Modern Ubisoft are the prime example of this. They churn out loads of games every year and they’re just the same old formulaic crap that you’ve seen before. How can you have so much money and so many studios but you can’t get decent voice actors or writers? How can your AAA games still have clunky mechanics and absolutely no original ideas?

Oh look, it’s another shitty enemy outpost, let’s scout it with my drone/bird/binoculars and mark all the enemies so I can see them through walls. Maybe I’ll not use stealth on the next one because it’s a waste of time as the game is piss easy anyway and I’ll be able to kill all of the enemies in a straight fight. And the reward is the same either way. Now I’ve found [collectible item] 37 of 200, I wonder where the rest of them are in this massive vapid open world?

These big companies have it all backwards. We don’t need them; they need us. I don’t suddenly like slot machine video games just because their fucking bean counters say so. Ever since I bought a Steam Deck, I’ve played nothing but indie and old games, and I ain’t going back. You can keep your 3 bundles and your $70-110 price tags. I’ll play 500 hours of Vampire Survivors before I’ll buy another casino that they happened to build a game around.

In the wise words of the Soulsbourne community: GIT GUD (at not making shitty games).

Ok. Interesting take. Let’s look at Alan Wake 2. High Budget and pretty good. One of the best games I played in recent years I would say.

And why did it sell poorly, I hear you ask? Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that you published it on your Epic Store only, being fully aware that the overwhelming majority of PC players are on Steam (and very lazy when it comes to switching away from it). Also you didn’t produce physical copies for consoles. Download only for an environment known for being fiercely pro physical copy.

But we all know it’s not about these things. It’s about calming down investors. That’s why you use buzzwords like “metaverse” and shit. I am actually impressed you didn’t ramble about AI.

The biggest thing I miss from yesteryear is all the low budget straight-to-handheld spinoffs. No clear place for those to exist now that dedicated handhelds are dead, and no room for quirky little side projects when publishers are putting all their resources into just a few AAAA megagames.

Motherfucker… How many times do you you have to fail before you listen to your customers, who are screaming what they want?

This is why voting with your wallet is nonsense. They’ll never learn why they failed, only that they did

Because budget alone doesn’t make a good game. It’s a lack of creative vision and churning out safe bets that mean people just aren’t excited anymore.

Teams of thousands working on a game designed by committee means no single group really has a vision of the creative vision of the project.

I get it that the marketing budget is important, they need big flashy games to justify the marketing budget required to get cut-through.

Ultimately I think it’s the case that these dev teams are too large, and aren’t making true art anymore, because true art is risky.

Small studios are the ones making art, and some of them are getting cut through into the mainstream. This is where good games exist now.

It’s because the games are mid or worse. Took me one google search to find a plethora of games released in the last few years that had high budgets and sold very well. God of War: Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West, Doom Eternal, Hogwarts Legacy, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Last Of Us Part II, and so many more. These are just the ones I played. Just because the only game you guys make is Fortnite after abandoning all your IPs and that your Epic Games Store money isn’t as high as you thought it would be doesn’t mean other people aren’t making amazing games. It’s just you, my guy. I consider myself a patient gamer and I’ve bought more full price games over the last 5 years than I ever have.

They aren’t selling because they are designed as money machines first and games second.

Do I get to be the next Tim Sweeney now? As far as I can tell the bar is pretty low.

There are no game manufacturers, just licenses to rent from subscription parasites. Sell me a product as an entire industry standard. NEVER ask me to trust you. NEVER try to steal from me with legalise. My terms of purchase are ownership of my purchase with no strings attached whatsoever. I will continue to play and mod open source games or play nothing at all, but I will never cross that line. I have a 12th gen i7 and Nvidia 16 GB GPU. I can absolutely play the AAA titles of today, but there are no game manufacturers, just worthless criminal feudalism and subscription extortion parasites.

Umm 🤔, they have weekly free games. Epic games had effectively trained me to not pay for games.

Has nothing to do with ‘generation’ anything and everything to do with bean counters. The fact that Minecraft is still beating them all is everything they need to know but refuse to listen to.

Two reasons:

1. The money is mostly spent on visual production, graphics, and big name actors to voice characters, which doesn’t automatically make a game good.

2. Season passes, MTX and other bullshit being shoved down our throats in big budget games is getting even worse.

I will always choose a smaller project of passion over a lackluster, watered-down AAA game with an overinflated budget.

Well then. Why not make them not shitty?

Dear Mr. Sweeney, I fixed your words, thank me later:

A lot of games are released with CEOs earning more money than all developers of the game including outsourced work together, that makes the games too expensive. If the budget would actually go into the game we could have great games that sell.

Unfortunately you rather lay off your employees, pay them less, crunch them and burn them out, save on quality control, sell road-maps instead of a finished game and give your customers a lesser and lesser experience instead of accepting a pay cut.

And I have not mentioned the money you throw out of the window and burn because of your dreams of an “EPIC metaverse”.

F you Mr, Sweeney.

How’s about you guys spend some of that budget on QA?