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Games that challenge the standards, therefore making them good art: Factorio. Papers please. Obra Dinn. Prison Architect. Even old-school Minecraft did amaz

Games that challenge the standards, therefore making them good art: Factorio. Papers please. Obra Dinn. Prison Architect. Even old-school Minecraft did amazing work challenging definitions. (Subnautica?) I haven't seen an artistically interesting AAA game in decades.

garaetjjte 4y ago
Prison Architect though? It's not a bad game, but seems like ordinary entry in simulation/tycoon genre.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  Except that it teaches you to care about prisoners. The "win" is to keep them happy. That makes the capital punishment sequence downright disturbing. It is also the only game I know of that was reported for violations of the Geneva convention. (Misuse of the red cross symbol.) That had to be worth some artistic credibility.
  - tweetle_beetle 4y ago
    Taking an atypical narrative stance seems like a low bar, in and of itself, for defining challenging standards. I'm in agreement with parent that it's well executed, but to reach for a lazy description, it's basically "[..] with a twist". I'd be surprised if it's remembered as milestone. (Your last sentence sounds like classic PR fare and not noteworthy.) This is reinforced by how it came to be. Basically Introversion spent too much time and money on a tech demo without any concept of turning it into a game [1]. Prison Architect took a safe, well-trodden paradigm that was easier to turn into a finished, profitable protect. Subversion was the sort of game that could have broken the mould if they'd ever figured it out. I remember being underwhelemed hearing about what their new project would be when they gave up on it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(video_game)
Arainach 4y ago
When have AAA games ever been the source of challenging standards? AAA implies a level of budget at which that much risk isn't taken. If you look back multiple decades, it was so much cheaper to make a game that the definition of AAA doesn't makes sense. Even first-party major publishers were at most "AA". Doom challenged standards, but Doom could be made by 5 people crammed in a house. Metal Gear Solid. The Sims had more people credited for music than Programming, Design, and Graphics combined (21). Minecraft was one person for the most part. Look at the credits list for Morrowind: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Credits https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Credits And for Skyrim: https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/credits https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-v-skyri... At the time, development costs were estimated at $100M. The latest Skyrim Anniversary Edition remaster will surely have a credits list dramatically longer than the 2011 release. AAA games are expensive now, and no one's going to invest tens of millions on the hope that billions of people across the world understand your cryptic commentary about nuclear weapons or whatever.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> When have AAA games ever been the source of challenging standards? SimCity. The original Civilization/Colonization. The Wing Commander series (privateer). Syndicate (1993). F-19/F-117. (The Janes sim series??) AAA doesn't mean high budget, just the highest budget games in the market at the time, those backed by market leaders.
  - Arainach 4y ago
    Hard disagree. Back then, market leaders were small companies that had to take risks to differentiate, and where you could fundamentally still self-fund if you had enough savings to live for a couple of years. Now the quality of a top-tier game requires a huge team, a huge amount of funding, and guarantees to the source of that funding.
  - t-writescode 4y ago
    This sounds like a redefining of AAA Games. When everyone's new at the gaming market - especially Sid Meiers and Will Wright were developing their early games, those were *absolutely* indie-tier.

garaetjjte 4y ago

Prison Architect though? It's not a bad game, but seems like ordinary entry in simulation/tycoon genre.

sandworm101 4y ago
Except that it teaches you to care about prisoners. The "win" is to keep them happy. That makes the capital punishment sequence downright disturbing. It is also the only game I know of that was reported for violations of the Geneva convention. (Misuse of the red cross symbol.) That had to be worth some artistic credibility.
- tweetle_beetle 4y ago
  Taking an atypical narrative stance seems like a low bar, in and of itself, for defining challenging standards. I'm in agreement with parent that it's well executed, but to reach for a lazy description, it's basically "[..] with a twist". I'd be surprised if it's remembered as milestone. (Your last sentence sounds like classic PR fare and not noteworthy.) This is reinforced by how it came to be. Basically Introversion spent too much time and money on a tech demo without any concept of turning it into a game [1]. Prison Architect took a safe, well-trodden paradigm that was easier to turn into a finished, profitable protect. Subversion was the sort of game that could have broken the mould if they'd ever figured it out. I remember being underwhelemed hearing about what their new project would be when they gave up on it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(video_game)

Arainach 4y ago

When have AAA games ever been the source of challenging standards? AAA implies a level of budget at which that much risk isn't taken. If you look back multiple decades, it was so much cheaper to make a game that the definition of AAA doesn't makes sense. Even first-party major publishers were at most "AA". Doom challenged standards, but Doom could be made by 5 people crammed in a house. Metal Gear Solid. The Sims had more people credited for music than Programming, Design, and Graphics combined (21). Minecraft was one person for the most part. Look at the credits list for Morrowind: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Credits https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Credits And for Skyrim: https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/credits https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-v-skyri... At the time, development costs were estimated at $100M. The latest Skyrim Anniversary Edition remaster will surely have a credits list dramatically longer than the 2011 release. AAA games are expensive now, and no one's going to invest tens of millions on the hope that billions of people across the world understand your cryptic commentary about nuclear weapons or whatever.

sandworm101 4y ago
>> When have AAA games ever been the source of challenging standards? SimCity. The original Civilization/Colonization. The Wing Commander series (privateer). Syndicate (1993). F-19/F-117. (The Janes sim series??) AAA doesn't mean high budget, just the highest budget games in the market at the time, those backed by market leaders.
- Arainach 4y ago
  Hard disagree. Back then, market leaders were small companies that had to take risks to differentiate, and where you could fundamentally still self-fund if you had enough savings to live for a couple of years. Now the quality of a top-tier game requires a huge team, a huge amount of funding, and guarantees to the source of that funding.
- t-writescode 4y ago
  This sounds like a redefining of AAA Games. When everyone's new at the gaming market - especially Sid Meiers and Will Wright were developing their early games, those were *absolutely* indie-tier.