4 ms·

Game development has turned into the same kind of nightmare that music is for anybody who wants to go into it. Unless you're really good at marketing/get really

Game development has turned into the same kind of nightmare that music is for anybody who wants to go into it. Unless you're really good at marketing/get really lucky, you're never going to make a living doing it because the market is insanely oversaturated and the gaming media focuses most of its attention on a handful of popular high budget games because that's what draws the traffic. Another major problem is how long today's high budget games are. Not only the multiplayer "live service" casinos that are designed to addict their players and keep them playing in perpetuity but the modern single player open world RPGs that seemingly average around 100 hours of playtime. If somebody is playing 300 hours of that extremely bloated Assassin's Creed game about Vikings, they're not playing other games in that time and presumably have less interest in buying them. Likewise, stuff like GamePass and the new tiers of PS+ that offer access to an enormous number of games for a small subscription fee have to be cutting into game sales. And new games are also competing with 50 years worth of old games. I wonder if many of the indie games, especially story driven games, might be better off as movies. Given how everybody carries a camera in their pocket these days, Hollywood movies are formulaic garbage and no actors are stars anymore, there's probably a market for innovative low budget movies shot in the woods on a single phone camera by a few friends and with little to no special effects. That seems like it'd be lower time/money cost and higher expected reward than game development plus you'd get to be outside doing interesting things rather than just sitting at a computer for years working on a game that will most likely be played by a few dozen people.

karpierz 3y ago
Analogously: I wonder if many of the low budget films, especially narrative focused films, might be better off as games. Given how everybody has a computer these days, AAA games are formulaic garbage and games aren't centered around a single developer any more, there's probably a market for innovative low budget games made in a basement on a single computer by a few friends and with little to no art assets. That seems like it'd be lower time/money cost and higher expected reward than movie production, plus you'd get to spend time on the internet researching interesting technical problems rather than just sitting in a movie editor for years, working on a movie that will most likely be watched by a few dozen people. tl;dr: I don't think a good movie is any easier to make than a good game.
- spywaregorilla 3y ago
  You can only play so many small narrative focused games before you realize they're pretty boring. Especially if you're saying they have few art assets. People say these things are great, but part of that appreciation is for the novelty of a game being so stripped down and devoid of gameplay that it feels interesting.
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > You can only play so many small narrative focused games before you realize they're pretty boring. [...] People say these things are great, but part of that appreciation is for the novelty of a game being so stripped down and devoid of gameplay that it feels interesting. I honestly like this kind of games (and buy copies of them). But as far as I am aware (I read quite some articles about this topic) such games typically have a very small audience that is highly positive about such games. This means: such avant-garde games, if they are good, do have their niche of people who will buy and highly praise them, but outside of this group, which is quite separared from other types of gamers, hardly anybody is interested in such games. In other words: you will sell some copies and get great ratings if the game is good, but you won't sell very many copies.
  - strken 3y ago
    I really like narrative games and don't think they're boring, but the ones I play have hundreds of thousands of words of dialogue paired with reasonable gameplay loops, e.g. Failbetter or Spiderweb Software rather than critically acclaimed walking sims.
    - spywaregorilla 3y ago
      those games are not small narrative games. they're fairly large. I've only played sunless sea, which, tbh, I thought was dreadfully boring. I would have liked just reading the narratives but the forced tedium of sailing combined with ease of death was awful
- bobthepanda 3y ago

karpierz 3y ago

Analogously: I wonder if many of the low budget films, especially narrative focused films, might be better off as games. Given how everybody has a computer these days, AAA games are formulaic garbage and games aren't centered around a single developer any more, there's probably a market for innovative low budget games made in a basement on a single computer by a few friends and with little to no art assets. That seems like it'd be lower time/money cost and higher expected reward than movie production, plus you'd get to spend time on the internet researching interesting technical problems rather than just sitting in a movie editor for years, working on a movie that will most likely be watched by a few dozen people. tl;dr: I don't think a good movie is any easier to make than a good game.

spywaregorilla 3y ago
You can only play so many small narrative focused games before you realize they're pretty boring. Especially if you're saying they have few art assets. People say these things are great, but part of that appreciation is for the novelty of a game being so stripped down and devoid of gameplay that it feels interesting.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > You can only play so many small narrative focused games before you realize they're pretty boring. [...] People say these things are great, but part of that appreciation is for the novelty of a game being so stripped down and devoid of gameplay that it feels interesting. I honestly like this kind of games (and buy copies of them). But as far as I am aware (I read quite some articles about this topic) such games typically have a very small audience that is highly positive about such games. This means: such avant-garde games, if they are good, do have their niche of people who will buy and highly praise them, but outside of this group, which is quite separared from other types of gamers, hardly anybody is interested in such games. In other words: you will sell some copies and get great ratings if the game is good, but you won't sell very many copies.
- strken 3y ago
  I really like narrative games and don't think they're boring, but the ones I play have hundreds of thousands of words of dialogue paired with reasonable gameplay loops, e.g. Failbetter or Spiderweb Software rather than critically acclaimed walking sims.
  - spywaregorilla 3y ago
    those games are not small narrative games. they're fairly large. I've only played sunless sea, which, tbh, I thought was dreadfully boring. I would have liked just reading the narratives but the forced tedium of sailing combined with ease of death was awful
bobthepanda 3y ago