Team size is very relevant when we look for cool, original, cohesive games. Back in the day, a team of 3 could do something that had never been attempted before

Team size is very relevant when we look for cool, original, cohesive games. Back in the day, a team of 3 could do something that had never been attempted before, and compete evenly in the marketplace. Today we still have the indie scene, and find games like Paper's Please, which are subversive, refreshing, and clearly a sign of a mind that knows where the game is going. But when we want to compete on graphics, we need games to be finished in two years at the most, so hundreds of people have to be involved to make anything big. With over a hundred people, it's very hard to manage that cohesiveness and remain even mildly quirky. Even something like a Mario game builds different levels in very different ways, minimizing the costs of cohesiveness. So if we want that spirit alive, we need to see more work building engines for indies. If what you need is already in Unity or Unreal, it's far easier for game creators to just focus on what makes their game special, instead of rendering polygons or writing collision detection.