"Nobody Wants AAA Video Games Anymore"

[@ChiefGore429]

I've lived long enough to see all my favorite i.p.'s die.

[@Lamastache]

I’m praying Ubisoft doesn’t bring back splinters cell just to destroy it

[@CharlieKellyEsq]

​@@Lamastache stop giving them ideas

[@dux5525]

"This is MY I.P. to sit on and do NOTHING with".

[@Jett2894]

Same RIP Diablo RIP FF RIP COD RIP RS RIP CS 😢 L Devs

[@philosophicallybroke8873]

Waiting for mass effect 4 is the same feeling as knowing you girl is about to break up with you, and your just sat there waiting for the text 😂

[@liahfox5840]

They're not AAA games. They're interactive HR orientations

[@GigglingStoners]

Indeed.

[@PantoniStrikesBack]

That was a fantastic definition :D

[@theprogenitor951]

What we're seeing before our eyes is the "Boeing Effect."

[@WackyJacky500]

They aren't HR orientations....they are youth indoctrination/brainwashing vehicles.

[@halodragonmaster]

They're barely even interactive! You can at least get the ones at the job wrong!

[@ka0t1k1]

Gamers don’t want “The message”

[@ignskeletons]

When it comes to the character designs, we need less hating and more gooning

[@TheGlitterMan]

I guess they have to lose billions of dollars just to figure it out.

[@clickbaker1]

I read that in Critical Drinkers voice

[@demonofwar1155]

Real lol 😂​@@ignskeletons

[@Wealth_Atlas]

Woah really!

[@Terpenadon-n1u]

Gamers are drawn to AA and Indie. Games created by gamers for gamers are what we desire. Not the souless corporate cash grabs.

[@RoNoC-u2s]

Facts, I gotta say some of the coolest concepts I’ve seen in games are thought of by solo developers

[@7kortos7]

By gamers not Bi gamers. LOL sorry had to.

[@7kortos7]

@@RoNoC-u2s We Who Are About To Die is a very good example of that. such a fun and whacky game. can't wait for multiplayer. Asmon would dig the shit out of it.

[@justinb8297]

Yep when its a passion project, but not once they let the money get to there heads and they too open up cash shops and other bs

[@BlorbusUnimax]

they arent corporate cash grabs, because they dont sell...they are selling out to black rock for ESG money

[@PowerfulRift]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1780">29:40</a> No, Asmongold, the only reason why the cost of video games is going up, so called, is because they're spending ridiculous amounts of money on useless investments in game development, such as extreme photorealism and mocap animations, which is a waste of money and investment. They're focusing more money on extreme photorealistic graphical realism and shadowing, rather than game design, writing, gameplay, art style, innovation, and all of that. That's why everything's so expensive. Why do you think indie games are so good now in comparison?

[@klassic9900]

This, very much this. Something looking nice is great but if the gameplay sucks who cares? Most games that look less realistic tend to do better. Look at Minecraft or Lethal Company ffs. Both have like 14 pixels between them total (13 for Minecraft and 1 for LC) and look how much people love them.

[@djoal0009]

"Nobody wants western AAA video games anymore" should be the title...

[@EhurtAfy]

Yessir, I don't think anybody would argue that Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Zelda, or Resident Evil are not AAA. I am perfectly fine with more of those AAA games

[@quantum5661]

the AAA and AA coming out of places like japan are pretty solid

[@Totsy30]

We can just call western AAA games “WAAA” games at this point because they’re always crying about some annoying societal message

[@RandomPersonOnTheInternet1234]

more like "nobody wants games that try and force an agenda that we dont want."

[@bodigames]

Yall said the same last year and guess what??? BALDURS GATE 3 so you are just wromg

[@bloodofsanguinius4222]

AA and Indie are what gamers want. We want games that are made by gamers for gamers to enjoy. Not the corporate cash grabs that are souless.

[@carlospallete3030]

and by HR departments

[@keeferChiefer]

Triple A games are always far better than indie if they’re done right, Elden Ring, cyberpunk, and wukong are great examples of this

[@ahhshytson]

@@keeferChiefer Key word is if done right and that's very rare these days from AAA studios.

[@aquafreesh9219]

Gamers are regular guys. No regular guy wants to be forced to deal with California ivory tower politics on a daily basis ESPECIALLY in their escapist video games and yet the cult member must push their recruitment message.

[@NorseGraphic]

@@keeferChieferYeah, but CDPR Dead has gone full DEI, so Witcher 4 will be trash. Same with Cyberpunk 2, though I loved Cyberpunk 2077. 😟

[@IroquoisGaming]

We just want complete games with no propaganda.

[@Unresolver]

The most games contain some form of propaganda, especially "golden standard" games.

[@jinkazama2555]

@@Unresolver You know what he means, dont be a smartass, that hasnt worked out well for your life.

[@aminjeanbredimus7157]

In every disaster there's an opportunity. I hope all indie studios rejoice and understand that if they play their cards right and come up with compelling gameplay, they can rise up real fast, leaving these triple A studios in the triple dust.

[@TheDiner50]

Ha! Well... Sniper Elite? GTA games? One persons propaganda is a others grate punching bag in fiction. Used to promote a political cause or point of view. And more often then not, fabricated to that end. Truth or Lies be disregarded. The message. Power control. It is not enough to remove propaganda. You would still have hurt feelings and awful games being made. And overpriced, gamble, micro-transaction crap. As a example. No blood from combat. Is that because the dev's can not make blood effects? It is not really part of any propaganda. Awful and 3 year old gameplay difficulty? Reviewer difficulty settings? AI enemies that can not even begin to make a fun game? That is not propaganda. Can polish a turd and make a complete and perfect turd of a game. No propaganda. It would still be a polished turd of a game.

[@Syntherus]

There's a direct correlation between identity politics and bad games. When Identity politics are in the game it means the devs are activists and not gamers. They tend to spend way more time making sure they communicate the message than they do making sure the game is actually good. Strictly because the message is the more important thing for them.

[@EnolaGay15]

it's become a cult.

[@thatguydownthestreat]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="253">4:13</a> can we just... stop putting girl boss characters in anything period? just a good character that is female works. and it's been proven for a LONG ass time that guys dont mind or sometimes even prefer to play female characters in games. so like you don't need to make a merry sue that the narrative bends over backwards to "empower", just make a character that is badass, and get a female model and va, like it's not that hard. :T

[@joeking2961]

i always make female characters if im going to be playing games 8 to 12hrs and more id rather be lookin at a chick then a dude

[@Jdiroe]

Triple A lacks integrity Indie studios put every fibre of passion and effort into their games

[@NobleGamer889]

BeamNG drive is a good example of an indie game where the devs listen to the fan base

[@cryfier]

Bro you commented 2 minutes after the video released, you did not even watch it.

[@NobleGamer889]

@@cryfierI do this sometimes it isn’t uncommon in KZbin

[@Gravora]

There are plenty of terrible, half bakes indies but most of them never make news. They die quietly and never make money. The ones we know of are true passion projects with good developers with vision. The reason AAA has problems it does is due to budget and size. When that much money is put into something people expect results, so when the expected results are delivered it is decent and when it is not it is very bad.

[@Tacgonmaner]

not even that, there just fun

[@genexstyle]

Nah, gamers just don't like being force fed politics throught a game or rushed out games full of bugs...

[@Inkspells]

Not true nobody cares about the politics if the game is Well written

[@elliottwilson5962]

@@Inkspellsoh nobody cares? So you speak for everyone? I don’t want bullshit politics in my games so you’re wrong

[@fabiusque4266]

Pretty much this. If AAA games would still be focussed on delivering what the playerbase wants (and constantly says it wants), there wouldnt be an issue. The whole issue is that they dont.

[@NeonEclipse910]

"The message" works its way into the game because they have people who are not game developers developing the game. It comes from not having quality employees. DEI hires cannot produce good quality. And with games, quality matters a lot.

[@EpicWarrior131]

​@@InkspellsBeing well written helps too, but I don't want to be preached to or subtly propagandized in any way in video games, regardless of the writer's talent. Any agenda other than making a game that appeals to the majority of players in terms of fun, aesthetics, fulfillment, immersion etc is nothing but a virus that needs to be cleansed from the gaming industry entirely. Giv'em an inch they take a mile.

[@rogthepirate4593]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="340">5:40</a> There's the problem right there: "*annual* CoD title". Nobody demanded this. They're complaining that it's so hard to shit out a new CoD every year? Well, then how about you don't?

[@judgedread9724]

But think of the investors!

[@lfcmike12]

They'll stop doing it when the average gamer grows a brain and stops paying for slop.

[@Gnidel]

As a fan of Sonic, I appreciate yearly releases. I'm pretty sure that there are many CoD fans who enjoy high frequency of the series they like.

[@kurtisgladue9178]

@@GnidelIf they have substantial reason for the yearly release, sure. There’s no reason that I should have skipped the last 4 Call of Duty games and hopped onto BO6, thanks game pass, and never skip a beat. It’s more copy and paste than sports games at this point.

[@jr2904]

The investors demand it

[@logansrevenge1214]

Over hiring was definitely a problem. Especially when your gaming company has more HR, marketing, and management, then the development team. How does a company fire 1500 people and still make games? Because they hired to many people. Then cut quality, now people are out of work and games suck because of greed.

[@TommasoFirmini]

Imagine putting $100-$400million into a game just for the dei hire to make it a therapy sim/validation machine

[@rickybev3078]

Hiring seven people to do the job one person used to do and having massive overhead staff that don’t actually produce anything made them far too expensive to produce.

[@pittuk6500]

Reparations

[@paulw5039]

Hiring seven people - *based on identity checkboxes instead of talent* - to do the job one *competent* person used to do and having massive overhead staff that don’t actually produce anything made them far too expensive to produce.

[@rickybev3078]

@@paulw5039 🫡

[@honieebean]

And the games aren't even finished when they come out anymore

[@Oakeybloke]

And the discussion between those 7 people go on forever, no wonder they get nothing done 😂

[@Godeias]

I don't even care about GTA6, ES6, or any other long awaited game from AAA studios anymore.

[@ares23dc]

Mass Effect 5, Witcher 4 also. Have absolute zero faith in them. My top 2 favourite franchises, and I have zero interest in buying them at this point, reading what the studios are doing.

[@Papa_Ul]

@ All four mentioned got DEId.

[@fullmetal921]

They'd be far removed from what made their predecessors great anyway. No loss.

[@_MaZTeR_]

GTA 6 has so many DEI redflags the past few years. Starfield is a clear example Bethesda has their heads so far up Todd's and Emile's asses that any other game ends the same. Dragon Age Flopguard is a clear example BioWare hasn't learned from nearly 8 years ago with Mass Effect Andromeda.

[@MN-jw7mm]

GTA6 may still be a good game if you ignore the story because Rockstar still has a good technical record and people play online for the chaotic fun, not the story. ES6? Mass Effect 5? The Witcher 4? Those are all made by devs that can neither write, nor code.

[@jobbathehutt109]

No. We don't want bad AAA games. Good triple AAA games are still on the menu

[@aahzmandiaz2767]

And will still be bought. We just reject the DEI slop.

[@The_Primary_Axiom]

The last good AAA game I remember in 2 years was what Hogwarts and BG3. What else am I missing? I mean, you could argue Ragnarok. But all the good AAA games are coming out of the east now. Name a good western AAA game that came out in the last two years besides the ones I named.

[@squidikka]

@@The_Primary_Axiom Space marine 2.

[@chiron03]

Its not about it being AAA. Its about AAA games just becoming DEI garbage.

[@adriennebrown2941]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="247">4:07</a> I'm a girl and have always played 'guy games' but honestly make a game with two hot thirst trap girl boss npcs with side quests that were actually engaging and there would be no complaints. Maybe make the main quest giver or companion a man but men would come back to the hot girls if they had a good questline.

[@chrisleonard2908]

They hired developers and let them make games targeting the 1% of gaming audience and then complained that the other 99% didn't buy their game.

[@stanislavkimov2779]

It's not even for that 1%, cause the games are not even good.

[@battfinkz]

THIS

[@olafthebear2327]

They could still maybe make it work, but only if they spent 1% of the budget they're actually spending to make the games. Instead they're spending at least triple the budget a normal game made for normal people would be expected to cost

[@jonw7937]

And just like in Hollywood where they do this, they always infect existing IPs that already have a fandom because if they make their own games/shows/movies zero people show up to get force fed "The message". Case in point Concord, Dustborn, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians

[@stephanreiken9912]

If AAA games had AAA quality instead of a D-, maybe people would buy it.

[@thalanoth]

Sounds like the housing market lol 😅

[@l3vi23]

​@@thalanothno because houses that were 100k in 2000 are 500k if not more in 2024 new games aren't $300 dollars there hasn't been a %500 increase in cost

[@harambe4267]

@@l3vi23 Have you seen the state of newbuilds and flips? The 500k houses are total shitboxes.

[@innocentbystander3317]

The idea that "art" can be corporatized, algorithmically designed, and mass-produced is insane. A real artist will always stand above the industry because _it's different_ and not more of the same. This is where new life is made, corporate offices are where it decays.

[@Papa_Ul]

Based take with fitting profile picture.

[@poppyrider5541]

It worked with music.

[@brain_tonic]

Facts. Team Cherry, 3 people, made Hollow knight. Game Science made Wukong with under a 50 mil budget. Suits can never compete with gamers making games for other gamers.

[@magnusnilsson9792]

Indeed, it's like making parodies with no original content.

[@The_Gull1]

honestly the movies industry has the same problem gaming has with the girlboss characters in movies for men.

[@HaxHaunter]

dont forget how development costs are also higher because of the irrational pursuit for graphics and power.

[@Jarnis-v1c]

People do not want bad, woke AAA games.

[@demonofwar1155]

Real 💯

[@enhancethechance3998]

People are just over the pushy woke movement, trying to push their propaganda everywhere, it’s nauseating. Like if you want to be woke then be woke don’t try to force your crap on me though

[@Mara-g6g]

For 20 years they have utterly ignored players and said “here is more graphics” while everyone wanted “more fun”. Games these days look good and are utterly uninteresting. Nothing is fun. POE2 is the first game in 10 years that looks like i might wanna play again

[@dieltolo6112]

This last 5 years, the AAA games that I hade more fun was Elder Ring, Cyberpunk and Baldur's Gate

[@aaronfalcon3152]

I'd carve out an exception for DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal too.

[@quantum5661]

honestly, halo 3 is enough graphics for 85% of games

[@luminous3558]

Games these days do not look good. They also do not respect the hardware that they are made for at all. If devs were hired on merit then we would have games that look really amazing while running smoothly on most rigs. Instead its just buy the latest graphics card or hope our jank game doesnt brick your stuff.

[@Katniss0000]

best example RDR2. all graphics/cutscenes with No fun. Game is just an interactive movie. a cowboy on a hollywood set. stray away from path for 1 second. Mission failed. Too much hand holding and clunkyness. realism? survival games are more realistic. Rdr2 realism is for Aesthetics only.

[@uriyahndoesstuff9982]

They have twice the budget they had a few years ago, but delivering half the product they used to. How does that even happen?

[@paulrasmussen8953]

Poor business practice

[@deoxysandmew2162]

CEO pockets the rest. Rich gets richer, poor gets poorer.

[@lorecow88]

DEI practices, hiring expensive "consultancy" firms. It adds up pretty quickly and always leads to a worse product.

[@Katniss0000]

BS in Yappathon is getting all the money. Executives/Managers/CEO, Even a single game Manor Lords was made by ONE person.

[@saidares]

hiring based on race, gender and sexuality instead of hiring whos best for the job

[@SwornInvictus]

DEI is what killed movies and games here in the west. I quit all of it and read old books or binge an anime once in a while, that's it.

[@Megatholis]

We just need AAA games that are actually AAA. Thats it, nobody hates AAA games

[@philosophicallybroke8873]

Because AAA stands for Absolutely Astonishingly Ass, at this point.

[@RealHomeRecording]

My girlfriend has one of those.

[@TheHK_47]

What about quadruple a

[@philosophicallybroke8873]

​@RealHomeRecording yes she does 👍

[@L9MN4sTCUk]

I've been hearing there's going to be an indie uprising since the mid 2000s. Still waiting. Gaming is big money, all those micro transaction laden games are raking in cash. Who wants to be an art centric indie game developer and be broke?

[@Rengokuo4o6]

​@RealHomeRecording I bet she does 😂😂😂😂😂

[@WARVANE]

too much DEI in the industry.

[@RoCkShaDoWWaLkEr]

It's because DEI is a globalist agenda and many globalists have jobs on the boards of AAA game producing companies plus Black Rock and Vanguard owns shares in every big game development or publishing companies. Those 2 firms are also globalist controlled and pushing the agenda (they also own shares in every major movie/tv show company). Globalism is a tree with many branches and far reaching roots.

[@hectorgregorio95]

Nintendo's developers worked om mario wonder with ZERO pressure from the studio. No release date, they just worked at their own pace and whenever the game was ready they pitched it for release. Nintendo also increased their workers salary recently

[@funkyflunky9882]

Nintendo will always be a horrific but funny anomaly to me. They’re such corporate cutthroat assholes to anyone that isn’t in their circle, but are more than accommodating to anyone they employ or have an agreement with. I wouldn’t blame anyone who wants to work for Nintendo, even as they use lawsuits to murder Palworld and kill emulation. They’re so fucking evil, but they will take very good care of the minions.

[@SillyOmega]

The Japanese are a lot smarter with their money. I don't know why Western companies like developing their games in the most expensive cities.

[@aldo6532]

Do you hve a link for these? This is interesting!

[@dumkunt6869]

​@SillyOmega Most of them anyway. Konami, Sony, and Square Enix love to blow their money on pointless investments.

[@SillyOmega]

@dumkunt6869 unfortunetly those pitifully studios started to invest in western studios more. Worried about capcom because some internal document leaked saying they were hiring a dei consoltant.

[@agoosecalledxaro6679]

People like good games. It doesn't matter what kind of battery they're based on.

[@wargamesmaster]

The bubble wouldn't have "burst" if the right decisions were taken, such as NOT insulting/patronizing your own customers and not doing anything DEI related. Edit: And just saying, having real actors in video games can work if done right. Look at Metal Gear and games series from the 90's like Command & Conquer and Wing Commander.

[@vulgaritar48]

You want me to spend $70 on garbage? In this economy?

[@Jeustful]

$70 is just for the barebones edition. To get all content you have to pay more.

[@wackpendejo3000]

@@Jeustful not to mention the DLC/"micro"transactions....

[@oneplay5570]

@@wackpendejo3000 i aint not paying 70$ for a incomplete game and lack of content

[@ChinaResidence]

There was no bubble that was burst. Triple A games simply became too corporatized and along the way it was forgotten why video games were even made in the first place. Games were always just about having fun. Anything else was just extra. And somehow the guys in suits managed to forget that.

[@stanislavkimov2779]

Bubble is where these guys in suits live. They are totally detached from reality.

[@HandsomePrat]

its because AAA has become stale, it used to be a standard but now its a template, its supposed to be the skeleton but its turned into the whole game in a different coloured jacket.

[@MrGamman3yt]

Sorta like comic movies?

[@kwerby3285]

Incredible analogy

[@Papa_Ul]

​@@MrGamman3yt I would say movies in general.

[@asdfbeau]

Steve Jobs was a dick but he summarized this well with the 'bozo effect'; 2 things happen: 1. As IP becomes established, companies rely more on the marketing of that IP, and marketing/sales begins to run the company (as opposed to the engineers who built the original IP). Good engineers leave as they become dissatisfied with how they are viewed. 2. Bad managers/executives hire people _worse_ than them, so that nobody sees what a bozo they are; once you get a bozo Director, it's over; multiple organizations can now no longer change because that director represents the 'skill-cap' of their org. Inevitably, all decisions will go through them, they'll become overloaded, and the org. stagnates.

[@YellowLab-b8l]

They tunred it Marxist, because it got big enough to have an impact. Agendas are at play. It's Mao's China all over again. That's why it appears silly, because the ideology is irrational.

[@Haruka_May]

The demand is there the same as always if not bigger, but so many AAA western devs refuse to give players what they want.

[@DeltaDragon79]

I get so much as a hint of DEI or social issues its automatically a no buy. It's pretty easy to tell too as the developers can't help but tell you on social media how diverse and amazing they are and how evil you are for not wanting it.

[@MrWhiteKniight]

Increased the price to 70$ for worse quality. For the same amount of money you could buy Hollow Knight OuterWilds and Hades. Thats 3 10/10 games. AAA Games dont stand a chance now. Especially when people like the Avowed dude isnt fired yet with a public statement saying they dont agree.

[@Kiryu_Kazuma01]

Meh, even if it is true or not, you can’t deny that “AAA” gaming quality has _drastically_ decreased over the years. Prioritizing profit margins through season passes and garbage microtransactions. There are very few “AAA” games I am hyped for anymore, but we are seeing it now, a select few a big name devs/publishers, and a large number of indie/AA devs are crushing it right now.

[@RealHomeRecording]

AAA is flung around and all it really means is high budget. True AAA games are the Grand Theft Autos, Call of Duties, Minecrafts and Fortnites of the world.

[@Kiryu_Kazuma01]

@ Either way, higher budgets doesn’t always equate to higher quality games especially in that market

[@meataxenarll]

$300 million dollar budgets, and Activision STILL cannot fix the cheating problem in Call of Duty... 💩💩💩

[@spartanx169x]

Exactly and players would rather complain about SBMM. When everything thing weird happening can be explained by cheating. Hit reg? Cheating.

[@ares23dc]

Cheating is rampant in Battlefield games as well.

[@spartanx169x]

@ On PC it definitely is. Its rampant.

[@blazinpuffs]

It's called a slush fund

[@fortheloveofnoise]

​@spartanx169x BOTH are a huge problem, but SBMM is worse to me

[@blindkaiser1]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="649">10:49</a> I agree. Live service games are just an excuse for companies to try and milk their players for more money. That's it. Non-live service games can be just as successful, but AAA studios can't slake their greed on one-time purchase games.

[@RexRagerunner]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="524">8:44</a> it was fun though? And it still is. How do you think the game is still doing good right now despite they announced that there won't be any new content for it? ARAM queue times are 7-9 seconds on avarage. They stopped making updates for it because Activision corrupted Blizzard thought that the game's E-Sports wasn't as big as LoL so it was basically a loss of revenue. There are alot of people going around, saying "HotS is a dead game, don't bother playing it." and yet there are so many players playing the game that on EU server, it takes me 25-35 seconds to find an ARAM game at 5 AM in the morning.

[@Daikyu9.47]

True, hots is great

[@MauOlivares1]

Indie = Passion AAA = GIMME MONEY FROMSOFT = We got you boys

[@B1u35ky]

Fromsoft is essentially AAA

[@MauOlivares1]

@B1u35ky yes, indeed

[@keeferChiefer]

I’ve still got hope for projekt red, Santa Monica, and rockstar. They’ve yet to drop anything but heaters. Hopefully REDs next game doesn’t have the same release that cyberpunk did though

[@SpecShadow]

@@B1u35ky from what point? Financial? That they need publisher to fund developement of their games? Sure... but that publisher does NOT influence the developement itself - hence why indie=independent

[@B1u35ky]

@@SpecShadow aaa not from a publishing standpoint but from budget and quality level for sure

[@djpuplex]

GTA VI being woke will be the end of AAA games.

[@phexus]

Is that confirmed?

[@NobleGamer889]

@@phexusonly time will tell

[@nahkaboltsi6315]

@@phexus watch endymions video about it, it is woke🤮

[@frankfooter6531]

0 chance GTA 6 flops lol

[@damascus6480]

Oh it will and if I’m wrong everyone can come back here and relentlessly degrade me lol, but I truly feel in my bones it’s gonna be woke. They know people are so hyped for it that it’ll sell. Also go look at what the currant team looks like what what they said about older gta games, it’s all you need to know.

[@VygoUwU]

I dont get how game studios dont understand the concept of "Good games generate money"

[@uhnetwork7506]

Literally for example the new cod can’t stand more than like 3-4 matches then I’m on the home screen or on tik tok the game just drains you but in BO2 days I’d literally put in shifts on that game I’m talking day long playing sessions maybe breaks for food and restroom smh something definitely went wrong

[@soldat88hun]

They don't want money, they want to force you to behave a certain way.

[@Averymindset]

because game studios have to DEI HIRE > DEI HIRE dont know/care about games. They just want to bark their “message”. + Media/award/journalists are also DEI HIRE. > forcing more studios to have “message” or else they will be under attack.

[@petebagwell6666]

That's not always true for films so I don't understand why it would be for videogames

[@JustDrinkAboutit]

Not really, if the servers for BF3 were available for PS4 people would still play it.

[@edgarfriendly4731]

I'm an old gamer. I'll be 40 next month. This transition in popularity back and forth between western games and eastern games has happened a few times before. It's a good thing. The east will double down on what makes games sell, western studios will collapse, New ones will take their place and start doing what's popular.

[@midastheunwise2423]

36 here, I've also seen the ebb and flow. The East has always put out a large quantity of good games, it's just that people don't pay much attention to them when the West is in a golden age of gaming. As a lifelong JRPG enjoyer, I never felt the 'PS3 has no games' rhetoric because a ton of great JRPGs were made for it, but the Xbox 360 had a good library of Western games so it cornered the market here. I think this is the biggest collapse for Western AAA gaming companies ever though, due to the sheer amount of money involved and the high publicity for the major failures. Gamers are finally starting to vote with their wallets, and it will be the studios that stand tall amongst the rubble of those that fell that become the new templates for game design philosophy. Then we'll be good for another decade or so until the same thing happens again.

[@SwornInvictus]

The UN and Visa, basically globalists behind wokness, are trying to censor Asian media. Let's hope they don't succeed otherwise it's over.

[@edgarfriendly4731]

@@midastheunwise2423 Adjusted for inflation I'd estimate the scale to be around as big as 1983.

[@Mark-vr7pt]

Stellar Blade: hot girl Space Marine 2: cool dudes Deadlock: hot girls and cool dudes Monster Hunter: cool dudes and hot girls killing cool giant monsters Hmmmm, i wonder, what do they have in common?

[@CrextComic]

Meanwhile: Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, Wu Kong, Stellar Blade, Snowbreak, Space Marines II, Fortnite, heck even Infinity Nikki... Just don't be woke, how hard is it?

[@raphk9599]

They see that untapped queer market and just can't help themselves

[@Papa_Ul]

I've died at Infinity Nikki, thank you! XD

[@luminous3558]

@@raphk9599 That market doesnt exist and the few people who fall into that category play the games mentioned above over the woke slop.

[@spazzey0]

didn't fortnite technically fail recently by implementing explicit political propaganda inside of their game?

[@MichaelWard-le1ck]

Infinity Nikki in this list is pretty crazy.

[@jadayaindigo7696]

Ive gotten 200+ hours of enjoyment from an $10 indie passion project that 1 dude made. Why the fuug would I pay AAA prices to people to who hate me just to play a 8-10 hour game that deliberately insults me. Or some multiplayer bullshit.

[@Mousse9]

What’s the game? Is it on Steam? I’m sitting at over 1700 hours in Stardew Valley…

[@raphk9599]

1000+ hours over here on an indie game.

[@RedEverything]

A few days ago I finished Vladik Brutal, a Half-Life inspired FPS game made by one russian guy.

[@Papa_Ul]

@ Any recommendations? Please?

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

I still play FTL and Binding of Isaac on occasion and I have easily a couple of hundred hours in each. Some of the best money I ever spent!

[@RJ-s41ty]

Bring back toxic lobbies in COD! The TOXICITY made it fun

[@xrip75]

absolutely this 100%.

[@fortheloveofnoise]

💯

[@stanislavkimov2779]

It's not real toxicity, it's a sincere masculine safe space.

[@Leo10572]

Or more like people finding out that they have free will

[@sarkzar]

im tired of being asked to pay $70 to do a studio's final run of QA

[@TheLindenbeat]

Gamers want AAA games, they just dont want "AAAA" games with no soul and predatory microtransactions.

[@jcflores1774]

AAA games are still wanted, just not those made by committee and checklists. They want unique works of arts that show some humanity.

[@renewagain6956]

It burst last year, it's just more obvious now.

[@BaloneyPoney007]

Endymion put out a video on how bad Rockstar has gotten with DEI, good chance new GTA has a bunch of "the message" in it.

[@Packin-Heat.]

Endymion is a joke and his sources are basically always I know a guy that knows a guy. He's wrong 99% of the time and he obviously just makes stuff up.

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

​@@Packin-Heat. Lol your kind gets so mad when you're called out.

[@Moderation_Dodger]

​@Packin-Heat. Idk about that but this video pulled up Devs LinkedIn and showed their DEI course qualifications... plus OG Rockstar creators and founders have left, I think to form a new indie studio... a common story. Sure the game will still be good regardless, but it won't be the same vibe. Personally, I felt like GTA5 was a fall off from the orginal vibe. ViceCity, SanAndreas & IV were way better than 5.

[@Papa_Ul]

Upping this comment for posterity.

[@fullmetal921]

@@Packin-Heat. LOL

[@ruggedlemmings9163]

It's not that people don't want AAA games anymore, it's that people don't want the dogshit that's being called AAA anymore. AAA used to be a guarantee of quality, the best of the best in terms of gaming experiences. People still want that, but AAA has been devalued by so many "AAA games" failing to deliver on AAA experiences that AAA as a descriptor has become a joke.

[@bud389]

"These are all Western studio problems" - Wrong, Japan has had an extraordinary amount of flops, it's simply that there's a survivorship bias in player recollection. Babylon's Fall was a massive stinker that got flushed early, Balan Wonderworld was a massive flop, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers flopped, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising flopped, and Loop8: Summer of Gods flopped. Japan has plenty of flops, they're simply over-shadowed by the mega-successes from Capcom and Nintendo.

[@ItApproaches]

We can't be in the best time for gaming when so many things are broken and awful. Graphics don't make it the best time for gaming. The N64 days and Gamecube/PS2/Xbox days were the best time in gaming.

[@foreveredging]

Just because a game is not popular, doesn’t mean its not good. this goes both ways

[@Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0000]

Usually popular means pretty bad anyhow lol.

[@foreveredging]

@ which is why I said goes both ways

[@conflictclips]

This is true. However you know you made a piece of shit of a game when it can't even reach 4digits players.

[@tyguy8194]

This doesn’t apply to AAA games. They have the marketing budgets of solar systems, so everyone sees it and is paying attention to it. AA/indies don’t so even if they’re good they can be drowned out by the noise which would apply more to your statement.

[@pyrolysis22]

Time for the indie devs to rise up and start a new era of gaming.

[@jamesflowers1295]

Again!

[@zaneheaston8254]

As long as AAA games are synonymous with being incomplete, buggy, money-gouging live services, then yeah the AAA industry is dead

[@Katniss0000]

the only acceptable live service are the games they play in movies,anime,etc. anything is cash grab.

[@xxwolfxx9844]

I agree with that these companies that are trying to start these new IPs with massive budgets are taking to many risks. New IP devs should be forced to work with limited resources and learn to work with what they have. The budgets should increase with the skill of the dev teams and the bigger the budget gets the more they need to be careful about who they hire.

[@Necropheliac]

I don’t blame game developers for making a title that bombs, I blame them for taking so long to understand that they need to pivot. It has been obvious for years that what they’re doing is not working, but they act like it’s fine to keep rolling with a failed strategy even though it’s obvious that it won’t work. It’s like deliberately crashing a ship into the same iceberg that sank the titanic and saying: “omg that iceberg is still in the way!”

[@Anthonybrother]

Definitely what they do.

[@holdenhunt8920]

The issue is that these companies keep making games in a way that is so expensive that if they fail they will have to close down. So they resort to making them as safe as possible

[@chilomine839]

"We'll force video game studios to do our bidding so you won't buy games"- BR

[@Pickle_Maniac]

Where is the money going? To inexperience DEI hires, they have to work 3 X longer to produce 50% quality. Just look at Avowed 40hrs, 2010 graphics, Started in 2018, had a direction change, set backs, people leaving, more people leaving. Don't be surprised if this thing costs 250M.

[@LukaGremory90]

Idk why the head of the company doesnt understand that making a good games IS must.

[@theremix54]

If Japan didn’t exist, I would unironically consider AAA games to be dead. Nintendo, Capcom, Fromsoft. I seriously can’t think of the last western AAA game I loved. I’m hoping the next is Metroid prime though.

[@Papa_Ul]

That got confirmed to have a writer with colorful hair if you know what I mean.

[@RobertMalachowski]

Yeah but look at the deal Fromsoft is going through

[@MichaelWard-le1ck]

Cyberpunk Baldurs gate doom that’s about it for me

[@Rakutan-san]

"How does it feel to have lived long enough to watch all your favorite franchises go down in flames?"

[@Rajin90]

I don't feel anything anymore. Complete apathy for the industry.

[@sunshoe-l5r]

dragon age failguard doesn't exist in my world

[@Katniss0000]

hope all of the game studios wake up from reality before they Remake chrono trigger.

[@just_Ahria]

Indie Games have more Soul and Love put into than most AAA Games nowadays.

[@Santoroz]

Turns out, when you don't hire the best people for the job, and instead hire DEI, so your company looks hip and trendy, it doesn't result in a good product!

[@boristheamerican2938]

DEI are marginally competant, nepo babies on the other hand are complete waste.

[@virgilknightley2668]

HOTS was an amazing MOBA, literally the most fun MOBA that ever existed. The fact that they failed to promote it and let it die still breaks my heart.

[@AzraelAlpha]

I am back to playing 20 year old games because none of the current slop is appealing. The AAA industry is definitely dead to me.

[@keos1655]

Same currently playing wizardry

[@stanislavkimov2779]

No joke, I like new games and good graphics, but recently was looking what to play with a friend, and found that we gravitate to X-Box 360 era games where you had many 2-player co-op games (that even worked with split-screen on consoles). The spirit of that era was great: mainstream big games were made with love and 0 censorship, they were edgy and did their best to make the gamers happy.

[@zakyrath]

@@stanislavkimov2779 Me and a buddy have been enjoying remnant 2 so far as fun game tho I do miss Army of 2

[@MichaelWard-le1ck]

I’m playing goldeneye and quake

[@OldNerdPlayingOldPCGames]

Of course there are so many problems on the pile, but it's not surprising that AAA is no longer attractive because there's no uniqueness, no innovation since literally the early 00s. Ubisoft was right, we actually need AAAA, just certainly not Skull & Bones or another generic Farcrassassin. Maybe GTA 6?

[@williamdrum9899]

There is a better chance of Hell freezing over than GTA 6 being good.

[@OldNerdPlayingOldPCGames]

@@williamdrum9899 Having seen the leaks, I'm pretty sure it's going to be revolutionary.

[@pedrotrejo8118]

​@@OldNerdPlayingOldPCGamesjust watched a video saying GTA is being bombarded be DEI and woke agenda. Same with Halo. It's over 😞

[@ChaoticGoodPeasant23]

@@OldNerdPlayingOldPCGames Ohohoho, the game made without the people who made all the other games? The same people who left due to forced DEI? The same people that were forcing employees of only a certain color to take 'courses' about bias? I am willing to bet it's going to be a one-two punch. GTA6 will be woke, and we will get a lot of reports of crunch and vile working conditions. And Rockstar too starts it descent. That isn't to say GTA6 won't still be a success--based off brand alone. And the GTA RP scene!

[@damascus6480]

@@OldNerdPlayingOldPCGameslol well I’d like to believe that? But it’ll definitely have its share of woke crap. Look at the team and what they said about older gta games.

[@JayR-jo9]

Even GTA 6 has been plagued by the DEI activist. The death of gaming is here boiis. Good while it lasted

[@Papa_Ul]

I hope more people will talk about it.

[@fortheloveofnoise]

I already saw the deathcoming back in 2013.

[@Papa_Ul]

@@fortheloveofnoise What gave it away?

[@fortheloveofnoise]

​@@Papa_UlWay before DEI or anything like that, they started treating games like corporate products instead of games, and they tried to sanitize them in a way that would make them (in their minds) appeal to the most people, while at the same time figuring out how to maximize profit generation by predatory means.

[@Papa_Ul]

@@fortheloveofnoise Thanks, I think I get it now. I was really curious.

[@kylespevak6781]

Idk why people act like everything had a right to succeed

[@OtaldeMaciel]

Games need to go back to being just games and not this boring interactive cinema full of shallow ideologies and a waste of life time

[@moochnmunch]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="18">0:18</a> it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

[@leBrolyJames]

Triple A? More like triple F! FOR FAILURE!

[@Hodoss]

Emotional damage!

[@phemeloseotlolla]

People who want social politics in game don't play games. They just want to tell people what to think.

[@Cubeytheawesome]

Well, there are issues that need to be spread, like climate change, anti-consumer practices, unfair pay of workers, AI, corporate greed, mental health, and misinformation. How else can people learn about these issues? Sure people can not be as obnoxious and preachy about them, but how else can the word be spread

[@brain_tonic]

@@Cubeytheawesome News media, obviously...

[@Cubeytheawesome]

@@brain_tonic but the trust of news organizations has dwindled. I take it you heard about how MSNBC & CNN have been on a downfall?

[@SimonPeter1]

#<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="825">13:45</a>: Yep, it is not about "DEI detected"; it is "bad game detected".

[@Solizeus]

There are plenty of shounen female protagonist characters that are isekai style OP, with murderous vibes and everything, the main difference between those boss babes in these games and these shonen girl protagonists is that they are still feminine, they don't treat others like shit, they are not misandrists, they treat guys with the dignity of a fellow human being.

[@Stealth86651]

I was actually talking to a coworker about this recently, how I haven't even really been excited for or played a AAA game in ages. Just haven't seen one that interested me, they all have either predatory mechanics or way too multiplayer focused without any depth or decent plot/story/world. I've been enjoying a ton of indie titles though, best part is they take up a lot less space on the HD and cost less too, win win lol.

[@thalanoth]

Armored core 6 was badass

[@lfcmike12]

Last Ax3 game I was excited for was rdr2 lol

[@RobertMalachowski]

⁠@@lfcmike12 You used the same amount of characters and more keyboard to say it like that. Same that was the last game that felt like it had soul behind it besides Elden Ring and Kingdom Come, and those ones are foreign devs

[@GregCaldwellPlays]

Maybe if developers took Nintendo‘s approach to video games instead of only focusing on power going to there systems; it’s unbelievable how Nintendo is blowing every other studio out of the water with AAA video games and no micro transactions in any of there first party games. Those Companies and developers should really stop just straight up chasing power master 4K instead of focusing on power

[@RockoBam1]

Smaller studios on lower budgets proved that the quality can still be incredible. Wukong didn't cost that much to make in comparison to AAA titles and it was better than them all this year. $70 million is nothing in comparison to most big titles. Astro Bot was something similar.

[@icyflames135]

@asmongold <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="413">6:53</a> Thats not a female btw. I played it and that was one of my main characters. He is a guy :3

[@CryinOverSpilledTea]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="60">1:00</a> the problem is not corporate. It's the teams. As someone working in a project based environment with a very similar structure, though admittedly outside of gamedev, corporate only gets triggered to hire when they recieve the signals. Usually this means the team is complaining about workload, nobody has the knowledge to solve certain issues, or there is a gap in the team. Corporate doesn't just go around hiring more on their own. This goes hand in hand with the issues we have heard about padding estimates. If a 1 day task suddenly requires 2 weeks, then it's pretty easy to see how that same team will start saying they need more people. This is how I ended up at my current job. The team continued to complain that they needed a new person but nobody can explain why I never have 40 hours of work in a week.

[@TracksideViews]

Game optimization has burst

[@MrRafagigapr]

idiots pushing for unreal engine 5 is why so many games are so dumbed down and run like shit , the engine is not just made for visuals , the gameplay capabilities depend on how the engine is made , the more you innovate and stretch the engine the worse it performs if they innovate too much the engine sucks in performance because it was made for straight visual performance , imagine in path of exile 2 was made in fucking unity or unreal engine 5 lmao it would have to be mega simplified for your CPU to not explode , Games like factorio would never have close to their performance using any other engine in the market

[@PeterJurgen-Bengo]

@@MrRafagigapr the engine has nothing to do with perfromance, its the person using it

[@Iridium.]

Just play indies. Support smaller devs that actually pour their soul in the game and market it with "humane" prices.

[@user-fr5hs4vj4d]

So we should support crappy indie games just because they love making games. No thanks. Almost every indie game is incredibly short, no depth and crappy graphics. No thanks. I grew up in the nes era and I’m not going back to playing zork.

[@pkthegod2685]

@@user-fr5hs4vj4dyou do realize that there are genuinely great indie games released every year right

[@Anthonybrother]

Look at this anon's strawman argument. Gtfo with zork

[@fujinmage8201]

1. wokeness 2. bad economy & rising game prices 3. poorly optimized & broken games at launch.

[@kevinericsnell4092]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="888">14:48</a> As somebody who keeps an eye on life-sim and "cozy" themed indie games, I can definitely say a healthy preponderance of these games made since 2020 do use the pronoun or body type A/B model to one degree or another. Some are more obnoxious about it, and some just quietly phase out "male" and "female" as words or symbols, replacing them with visually masculine or feminine characters (the more obnoxious ones being giving you only androgynous choices). So it's not just AAA.

[@gabrielbumanglag3303]

The fact that they depend a lot on GPU technology like DLSS, FSR, and Frame Generation, makes these companies skimp on optimizing their games. AAAs nowadays are prominent in this.

[@Andman8210]

I don’t play multiplayer titles anymore, my favorites(COD and Battlefield) have been destroyed. Single player titles are the way to go and only with smaller studios. Nintendo is also still fun.

[@nahkaboltsi6315]

2 things which are the problem, woke and dei, if these would be fixed aaa games would be more popular than ever

[@nahkaboltsi6315]

and microtransactions, but they are 3rd on the list

[@FPSBurns]

I’ve become so jaded from triple A games lately that I actually started writing a story/world and gameplay for a game that I want to make and play. Fuck em’ I’ll do it myself.

[@Papa_Ul]

Same here. Good luck!

[@deoxysandmew2162]

Go for it mate. Spite can be great motivator.

[@lolsalad52]

The real reason triple A is dying Is because triple A is where new blood Devs go to get a job. The churn through rate at AAA studios is undeniably higher than other places which makes their games usually being worked on by majority new Devs. Which wouldn't be a problem if like 99% of the Devs who knew what they were doing in the respective studios hadn't already left. Leaving the new Devs with 0 guidance on how to make a "Bethesda" game or a "dragon age" game etc. Companies like CDPR are swapping to uE5 purely because most of their Devs left after cyberpunk and their replacements don't know how to use their in-house engine and it's too expensive to train them to use it.

[@maxlmpact]

A famous orange man once said "everything woke turns to shit"

[@kaznika6584]

Orange man good