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In an ironic twist, I don't think big game announcement events would be possible anymore these days without indie games.

Umbasaborne

Banned
E3, and other game announcement presentations used to be filled with big games from medium to large publishers. Often mixed with middle sized “aa” games. Often with one or two indies thrown in, as nice break from the action, or an indie reel.

But in the past year ive noticed that in every game announcement event ive watched, Console announcements, summer game Fest, Nintendo directs, the majority of games shown are indie titles, with maybe a small hand full of big AAA game announcements.

I think that the time and budget required to make a big game now is so massive that they will be released far more sporadically, with some series or developers even missing out on entire console generations, as shown last generation with gta and the elder scrolls. With this in mind, and with the mid tier publishers all but dead, indies seemed to have taken place as the majority of games announced these days, rather then the minority.

They are doing what the mid sized aa games used to do, fill the long gaps between big releases.

im indifferent to indie games unless they really grab my attention. Now we decide, do we embrace them, or complain whenever they take up the majority of time at video game announcement events?

Me personally, i usually complain.
 
AAA game development costs are increasing with each new generation.

Indie's are a necessary evil to bring in $$$ as they cost less to develop and you can take more creative risks with them. They also serve as 'filler' in between big blockbuster AAA games.

I hate them but I understand their importance and growing influence to the industry.
 

ButchCat

Member
We are to blame for it. We wanted more everything in our games and that comes with a cost. There used to be a time where we would happily pay 40 pounds for a 7 hour campaign and now if devs do the same we feel ripped off and entitled.
 
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NahaNago

Member
This is part of the reason why I think the big 3 should be making AAA smaller games on the side. Games to wow you with it's graphics and storytelling but short enough to be made fairly quickly.
 
No

Sony, MS and Nintendo just need to do a better job of being more transparent with telling us what to expect at these state of play/ direct showcases.

Most people are looking forward to hearing and seeing more of the bigger titles and if they know bigger titles will not be shown then they need to say that before hand, it’s really that simple.

Sony for example, could have just said that “this state of play will focus on indie titles” and that would have scaled back people’s expectations.

Instead, they are trying to manipulate people into viewing these showcases just to get more attention to the smaller titles which is very annoying.
 
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Umbasaborne

Banned
We are to blame for it. We wanted more everything in our games and that comes with a cost. There used to be a time where we would happily pay 40 pounds for a 7 hour campaign and now if devs do the same we feel ripped off and entitled.

i dont know if were to blame per se, but at the rate graphical fidelity and world size was expanding, the slow churn out of tripple a games was gonna happen eventually, we just have to adjust, and adjust our expectations to that climate now.

i wish more games were like uncharted lost legacy or spiderman miles morales. Smaller games with a reasonable scope that were made fast and still impressed
 
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Umbasaborne

Banned
In the ps360 era, bioware made three mass effect games and 2 dragon age games in a five year time span, now if we are lucky, they will get one dragon age game and possibly ( but not likely) one mass effect game in that same time span
 
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Pejo

Member
This is why I'm super sad about AA devs getting bought up by Sony/MS/Epic/etc. Indie games have neat ideas but there's only a small handful in the past 10 years that I actually thought were complete good games. Also I hate rogue-like and rouge-lites and procedurally generated levels, which Indies seem to lean on to increase replayability without spending effort carefully designing stages and encounters, and I am done buying games like that. If Sony and MS have anything to say about it, video games will be 1-2 big games a year and a smattering of indie games of dubious quality, and that's your hobby.
 

SinDelta

Member
AAA game development costs are increasing with each new generation.

Indie's are a necessary evil to bring in $$$ as they cost less to develop and you can take more creative risks with them. They also serve as 'filler' in between big blockbuster AAA games.

I hate them but I understand their importance and growing influence to the industry.
I don't think Indies are a necessary evil from taking the spotlight from AAA games. That's on the people making, producing and marketing those AAA titles. Indies can produce titles on par with a AAA - Hollow Knight and Hades are two I've heard of frequently.

If anything the Indies may be the one saving the industry.
 
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I don't think Indies are a necessary evil from taking the spotlight from AAA games. That's on the people making, producing and marketing those AAA titles. Indies can produce titles on par with a AAA - Hollow Knight and Hades are two I've heard of frequently.

If anything the Indies may be the one saving the industry.
Have to agree with you on that front.
 
this is simply because Sony has shutdown tons of studios over the last ten years and now that games are taking longer and longer to make they just dont have enough AAA games to show.
But their AAA studios have grown ever larger. Is Naughty Dog not a massive 2 team studio now? Same with Guerilla Games. I'm not sure of the others but I know the above 2 have capacity for simultaneous projects.
 
We are to the point where indies are going to be the only ones willing to take chance on innovation.
Indies are cheaper to produce so developers are able take creative liberties with such titles. I'm also of the opinion that indies could help to drive AAA innovation. If new gameplay ideas take off on an indie title then it could open up the door to more expansive AAA titles.
One genre I was hoping to see take off in the indie space is looter shooters (aka Division 1/2, Destiny etc).
I know some here are not fans of GAAS titles but I personally don't mind them as they are more back for buck than linear story focused single player games which doesn't have much replay value.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
At this point i consider indies and AAs to be the main space in gaming.
AAA are just becoming too big in budget for their own good, this results in too little risk taking and extremely streamlined experiences.There are a few exceptions but they are, well, exceptions.

Also, even indies are getting closer and closer to AAA levels of graphical phidelity and even production. I mean, look at this stuff, if someone told you this is being made by an Ubisoft or Sony or EA, you'd believe.


 
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At this point i consider indies and AAs to be the main space in gaming.
AAA are just becoming too big in budget for their own good, this results in too little risk taking and extremely streamlined experiences.There are a few exceptions but they are, well, exceptions.

Also, even indies are getting closer and closer to AAA levels of graphical phidelity and even production. I mean, look at this stuff, if someone told you this is being made by an Ubisoft or Sony or EA, you'd believe.



Yeah that's pretty awesome looking for an indie, god damn !!
 

BabyYoda

Banned
I think were in that awkward space between AAA games becoming unmanageably and (potentially unfeasibly) massive and complex vs the point where AI becomes advanced enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting of building out huge worlds (and much more besides), to the degree that a solo indie developer could "make" a GTA clone that blows away anything Rockstar have put out so far.

I think we're relatively close to the latter though, AI is going to dominate in entertainment as well for better or worse...don't get me started on the dangers of its uses outside of entertainment!
 
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FStubbs

Member
I think were in that awkward space between AAA games becoming unmanageably and (potentially unfeasibly) massive and complex vs the point where AI becomes advanced enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting of building out huge worlds (and much more besides), to the degree that a solo indie developer could "make" a GTA clone that blows away anything Rockstar have put out so far.

I think we're relatively close to the latter though, AI is going to dominate in entertainment as well for better or worse...don't get me started on the dangers of its uses outside of entertainment!
You make a good point. AAA/A games are moving upstream to GAAS and other models as indies disrupt them on the low end. Even Nintendo - who was once the king of 2D Metroidvania, released Metroid 2 on 3DS and it wasn't significantly different than the best indie offerings. Sooner or later if AI can bridge that gap to where there's not a lot of difference between an indie open world game and GTA, GTA will be gored, for example.
 
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Well big expensive games, barring some first party ones, are mostly generic shit these days.
Overpromising all the time. The pursuit for more, more, more.

Indies are and will be be the lifeblood of the industry because they're sustainable.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Sony doesn't really need to produce any AA games as long as all the indies and companies like Falcom and From give them priority.
With the way things are going, they probably shouldn't count on that. At least not without big fat checks.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
All that's happened is that these days everything non-AAA gets stuck in the "indie-game" ghetto for the sake of discussion.

Years ago the overwhelming majority of games were made by smaller independent developers and published via "name" publishers and platform holders.

To be honest all the "Indie" vs "AA" vs "AAA" distinction is utter bullshit invented purely for marketing purposes; all there is, and all there ever has been since the beginning of gaming has been team size x dev timescale in terms of actual production, how much ad spend you get is entirely another thing as developers rarely have the time or expertise to market stuff themselves.

Nothing has changed.
 

BabyYoda

Banned
You make a good point. AAA/A games are moving upstream to GAAS and other models as indies disrupt them on the low end. Even Nintendo - who was once the king of 2D Metroidvania, released Metroid 2 on 3DS and it wasn't significantly different than the best indie offerings. Sooner or later if AI can bridge that gap to where there's not a lot of difference between an indie open world game and GTA, GTA will be gored, for example.

Every open world game will end up like a Ubisoft game, maybe they're already using an early version of the AI!

But on a serious note, I think most people have no idea how disruptive AI is going to be to our beloved industry.

I'm excited about it, as I love the idea of telling my computer what I want to play or watch and it creating something for me based on my gaming or viewing habits and pooling info from across the Web powered by quantum computing based AI, my own Holodeck finally, sorta!

I'm not naive though, I'm fully aware that it could be disastrous, we may long for the days of a human touch. I'm not sure a galaxy of AI's are a good substitute for human ingenuity, creativity and the ability to touch the heart.

They may become the equivalent of the souless algorithm based musical hits that I already despise, but that the kids lap up! Time will tell!
 

Areiz

Banned
If they can achieve the quality of Hellblade or Kena it's more a good exchange considering the high production cost of the aaa games today
 

Aenima

Member
No

Sony, MS and Nintendo just need to do a better job of being more transparent with telling us what to expect at these state of play/ direct showcases.

Most people are looking forward to hearing and seeing more of the bigger titles and if they know bigger titles will not be shown then they need to say that before hand, it’s really that simple.

Sony for example, could have just said that “this state of play will focus on indie titles” and that would have scaled back people’s expectations.

Instead, they are trying to manipulate people into viewing these showcases just to get more attention to the smaller titles which is very annoying.
You cant be more transparent than this without spoiling the entire show.

RyB2jOF.png


We got new announcements, and we got updates from previously shown games. And thats what the video description from the State of Play show was saying the entire time before the live stream.

Ppl just need to stop expecting these State of Play shows that happen multiple times during the year, to be megaton events like E3 that only happened 1 time a year and was staged to build as much hype as possible.

If you expected to be bombarded with megatons...

e56eaa97cbf2f7a08212df610069c77f.gif
 
One thing I don't get is why we cannot get some bite sized info from bigger titles they have in production. It doesn't have to be some jaw dropping trailer but even little teasers would improve reception of state of play.
 

CitizenZ

Banned
Indies have driven the industry for close to a decade now excluding CoD and GTA. Minecraft, PUBG, Spelunky, Warframe, Ark, Rocket league and Dayz are the front runners but another dozens sit closely behind and that doesnt include the hundreds of games influenced by them. All with small teams, all selling millions and all with no hype or interest from urinalist, corp slaves and all starting in One place. I have said it for about a dozen yrs if not for ind. devs. i would have given up this hobby.
 
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fatmarco

Member
I think we call every developer who's not owned by one of the major publishers "indys" these days which makes zero sense. It didn't used to be this way at all.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The most obvious barometer for budget ironically is usually animation, because its manpower intensive and requiring a lot of polish and finessing. There's really no way around it because even if you mocap everything clean-up and linking is still a load of work.

Middleware engine tech is so advanced these days that the overall technical skill-gap isn't so apparent and having artists with a good eye and a sense for making the most out of a limited number of assets can get you a long way too.
 

Ellery

Member
Makes sense when we have 5 smaller shows per year and developers doing their own stuff instead of one big burst in the middle of the year.

Though I did prefer the hype of E3 each year. It was pure magic ând I would love to go back
 
No

Sony, MS and Nintendo just need to do a better job of being more transparent with telling us what to expect at these state of play/ direct showcases.

Most people are looking forward to hearing and seeing more of the bigger titles and if they know bigger titles will not be shown then they need to say that before hand, it’s really that simple.

Sony for example, could have just said that “this state of play will focus on indie titles” and that would have scaled back people’s expectations.

Instead, they are trying to manipulate people into viewing these showcases just to get more attention to the smaller titles which is very annoying.
Welcome to Marketing and Business 101. Part of the game, otherwise you won't make it.
 
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I love big AAA games too but we have to realize that indie games have the right to exist and if they don't show them along the heavy hitters, who is going to pay attention then? It's the same when you have opening bands/stand up comedian before the main event. It's an opportunity for the smaller ones to get some spotlight.
 
AAA market is pretty dead if you didn't notice. Besides dev costs in a crumbling economy, a whole generation of kids not caring if the game looks like a clone of a NES game and plays like a retard phone game ensured that, as old audiences grew up to raise kids and pay mortgages...
 
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SLB1904

Banned
the ironic thing is gamers crying when indie games where left out of the conferences now that they are there. They are crying. Give me a break
 

OrangeSun77

Neo Member
The problem with this industry is that no one is willing to pay $ 60 for a game. We live in a cheap society. The only reason to buy a game for $ 60 is because it has to be the best game ever? This industry is unsustainable if consumers want to spend the minimum.

As already mentioned in this thread, the cost of making a game is getting higher and higher and also that a development team manages to make the game and launch it is a miracle.
 

SLB1904

Banned
No

Sony, MS and Nintendo just need to do a better job of being more transparent with telling us what to expect at these state of play/ direct showcases.

Most people are looking forward to hearing and seeing more of the bigger titles and if they know bigger titles will not be shown then they need to say that before hand, it’s really that simple.

Sony for example, could have just said that “this state of play will focus on indie titles” and that would have scaled back people’s expectations.

Instead, they are trying to manipulate people into viewing these showcases just to get more attention to the smaller titles which is very annoying.
If we actually spend 2 min reading the state of play annoucement you wouldn't be crying. Stop blaming others because you are lazy to read.
 

Sygma

Member
Honestly I'm very happy we got indies / AA gaming space. AAA became a weird one post action rpgs / dark souls / online based models. Like there have been clear distinctions in terms of exploitation depending of the genre (sport games in particular), pure arcade game basically got wiped out entirely as the demand for more realism, complexity, immersion and whatnot has increased and MANY big productions have been enormous disappointments

Like, straight up I'm just glad AA is there. Remnant, Hades, Risk of Rain, Kingdom Come, Pathfinder, Elex and all of that were the definitive gems this gen, along with the single player games coming from Sony's 1st party studios, and the occasionally good Assassin's Creed. That's it really, the later half of this gen was honestly shit for the most part

Lets also not forget how PC gaming has been treated with that fucking weird "graphical parity" angle because reasons.
 
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