I say big budget games are too large in scope. Too much going on, too ambitious, too much emphasis on certain aspects that I feel developers value more than consumers. Not every game needs to be the biggest baddest game of the year blah blah blah.
Yeah. Every time someone comes up with “games are too cheap” I always point to the fact that the vast majority of AAA games have insane amount of bloat. If AAA devs were struggling to make a profit then a clear way to cut costs would be to streamline the product. If leveling is not vital, cut it. If randomized loot is not necessary, cut it. If horse balls shrinking/expanding with the weather is not necessary, cut it.
There are always ways to cut corners in a AAA games and if the cost was an issue they’d do it. But the fact that they don’t shows how little the actually struggle. So far Bethesda is the only company that is clearly cutting the corners of their AAA products.
So far Bethesda is the only company that is clearly cutting the corners of their AAA products.
Starfield is the sloppiest Bethasda game ever, cutting corners to save cost is not how I would describe its development at all.
I agree with what you are saying though. Spending 40% of the budget on voice acting and cinematographic dialog is extremely wasteful. As long as the gameplay is good and graphics are pretty gamers will like the product.
I’d say its about on par with their past games. It’s clearly their game engine, modified to do space stuff.
If you come at it with the mindset that not every game has to get bigger and more expansive and have more and more realism/mechanics that don’t serve the core gameplay, it achieves it’s goal.
Not saying its game of the year material or anything, but if I was doing an employee review, I’d give it a meets expectations grade.
Honestly, I’d rather have stellar voice acting and okay graphics (not good, just not bad enough to turn it off after it makes me dizzy) than the other way around. Graphics lose their appeal after a short while in-game.
Imagine if people could buy a background music only -subtitle dialog- edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 for €40. How would the sale distribution go? I think this is a rather interesting thought experiment, I would personally opt to buy the cheaper version for sure, even though I do know the voice acting in BG3 is a landmark in gaming.
I would definitely buy that. I usually keep my game volumes on low and click through the dialogue because I already read the subtitle, why wait around to finish having the line delivered verbally? (Interestingly enough I’ve never ever thought “hurry up, speak faster” in an in real life conversation, this impatience only exists in video games.) Because of the value of voice acting, but for me personally voice acting is just not a priority.
For real, I think it’s rather telling that there are people who exclusively play some triple a games for the mini games.
It’s also interesting seeing indie take larger and larger chunks from the triple a market. Remember when harvest moon and simcity were big corporate endeavors, now it’s indie titles like city skylines and stardew Valley.
I would like to see some smaller projects from triple a studios targeting genres other than open world action-rpg.
studios targeting genres other than open world action-rpg.
With the corporate culture that’s developed in the industry I don’t think anyone should want that. Indie has the small project space covered & they make far better games than EA or Activision ever could in those genres. Corporate sellouts cannot beat passion, but they can make games so large in scope that small studios just cannot compete with that.
I say big budget games are too large in scope. Too much going on, too ambitious, too much emphasis on certain aspects that I feel developers value more than consumers. Not every game needs to be the biggest baddest game of the year blah blah blah.
Yeah. Every time someone comes up with “games are too cheap” I always point to the fact that the vast majority of AAA games have insane amount of bloat. If AAA devs were struggling to make a profit then a clear way to cut costs would be to streamline the product. If leveling is not vital, cut it. If randomized loot is not necessary, cut it. If horse balls shrinking/expanding with the weather is not necessary, cut it.
There are always ways to cut corners in a AAA games and if the cost was an issue they’d do it. But the fact that they don’t shows how little the actually struggle. So far Bethesda is the only company that is clearly cutting the corners of their AAA products.
Starfield is the sloppiest Bethasda game ever, cutting corners to save cost is not how I would describe its development at all.
I agree with what you are saying though. Spending 40% of the budget on voice acting and cinematographic dialog is extremely wasteful. As long as the gameplay is good and graphics are pretty gamers will like the product.
Is it really the sloppiest though?
I’d say its about on par with their past games. It’s clearly their game engine, modified to do space stuff.
If you come at it with the mindset that not every game has to get bigger and more expansive and have more and more realism/mechanics that don’t serve the core gameplay, it achieves it’s goal.
Not saying its game of the year material or anything, but if I was doing an employee review, I’d give it a meets expectations grade.
Honestly, I’d rather have stellar voice acting and okay graphics (not good, just not bad enough to turn it off after it makes me dizzy) than the other way around. Graphics lose their appeal after a short while in-game.
Imagine if people could buy a background music only -subtitle dialog- edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 for €40. How would the sale distribution go? I think this is a rather interesting thought experiment, I would personally opt to buy the cheaper version for sure, even though I do know the voice acting in BG3 is a landmark in gaming.
I would definitely buy that. I usually keep my game volumes on low and click through the dialogue because I already read the subtitle, why wait around to finish having the line delivered verbally? (Interestingly enough I’ve never ever thought “hurry up, speak faster” in an in real life conversation, this impatience only exists in video games.) Because of the value of voice acting, but for me personally voice acting is just not a priority.
For real, I think it’s rather telling that there are people who exclusively play some triple a games for the mini games.
It’s also interesting seeing indie take larger and larger chunks from the triple a market. Remember when harvest moon and simcity were big corporate endeavors, now it’s indie titles like city skylines and stardew Valley.
I would like to see some smaller projects from triple a studios targeting genres other than open world action-rpg.
With the corporate culture that’s developed in the industry I don’t think anyone should want that. Indie has the small project space covered & they make far better games than EA or Activision ever could in those genres. Corporate sellouts cannot beat passion, but they can make games so large in scope that small studios just cannot compete with that.