Uhh.. today's AAA studios have THOUSANDS of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in budgets, and huge IPs on which to draw. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassin's Creed, Diablo, Warcraft, Mass Effect, Dragon Age... these studios have VASTLY larger resources than Larian. Like, an order of magnitude larger. This is gaslighting and whining. I'm not having it. Do better, AAA devs. Do a lot better.
Games
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Authorized Regular Threads
Related communities
PM a mod to add your own
Video games
Generic
- !gaming@Lemmy.world: Our sister community, focused on PC and console gaming. Meme are allowed.
- !photomode@feddit.uk: For all your screenshots needs, to share your love for games graphics.
- !vgmusic@lemmy.world: A community to share your love for video games music
Help and suggestions
By platform
By type
- !AutomationGames@lemmy.zip
- !Incremental_Games@incremental.social
- !LifeSimulation@lemmy.world
- !CityBuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !CozyGames@Lemmy.world
- !CRPG@lemmy.world
- !OtomeGames@ani.social
- !Shmups@lemmus.org
- !VisualNovels@ani.social
By games
- !Baldurs_Gate_3@lemmy.world
- !Cities_Skylines@lemmy.world
- !CassetteBeasts@Lemmy.world
- !Fallout@lemmy.world
- !FinalFantasyXIV@lemmy.world
- !Minecraft@Lemmy.world
- !NoMansSky@lemmy.world
- !Palia@Lemmy.world
- !Pokemon@lemm.ee
- !Skyrim@lemmy.world
- !StardewValley@lemm.ee
- !Subnautica2@Lemmy.world
- !WorkersAndResources@lemmy.world
Language specific
- !JeuxVideo@jlai.lu: French
That's why their games suck. Smaller teams and budgets make better products.
It's really not the team size, but rather the management that comes with it.
The devs aren't the problem 99% of the time.
Not AAA devs, they're doing what they can. The problem is with the AAA CEOs
I have no problem if games reached this via a similar model that Larian used here (lots of experienced staff, pre-built systems, 6 years of development, 3 years of expertly done early-access with a highly engaged player base) but they're not going to. They're going to implement more crunch, more abuse, more destruction of the few people who want to work in games in order to get there. And that's where I have the issue.
I want shorter games, with worse graphics, made by people who get paid more to do less. Because that's what's needed to make truly great games. People who are passionate, not burning themselves out just to barely make deadlines, make great games.
Sir... Socialism is already ruining this nation.and you are daring to propose communism?!
Sorry, I'm neurodivergent. Can't tell if this is sarcasm.
I'm not the person you're responding to, but the post looks sarcastic to me. Have a good day!
Not the person who said it, but yes, it's sarcasm
Selling a good product that people want is a hate crime against the tech industry
The most favorable reading I can give to the "don't expect this to be the new standard" lines is that BG3 Is special. It is an exceptional piece of art within the genre, and it will be difficult or impossible for other studios to replicate its appeal. Like, you can say that readers really enjoy The Hobbit, or The Expanse, or A Visit from the Goon Squad, but you shouldn't expect them to be the new standard. Few fantasy books since 1937 have been as good as The Hobbit, although a lot of them have imitated its characteristics.
Viewed that way, they're absolutely right. We're going to continue to get a bunch of buggy, derivative crap, and we'll keep paying for it because...what else are you going to do? Play Skyrim for the 47th time? 23rd run through Elden Ring?
Would it be so bad if games didn't have insane budgets? Most of my favorite games from the past decade are from small studios operating on pizza and hope.
BG3 did have a pretty huge budget though. I would totally be fine if games took notes from BG3 but reduced scope a lot. Bioware used to make games similar to BG, but they stopped and now make garbage. The idea other studios can't make similar games is wrong. They can't make games this big usually though without publishers telling them they need to include microtransactions and other bullshit.
BioWare didn’t just make games similar to Baldur’s Gate, they created Baldur’s Gate.
Lower budgets would probably be better. High budgets mean high risk, developers and publishers try to minimize that risk and you get bland games that try to cater to too many tastes. Movies suffer from the same problem. They get budgets in the hundreds of millions and you wonder what they spent it all for.
High budgets are killing the film industry. In the case of gaming, it plays a factor, but greed is probably the main issue. Most big budget AAA games in the past made large amounts of money even if they didn’t have universal appeal. Because companies realised that they could make large amounts of money off loot boxes, microtransactions, cash shops and battle passes, they started trying to funnel players into games, mainly so that players would buy things. That’s one of the main reasons the AAA industry is getting worse: games need to appeal to as many as possible, while coming out as fast as possible, all so that players will buy the overpriced in-game items endlessly shoved in players’ faces.
Imagine whining about how people prefer to play good games that work on launch.
From what I gather, there is a real fear in develper spaces that executives will take the wrong lessons from BG3. They will want the same scope, choice, narrative, & mechanics but through crunch, shutting down smaller projects, & homogenized visual & narrative focus. IE all the shiny bits without the time, work culture, & creativity that came with creating BE3. It isn't developers just being pissy this is their way of trying to stop their idiot boss from ruining their current project or making massive projects without enough time or staff.
That's because these executives don't care about learning. They want examples that they can use to rationalize their shitty decisions.
Complaining about it having funding.... AAA.... lol. Thats the fucking point of AAA. Big fucking budget.
AAA companies: Makes bad game and releases apology promising to make good games now
Also AAA companies: We are not capable of making good games, stop expecting to much.
Remember fellow gamers, you hold the power of the purse, you get the final vote with your wallet.
If some studio head or developer manager tries to tell you that you have to accept micro transactions and such, just say no thank you, and move on.
There are plenty of other games from other good studios out there for you to give your hard-earned money to.
Here’s my thing: I don’t necessarily care what sort of game you make, I just want it to be feature-complete and technically solid (I.e. mostly bug-free). Whether that’s a small indie game or a massive AAA game, those two things should be true.
I think what most people find frustrating is that the in-game store is the most well developed part of most AAA releases nowadays, which often ship riddled with bugs.
How does it go?
I want smaller games, with lower quality graphics. Made by happier developers who are paid more to work less. And I'm not kidding!
I mean we can have large games with detailed graphics and have employees treated well. We just need to accept 10+ year timelines for releases on big games which I'm ok with as long as we get quality results and the team is treated well.
I follow star citizen though so I could be the weird one here lol
New expectations? Lol. These were always the expectations!
That's what I don't get. These are expectations that I've had for years. The indie space has kinda proven that creativity will take a game a hell of a lot farther than cash ever will. With few exceptions I simply don't buy AAA games anymore because honestly I just don't expect the same level of effort will be put into making them.
Wizards of the coast paid $0 to fund this game, that's why it says Larian in the publisher field on Steam and not WoTC or Hasbro.
Cry some more, corpos.
I think that one (HUGE) part of BG3's success is that it was in Early Access for, what, 2-3 years? During which it grew a dedicated modding scene, received a metric fuck-ton of feedback, and regularly dropped large content patches. This wasn't an average dev cycle, and I think it shows. In some ways, the Dev. Feedback and interactivity reminded me a lot of the way Warframe does dev interactions.
These people are just coping and lying via social media. Baulder’s Gate 3, while Budget undisclosed, was surely made for less than what some of the richest companies in the industry spend on shit game products like Modern Warfare 2 or Assassins Creed games which have quarter of a billion dollars budgets or better.
Larian put this game into early access at full price and ate shit for it. I’ve been playing it for years already, first on Stadia (where it was already excellent, just clearly unfinished).
Tangent, I’m sick of these knuckleheads talking about Larian as if they aren’t a western gaming company based out of Belgium and employing Europeans and others. They know the anti-Sini sentiment is politically strong which is why they point to minority shareholdings by Tencent and label Larian an eastern company.
Epic has a bigger claim to being a non-Western gaming company since Tencent owns almost half of them by itself.
These particular devs are apparently either astroturfing messages with political undertones for their employers, chronically online and in desperate need of some Tumblr therapy, or have a conservative’s guilty conscience and are projecting their inadequacy onto everyone else.
It is exactly what I except going forward because, as that moron mentioned this is a fucking AAA game, not a Indy game.
AAA games developers absolutely have those resources and even more, so yes, they should have all of that.
Maybe we need to update the nomenclature. Software with loot boxes, pay to win mechanics, predatory gameplay loops, and storefront-first design should now be called “casinos”. They should have disclaimers about gambling and addiction in their load screen, have age restrictions, and should be forced to institute limits on what can be spent in a certain time frame. Feature-complete software with zero storefronts of any kind would be allowed to brand themselves as “games”.
The one thing that Shawn forgot to say is "Larian's boardrooms aren't filled with people who don't play video games!!"
Well Shawn. How about this is the new standard for AAA games and if you can't reach it than you are a AA studio at most.