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'None of these people have ever made a game,' BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk says of game industry executives: 'They just don't know how it works' (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 24 points 1 day ago (10 children)

This industry has taken a wrong turn and is now at an impasse.

We need to step back to when small teams of developers made lightweight games. It's not like anybody's got the RAM or GPU compute to run some of these newer titles anyway.

Developers, if you're serious about making a game, take your ideas, leave the company you work for (before they let you go), and make it alone or with friends and close colleagues.

Let's right this wrong. Let's make affordable games that run on affordable hardware again.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago*

    You know that small teams of developers already make lightweight games? A lot of them, in fact. The indie scene has never been better, in terms of production (the problem right now is discoverability, so the good ones rise over the bad ones, specially over the AI slop).

    Many people compare the current times to the videogame crash of the '80s, but while the scenario for the AAA companies is similar, the AA and indie scene is a lot more healthier and would probably survive a AAA crash without major issues.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Developers, if you’re serious about making a game, take your ideas, leave the company you work for (before they let you go), and make it alone or with friends and close colleagues.

    People throw this line at devs every time there's layoffs, and there are a lot lately, but the fact is there just isn't funding out there right now. To bootstrap that project yourself and hope you make a profit, even with a really good game, is also a huge gamble.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    What we really need is one big investor that can accept the publishing plan of:

    Give 20-30 small teams budget to survive, some very basic planning assistance and help making contacts; then, go hands off and accept that about 15 of those games will die out. 5 will be good, and 1 will be a giant hit that pays for the others. Next round, the ratio gets better.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

    I used to think that would be the best approach, but then I watched Star Citizen's development. Without the pressure of a publisher, the creative leads got to focus 100% on their vision.

    Turns out that means unbelievable (to us) scope. creep. Creative visionaries are great at their creative vision, but not so much at managing schedules and running a business. They need to butt heads with someone that cares about the money so that their compromise ends up being the masterpiece we all love.

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  • [–] 3 points 23 hours ago

    I think the one gap there is allowing for expansion. I could be making assumptions about Star Citizen’s team size, but one thing a publisher could do is block overhiring.

    “Hey, we’d like to make ours an open world game with over 130 quests! Can we have some other content teams on contract?”
    “No.”
    “…Oh. Well then maybe…? Uh, I guess I’ll adjust my plan.

    Honestly, even a failure like “1 team is infinitely making cruft” is not as financially damaging as it sounds, when compared to a high-budget game failing.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    So do what Supergiant and Embark did? I agree with the sentiment: it is clear the main thing missing from games is the passion of the people making them. All the great games in the past were made by groups of people with a shared passion and vision, without overbearing corporate greed or executives watering down good ideas just in case they didn't appeal to absolutely everybody.

    However unless someone in that group has a rich relative, or they start early in life (see Arrowhead for example), the reality is it is hard to afford to live for years before finding out your dream project is a failure.

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