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Shawn Layden “AA gaming is gone and that’s a threat to ecosystems”
- Thread starter GulfCoastZilla
- Start date
yurinka
Member
Seems that Shawn Layden doesn't know that companies like the Embracer Group, Nintendo or Paradox exist. There's a gazillion AA games being developed and released.
There are many games that people assume are AAA games or small indie games but in terms of budget they fit better in the AA category.
There are many games that people assume are AAA games or small indie games but in terms of budget they fit better in the AA category.
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ShadyAcshuns
Member
Unique AA games were my bread and butter in a world of unimpressive indies and cookie-cutter AAA garbage. The lack of them has certainly led to me losing interest in gaming as a whole. That's fine because I have other hobbies and interests to throw my money at.
March Climber
Member
I think he is half right, because sometimes when a successful AA company begins to thrive, they tend to be noticed and then absorbed by a larger entity.
mayham2199
Member
I couldn't disagree more. My guess is because he isn't seeing these games get massive marketing pushes (which they shouldn't) he thinks it's gone.
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Astray
Member
Literally all of those are AAA.
Wukong alone cost over $70m to make. Stellar Blade and Re:Fantazio have 1200-1400 people working on each. Space Marine 2 had ~2000 people.
Jinxed
Member
This. It was a strong return in force this year for AA titles.
Astray
Member
And how is Embracer Group or Paradox doing? Not too good and that's his point.
Nintendo is also complaining about rising costs.
GymWolf
Gold Member
Those sound like numbers from rockstar or ubisoft tbh, very hard to believe, unless they count even the people who clean the offices
And from a brief reasearch, wukong only costed around 40 mil and with a relatively small team.
Black Myth: Wukong reportedly cost around $43 million to make – and this $60 action RPG has now sold over 20 million copies across PC and PS5
It far outsold its costs in just a month
edit: this is a reddit post from a stellar blade dev andhe says that they were less than 100 people 5 months ago, and the game budget seems around 30-50 mil (brief research so i can be wrong)
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The reason why they're absorbed into a larger entity is because AA developers know how precarious their situation is. If they were confident in big gains for their future they wouldn't sell. AA just doesn't sell.
March Climber
Member
I don't blame any AA company for wanting to be absorbed into a larger one due to the precariousness you mentioned. The only thing I find aggravating is when the larger entity absorbs an AA company and then treats them like an AAA company with a near zero understanding of how that AA company's pipeline works. Whether that be giving them a project that is simply too huge, or moving up their release to a date that's way too soon.
It is essentially rescuing them and then immediately throwing them to the wolves.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
it's your fault Shawn
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
You can think of any number of reasons for why certain games fail.
The fact of the matter is that this industry used to be filled with smaller studios making games in 2 - 3 years. That was the dominant model at one point.
It's no longer the dominant model because gamers don't prefer those types of games on the whole.
The entire market has shifted under the feet of many.
March Climber
Member
Yea I could, but that's not what I'm talking about here, in this thread.
Magic Carpet
Gold Member
AA has moved to VR where new games seem to release for only 40 bucks.
midnightAI
Member
Can I ask where you got those figures from? (Especially Stellar Blade)
Woopah
Member
I really encourage people here to actually read the article and not just the headline.
How is that different to what Shawn is saying?
Woopah
Member
He works at Tencent games and these quotes are from an on-stage interview at Gamescom Asia. I'd really recommend reading the full article.
nial
Member
This is not a very good way to look at things. You're not going to have any game by a big publisher without hundreds of people at the credits. It's mostly localization, QA, publishing, etc. staff. This stuff barely makes up to the game budget (if it even does at all).
The development team of Stellar Blade had 100 or so people from Shift Up Second Eve Studio, with 5 guys from SIE XDEV doing production work.
nial
Member
Eh, not true. Though, I still have no idea what he even did as 'chairman' of WWS.
yurinka
Member
Everybody complains about the costs, because the costs rise every generation, as games get bigger and more detailed.
Regarding Embracer or Paradox, they are performing as the are: mid tier, AA.
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Astray
Member
Contractors are the hidden force here. People look at studio headcounts, but contractors can easily inflate the overall team headcount.Those sound like numbers from rockstar or ubisoft tbh, very hard to believe, unless they count even the people who clean the offices
Moby Games.
Moby Games has 1200 credited people for Stellar Blade. Which kinda tracks, the game is incredibly polished and I don't think it's just 5 people from XDEV to thank for that.
The real miracle is probably Palworld, game has less than 200 devs and already breached more than 10m copies sold without launching day 1 on PlayStation.
Embracer have had a lot of financial issues and let one of the biggest hits of the year slip through their fingers in order to survive (Space Marine 2).
Paradox has been facing flop after flop, to the point where its higher-ups are on an apology tour.
Generally, AA games are being very squeezed by AAAs from above and indies punching up from below.
Ridicululzz
Member
What exactly is the cutoff for AAA vs AA? Is there some sort of table I can reference somewhere
Angry_Megalodon
Banned
Apart from the headline, we have a match on the facts but not on the conclusions. Execs complaining about the high risk of AAA games nowadays don't blame their peers. They rather mention some mysterious forces that push companies to pursue these suicidal investments.
I don't agree with that. There's a vicious circle in which executives without a gaming culture want to make video games a junk food product, and for that purpose, they hire developers who align with that vision.
Jinxed
Member
He can't see ray tracing unless he has a 8k tv and playing in a dark room. Doubt he can see what's the difference between a AA and AAA game.What exactly is the cutoff for AAA vs AA? Is there some sort of table I can reference somewhere
bender
What time is it?
nial
Member
I know, that's where I got this info.
The XDEV producers don't really account for technical polishing, they're just there to manage the project and provide the funding directly to it. If you've read a bit about the creation of film or anime, maybe you will notice that they essentially act as the representatives of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. in the production of Stellar Blade.
Most of the SIE people is the same kind of staff that you will find in every of their other games -because it's important to remember, SIE is a big publisher with tons of global operations, so you will even find the frickin' Japanese localization staff over there!-, so as I said, it's not a good measurement on the overall budget of the title.
LEGO Horizon Adventures will also have hundreds of SIE staff in the credits, and that game's budget is looking to be as low as it can be (not a bad thing in itself).
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Hari Seldon
Member
This is definitely just a console thing. All I play are these smaller tier games.
My top games this year:
Enshrouded
Sins of a Solar Empire 2
Age of Mythology Retold
Songs of Conquest
WARNO
Hades 2
I think the only AAA game I played this year was CFB25.
My top games this year:
Enshrouded
Sins of a Solar Empire 2
Age of Mythology Retold
Songs of Conquest
WARNO
Hades 2
I think the only AAA game I played this year was CFB25.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
$70m is a AA budget
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
????
What would you call these?
Do people not talk to other human beings? He obviously didn't mean literally. How do people have this much trouble with communication?
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
90% of games I bought this gen were AA games, there is no shortage of them.....people just ignore them and pretend they are less of them.
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
The trouble is, people ignore the piss out of AA games like Psychonauts 2 or the Alone in The Dark reboot which bombed so bad it's devs almost immediately folded.
Above a certain budget, if it doesn't have hype, it ain't gonna make shit.
Above a certain budget, if it doesn't have hype, it ain't gonna make shit.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
It's not that AA games aren't being made, it's that games companies don't promote them because the potential profits are seen as too small.
Greed is the problem. Greed is always the problem.
Greed is the problem. Greed is always the problem.
yurinka
Member
Nah, Embracer got a deal that was going to give them a ton of money. They gave it for granted but lost the deal and didn't get that money so got fucked and had to make a lot of cuts losing a lot of money.
Other than that they are fine.
Paradox had some flop from time to time but posted record revenue this year, they are fine, too:
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Hypereides
Gold Member
They're out there, but barely anyone is talking about them, in the media anyway. That's the real issue. You got these supposed gaming media outlet full of "gaming enthusiasts" who'd rather blabber about the latest AAA or political opinio-topic of the week rather than actually nerd out and dive into all sorts of games. AA games are one of those key issues these "gaming enthusiasts" gloss over way too often or write off and dump for weird reasons.
Honestly get the impression most of these CEOs don't really play games, engage in the community or are ill-informed about what's out there.
Honestly get the impression most of these CEOs don't really play games, engage in the community or are ill-informed about what's out there.
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eerik9000
Member
He was the chairman of PlayStation's Worldwide Studios, he was responsible for overseeing the first-party production. He must have had a good understanding where the budgets and timelines were going. He, at least in small part, helped to steer the industry in this direction. He even said that having longer development cycles was their decision:
Sony's Shawn Layden wants fewer, bigger PlayStation games
Video game makers are struggling to adapt to the internet era. With the PS5 on the horizon, Sony's video game boss has a plan.
www.cnet.com
Woopah
Member
I think he is at least partially blaming peers in these quotes, for focusing too much on games as a product rather than something fun:
"And you're [looking] at sequels, you're looking at copycats, because the finance guys who draw the line say, 'Well, if Fortnite made this much money in this amount of time, my Fortnite knockoff can make this in that amount of time.' We're seeing a collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production."
"If you're going to pitch me your AA game, and in the first two pages of your deck is your monetisation and revenue, subscription scheme, I'm out. Your first page has to be 'This game needs to be made and here's why'."
sono
Gold Member
How have they changed so much. Do they choose to play bad games over good ones
dmaul1114
Banned
For me there’s just less space in my gaming time for AA (or indie stuff) these days as there’s so many AAA games I want to play that I can’t keep up. And end of the day I prefer the top level graphics, voice acting, production values etc. and my gaming tastes are pretty well met by AAA games. I do play some smaller/lower budget games here and there, but more when I want a shorter, palette cleanser between big/long higher budget games.