5 ms·

IMO, this is continued evidence that large gaming companies are broadly dumbheaded. Are there any non-shitty non-indie studios worth really investing in anymore

IMO, this is continued evidence that large gaming companies are broadly dumbheaded. Are there any non-shitty non-indie studios worth really investing in anymore? I even think larger IP like Halo, Team Fortress, DOTA, etc. could really benefit from being sold off to smaller, passionate, hungry teams.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
That's been my thought too. All the big studios are competing for an incredible amount of money each game. Isn't there a decent formula for producing hi-fi rush games "cheaply"? How many people are needed?
- causi 2y ago
  How many people are needed? If Google is addicted to reduction in personnel through automation, Microsoft is addicted to disposability. Almost all the work done on Microsoft-developed titles like Halo Infinite is performed by temporary workers who are employed for a period of months and then terminated. Microsoft thinks creative success is a commodity to be bought and sold, and it isn't.
- alstonite 2y ago
  I wonder if there's room for some kind of 'video game YC', where a company would shotgun invest in a bunch of promising indie titles in the hopes of finding the next Stardew Valley / Factorio?
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    I don't know, but I wish it was a reality. I always end up having more fun with indie games (with some very rare AAA exceptions)
  - Shish2k 2y ago
    Given how reliably VC investment leads into the cycle of enshittification, I’m not sure games like stardew / factorio would survive investment :(
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Historically, Valve has acquihired promising mod makers or smaller game companies and told them to take their ideas and make a full game out of that. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, TF2, Alien Swarm, DotA, I might not even know of them all.
chowells 2y ago
No video game company is worth investing in... ... Except in the rare case that the returns you want are in the form of good games, rather than cash. Then invest all you want in companies that don't constantly make excuses about why they need to exploit their workers and customers.
zeroCalories 2y ago
High budget video games are not a good market. Your best bet is Nintendo, but even they aren't super high budget.
sandworm101 2y ago
Small/hungry teams make great games, but they don't make great money. Games from small teams will develop massive fanbases (KSP, Factorio, subnautica, early minecraft) and people will buy their games. But that doesn't matter. Those small teams do not have the corporate power to capitalize on the microtransactions and subscription services that pull the real money. I bought Factorio long long ago. I still play it occasionally. If the developers asked me for money, say for an updated version, I would send money without question. But they haven't asked. Good game. Bad at making money.
- GartzenDeHaes 2y ago
  According to vginsights, Factorio made $123 million on Steam. Maybe they didn't make the maximum amount of money possible, but they are good a making money. https://vginsights.com/game/427520 https://vginsights.com/game/427520 Edit: The gross revenue is in the top 0.01% of all Steam games.
  - dwallin 2y ago
    Placement within all steam games is not really a useful metric, there is an extremely long tail of games on steam that make basically nothing.
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    Factorio is a massive success and only made $123M. For a company funding a lot of things, you are going to be putting out mostly flops that lose money, and then hoping to get it back on the successes. But it doesn't look like the successes are good enough to fund all the failures. Unless you mostly take super boring safe options.
- Teever 2y ago
  I think you have that wrong. Maybe the kind of people who are drawn to those different kinds of games from smaller studios are not the kinds of people who will go for bullshit like microtransactions and subscriptions and the developers of those games know that. Prior to the release of Subnautica, Unknown Worlds spent years developing and promoting Natural Selection 2, an innovative RTS/FPS hybrid that was the sequel to their crowd hit mod for Half Life. They anticipated yuge money from turning the game into a frantic but predictable eSports thing meant for mass consumption with flashy paid skins and the like. It was a failure. The fanbase rejected it and it ultimately killed the game. They learned from that experience and delivered a totally different game which was based on the traditional business model of making a good single player game, selling it as a complete product and then if it's successful making and selling a sequel. That game was called Subnautica and it's probably the only reason you ever heard of Unknown Worlds. There's no way I'm subscribing to Factorio, and I doubt there was ever a path to success for a game like Factorio that involved subscriptions just like there was ever a path to success for an incredible game like NS2 through eSports.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago

That's been my thought too. All the big studios are competing for an incredible amount of money each game. Isn't there a decent formula for producing hi-fi rush games "cheaply"? How many people are needed?

causi 2y ago
How many people are needed? If Google is addicted to reduction in personnel through automation, Microsoft is addicted to disposability. Almost all the work done on Microsoft-developed titles like Halo Infinite is performed by temporary workers who are employed for a period of months and then terminated. Microsoft thinks creative success is a commodity to be bought and sold, and it isn't.
alstonite 2y ago
I wonder if there's room for some kind of 'video game YC', where a company would shotgun invest in a bunch of promising indie titles in the hopes of finding the next Stardew Valley / Factorio?
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
  I don't know, but I wish it was a reality. I always end up having more fun with indie games (with some very rare AAA exceptions)
- Shish2k 2y ago
  Given how reliably VC investment leads into the cycle of enshittification, I’m not sure games like stardew / factorio would survive investment :(
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Historically, Valve has acquihired promising mod makers or smaller game companies and told them to take their ideas and make a full game out of that. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, TF2, Alien Swarm, DotA, I might not even know of them all.

chowells 2y ago

No video game company is worth investing in... ... Except in the rare case that the returns you want are in the form of good games, rather than cash. Then invest all you want in companies that don't constantly make excuses about why they need to exploit their workers and customers.

zeroCalories 2y ago

High budget video games are not a good market. Your best bet is Nintendo, but even they aren't super high budget.

sandworm101 2y ago

Small/hungry teams make great games, but they don't make great money. Games from small teams will develop massive fanbases (KSP, Factorio, subnautica, early minecraft) and people will buy their games. But that doesn't matter. Those small teams do not have the corporate power to capitalize on the microtransactions and subscription services that pull the real money. I bought Factorio long long ago. I still play it occasionally. If the developers asked me for money, say for an updated version, I would send money without question. But they haven't asked. Good game. Bad at making money.

GartzenDeHaes 2y ago
According to vginsights, Factorio made $123 million on Steam. Maybe they didn't make the maximum amount of money possible, but they are good a making money. https://vginsights.com/game/427520 https://vginsights.com/game/427520 Edit: The gross revenue is in the top 0.01% of all Steam games.
- dwallin 2y ago
  Placement within all steam games is not really a useful metric, there is an extremely long tail of games on steam that make basically nothing.
- Gigachad 2y ago
  Factorio is a massive success and only made $123M. For a company funding a lot of things, you are going to be putting out mostly flops that lose money, and then hoping to get it back on the successes. But it doesn't look like the successes are good enough to fund all the failures. Unless you mostly take super boring safe options.
Teever 2y ago
I think you have that wrong. Maybe the kind of people who are drawn to those different kinds of games from smaller studios are not the kinds of people who will go for bullshit like microtransactions and subscriptions and the developers of those games know that. Prior to the release of Subnautica, Unknown Worlds spent years developing and promoting Natural Selection 2, an innovative RTS/FPS hybrid that was the sequel to their crowd hit mod for Half Life. They anticipated yuge money from turning the game into a frantic but predictable eSports thing meant for mass consumption with flashy paid skins and the like. It was a failure. The fanbase rejected it and it ultimately killed the game. They learned from that experience and delivered a totally different game which was based on the traditional business model of making a good single player game, selling it as a complete product and then if it's successful making and selling a sequel. That game was called Subnautica and it's probably the only reason you ever heard of Unknown Worlds. There's no way I'm subscribing to Factorio, and I doubt there was ever a path to success for a game like Factorio that involved subscriptions just like there was ever a path to success for an incredible game like NS2 through eSports.