people of the incoming comet in disaster movies. The new wave of GAAS is just touching down.
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ByWatterson
Member
I could Google it for you - it's literally everywhere though. One source:
Household disposable income per capita in OECD countries 2021 | Statista
In 2021, the United States had the highest gross household disposable income per capita in OECD countries adjusted for purchasing power parity.
www.statista.com
Throw on per capita GDP, where the disparity is really stark:
GDP per Capita - Worldometer
GDP per capita by country. List by GDP at PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and by Nominal GDP. Ratio to World's average GDP per capita at PPP
www.worldometers.info
Average house size is a fun one!
How Big is a House? Average House Size by Country - 2024 - Shrink That Footprint
Average house size varies from 484 sq ft in Hong Kong to 2300 sq ft in Australia. Smaller houses use less energy to build and keep livable.
shrinkthatfootprint.com
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Killjoy-NL
Member
Multiple Sony execs repeatedly stated the GaaS-strategy is primarily to continue their AAA development as we know it.
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SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Longer to make, costlier to make, no risk taking, and safe sequels. And it’s only going to get worse.
Exactly what’s being said.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
You've got to link me. I click on articles about what PlayStation execs are saying faster than anyone and I can't recall a single exec ever saying this.
I've been wrong before but...
Killjoy-NL
Member
"PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent Xbox leak from the court documents for the FTC vs Microsoft case stated that narrative rich games will remain the "bedrock" of its first-party lineup when asked about the 10 live service games they have in development.
"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 (live service games) will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues," said Ryan. "That is certainly not what we're assuming. Clearly, the distinction between a hit and not a hit is not a binary one.
"And don't forget that as we do this, we will continue to publish the games that have served us so well over the years. These first person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business."
Jim Ryan: Narrative Rich Games Will Remain the Bedrock of PlayStation's 1st-Party Lineup
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent [...]
www.vgchartz.com
Shawn Layden has said something similar and every other exec that adressed their current strategy said something in the same line.
Since their AAA singleplayer games will be the core of their output, the GaaS-strategy is meant to generate revenue to sustain the AAA-model.
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ChorizoPicozo
Member
for everyone, just look at their output
all lincesed IPs
a vidoegame IP
what is the point?
we can look at new AAA videogame (no GaaS) IPs of the last 10 years:
EA:
TitanFall
Ubisoft:
watch dogs
The Crew
immortals Fenyx rising
Activison:
sekiro
SE:
Murdered souls suspect
octopath traveler
left alive
forespoken
sony:
The Order
Bloodborne
Until Dawn
everyone's gone to the rapture
The last guardian
HZD
Detroit
Days Gone
Death Stranding
Stellar Blade.
Thus:
lets take a look:
EA:
Apex legend
Anthem
Ubisoft:
for honor
Skull and Bones
Activison:
Destiny*
overwatch
SE:
Babylon's fall
foamstars
sony:
Driveclub
dreams?
so yeah, you are super wrong. New IP creation and big success is not the norm for Single player and GaaS.
This is why Sony is the beacon of hope
Bert Big Balls
Member
That's all the fired staff.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
TBF, they said that before some of those GAAS games were cancelled. So if the funding allocations hinted at in previous investor slides for traditional 1P games was contingent on the GAAS titles, and some of those have been canned, wouldn't that suggest allocation budgets for traditional AAA would get scaled back if it were dependent on the GAAS?
If anything their priorities in funding dependence should've been the opposite: leverage traditional AAA to gauge which IPs could easily branch off into GAAS and on key target platforms, going from there, and instead of 60/40 split for GAAS/traditional should've been 60/40 traditional/GAAS.
Seems like Sony just rushed into allocating most of their budget to a sector they had little experience in, at the potential cost of traditional AAA (and AA) titles.
Not at all, all Sony games are now extremely safe and generic
Krappadizzle
Member
There's almost assuredly a ton of waste and a good portion of money spent on licenses and marketing, but I'd agree with the general idea that it's probably unsustainable to expect such budgets to continue on. The market is very crowded in general and those big ass 300+ Million dollar games are gonna have to do everything in their power to appeal to the widest audience while looking amazing and not messing up anything in order to recoup or profit from.
I'd bet the stress on the actual people that makes the games is probably worse than its ever been and I can't imagine having too much satisfaction in that field with expectations so high and job security so low. If I was a game developer, I'd want to be on a smaller, more focused team that can reasonably make something that they are passionate about.
I'd bet the stress on the actual people that makes the games is probably worse than its ever been and I can't imagine having too much satisfaction in that field with expectations so high and job security so low. If I was a game developer, I'd want to be on a smaller, more focused team that can reasonably make something that they are passionate about.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Killjoy-NL
Member
Depends on how you look at it.
If a lot of resources go into AAA and it becomes unsustainable to run the business because of the increasing cost and development time, they need to compensate in the areas where they are going to lose money.
That's where GaaS comes into play. It can fill those gaps in other areas, so Sony can keep investing in their AAA-projects.
So whether it's directly or indirectly, the GaaS-revenue will be important to sustain their AAA-model.
As for the cancellations, Jim Ryan stated that they already expected not all GaaS-titles to succeed, so that has been taken into consideration by Sony:
"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 (live service games) will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues," said Ryan."
Jim Ryan: Narrative Rich Games Will Remain the Bedrock of PlayStation's 1st-Party Lineup
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent [...]
www.vgchartz.com
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ReBurn
Gold Member
I would just keep in mind that Jim Ryan is gone and PlayStation is moving under new management. Anything that he said was going to happen is going to be under review in the inevitable SIE reorg that will come with new leadership.Depends on how you look at it.
If a lot of resources go into AAA and it becomes unsustainable to run the business because of the increasing cost and development time, they need to compensate in the areas where they are going to lose money.
That's where GaaS comes into play. It can fill those gaps in other areas, so Sony can keep investing in their AAA-projects.
So whether it's directly or indirectly, the GaaS-revenue will be important to sustain their AAA-model.
As for the cancellations, Jim Ryan stated that they already expected not all GaaS-titles to succeed, so that has been taken into consideration by Sony:
"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 (live service games) will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues," said Ryan."
Jim Ryan: Narrative Rich Games Will Remain the Bedrock of PlayStation's 1st-Party Lineup
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent [...]
Killjoy-NL
Member
Pretty sure everything falls in line what has bee said in recent years and what we see and hear now is their new strategy in effect.
These guys think long-term, so it would've taken a couple of years before we would notice immediate effects of said strategy.
Which is exactly what we see now. Even people like that Yoshida and Totoki have been saying exactly the same thing as Layden, Ryan and Hulst.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
"PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent Xbox leak from the court documents for the FTC vs Microsoft case stated that narrative rich games will remain the "bedrock" of its first-party lineup when asked about the 10 live service games they have in development.
"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 (live service games) will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues," said Ryan. "That is certainly not what we're assuming. Clearly, the distinction between a hit and not a hit is not a binary one.
"And don't forget that as we do this, we will continue to publish the games that have served us so well over the years. These first person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business."
Jim Ryan: Narrative Rich Games Will Remain the Bedrock of PlayStation's 1st-Party Lineup
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent [...]
Shawn Layden has said something similar and every other exec that adressed their current strategy said something in the same line.
Since their AAA singleplayer games will be the core of their output, the GaaS-strategy is meant to generate revenue to sustain the AAA-model.
Appreciate the response.
I guess my interpretation is "What does bedrock even mean?"
Bedrock - Solid rock underlying lose deposits such as soil. Solidly fundamental, basic, or reliable.
That doesn't strike me as "We're going to take the money from our most profitable games (Live Service) and spend it inefficiently on our lower RoI projects."
It doesn't make sense from a business perspective. If a kid has a lemonade and iced tea stand, and the lemonade is making 90% more profit than the tea, that kid isn't going to use lemonade profits to buoey up the iced tea.
We also have Jim Ryan supporting the "virtuous cycle" which is business lexicon for "We support our products based on their level of success."
Plus, no where else in the industry is this happening.
Riot Games (League of Legends) puts most of their money towards new Live Service projects.
Blizzard isn't using their GAAS profits to fund SP games.
EA is moving further into Live Service.
WB is moving further into Live Service.
Again, PlayStations single player games are supporting the growth of Live Service, not the other way around.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Most of the new single player IP you listed here were financial failures and are the reason why AAA single player is now so reliant on big, established IP.
20+ years ago, new IP flourished in the SP AAA space. Those days are gone.
Killjoy-NL
Member
I think it should be pretty clear what bedrock means in the context of what Ryan said, but according to Cambridge Dictionary:
"the main principles on which something is based:
Some people believe that the family is the bedrock of society."
AAA games are the foundation of Sony 1st Party output.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It's still vague language that doesn't suggest they're turning their back on Jim Ryan's virtuous cycle.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
I could Google it for you - it's literally everywhere though. One source:
Household disposable income per capita in OECD countries 2021 | Statista
In 2021, the United States had the highest gross household disposable income per capita in OECD countries adjusted for purchasing power parity.
Throw on per capita GDP, where the disparity is really stark:
GDP per Capita - Worldometer
GDP per capita by country. List by GDP at PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and by Nominal GDP. Ratio to World's average GDP per capita at PPP
Average house size is a fun one!
How Big is a House? Average House Size by Country - 2024 - Shrink That Footprint
Average house size varies from 484 sq ft in Hong Kong to 2300 sq ft in Australia. Smaller houses use less energy to build and keep livable.
Not sure you can extrapolate that the US is so much better off than Belgium in terms of standard of living from those statistics. House size isn't relevant, for starters. Much smaller properties cost a lot more in Europe than in the US. Also, ten thousand difference per capita isn't that much lower! especially when you consider the disparity in what Americans have to pay for healthcare that Belgians don't.
I've been to both countries, and do not get the feeling the standard of living in Belgium is worse than the states. Far from it!
EDIT: Here you go:
https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country/
Belgium: 14th.
USA: 22nd.
The majority of the countries with the highest standard of living are in Europe.
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ChorizoPicozo
Member
new IPs are risky right? Once you have a hit what do you have? Sequels and spin offs. that's how it works.
and AAA GaaS.
for everything. the output of AAA (SP, MP/GaaS) is less overall
OrtizTwelve
Member
Hit the nail on the head. The problem for the last 10 or so years has been that every game produced now must be a large entertainment vehicle capable of appealing to everyone on planet Earth and designed by a committee with silly expectations, backed by overly paid marketing executives that toss out CGI previews with every current buzzword thrown in to sell the game. Sprinkle on endless micro transactions and absurd season passes and you've got a 300 million dollar budget "game".
The games industry largely doesn't make games anymore, just mass produced expensive and generic trash. I'm 37, I love games, but half of the games released today I have 0 interest in because they lack passion or creativity, and it shows badly. I don't even own any current gen consoles apart from Nintendo Switch because there's nothing out there that really justifies me purchasing an XBOX Series or PS5.
This generation has been horrific so far. I'm not the only one that feels this way. Thank god for Nintendo at least.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Depends on how you look at it.
If a lot of resources go into AAA and it becomes unsustainable to run the business because of the increasing cost and development time, they need to compensate in the areas where they are going to lose money.
That's where GaaS comes into play. It can fill those gaps in other areas, so Sony can keep investing in their AAA-projects.
So whether it's directly or indirectly, the GaaS-revenue will be important to sustain their AAA-model.
As for the cancellations, Jim Ryan stated that they already expected not all GaaS-titles to succeed, so that has been taken into consideration by Sony:
"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 (live service games) will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues," said Ryan."
Jim Ryan: Narrative Rich Games Will Remain the Bedrock of PlayStation's 1st-Party Lineup
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in a Q&A session with analysts from 2022 that were included with the recent [...]
I'll just be honest; this probably isn't the best approach to the problem for companies like Sony. While I think
Men_in_Boxes
was a bit hyperbolic when saying it, the idea that GAAS take over the production pipeline if they're successful and provide so much more profit margin than traditional games, versus simply acting as supplements to help fund traditional games, is a very real possibility. After all, the main reason Sony pursued blockbuster AAA traditional titles aggressively near the latter years of PS3 was because their non-cinematic AAA and AA games weren't helping to move systems vs. 360 and Wii. And what started happening once they got those successes with Uncharted 2 & 3, TLOU etc.? The number of non-cinematic traditional AAA, and especially AA, 1P games began declining. They released less and less of them and by 2016/2017, if you weren't Gran Turismo or Rachet & Clank you were either extinct or endangered insofar as Sony 1P was concerned. On that front the situation's even worst today than it was back then, and that's on top of a smaller amount of 1P traditional AAA releases.
Which, some people I guess want to compare launch-aligned, but I don't really understand why. Now doing that between PS4 and PS3 made sense because Sony had to switch to a completely different architecture; Microsoft had the same problem but because of market clout from 360 they were able to nab some big 3P exclusives early on (something Sony were able to do with PS5 thanks to PS4's success). IMO going from PS4 to PS5 should have been rather seamless to accelerate the amount of 1P AAA traditional games and bring back more 1P AA traditional games too. Understandably, COVID and the lockdowns had a big impact on what should've been the transition, for all platforms, but I don't think everything that's occurred with SIE 1P so far this gen can be attributed to COVID and lockdowns.
Again, kind of similar to Microsoft, and if just looking at pre-3P pub acquisitions, SIE were and I'd say still are in a way better spot than pre-Zenimax/pre-ABK Microsoft 1P studios, even with the somewhat egregious GAAS push. But I guess the better question is how are Sony going to leverage their current teams to ensure they have enough 1P content for their console going forward, especially considering some or more of the impact could be nullified by a porting strategy that may remain the same as ever BTS or even changed to favor even more aggressive porting, which would naturally weaken the selling power of their 1P for their console? Asking that mainly from the POV of traditional titles?
That's why I've been saying they should really consider taking a more segmented approach with AAA traditional games, get back to doing more 1P AA games, and maybe introduce new optional payment systems/methods for customers on the console, among "other" things (in that giant-ass thread on SIE/Sony business, so won't quote it all here). I've never really understood how the answer to solving for ballooning budgets of AAA traditional games relied in making a bunch of completely different other games when those specific other games, if they were to take off, would pose more a threat to the traditional games than be a benefit to them funding-wise.
Actually, I can ask this already about the PC ports. Sony said the PC ports would help fund more blockbuster AAA games for the console...but with what profits? A lot of the recent non-GAAS ports haven't been bringing in a ton of profits. The past several combined maybe have brought in enough to halfway fund one new AAA game on console, but that still wouldn't address other issues like the amount of time it'd take for that AAA game to be developed and then released. Would it even be completed in time to serve the current console, or are we talking about something that would be a next-gen title instead? So, this PC strategy for example, for non-GAAS titles, is doing nothing to address release timing cadence on the console side and in fact we know now from the Insomniac hack that 1P titles like Wolverine are taking longer to develop because they have to simultaneously do some PC version development alongside the console version!
So in other words, the PC ports of these games are making console owners wait longer to get games vs. generations prior. And over time, I dunno if 3P timed exclusives can really fill that void because for starters, it already sort of feels like companies such as S-E are maybe going to be less reliable for exclusivity deals going forward anyway. Secondly, the money being used for those deals could probably be better used towards 1P AAA and AA titles, with IP SIE fully own and can fully leverage, get full profits off of, and fully control. It already feels like the 3P market is moving in a direction where they want to be less dependent on platform holders, they want to do more releases Day 1 on platforms like Steam, which compete with consoles more now than ever before. So, why should SIE be using their money to rely on 3P with those timed exclusives?
I'd almost say, the way Nintendo and SEGA did things with the SNES and Genesis, in terms of prioritizing 1P output and letting 3P kind of figure things out themselves (with the rare exceptions), is probably the approach that has to be taken now. And at least now in the home environment, 3P have platforms like PC to support them; they didn't have that in the past and the closest equivalent market size-wise were arcades. However only certain types of games were a good fit for the arcade market, that's why many 3P in 5th gen couldn't leverage arcades as a supplementary market, and PCs were far behind in certain areas (such as dedicated 3D graphics, 3D-orientated APIs, software distribution etc.) so that really only left them with consoles which is where PlayStation stepped up.
PlayStation could still do a lot for 3P I'd say, in the technological sense, with hardware designs that can foster innovation at mass scale and make software development easier. That's where stuff like PSSR, other AI-driven hardware customizations, integrated VR/AR (MR) etc. would come in handy. The 3P are going to support the platform regardless, and if Sony bring that type of offering 3P will be incentivized to do more with it just because of its presence and the scale at which it's around. But I dunno, maybe things like these increasingly expensive timed 3P exclusivity deals, where they know often those deals don't factor in PC (Steam) or where genuine console exclusivity is short because of some imminent PC version, aren't worth it going forward.
Now working with 3P on new games with new IP or legacy IP either SIE own or are strongly tied to PlayStation, stuff like that still makes a ton of sense. Not all of those need to be AAA endeavors, either. But anyway, I'm kinda going a bit around various topics, I'll stop here
The reason most of the SP AAA games failed isn't because they were SP AAA games. It's because the publishers were incompetent with marketing, sensible business practices (i.e got greedy with MTXs, loot boxes etc.), release schedules, studio interference, or a combination of ALL of those things.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
That's my whole point and the point of the OP.
AAA SP games have become risk averse therefore the money isn't going to new AAA SP IP. It's going to established IP.
GAAS isn't reliant on big established IP. See: Helldivers 2 and Concord. The risk and creativity we want is firmly in the multiplayer space now.
The top 10 most profitable SP games released in the last 10 years are sequels / established IP.
The top 10 most profitable multiplayer games released over the last 10 years are new, original IP.
Night & day.
Nah. Funding for multiplayer Live Service has taken off like a rocket ship over the last 10 years. The new era.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Just about every industry is similar. When a company has a budget to make new products, you take the dive going in modest. You dont dive off the deep end making it the biggest product you got in the catalog. And if the company's product is the only thing they got going for them, al focus is on it, but the amount of money spent on it typically isnt going to be the equivalent of Coke or Pepsi. Even at those companies when a new flavour line comes out, their mainstream pop thats been around for 100 years still gets the most attention.
And when you got such mega products that are cornerstones, you dont spend a ton of money to potentially fuck it up (Coke II). You just keep it going. If people love it, no need to rock the boat. The money is spent testing out new products that dont overshadow or break the bank over Coke and Diet Coke.
Now if those new products become gangbuster sales, then ya. Like any big growing brands you pump more money into it as there's growth potential and profits to reinvest into it.
Problem is a lot of game studios have a bunch of money to spend and instead of putting it toward modest games and grow it from there, they right away try to make a brand new IP of unknown quality and unknown gamer acceptance with AAA budgets assuming it can right away zoom up the ranks and go up against big franchises that have been around.
Hardcore gamers liking tons of different games will have a hard time accepting modern day games and budgets. If this was the 90s, you have crazy amounts of different games from any big or small company. Now, the big franchises with big sales are the cornerstone games. So it shows despite what every gamer claims on forums (I'm sick of it and dont buy mtx like a whale), someone is lying because those games rake in the most money and that comes from AAA popular games.
What youre kind of going up against is like Oreo cookies. The company can shift tons of their billions of budget and people power and make all kinds of gourmet artisan cookies. But they dont. Their focus is on $2 bags of Oreos because those are the biggest selling cookie lines no matter how cheap and boring they are.
And when you got such mega products that are cornerstones, you dont spend a ton of money to potentially fuck it up (Coke II). You just keep it going. If people love it, no need to rock the boat. The money is spent testing out new products that dont overshadow or break the bank over Coke and Diet Coke.
Now if those new products become gangbuster sales, then ya. Like any big growing brands you pump more money into it as there's growth potential and profits to reinvest into it.
Problem is a lot of game studios have a bunch of money to spend and instead of putting it toward modest games and grow it from there, they right away try to make a brand new IP of unknown quality and unknown gamer acceptance with AAA budgets assuming it can right away zoom up the ranks and go up against big franchises that have been around.
Hardcore gamers liking tons of different games will have a hard time accepting modern day games and budgets. If this was the 90s, you have crazy amounts of different games from any big or small company. Now, the big franchises with big sales are the cornerstone games. So it shows despite what every gamer claims on forums (I'm sick of it and dont buy mtx like a whale), someone is lying because those games rake in the most money and that comes from AAA popular games.
What youre kind of going up against is like Oreo cookies. The company can shift tons of their billions of budget and people power and make all kinds of gourmet artisan cookies. But they dont. Their focus is on $2 bags of Oreos because those are the biggest selling cookie lines no matter how cheap and boring they are.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
No way.
The idea that the entire SP videogame industry got hit by some mismanagement ray gun simultaneously is fantasy.
If you believe that, then you have to believe all the managment talent magically warped into the DNA of multiplayer studios.
It's much more simple than that.
The SP games market became saturated years ago, and the bigger rats became rat kings by gobbling up all the smaller rats. The Live Service multiplayer market is still growing (and will for sometime) but the same occurence will happen there eventually too
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Windom Earle
Member
Last AAA I bought was Alan Woke 2. My bad for trusting reviewers and trusting Remedy after Control.
I am completely done with AAA for the time being.
I am completely done with AAA for the time being.
IAmRei
Member
Agree, in my region, some of salaries is under $2000 per month. And they are not complain at all. Some devs even can working normally under $1000 per month and still happy. In my hill city you can eat full meal just by $1 and its still healthy.
IAmRei
Member
To be fair, there are lot of failed multiplayer as well. Or they dont have many player, and then closed just one year from it release. Its on mobile usually, and its already super saturated in the point hard to find something new unless using heavy marketing or viral boost.
But i think as far as i can remember, the situation can be applied in pc or consoles.
The bad is, if the game cant be played offline after closed. There will be no more for invested player. Unless they can use fan server or something.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
you are so damn obsessed with GaaS vs single player that's is just stupid
IP creation is fucking hard, expensive, time consuming and risky regardless if it's Single player, multiplayer/GaaS.
The point of the OP/article is retarded because the industry has been like that for a decade+:
Look at the publishers's output; they rely on a handful (or even a couple) of IPs, that's it. IP creation has been bleak as a norm.
and this is why I say that Sony is the beacon of hope because they have that 30% cut.
for Sony is more important to have a strong platform than making the most popular gaas for one simple reason: Free Money. they have the luxury to cancel probably the most successful GaaS they had in the pipeline for what?: Single Player output.
Now, if you believe that having a succesfull GaaS is a walk in the park, that dosen't requiere ongoing investment to keep the machine alive. you are delusional. Those games also have insane pressures to growth and keep making money.
Diablo 4, overwatch 2 and Bungie are in panic mode for example (those are massive teams)
not relaying in established IPs you said (COD does the same shit)
so, take a sit and stop simping so hard for GaaS
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
This is binary, low resolution thinking.
Just because both a "hard" does not mean they are so on nearly the same level.
The last 10 Live Service hits have been new, or relatively unknown IP.
The last 10 SP hits are all from massive, established IP.
To ignore such an obvious truth is insane to me. Night and day difference.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
More low resolution thinking.
It was easier to produce a breakout SP hit 10 years ago than it is today.
The market is always shifting. Nothing in nature (including the videogame industry) is ever in a state of stasis.
Woopah
Member
I think it's mostly the case that one type of game is newer than the other. Sony and other publishers already have lots of successful single player IP because these have existed for decades.
Therr are fewer successful, already existing GAAS IP. So more new ones tend to get made.
if Sony entered this generation with lots of popular GAAS IP and hardly any popular single plsyer IP, I think their new IP creation strategy would be quite different.
Nintendo could offer that during the Wii and DS time. But the days of developers cutting dev costs by making exclusives for lower powered consoles are over.
The industry is just far more multiplatform these days. The vast majority of third party games on Switch 2 will also be on other platforms.
So while Switch 2 will be a growth opportunity for third parties, it won't result in cheaper development costs as those same games will be on Xbox and PlayStation too.
There's no contradiction there.
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StereoVsn
Member
I am pretty happy playing BG3, FFVII Rebirth and other great AAA games as well as cool indies.
Some games are formulaic and meh (God of War R and SpiderMan 2, not to mention some other terrible recent games), but others are excellent.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
Yup, there are plenty of AAA games that don't follow the Sony 1st party formula and try interesting things, BG3 and FF7 Rebirth as you say are good examples.
dragonyeuw
Member
Cool to hear you're enjoying those titles. I'm not currently in that space but that's not to say there isn't great AAA stuff out there. I played the Dead Space remake a few months ago and had a great time. I just don't play many games at that scale nowadays.
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StereoVsn
Member
What I am saying is there are plenty of AAA games which were great they came out during last few years. Unfortunately most of Sony’s and especially MS titles were fairly mediocre this gen.
But even there Ghost of Tsushima was excellent, GT7 became very good, MS Flight Simulator is great and so on. There are great games at every level same as there are terrible ones at every level.
Evil Calvin
Afraid of Boobs
"Bloomberg at GDC: creativity way too risky as AAA budgets hit 300 mil, painting bleak future with mostly safe IPs"
Fuck!! I've been saying this for years!! And no one listened to me!
Can only supplement these AAA 8-year games with so many remasters. Eventually you need new games to even remaster.
dragonyeuw
Member
I understood what you were saying and I'm aware of what is out there in the AAA space that would be of interest to me. I said I'm 95% into AA/Indies/8-16 bit stuff, which does leave a small percentage for what would be AAA games of interest. That 95% quote also isn't meant to be taken literally. Its just me saying that's where I put the majority of my gaming time.
AmuroChan
Member
Yes, it's mostly salaries for most games. In the case of Spider-Man, something like $100m goes to Disney for licensing cost. So that's 1/3 of the entire game's budget.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Sony has produced a number of new single player IP (not AAA) for the PS5. They've all been wet farts.
Their first GAAS title has taken them to the moon.
It's important to note, studios only go in one direction and that direction is always towards Live Service multiplayer, never towards SP.
If you've historically made SP games, you're now making SP + MP.
If you've historically made both, you're pushing more towards MP.
If you've only made MP, you're still only making MP.
The opposite direction doesn't happen.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
It didn't become saturated the way you're thinking though. So many AAA SP games bloated in content size, it became increasingly harder for even many hardcore & core gamers to finish them in a reasonable amount of time. That's why backlogs grew so much over the past few years.
And, because backlogs grew, it seems like more gamers decided it's not worth buying everything at launch if you won't have the time to actually play the game and feel like you get your money's worth. But a lot of publishers seem to be reading that the wrong way and think their games need MORE hours of content and that way people will buy more of them.
They do that, then it means budgets increase, team sizes and outsourcing has to increase, to create the needed content. And the problem just keeps compounding unto itself.
What do you mean they've been wet farts? Returnal did pretty well for a new IP that's also a roguelike (not the most popular of genres).
You're here saying the opposite direction is happening, when Naughty Dog literally came out and said they AREN'T going GAAS because it'd take too many resources and distract them from traditional SP games.
If Helldivers 2's success had such a massive influence on the direction of other SIE studios, Factions 2 wouldn't have been canned. Or, we'd see Naughty Dog forced into GAAS (which would cause tons of issues and undoubtedly get leaked by people like Jason Schreier).
Of which, neither has happened. Again, I have concerns about how Sony might try using GAAS to "solve" budget creep/bloat in non-GAAS AAA games which could end up just meaning way more GAAS at the expense of others. I even mentioned that this kind of thing sort of happened with them growing focus on AAA story-driven games at the expense of AA titles 1P-wise last gen.
But I think you're having some far reaches that don't make a lot of sense.
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Cost of labor just hides the real problems, even if you go somewhere cheaper the development cost-escalation will catch-up very quick.
The real issue is the ever escalating team-sizes, which has been an on-going problem for the past 15 years (20 really - but it's hit the accelerated part of the curve particularly since last decade).
And no - the infinite team scaling is neither inevitable, nor desire-able - it's an artifact of a host of common anti-patterns and other systemic issues with how software development functions (not isolated to games - the rest of tech is just as bad, or even worse at it).
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
300 million is insane. I’ve said this before but no game should cost more than Elden ring. I have no idea what that cost but nothing should cost more.