Nier creator Yoko Taro reveals the sad reality of modern AAA game development, “there’s less weird people making games”
Nier creator Yoko Taro reveals the sad reality of modern AAA game development, “there’s less weird people making games”
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That’s why indie and small dev teams and budgets is the way forwards.
I mean yes. When you are going to investors/publishers and going “I need 100-250 million dollars to make a AAA game” they probably are looking for a reliable face at the helm, both for better and worse.
*fewer
I imagine finding publishers/financial backing for “weird” (aka “riskier” games) is just so much harder nowadays.
Which is a shame for us weird people that still want to play them
I mean there are weirdos, just not the ones particularly towards making the game.
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And films and music and books
I agree
Because the weird people end up harassing women and stealing breast milk when grouped together.
It’s better when it’s just 1 weird person creating a masterpiece
HR has that effect…
Why I look forward to Kojima games more than ever now.
there are 15000 to 20000 games releasing each year. the AAA market is only a fraction of those.
there are enough weird people making weird games. the issue is visibility, and that isnt the fault of AAA for the most part, the fault is in the sheer volume and saturation.
Additionally, weird games are not really well recieved. If we look at Moroi, its the perfect example of weird, creative and experimental. But it has mixed reviews on Steam, because some aspects appear janky. The audience is telling the devs that a focus on safety and polish is more important than experimentation and creativity. In a more and more saturated market, risk aversity is a factor. very few devs can afford to make a game they dont need to sell.
Yeah, there are fewer people like Carmack, Romero, Yoko Taro, Kojima, Sawyer, Todd Howard (my beloved), Kirkbride, Horii, or Mikami
most AAA game devs are more closer to your average businessman than what we have in 90s and 00s
If he wants to see weird stuff, he needs to pop into Itch.
But I guess he’s referring to AAA.
Kojima and Sam Lake are the only AAA creators i can think of
I think that the number of weird people making games is still the same. But in the case of AAA, they are just suffocated by layers upon layers of constraints sometimes unrelated to game development.
So in a sense, there are less “free” weirdos making games.
Not wrong, less creativity in the industry.
That’s why so much of gaming is becoming so bland, with the monstrously bloated budgets for AAA-development, everything has to be played as safe as possible, safe is all too often boring, and boring games crash and burn, making the managers calling the shots even more risk-averse.
Just the different kind
Sadly every game developer I’ve ever met has an ego the size of a planet. The best idea never wins out unless they can claim it
Also I don’t know how they hire writers but writers in games are the bottom of the barrel
I loved both Replicant and Automata, I can’t say I understood the stories completely but they will live in my mind forever. I’d take a memorable experience like that over most of the generic AAA games I played in the last few years.
Unpopular opinion: sometimes bugs and unexpected features make games memorably unique.
Clair Obscur is a weird ass game, I agree to an extent, but there is a lot of room in the industry for some amazing 40-60 dollar usd weird games. The big dogs are over bloated and have to have consistent home runs or face shuttering their doors or selling to the highest bidder
I just miss the days when there wasn’t established genres. I hate that there are successful games that lazy companies can use as blueprints
Take me back to the days when developers made different types of games because they fucking had to. Watching different styles of games develop and grow was amazing
Now 95% of games are just paint by numbers bullshit. All hail the weirdos out there insisting on making new styles of games. Like Kojima with Death Stranding. Fucker made a AAA delivery game with a batshit crazy premise and god bless him for it
I’ve been waiting for his next game since 2019
I mean tbh “safe” games now days aren’t doing so well either. Star Wars Bounty Hunter, Dragon Age Veilgard, and Skull and Bones. A quadruple A game btw lol.
We could use some “weird” creativity to add some spark to gaming again.
Shit he should see my studio…
Of course the weirdest guy making video games would have the perfect way to say it.
I wonder if “weird” games like Katamari or Killer7 would stand a chance to be out on the major consoles nowadays
Or even DoA extreme beach volleyball
Funny, I had the feeling a LOT of weird people did AAA Games in the last few years 😂🔫
Expedition 33 is fucking weird. I liked it.
Games are so expensive to make now that developers play it safe. They don’t want to make a game with a $150Million budget and not earn a profit. So they stick to what works. And honestly games don’t need to be nearly as expensive as they’re making them.
I think we still get some weirder ideas with Nintendo, and some of the mega creators like Kojima. But thats because Nintendo games sell themselves off brand recognition(plus their games clearly arent as high a budget as other companies), and Kojima is just too respected to be told no
We need more people like Suda51, Swery, Yoko Taro, Hideki Kamiya, Hideo Kojima and Tim Schafer. At least these guys are still in the gaming industry, plus the indie scene.
Nowadays the market is way bigger, investors are putting money in what’s “safe”. The indie scene is where the weird stuff is allowed to happen
Loved both Replicant and Automata, I can’t say I understood the stories completely but they will live in my mind forever. I’d take a memorable experience like that over most of the generic AAA games I played in the last few years.
All the weirdos went into r34 instead.
Not kidding. They learned how to code perfect boob and ass jiggle physics instead of learning how to code gunplay.
less weird people = CEOs sucking the souls of game creators to farm money
That’s because corpos want more money for less risks
Pay is too low now compared to what it used to be, management gets way too much say in the game design, etc… Theres a lot of reasons why creativity and creative people are no longer int he game industry.