There’s a few divisions in companies that can still have fun, but it’s pretty far and few between (and they generally get overpaid regardless).
I heard stories of Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild having great leadership and a sense that everyone contribute (which lead to success, not sure about the sequel); also Monster Hunter Rise had fun and that lead to a few easter eggs getting into the game. Incidentally, at the same time REs devs complained and Capcom as a whole has been a crapshoot.
Heart leads to great games, though, and a handful of directors recognize that (and have the rep to do what they want without corporate killing it.)
Nintendo has a shit attitude towards consumers, but their internal structure allows for a lot of designers to have plenty of freedom to experiment, reiterate and try new things, and ultimately make a lot of fun mechanics. A concern of mine is that, when the historical big names of the company (Miyamoto, Aonuma, Sakurai; Iwata is no longer there) begin retiring, the internal balance of power will shift in a different direction, and the one saving grace of theirs will begin to slowly fade away.
Yup. Maybe it’ll get better, maybe not. SquareEnix (Square soft at the time) had a similar problem when they lost Sakaguchi around the time of Final Fantasy X, (which was probably more a symptom of corporate interests taking lead around that time).
Around that time, XII had struggles midway in production that caused a change of hands and made the game disjointed; XIII which went over budget and didn’t live up to the title, etc., XIV 1.0 shortly after that, and so forth. But after a series of black eyes (and a near bankruptcy) I hold out some hope, seeing interviews with XIV producer Yoshida, though, and even Sakaguchi admires the guy despite having his falling out with SE.
Of course then their CEO embraced NFTs and dashed said hope… but still, if they keep failing on sooooo many of their cashgrab projects, surely they’ll get the hint? In any case, point is I think some people at these AAA companies get it and their projects are often lauded as huge successes. Nintendo hopefully had a few people still with that spirit.
There’s a few divisions in companies that can still have fun, but it’s pretty far and few between (and they generally get overpaid regardless).
I heard stories of Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild having great leadership and a sense that everyone contribute (which lead to success, not sure about the sequel); also Monster Hunter Rise had fun and that lead to a few easter eggs getting into the game. Incidentally, at the same time REs devs complained and Capcom as a whole has been a crapshoot.
Heart leads to great games, though, and a handful of directors recognize that (and have the rep to do what they want without corporate killing it.)
Nintendo has a shit attitude towards consumers, but their internal structure allows for a lot of designers to have plenty of freedom to experiment, reiterate and try new things, and ultimately make a lot of fun mechanics. A concern of mine is that, when the historical big names of the company (Miyamoto, Aonuma, Sakurai; Iwata is no longer there) begin retiring, the internal balance of power will shift in a different direction, and the one saving grace of theirs will begin to slowly fade away.
Yup. Maybe it’ll get better, maybe not. SquareEnix (Square soft at the time) had a similar problem when they lost Sakaguchi around the time of Final Fantasy X, (which was probably more a symptom of corporate interests taking lead around that time).
Around that time, XII had struggles midway in production that caused a change of hands and made the game disjointed; XIII which went over budget and didn’t live up to the title, etc., XIV 1.0 shortly after that, and so forth. But after a series of black eyes (and a near bankruptcy) I hold out some hope, seeing interviews with XIV producer Yoshida, though, and even Sakaguchi admires the guy despite having his falling out with SE.
Of course then their CEO embraced NFTs and dashed said hope… but still, if they keep failing on sooooo many of their cashgrab projects, surely they’ll get the hint? In any case, point is I think some people at these AAA companies get it and their projects are often lauded as huge successes. Nintendo hopefully had a few people still with that spirit.