[corimaith]

The mismanagement here was actually Microsoft giving studios free reign and they flopped with projects like Starfield. This needs to be understood really within the larger industry trend of quality decline of AAA, which I suspect has to do with changes in overall dev culture and discourse than corporate decisions. There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.

[healsdata]

> There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.

There are studios that routinely put out games that people love. For example, my wife and I will happily pre-order the next co-op game from Hazelight Studios. FromSoftware, Ghost Ship Games, and others fall into the same boat for many people.

The difference, in my opinion, is that games from these studios don't focus on creating an "always on" service, microtransactions, day-1 DLC, MRR, etc. Those things that blight games made by corporate studios are evidence of corporate executives putting their thumb on the scale.

There's only so much you can do, as a developer, to polish a turd.

[bmurphy1976]

With the obvious exception of Elden Ring, most of the games from these studios are quite modest small to medium sized projects.

I wish devs would stop trying to make every game an uber-game. They need all the monetization because they've already blown the budget before work even started.

Nintendo figured this out. When will the other big players?

[brianwawok]

Nintendo is selling first party games for $80. No thanks.

[TheTon]

At one point you could have said the same thing about Blizzard, that everything they did was gold. It’s hard to pinpoint where they went wrong, but it’s not clear to me that it was business model or game format related. Like, WoW was a fabulous success from day 1 and it was a live service game.

[gmadsen]

It was when the amount of lattes overtook the amount of Mountain Dew

[account42]

For games like Starfield, monetization isn't even the main issue but rather political ideology. You can only do so much ESG-approved preaching before customers go elsewhere.

[tpxl]

For games like Starfield, the problem is the game is bad, it has nothing to do with politics or ESG.

[teachrdan]

> There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.

I'm curious what you mean by this. It seems like gamers have never been more vocal and there have never been more avenues (social media, short form video platforms, etc.) for them to voice their opinions than we have now.

How exactly do you know that developers have never been more disconnected from their audience? And how would that be relevant to declining AAA game quality when it's the responsibility of management and leadership to ensure the quality of the final product?

[techpression]

I think developers = studio in this case, management included. It’s the same issue as Hollywood really, making content for a loud minority will not generate revenue. Compare how Marvel Rival performs to any Marvel Hollywood content after Endgame.

[RedComet]

The squeaking [spare] wheel got the grease.

[account42]

One way is developers making game for far left silicon valley ideologes when their audience is full of horny young males. I.e. the game is primarily designed to push an agenda rather than be fun.

[teachrdan]

> far left silicon valley ideologes [sic]

This is a trope that's more than a few years out of date. Silicon Valley is run by Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and many other executives who are completely devoted to the current administration; even Tim Cook bent the knee and donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration.

And what does "far left" mean in this context? Is it the abolition of private property and the creation of a communist utopia? Or are we talking about basic equal rights and a slightly more progressive tax system?

Without a bit more clarity, comments like yours come off as being uninformed at best, ignorant at worst.

[georgeecollins]

Free rein is bad management by definition. You don’t need a manager to have free rein.

I’d be curious what you think the changes in dev culture are. I have worked for or with a lot of these studios and to me they have different cultures. But I could be missing the forest for the trees. MSFT has one culture that imo lacks a creative vision.