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[Mahavastu]

In the end, make the budget smaller.
Even If you have "only" 100 Mio, a good team should be able to do pretty much everything. If you get a budget of 300mio, the same dev will happily spend 300mio, even if it might not be visible to the player that much.
The problem is, that it is very very expensive in time and money, to get a game from "very good" to "nearly perfect", and the perfectionism can take large amount of money. Look at Naught Dog, whose games are close to perfection, but they have not released anything this gen despite having a huge team. Most players will be perfectly fine with "very good", if the overall game is great.

If you look at smaller, independend devs, they usually know that they only have budget X and need to release something every Y years to keep the company afloat and bring food to the table. Look at "baldurs gate 3" or "Black Myth Wukong". Maybe they are not perfect in every sense, but still they are huge and bring a lot of fun and sold pretty well.
TLOU2 is a much smaller game than those 2, but was probably way more expensive to make, mostly to reach the perfection.

 

[OGM_Madness]

Raytraycing is one of the factors that helps to speed up development, as its not just used for lighting!
Going back to baked lighting will do the exact opposite and lengthen dev cycles even more!

This not accurate, because unfortunately almost nothing runs Ray Tracing well, meaning Developers have to implement Ray Tracing in parallel with a Baked Lighting solution and make everything toggleable.

 

[Gamer79]

It's much more than just Graphics on why game development has spiraled out of control. A lot of it is spending on useless shit like Focus groups.

 

[Killer8]

There is no easy solution.

If you make the game shorter, people complain.
If you make the world smaller, people complain.
If your game doesn't look better than the last, people complain.
If you make the game cost more to recoup costs, people complain.

Sooner or later developers need to stop caring what gamers think.

 

[Icymanipulator]

AA and other mid budget titles need to start selling multi million copies.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Management actually knowing what their workers are doing and giving realistic deadlines and holding each employee accountable.

There was a video interview of an older dev that used to code. Then through the years, he become a manager at some studio and he tasked his team to do something. They said it would take like a week or two to complete. He called that bullshit out and said it shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours.

I think too many people take advantage of management’s ignorance on the true work being performed. I think the industry needs a serious quality audit on work performed versus work completed.

 

[pudel]

There is no easy solution.

If you make the game shorter, people complain.
If you make the world smaller, people complain.
If your game doesn't look better than the last, people complain.
If you make the game cost more to recoup costs, people complain.

Sooner or later developers need to stop caring what gamers think.

Everything right, except the last sentence. Never stop caring about what yr customer wants...otherwise you are likely in for some real unpleasant surprises. Just look around what happened last year and this year and most likely the next few years.

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

Ask Nintendo. They know how.

 

[mayham2199]

The Netflix syndrome is still in effect, game makers, despite the fact it's dangerous to your health to watch /consume large content in a short period of time, they still choose to follow this formula, like for example alwan wake 2 is too long for it's genre, when you surpass 30 to 40 hrs you could tell this is wrong, the game has to be shorter cause this doesn't feel right, these people are definitely not normal, they're different from the society.

Strange I just beat Alan wake 2 and got the plat. It didn't take me anywhere near 30 to 40 hours. On how long to beat it's listed at 18-20 hours. I agree that 30-40 hours would be to long for Alan Wake 2, hell I think most games should be in the 20-25 range but Alan Wake 2 was just one of those games that was the perfect amount to me.

 

[ProtoByte]

Roll back the fidelity. The biggest-selling games of all time are GTAV and Minecraft. One is a PS360 port and the other has the polygonal density of something released in the '90s. Breath of the Wild has the performance profile of a PS3 game. Most Roblox games look like upscaled PS2 games.

Graphical fidelity would always hit a sustainability threshold and we passed that as we entered this generation. Time to scale back and focus on art direction, writing, performance and mechanics. Really don't want to spend the rest of the generation playing 900p games at sub-60fps for the sake of slightly more accurate reflections and shadows.



Bad comparison. Arkham Knight was a single-player iteration of a series they'd worked on since 2007. SSKTJL was a complete pivot to an online-only, multiplayer live-service looter-shooter, and a shift from a highly customized version of UE3 to an OOTB version of UE4.

So, poor decision making on a bullshit IP and a game genre that the studio had no experience with (btw, that was the choice of the then studio heads Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker). Wow, would you look at that! Nothing to do with graphics. Organizational failures and workflow issues.

Did you ask yourself those critical thinking questions?

 

[SHA]

Strange I just beat Alan wake 2 and got the plat. It didn't take me anywhere near 30 to 40 hours. On how long to beat it's listed at 18-20 hours. I agree that 30-40 hours would be to long for Alan Wake 2, hell I think most games should be in the 20-25 range but Alan Wake 2 was just one of those games that was the perfect amount to me.

You can't speed run in this game, it's said to beat this game depending on what you do it takes between 18 to 40+ hours.

 

[Sentenza]

There is no easy solution.

If you make the game shorter, people complain.
If you make the world smaller, people complain.
If your game doesn't look better than the last, people complain.
If you make the game cost more to recoup costs, people complain.

Sooner or later developers need to stop caring what gamers think.

Oh well, they did. You are observing the consequent results.

Back to the topic.

Go back to hire the ultranerd types who are laser-focused on achieving their vision, who are VERY tech-savy. The ones who can ACTUALLY code and not do just some basic scripting. The ones that want to break new ground with their next game.
The ones that want to code their own engine tailored specifically around their personal needs, the ones that are constantly experimenting at the cutting edge rather than trying to explain to their project manager why they need to "stick to the basics". The ones that want to make something that isn't already out there or that want to improve on what came before rather than merely match it.

Fuck the ones that will tell you that your RPG doesn't really need a day-night cycle, NPC scheduling, physics simulation or reactivity of any type "because it's not the main focus of the experience anyway".
Fuck people who are hired in the hundreds only to shit out a handful of assets a year on Unreal Engine (often the only toolset they are somewhat familiar with) or that are on board only to push their "very progressive" vision of what their working environment should be.
Fuck the ones that spend more hours crying about their work-life balance than doing any actual work and the ones that treat being asked to come at the office for work as a violation of their basic human rights.

You need exceptional (and very dedicated) people to achieve exceptional results (especially on a cost-effective budget).

 

[Dorago]

Fire every single CEO, manager, consultant, DEI hire, H1B, etc.

Make the only two requirements for joining a dev team be that you made at least one game on your own OR you have extensive knowledge of high level programming tasks like writing drivers.

Otherwise you will not be able to contribute anything to the development effort.

 

[Danjin44]

AA and other mid budget titles need to start selling multi million copies.

That never going happen since most of AA game are niche, AA devs like Vanillaware can make unique and risky game like 13 Sentinels because the game doesn't need to sell multi million copies to be successful.

 

[Icymanipulator]

That never going happen since most of AA game are niche, AA devs like Vanillaware can make unique and risky game 13 Sentinels because the game doesn't need to sell multi million copies to be successful.

Ya it’s a consumer problem, not a game problem. Many of these smaller games are great, but the masses won’t buy them in droves.

 

[Crayon]

I just wait. Lazy, I know.

 

[Majukun]

I would say lower scope and focus on delivering good experiences without mindblowing production values that necessitate 15 mln copies sold to break even.

but the a game like avowed comes that pretty much fits the description, and people dogpile on it because it's not the next skyrim, so i don't see that happening anytime soon.

also tbh while I would have loved to test avowed for myself, the game does not even start on my laptop

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Don't keep releasing half baked games once every 6 years.

Make one game and add to it until it's the Taj Mahal. Then keep adding to it.

Gaas baby, Gaas!

Problem solved.

 

[BbMajor7th]

So, poor decision making on a bullshit IP and a game genre that the studio had no experience with (btw, that was the choice of the then studio heads Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker). Wow, would you look at that! Nothing to do with graphics. Organizational failures and workflow issues.

Did you ask yourself those critical thinking questions?

Ah, another champion of critical thinking... You argued that Arkham Knight was better looking despite having a shorter production cycle. I merely pointed out why that was likely to be the case. It doesn't change the fact that producing and animating higher fidelity models and environments is more labour intensive and prone to bugs.

Critical thinking only really demands that a person thinks more broadly than their immediate prejudices. You were merely rehearsing yours.

Boring fact: invoking critical thinking in argument is a form of rhetorical sophistry. It doesn't present an argument or counter-argument, it merely attempts to.assert intellectual authority rather than further discourse.

In.other words: swing and a miss.

 

[Kumomeme]

The push to implement 4K and ray tracing has ruined gaming imo. Go back to PS4-level production at 60+ fps

I've been going through my PS4 backlog on my Portal and all of the games still look fucking amazing

this could be true

instead of go step by step from 720p>1080p and next 1440p, we go straight to 4K instead in very short period of time. thats 4x jump in pixel from 1080p.

not only developers, the gpu maker also struggle to keep up with the resolution performance resulted on it is only feasible on another new tier of very expensive higher end gpu hierachy.

the A.I tech like DLSS helped but there is also another aspect like Ray Tracing which is like added weight to already full trailer truck.

 

[SHA]

There is no easy solution.

If you make the game shorter, people complain.
If you make the world smaller, people complain.
If your game doesn't look better than the last, people complain.
If you make the game cost more to recoup costs, people complain.

Sooner or later developers need to stop caring what gamers think.

Cause we saw the alternative, that's different from being selfish.

 

[TrebleShot]

Starts with the expectation on output.

Smaller budgets and more innovative thinking and originality for example there is a game on steam next fest called "Deliver at all costs" its incredibly refreshing. I doubt the expectation is that it will sell billions will have any live service elements or has a huge budget. But its polished fresh and fun.

 

[Griffon]

AI

 

[BrentonB]

It's on the gamers to show publishers they can release games that don't cost a quarter billion dollars to develop.

Publishers are scared to release AA or A games to supplement AAA budgets and development cycles because gamers won't buy them.

I don't mean we need to buy all the garbage that shows up on Steam, but we all need to broaden our tastes and show publishers they can release smaller games and make money.

When the financial risk of a AAA game is reduced we'll see more variety, innovation, and creativity at the top end of the industry.

Imagine a Jenga tower when the bottom is narrower than the top: unstable and prone to collapse. We need to shore up the foundation of the tower so it can support the weight of these massive games.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Easy, return to form. Graphics don't always sell games.

 

[Spiral1407]

Shorter games with worse graphics. I'm sure the masses would eat it up if we could also guarantee 4K 60fps because of this. And I personally wouldn't mind if AAA looked on par with say, Killzone 2, graphically.

 

[Gamer79]

Sooner or later if this trend continues it will be a decade between titles (GTAIV and Half Life have shown it's already a thing) but to a much more common scale.

 

[mayham2199]

The sad reality is AI will eventually fix all these issues and create new ones. Will be nice though to one day be able to say, "Please remake Mass effect with all the latest tech, using UE5".

 

[DeVeAn]

Ask RGG Studios. They got it down. Queue the reused assets complaints.

 

[Zacfoldor]

Reduce costs. Seems like a large amount of money is being spent on non-mission critical things like DEI, consulting, rent, taxes in high tax state, interest, voice actors, writers, employee perks, ect. At the same time employees are actively encouraged not to work any harder during an emergency(when a game is about to launch) and you end up with a lot of costs that have nothing to do with the actual end product. Woke employees actually hurt the sales of the game but take no responsibility. Slimey reporters cover up for them with the lie that woke doesn't hurt sales and you believe it because it is convenient. It's time to man up. You want to know why the game pipeline is broken? It's being mismanaged in the west. Simple as that.

 

[Ceadeus]

No more open world, sometime there are no reason for it just like Avowed. The game is empty as fuck and took 6 years to complete.

Just go back to individual levels. Shorter game also. No need for 50 hours story

 

[yurinka]

Optimizing the workforce costs

• Reduce the insane salaries and bonuses that executives get to maximum a third of what they get right now
• Reduce the amount of intermediate bosses that add nothing and only send mails and attend to meetings
• Axe anything related to DEI both in terms of HR and game content woke censorship, including in-house staff and external censors/'consultants' (Sweet Baby, GLAAD, Queer Vox, etc)
• Reduce the % of workers in the lead dev studio, increase the % of worker studios in support teams who work from cheaper countries
• Instead of creating and growing lead development studios in expensive places like California, invest way more instead in cheap Asian countries, plus East and South Europe
• Reduce the amount of game engines being used by all the internal teams to 1 or 2
• Use genAI to speedup creation of brainstorming, placeholders, drafts, of character design, 3d models, textures, writing, music, sfx, in addition to tweak and enhnace/upscale assets
• Better achiving and reuse of code and assets from previous games of the company to save work (no need to make the same plants, rocks and trees for each game)
• More procedural generation (location) for cosmetic environment art and prop asset placement, less hand placed small rocks, trees, plants...
• Cut most of many of the stupid, unneeded luxury benefits that workers from AAA companies have

Optimizing the AAA game type

• Stop making games with SP+MP, split them into separate only SP or only MP standalone games
• Go back to make most AAA games 10-15 hours long for campaign + other 10-15h of secondary/optional stuff
• Make less online MP games
• Release MP games as a smaller MVP in early access instead of super full featured, to later add more stuff post-launch if the game works well enough

Optimizing the revenue generated

• Release more games as early access and preorder betas before their real final release:
  • Help self-fund part of the budget before final release
  • Helps to detect and fix key issues before final release
  • Helps to better detect cases where the game will tank, so they can cancel the marketing efforts or the game itself if needed
• Increase the price in USA to $80 in order to match the current 80€ EU price
• Increase the digital and physical collector editions
• Maybe not releasing everywhere day one, but consider ports to PC+all consoles where it fits+(if makes sense for that specific case) mobile
• Invest more on better usage of these gaming IPs outside these games: using them in other games as guest content, adaptation to movies, tv series, anime, documentaries, oficial artbook / making of books / guides, toys, board games, model kits / figurines, novels, audio books, apparel, tote bags, merchandising, theme park rides, museum exhibitions...

 

[Nintendo's Witch]

AI

 

[Parazels]

AI will save gaming!

 

[Clear]

Here's the answer...





... (Hint, you aren't going to like it)

Spoiler

Expect Less.

 

[Generic]

Stop releasing new consoles and GPUs.

 

[yogaflame]

It might be controversial and honestly, have reservation about it and ethical issues, but it is AI.

 

[phant0m]

Less people on dev teams. Stop scope creep. Stop consultants and corporate meddling. Stop RT nonsense. Target 60fps.

 

[kevboard]

any dev team that exceeds more than 200 people should look into downsizing...