this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How about fix the ballooning development costs? Games dont need $200 million plus to be good. Maybe start with that problem.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

We don't need super high quality graphics for every AAA production. Sometimes, Just good enough graphics, but with better interactivity with the environment like ToTK and Baldurs Gate 3. I mean , I love RDR2, but honestly, shrinking horse testicles is a bit too much attention to detail.

As an example, cell shading of ToTK still looks amazing and far more enduring as a graphics style. Also, Elden Ring, arguably has worse graphics than RDR2 or the latest CoD. But, because of it's amazing art direction it will age pretty well.

This can help really reduce the high dev costs.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The horse testicle physics are the heart of the game, and we should be boycotting any game that doesn't have them!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Game developers are scared of having to put horse testicle physics in their games but they need to understand this is the new standard!

They just are scared of having to actually watch horse testicles and truly understand what makes them work but that's just laziness talking!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I'm done giving developers a pass for not even putting in the minimum. Larian and Bethesda didn't even put horses in their games because they're so afraid of rendering the sack.

Everyone says Phantom Liberty will finally redeem Cyberpunk, so I can only assume CD Projekt has spent the past three years creating a perfect horse with the most dazzling balls we've ever seen. Can't wait for those RTX and DLSS 3.5 rendered oysters.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

... As someone who hasn't played RDR2, or really paid attention to it... What? There are seriously shrinking horse testicles?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, Horse testicles shrink in cold regions of the map. It's kind of a dumb detail to be honest.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I need to know if this detail was in release notes, or some player found it by repeatedly checking his horse testicles.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Thats what this Spencer guy says in the email:

Over the past 5-7 years, the AAA publishers have tried to use production scale as their new moat. Very few companies can afford to spend the $200M an Activision or Take 2 spend to put a title like Call of Duty or Red Dead Redemption on the shelf. These AAA publishers have, mostly, used this production scale to keep their top franchises in the top selling games each year. The issue these publishers have run into is these same production scale/cost approach hurts their ability to create new IP.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think a lot of that also gets spent on marketing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Even if it does, thats still too much money. How much money did Hollow Knight spend on marketing? Or what about Terraria? Or Minecraft pre-buyout? How much was spent on marketing for games like Deep Rock Galactic? I can guess probably less than $100 million each. Maybe even less than $10 million.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

You're listing outliers that did well despite their smaller marketing budget. There are tons of great games from smaller studios that get buried because nobody knows about them.

[–] Jakeroxs 0 points 1 year ago

Hollow Knight sold 2.8m copies as of 2019

Modern Warfare (2019) sold 31m copies

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Or collectivize game studios.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They can still have similar production value and not be open world games that take 80 hours to finish. It just makes far more sense to me to bet small with tons of projects than to bet big with only a few, because then you'll find the PUBGs and the DOTAs that Phil is talking about eventually.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are at the point where they equate video games with Hollywood.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AAA video game budgets have surpassed Hollywood years ago.