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Probably why Lethal Company, a game made by one person with little experience, is the 9th highest selling game on Steam.
I hope this happens more often and AAA studios realize they can also make small experimental games with small budgets and few staff. They don't need to spend 10 years doing nothing but work on their next monolithic title. Give some passionate staffers a chance with their unique idea and release smaller games along the way.
And the only options for mobile games nowadays are gachas! Rip gaming
Truth. I have a decent amount of spare Google Rewards credit to spend on games but there are no good games to get. (any recommendations?)
Polytopia if you like strategy. You can buy tribes if you want to, but the basic 4 they give you have the "strongest" in the game, there's no p2w. I've ended up buying all the tribes and am well on my way to all the skins (they only have one extra skin for some of the tribes at the moment) but that's because I play it a ton and have for years, so it's just to support the dev.
Dev is active and makes improvements regularly, just released a long anticipated update that had some significant game play changes so it feels fresh, and the changes seem to make it more interesting / balanced so far.
There's also a very dedicated fan community on discord that sets up frequent tournaments or team games if you find you like it.
The industry at large has gone to shit, but there are positives. Game dev tools are more accessible now than they've ever been. The indie market is thriving and has recently produced games that are some of the most creative and interesting I've ever seen
Share some gems? :)
Dredge, Lethal Company, and Against the Storm from last year. Less recently I'd say Vampire Survivors, Sifu, Yuppie Psycho, and Hollow Knight. There are many more I'm blanking on I'm sure
This meme is giving "I have only played Ubisoft/ea/actizard titles for the past 4 years" and I mean do whatever you want but it seems silly to complain about games you continue to buy no?
I loved Pokemon, but it hasn't really changed in like 20 years. I'll play some romhacks, maybe I'll "try out" a newer pokemon game, but I haven't bought one since like omega ruby/alpha sapphire. The point I'm making is if we stop buying repetitive garbage, we can bring the small devs up and let them determine the course of game design moving forward.
Or I mean you can just.... Keep playing assassin's creed: (insert vague cultural name here) I guess
This meme is giving "I have only played Ubisoft/ea/actizard titles for the past 4 years" and I mean do whatever you want but it seems silly to complain about games you continue to buy no?
Mate, the first line says it's talking about AAA games.
I mean there are good AAA games. From soft still puts out bangers, CD projekt red makes some good stuff (the cyberpunk launch was pretty rough though), larian is pretty good. Most AAA studios are dog shit, but you can still find a few diamonds in the rough.
I actually had Cyberpunk in mind because my friend is currently obsessed and acts like the issue is that I failed at liking it and need to be fixed by having it crammed down my throat. I'm a brokeass with very few dollars to vote with but hard agree on "stop giving big studios money for making franchise shovelware", especially those three you mentioned and also bethesda.
If you played the 2.0 version and didn't like it, then fair. However, if you played the older version, it might be worth giving it another go. I had low expectations and was extremely pleasantly surprised, plus it looks amazing.
It's pretty sad that I can't tell if this list was made yesterday or four years ago. If people are able to have fun despite a stagnant industry, all power to them, but I haven't seen a good game out of AAA in a long while.
I really hope one day business schools will start teaching people that trying to blindly follow trends in art has literally never worked. Hasn't worked for all the film studios trying to make their own cinematic universes, hasn't worked for game studios trying to chase the new live service dragon, but still we get braindead suits getting senior level positions approving derivative drivel.
Alright, new theory:
You guys don't play too many games, right?
For the record, the best selling games of this year had fewer live service games than last year and the year before. The top of the charts was consistently single player games without microtransactions and this is one of the main GOTY candidates of 2023 following trends from "business schools" straight into... eh... a climactic absurdist musical number.
I'd tag that as spoilers if I could because, as I said, it's increasingly clear you guys haven't been playing this stuff.
You're right, the best selling games have been single-player focused. So why has Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, ActivisionBlizzard, Warner Bros, and Sony Interactive been pushing to jump on the recent extraction shooter trend? Hell, find me a triple A publisher that does not have a live-service game being maintained, I'll wait.
If you're argument is that AAA is not wasting millions of dollars on chasing trends, you'll have to find more evidence than all their projects being failures.
Because they're not all failures, they're also making single player games and you're assuming that the one example of publishers wanting to tick a box in their lineup is somehow all they (let alone the entire industry) are producing.
The fact that people are making extraction shooters doesn't mean they're not making anything else. Warner's biggest game this year is a narrative RPG. EA's biggest game is (as always) a sports game, and their highest reviewed games are a Star Wars single player action game and a single player horror game. Sony's biggest game is an open world superhero action game. I don't know about Ubi's sales off the top of my head, but what they've shipped recently is a 2D metroidvania and a throwback to classic Assassin's Creed.
I don't understand why you want publishers to be judged by what they don't make, as opposed to what they make. Major publishers are billion dollar companies that put out many games. I have zero problems with EA running Apex Legends if I get to play Dead Space. I have zero problems with Sony trying to get a live service game going if they keep making insanely refined narrative action games. I don't enjoy every game people make, but I don't hate that people make games that are not for me if there are also games for me happening at the same time.
Baldur's gate 3 wasn't the top earning video game this year, just the top selling one. The business school cronies only care about the profit, not the quality.
It's not great! 2023 games that I have really enjoyed this past year have been Tears of the Kingdom, Cassette Beasts, and Hi-Fi Rush.
Oh, man, I had forgotten those were this year.
My list also includes:
Pikmin 4
Baldur's Gate 3
Spider-Man 2
Street Fighter 6
Mortal Kombat 1
Dead Space and RE4 remake
The Talos Principle 2
And I didn't even get around to Alan Wake 2, which everybody's been raving about. Or that Dave the Builder thing. Or Lies of P. Or Jedi Survivor. And I guess I'm not counting the new Prince of Persia because that's this year, technically. And I'm not into 2D Mario games, so I'm guessing skipping Super Mario Wonder makes me a bit of an outlier.
Look, I know it feels good to be jaded and edgy and cynical, but... yeah, no, it was an all-time great year for games in 2023. And a terrible year for the games industry. But the games? So good.
After Cyberpunk I decided to be done paying $50+ to take up a quarter of my disk with a highly-acclaimed game that turns out to be the same old cookie-cutter 3D game with an expensive makeover. Anymore I mostly just play small indie games that friends recommend, and generally have a way better experience for it.
I couldn't get behind Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what it was, just didn't draw me in. Couldn't keep at it. Put in 10hrs and haven't picked it up in....3 months?
If this is turning into an indie/AA game recommendation thread, I highly recommend RAILGRADE. I bought it Sunday night and put in 13 hours between that and the next day and I'm only like 1/4 of the way through the campaign.
It's basically like Satisfactory meets Mini Metro and it's so goddamn addicting.
Some of these aren't universally bad. Not every protagonist needs an arc. Not every crafting system has to be complex or function differently than a store. Not every game needs a compelling political statement. These things could actually detract from the experience if poorly implemented.
Hype trains are always bogus and can be mostly avoided by never pre-ordering and waiting for reviews before purchasing. I was excited as hell for Doom Eternal, but I waited until a week after launch before buying it. Patience is the way to go for big budget entertainment. I don't seek out blockbusters until I see the reception, and I don't buy AAA single player games until I know what I'm getting.
Small budget stuff and things you want more of should be supported, but chasing hype just isn't wise. Don't expect the world from something that doesn't exist yet.
some of them are titties
Lies, not in the 2020s where tittes are illegal :P
I've never been into big A games. I'll pay them if they're highly reviewed and end up on sale, but I guess sim games are my thing. NFS underground me would never believe the driving sims I do with a sim rig and vr headset.
Simple solution, do not play triple AAA games. Find newer studios, indie devs, or smaller publishers who have yet to have private equity sink their teeth in to them.
no you must be shamed into compliance with my opinion that Age Old Franchise 5 (the fifty-fourth Age Old Franchise game) was decent and acceptable therefore AAA is good.