[ironman1478]

Just to play devils advocate, was all of that worth it? There are equally fun or more fun indie games that don't have great graphics, but the gameplay is astounding. DUSK is an example of this.

I love that these teams are pushing boundaries of technology, but it also points to an issue with modern game AAA development. It's expensive to make these beautiful games and it's not like they are more enjoyable than games made cheaper.

[willis936]

Why compare to indie games? MS family game studios aren't making indie games, they're churning out faceless UE malaise. You should be comparing id tech games to UE games.

[ironman1478]

The point is that MS is spending a crap ton of money to produce a product that is marginally better gameplay wise than a game like DUSK, which was made by a few people (I actually liked DUSK more but this isn't a game review thread). Not every game should be made on the cheap, but these game studios do cost a lot of money and suffer from diminishing returns. For how expensive these games are to make, they should be churning out ES sized games all the time. Instead the new DOOM is some 20ish hour campaign that costs MS a lot and the consumer a lot. I don't even think many people liked it compared to the last ones due to the slower movement.

It's not fair to these people that they lost their jobs but also they work in a risky low margin business and as you go for more and more advanced graphics and tech, the lower the margins.

[theshackleford]

> Instead the new DOOM is some 20ish hour campaign that costs MS a lot and the consumer a lot. I don't even think many people liked it compared to the last ones due to the slower movement.

I’ve been playing doom since the original release and I loved it. Different, but I don’t need it to the the same, because the originals and a never ending stream of wads exist.

I think I’m in a minority here. But I really enjoyed it.

[willis936]

A software company with less than 500 employees and more than 100 MUSD in annual revenue and you're asking me to please think of the vulture capitalists that gutted it?

[ironman1478]

If every employee makes 100k (let's say that's an average. Some make more, some make less). That 50m in salary alone, not including benefits like 401k or health insurance. And that's just people costs. Doom dark ages sold somewhere between 800k-1m is the estimate. At 70$ a copy they might not have broken even if the lower end of the sales target is what was hit if you take into account benefits and people buying the game on sale.

I'm not saying to sympathize with the MS, but they blew a lot of money on a worse game than doom eternal or 2016 doom. It's just not penciling out I guess.

Game companies are always going through this and the only way to stay around a long time is to stay lean (like valve) and/or find a really lucrative business model.

[willis936]

Valve is a similar size to id tech. They have two tricks: be in a business other than games and be privately owned. The former gives them the ability to weather storms and the latter keeps the dagger away. This would not have happened if id were privately owned.

Notably MS is in a business other than games, so another way to frame this is "MS is losing and Valve is winning".