Digital Bros joins the chorus of game companies putting people out of work in the name of “operational efficiency.”
So for the next 20 years all AAA game publishers will do the game equivalent of only releasing MCU/DC reboots, sequels and prequels?
Ah yes the anime treatment. Only release reboots, sequels, prequels, and poor spinoffs. For every One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100, Chainsaw Man, or Megalobox, there are way more re-do’s or milking such as Yet Another Gundam Series, a new Bleach something or another, InuYasha retread, Trigun reboot, Hunter x Hunter reboot, FMA Brotherhood, Fruits Basket, Fate/Stay universe, Evangelion remake, everything DragonBall…I could go on. It’s rather depressing.
Games are just following the curves established by other artistic mediums over the decades when laziness and greed wins, as it always does. Even The Last of Us wasn’t safe.
For every reboot sequel and prequel there are 10 new series. There are around 40 different new anime this season. (Without counting Chinese, musics, poor quality and children’s show). Take a look at myanimelist seasonal anime.
(Anime in Japan come out in season : winter, spring, summer, fall. So they start and finish roughly at the same time).
.And most or your example are pretty bad,
- bleach just got an end that everyone liked
- hunter hunter was paused because the author is sick, it never stopped and it’s not a reboot
- FMA brotherhood was great because it fixed the issue with FMA : the end of the anime was made before the manga. And it’s 2009 come on you can’t use that to say that nowadays there’s only reboots
- yeah they are milking the fate franchise and evangelion, and their community is all for it
You many not agree, but they are right. We are not most people. They want, and they have, that sweet “lowest common denominator” market, and they will take advantage of that until something else generates more cash. The “lowest common denominator” demand more CoD and whatnot. They don’t care if it’s bad, because them and all their friends will buy it and perhaps even have some fun. The big studios converging on vapid cash grabs instead of creating interesting content is depressing, sure, but hardly surprising in a world where morals and ethics don’t matter, where you can get away with the absolute most heinous, reprehensible acts, and suffer zero consequences.
I don’t really care though. The indie scene is unaffected by this, and has only gotten better every year for as long as it has been around. It’s fucking GLORIOUS already, and it’s not going anywhere because it’s not run by an oligarchy of publicly traded shitfactories.
Yeah. I’m of the same mind. I was here to witness the resurgence of Boomer and Movement Shooters. Now, we’re in the cusp of the resurgence of RTS. I am very much happy with the state of gaming, without having to focus on sequels.
The last game published by 505 I played were apparently Indivisible, which was trash. I never played Ghostrunner nor Control which basically eliminates most of their notable recent output. I think I can safely say I’ll be fine with my continued ignoring of them as a publisher.
Some people didn’t like it but I fucking loved Control…great game and worth a play imho
and the open source, free tools for creating such games are getting better almost by the day.
What gamers want is innovation and overall fun gameplay, sequel or not. I’ve heard rather little coming from AAA studios of interest to me as of late 'cause they’ve all gone to creating endless battle royales, action RPGs or looter-shooters that all play near identically, all with the same military or techno jungle aesthetic that just doesn’t appeal to me. It’s all gunning for their game to get big on that e-sport sponsorship money or find some way to load their games with micro transaction pay to win gambling BS. For the most part, small and indie studios are doing as well as the AAA big boys because they are able to put more creativity into their games on smaller budgets. When a big AAA game such as BG3 does succeed, it’s because they put as much or more effort and care into innovative and entertaining gameplay as they do into fancy ray tracing graphics and cash grab mechanics. Games like BG3 are as praised as they are because they are complete games that work like they should out of the box, no day 1 patch/DLC or extra money required for the full intended experience. We get the quality we expect for our $60-$70. Whether that’s a brand new IP or a sequel doesn’t matter much.
My only quibble with this is that I’m not sure I’d classify larian as a AAA studio. Not when you’re comparing to Activision or Bethesda or something. The game is absolutely amazing, I’ve put over 700 hours in and am still playing it. I can’t think of any of the big AAA studios releasing a game that comes close anytime in the last decade.
Ironic for a company that published indie hits like Terraria and fresh mainstream games like A Tale of 2 Sons.
This does not reflect the whole gaming market but rather the failure of publishers to innovate well and make new things people like. Big publishers are risk averse and it’s a common path them as they get bigger, and care more about shareholder value or venture capital. They won’t take risks, and can’t accept failures so they retrench. It’s not a recipe for success as that end of the games market is already dominated by big publishers churning out annual versions of their mass market games.
A publisher like 505 r ally only has two possible futures on this road - go bankrupt as they can’t compete or get bought out by a big fish who want their IP.
It doesn’t say much abou the games market as it’s actually very large, vibrant and varied. A publisher like 505 is not on the vanguard of the games market and like most people I had to look them up to even see which games they had published. This is just yet another company being mismanaged into oblivion and well beyond its hey day.
The future of entertainment is bleak as fuck.
When’s the last time you played an indie game?
About 15 minutes ago. Slay The Spire is fun.
Tuesday, why?
I’m only one data point but nearly all my gaming hours are indie.
Uh… Yesterday? They’ve become my go to now. They’re so much more fun. A lot of them are just pick up and play. And they bring new concepts and stories instead of the same old crap.
Oh and they’re a lot more affordable.
Basically all I play outside of Paradox titles these days.
Was always a big fan, but the steam deck has me playing a handful of new indie games every month, and it’s fucking awesome. So many little gems, so many unique ideas, for way less money, way less time invested, way less SERIOUS BUSINESS.
Earlier this week! I play what I like and that covers a pretty wide variety.
Every time I play, it seems like. Ive not bought a AAA game made within the past 4 years, and older than that is always at 50%+ discounts.
I buy full price indie games once a month or two.
Played slay the spire on the train this weekend. Also monster train. Played a lot of sandrock the past couple months, too. (Heidi is my love).
I do play a lot of guild wars 2 though. The old standby.
Everyone should start prepping for cheaper and crappier “AAA” titles moving forward.
I don’t recall the last AAA or major studio game I bought.
