I reckon you could half the teamsize of every game company, split them into other companies, give the workers complete control over whatever they make and every single one of their games would be better for it.
The audiences would be smaller because the games they make would aim to be really really really good at one specific niche thing. But they'd be better games at what they try to be.
The curse of AAA gaming is the goal of trying to appeal to literally everyone simultaneously instead of specialising in a niche and serving that niche audience in highly advanced ways.
That was Yahtzee’s reasoning for Neon White being his GOTY. The gameplay loop is straightforward but it also knows what it is and what it’s not trying to be. Unlike the AAA industry where every marquee game tries to be an action/adventure/shooter/RPG/dating sim with online multiplayer and a few racing sections.
The curse of AAA gaming is the goal of trying to appeal to literally everyone simultaneously instead of specialising in a niche and serving that niche audience in highly advanced ways.
Note how they straight up abandoned most of the genres for AAA games, because the action games with vague adventure and rudimentary rpg elements are the lowest denominator played by the most audience. And even non AAA games cram everything inside.
For example go look the current demo festival on Steam - RPG and Strategy cathegories are nearly identical, easily 90% overlap, with most of that being the indie equivalent of lowest denominator that is card games.
they're mad about how most games will highlight climbable areas with yellow paint or similar visual cues for accessibility so you're not looking around an area for 30 minutes trying to find the ladder. The FF7 Rebirth demo has some climbable cliffs with it and the average is upset about it despite the fact that the original FF7 had the select button toggle to show you exactly where every room exit/door was for basically the same reason lol.
I'm sure it's due to worker laziness and not an extremely streamlined production process concerned with pumping out games as quickly as possible following a "safe" structure that takes no design chances to maximize appeal
it's a decent feature but it's a bit over-done and you start to wonder who is obsessively climbing all this weird shit to paint it when you're supposed to be the first person who's been somewhere in a 500+ years or you've broken into some facility etc.
wish suits would give level artists the time to make stuff where you don't need the play-design crutch
Slapping yellow paint on where you're supposed to go can't cover up the fact that a game is full of playtime-extension disguised as "exploration". 10% recycled gameplay and 90% filler.
Most armchair designers are interested in design minutia because that’s what they’ve consumed video essays about and that’s what they think real developers spend most of their time doing. Content about bad working conditions is depressing and not nearly as eye catching as some of the other shortcomings of big game dev companies. So yeah, this checks out.
Im so sure based off of intuition if you asked them why the industry deserves the layoffs then the answer wouldn't be because they exploit the workers too hard. I bet they need to retven to something
Okay but the original post is fucking stupid though. The idea that you can't have problems with the aesthetics of a medium because of tbe exploitation of the workers is nonsense and should be fucking dunked on.
Like nobody would call you a bad person for saying Marvel films have bad scores or poorly written dialogue no matter how shitty Disney is to their employees.
I mean op said in a reply that he straight up doesnt think yellow painted cliffs are bad at all and thats why he made this post and I agree with him. They get put there because people dont find that shit on their own and its also a "respecting the players time" thing not to force them to explore everywhere looking for the climbable portion.
Theres probably better ways to do it but. Im with twitter op.
They get put there because people dont find that shit on their own and its also a "respecting the players time" thing not to force them to explore everywhere looking for the climbable portion.
Yeah like in the Sands of Time trilogy. Those games had easily readable climbing elements that respected your paths because of yellow paint
Even if you don't agree with the criticism "You shouldn't make this criticism because the industry is exploitative" is dumb.
Like this is absolute onsense to write either way.
I think the point is that blaming the workers for the shitty writing is myopic, because it really comes down to shitty work conditions, ridiculous deadlines and executive meddling. These people think that their art sucks because the people making it are incompetent, and therefore deserve to the punished, and not because of capitalism, which is the real culprit. They can't see systemic problems because their worldview is highly individualistic.
I'm a developer (currently studying for CS Master's SAT) and I have taken an interest in the game industry for long
Lemme tell ya something, IT'S FUCKING HORRIBLE, the working hours, conditions, wage and benefits are outright dog shit compared to other parts of the industry. Video game developers unironically need a union
Honestly, I kind of agree, but for different reasons. The industry needs to crash just to deprive them of treats and shut them up. They do not deserve the ability to speak let alone entertainment