After Era of Bloat, Veteran Video-Game Developers Are Going Smaller

Comments

• ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Uncharted 2, from Sony Group Corp’s Naughty Dog, was released in 2009 and had a budget of $20 million. The studio’s latest game, The Last of Us: Part 2, cost more than $200 million.

  So, uh…why can’t we do that anymore? Even if you account for salary increases and avoiding crunch and such, $40M-$50M for a game as good as Uncharted 2 sounds great!

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  • Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Because graphics still sell games. You can do simplified graphics like Nintendo and still sell games, but lots of people want the photo realistic experience and the bar for that has gone way way up incrementally over the years.

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    • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I think we’re seeing that that’s no longer true. Minecraft is the best-selling game ever, for instance. If you want to build the photo realistic experience, maybe aim for a smaller scope of video game, like the more linear action games we used to get, because otherwise, the industry ends up in the state it’s in.

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    • PunchingWood@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      There are plenty of games that don’t do high-end graphics and are still very good, even games that look intentionally low res/quality like Valheim did very well.

      Graphics are only really a thing for games that aim for realistic visuals in the first place, but even then it doesn’t need to be so overly high in visual fidelity and pushing better graphics every time. The average gamer isn’t going to care about being able to see reflected objects in windows that you can see in the reflections of puddles, or that a leaf from a tree has a diffused shadow 300 meters away. Yet a lot of these big studios are pushing this tech and stuffing it in their games.

      Not saying that’s a bad development, but they’re creating a lot of these budget problems for themselves by setting bars so insanely high and focusing on side-stuff that only increase the scope of the project. Where small indi developers create masterpieces on a budget barely a percentage of what those corporations are throwing at their projects.

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    • Fixbeat@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I am a pc gamer and I have the latest-ish video card. I got an expensive card so that I can play any game, but really don’t consider graphics much anymore. You are correct, some people still chase that aspect of video gaming. I think if you have been around for a while, that desire fades. I have lots of low res games these days.

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• Scio@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  What if I am robot, Bloomberg? Aren’t you one as well? Would you judge the circumstances of your creation?

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  • simple@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Here’s an alternate link: archive.is/EwaZR

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