What we used to call "AAA" back in the 90s and 00s is quite comparable to modern "AA" or "big indie" studios. Both in the scope of the games and in the size of the teams making them. In a sense, it's not AAA got worse, it's just that since the late 00s we've got a new breed of gamedev companies too large to innovate.
One can think of it like a whale compared to a human. They are giant but can only swim, eat krill and communicate in a pod. Us humans are a decimal of their size but here I am doing THIS.
Correct. Consider that Chrono Trigger was supposed to be made by a "JRPG Superteam". This team boasted hugely about having "Over FORTY developers!" That is not even the entire marketing team for 1 AAA game these days I bet. Support Small and medium sized games. They rule. They're the only way games can be creative: Free from corporate overlords telling the team to "just release the game already" cuz they need a new boat, free from the expectation of millions of sales and MTX, just pure creativity. ...These also have stinkers mind you, but alas.
I would love it if indie devs were recognized more than their creations, Kero Blaster for example should be more popular since it was made by Pixel, and should be more known specially because Cave Story 2 will never exist.
I personally did never care about AAA releases, like, to me it is alien how bad their situation can be to the public who consumes them because I have always been of limited hardware and opted to both indies and emulation of the classics, yes I have had a couple of decent consoles in my life, but even now days at one point I had a Switch, a PS5, and an XBO in my house available at all times thanks to my brother -(who isn't truly into games, but got the money and felt like wasting it, idiot)- yet I kept ignoring all of them to focus on the indie games I had on my laptop, being cheaper and easier to play is clearly a big factor, but honestly that's not the only thing, I felt so much more playing damn Super Meat Boy like 2 years ago than playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and I'm not someone who hates AC, I just felt absolutely nothing (unlike with AC Origins, excellent game). You know, I remember a few months ago having a similar conversation on a Facebook group about the decadence of videogames and I said how I didn't notice it because I like indies and Nintendo games just to be told by some dude in his 30s to "play real videogames". If your generic money hungry games are the only real games, then I will never play real games. Indies are wonderful, I don't care about trends more about realism, give me something I can play and I will play it to have fun.
Im always amazed how Nintendo is simultaneously the best and the worst AAA company in this medium They are some of the only ones that i feel like are not afraid of pushing boundaries and asking the real questions about how and why their games should be designed instead of mindlessly following patterns because "X famous game did that". Which only makes it worst when they constantly fuck up with the entire gaming community with disrespecting fans and customers, barebones side-games (Mario Sports, etc) and complete garbage services.
With Mario Bros Wonder having released for 50€ and 0 DLC, MTX or anything added onto it, they basically just shat all over the AAA industry again by showing off what honing a craft for 30+ years in one genre can do. It's probably the most creative game I've ever played, and it just has 0 brakes. It's idea after idea after idea. Tons of polish, little charming things and a fantastic presentation, too. But beforehand they just made New Super Mario bros 5 times. DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U and a DLC for the Wii U game that was just speedrun levels. Nintendo is truly weird. But if they manage to make a good Switch 2, I'll support them more again. They seem to lean more into what's creatively fun for them again, acknowledging the RPG games again e.g.
@@SirMalorak Wonder is amazing, Odyssey is amazing, BoTW was groundbreaking. Kirby got some love, Dread is really good, even Prime Remaster was a solid remaster. People get mad at Nintendo because they don't give a lot of discount in their games. But it's their standard, they feel like selling his games cheap just because they are old is like admiting their older games are bad, which are not. And I can understand that, even tho I would like to buy games for cheap as a costumer. But they still have problems, like the Aditional Pack to play a few more titles on emulators is unnecessary. They should have more games on their emulators without charging more than the Nintendo Online price.
What has been annoying me the most lately is that every modern game now has every single rpg mechanic they can cram into it. Health bars everywhere, random loot and all sorts of "different" gear to equip, leveled gear and enemies everywhere, skill trees, crafting, open world, skins, battlepasses, etc... Just compare games like dying light and far cry 3 to their predecessors, with all sorts of unnecessary junk filling in the blanks of the game. Lazy, repetitive and empty.
I have had this thought a lot lately. Assassin's creed valhalla, god of war, spiderman miles morales, ghosts of tsushima, hogwarts, you name it. It's all the same shit.
Respectfully, I disagree about indies pushing the industry forward because they've started to show a lot of the same problems as big AAA developers. As much as I love Metroid, I can only play so many Metroidvania style games before I just get sick to death of them. Indie / AA FPS games are either hardcore, hyper realistic military sims that only appeal to a very niche audience or a by the numbers "boomer shooter". Also, microtransactions and battle passes are starting to crop up in indie games more and more. While I'd like to be optimistic, from where I'm sitting, the entire damn industry is creatively bankrupt across the board.
When indies are replicating the smaller teams and experimental spirit of the early gaming industry, it’s natural to expect them to undergo the same growth that the industry did later on. Grow past a certain point, and they’re no longer indie developers. Grow a little more and they get *replaced* by indie developers in the realm of innovation. Things like this never circle back just once. If you’re sick of metroidvanias, you can just… stop playing metroidvanias. Complaining that you chose to play the same genre too many times seems a bit silly. And those other kinds of shooters *do* exist, they’re just obscure; people haven’t been buying them for one reason or another. Sky Noon comes to mind as an example. Those games are still inherently niche due to their scale, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And if none of this appeals to you, emulation is going strong and continuing to grow; every game you could ever fall in love with is still out there waiting to be played. The industry has problems, sure. Indies have theirs too. But there has never been a better time to be a gamer.
I think part of it is that most games, understandably, play it more safe in design and structure. Working with what they know works. Still wish from time to time they could try experimenting once again with totally new ideas and mechanics. Great vid.
One thing that seems to add to the sameyness of modern video games is graphics. You can only make things look so different from one another while still making them look”realistic”. Older games had to really embrace the graphical limitations of their consoles, and often became heavily stylized as a result. It’s been quite a while since I played a new AAA game and thought “wow, this is something truly interesting and unique” from a visual perspective. Sure the games LOOK incredible, but since they often try to emulate the look of the real world, they all end up blending together visually. I’d compare it to those modern animated Disney movies, the animation is incredible, but ever since Frozen came out, none of them have really tried to push the stylistic aspects of the medium and thus end up looking very similar (soul did try with the ethereal stuff, but that was only part of the movie, the parts where the movie takes place in the normal world still suffer from this problem).
You can thank Disney Principled Shader (the foundational work for Physically Based Rendering) for this, they've been using it since Wreck-it Ralph and they essentially gave it away to the rest of the CGI industry. It's the basis for all modern 3D rendering software, including game engines. So, quite literally, all modern games look like Disney movies, and they all look the same, no matter whether they're realistic or cartoony. Even supposedly hyper-stylized games like Genshin Impact use the same basic-ass PBR shader for environments
I love finding smaller youtubers that you just know from only watching like 3 minutes of their video that they are definitely going to grow really quickly. Content creators like you just seem so genuine and passionate about the topics on which they make their videos. Keep up the good work. Also love your animation style on your model. I assume that it is not that hard to do but it makes it feel way more alive and in turn makes the footage more engaging. Well your whole editing style is engaging to be honest.
The best thing about smaller youtubers is how they understand how annoying and quite insulting it is to be reminded that "you can help by sub, join, bell, suckmadic, comment, etc" helps the channel, I specially hate the addition of a how-to-like animation which is almost never used in smaller channels.
Deep Rock Galactic is a case study/master class in how modern games should be. 1 time payment multiplayer co-op game that's only $30 when it's not on sale. How do they keep the money rolling in? Microtransactions? Battle Pass? DLC? Yesn't.... No microtransactions, just an in-game cosmetic shop that you use currency your earn/collect by playing the game. They took the battle pass model but made it free and said "fuck FOMO, anything from a past season just gets added to the free drop pool when you find a cargo crate during a mission" The DLC is the only extra monitization and they're all just cosmetic packs and everyone I know says they buy them purely because they think Ghost Ship Games (the devs) deserve the money (including me). I have never in my life heard anyone say that about other games. They even have amazing mod support. No need for an external program or messing with game files, just go to the modding tab in the pause menu, subscribe to some mods on mod dot io and boom the mods install themselves. I highly recommend DRG to anyone and hope more game devs take notes from GSG.
A AAA 3rd person action adventure game with souls like combat and crafting, with rouge like elements featuring Dante from the devil may cry series with a new funky kong mode.
Nowadays, even fan-games are starting to do better than AAA developers, as some work off the same game engines of their favorite titles, and others simply work off of blueprints of their favorite games, and go in wildly unique directions. Since they're also non-profit, they tend to be free, and fueled by creative passion rather than a profit margin.
I already see you're getting quite a it of views and you deserve it man, well edited and we'll put together with only FAX. Cant wait for you to blow up.
Psp God of War Games also as Well are more Cinematic. In Ghost of Sparta It showed us Kratos as a Child rather than Gow 5 just telling you what he was as a Chils
Good vid. Though, I'm curious on your thoughts on "Indie game oversaturation". I'm not sure how other people feel, but it seems to me that after each year it's harder and harder to find good enjoyable games. Kinda feeling the "everything is the same" even from indie titles, along with it being harder and harder to sif through the mountains and oceans of games to find a game you're looking for. VG Insights has reported that video game releases on Steam alone have doubled since 2017. To a point where we're showered with 30 games daily, majority of which aren't really of any worth. How many Vampire Survivor clones do we have these days? Maybe I'm just becoming a gaming snob, but this does give me fears of the Indie Gaming Boom failing at some point, as people would just gravitate towards AAA companies for familiarity and discoverability. Why bother swimming through an ocean of mediocrity and copycats, if you just can get something familiar that you know you may like from the big corpos? Disheartening thought...
They say that 95% of anything is complete trash, so wading through the swamp that is the Steam Store is going to be harsh regardless. But also, I have also felt like that a lot of indie games have been very similar up till today, but mainly because of lack of resources/funding to make anything bigger, rather than AAA developers problem which is being run by people who clearly don't play games and only care about making the most amount of money possible. I touch on that in this video though, and I feel like with Unreal Engine 5's technology being implemented across the gaming industry, indies are going to have not only much easier tools to use, but much more versatile and efficient ones too that are also completely free for commercial use. (many devs are straight up switching to Unreal now, such as 343 Industries switching all currently in development Halo projects to Unreal Engine 5). The only time you have to pay money to Epic Games for using Unreal is when you make over $1 million off of your game, then you have to pay a royalty percentage of your revenue to Epic Games. By that point though you're already making games that people clearly want to play, so its not a big deal at all. It opens up everyone, including kids, to AAA quality game development tools with rampant documentation. Imagine the 10 year olds now who in a decade will be masters at using Unreal Engine simply because they were able to start so easily.
@@Ardrid_ Ok, those are quite good points. Though, what about discoverability itself? With the number of indie games released each year increasing dramatically, even finding those games is slowly becoming more difficult. The more games, the more the good indie games get burried under ever-expanding mountains of mediocre games and asset flips, which may become even easier with tools like UE5 being so easily available, thus only magnifying the issue. While AAA companies bypass that by having absurdly expensive marketing campaigns and backlogs in gaming history. I learned about a game called "Roadwarden" only by pure accident from a friend - no Steam recommendations, even by searching for hours. Then we have a passion project in development like "Hibernaculum" which is a love letter to sci-fi horror and RPG dungeon crawler classics like Lands of Lore... and it's basically invisible. Even searching the term "Hibernaculum" on Google or TH-cam won't give you anything easily unless you know exactly what you're looking for. All the while a similar indie title, Legend of Grimrock, was much easier to find in 2012. With a rapidly increasing ocean of Indie titles, and discoverability being harder and more obscured, wouldn't the tedium of the search eventually make it prefferable to "stick with the big boyz" who are always on the main stage with large marketing campaigns? Wouldn't this become a danger to the indie market in the long run?
@@BlaineCraner Seek out communities that know the niches you’re searching for. If you like a particular genre, seek out forums dedicated to them- subreddits, sure, but also actual *forums*- and ask for some examples of good games that released recently. This does require you to know what you’re actually looking for, but if you don’t, you can always try going to the larger gaming subreddits; this also allows you to ask for games with general traits rather than narrowing it down to a specific genre. If you want answers to questions, ask those questions. Failing that? Find youtubers and the like who you know enjoy similar games as you. Watch game reviews from sources you trust. Or, simply wait. Terrible games were being released in decades prior too, but time has filtered the bad out of our collective memories. This can be applied to modern games too- if a game is still being cited as quality a year after its release, it’s probably more than some flash-in-the-pan meme; people have had time to let the hype die down, reexamine certain flaws and/or simply get bored, and yet such a game has withstood those things. Waiting also means that there’s more time for game reviews, let’s plays and other things to pop up so you can more easily make your own judgements. And finally, actually play the games you own. Seriously! Don’t just buy a bunch of games and leave them completely untouched. If you want to play a new game, check the stuff you actually own first and make absolutely sure that nothing in your library suits your current mood. It’s a bit silly to form your opinions based on the fact that nothing looks fun to buy rather than fun to play, right?
Yeah it is true. It feels like even the indie game developers are being paid to create the same kind of mediocre games. Some AAA games have great and polished looks but lack gameplay and concept.
Indie games are overrated. 98% of what I see are boring VNs, or generic pixelated side scroller n#3047362. I'm not saying most indie games are bad... It's just that they are as formulaic as AAA titles. Oh look, yet another metroidvania... Another survival game... Another rogue like/roguelite.
Shit, this might be the best take on what's going on in the triple a market I know. You even address the battle passes and whatnot aren't even the core problem but just a symptom of the problem.
Its pretty sad where is the gaming industry going right now, but if it werent for the indie masterpieces like Hades, Cult of the lamb, hollow knight and many other great productions i'd probably stop gaming all together, so there's alot of hope for some kind of turnaround
I'm glad that more people are acknowledging that after Skyrim, gaming just sort of began to stagnate on the scope front. There are still titles that push the medium forward but it definitely went from a multiple times a year thing to a once every couple years thing. Anyway, the industry cannot innovate if customers are unwilling to innovate their own tastes. People really need to occasionally take a risk on something that looks different.
The mass homogenized videogame development process started to get "out of hand" with shooter using the same control scheme on every action game, unlock mechanics for bragging rights, RPG light Elements in every game, quests and colored loot, crafting mechanics and ofc hollywood oriented stories. (and probably open world)
fun fact, games don't actually cost hundreds of millions dollars, it only costs that because they want an excuse to charge that much, if you make a game with just your free time, it costs nothing to make
Im rather sad that Freedom Planet never got the attention it derserves with the amount of love and care that was put into both 1 and 2. If anyone reads this, please give it a try on steam!
I agree with the things you've said for the most part and indie games really are the future of gaming. I dont support a lot of AAA games, to me i think it's hard to be passionate about something especially with a game when a development team is so large everything is gunna be structured and well yeah, great video man
I'd argue that Undertale should be on that list considering that there was a boom of non-conventional turn-based rpgs that came out in its wake but that might just be me. Edit: I was looking at the wrong year. I am very blind. God damn it.
maybe some elements that contribute to the feeling that all games are the same, feel free to disagree: - humans or human like characters as protagonists - fight centered, with guns or magic and lots of violence - open world syndromme - realistic graphics syndromme - similar art styles - similar environments (cities, jungles, etc) - storytelling left aside as a second class citizen - complicated UI's - legendary game syndromme (most open world games try to be the definitive open world experience)
To be fair to modern developers and publishers, the entire first generation of consoles was 900 Pong Clones. Meanwhile, unless it's a shooter, platformer, roguelike, or roguelike platformer shooter, Indies have trouble making games that are like each other. Which can be a problem when you really, really like the Westward series but the company died a decade ago and the last game is now so old it refuses to run in a resolution higher than 800 x 600.
I’d say most AAA games are too similar. Idk what it is, but the majority definitely play it very safe and try to appeal to as many people as possible..thus appealing to everyone, but no one simultaneously.
That's it. That's what I've been having trouble realizing. I'm sitting here waiting and waiting for a AAA game to grab my attention and have been ignoring all these great indie games that I buy and have on my backlog. All the aaa games i have are either too long and repetitive or classics that i have beaten multiple times and just want a new game to be as good as it. I'm gonna erase all my AAA games and see if my brain will be able to focus on the countless indie titles i bought. Thanks for the video i've been in a gaming rut lately.
As someone who got bewitched by the combo mad play style, I’m probably the last person the indie scene will reach. Not even AAA devs want me. What makes you think smaller companies will think differently?
indie devs are also falling into this same trope sadly alot of them are regulating to one genre which we've seen millions off where the formating is copy paste, its rouge likes cult of the lamb too, sadly the dev of that game is an asshat who basis his dev phliociphy on games like the new saints row which failed greatly, so I'm not surprised he ripped off that hard from an already saturated genre to begin with, id say play indie games so long as they arent erathbound quirky inspired typa games or walking sims with beautiful looks, or rouge likes I cant blame every indie dev for making games like these three in genre, probably because of the massive sucess of the ones who made those genres big like undertale or hades
Only thing I could argue is that Super Smash Bros Melee could be considered one of the greatest games of 2001. Melee being one of the first games to continue to thrive via a fanbase that is completely grassroots and pushing the fighting game genre both towards fast-paced, high skill-ceiling gameplay and to experimentation outside the Street Fighter II formula in a competitive environment. That said, I hope that it starts to sink in more and more that, sometimes, less is more. In business, we are taught that copying your competitors is what leads to you getting pushed out of the market. Ironic that, the more money that gets put on the line, the more that AAA game development leans on copying the homework of others. If anything, all I ask for are for enslav- oops, "live service" to die as well as microtransactions. But I know the latter has picked up too much momentum with the mobile market...
If you want a couple of modern examples of a Devs taking inspiration from other games ( _Diabbers and Crinemaft_ ), and building on it to make the game*their* way, then *Grim Dawn* and *Boundless* are soooooooooo good. Both are fairly priced, have zero trendy money grabbing, and the only paid add-ons for either does not even slightly affect your ability to play and enjoy the game. GD's two expansions are two full, new games. The DLC available is almost *LITERALLY* says " _... PLEASE GIVE US DEVS SOME DOSH!_ " ( _plus some absolute _*_genius_*_ made an even better version of Diabs 2 than the new remake as a mod ... it's worth it for that alone_ ) Boundless is basically Crinemaft on full mushrooms and LSD. There's hardly anyone playing lately, but it's going to have a come back, for sure. The game code is *so* solid it hurts, and the world is so anticompetitive that your only worries are griefers not respecting your ( _admittedly assumed_ ) sovereignty. But, like ... there's a whole empty café ( _universe_ ) here and you choose to sit your open mouth, lip smacking, arse, next to *ME?!* ... okok sorry, I spiralled ... but for real ... you can get lost in this game. Plus I've literally ( _barring a 2-7% anomaly_ ) never known a nicer online community.
That quality animation surprised me! You're only at the third video of the channel yet you're already surpassing yourself... HOW MANY SKILLS DO YOU HAVE?
I really liked this video and you brought up a lot of great points that I agree with. Being an older gamer I got to see the formation of every major genre in real time so when I see yet another 3rd person action come out year after year with just minor changes I kind of just roll my eyes. I did think it was kind of funny though that the three games you showed as examples that the modern gaming industry isn't pumping out the same type of game (mentioned at 00:43) were all 3rd person action games lol. But I definitely understand your point in general.
For real my problems with games right now. All third person slashers with the same dumbed down mechanics and repetitive gameplay. Block/Counter hit, light attack, heavy attack, run/ ride horse here. All the same mechanics. God of war, elden ring, Ghost of Tsushima, Witcher 3, assassin's creed, Spiderman, Batman Arkham series. The list goes on! I'm so tired of these types of games.
This was a great analysis on the subject, even though you feel it was less organized than your other videos. It highlighted a lot of issues that are often overlooked as to why these modern games feel "soulless." Personally have felt that the gaming industry after 2013 was the coffin for Triple A innovation and the breakdown for 2011 made a lot of sense on how it had a butterfly effect.
Game design standardization is great for a baseline quality...but it sure is a bitch when it’s played so straight and everywhere. Game development has gotten more expensive and of course if companies want a profit they’ll repeat what’s “known to work”...I just wish it wasn’t case at all
I would say that I agree with your points, but add this one thing. Indie games won't save the gaming industry until they are able to go toe to toe with AAA games. By that I mean innovation occurs and sticks with in the industry when the indie side and the AAA side are able to come together. That said several indie studios seem to poised to make said leap.
The issue is not just on the developers side. There is a modern problem that comes with the video game industry being a giant behemoth of big budget games and millions of players. That is most video gamers chose not to buy into new ideas, they chose to buy conservatively, genres and sequels they are comfortable with and understand already. This is not helped by an aging gaming demographic, which due to being tired after work/kids and aging, become more complacent and struggle to learn new things, so fear the unknown and stick to old favourites. Coupled with huge marketing campaigns making pretty game trailers, that distract us away from indie games who can't compete with graphics.
First I wanna mention your snowman persona, I love them. Second is how your view actually makes a lot of sense. It’s more than just “they’re all the same nowadays” and goes in depth on why they feel so similar. While before this era these design choices only served as inspiration to make systems work better and so they worked more like building blocks for new innovation. Now they serve as core aspects of design. They worked too well, they got too comfortable doing the same thing because it simply worked. You can name a million Cods or Minecrafts but can you name even two RoRs or Nimbatus? No. There are certainly games that are similar in the genre but none function like the other. It is of no surprise my favorite games, really all the games I play are from Indie devs. Out of the main rougelikes I know, Issac, Risk of Rain and Noita, they all function differently though with rougelike hallmarks of progression such as random item gain which when put together well can make you a god. Issac has a top down view where you move through randomized floors which give random perks with a boss at the end to progress. Risk of Rain 2 is a 3D 3rd person shooter where you choose a character and drop into the stage where enemies spawn around you. time spent is linear to difficulty. You can open crates around the map which give you random items. You progress to the next stage via the teleporter where you fight a boss. Noita is a cake slice/side scroller where its difficulty is purely linear to your knowledge of the game. You go into a mountain with a wand with spells in it. You can kill enemies for gold, find more wands with different spells and stats and potions with different liquids. At the bottom of The Mines there are portals which lead to the holy mountain shop where you can freely edit spells in your wands and buy new spells/wands. A random perk lies there which you can often build wands around like fire immunity. You then exit and continue to explore the mountain. But the mountain isn’t the only place, nor are there any boundaries between layers of the mountain that cannot be broken. These games are all rougelikes yet they all play drastically differently between one another. You can name a million Cods but these games there are only one of if that makes any sense.
I'm with you here. All games feel to similar and don't have any soul anymore. Like what happened to music on games? Music adds so much to a games atmosphere. Games also used to have personality too. I'm not saying all games now are bad. Many are just generic and uninspired
Modern games try to look photorealistic... so they all end up looking the same. If i show you a landscape picture of pineforest and mountains, you cant tell if its from red dead redemption, god of war, or call of duty, because they all look like real life. Thats why i like jrpgs. i can immediately tell a difference between Vanillaware, Nihon Falcom and Compile Heart games for example, because they all use their own artstyle.
Skyrim genre defining lol. It wasn't half of what oblivion was. Sony and Nintendo has shown that you can be AAA without microtransactions. You make them sound like a necessary evil. I have a 20 game backlog. They keep making fewer and fewer games while my backlog seems to get bigger and bigger somehow.
I’m not sure why but the last words you said in the final 10 seconds of the video have compelled me to leave a comment after I like and subscribed, crazy
I feel like another part of this 'Gaming Fatigue' were feeling now adays has to deal with the repetitiveness of popular indie games, and how they all feel less and less like uniuqe, innovative, passion-driven works, and more like formulaic and cookie-cutter circle jerk ideas. It's not even just becuase people are money hungry (though it is a big factor), but becuase the scene is so insular that there's just a lot of overlap of ideas- It doesn't help that everybody's trying to be the new FNaF or Undertale
While not on the level as Indies in terms of creativity, I feel you also have a lot of the smaller and more niche Japanese studios still putting out unique games. On another note, fighting games have also suffered their own form of stagnation. Everything now is either a legacy title (Street Fighter, KoF, Guilty Gear, MK, etc.), licensed game (DBFZ, Injustice, arena fighters, etc.), or crossover. The last new fighting game IP from a major developer was ARMS back in 2017 which was made by Nintendo of all people. The last new IP from a major fighting game developer was BlazBlue back in 2008 by Arcsys and that only happened because they didn't have access to Guilty Gear. Even in terms of gameplay, they're pretty homogenized in the sense that every big fighting game is more focused on how to simplifiy the game for casuals than creative ideas and mechanics. Also style. Netherrealm, Bamco, and now even Capcom all use photorealism with their fighting games and I hate it. And again, that's where indies come in.
"Why are new games perceived to be too similar? To answer this question we need to go back to where everything started....In the beginning we were all fish."
Love to see Celeste on there! I feel like that game took just a few basic mechanics and shook them up in varying ways to make the game feel completely unique throughout. Maybe that's why some games feel repetitive too? They aren't taking pre-established mechanics and building upon them, but they feel the need to add something completely flashy and "new" (usually gameplay ideas from a differente franchise/genre). If more games could build upon pre-established mechanics/techniques to create more intricate and unique mechanics/techniques that flows naturally with what the game is trying to be, I feel people would appreciate those hidden gems a lot better than in the games that basically go, "It's (insert popular franchise here) but WE CHANGED SOME THINGS TO MAKE IT DIFFERENT AND FLASHY SO IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT NOW AND DEFINITELY NOT KNOCKING OFF RECENT TRENDS"
funny thing is that if people would stop buying the garbabe these massive companies make, they would stop making them. so in the end is it the fault of the massive game factories, or the consumers who willingly put up with that.
People like to blame big publishers for adding this and that thing, but let's be honest, the problem is just as much with consumers. If we didn't let all these design philosophies and business strategies be so damn lucrative, they wouldn't keep going for them.
The monopoly of unreal engine 3 and then 4 contributed massively to the homogenization of games. When everyone is using the same tech with the same tools, it's harder to be different.
Not really, do not blame the tools for the results since UE is a really good engine when compared to most, and making new engines consumes way more time than the game itself which is kinda useless, just look at Sonic Forces where the 2 of the 4 years development cycle were invested in the engine. Even RPG Maker can provide amazing diverse results in the correct hands. Do not reinvent the wheel just because unless you have a really good reason why.
There's a lot of cool indie games, sure, but they're not really games I enjoy SO MUCH over games like from Nintendo. Nintendo games are usually the ones I get addicted and invest a lot of time in. I can think of Minecraft, but its not really an indie game anymore...Even with Stardew Valley, I admittedly invest a lot more time in Story of Seasons (the game series Stardew Valley is inspired from), which is 3rd party. I do enjoy Stardew Valley's same sex marriage and farm customization but not a huge fan of the combat which more farming games are trying to do. I wasn't really even into the Rune Factory DS game but even that adds a lot of cool farming elements to it along with the farm monsters. I've been getting into more recent Rune Factory games and 5 actually adds a lot. I definitely want to get more into Rune Factory than indie farming games that is trying to copy from Stardew.
This also shows itself in the game dev boom we're seeing. Not everyone is going to make it, but the people/small teams that do will make some of the best games in the next decade. There are fewer barriers to entry than ever before, so the people that would never have been able to make a game. Especially if AAA studios are going to take nearly a decade between releases to insert all the mechanics to drip feed dopamine to their player base to keep them playing for longer and longer.
A lot of the newer generation games just go absolutely bonkers with the amount of onscreen clutter and detail causing sensory overload and motion sickness to a degree not seen with previous generations. Sadly the people that see the current stagnation of AAA gaming are the minority, the majority of people see the current generation as the pinnacle of gaming. I just want some descent open world RPG games like Morrowind with story, depth and gameplay as the selling point. Graphics are good as a wow factor but when thats all they can offer...meh
What I don't get: is that HOW are these giant companies putting so much $$$ into "Buying dev companies" YET compared to the 360 era. We are basically getting NO GAME'S. So where is the investment $ going to? Take 343 for example: they put so much $ Into them and they have not produced any quality game's.. yet they've invested so much $$$ and for what? I just don't get how it's "confusing or hard to understand that just making games is the most important thing. They can be arcade style games, 2D, 2.5D, etc., you name it. Not every game needs to be like "Skyrim" or "Farcry". People just want things to play. Focus on that!" The Dreamcast, the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo GameCube, All have passionate dedicated fanbases BECAUSE they created unique creative game's. They didn't let the fact that other things out sold them defeat them and stop their creativity and game development. That's why they are still so loved to this day. How does: "The Original Halo Combat Evolved, on OG Xbox" has some of the best A.i. -As well as Left 4 Dead 2. I love the way they balanced the weapons/gameplay/maps. It's so well thought out & fun. You can couch co-op, party play. Co-op the campaign. It leaves room for goofing around, while equally allowing for a test of skills. The maps are unique compared to other games. The campaign is great, in Halo CE there's the flood, gathering of ammo, health packs, shields, cloak. The way they built it so you start out with base weapons and you each have to go around the map to aquire weapons during gameplay, really creates a awesome structure to how the game is played. +The A.I. is by far the BEST A.I. It's so interesting to go up against the enemies in this game. The enemies have such diverse dynamic behavior and reaction responsiveness. Not just enemies, but your own soldier's that team up with you to drive vehicle's in the story mode, really adds depth to the campaign mode. The level of customization of game modes is like nothing we have today. You could Customize your own personal character in Halo (for free). You could make your own game modes. You could make Serious game modes or dork around game modes or just all out crazy Overpowered madness game modes. I absolutely LOVE when a game can do this and I still own and play the OG version on a old school original Xbox as well as a Xbox 360. (I haven't gotten a Xbox system after the 360. That era was the peak in my opinion)
I think that game development hit a stone wall, i was playing baldur's gate 3 and even though i loved the game and i know that it lets me approach encounters in many ways and it had branching story and dialogue and you could decide the fate of many characters but i knew all along that it's just a video game, that it's all scripted no matter what perceived freedom i had, the ultimate game and more specifically the ultimate role playing game requires truly intelligent npcs, and i'm very optimistic that ai will catch up soon enough and make my dream a reality.
the capitalist world don't let original ideas grow. if someone comes up with a completely original idea, they won't make it happen because it may result in loss of money.
Kids today that are growing up with a homogenized, hyper-commercialized gaming industry are missing out on so much of what made them important and memorable before, and they have no way of knowing it. Same with everything, I guess. Movies are mostly samey and soulless attempts to cash in on every world market at once. Food is commercial, mass produced, and trend-marketed. The I ternet is ruled by a handful of megacorps that decide what you see. The internet peaked somewhere around 2005 or 06, and there's just no going back on most of it.
What we used to call "AAA" back in the 90s and 00s is quite comparable to modern "AA" or "big indie" studios. Both in the scope of the games and in the size of the teams making them.
In a sense, it's not AAA got worse, it's just that since the late 00s we've got a new breed of gamedev companies too large to innovate.
Perfect synopsis of our predicament
One can think of it like a whale compared to a human. They are giant but can only swim, eat krill and communicate in a pod. Us humans are a decimal of their size but here I am doing THIS.
That’s the most prescient description of modern gaming I’ve ever heard! Well done!
Correct. Consider that Chrono Trigger was supposed to be made by a "JRPG Superteam". This team boasted hugely about having "Over FORTY developers!"
That is not even the entire marketing team for 1 AAA game these days I bet.
Support Small and medium sized games. They rule. They're the only way games can be creative: Free from corporate overlords telling the team to "just release the game already" cuz they need a new boat, free from the expectation of millions of sales and MTX, just pure creativity.
...These also have stinkers mind you, but alas.
Well yeah, games got more an more complex as the years have gone on.
Thank you so much talking about this, I am getting sick of these copy pasta contents that recent games are doing.
same holy shit thank you so much for covering this ardid
why still play games?
Then the indie developers get bought and then they lose uniqueness and then the cycle continues
I would love it if indie devs were recognized more than their creations, Kero Blaster for example should be more popular since it was made by Pixel, and should be more known specially because Cave Story 2 will never exist.
Sadly true
Embracer Group:
So every game company brought by ea
This..
Always this!
I personally did never care about AAA releases, like, to me it is alien how bad their situation can be to the public who consumes them because I have always been of limited hardware and opted to both indies and emulation of the classics, yes I have had a couple of decent consoles in my life, but even now days at one point I had a Switch, a PS5, and an XBO in my house available at all times thanks to my brother -(who isn't truly into games, but got the money and felt like wasting it, idiot)- yet I kept ignoring all of them to focus on the indie games I had on my laptop, being cheaper and easier to play is clearly a big factor, but honestly that's not the only thing, I felt so much more playing damn Super Meat Boy like 2 years ago than playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and I'm not someone who hates AC, I just felt absolutely nothing (unlike with AC Origins, excellent game).
You know, I remember a few months ago having a similar conversation on a Facebook group about the decadence of videogames and I said how I didn't notice it because I like indies and Nintendo games just to be told by some dude in his 30s to "play real videogames". If your generic money hungry games are the only real games, then I will never play real games.
Indies are wonderful, I don't care about trends more about realism, give me something I can play and I will play it to have fun.
i saw the “see more” button and decided it was interesting comment and wanted to read a little more. What i got was not “a little”
@@xr_c5516 I like to write a lot, I start with a single paragraph and somehow I extend it to 3 or more.
Is fun.
That part on "real games", damn man. I am with your stance on that.
Didn't read lol
Those who say play a real game, don’t actually like games.
"too big to succeed" is a BRILLIANT inversion of too big to fail. Amazing bit of wording there.
Im always amazed how Nintendo is simultaneously the best and the worst AAA company in this medium
They are some of the only ones that i feel like are not afraid of pushing boundaries and asking the real questions about how and why their games should be designed instead of mindlessly following patterns because "X famous game did that".
Which only makes it worst when they constantly fuck up with the entire gaming community with disrespecting fans and customers, barebones side-games (Mario Sports, etc) and complete garbage services.
With Mario Bros Wonder having released for 50€ and 0 DLC, MTX or anything added onto it, they basically just shat all over the AAA industry again by showing off what honing a craft for 30+ years in one genre can do. It's probably the most creative game I've ever played, and it just has 0 brakes. It's idea after idea after idea. Tons of polish, little charming things and a fantastic presentation, too.
But beforehand they just made New Super Mario bros 5 times. DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U and a DLC for the Wii U game that was just speedrun levels.
Nintendo is truly weird. But if they manage to make a good Switch 2, I'll support them more again. They seem to lean more into what's creatively fun for them again, acknowledging the RPG games again e.g.
@@SirMalorak Wonder is amazing, Odyssey is amazing, BoTW was groundbreaking. Kirby got some love, Dread is really good, even Prime Remaster was a solid remaster.
People get mad at Nintendo because they don't give a lot of discount in their games.
But it's their standard, they feel like selling his games cheap just because they are old is like admiting their older games are bad, which are not.
And I can understand that, even tho I would like to buy games for cheap as a costumer.
But they still have problems, like the Aditional Pack to play a few more titles on emulators is unnecessary.
They should have more games on their emulators without charging more than the Nintendo Online price.
Nah Pokemon is terrible now, Zelda TOTK is just botw
Same Mario game every year new super Mario Bros Mario 3d world
Same games
What has been annoying me the most lately is that every modern game now has every single rpg mechanic they can cram into it. Health bars everywhere, random loot and all sorts of "different" gear to equip, leveled gear and enemies everywhere, skill trees, crafting, open world, skins, battlepasses, etc... Just compare games like dying light and far cry 3 to their predecessors, with all sorts of unnecessary junk filling in the blanks of the game. Lazy, repetitive and empty.
Lazy is the keyword here. "They probably just want more shit!"
I have had this thought a lot lately. Assassin's creed valhalla, god of war, spiderman miles morales, ghosts of tsushima, hogwarts, you name it. It's all the same shit.
For such a new channel your content is mind-blowingly refined. Excellent work. All your videos are great
I second this
Respectfully, I disagree about indies pushing the industry forward because they've started to show a lot of the same problems as big AAA developers. As much as I love Metroid, I can only play so many Metroidvania style games before I just get sick to death of them. Indie / AA FPS games are either hardcore, hyper realistic military sims that only appeal to a very niche audience or a by the numbers "boomer shooter". Also, microtransactions and battle passes are starting to crop up in indie games more and more.
While I'd like to be optimistic, from where I'm sitting, the entire damn industry is creatively bankrupt across the board.
When indies are replicating the smaller teams and experimental spirit of the early gaming industry, it’s natural to expect them to undergo the same growth that the industry did later on. Grow past a certain point, and they’re no longer indie developers. Grow a little more and they get *replaced* by indie developers in the realm of innovation. Things like this never circle back just once.
If you’re sick of metroidvanias, you can just… stop playing metroidvanias. Complaining that you chose to play the same genre too many times seems a bit silly. And those other kinds of shooters *do* exist, they’re just obscure; people haven’t been buying them for one reason or another. Sky Noon comes to mind as an example. Those games are still inherently niche due to their scale, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And if none of this appeals to you, emulation is going strong and continuing to grow; every game you could ever fall in love with is still out there waiting to be played.
The industry has problems, sure. Indies have theirs too. But there has never been a better time to be a gamer.
I agree, hopefully easier to use tools, can enable new teams, with cool ideas.
Love the parent-child bonding subplot of this video between indie games and... uh... gamers?
Another great video!
I think part of it is that most games, understandably, play it more safe in design and structure. Working with what they know works. Still wish from time to time they could try experimenting once again with totally new ideas and mechanics. Great vid.
One thing that seems to add to the sameyness of modern video games is graphics. You can only make things look so different from one another while still making them look”realistic”. Older games had to really embrace the graphical limitations of their consoles, and often became heavily stylized as a result. It’s been quite a while since I played a new AAA game and thought “wow, this is something truly interesting and unique” from a visual perspective. Sure the games LOOK incredible, but since they often try to emulate the look of the real world, they all end up blending together visually. I’d compare it to those modern animated Disney movies, the animation is incredible, but ever since Frozen came out, none of them have really tried to push the stylistic aspects of the medium and thus end up looking very similar (soul did try with the ethereal stuff, but that was only part of the movie, the parts where the movie takes place in the normal world still suffer from this problem).
Completely agree
Morrowind was a game that used its graphical limitations to its advantage when constructing its world
You can thank Disney Principled Shader (the foundational work for Physically Based Rendering) for this, they've been using it since Wreck-it Ralph and they essentially gave it away to the rest of the CGI industry. It's the basis for all modern 3D rendering software, including game engines.
So, quite literally, all modern games look like Disney movies, and they all look the same, no matter whether they're realistic or cartoony. Even supposedly hyper-stylized games like Genshin Impact use the same basic-ass PBR shader for environments
I absolutely ADORE this rising trend of cel-shaded animated TH-camrs talking about video games
I love finding smaller youtubers that you just know from only watching like 3 minutes of their video that they are definitely going to grow really quickly. Content creators like you just seem so genuine and passionate about the topics on which they make their videos. Keep up the good work. Also love your animation style on your model. I assume that it is not that hard to do but it makes it feel way more alive and in turn makes the footage more engaging. Well your whole editing style is engaging to be honest.
The best thing about smaller youtubers is how they understand how annoying and quite insulting it is to be reminded that "you can help by sub, join, bell, suckmadic, comment, etc" helps the channel, I specially hate the addition of a how-to-like animation which is almost never used in smaller channels.
Deep Rock Galactic is a case study/master class in how modern games should be.
1 time payment multiplayer co-op game that's only $30 when it's not on sale. How do they keep the money rolling in? Microtransactions? Battle Pass? DLC?
Yesn't.... No microtransactions, just an in-game cosmetic shop that you use currency your earn/collect by playing the game.
They took the battle pass model but made it free and said "fuck FOMO, anything from a past season just gets added to the free drop pool when you find a cargo crate during a mission"
The DLC is the only extra monitization and they're all just cosmetic packs and everyone I know says they buy them purely because they think Ghost Ship Games (the devs) deserve the money (including me). I have never in my life heard anyone say that about other games.
They even have amazing mod support. No need for an external program or messing with game files, just go to the modding tab in the pause menu, subscribe to some mods on mod dot io and boom the mods install themselves.
I highly recommend DRG to anyone and hope more game devs take notes from GSG.
Congratulations, you have convinced me to buy this game as soon as possible whereas I was on the fence about it before. Rock and stone!
A AAA 3rd person action adventure game with souls like combat and crafting, with rouge like elements featuring Dante from the devil may cry series with a new funky kong mode.
Nowadays, even fan-games are starting to do better than AAA developers, as some work off the same game engines of their favorite titles, and others simply work off of blueprints of their favorite games, and go in wildly unique directions. Since they're also non-profit, they tend to be free, and fueled by creative passion rather than a profit margin.
I already see you're getting quite a it of views and you deserve it man, well edited and we'll put together with only FAX. Cant wait for you to blow up.
5:57 ironically the original God of War games are more cinematic than the new ones.
Psp God of War Games also as Well are more Cinematic. In Ghost of Sparta It showed us Kratos as a Child rather than Gow 5 just telling you what he was as a Chils
Oh wait you mean modern Gow is just watching half the game?
While I support indie devs I'm gonna also support this video by commenting on it and clicking the video buttons
You've incidentally stated that the companies are not game development companies, they're investment banks that own game development companies.
Good vid. Though, I'm curious on your thoughts on "Indie game oversaturation". I'm not sure how other people feel, but it seems to me that after each year it's harder and harder to find good enjoyable games. Kinda feeling the "everything is the same" even from indie titles, along with it being harder and harder to sif through the mountains and oceans of games to find a game you're looking for. VG Insights has reported that video game releases on Steam alone have doubled since 2017. To a point where we're showered with 30 games daily, majority of which aren't really of any worth. How many Vampire Survivor clones do we have these days?
Maybe I'm just becoming a gaming snob, but this does give me fears of the Indie Gaming Boom failing at some point, as people would just gravitate towards AAA companies for familiarity and discoverability. Why bother swimming through an ocean of mediocrity and copycats, if you just can get something familiar that you know you may like from the big corpos? Disheartening thought...
They say that 95% of anything is complete trash, so wading through the swamp that is the Steam Store is going to be harsh regardless. But also, I have also felt like that a lot of indie games have been very similar up till today, but mainly because of lack of resources/funding to make anything bigger, rather than AAA developers problem which is being run by people who clearly don't play games and only care about making the most amount of money possible.
I touch on that in this video though, and I feel like with Unreal Engine 5's technology being implemented across the gaming industry, indies are going to have not only much easier tools to use, but much more versatile and efficient ones too that are also completely free for commercial use. (many devs are straight up switching to Unreal now, such as 343 Industries switching all currently in development Halo projects to Unreal Engine 5). The only time you have to pay money to Epic Games for using Unreal is when you make over $1 million off of your game, then you have to pay a royalty percentage of your revenue to Epic Games. By that point though you're already making games that people clearly want to play, so its not a big deal at all. It opens up everyone, including kids, to AAA quality game development tools with rampant documentation. Imagine the 10 year olds now who in a decade will be masters at using Unreal Engine simply because they were able to start so easily.
@@Ardrid_ Ok, those are quite good points. Though, what about discoverability itself? With the number of indie games released each year increasing dramatically, even finding those games is slowly becoming more difficult. The more games, the more the good indie games get burried under ever-expanding mountains of mediocre games and asset flips, which may become even easier with tools like UE5 being so easily available, thus only magnifying the issue. While AAA companies bypass that by having absurdly expensive marketing campaigns and backlogs in gaming history.
I learned about a game called "Roadwarden" only by pure accident from a friend - no Steam recommendations, even by searching for hours. Then we have a passion project in development like "Hibernaculum" which is a love letter to sci-fi horror and RPG dungeon crawler classics like Lands of Lore... and it's basically invisible. Even searching the term "Hibernaculum" on Google or TH-cam won't give you anything easily unless you know exactly what you're looking for. All the while a similar indie title, Legend of Grimrock, was much easier to find in 2012.
With a rapidly increasing ocean of Indie titles, and discoverability being harder and more obscured, wouldn't the tedium of the search eventually make it prefferable to "stick with the big boyz" who are always on the main stage with large marketing campaigns? Wouldn't this become a danger to the indie market in the long run?
@@BlaineCraner Seek out communities that know the niches you’re searching for. If you like a particular genre, seek out forums dedicated to them- subreddits, sure, but also actual *forums*- and ask for some examples of good games that released recently. This does require you to know what you’re actually looking for, but if you don’t, you can always try going to the larger gaming subreddits; this also allows you to ask for games with general traits rather than narrowing it down to a specific genre. If you want answers to questions, ask those questions.
Failing that? Find youtubers and the like who you know enjoy similar games as you. Watch game reviews from sources you trust. Or, simply wait. Terrible games were being released in decades prior too, but time has filtered the bad out of our collective memories. This can be applied to modern games too- if a game is still being cited as quality a year after its release, it’s probably more than some flash-in-the-pan meme; people have had time to let the hype die down, reexamine certain flaws and/or simply get bored, and yet such a game has withstood those things. Waiting also means that there’s more time for game reviews, let’s plays and other things to pop up so you can more easily make your own judgements.
And finally, actually play the games you own. Seriously! Don’t just buy a bunch of games and leave them completely untouched. If you want to play a new game, check the stuff you actually own first and make absolutely sure that nothing in your library suits your current mood. It’s a bit silly to form your opinions based on the fact that nothing looks fun to buy rather than fun to play, right?
Yeah it is true. It feels like even the indie game developers are being paid to create the same kind of mediocre games. Some AAA games have great and polished looks but lack gameplay and concept.
Indie games are overrated. 98% of what I see are boring VNs, or generic pixelated side scroller n#3047362. I'm not saying most indie games are bad... It's just that they are as formulaic as AAA titles. Oh look, yet another metroidvania... Another survival game... Another rogue like/roguelite.
Shit, this might be the best take on what's going on in the triple a market I know. You even address the battle passes and whatnot aren't even the core problem but just a symptom of the problem.
Its pretty sad where is the gaming industry going right now, but if it werent for the indie masterpieces like Hades, Cult of the lamb, hollow knight and many other great productions i'd probably stop gaming all together, so there's alot of hope for some kind of turnaround
It parallels the movie industry... .
I'm glad that more people are acknowledging that after Skyrim, gaming just sort of began to stagnate on the scope front. There are still titles that push the medium forward but it definitely went from a multiple times a year thing to a once every couple years thing.
Anyway, the industry cannot innovate if customers are unwilling to innovate their own tastes. People really need to occasionally take a risk on something that looks different.
The mass homogenized videogame development process started to get "out of hand" with shooter using the same control scheme on every action game, unlock mechanics for bragging rights, RPG light Elements in every game, quests and colored loot, crafting mechanics and ofc hollywood oriented stories. (and probably open world)
fun fact, games don't actually cost hundreds of millions dollars, it only costs that because they want an excuse to charge that much, if you make a game with just your free time, it costs nothing to make
Im rather sad that Freedom Planet never got the attention it derserves with the amount of love and care that was put into both 1 and 2. If anyone reads this, please give it a try on steam!
Boosting this comment to the top!
Thats on my backlog list
I agree with the things you've said for the most part and indie games really are the future of gaming. I dont support a lot of AAA games, to me i think it's hard to be passionate about something especially with a game when a development team is so large everything is gunna be structured and well yeah, great video man
I'd argue that Undertale should be on that list considering that there was a boom of non-conventional turn-based rpgs that came out in its wake but that might just be me.
Edit: I was looking at the wrong year. I am very blind. God damn it.
It is
It is on that list lol.
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 .......I'm fucking blind
@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 GOD FUCKING DAMN IT I WAS LOOKING AT THE WRONG YEAR.
Id go even further... Yume Nikki should've been there. It's the most influential RPG Maker game of all time.
maybe some elements that contribute to the feeling that all games are the same, feel free to disagree:
- humans or human like characters as protagonists
- fight centered, with guns or magic and lots of violence
- open world syndromme
- realistic graphics syndromme
- similar art styles
- similar environments (cities, jungles, etc)
- storytelling left aside as a second class citizen
- complicated UI's
- legendary game syndromme (most open world games try to be the definitive open world experience)
Super excited for BRC this summer. And Hi-fi rush was a breath of fresh air
To be fair to modern developers and publishers, the entire first generation of consoles was 900 Pong Clones.
Meanwhile, unless it's a shooter, platformer, roguelike, or roguelike platformer shooter, Indies have trouble making games that are like each other. Which can be a problem when you really, really like the Westward series but the company died a decade ago and the last game is now so old it refuses to run in a resolution higher than 800 x 600.
It surprised me when I saw you have under 10k subs. You’re explanation, breakdown, editing and sound ar all on point. Keep up the good work!
Thanks :)
The kid Icarus music brought back so much nostalgia 😢
I’d say most AAA games are too similar. Idk what it is, but the majority definitely play it very safe and try to appeal to as many people as possible..thus appealing to everyone, but no one simultaneously.
just came across your channel, under 10k subs for videos of this quality is genuinely insane. Subbed.
2:17 Minecraft came out before 2011 and used to be free in late 2009 I think
That's it. That's what I've been having trouble realizing. I'm sitting here waiting and waiting for a AAA game to grab my attention and have been ignoring all these great indie games that I buy and have on my backlog.
All the aaa games i have are either too long and repetitive or classics that i have beaten multiple times and just want a new game to be as good as it.
I'm gonna erase all my AAA games and see if my brain will be able to focus on the countless indie titles i bought.
Thanks for the video i've been in a gaming rut lately.
As someone who got bewitched by the combo mad play style, I’m probably the last person the indie scene will reach. Not even AAA devs want me. What makes you think smaller companies will think differently?
I hate when my company gets too big to succeed 8:30
plus AAA games tend to sabotage themselves, Wha Happun shows a lot of how they usually go wrong to horribly wrong
indie devs are also falling into this same trope sadly alot of them are regulating to one genre which we've seen millions off where the formating is copy paste, its rouge likes cult of the lamb too, sadly the dev of that game is an asshat who basis his dev phliociphy on games like the new saints row which failed greatly, so I'm not surprised he ripped off that hard from an already saturated genre to begin with, id say play indie games so long as they arent erathbound quirky inspired typa games or walking sims with beautiful looks, or rouge likes
I cant blame every indie dev for making games like these three in genre, probably because of the massive sucess of the ones who made those genres big like undertale or hades
its like the youtubers who make challenge videos of that one challenge that makes millions of views, video game devs arent any different
Only thing I could argue is that Super Smash Bros Melee could be considered one of the greatest games of 2001. Melee being one of the first games to continue to thrive via a fanbase that is completely grassroots and pushing the fighting game genre both towards fast-paced, high skill-ceiling gameplay and to experimentation outside the Street Fighter II formula in a competitive environment.
That said, I hope that it starts to sink in more and more that, sometimes, less is more. In business, we are taught that copying your competitors is what leads to you getting pushed out of the market. Ironic that, the more money that gets put on the line, the more that AAA game development leans on copying the homework of others.
If anything, all I ask for are for enslav- oops, "live service" to die as well as microtransactions. But I know the latter has picked up too much momentum with the mobile market...
You are by far my favorite underrated creator on TH-cam
If you want a couple of modern examples of a Devs taking inspiration from other games ( _Diabbers and Crinemaft_ ), and building on it to make the game*their* way, then *Grim Dawn* and *Boundless* are soooooooooo good.
Both are fairly priced, have zero trendy money grabbing, and the only paid add-ons for either does not even slightly affect your ability to play and enjoy the game.
GD's two expansions are two full, new games. The DLC available is almost *LITERALLY* says " _... PLEASE GIVE US DEVS SOME DOSH!_ "
( _plus some absolute _*_genius_*_ made an even better version of Diabs 2 than the new remake as a mod ... it's worth it for that alone_ )
Boundless is basically Crinemaft on full mushrooms and LSD. There's hardly anyone playing lately, but it's going to have a come back, for sure. The game code is *so* solid it hurts, and the world is so anticompetitive that your only worries are griefers not respecting your ( _admittedly assumed_ ) sovereignty. But, like ... there's a whole empty café ( _universe_ ) here and you choose to sit your open mouth, lip smacking, arse, next to *ME?!* ... okok sorry, I spiralled ... but for real ... you can get lost in this game. Plus I've literally ( _barring a 2-7% anomaly_ ) never known a nicer online community.
That quality animation surprised me! You're only at the third video of the channel yet you're already surpassing yourself... HOW MANY SKILLS DO YOU HAVE?
I love your avatar
it's like frosty the snowman if satan created it
Oh the irony, getting an advert of a game exactly at 3:49...
I wish Splitgate had mod tools and server tools so the game will virtually NEVER die
I really liked this video and you brought up a lot of great points that I agree with. Being an older gamer I got to see the formation of every major genre in real time so when I see yet another 3rd person action come out year after year with just minor changes I kind of just roll my eyes.
I did think it was kind of funny though that the three games you showed as examples that the modern gaming industry isn't pumping out the same type of game (mentioned at 00:43) were all 3rd person action games lol. But I definitely understand your point in general.
For real my problems with games right now. All third person slashers with the same dumbed down mechanics and repetitive gameplay. Block/Counter hit, light attack, heavy attack, run/ ride horse here. All the same mechanics. God of war, elden ring, Ghost of Tsushima, Witcher 3, assassin's creed, Spiderman, Batman Arkham series. The list goes on! I'm so tired of these types of games.
This was a great analysis on the subject, even though you feel it was less organized than your other videos. It highlighted a lot of issues that are often overlooked as to why these modern games feel "soulless." Personally have felt that the gaming industry after 2013 was the coffin for Triple A innovation and the breakdown for 2011 made a lot of sense on how it had a butterfly effect.
Game design standardization is great for a baseline quality...but it sure is a bitch when it’s played so straight and everywhere. Game development has gotten more expensive and of course if companies want a profit they’ll repeat what’s “known to work”...I just wish it wasn’t case at all
This channel got a lot of great potential!
Great voice acting, you got a new sub!
I would say that I agree with your points, but add this one thing. Indie games won't save the gaming industry until they are able to go toe to toe with AAA games. By that I mean innovation occurs and sticks with in the industry when the indie side and the AAA side are able to come together. That said several indie studios seem to poised to make said leap.
The issue is not just on the developers side. There is a modern problem that comes with the video game industry being a giant behemoth of big budget games and millions of players. That is most video gamers chose not to buy into new ideas, they chose to buy conservatively, genres and sequels they are comfortable with and understand already. This is not helped by an aging gaming demographic, which due to being tired after work/kids and aging, become more complacent and struggle to learn new things, so fear the unknown and stick to old favourites. Coupled with huge marketing campaigns making pretty game trailers, that distract us away from indie games who can't compete with graphics.
Yep. Customers are as much to blame as the companies for this state of affairs as anyone else.
First I wanna mention your snowman persona, I love them. Second is how your view actually makes a lot of sense. It’s more than just “they’re all the same nowadays” and goes in depth on why they feel so similar. While before this era these design choices only served as inspiration to make systems work better and so they worked more like building blocks for new innovation. Now they serve as core aspects of design. They worked too well, they got too comfortable doing the same thing because it simply worked. You can name a million Cods or Minecrafts but can you name even two RoRs or Nimbatus? No. There are certainly games that are similar in the genre but none function like the other.
It is of no surprise my favorite games, really all the games I play are from Indie devs. Out of the main rougelikes I know, Issac, Risk of Rain and Noita, they all function differently though with rougelike hallmarks of progression such as random item gain which when put together well can make you a god. Issac has a top down view where you move through randomized floors which give random perks with a boss at the end to progress. Risk of Rain 2 is a 3D 3rd person shooter where you choose a character and drop into the stage where enemies spawn around you. time spent is linear to difficulty. You can open crates around the map which give you random items. You progress to the next stage via the teleporter where you fight a boss. Noita is a cake slice/side scroller where its difficulty is purely linear to your knowledge of the game. You go into a mountain with a wand with spells in it. You can kill enemies for gold, find more wands with different spells and stats and potions with different liquids. At the bottom of The Mines there are portals which lead to the holy mountain shop where you can freely edit spells in your wands and buy new spells/wands. A random perk lies there which you can often build wands around like fire immunity. You then exit and continue to explore the mountain. But the mountain isn’t the only place, nor are there any boundaries between layers of the mountain that cannot be broken. These games are all rougelikes yet they all play drastically differently between one another. You can name a million Cods but these games there are only one of if that makes any sense.
1:17 What in gods name happended here? that sounds like the most cool action film know to man
I'm with you here. All games feel to similar and don't have any soul anymore. Like what happened to music on games? Music adds so much to a games atmosphere. Games also used to have personality too. I'm not saying all games now are bad. Many are just generic and uninspired
Modern games try to look photorealistic... so they all end up looking the same. If i show you a landscape picture of pineforest and mountains, you cant tell if its from red dead redemption, god of war, or call of duty, because they all look like real life. Thats why i like jrpgs. i can immediately tell a difference between Vanillaware, Nihon Falcom and Compile Heart games for example, because they all use their own artstyle.
That's why I like Ps1 , Ps2 and Psp Games. They didn't look Realistic
Subscribed, keep it up, you have a great view on the industry.
Great video, one of my new favorite channels!
Skyrim genre defining lol. It wasn't half of what oblivion was.
Sony and Nintendo has shown that you can be AAA without microtransactions. You make them sound like a necessary evil.
I have a 20 game backlog. They keep making fewer and fewer games while my backlog seems to get bigger and bigger somehow.
That doesn’t make it not genre defining
I’m not sure why but the last words you said in the final 10 seconds of the video have compelled me to leave a comment after I like and subscribed, crazy
I feel like another part of this 'Gaming Fatigue' were feeling now adays has to deal with the repetitiveness of popular indie games, and how they all feel less and less like uniuqe, innovative, passion-driven works, and more like formulaic and cookie-cutter circle jerk ideas. It's not even just becuase people are money hungry (though it is a big factor), but becuase the scene is so insular that there's just a lot of overlap of ideas- It doesn't help that everybody's trying to be the new FNaF or Undertale
Great content and production value and still under 10k subs. This video will probably put you over though. ❤
While not on the level as Indies in terms of creativity, I feel you also have a lot of the smaller and more niche Japanese studios still putting out unique games.
On another note, fighting games have also suffered their own form of stagnation. Everything now is either a legacy title (Street Fighter, KoF, Guilty Gear, MK, etc.), licensed game (DBFZ, Injustice, arena fighters, etc.), or crossover. The last new fighting game IP from a major developer was ARMS back in 2017 which was made by Nintendo of all people. The last new IP from a major fighting game developer was BlazBlue back in 2008 by Arcsys and that only happened because they didn't have access to Guilty Gear.
Even in terms of gameplay, they're pretty homogenized in the sense that every big fighting game is more focused on how to simplifiy the game for casuals than creative ideas and mechanics. Also style. Netherrealm, Bamco, and now even Capcom all use photorealism with their fighting games and I hate it. And again, that's where indies come in.
The self cringe at the classic TH-cam outro was simply perfect.
"Why are new games perceived to be too similar? To answer this question we need to go back to where everything started....In the beginning we were all fish."
Your are right and I do agree with you and also FNAF Security Breach is one of the biggest examples of the terrible mistakes of triple A games
Love to see Celeste on there! I feel like that game took just a few basic mechanics and shook them up in varying ways to make the game feel completely unique throughout.
Maybe that's why some games feel repetitive too? They aren't taking pre-established mechanics and building upon them, but they feel the need to add something completely flashy and "new" (usually gameplay ideas from a differente franchise/genre). If more games could build upon pre-established mechanics/techniques to create more intricate and unique mechanics/techniques that flows naturally with what the game is trying to be, I feel people would appreciate those hidden gems a lot better than in the games that basically go, "It's (insert popular franchise here) but WE CHANGED SOME THINGS TO MAKE IT DIFFERENT AND FLASHY SO IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT NOW AND DEFINITELY NOT KNOCKING OFF RECENT TRENDS"
1.4k views? Damn. You should have 1000 times more! Such a good video!
9:05: I respectfully disagree. For a year like 2019, we got sekiro which genuinely gave the industry another look on how to do combat.
funny thing is that if people would stop buying the garbabe these massive companies make, they would stop making them. so in the end is it the fault of the massive game factories, or the consumers who willingly put up with that.
People like to blame big publishers for adding this and that thing, but let's be honest, the problem is just as much with consumers. If we didn't let all these design philosophies and business strategies be so damn lucrative, they wouldn't keep going for them.
If you want an example of a Devs taking inspiration from other games (Diabbers and Crinemaft) then Grim Dawn and Boundless are soooooooooo good.
The monopoly of unreal engine 3 and then 4 contributed massively to the homogenization of games. When everyone is using the same tech with the same tools, it's harder to be different.
Not really, do not blame the tools for the results since UE is a really good engine when compared to most, and making new engines consumes way more time than the game itself which is kinda useless, just look at Sonic Forces where the 2 of the 4 years development cycle were invested in the engine. Even RPG Maker can provide amazing diverse results in the correct hands.
Do not reinvent the wheel just because unless you have a really good reason why.
this videos gonna blow up
this is just like in the 90s with all the side scrolling platformers
There's a lot of cool indie games, sure, but they're not really games I enjoy SO MUCH over games like from Nintendo. Nintendo games are usually the ones I get addicted and invest a lot of time in. I can think of Minecraft, but its not really an indie game anymore...Even with Stardew Valley, I admittedly invest a lot more time in Story of Seasons (the game series Stardew Valley is inspired from), which is 3rd party. I do enjoy Stardew Valley's same sex marriage and farm customization but not a huge fan of the combat which more farming games are trying to do. I wasn't really even into the Rune Factory DS game but even that adds a lot of cool farming elements to it along with the farm monsters. I've been getting into more recent Rune Factory games and 5 actually adds a lot. I definitely want to get more into Rune Factory than indie farming games that is trying to copy from Stardew.
U deserve a Million Subs
This also shows itself in the game dev boom we're seeing. Not everyone is going to make it, but the people/small teams that do will make some of the best games in the next decade. There are fewer barriers to entry than ever before, so the people that would never have been able to make a game. Especially if AAA studios are going to take nearly a decade between releases to insert all the mechanics to drip feed dopamine to their player base to keep them playing for longer and longer.
A lot of the newer generation games just go absolutely bonkers with the amount of onscreen clutter and detail causing sensory overload and motion sickness to a degree not seen with previous generations.
Sadly the people that see the current stagnation of AAA gaming are the minority, the majority of people see the current generation as the pinnacle of gaming.
I just want some descent open world RPG games like Morrowind with story, depth and gameplay as the selling point. Graphics are good as a wow factor but when thats all they can offer...meh
congrats on 10k, I watched it happen live
What I don't get: is that HOW are these giant companies putting so much $$$ into "Buying dev companies" YET compared to the 360 era. We are basically getting NO GAME'S. So where is the investment $ going to? Take 343 for example: they put so much $ Into them and they have not produced any quality game's.. yet they've invested so much $$$ and for what? I just don't get how it's "confusing or hard to understand that just making games is the most important thing. They can be arcade style games, 2D, 2.5D, etc., you name it. Not every game needs to be like "Skyrim" or "Farcry". People just want things to play. Focus on that!"
The Dreamcast, the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo GameCube, All have passionate dedicated fanbases BECAUSE they created unique creative game's. They didn't let the fact that other things out sold them defeat them and stop their creativity and game development. That's why they are still so loved to this day.
How does: "The Original Halo Combat Evolved, on OG Xbox" has some of the best A.i. -As well as Left 4 Dead 2. I love the way they balanced the weapons/gameplay/maps. It's so well thought out & fun. You can couch co-op, party play. Co-op the campaign. It leaves room for goofing around, while equally allowing for a test of skills. The maps are unique compared to other games. The campaign is great, in Halo CE there's the flood, gathering of ammo, health packs, shields, cloak. The way they built it so you start out with base weapons and you each have to go around the map to aquire weapons during gameplay, really creates a awesome structure to how the game is played. +The A.I. is by far the BEST A.I. It's so interesting to go up against the enemies in this game. The enemies have such diverse dynamic behavior and reaction responsiveness. Not just enemies, but your own soldier's that team up with you to drive vehicle's in the story mode, really adds depth to the campaign mode. The level of customization of game modes is like nothing we have today. You could Customize your own personal character in Halo (for free). You could make your own game modes. You could make Serious game modes or dork around game modes or just all out crazy Overpowered madness game modes. I absolutely LOVE when a game can do this and I still own and play the OG version on a old school original Xbox as well as a Xbox 360. (I haven't gotten a Xbox system after the 360. That era was the peak in my opinion)
i think its because these days games are being made by gamers.
who want to make games like the games they love
with the work ethic they grew up in.
Very underated chanel with good editing, keep it up and youll make it brothrer
The only triple a game I've played that still captivates me is apex and it'll die when the live service model is done and gone.
Unless its a indie game most games nowadays falls into 3 catagories skyrim mario or galaga
Galaga?
I sure love seeing arstotzka running strong in the 2010's!!!
A title like this could get more views, just a thought.
Are All Modern Games The Same?
I would just say that the gameplay mechanics are similar when it comes to modern games
🔥🔥🔥this is the best video ever made
Great video! You should try a "hidden" gem called Deep Rock Galactic ( or at least watch a review ) if you can!
Yeah what a game dude the best if u ask me
I think that game development hit a stone wall, i was playing baldur's gate 3 and even though i loved the game and i know that it lets me approach encounters in many ways and it had branching story and dialogue and you could decide the fate of many characters but i knew all along that it's just a video game, that it's all scripted no matter what perceived freedom i had, the ultimate game and more specifically the ultimate role playing game requires truly intelligent npcs, and i'm very optimistic that ai will catch up soon enough and make my dream a reality.
Just play Mass effect 1- 3
Good video!
comment for the algorithm, this content is awesome and I can't wait to see more!
And this is where I bring up my favorite game again rocket league. There’s nothing else like it
the capitalist world don't let original ideas grow. if someone comes up with a completely original idea, they won't make it happen because it may result in loss of money.
Kids today that are growing up with a homogenized, hyper-commercialized gaming industry are missing out on so much of what made them important and memorable before, and they have no way of knowing it.
Same with everything, I guess. Movies are mostly samey and soulless attempts to cash in on every world market at once. Food is commercial, mass produced, and trend-marketed. The I ternet is ruled by a handful of megacorps that decide what you see. The internet peaked somewhere around 2005 or 06, and there's just no going back on most of it.