3 ms·

What alternate reality are you living in where the video games industry isn't a charred husk of what it was, just over a decade and a half ago? What's it like

What alternate reality are you living in where the video games industry isn't a charred husk of what it was, just over a decade and a half ago? What's it like to live in a world where competent AAA studios are still plentiful, and the legacy studios successfully passed down knowledge and ethos to new hires, so as to avoid becoming skinsuit versions of their past selves? How is it, living in a world where several AAA blockbuster games are still being released annually, with none of them being remakes of decade-plus-old titles? Is there any wisdom in how your reality's AAA video game industry kept the stride they built up to in the 2000s, into the 2010s, that you could share with us, so we can hopefully rebuild the smoldering crater of a AAA video game industry we have in our reality?

oneeyedpigeon 2mo ago
> What alternate reality are you living in where the video games industry isn't a charred husk of what it was, a decade and a half ago? A world that contains Breath of the Wild, Blue Prince, Balatro, Mario Kart World, (you get the point—there are lots of good games).
- adamrezich 2mo ago
  Two of those are Nintendo first-party games—and one of them was released nine years ago. Is “the AAA video game industry” just Nintendo, to you?
  - oneeyedpigeon 2mo ago
    Nine years ago, precisely because you said: > a decade and a half ago? For me personally, the AAA game industry is entirely Nintendo, yes. Half the games I mentioned are cross-platform, though; I know they're not 'AAA', but I don't think this discussion needs to be limited purely to AAAs. And, as I mentioned, there are plenty more games that I could have included.
    - adamrezich 2mo ago
      > For me personally, the AAA game industry is entirely Nintendo, yes. There's nothing wrong with being a fan of one company, but pretending that going from a world where there were many high-quality AAA video games released each year from many different studios to what we have today, just because Nintendo is doing alright and you like Nintendo—when the topic at hand is specifically “the video games industry” as a whole—is simply asinine. AAA studios were once the force driving technology and game design forward, regularly starting fresh new IPs that would go on to become cherished by fans. That simply does not happen anymore. What was the last fresh new Nintendo IP that went on to become a beloved recurring success—Splatoon (eleven years ago)? Nintendo deserves plenty of credit for actively working against stagnation more than literally everyone else, but they are completely peerless in this regard. Everyone else ended up falling into a death spiral of churning out remakes and/or being absorbed into Microsoft and then stagnating until death. There is no longer a vibrant industry full of technical innovation and a genuine eye toward craftsmanship, quality, and generally making new fun things to play. The indie game scene picked up some of the slack on the innovation front, to great success, yet almost none of the successful indie studios (off the top of my head, Facepunch is the only exception I can think of) have transmuted said success into building a studio with a culture focused on exploring the frontier of the medium. Hell, half of the big indie successes these days make their millions in Early Access, predicated upon the implied promise that their Early Access success will permit them to substantially build out the game beyond their Early Access offering, only to completely and utterly fail to do so in the end. Anyone who thinks the video games industry is in a good place in 2026 is completely delusional and/or simply ignoring relatively recent history and pretending that things have always been as dire as they are today. Also Mario Kart World was eighty bucks at launch dude (I had to look it up to be sure, but, yeah—I totally paid eighty US dollars for that game), and it's still selling for eighty bucks today, so, your entire position in this discussion is completely invalid on its face.
fl4regun 2mo ago
why does it have to be just about the AAA industry? Indy games are amazing now, and usually not sold at full price compared to console games, probably most of my favourite games of the past decade are indy devs or studios.
- adamrezich 2mo ago
  It's good to have a professional industry pushing the field and the medium forward. Such a professional industry completely cratering in on itself (for myriad reasons) is a bad thing. Indie vs. AAA doesn't have to be a zero-sum game—the rise of the indie does not necessarily have to correspond with the fall of AAA.
  - fl4regun 2mo ago
    Indy devs are professionals too. Just because they aren't gargantuan megacorps doesn't make them amateurs. See: Expedition 33, made by formerly Ubisoft developers. Same people, different company, the devs themselves will still be around, regardless whether the AAA studio is still there.
    - adamrezich 2mo ago
      “Professional” in this context refers to being paid for your work while you work on it, rather than making a game unpaid in hopes of receiving recompence from sales once said game is released. (“Indie publishers” are a thing, to be sure—but then that opens the whole can of worms of, are you “truly indie” if you have a publisher?) Semantics aside, the point is, at one point in time, it was very good and healthy for the medium to have a vibrant AAA (and AA) video games industry. You're generally not going to see indies pushing the technical frontier forward, practically by definition. Things were never perfect, but they were better than they are today. Nowadays, it's basically impossible for someone to get a salaried position making video games. Which is a bummer, because I grew up thinking that would be definitely where I was going to end up in terms of my career—having some salaried position somewhere, making games with people with different skillsets and areas of expertise than my own, learning from my seniors, having a sense of comradery with the people I worked with, becoming a better game developer. That ship has sadly sailed (or sunk)—it doesn't seem likely that we will have an industry like that again anytime soon.

oneeyedpigeon 2mo ago

> What alternate reality are you living in where the video games industry isn't a charred husk of what it was, a decade and a half ago? A world that contains Breath of the Wild, Blue Prince, Balatro, Mario Kart World, (you get the point—there are lots of good games).

adamrezich 2mo ago
Two of those are Nintendo first-party games—and one of them was released nine years ago. Is “the AAA video game industry” just Nintendo, to you?
- oneeyedpigeon 2mo ago
  Nine years ago, precisely because you said: > a decade and a half ago? For me personally, the AAA game industry is entirely Nintendo, yes. Half the games I mentioned are cross-platform, though; I know they're not 'AAA', but I don't think this discussion needs to be limited purely to AAAs. And, as I mentioned, there are plenty more games that I could have included.
  - adamrezich 2mo ago
    > For me personally, the AAA game industry is entirely Nintendo, yes. There's nothing wrong with being a fan of one company, but pretending that going from a world where there were many high-quality AAA video games released each year from many different studios to what we have today, just because Nintendo is doing alright and you like Nintendo—when the topic at hand is specifically “the video games industry” as a whole—is simply asinine. AAA studios were once the force driving technology and game design forward, regularly starting fresh new IPs that would go on to become cherished by fans. That simply does not happen anymore. What was the last fresh new Nintendo IP that went on to become a beloved recurring success—Splatoon (eleven years ago)? Nintendo deserves plenty of credit for actively working against stagnation more than literally everyone else, but they are completely peerless in this regard. Everyone else ended up falling into a death spiral of churning out remakes and/or being absorbed into Microsoft and then stagnating until death. There is no longer a vibrant industry full of technical innovation and a genuine eye toward craftsmanship, quality, and generally making new fun things to play. The indie game scene picked up some of the slack on the innovation front, to great success, yet almost none of the successful indie studios (off the top of my head, Facepunch is the only exception I can think of) have transmuted said success into building a studio with a culture focused on exploring the frontier of the medium. Hell, half of the big indie successes these days make their millions in Early Access, predicated upon the implied promise that their Early Access success will permit them to substantially build out the game beyond their Early Access offering, only to completely and utterly fail to do so in the end. Anyone who thinks the video games industry is in a good place in 2026 is completely delusional and/or simply ignoring relatively recent history and pretending that things have always been as dire as they are today. Also Mario Kart World was eighty bucks at launch dude (I had to look it up to be sure, but, yeah—I totally paid eighty US dollars for that game), and it's still selling for eighty bucks today, so, your entire position in this discussion is completely invalid on its face.

fl4regun 2mo ago

why does it have to be just about the AAA industry? Indy games are amazing now, and usually not sold at full price compared to console games, probably most of my favourite games of the past decade are indy devs or studios.

adamrezich 2mo ago
It's good to have a professional industry pushing the field and the medium forward. Such a professional industry completely cratering in on itself (for myriad reasons) is a bad thing. Indie vs. AAA doesn't have to be a zero-sum game—the rise of the indie does not necessarily have to correspond with the fall of AAA.
- fl4regun 2mo ago
  Indy devs are professionals too. Just because they aren't gargantuan megacorps doesn't make them amateurs. See: Expedition 33, made by formerly Ubisoft developers. Same people, different company, the devs themselves will still be around, regardless whether the AAA studio is still there.
  - adamrezich 2mo ago
    “Professional” in this context refers to being paid for your work while you work on it, rather than making a game unpaid in hopes of receiving recompence from sales once said game is released. (“Indie publishers” are a thing, to be sure—but then that opens the whole can of worms of, are you “truly indie” if you have a publisher?) Semantics aside, the point is, at one point in time, it was very good and healthy for the medium to have a vibrant AAA (and AA) video games industry. You're generally not going to see indies pushing the technical frontier forward, practically by definition. Things were never perfect, but they were better than they are today. Nowadays, it's basically impossible for someone to get a salaried position making video games. Which is a bummer, because I grew up thinking that would be definitely where I was going to end up in terms of my career—having some salaried position somewhere, making games with people with different skillsets and areas of expertise than my own, learning from my seniors, having a sense of comradery with the people I worked with, becoming a better game developer. That ship has sadly sailed (or sunk)—it doesn't seem likely that we will have an industry like that again anytime soon.