[DannyPage]

Hi-Fi Rush was a fantastic game, won major awards, showed off the promise of XBox Game Pass… and for their efforts their studio has been shut down. There have multiple instances of this in just the past few weeks; are publishers really going to just bet on their prime AAA titles (Call of Duty, Halo, GTA6, etc) and nothing else? And those games either take a lot of rotating studios and a long development cycle to release. What’s going to fill the gap?

[mattgreenrocks]

The current tech meta seems to be coalescing around this notion of "even high-performance isn't enough to spare you from layoffs, be afraid!" It wasn't that high-performance always guaranteed your job would continue, but at least there'd be the idea that you'd get moved to a new team if you were a great performer.

To me, that just reinforces the notion that these layoffs are mostly about sending a message to workers and Wall St more than anything else.

[badsectoracula]

> To me, that just reinforces the notion that these layoffs are mostly about sending a message to workers and Wall St more than anything else.

What message?

[mattgreenrocks]

The message seems clear: "we call the shots"

The value of we probably differs a lot from company to company. But it sure doesn't include workers.

[johnnyanmac]

We call the shots... to our own feet.

Seems like studios are forgetting that you can't just drag some random person off the street and get them working on the next "Quadruple A" experience. Even a talented new grad would struggle with that scale. This is really going to come back to bite the industry long term.

[maxrecursion]

Game development is in a really weird place. Insanely over-saturated but almost all AAA games are extremely derivative, stale, bland games with a coat of pretty graphics

Indie games are awesome right now, but they don't have the budgets to produce AAA games. So there is a huge gap. Innovative indie games with cool, new gameplay concepts, but always simple or retro graphics, and AAA games with shiny graphics on the other end but gameplay that hasn't changed in over a decade.

I'm just waiting for any AAA studio to provide something new with the AAA games. Maybe AI to improve NPCs in an open world game? Anything besides the same old gameplay with new skins on it.

[somenameforme]

It's just risk aversion. Companies want to turn video games into a factory line golden goose, but struggle to reconcile that each iteration through that factory line makes the final product relatively worse and worse, even if it continues to look better and better. Now even Call of Duty can't find a Call of Duty killer. But these same companies are terrified of trying anything new because new things do, on occasion flop. It would also entail scrapping the factory line, because creating a new game, instead of reskinning and old with a few new tweaks, is a way different beast.

That said, I don't really think the stereotypes of indie games are very valid anymore. Valheim looks great, has a massive open world, and is multiplayer. [1] It also started entirely as a result of one guy's pet project, until he grabbed a coworker and then set off to make it what it became. The graphics are stylized, but I think in a broadly aesthetically appealing way, as opposed to e.g. pixel graphics which are very off-putting to many people, myself among them. Pixel graphics came from an era of CRTs with interlaced scanning, and various other visual artifacts, that naturally blurred, antialiased, and blended them. Sharp jaggy edges never really existed, and I fail to understand why that's a popular style now.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSVbXgBJIuI

[raxxorraxor]

Some game concepts are fairly well developed. A shooter like Call Of Duty is such a concept, so making a competitor is far more difficult. Sure, you can make up with setting and presentation.

But otherwise very true, true innovation happens in the indie world and the maximal complexity of these type of games is steadily rising due to better tools and maybe soon AI support.

[mvdtnz]

For me indie gaming is going through its own aggravating phase right now, but it seems most people aren't bothered by it. The quality of the games is better than ever, but every indie title now goes through Early Access, sometimes for several years. By the time the game is released the hype cycle has already finished.

For people like me who play games just a couple of hours a week, I have no interest in playing an unfinished game. I have a library of games bigger than I could ever play and I will always skip the EA stuff.

[johnnyanmac]

>every indie title now goes through Early Access, sometimes for several years.

That mostly shows the realities of indie development. These games have less staff and need less sales to succeed, but they take much longer as indies lack the time (some do development on the side to a full time gig), manpower, or (sometimes) talent to get things done quickly.

>I have a library of games bigger than I could ever play

Well that proves the point. we also get more indies than ever. I don't think EA would give us more finished games. We'd just get less released games full stop. Even if you never play them I'm not sure if I'd call that a good thing.

[Goronmon]

Insanely over-saturated but almost all AAA games are extremely derivative, stale, bland games with a coat of pretty graphics...

People have been saying this for decades at this point. I'm not seeing it.

Innovation is largely overrated. It can be a good thing, but the vast majority of games, whether AAA or indie, can't be truly innovative. And innovative doesn't translate directly to a game being enjoyable. Conversely, a game being "derivative" doesn't automatically make the game not fun to play.

[bart_spoon]

Agreed. In video games, "innovation" quickly becomes "niche". Microsoft actually has a wider variety of games and genres represented on the Xbox, many highly praised, but frequently gets lambasted for having no games because the the overwhelming majority of players aren't actually interested in them. Sony on the other hand is dominating, and yet its biggest titles are all somewhat similar to each other and none of them really do anything new or interesting, they simply have a lot of polish.

[_mlbt]

Spot on. I want Elder Scrolls 6 to basically be Skyrim in a stunning new location, with better graphics.

Ditto for Forza Horizon 6 and the next installment of The Witcher.

[badsectoracula]

If past history is any indication, TES6 will be to Skyrim fans what Skyrim was to Oblivion fans which was what Oblivion was to Morrowind fans. Daggerfall fans are split about Morrowind though and i'm not sure there are any Arena fans.

[dvngnt_]

the morrowind fans are turning in their graves

[margorczynski]

Well it got dumbed down and casualized. Don't even get me started what they did to Fallout...

[_mlbt]

To be honest, I like my RPGs dumb and casual. Real life uses enough of my brain power and I’m trying to escape.

[hbn]

AAA basically just means nice graphics at this point. You can't dump more money into a piece of art to make it better, that's why all the innovation comes from indie games. Look at Balatro, a guy made a poker roguelike and became a millionaire overnight. I think if big game studios, rather than dumping their copious amounts of money into single, giant-scope games, dealt it out amongst a variety of smaller teams for smaller-scoped projects, they'd be way better off.

Everyone keeps suggesting AI NPCs. I'm sure someone's gonna take a crack at it and it'll go about as well the Humane AI pin or the Rabbit R1 before everyone realized how horrible of an idea it is. If anything it'll make for a silly novelty like the VR games where you clumsily try to perform basic tasks with VR motion controls. But in this case you argue with an in-game LLM and see how quickly you can make it get defensive or start gaslighting you with made up facts about household cleaners you can combine to make a delicious cocktail.

[_mlbt]

It’s nice graphics, but it’s also voice acting, and robust storytelling that sets a good AAA game apart from indie games for me.

Honestly even some of the indie games are getting pretty incredible graphics these days thanks to Unreal Engine.

[phone[phone]]

I'd rather see studios make 100 games that each cost $2 million to make than one $200 million game.

[johnnyanmac]

Thing is 2M doesn't quite get you as far as you think. You get 10 devs (let's say, 4 programmers, 4 artists, 2 designers), pay them 100k each (which is lowballing it in med/high COL areas), and work 2 years. That's 2.4m just from labor, before advertising and other duties like community outreach. Sell for $30 (which is basically the top end of an "indie) and you need 80k copies to break even, more after platform cuts.

That's definitely a scale a AAA studio can afford, but far from what we associate "indie" with in our heads.That's where the exploitation begins.

[JetSpiegel]

That's more devs than made Doom, Deus Ex, Fallout(?).

[johnnyanmac]

The original games in the 90's? Yeah, probably. But cost of living was very different (so even if they made > 100k after adjusting for inflation, it went a lot farther), and the standards of games were much lower.

You can definitely make Doom 1993 with 1-3 people today (and without crunch). Making Doom 2016 levels of fidelity (even if we ignore the excellent optimization) would still be a very lofty task for 10 people. We still don't really have that many "full stack game devs" that can work at that scope and fidelity to bring the team size down.

[ProfMeowsworth]

We have both of that, right now.

[npinsker]

> I think if big game studios, rather than dumping their copious amounts of money into single, giant-scope games, dealt it out amongst a variety of smaller teams for smaller-scoped projects, they'd be way better off.

This is what game publishers do, and many of them are struggling too. It’s harder than it seems to pick winning horses. (Though in this case, it may be partially because more and more skilled teams are opting to self-publish.)

[chucke1992]

> I think if big game studios, rather than dumping their copious amounts of money into single, giant-scope games, dealt it out amongst a variety of smaller teams for smaller-scoped projects, they'd be way better off.

Big publishers tried and did not succeed much. EA, Square Enix, T2 with Private Division and so on.

[w1nst0nsm1th]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931770/Chants_of_Sennaar...

Some independant studio or publishers have their fans base : Amanita Design, Playdead, Zachtronics, Devolver Digital, Annapurna Interractive are for me the folk to watch.

[chucke1992]

Oh for sure. AAA games require too much effort and too much returns while indies can spend 1 year and 1 person and deliver hit being multiple time more profitable.

[Log_out_]

Everyone waits for AAAi to arrive so that indy gaming can have that polished shell.

[Apocryphon]

Just as with movies, it seems like we’re witnessing the death of mid-budget (AA) games.

[m12k]

Conversely, the recently released surprise hit Helldivers 2 is a very prominent AA game has sold millions of copies and seems well poised to win a bunch of game of the year awards (recently concluded PSN account linking controversy notwithstanding).

[sharkweek]

Sidebar: Helldivers II is not a genre I’d normally enjoy but I have absolutely fallen in love with the very rewarding gameplay loop and grind.

I have never enjoyed spreading democracy more with my friends than dropping a perfectly targeted orbital strike on a bunch of unpatriotic bugs.

[danielbln]

Same here, third person coop extraction shooter? Bleh, not my cup of tea. Helldivers 2 though? 70+ hours and counting, it's just so much damn fun, with friend or with randoms. It really is the sum of it parts, and every match is different in its own ways. An amazing game, is what it is.

[phone[phone]]

Helldivers II is one of the few games of its type that it feels good to mess around in.

Lately my friend group has been playing on mid level difficulty to grind out common and rare samples, and there's nothing funnier than cracking a joke about something and then that person hitting you with a 500 kg bomb and making your body ragdoll across the map. There's just something about messing around in it and being goofy that feels good that doesn't in, say, Vermintide or Darktide.

[highwaylights]

Remember: If an existing inhabitant attempts diplomacy we mustn't believe their lies.

[philipov]

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me to refund that game, since I can't run it on geforce now, and it has denuvo so I won't install it on my own computer.

[ryanmcbride]

That's been reversed this time but it won't be next time. Next time sony does this the outcry won't be as bad. It's the ratcheting effect of corporate greed.

[rdedev]

A regression to the mean where mean is just whatever makes most money. I can understand if they are at the risk of going bankrupt but this seems so premature

[iLoveOncall]

Honestly I think it might make sense.

I can't remember a single AA game that was great. Actually, I can't remember a single AA game other than the ones I remember because of how bad they were.

I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster.

[glenstein]

>I can't remember a single AA game that was great

I'm always skeptical of "I can't remember ____" as an assessment of any given historical record because, well, the average person just doesn't remember anything. Which is all well and good, you have no obligation to be ready for a pop-quiz, but snapshot moment of free-association is just not a reliable stand in for the actual record.

I actually couldn't think of any AA titles off the top of my head either, but after Googling and GPT'ing a bit I came up with: Hellblade, Plague Tale, Hades, Outer Wilds, Control, Metro, Outer Worlds, Shadow Warrior 2, etc. plus the numerous others listed by other commenters.

My point though is that it's fine not to remember, but that should never be our acid test for what does or doesn't exist in the historical record.

[ToucanLoucan]

As an aside of this discussion: I do not get people who like Outer Worlds. I am a huge fan of New Vegas, I was so pumped for that game, and it was so, so bland. The combat damn near put me to sleep, the writing was atrociously heavy-handed and made me think the authors thought I was a complete fucking idiot (and I agree with them!), and the moment-to-moment gameplay was just thoroughly, thoroughly unsatisfying.

I know it has a loving if smaller community and man, I wanted to love it, but I just could not. I have hope for the sequel and will definitely play it if not day one, close to it, but yeah. Outer Worlds was one of my most disappointing games of all time.

[Dystakruul]

just a note for inattentive readers: Outer Wilds from GP's comment is a very different game compared to Outer Worlds which the parent comment mentions. (it doesn't help that they were both released in the same year, 2019)

Outer Wilds: action-adventure, open world mystery game with puzzles

Outer Worlds: action role-playing game, open world first-person-shooter (similar to the Fallout games)

[hombre_fatal]

I get them confused all the time and you'd be in for a ride if you got Outer Wilds while expecting Outer Worlds, but the (G)GP actually mentioned both of them.

[glenstein]

I mentioned both in my comment. I spaced them out in my list on purpose although perhaps that contributed to confusion.

There indeed entirely distinct games, but you can make a case that both fall into the AA category.

[lelandbatey]

I think many of my most favorite games have been AA games. Though "what counts as AA" is probably a big question.

Hi-Fi Rush, was a delightful game that earned every $ I spent, but didn't feel like a AAA title.

Hades is a delightful game that earned every penny but which wasn't a "AAA" title.

I wouldn't call either games "indie", as they both had dozens of people on the teams that made them. But I'd also guess that both games were still made by very different size teams (e.g. 2 dozen vs 5 dozen).

[iLoveOncall]

I get that "indie" is often viewed as the 3rd option alongside AAA and AA but I don't think that's the right definition.

For me AAA and AA is about scope of the project. The 3rd option is "small", not "indie".

Hades (I don't know Hi-Fi Rush) is by all means a small game, regardless of how many developers worked on it. Same for Minecraft, or many of the games that other commentors posted.

You want a good measure? Check the price. AAA are $60, AA are around $40 and small games are below.

PS: out of topic but I just saw that Hades 2 is out in early access.

[ang_cire]

Sadly, people use indie to mean small, rather than it's actual meaning of "independent of a publisher", and it's one of those things that I've nearly given up on fighting.

It's even more sad because the only reason that change happened was big publishers wanting in on the success of indie games as a label and concept, but by definition being excluded, so they pushed their own definition, and people gobbled up their corporate cooption.

[masklinn]

> Sadly, people use indie to mean small, rather than it's actual meaning of "independent of a publisher"

That is way too imprecise a description for it to possibly be considered correct.

Indie is about financial and creative independence aka the publisher does not drive the game.

Many indies still go through publishers because they don't have the means or knowledge to handle distribution. This was even more so back when you had to distribute via physical media, but they start looking for publishers once the game is done or in good shape.

For instance back when they built Bastion SuperGiant had just 7 people and it was entirely self-funded. But they went to WB for publishing, mainly to ensure getting it on XBLA would not be too much of a hassle.

[everforward]

Isn’t AAA vs AA about the funding of the project, and AA vs indie is about the publisher?

I don’t care for scope as part of this because scope is so heavily influenced by the type of game. Eg Call of Duty is the poster child for AAA games and has a pretty unimpressive scope compared to virtually any RPG. Even indie RPGs tend to have a broader scope; CoD has basically nothing outside of combat mechanics.

Then there’s weird questions about what counts as scope too. Tabletop Simulator has a much broader scope than MTG Arena, but Arena is far closer to AAA or AA.

[iLoveOncall]

I specifically said scope of the "project" instead of the "game".

You're right that CoD is simple, but it's still a massive project where most areas (graphics, networking, game engine, etc.) are infinitely more developed than a game like Stardew Valley which is a much broader experience _as a player_.

[aaomidi]

Deep rock galactic

Dave the diver

Spiritfairer

Frostpunk

Should i keep going?

[masklinn]

Dave the diver is definitely not an "AA" game. It's so indie looking it was nominated for multiple indie awards (even if it's not an actual indie game). DRG is not AA either, according to its homepage GhostShip has 32 people 4 years after launching it. Same for Spiritfairer, it was built by a team of 16.

[wlesieutre]

Wasn’t the case earlier in development since they didn’t have big financial backing, Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales

> Deep Rock Galactic aired a trailer at E3 2017, then the game had a huge bump after its Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview launch in February 2018. Its Early Access didn't skyrocket the game "insanely high" like titles such as Valheim, but Pedersen said it was solid enough to know they had a success. At that time there were only 12 employees, and everyone was contracted "because we didn't know if we'd have money the next month."

https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship...

[ClimaxGravely]

I personally would consider 10-40 person teams to potentially qualify as AA. Often we also outsource code/art so the team size can sometimes be misleading.

I suppose I would go by the budget. Maybe 5-10million+ IMO. It also kind of depends how they spend the money.

EDIT : After some further reflection, From personal experience I'd consider a AA game one where everyone on the dev team knows each other fairly well. AAA games get so large that you don't end up knowing everyone super well by the end of the project.

[jicea]

Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit.

Another example is FromSoftware. They kept iterating on their games going from KingFields to Demon Souls, Dark Souls, etc...You can't have Elden Ring without all this earned experience.

[gcr]

FromSoft is putting out some really interesting experimental bangers too. If you haven't tried the new Armored Core, I highly recommend it -- it's a great bridge from a beloved-but-niche genre (mech games) toward the mainstream. It's small, focused to a point, tells the story it wants to tell and gets out of your way. I'm still thinking about it 9 months later...

Sounds like this sort of risky niche title would earn a studio closure if it came from Microsoft's corner.

[jncfhnb]

Elden ring was the shitty mainstream version of dark souls. The open world was just a big forgettable grind of annoying mini dungeons that you probably had to look up and then didn’t enjoy, collectible items that you were never going to use 95% of the time, shitty quests that were difficult to engage in without external guides, and powerful buffs that were very useful but guarded by enemies that don’t scale; leading most players to follow the main quest to the first boss and then just run around the entire map exploring for the warp points/permanent buffs ignoring every enemy possible and then basically forgetting it was an open world game and just hitting the highlights.

The memorable parts of the game are the bosses which are generally cool but very gimmicky, and the legacy dungeons. Which is… the dark souls bits. The open world was stinky garbage that made the game much worse.

[iLoveOncall]

> Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit.

Yeah I never said the contrary. Actually you see this quite commonly with small unknown studios that release stuff like educative or mobile games and suddenly are handed a big project.

> Another example is FromSoftware.

Please, they've been releasing AAA since Demon Souls. They're definitely not AA games.

[jonhohle]

It depends what type of game you like. There are a million AA RPGs, Metroidvanias, etc. that are enjoyable. Both RoboCop: Rogue City and Terminator: Resistance are good, budget games. Looking through recent games: Dead Cells, Bloodstained, anything from Bitmap Bureau, a lot of Way Forward titles, Altus, etc.

[aamoyg]

Robocop Rogue City was amazing. If you max out the psychology, you start giving back sassy replies to everyone and become sass cop it's great.

They really built on the Terminator Engine they used earlier.

[mrangle]

The list of great non AAA games would be so long, here, as to be obnoxious. A lot of game greatness is found in the explicit avoidance of AAA conventions, like extended cut scenes. Many AAA games are masterpieces, and yet few to no no AAA games are 2D platformers for example. Which is one of the all time great formats for pure fun.

[ryanmcbride]

Is Yakuza AA or AAA? Because every Yakuza game is great and I don't think they have that big of a budget.

[ClimaxGravely]

I've worked on some titles very similar to Yakuza and I keep espousing the way they develop their titles. I don't know for sure because I haven't worked at the studio but it really seems like they've streamlined their development to keep costs down and allow them to develop quickly via asset reuse and resisting major engine upgrades across titles in favor of a slower, more focused pace.

Often in my experience in the west we tend to re-author assets, do major engine upgrades or re-implement gameplay systems across sequels when we could have iterated on existing systems and use the time we saved to work on new stuff.

[johnnyanmac]

Standards change and game development standards have skyrocketed. the best AAA titles in 2005 would barely be AA in 2015, and by 2025 it gets to a point where a small (but very talented) team can achieve the same scope with better graphics. That's part of the reason I don't particularly like "AAA" as a nominer. It's a moving target with budget levels we usually have no clue of.

>I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster.

I don't know, because we have even less idea what "AA" means. Would Demons' Souls 2009 be AA?

That the thing, a lot of the biggest AAA titles didn't knock it out of the park day one. Overwatch in 2016 may have been the last new IP that was AAA from the get go and truly nailed it in one. IDK why companies keep trying to do it that way.

[phone[phone]]

Were you gaming back in the PlayStation 2 / original Xbox days? There were a TON of AA games in that era. Most of those studios have been bought up by the big studios that peddle AAA (and in some cases, claim to peddle AAAA) garbage.

[failuser]

How many As does Psychonauts have?

[beeboobaa3]

"I don't like this so it should stop existing"

[iLoveOncall]

That's absolutely not what I said though, just that it makes sense.

Personally I wish for as many games as possible to exist, the more options the better, even if some are bad.

[utensil4778]

Consumers have been signaling for quite some time that they're perfectly content buying Skyrim and Counterstrike every six months forever.

Why even bother producing anything at all when you can just put a fresh coat of lipstick on the same pig and sell it all over again?

[vel0city]

Condition Zero and Source released in 2004. Global Offensive released in 2012, eight years later. Counterstrike 2 released in September 2023, eleven years later. Counterstrike isn't the game to point to for re-releasing the same thing over and over.

[utensil4778]

Counternite, fort of duty, whatever. I care so little for this class of game that I can't be bothered to spend the brain space to keep them separate.

Not saying they're good or bad, I'm just not interested in the slightest.

[eropple]

If you can't be bothered to understand the differences, then criticizing consumers for perceiving those differences and being willing to buy them is a real interesting spot to land on.

I don't play those games, either, but I at least understand the proposition that they present.

[johnnyanmac]

Willful ignorance from GP aside, their point is valid. The most played games to this day are decade+ old games that extended their lifetime with multiple re-releases or with an online component. If that's the will of the consumers, there's not much we can do.

[vel0city]

Fortnite has had a single release and is a free to play game. Once again, if you're going to point out games that just come out with a new version to sell it again, you're failing to show accurate examples.

[Apocryphon]

Bethesda is also notorious for taking forever to make Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim came out in 2011 and has not had a proper sequel since. First-person RPG also isn't exactly a glutted sub-genre. Neither of the examples fit the phenomenon they're talking about!

[Night_Thastus]

I wouldn't say notorious. It's only become that way with the latest games. Morrowind to Oblivion was ~5 years. Oblivion to Skyrim was ~5 years. Fallout New Vegas (Obsidian) to FO4 (BGS) was 5 years.

It's really only since then that game development times have skyrocketed as much as they have.

[chownie]

The classic description for this is "being out of touch" with the given media. Not sure if it's something to be proud of.

[anonbanker]

There is nothing more freeing than being "out of touch" with media. I got rid of my TV in 2000, and my life improved dramatically. I stopped playing AAA in 2009, and my life improved dramatically. Indie games, specifically the Godot dev scene, is where the real innovation in gaming is happening. When AAA implodes, you'll learn what you were missing all along.

[Vt71fcAqt7]

It just sounds like you mainly like 2d platformers and open source (which is fine). But Godot isn't nearly the best engine to use for 3D, and arguably may not even the best of the open soucre engines (for example O3DE may be better, although almost no one is using it right now). Most 3D indie devs are using Unity and many are switching to Unreal now just like AAA (for example Palwolrd). I think "out of touch" here means making false claims about something you (not you specifically but GP) don't even care to know about.

[Vt71fcAqt7]

If you aren't interested enough to even know what you're talking about why do you make such specific claims about it? Fortnite is completly different from counterstrike. For example counterstrike is a team based game and Fortnite can be played single player. And counterstrike has not had a new release in which current players must buy the new game for 11 years much less every six months. Also, you are wrong when you say you are "not saying they're good or bad" when you said making the supposed re-releases of these games is like putting a "fresh coat of lipstick on the same pig."

[Apocryphon]

Those are all different genres of FPS

[gizmo385]

I get the point you’re trying to make, but Counterstrike is a free to play game. You might be thinking of Call of Duty?

[utensil4778]

Probably. I'm so thoroughly disinterested in this class of games that I can't be bothered to remember the difference.

[127]

I don't really worry about it because indies are making better games than ever.

[troupo]

Not for XBox though. Mine has turned into an expensive paperweight we occasionally use to play the same 2-3 local co-op games we played 4 years ago.

[somenameforme]

It's pretty easy to convert your TV to a PC console. Just grab a HDMI/DisplayPort cable and some USB cables for controllers. Wire your TV up, start Steam Big Picture mode, done. You now have a console with a zillion awesome games in the exact same place you had the console connected.

Here's [1] the Steam page for split screen games. Currently there are 934. Can't go wrong with Earth Defense Force! And no you don't need a "gaming PC." That term doesn't even make any sense in modern times, because if you have a computer from within the past decade or so, you can run the overwhelming majority of games with no problem. And I mean that literally - for instance GTA V requires an AMD HD 4870 card. That card was released in 2008!

[1] - https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Split%20Screen

[hombre_fatal]

Thanks. I had no idea you could play split screen on Steam games. I'll definitely set this up.

[SlowRobotAhead]

I'd really love cables from my office to my livingroom.

[somenameforme]

Not sure if you're being snark, like referring to your office at work, but we did this and it works pretty well. We ran the cables along the edges of wall/floor using little cable clamps. They're pretty much out of sight and it works great. Depending on your house you could also run them through the walls/attic/etc. There's a lot of ways to make it work without going bachelor pad.

[phone[phone]]

Do you have a smart TV or can you fit a streaming device or mini PC into your setup? If so, Steam Remote Play might fit the bill: https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay

Steam used to sell a device called Steam Link for this very purpose, but now they just release apps for common platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link

[gopher_space]

I've always been surprised by the lack of cable tracking options in home electronics stores. Some installations can be done with a drill and a box knife.

[schlauerfox]

WiFi 6 reaches absurd speeds, no cables required.

[troupo]

You can't HDMI/DisplayPort over Wifi

[wredue]

I mean. The writing was on the wall there TBH.

Microsoft has been consistently failing to support and engage game developers since early in the 360 cycle, then the doublespeak crook Spencer took over, and it got even worse.

This whole shitting on AA was bound to happen with Xbox fanboys saying that “it is good that Microsoft is buying studios to give Sony a taste of their own medicine!”

Except MS is still not giving Xbox gamers a taste of Sony medicine, because Sony gets out there and gives games chances, funds loads of “trial” titles, supports developers and studios, etc.

I don’t like that Sony just does this better, as I am a PC gamer and Sonys PC game is awful.

[raincole]

Considering how many games are getting released each month, I am having a hard time comprehending what this "the gap" is referring to.

[filleduchaos]

The vast majority of games that get released each month are straight-up garbage. And for the minority that aren't, I'd hope that people in a YC-affiliated forum of all places would see that a product getting released does not equal financial viability.

[willis936]

I really don't understand why they would shutter Tango, a small / low cost house producing influential art that people actually want, while behemoths that burn cash and produce soulless products that no one wants survive.

Shut down Bethesda, they're the ones with awful gameplay and writing. Don't shut down the darlings.

[dragonwriter]

“Influential art” vs “soulless products” tends to map pretty well to “niche products that return poorly compared to costs to produce while earning critical accolades” vs. “reliable cookie-cutter moneymakers”, and Microsoft isn't in the business to win critical awards for stockholders, but to make money for them.

[willis936]

I'm not arguing philanthropy. Bethesda makes a bad product that that costs a fortune to generate. It's shrunk the size of its market and its time is limited. Tango's business model is sustainable, Bethesda's is not.

[johnnyanmac]

ehh, the correlation is off. MS apparently lied that Hi-Fi Rush "succeeded on all metrics" and meanwhille, Redfall couldn't have been more cookie cutter if you try. It all feels like a crapshoot at this point.

I will remember this closure very well in a year or two when MS tries for the dozenth time to "expand our reach to the Asian market". Because they pulled out. Again.

[luqtas]

what do you mean by "just"? millions if not billions of USD profit @ the 3 titles cited between the brackets? people play GTA V till these days, even Skyrim...

either the way, hope it paves the way for more small studios titles...

[kkukshtel]

The economics of traditional AAA game development just don't make sense, and the market conditions right now are just acting as a forcing function to expedite their (current) collapse. You have insanely high development costs (50-100m on the low end to 200m+ on the high end) where the _only_ opportunity for return is to release a hit or polish the game to a hit (read, more $$$), but even being able to predict what will or won't be a hit is near impossible. So you have high burn on teams for long dev cycles (2-3 years+) that can't even really time the market because of their slow releases, with audience expectations for what a title means also insanely high, and also that their are both very good free options like Fortnite and large discounted backlogs of "really good games" that you're also fighting against. You also have weird calculus now where you're fighting against your own bets on live service games — spending 100m on expanding GTAV some more is likely a better return than working on GTA6. In the email announcing this from Microsoft's own words, you can see this:

"In 2024 alone we have Starfield Shattered Space, Fallout 76 Skyline Valley, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, and The Elder Scrolls Online’s Golden Road. "

3/4 of those titles are old games that are live services, where it's a better investment and dev cost to pump engaged players than build new audiences. It's VERY hard to beat a 5% (even more for an MS-sized deposit) return on a savings account, so closing studios that made Good Games isn't about the games at all, it's just looking at the balance sheet. Everyone always knew they were creating on borrowed time, and now that time is unfortunately up.

The solution of this is to not let private companies dictate cultural production for a nation, but the US is piss poor at arts funding and all our billionaires want to squirrel away wealth overseas rather than building libraries, museums, or cultural production funds.

[johnnyanmac]

>are publishers really going to just bet on their prime AAA titles (Call of Duty, Halo, GTA6, etc) and nothing else?

I guess so. I don't fully understand it either. An indie-ish scoped game won GOTY in 2022, Helldivers costs half as much as a AAA title and is probably selling better than any of the other dozen GaaS Sony was trying to break into, Take Two has (had) several breakout hits under their wing. But they seem so hellbent on being the Fortnite, instead of just "really damn good (and presumably making money)"

It's strange that we know super successful "indies" can sell millions and be just as acclaimed as any AAA title but those metrics don't matter to a company that should be trying to foster a full portfolio.

>What’s going to fill the gap?

GTA has shark cards and COD us a yearly releases rotating around 4 or more studios now. Those will be fine. Halo? No idea, I don't think the battle pass format can sustain these levels of budget. it juse seems to all be a mess.

[Gazoche]

I don't understand it either. Maybe there's more going on behind the scenes that we don't know about, but on the face of it seems like a really poor decision.

Large publishers keep reiterating the importance of successful IPs these days, and Hi-Fi Rush was like lightning in a bottle. Here Microsoft had a new IP with critical acclaim, suitable for a large audience, and ripe for a sequel. You'd think they would cling to it for dear life, especially given how their other IPs are doing (Halo, Redfall, Starfield...)

Closing the studio doesn't necessarily mean they're ditching the IP, but it doesn't bode well.

[MichaelZuo]

A single big live service game like Fortnite captures the player time that would have otherwise gone into a dozen AA games, per year.

So there is no gap in available player time, as it's impossible for there to be more than 24 hours of demand per day.

[glenstein]

Yeah, I have a hard time understanding the push to consolidate everything into a small set of core titles.

Consider private label brands on Amazon, which at least maintain numerous distinct brand identites focusing on different categories.

Having a portfolio of actually distinct companies with unique personalities and signature approaches to design and gameplay is exactly what you want if you are trying to maintain a thriving ecosystem.

[jonhohle]

Money? When 90% of revenue comes from yearly sports, FPS, etc. refreshes, it’s easy for middle managers to get the idea that cutting the fat will increase margins. Unwittingly, they are missing the opportunity to find that new hit franchise that needs to be tested and refined outside of the mainstream.

[pteraspidomorph]

> consolidate everything into a small set of core titles

This already happened in the early 2000s. If you were around back then, you might remember how everything was sequels and rehashes for a while. Diversity of ideas returned to the industry only after it became practicable to publish and monetize indie games (post-Braid).

Microsoft and Embracer recently bought the whole industry. Now they might be about to light a match and set fire to the whole thing. OK, but fortunately, all the talented passionate people with the ideas and drive to create new things still exist in the world. I believe many players will find their way back to them, no matter how sufficent "garbage" is for the majority of people. If milking the uncaring baseline consumer was all that mattered to videogame creatives, they'd all be making ad-driven smartphone shovelware.

[dvngnt_]

the early 2000's was the ps2 which is the best selling console with the highest number of games shipped.

i can't remember a time when there was so many different games or high quality releasing so often.

there were sequels, but they was dropping every year while being improvements. we got 3 GTA games on the ps2; gta v got three playstation consoles

[busterarm]

They also developed The Evil Within games and Ghostwire: Tokyo, but their founder and CEO left the company last year to found a new studio. The writing was on the wall honestly.

[jarsin]

Haven't you heard and seen the latest VC craze? AI is going to autogenerate millions of games, movies, and books all with the click of a button.

[datavirtue]

Yeah, I'm hoping to find some type of image AI service that can produce passable art assets for 2D game development. Just good enough to do POC work. I have started a few gaming projects over the years and always ran into a brick wall needing assets.

[supermatt]

> Hi-Fi Rush was a fantastic game,

Its part of this months "choice" offering on humblebundle.com