/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8270865]

Remember how experimental games were in the Dreamcast/PS2/GameCube/Xbox era? Why aren't games like that anymore?

[Anonymous No.8270871]

They are. You can get your heart's content of experimental games for like 2 bucks each in the digital store of your choice.

[Anonymous No.8270878]

there are more weird experimental games than ever, they're just being made by indie dorks instead of aaa studios

[Anonymous No.8270884]

>>8270865
>Cost of GTA3
>5 million
>Cost of GTA4
>100 million
>Cost of GTA5
>265 million
One bad game sinks a studio now.

[Anonymous No.8270887]

Dreamcast and Sega were the only one who really pushed for developer creativity back then. Sony was all about playing to the market and Nintendo was desperately trying to get back it's 3rd party developers like Capcom and Square

[Anonymous No.8270892]

There were more experimental games in the 90's.

[Anonymous No.8270909]

Because the good days are over and not coming back. Let that wash over you and rip the last shred of hope you still have.

[Anonymous No.8270925]

>>8270865
There's tons of modern experimental games. You just aren't looking in the right places for them. I do appreciate the meme image, showing that Bugs Bunny is not dead, but a fake skeleton, just as your thread is a humorous lie.

[Anonymous No.8270927]

>>8270884
>Cost of GTA5
>265 million

Some of that must have been some clever accounting, because there's so much more thought and care put into IV, it's not even funny.

[Anonymous No.8270930]

>>8270887
Both the PS1 and even the PS2 have tons of experimental games and though.

[Anonymous No.8270951]

>>8270865
that was the generation they started being less experimental in.

[Anonymous No.8270954]

>>8270927
Half of it was marketing lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Grand_Theft_Auto_V
Seems like they just wasted a shitload of money on stupid crap to make LA look authentic

[Anonymous No.8270957]

>>8270954
Should have spent more time on the physics.

[Anonymous No.8270978]

>>8270865
the answer is that game development costs have been rising in geometric progression since the 90s. this anon >>8270884 is right. back in the day, AAA games could easily cost under $10 mln. nowadays, it's completely normal for a big game to cost over $100 mln for development and marketing. that's basically Hollywood size budgets now, and it follows the same logic as Hollywood. lowest common denominator approach, lack of creativity, endless remakes. expecting creativity in games today is like expecting a $300 mln capeshit movie to be experimental arthouse kino.

[Anonymous No.8270985]

>>8270865
the answer is that game development costs have been rising in geometric progression since the 90s. this anon >>8270884 is right. back in the day, AAA games could easily cost under $10 mln. nowadays, it's completely normal for a big game to cost over $100 mln for development and marketing. that's basically Hollywood size budgets now, and it follows the same logic as Hollywood. lowest common denominator approach, lack of creativity, endless remakes. expecting creativity in games today is like expecting a $300 mln capeshit movie to be experimental arthouse kino.

[Anonymous No.8271006]

>>8270865
Because you haven't seen many new games?

[Anonymous No.8271079]

>No dude there's plenty of experimental games these days!
Almost every "experimental" game these days is indie pixel shovelware or one-trick streamer-bait like "goat simulator" or "untitled goose game".

[Anonymous No.8271092]

>>8270930
>Both the PS1 and even the PS2 have tons of experimental games and though.
That's because they were hugely popular in Japan and getting one schmuck to play your game is better than none. Artdink were the kings of this.

[Anonymous No.8271116]

>>8270884
What the actual fuck happened in seven years?

[Anonymous No.8271124]

>>8270865
>ctrl+f "money"
>only 1 result
Gaming companies never cared about you or making quality games, they only care about your wallet. Despite this, making good games was the only way to make a profit from a game back in the day. Now, you don't even need to try to make a complete product as long as you stuff in microtransactions and other bullshit made to squeeze as much money as possible from the lowest common denominator to make a profit.

[Anonymous No.8271289]

>>8271116
The assets costed more because they were Californian

[Anonymous No.8271316]

>>8270985
My only hope is that both movie and gaming industries will just completely reset themselves at some point. You can't expand costs and produce shit remakes infinitely, someday it will blow up.
Hopefully.

[Anonymous No.8271329]

>>8271079
>implying experimental games havent always been the quintessential social game "woah look at this wacky game i got"

[Anonymous No.8271331]

>>8271079
Once again, not looking hard enough. Hylics series was interesting. Same with Magic Wand and the whole RPG Maker scene spurred out into mainstream shit as well. It's hard to talk about seeing as this is a retro game board.

[Anonymous No.8271335]

>>8270865
There's much more experimental shit going on now. It's all indie though and you have to dig through piles and piles of asset flips and streamer bait to find it.

[Anonymous No.8271342]

>>8270865
Early 3d era lacked common standards for controls, level/world design, gameplay styles, objectives, etc.

[Anonymous No.8271390]

>indieshit
intothetrash.tif

[Anonymous No.8271434]

>>8271079
your post tells me you should be keeping that L

[Anonymous No.8271453]

>>8270865
Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened. Plus, to echo the rest of thread, good games are still being made, just not by AAA studios. We're only like 45-ish years into the history of video games, anyways.

[Anonymous No.8271498]

>>8271079
you are just cynical because you are old and need viagra to jerk off

[Anonymous No.8271505]

>>8270865
They got scared of originality when the commies took over

Pretty simple really

[Anonymous No.8271845]

>>8271316
i feel it could come to that point. they're saying game development cost for ps5 is expected to triple compared to that of ps4. it may literally come to a point that making AAA games simply isn't profitable enough even for EA / Sony / etc.
the crazy thing is that this whole system already holds up solely because of microtransactions. a game alone still costs $60, while budgets rose exponentially. so most of money they make is from upselling DLC and such. but this can't expand forever either. eventually, there may come a breaking point, when even casuals will have enough of microtransactions. at this point, there will be nothing left to sustain further expansion of budgets.
i think movies came through something somewhat similar, when it turned out that instead of "AAA" equivalent of theater blockbusters you could make a good TV show instead. so eventually TV shows turned from "lower genre" and generic soap operas into something way more respected as art form, often featuring big movie stars and such. this could on paper happen to smaller, non-AAA games.

[Anonymous No.8271850]

Because a game like Wonderful 101 comes out, sells 7 and a half copies on launch day, and scares every publisher into never giving anyone a budget for anything that isn't an FPS or or action game ever again.

[Anonymous No.8271878]

>>8271079
you tired from moving those goalposts?

[Anonymous No.8271883]

>>8270878
And they never finish development because releasing two bugfixes a month on patreon pays better than writing an ending.

[Anonymous No.8271887]

>>8271079
back to /v/ if you're just gonna make a bait thread then
look harder

[Anonymous No.8272338]

>>8270884
Meanwhile
>Dev tools are more streamlined and easily accessible than ever
>Asset studios ensure you can just buy half your game and save money on dev time
>No more proprietary engines

That dev cost is a straight up scam, the games themselves cost nothing to make while all that cash goes straight into someone's pocket

[Anonymous No.8272364]

>>8272338
That only really applies to indie studios. AAA games still have shitloads of unique assets, hugely complex animations, and hours upon hours of dialog. 1000 people worked on the latest ASSCREED game, do you think the entire game was made from stock assets and assembled by a few nobodies in a week?

[Anonymous No.8272540]

>>8271079
The mere existence of Rain World and Factorio shits all over the notion that we don't have experimental games these days. You'd only think it was all streamer bait crap if you watch streamers.

[Anonymous No.8272573]

>>8270865
>b-but MUH INDIES!!!
Yeah anons computer games had a shit ton of indies since forever, that's not what OP (is a fag) is talking about. It's more of a question of why entities that actually employ people are releasing games made with the same molds instead of taking chances with soulful low budget side projects. PS1 and PS2 was full of this.

[Anonymous No.8272959]

>>8272573
because it doesn't make enough money to make someone rich

[Anonymous No.8272975]

>>8271079
You speak the truth and they treat you like the villain

[Anonymous No.8273143]

>>8272573
>It's more of a question of why entities that actually employ people are releasing games made with the same molds instead of taking chances with soulful low budget side projects
That is literally what Sekiro is.

[Anonymous No.8273242]

>>8273143
Yeah, it's literally a game made with the same mold. Oh wow, a "hardcore" third-person hack n slash with heavy focus on bosses, RPG mechanics, seamless hubworlds but now with samurais, aren't you overextending yourself with all that creativity, Miyazaki?

[Anonymous No.8273270]

>>8270887
>Dreamcast and Sega were the only one who really pushed for developer creativity back then. Sony was all about playing to the market and Nintendo was desperately trying to get back it's 3rd party developers like Capcom and Square
What you're saying is mostly true. There were some experimental games on PS1, but it was a relatively small portion of a massive library. Dreamcast on the other hand had a ton of experimental games. One of the things that made Dreamcast so exciting in '98-99 was how innovated everything about it was. Dreamcast felt like something entirely new, an actually progression, while PS2 and everything after felt like a "safe" improvement over the previous generation.

>>8271079
>Almost every "experimental" game these days is indie pixel shovelware or one-trick streamer-bait like "goat simulator" or "untitled goose game".
As others have pointed out, there are quality "experimental" games coming out. But, those are few and far between. Most "indie" stuff is shit thrown together by people with no talent in Unity or Unreal Engine. That isn't at all the same as when talented and experience designers and dev teams with budgets were still allowed to experiment.

[Anonymous No.8273285]

>>8273143
yeah i was blown away by this action RPG with melee attacks, i-frame dodge, blocking, parrying, sitting at an flaming checkpoint area to upgrade your character, and losing all your held xp when you die.
never seen that shit before. it's just like playing katamari damacy for the first time.

[Anonymous No.8273289]

>>8270865
>Remember how experimental games were
How about giving some examples instead of spouting a buzzword you think you know the meaning to.

[Anonymous No.8273290]

>>8273270
I think what this proves is that companies tend to innovate when they need to. For all the hate BotW gets, it changed the formula up because of how SS got received and the usual "more of the same" idea most people had about Zelda. Dreamcast had to innovate or die. Gamecube had to try new things to see if I could get people away from the competition. PS1 had to get things moving and follow up on the idea that 3D was the future.
Indies are gonna indie all the time, and I'm thankful for the good stuff that pops out sometimes, at least. The next big thing in gaming could cause another wave of inspiration and lower budget experimental stuff, but you could also see it from the next big gaming crisis.

[Anonymous No.8273302]

>>8271883
early access on steam was a mistake. literally just an excuse to never finish the game for 98% of devs.

[Anonymous No.8273304]

>>8270927
money laundering

[Anonymous No.8273317]

>>8271316
all speculation bubbles burst eventually

[Anonymous No.8273330]

>>8270927
in general, game budgets have become massively inflated because of the cost of producing new assets and general graphical fidelity
with GTA though they just burned money on stupid shit, for sure

[Anonymous No.8273351]

>>8273290
>I think what this proves is that companies tend to innovate when they need to
Right, because innovation is risky. Creative people do their best work when they are not involved in or hindered by the bean counting. Kojima said sales expectations were low for MGS1 so he just made the game he wanted to make without any consideration for how to sell it.
> "Neither I nor anyone else expected Metal Gear Solid to sell at all"
> "So I was fortunate, because I didn't have to think, ‘I have to sell this game this much,' so pretty much all I did was put in that game all the things I really like."
> "I didn't think at all of how to make this game sell well because I didn't expect it to sell"
https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/14/5507486/metal-gear-solid-wasnt-expected-to-sell-kojima-says

Right around the end of the 5th console generation, it looked like game companies became extremely risk averse, probably because of ballooning development costs. The "golden age" of games in that '96-99 era was probably the perfect balance with budgets being big enough to allow talented talented designers and dev teams create the games they wanted to create, but not yet so big that their more innovative projects never get funded due to financial risk.

I haven't found information on this, but I bet the budget for MGS2 was over 10x that of MGS1. We'll never know how many visionary designers came and went through the games industry over the last 20 years but never had the chance guys like Kojima did to create their own masterpieces because of risk averse corporate executives forcing dev studios to rehash the same shit they know will sell.

[Anonymous No.8273357]

>>8273351
I agree, but the golden age shit about 96-99 always seemed like Gen Xer shit to try to make themselves look good. At the very least, I'd extend it to like 2003 or so.

[Anonymous No.8273381]

>>8273357
>the golden age shit about 96-99 always seemed like Gen Xer shit
I'm a 36 year old boomer, and even though it has become sort of a meme, it is simply true that 1998 (in the US) was undoubtedly *the best* year for gaming. It was as if some kind of a miracle took place for so many amazing games to release so close together. I'd extend the "golden era" to 2-3 years before and after that point. It was amazing being a gamer during that time. The future seemed so bright because we just figured things were going to continue getting better and better like they had been.

[Anonymous No.8273409]

>>8273381
Isn't 36 literally the Gen X I'm talking about? And yeah, I always hear about how 1997 was that magical year, but I think in general, there are a good ton of those magical years going around, and it just changes based on perspective. I didn't grow up with a PS1, so I was more excited by the Dreamcast and eventual Xbox stuff that went on. That mix of local AND online never hit the same as it did in 6th gen.

[Anonymous No.8273498]

They are? In fact, you're intent on not coming across experimental games at all if you genuinely don't think they're made anymore. You don't even have to look very far, just open fucking steam.

[Anonymous No.8273517]

>>8270927
It's all about tech over substance now, and studios getting too big to stay afloat.

[Anonymous No.8273520]

>>8273409
>Isn't 36 literally the Gen X I'm talking about?
No, my aunts, uncles, and teachers were mostly gen x. The youngest Gen Xers are already in their 40s.

Also, as an aside, I don't mind those under 30 posting here, but they should admit that upfront so we can keep scrolling past worthless opinions pertaining to the way things were in the pre-'00s days.

[Anonymous No.8273532]

>>8273381
>I'm a 36 year old boomer
Don't stoop yourself to Gen Z's level of terminology, Oijisan.
Why have Ojisan and Kodomo-kun not been used as filters respectively for this shit yet?

[Anonymous No.8273551]

>>8273520
I don't know why you're assuming my age or acting as if I did what you said at the end. My whole point was that depending on when you started and grew up, you'd have a different look on when the golden age was. I'm only 6 years younger than you too, chill the fuck out.

[Anonymous No.8273564]

>>8273520
Forgot to say, could have sworn 85 was Gen X, but the point still remains that there's a lot of self importance about 5th gen especially on 4chan, as if 4th or 6th didn't have equally great years.

[Anonymous No.8273636]

>>8273532
>Gen Z's level of terminology
I just feel like a boomer because I spend so much time stubbornly ranting about the decline of the things I loved. Hopefully I'm not nearly as entitled as actual boomers, though.

> I don't know why you're assuming my age
That part wasn't necessarily aimed at your personally, though I did expect that you were at least younger than me, and you are. Being about 30 today puts you at about 8 in 1998, which is definitely too young to have much of an opinion on the state of the games industry from '96-99.

> My whole point was that depending on when you started and grew up, you'd have a different look on when the golden age was
Sure, I get that, and I agree that what you are exposed to from about 10-16 seems to have a deep impact on your preferences into adulthood.

But, there is a reason that 1998 has become a meme and it isn't just because of us 36 year olds (this board actually seems to skew much younger than that). Look at the fucking list of games that came out in that year. So many classics that are still revered today. So many games that firmly established what certain genres would be all about for literally decades to come. So many amazing games that were new concepts rather than just iterations on shit that came out last year. I'm not saying that the games that came out in '98 are still the best games ever made (though some are), but many of the "best" games that came later can trace their lineage right back to games from '98. The only years that even compare with '98 are '97 and '99, and things also get a little more murky when you include Japan since a lot of stuff came out there earlier or later. Again, good games came out before and after the "golden era" I semi-arbitrarily defined. However, never so many at such a high caliber and in such a short timespan.

[Anonymous No.8273643]

>>8273357
What great games came out after 2001?

[Anonymous No.8273692]

>>8273643
cod2 and cod4
gta4
gta5
rainbow six vegas

[Anonymous No.8273696]

>>8273643
Soul Calibur 2, MGS3, Silent HIll 3, Halo 2, Katamari, DMC3, RE4, The Sims 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Viewtiful Joe, Metroid Prime, Panzer Dragoon Orta...
'02 to '05 or so was full of great games. It was around 2006 or so that things changed.

[Anonymous No.8273701]

>>8273696
Shit, forgot to put San Andreas and the rest of the GTAs, but you can honestly put a lot more games that were less popular but still good.

[Anonymous No.8273709]

>>8273696
Those games span multiple years, and over half are just iterations on previous titles. Especially
> Soul Calibur 2
> Silent HIll 3
> Halo 2
> The Sims 2
Even if MGS3 is the best MGS game (I don't think so but many do), it still wasn't as groundbreaking as MGS1, which came out in.... You guessed it, 1998.

[Anonymous No.8273747]

>>8273636
It's one thing to talk about the industry with a first person point of you, but a lot of what you're talking about is in hindsight, which makes sense because you would be about 13 or 14 when it was happening, too.
I get that it was a big pivotal time that changed games, but it's weird when you have people older than us by a lot saying the same about the NES or SNES, and feeling like 97 was when things changed for the worse. Best I can do is agree to disagree, because at the end of the day, it's not like are arbitrary dates matter much. I do respect your opinion, though. Just a bit tired at seeing other eras get less love

[Anonymous No.8273770]

>>8273709
At this point, it seems more like you mean golden age of innovation rather than just a general golden age, since I value the execution of it more than the innovation of the age. The Wii and DS were innovative in their own ways, but the quality didn't hit.

[Anonymous No.8273774]

>>8270865
>Experimental game sells poorly
>People buys the next GTA game
>Why aren't games like that anymore?

[Anonymous No.8273787]

>>8273774
> dumb normalfags ruining good things as they usually do

Got it

[Anonymous No.8273793]

>>8270865
>Why aren't games like that anymore?
The HD era killed all the soul video games had before and during the 6th gen.
Smaller (I dare say more creative) studios couldn't keep up graphics wise and bigger studios started playing safe because of the costs.

[Anonymous No.8274081]

>>8273747
> you would be about 13 or 14 when it was happening
Big difference between 13-14 and 7-8. I was balls deep in gaming mags and other media for years at that point while you were just learning how to read.

But, this pissing contest about whose opinion is more credible is bullshit (spoiler: mine is). None of that matters. If you can name a better single year of gaming, then go ahead. Like I said, it isn't just me who says '98 was special. If you polled actual gamers (not just casual mobile fags) over the age of 25 or so (because fuck the opinion of anyone younger than that, frankly) about which year was the best, you can safely bet all your bitcoin that 1998 would win.

Yes, when the topic comes up here, there is always someone who argues against 1998 being the best year, but that's because /vr/ is extremely contrarian. Even if only 5 games at all ever came out before or after 1998, half the board would still argue against it being the best.

[Anonymous No.8274101]

>>8270865
they were just as or more experimental before 6th gen lil z

[Anonymous No.8274201]

>>8270892
The xbox era was probably his first experience to gaming, in a couple years we're gonna have zoomers saying how experimental and soulful the PS4 was.

[Anonymous No.8274296]

>>8274081
This was just an entire post going into why your opinion is right and that everyone agrees with you. This is like trying to talk to someone who refuses to admit there are good (or even better) Final Fantasy games other than VII, and then saying how "everyone would agree with me!"
At this point you have to be baiting me, and if so, congrats. /vr/ being open to more opinions than just the popular one is a godsend, though.

[Anonymous No.8274420]

>>8273357
>>8273381
>>8273409
if you wanted to imply "it's just Gen X stroking their egos and nothing else", then you'll have to argue that GoldenEye, SM64, OoT, HL1, RE2, MGS, Fallout 2, Starcraft, SotN, FFVII, THPS, Shenmue etc etc are all unremarkable meme games. You could argue that this or that game from the list is overrated, but with all due respect, if you say that about ALL of them, you're an edgelord and not to be taken seriously.
and second—i think 96-99 was simply a spot of great balance for video game industry. it was a time when technology largely stopped being a limiting factor for game ideas and storytelling, like in Atari / NES times; but when it hasn't yet become a burden when you need to dump at least $50-100 mln into a game like in current year. it's a great middle ground between super small teams of 3-4 people and huge developer sweatshops of today, something that allows for enough experimentation and some soul while discouraging downright shovelware.

[Anonymous No.8274484]

>>8273381
>>8273636
you're a fag dude. you aren't a boomer. you're a millennial get over it.

[Anonymous No.8274543]

>>8274420
>"you have to argue this thing that you aren't arguing"
At least you're starting to admit that 96-99 is just one spot rather than THE spot. I don't disagree that a lot of great games came out during it, but as >>8274484 points out, you're really trying to act like you can speak for the whole spectrum of games when you yourself are still almost as young as me. For all the pros of game ideas and storytelling, there's the cons of games trying to be more than just games, or getting more bloat. People go on about 93 or 01 or 04 all the time, I don't get what you're not getting, but I feel like I might've just struck a nerve, and I'll leave you be. Don't gotta feel so self important about 98, bro

[Anonymous No.8274552]

>>8274543
I didn't say any of that. I think he's a fag for using generational terms improperly and giving credence to zoomer retardation like most suck-up millennials who cannot make friends their own age. The golden age of gaming was from 1992 to 2012 and got worst from there.

[Anonymous No.8274583]

>>8270871
Indie games are universally dogshit though and rarely bring anything new to the table

[Anonymous No.8274634]

>>8274543
there aren't just 2 people on this board, you know? i'm a different guy.
i didnt say 98 was the best year, in fact to me it's more like 85-2008 if you ask me. however, past 2001 imo it clearly started losing soul really quick (except for GBA/DS, only proving that 4th-5th gen hardware was the perfect spot), and 85-93 was pretty rough around the edges and you need to get the "arcade" mindset to really enjoy games from that era. but picking just 1 year is pointless imo.
>For all the pros of game ideas and storytelling, there's the cons of games trying to be more than just games, or getting more bloat.
correct. that's also a big part of the tradeoff.

[Anonymous No.8274648]

>>8271092
i've seen this game before but i forgot what it's called, what is it?

[Anonymous No.8274659]

>>8274648
internal section

[Anonymous No.8274773]

>>8274296
>This was just an entire post going into why your opinion is right and that everyone agrees with you.
You dummy. You're the one who suggested me picking 98 was based on my age. There is ample evidence that is not the case, which was my point. Again, you are just being a pissy little girl and stomping your feet because I called your bitchass out--you can't name a better year so instead you're just being a faggot. Name a better year, faggot.

[Anonymous No.8274807]

>>8271850
The Wonderful 101 is an action game though... though yeah it's a crime how bad it sold despite literally being the greatest video game ever made.

[Anonymous No.8274846]

>>8271850
>NES game: sells 300k copies vs $50k budget—considered a big success
>SNES game: sells 300k copies vs $150k budget—considered a minor hit
>PS game: sells 300k copies vs $1.5M budget—considered hidden gem
>PS2 game: sells 300k copies vs $3M budget—obscure shit no one played
>…
>PS4 game: sells 300k copies vs $50M budget—studio gets closed, all staff sold to slavery to pay the debt

[Anonymous No.8274861]

>>8274846
Super Mario Bros 3 had a budget of almost $26M dollars when it was released.

[Anonymous No.8274878]

>>8270985
The same people that invest in movies started investing in games. That money makes decisions.

[Anonymous No.8274890]

>>8274861
you take the total budget, marketing + development.
>The marketing budget for Super Mario Bros. 3 was $25 million,[31] bringing the game's total development and marketing budget to $25.8 million ($56 million adjusted for inflation).
i guess that means that the development price was just 800k. that's for the pinnacle of NES games. the marketing budget was 30x the development cost. rest of 25 million was basically ads and commercials, you can tell the game was hyped like 2nd coming of jesus.

[Anonymous No.8274952]

>>8270865
They are just play mid budget shit

[Anonymous No.8275005]

>>8271335
>indie
Code word for low effort cash grab. Sorry, but fuck off.

[Anonymous No.8275012]

>>8274890
>the marketing budget was 30x the development cost
You act like this isn't still the way it's done.
Marketing accounts for 80% of a AAA game's budget.
Actually developing a game costs about $2M for a AAA studio today for a game of similar length, which when you increase that 1980s cost for SMB3 to account for inflation, it's spot on.

Development costs haven't risen that much, and the tools are much better allowing a single employee to do what used to take five.

[Anonymous No.8275019]

>>8271079
>Doesn't know how to find the life raft games in the ocean of piss that is the 2012-present gaming industry
NGMI

[Anonymous No.8275021]

>>8275012
>Marketing accounts for 80% of a AAA game's budget.
source on this claim? from what I've seen, it's more like 50%, often less. Halo was one of thew exceptions.

[Anonymous No.8275034]

Try VR games. Most of them are just first person wave shooters but there is some cool weird shit in there.

Just don’t ever expect western AAA games to take a single risk. It’s either Japanese games or indie shit

[Anonymous No.8275043]

>>8275012
>Actually developing a game costs about $2M for a AAA studio today for a game of similar length, which when you increase that 1980s cost for SMB3 to account for inflation, it's spot on.
>Development costs haven't risen that much, and the tools are much better allowing a single employee to do what used to take five.
Games cost at least several tens of millions to develop today. Read pretty much anything on the matter. Simply because of number of people you need for a team. 200 people earning 50k/year making a game for 2 years is 20 million already.
Back in the day games were made quicker and with smaller teams. E.g. Mortal Kombat was initially developed by just 4 people, not counting actors etc of course. Doom's initial development team consisted of 5 people.
For comparison, more than 500 devs worked on Cyberpunk 2077, with 5,000 people involved in total (partners, actors, translators, musicians etc), only to produce a massive turd.

[Anonymous No.8275047]

>>8275012
also, even wikipedia has this
>By the seventh generation of video game consoles (late 2000s), AAA game development on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 game consoles typically cost in the low tens of millions of dollars ($15m to $20m) for a new game, with some sequels having even higher total budgets – for example Halo 3 is estimated to have had a development cost of $30m, and a marketing budget of $40m.
>At around the period of transition from seventh to eighth generation of consoles, the cost of AAA development was considered by some to be a threat to the stability of the industry.[16][17] Staffing and costs for eighth generation games increased; at Ubisoft, AAA game development involved 400 to 600 persons for open world games, split across multiple locations and countries.

[Anonymous No.8275641]

>>8272338
>>No more proprietary engines
except most shit can't compete with the latest idtech and whatever engine Rockstar develops for their stuff.

[Anonymous No.8275642]

>>8271079
if either of those games came out on the Dreamcast they would be lauded as some of the greatest hidden gems of all time you fucking dweeb.

[Anonymous No.8275673]

>>8273242
I think they were talking about low budget - the costs are astronomically smaller for it and they saved more cash by being able to reuse stuff, so you wonder where all the budget goes for actual AAA titles.

[Anonymous No.8275692]

>>8275641
You're right, but fortunately it doesn't usually need to.

[Anonymous No.8275696]

>>8274583
It's cute how you think suits at fucking Activision or whatever are the gatekeepers of quality video games. You must prefer the video game equivalent of eating out of the trough like a pig.

[Anonymous No.8275702]

>>8270865
Corporations are run by scam artists who butcher everything to fit into their formula for guaranteed billions. If you want experimental stuff you have to buy from a startup that hasn't been bought out yet.

[Anonymous No.8275820]

>>8275696
>T. Rainbow haired indie "developer"

[Anonymous No.8276128]

>>8275820
Not even that dude but keep eating shit if you like, just don’t complain that it tastes like shit

[Anonymous No.8276501]

>>8270865
They were experimenting. They found the answers. Devs came out of that generation with new and tighter formulas for making money.

[Anonymous No.8276691]

>>8275021
Bro, marketing is like 80% of the budget for almost any product if the creators want it to be profitable. Finding an audience and getting them to purchase what you made is many times more expensive and difficult than actually creating it.

[Anonymous No.8276798]

>>8276128
>Keep eating shit
You're the dumb nigger playing indie "games". Remember to pick the corn out of your teeth when you're done with that steamer

[Anonymous No.8276803]

>Remember how experimental games were in the Dreamcast/PS2/GameCube/Xbox era? Why aren't games like that anymore?
You mean the Saturn/PS1/N64 era. 3D had already found its groove by the millennium.

[Anonymous No.8276867]

I remember. I miss those days. Nowadays everything feels the same. Just yet another 3rd person cinematic movie experience.

[Anonymous No.8277109]

I think the 6th gen was the ugly middle child. Everything the 6th gen had, the 5th (RPG/Platformers) and 7th gens (FPS/Open World) did better.

[Anonymous No.8277757]

>>8276128
>assuming its gender while whiteknighting for it
epic

[Anonymous No.8277792]

>>8277109
kys. 7th gen was the death of videogames, and on a technical level it was fucking awful as well.

[Anonymous No.8277857]

>>8275696
Indie games are almost always dogshit.

Engines are so accessible now that any tranny fag and his buddies can get together and make a game now, flooding the market with amateur games made by losers who learned how to program using Codecademy and a 45 min youtube video on how to use Unity.

At least corpos and established companies will hire based off experience and actual hirable skills

[Anonymous No.8277876]

>>8277109
For me it's the complete opposite, the 6th gen improved a whole lot of what the 5th did and it still managed to be reasonably better than the 7th generation. Especially when talking about platformers, (J)RPGs, survivor horrors, fighting games, racing games and even sport games. Also, all those genres had a decline on the 7th. The only genres that did arguably better were FPS and Action/Adventure open world games.

[Anonymous No.8277917]

>>8274583
you are not smart

[Anonymous No.8277924]

>>8271079
Do you want me to jerk you off for being a cynical faggot? Why even bother making a thread asking a question if you're going to argue with every answer? God, you're a cunt.

[Anonymous No.8278258]

>>8277917
Compared to a tard like you that shills indie shit a dead hamster is smart

[Anonymous No.8278401]

>>8274583
Christ you're an idiot

[Anonymous No.8281207]

>>8271505
Based Bucky Poster

[Anonymous No.8281241]

If you want those kinds of experiences, you'll have to do digging on digital storefronts like on Steam, GOG, or Itch.io to get your fix. That or look up mid-budget franchises like EDF or Disaster Report, they just wont come much from AAA companies because companies need to make a profit and break even.
That, or just get something like Balan Wonderland if you want to get your fix.

[Anonymous No.8281243]

>be OP
>make a completely false claim
>get corrected repeatedly by replies
>make some ignorant contrarian reply to the replies
Remember when /vr/ wasn't /v/ 2.0 and people didn't call everything bad for (you)s? Why isn't it like that anymore?

[Anonymous No.8281250]

>>8271079
>>8274583
These, and as a nice bonus, you made a lot of complete faggots mad.

[Anonymous No.8281252]

>>8275005
Also this

[Anonymous No.8281365]

>all these delusional fucking indie niggers in this thread

[Anonymous No.8281367]

>>8281241
> companies need to make a profit and break even

These days only profits are allowable? Breaking even and not making more than last year? Unacceptable.

[Anonymous No.8281401]

>>8281243
Gonna' take a stab based on lite lurking:
>Gen Z now being old enough to post
>Are mainly tourists that spilled over from /v/ during The Fappening and/or 2016 election
>The retro crazy
>Allowing 5th Gen discussion
Or just bored, jaded oldfags that can't leave this site. /vr/'s definitely been more lively since mods retardedly allowed 5th gen talk here.

Funny that they, not too long ago, went out of their way to splinter off /v/ into several other boards no one asked for to somehow salvage vidya topics that are otherwise plagued on /v/, yet they couldn't bother adding ones users actually wanted and rightfully needed.

[Anonymous No.8281402]

>>8281401
6th gen, ex-CUSE ME.

[Anonymous No.8281419]

>>8277917
>>8278401
Playing Devil's Advocate: Do you want to at least give any examples to prove him wrong instead of "nu-uh"?

[Anonymous No.8281479]

Outer Wilds is experimental, indie, was widely loved, and came out 2 years ago. The only people who didn't like it were retards who couldn't figure out what to do, and zoomers who couldn't focus on it.

[Anonymous No.8281496]

>>8275005
Fucking retard that you are

Go fucking die in a corner while crying then

[Anonymous No.8281501]

There are plenty of awesome experimental indie games.

/thread

[Anonymous No.8281524]

It's all marketing and directors
Literally 60% of Horizon assets were made between Sofia(Bulgaria) and India, ie third world shitholes where a dev is paid $30k, same for CA and Total War games.
Also, the "quality" of game devs has drastically plummeted, as the industry decided to employ 'enthusiasts' IE retards willing to work a high skilled position for $50k/year, leaving all the talented and motivated persons who wanted to actually make some money to look for another software development career.

This leads to games made by committee, where directors chosen by a board make the safest shit possible and direct a group of either 'enthusiasts' or diversity hires to produce the most boring shit possible to check as many marketable boxes you can.

[Anonymous No.8281526]

>>8281419
Outer wilds, FTL, Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Expeditions Conquistador, Riftbreakers, Factorio, La Mulana, Terranigma, Cave Story just off the top of my head.

Now you're gonna say they're all shit but I don't give a fuck it's not debatable these are good games.

[Anonymous No.8281586]

>>8281526
>indie Terranigma
what?

[Anonymous No.8281589]

>>8281586

[Anonymous No.8281637]

>>8281589
For some reason my brain fucked up, I meant Terraria.

[Anonymous No.8282197]

>>8270865
That was the most conformist era on vidya history. Hang yourself zoomer.

Also not retro.

[Anonymous No.8282235]

>>8282197
You haven't proofed him wrong and only gave some typical buzzwords, YOU should hang yourself

[Anonymous No.8282324]

>>8282235
Nah, he's right.

[Anonymous No.8282327]

>>8282235
It was the era of cutscenes, long tutorials, realistic shit, linear shit, easy as fuck shit. Do you need more?

[Anonymous No.8282345]

>>8270865
>>8282327

[Anonymous No.8282349]

>>8282345
Soulless

[Anonymous No.8282351]

>>8282327
And it also was the era of more experimental stuff (together with the 5th gen), yes there were more games than before that are like you described but it was somewhat evenly split

[Anonymous No.8282352]

>>8282349
more like
... heartless

[Anonymous No.8282367]

>>8270878
Lower effort and polish. I also refuse to support trannies.

[Anonymous No.8282371]

>>8281367
With how bloated development teams are in the AAA space with 300+ people minimum working on just one game for upwards of 3 years? You bet their ass they want profits, they don't just want "small profits" or "break evens". Not only do they have to make the graphix nice and shiny to make them marketable, if the experience isnt long, padded, and bloated with repeated content then the average gamer wont feel like its worth $60, or the $70 price tag they're now asking.
It's just an unsustainable model that's just ready to collapse inwards on itself.

[Anonymous No.8282372]

>>8282367
fuck off to /pol/ then, retard

[Anonymous No.8282468]

>>8282367
Jonathan Blow is not a tranny, as far as I know.

[Anonymous No.8282923]

>>8270884
>You could pay for half of GTA 3's development cost
Fucking inflation. And I still feel poor even with a 2M net worth.

[Anonymous No.8282992]

>>8270884
>uses the 2 games that are the most cost inflated because of marketing

[Anonymous No.8283337]

>>8270865
graphics, cinematic games, open world games and rng live service games sell more, less risk.

[Anonymous No.8283340]

>>8282367
this

[Anonymous No.8283550]

>>8282367
>polish
Whats wrong with the Polish? They've made some good games.

[Anonymous No.8283586]

>>8270985
>expecting creativity in games today is like expecting a $300 mln capeshit movie to be experimental arthouse kino

So, Death Stranding?

[Anonymous No.8285041]

>>8283550
Like what?

[Anonymous No.8285072]

>non-retro thread is full of people who don't play video games posting /pol/shit
I'm shocked!

[Anonymous No.8285205]

>>8285041
Well The Witcher for one.