the Into the Spiderverse analogy is very good. Puss in Boots learned from that, noting the unique comic book animation spin, and made their own unique animation spin with more of a fantasy angle.
Legitimately one of the best comparisons to draw. Into the spiderverse also showed animators that sometimes, you don't need more frames per second to make the movie breathtaking and impressive. The movie actually animates itself IIRC 24 frames, which is unusual. But, it was on purpose to emphasize comic book style features like stippling, action onomatopoeia, ben-day dots. And the fact, that Puss in Boots saw that shit, and took inspiration to create almost neon color spectrums, slower framerates, and action frames like comics was fucking amazing.
Wait, correction its even better than I thought. Most of the characters in ITSV do animate at 24 frames, except for Miles Morales who animates at 12 frames. This makes his movement look slow and janky compared to the rest of the screen. But, as he is trained by Peter, and after he actually puts on the suit he jumps up to 24 frames and he's as smooth as his counterparts.
Then we got the new TMNT movie which looks like a comic drawn by a teenager with marker and pencil. I mean that in a good way, the movie looks amazing.
A reminder, the original rollercoaster tycoon was coded by one masochist developer in assembly language and was so optimized nearly anyone can play it making it massively successful.
@thomasboob559 There have been an unreasonable amount of shit releases in the past few years(including this year). how is this one of the best years in gaming ever?
@thomasboob559 nah bud the biggest issue is hypocrites nowadays n those who are hypocrites should lose everything n never have a say in anything ever again
It's not like they "just" hired him, Destin has been at IGN for 10+ years 😂and is an industry vet, I'm guessing seniority is why they let him post that, IGN has not said anything useful or productive in years😂
Destin Legarie has always been a massive W for IGN. I remember he did the unlocked podcast with Brendan Tyrill and Mitch Dyer about anthem or fallout 76. Brendan did the review. Mitch did the guide. Destin straight up told the audience the game was trash and to save your money. Like a good person. Brendan and Mitch proceeded to bitch him out. Not because they felt he was wrong. But because they wanted the clicks on the review and guide. They even called him disingenuous to the fans. SMH. Destin is the man
Dude should be able to find a job that appreciates that kinda no nonsense bullshit not be scolded for it. Hope he sticks to his guns regardless of any pushback from stooges, literally the only kinda voice people wanna hear and these companies create an environment to shut it up for more money and views.
@@Shift_Saltseems like he has somewhat of a following. He could capitalize on that by creating his own channel, but then again that could interfere with IGN so idk.
Destin Lagarie is fantastic. Ryan McCaffery is great. Travis Northup seems pretty good. Shannon Liao writes a lot of ridiculous junk for ragebait Wesley Yin-Poole wrote just an objectively false article recently.
I always liked Destin and Ryan, though they aren’t perfect, they still tend to go way too easy on publishers and whatnot, they were more realistic and tend to lean towards realism rather than just blatant fanboyism
Agreed. He's always been legit. Anybody who actually saw any IGN content would know this. One of the few rare people in gaming journalism who has real integrity.
It’s also important to note that Larian did not start out with a lot of people, but has garnered more throughout the development process because they realized they needed more manpower. Also, their studio has been heavily affected by a war, so like, wtf.
@@vaals1942 as I understand it, one of their offices was based in St Petersburg, which for obvious reasons has been shut down. They have also had employees trapped in both Russia and Ukraine.
Turns out that gaming rising to the top of the entertainment industry was actually bad news for gamers because it attracted "money people" that couldn't care less about the products they pump out as long as their marketing team can trick enough people to buy it. It's great to see that whenever a company does the opposite, gamers tend to rally behind it, if the message gets through to a couple AAA studios we might even get more than one high budget game a year that is finished and functioning at launch.
Those money hungry execs have always been there, it's just that pushing unfinished, buggy, microtransaction-filled garbage has only become more profitable than good and finished games in the last decade or so.
@@yookie255 the execs were there, but the investors that they have to impress in quarterly meetings were not. before, bad execs would take much more short-sighted paths that led to their downfall quickly, like Atari did. now all they have to do is suck up to investors and they can get money from a smaller group of people with more money than consumers. basically, game journos wanted gaming to be like Hollywood so very badly in the mid-late 2000s, and they got their wish. hope they're satisfied
Yep when something like faze went public. No new investor was aware of the gaming community and started doing things nobody in that space wanted.That means people who know jackshit about games will find the best way to monetize the game. And make you spend time and money for it. I hope aaa studios start losing more money on their games and stop this bs trend of putting out the same loot box, season pass game every year
I mean Sonic Frontiers was kind of a step in the right direction for SEGA. Especially with that free DLC it got (nightmarish difficulty upon launch notwithstanding)!
Deadlines + management has been the limiter in every single work project I've ever done. Anyone saying otherwise in these comments ("they lack passion or X game would be better" LMAO) is a child or has 0 idea of what dev work actually entails.
I fuckin hate how they are on about the devs… it’s not passion for the craft it’s the fuckin leads and firms. The studio of BG3 actually treat their devs like humans unlike majority of studios
I guess that’s fair but if a company is releasing sub par products over and over then they deserve to go out of business. This is true in any industry. If you found out coca cola was putting lead in their drinks and got backlash for it, and then some flavorologist came out and said “well, it’s the shareholders!” would you care? 😂 I would probably start looking for a new job if you’re at one of those studios because this is only going to get worse and people are obviously sick of it.
@@Evan_Stark I'd start looking for a new job because these studios are managed like shit to begin with. It's not that devs don't want to create Rockstar-level masterpieces. It's that creating a Rockstar-level masterpiece traditionally entails 70+ hours weeks and nobody wants that. They are scared that their shithole studios will throw them back in the grinder for more crunching.
Yo, remember how everyone was mad a Mizkif for the Adrianah Lee thing? Remember how that internal investigation said he was innocent with zero proof? Remember how just over half a year ago Charlie had nothing but bad things to say about the situation, like how the things he said in the leaked discord call were disturbing, how it took him several tries to get his Twitter apology right because he didn't understand what the problem was, how is come back stream was in really poor taste, and how Charlie agreed with Ludwig that if he wasn't a big member of the company OTK wouldn't have taken him back? Yeah, apparently Charlie doesn't remember any of that as he's made content with Miz for his RU-vid channel. Funny thing is Charlie has never promoted that video or, since the aligations came out, openly supported Miz on any public platform. It's almost like he was on the bandwagon to hate him less than a year ago, but now that everyone's forgot he's cool being e-friends with him again, but he won't show it to anyone except an audience that already supports Miz. Kind of seems to me like he's being a coward and a giant hypocrite...
@@Orchidbeetle possibly, the journalist in that IGN video I seem to recognize, he's been there quite a while I used to use the IGN site quite religiously back in high school, I stopped and just avoided using their site like the plague cause you can only take so much disappointment before you reach the limit, although there was the occasional W they would do here and there, but was usually followed by a Fat L, enough said.
That's Destin Legarie, he's been making gaming content for probably close to 20 years at this point. He worked for years for a now-defunct website called ScrewAttack@@bobafett4265
This isn’t a new baseline. It isn’t a new standard. It’s a return to the old gold standard where devs actually made a game with love. A full and complete game made with the fans and not trying to bleed the pockets of their consumers.
@@Manue_12 This is like World of Warcraft. Game entirely ruined because the suits in charge of the devs just wanted to run it into the ground and put it into a managed decline to suck the money out of people. Really sad stuff. hopefully Microsoft allows blizzard to make quality. Probably no going back to good old blizzard tho. That's in the past.
I think the biggest issue with big development studios is that the management is getting more and more detached from the playerbase or even the developers. One thing I noticed is that with modern AAA games the mindset with which those games are planned out is one out of business school but not from reality. The management thinks they need to make as much money as possible and retain as well as gain customers and you do that by having good design, branding and marketing and not necessarily by having the best product which is why those bad games are being published and the actually good AAA games are being criticized because of their design or something.
Very good point. The development of a game is seen as part of the business model, a part to be exploited for profit. If that means overworking your developers and making them release undercooked products, then so be it. Profit is king.
Pretty much. Kinda similar to Hollywood. You got this multi-franchise blockbusters and whatnot, but they'll never surpass something like a Tarantino film. Calculated formula from a think tank vs the director's character and vision. It's art. You need passionate artists, not businessmen.
Yeah, I think this is it. Business approach to art just hasn't ever been shown to work on a long term basis. A good game and a lame game has a super fine margin, and there's nuance. A lot of these games where the mask of a good game, and are solid on paper, but lack the "soul" of a good game. The best games have passion, and tend to be the creators expressing themselves in some manner.
Yup. Triple A games are all about the marketting. That's also why they chase realistic PC melting graphics. Because it's way easier to sell screenshots and trailers then a game that puts gameplay over looks. That and trend chasing. Battle royale becomes successful? Cram it into every single one of our games. Battlepasses become the new thing? Shove it into our games, and if impossible, kill the game then make a sequel with all of microtransactions, even better if you have to pay for the game in the first place, also borrow the sea of DLCs from Paradox that's sure gonna bring us all of the money. It's no longer about making a game players could enjoy, hell even you yourself as a dev could enjoy. It's all about making a product that as profitable and requires as little effort as possible.
I think it all boils down to the simple fact that some companies put noticeable amounts of love into the production of their new titles, and the companies who don’t are realizing just how soulless they are
@@AlechiaTheWitchOr in some cases, we cannot allow our devs to have this much time and money put into our products that’s unreasonable for our billion dollar company.
They're managing expectations. It's like preemptive damage control; they know that if the gamers see what modern games can truly become, they'll start asking for these companies to match their performance. They're perfectly capable of it, but they DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT. Giving crappy games to consumers with PTSD and rockbottom expectations is SO much easier than making an actual quality experience.
The thing that has always baffled me is the way these companies, across multiple industries, feel entitled to our acceptance and praise. It's legitimately friggin weird.
It might have started earlier, but Ghostbusters 2016 really popularized publicly blaming fans for the failure of entertainment products. It actually kinda worked for far longer than anyone expected (I say "kinda worked" because fans have seen right through it from day 1, but mainstream media, entertainment companies and normal people did initially fall for it) but it seems like wider society is finally waking up to that tactic. Doesn't mean some idiots aren't still gonna try it anyway though.
The problem is, it's just a few percent of them who are being fussy like that but they're tarnishing the rest of the team. I mean, a creative production team usually consisted of a lot of people who are most likely overworked and underpaid but some jerk just went to social media to whine and make the rest of them look bad. For comparison, I have a couple of concept art artist acquaintances who are way too busy to even look at social media and they spent their time either working or resting, rather than complaining on social media they'd rather get some sleep. I think companies have to start training their employees to stop whining on the internet.
It's not weird, the problem is the gaming community that gobbles up any shit that these game companies throw at them, they whine and complain but they always throw their money for the shit that game companies throw And if they're getting profits without even trying to do anything new then why try?
The people working in those formerly great now dying massive corporations got there because working at such a place was prestigious to them, so this attitude of entitlement coming from their employees isnt a surprise
It's a symptom of late-stage capitalism. The corpos have so much influence that the hot shots think they're entitled to your approval. Let them seethe and get that reality check cemented.
To be honest, while this kind of attitude is unusual for media companies, it’s actually pretty common for the tech industry. Whenever a tech company releases a product that pushes the bounds of the field and outcompetes the products of other companies, those other companies tend to get really paniced and sometimes defensive about it. Since game development is a cross between media and tech and many of the people involved do come from a tech background, it could very well be that attitudes carrying over.
I can tell you exactly why this is. A gap in mentality. With media companies their products are mostly art in some form or another. It’s subjective, not objective. Most projects of that nature do have a business component to be sure but the actual creation aspect is a matter of personal tastes, passion and inspiration. They see someone else succeed and it makes them wonder what they can do to improve their own work, and what techniques and tricks they can adapt to their own style. Tech companies? It’s a far harder numbers game and more business driven. You often cannot borrow what the other guy has since it’s proprietary, and it’s a far more cut throat and competitive space. So while there are a few people who will try and up their game it’s far easier to explain why you might not be able to reach the same standard the other guy did, usually because of finite resources… which is the knee jerk response we see here, despite Larion being SMALL by most AAA studio standards. It’s not a good look, especially when we have stuff like Bungie’s most recent debacle claiming they don’t have the resources for free yearly cosmetics despite being documented saying it only takes one guy 20 minutes to make a new set.
in my experience, on the contrary this kind of shit talking is near nonexistent in the tech industry, maybe apart from Musk who is a pro at being uncollaborative. Every time something mind blowing comes up, most of the industry get in a rush to have board meetings. They dont speak publicly until much later, but in the backend they all immediately go for behind-the-scenes business tie-ups and favourable deals. Months later once all the deals are finalized they'll come out and say "we are collaborating with so and so and blah blah blah" The reason for that is in tech, you dont try to reinvent everything in-house all the time(even if you do, you'll fail and fall back to industry standards). Almost everyone is a customer of everyone else.
@@slate8409 not at all, it's a real tangible gap in what studios have. Take the best studio in the world, biggest in the world.... Take anyone except Larian, and they will have a lot of problems making a game like BG3. We know that BG3 is blessed in having long dev cycle, large experienced team, a huge IP, but what's not spoken about much is how Larian didn't start BG3 from 0. There was never an empty project file for BG3. They had environment building tools and assets from Divinity. They had combat mechanics and calculators from divinity. They have tons of specific tools and pipelines pre-made for making this game. It's weird that people are going on about "oh devs are freaking out!" but like, simple facts is do you expect two people to get the same results if one of them has a set of brilliant tools? If yes, well... Sucks to be you. If no... Well, what effort and time do you think would be needed by a dev studio to create the equivelant tool set that Larian have after Divinity 1 and 2?
@@HuwbaccaWhy would other studios not have similar advantages in terms of preexisting assets, large teams, etc.? Nobody is expecting a small studio to do this… We are expecting large companies to be able to output the same quality. They have the resources and the money and the teams. There’s just no excuse. Also yeah most games don’t start from scratch nobody said otherwise
Not every studio should strive for the scope or production values of BG3, but they absolutely should be striving to emulate its polish and game studios should absolutely be putting the same love in. I'm talking about smaller studios of course, the big studios have no excuses whatsoever, resourcing when Larian is the smallest studio by about 100 people.
Actually, IGN, had _two_ great takes recently. They also released an excellent mini doc about Aquatic Ambience, which is one of the best video game music ever made.
@MazDconDecepticon he's barely a console warrior, he has a preference for xbox but he calls them out on their shit when necessary as he also does with playstation.
I started playing D2 in the fall 2022, a little after the Witch Queen campaign came out. I've enjoyed the game very much so far, but over these past couple months I've steadily seen its cracks and how the community repeatedly brings them up to Bungie, only to not be listened to, just given more things to buy. As Axtecross once said: "We used to go to a store to find a game, now we go into a game and find a store." Gave me shivers. Edit: Lol thx for the likes and replies everyone. To clarify: D2 is Destiny 2, a game mentioned in this video.
This has been a thing since before lightfall during hauntedbut everyone's noticing it now because it's popular to talk about it. This was talked about even farther back in seraph, while I'm glad people are noticing it I think it's disingenuous to claim the cracks have appeared recently. No, people were just willing to ignore them because witch queen was a great expansion. Now they don't have a great expansion to carry them throughout the year.
Somehow this reaction from the devs is so unique to video gaming too. Like could you imagine McDonald's makes a new deal for a menu item and Burger Kings social media response is just not to expect items to be that good of a deal on their end as its completely unrealistic...
Not so sure about that. The devs reaction reminds me of these recent rants by movie/show producers shitting on their audience. I know those were more along the lines of "the audience consists of stupid doo-doo heads" but I feel like it comes from the same place. A mix of entitlement, lack of self reflection and inability to handle criticism.
@@fabian11235Thats right, its victim blaming by the companies. "Oh you don't like spending money on this piece of shit we've spent 6 months working on?? You're just a moron with terrible taste and thats not our problem!" And they only are able to continue that perspective because gamers and or movie fans will always want something new. Even if the latest release was bad, they hope for a better one next year. As a lifelong call of duty fan I think this is the standard mindset for its older player base. People have been unhappy with the game for years yet you notice they continue to release cookie cutter versions of the last game, still full of microtransactions, a bland short lived campaign, and forced play style online that they know people do not want. But because people still come around and buy the next one, and they still buy the in game bullshit they overcharge for, they have the money to do it over and over and over again. Its a wave they are riding, it won't last forever but for now its working so thats what they do.
Creating art for popular enjoyment > Creating a product for profit Back when art and innovation drove the gaming industry. Nowadays, every venture has been mapped out by the companies, so no need for more artistic ventures in their eyes. They "know" what makes money now, so they double down on these garbage mentalities and products
Im a game dev (Indie, not AAA) and I think Baldurs Gate 3 is nothing short of inspiring... Its such a relief to see a big budget, successful game be built with a true sense of passion and earnest drive to make something beautiful.. Its the kind of game that caused 8-10 year old me to fall in love with games to beginw ith
Another more indie example from recent months would be Battlebit Remastered. Three guys who liked open FPS with destruction mechanics, and decided to make one with constant feedback from very interested and invested fans. End result? A game that's pretty much a low-res version of the exact type of Battlefield game that the BF fanbase have been clearly trying to spell out to DICE and EA for years now. It's still indie and early access, but the core gameplay is literally everything that fanbase has been asking for. Really shows you the difference between just a handful of guys working with a clear goal in mind, and a bloated giant developer deciding on a game's direction based on corporate interests, market trends and stockholder greed just breaking a franchise at it's core based on whims and vague corporate speak from investment bros.
@@lexanderthakur2209I would start developing with games in genres I like to play, this may not be right for you but I think that is a good place to start.
The guys at Larian who thought to show off the bear sex scene before release are gonna go down as some of the greatest gaming heroes of the modern age. Get the internet hooked on the concept through something truly wacky, smack everyone curious on the face with a masterpiece and prompt them to keep playing, and watch as game devs mald over the quality of the product
We're in an age where creating products has a couple essential features: 1) planned obselence so you buy the next thing, 2) predatory marketing to secure the sale, but overall does not care about you. In every aspect of life the cost of living is rising sharply, and frankly, big game devs aren't exempt from the group of people that want to squeeze the life out of you so they can splurge a little extra on their weekly saturday night fine dining gluttony experience.
Destin Legarie has been around gaming journalism for years and has always been great. I wish they'd put him in front of the camera more often. He has his own channel too, for those interested.
But how then can Ign shill if they have a visible employee calling out the gaming space bs?! (heavy /s) I would definitely go to Ign more for opinions if this Destin Legarie got more sway there.
I like Destin. He does have his fanboy moments, but he usually tries to stay as objective as he can, and he is more than willing to call out video game companies over their bullshit.
I also love that the Larian CEO isn't taking all of this lying down, no, he's clapping back at every point and turn. There is no publisher behind Larian, Larian did this as a self-funded project. Larian, when you look at the mega-giants like Acti-blizz, Bungie, and Ubisoft, don't really have a wildly large team. Larian just took their time, listened to community feedback on their beta, and released a finished product that, while admittedly has some annoying bugs and one game-breaking bug (Druid insta-gibs have entered the chat) They've already begun fixing bugs, week 1.
If that's the case, it's probably the sole reason why they were able to pull this off. 99% of devs want to make a good game, capitalistic profit motives undermine them and create the world we see today. Same reason why small, indie projects are so often better than huge budget projects -- no vampires lording over the creators.
This is FACTS. I am a solo game dev and I've been working on my dream game for past 2.5 years, i just want to make it as best as possible. It is immense amount of work, no doubt. But you gotta do it. Hats off to Baldur 3 for showing these guys!
i am looking forward to it, considering most of the greatest indie games recently have been solo/duo dev projects such as SiGNALiS , DUSK, HollowKnight, Ultrakill, killbug, incision etc. i wish u luck
I'm so glad Baldur's Gate came out at a time like this. For the last 5 or so years the only games I've wanted to play have been indie releases and maybe a couple AAA releases (the only one coming to mind right now is BoTW and ToTK). Since this is the case I've been looking at more analog games which are quite fun and a great hobby. Great content as always, Charlie!
Who would have thought that in 2023 the best game of the year-probably decade-is a Baldur’s Gate? It’s poetic: the first two simultaneously set a new standard of RPGs (and put BioWare on the map). Now the third is doing the same.
You’re missing out on FromSoftware games it sounds like. Demon’s and Dark Souls reinvigorated the gaming industry and my interest in gaming as well. Elden Ring was amazing too so they’re still going hard.
The real reason bigger "AAA" companies buy out smaller studios after a smaller studio releases a successful, standard-raising game is because they know that the smaller dog will grow to be a threat to their profit margins later.
Don’t forget about this: “Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE) also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate", is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences in order to strongly disadvantage its competitors. Who’s buying up all the gaming studios? Oh right, Microsoft.
I chuckled when he remarked, "We're not really familiar with Game Design." This struck me as amusing because in the realm of AAA games, the roles of game developers and game designers are typically distinct, except in cases like modestly-funded indie games. The present challenge lies in the influx of seasoned developers and designers whose output stagnates, either due to an inability or unwillingness to introduce novel content or mentor emerging designers. This is a contributing factor to the homogeneity observed in many games, owing to their creation by identical groups of individuals.
Me being in architecture, I cannot imagine bemoaning other firms for making great looking buildings and not trying to learn something from their designs. If this mentality was in my industry, we would all be calling out famous architects like Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, etc and saying that you should expect every building we design to look as monolithic as possible. You know, like the more mundane Soviet era architecture. I could not imagine not trying to put your best and most creative foot forward while designing.
If the bad mentality was industry standard there wouldn’t be any industry, we would be in the Stone Age. Feels like humanity is regressing because of comfortability and complacency.
Dude, in the same field and this resonated with me, I wholly agree. The state of games atm just is sad and when someone releases a game in a state of completion its seen as an accomplishment. It's like building the inner structure of a skyscraper and telling tenants to move in and we'll sell you the outer layers as DLC.
It feels like these devs forgot one of the most important lessons for any type of skill you ever wanna improve on: learn to learn. Never stop learning everyone!
Srsly, feels like all these devs who made these tweets are all scrubs in the FGC. People who only wanna win, learns nothing about their opponent and blames the opponent for defeating them.
I honestly hope they give Destin a raise for producing such quality work that resonates with the average person who has been playing video games since the 90s.
One thing game studios also have to realize, gamers are willing to wait for a long time for a good product. Baldurs gate 3 took its time to develop and it shows
BG is an absolutely amazing game. It’s not perfect, but it is so refreshing to play a game at launch and it actually works. A dev that is willing to do that is deserving of my money.
The only argument I heard that I actually agree with, that still makes the big studios look like complete idiots, is the fact that Larian has been using and improving the same systems for over a decade now. And not something like farcry or assissians creed, they actually improve and grow the systems they are familiar with and make better games because of it.
@davidaitken8503 Nintendo has a few games that I would argue against. But they kind of have to release good games, their consoles haven't been top of the line in a while (which doesn't mean much considering other first party games being so bad).
@@Jdjdbxdj My comment wasn't meant to be sarcastic. I'm simply saying that their are other companies out their that do release quality, finished, games.
A handful of crazy degenerates laughing at him, but probably a million+ cheering him on and his solid and reasonable take Getting laughed at and labelled by these people is a badge of honour these days hahahahaha
I have a few thoughts about this, so let's go. 1: This weirdly reminds me of Stray. That game popped off and is pretty much universally beloved. It also has a fairly long and well documented development schedule, but crucially, it seems that the team that made that game - a relatively small group, mind you - stuck through it because they had a firm and unified vision for the game from day one. They made the best cat game, because everyone cared. BG3 seems to have that same clarity of vision. Everyone cared. 2: I don't know why publishers aren't looking at high profile disasters like Cyberpunk, Redfall and Golum and thinking that they need to do better. In all three of these cases, poor project management from the publisher caused a disaster, and in two cases, completely killed the studios that made them. Arkane Austin basically collapsed before during and after Redfall came out because nobody at the one studio making high profile im-sims wanted to make a live service L4D clone, and even less of them wanted to stick around for the fallout, but the publisher and management demanded it anyway. In Gollum's case, the LOTR license and brief to make a big budget videogame was handed to a studio whose previous work had been almost exclusively POINT AND CLICK ADVENTURE GAMES. Finally, the infamous Cyberpunk launch was the direct result of management fucking everything up and failing to manage the scope of the project, and it took a truly phenomenal animated series to make people come back. Cyberpunk still remains well short of what it could have been. 3: The success of Devolver Digital and New Blood shows that there are, in fact, publishers that give a shit. You can play any game from those two publishers and be assured that whatever you're going to play will be a quality product. They even go out of their way to signal boost good games made by small teams and individuals who aren't in their wheelhouse because that's just good for the community at large. They choose good projects by good people, and they let those people cook. 4: I feel like big publishers and studios are currently stuck in a destructive ouroboros of "bigness" that they can't escape. At some point, publishers decided everyone wants their games to be more and more impressive - by way of size and technology, not anything else. This has caused a spiral where costs are ballooning and the level of fidelity they're trying to achieve keeps demanding greater and greater resources. We need to start limiting the scope of big budget games or else this will just continue. 5: Bring back Rayman.
Don’t forget coffee stain, they’ve published some of the best coop party games I’ve ever played, noteably valheim, and the legendary Deep rock galactic
It reminds me of the state of Hollywood, except it's worse there. Budgets have reached their practical limit and there's this mentality that "bigger = better". Instead of making more reasonably scoped projects that won't put the studio at jeopardy in the event of failure and putting projects in the hands of people who care about the material they're working with, they instead put incompetent people (who likely got into the positions they're in through nepotism) to spearhead projects and run them into the ground. And instead of acknowledging their failures, they keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Let's just call a spade a spade. The reason some devs are trying to tell people to "temper their expectations" is because they know there's a lot of incompetent people running things in the entertainment space that shouldn't be in their positions. It's kinda how I feel about the writer's/actor's strike. In a nutshell, I think writers/actors should go independent and abandon Hollywood altogether. Hollywood should crash and burn to the ground. Studios straight up told the writers/actors directly in their face that "we will wait it out until you can't afford housing anymore and you'll have no choice but to accept our shitty terms". They have no bargaining chips, sadly. So, instead of trying to negotiate, go independent. But they won't do it because, for one, no one there (especially the rich millionaires who are the most capable of going independent) is willing to take any risk. They expect the same out-of-touch studio execs who don't have a single creative bone in their soulless bodies, who are regularly screwing over these writers/actors on a daily basis in the first place to take all the risk. And two, if most do try to go independent, the actual talented people will thrive while the talentless hacks who suck at their job (which there are quite a lot of) will be weeded out. The people who can't produce anything that will generate natural demand from an audience won't survive (business-wise). That's the problem. That's why they keep clinging on to establishment media is because even though they're broke and they're struggling to feed their cats, at least anybody can just produce material and put it out on the market endorsed by major channels instead of telling these piece of shit, corrupt studios to go F themselves, go independent, be your own boss, create your own shit in collaboration with other talented independents that will financially benefit the most from their own creations, and make the rules more fair and financially beneficial for everyone in the creative process. And on top of that, the "small guys", you know, the same people that these unions claim to protect? They'll have more chances to thrive on their own instead of having no choice to be apart of the corrupt system. No. We can't have that. We have to maintain the status quo.
Story time: About how I got fired from one of my first jobs. I got hired in a meat shop for cleaning on night shifts. Worst job I ever had. Never before have I seen shit so disgusting and vile as then and there, it was constantly and always cold but I was often switching between there and an area where temperature was normal, so wearing warm clothes wasn't exactly a good idea, especially since you were wet 80% of the time. My job was to clean the meat trays, knives, displays, sewer grates, the little sewers themselves and the floors EXCEPT I had way too little time for all of it. The job was to half-ass it through the night, literally. Also minimum wage, forgot to mention it. The way I was taught to clean all of it was dump it into one loooooooong sink with the cleaning liquid, brush it a bit, let it dry. The problems: Cleaning liquid was of the wrong type, it was for the floors. Not enough time for the water to warm up, so everything was set in cold water which as you might now is not really good at cleaning shit, especially grease. MEAT TRAYS AND THE SEWER THING WAS IN THE SAME SINK! Why is that a problem? Because the floor sewers were DISGUSTING! Everything went there, I've never seen meat turn black from dissolving, the smell was vile, it was the worst! So if you put all of those things in the same sink with cold water and wrong cleaner you don't clean filth- you distribute it. I couldn't stand it, there is no way I'm going to do it all this way, it's fucking food for fuck's sake, IT'S MEAT! People can die from it, what the fuck??? So I did it the best I could. Warm water, everything washed separately, rinsed in clear water, then I've build a pyramid from cleaned trays and dishes so they ACTUALLY can dry before morning (they were just putting it one into another), everything was squeaky clean and I was damn proud of myself. The next morning the meat shop manager saw what I've done and she was VERY happy with it! She said she'd like it to be done this way every time now, that this should be the new standard! (I was hired not by her but by a company that she hired to do the cleaning). So my manager's response was to fire me. And before christmas too. This experience taught me two things: -People don't like if you set the bar too high if they are to do the same work as you. -Don't buy unpacked meat from supermarkets. So I am pretty sure it's the very same situation there, they don't like that they would have to put in effort if half-assing everything was working up to this point.
OMG I thought he looked familiar! I never met him or anything but definitely remember him from Screwattack now that you mention it. Who'd have thought the original Hard News host would still be hitting hard today.
Good to see history is repeating itself. This exact thing happened when Elden Ring came out, and the copium meltdown from AAA devs was just as hilarious then as it is now. Great win for Larian, congrats to them for the amazing release.
I still remember someone at ubisoft saying that elden ring was bullshit because there wasnt a quest system or monologue or a bunch of other ubisoft handholding that ruined their games
@@draskirondaar exactly lmao, i was able to do most of the quests i found without much issue in my first playthrough. In my first playthrough of ds3 i didnt even know there were npc quests, on ng+ i had like 8 guides open all the time
They're managing expectations. It's like preemptive damage control; they know that if the gamers see what modern games can truly become, they'll start asking for these companies to match their performance. They're perfectly capable of it, but they DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT. Giving crappy games to consumers with PTSD and rockbottom expectations is SO much easier than making an actual quality experience.
@@SierraMysteria and people just keep eating it up, look at the recent pokemon games. Complete flops on everything but story, and yet it sold amazingly
Yeah I’ve always thought Charlie and the whole official podcast people were part of that entitled gamer Twitter cesspool, noodle just made those thoughts more coherent
As someone who does art (and I personally classify game development as art) I’m glad this is being called out. Imagine a painter looking at Monet and feeling anything other than inspiration. If you look at a piece of work in your own medium that is unimaginably beyond your own ability, that’s beautiful. It’s something to strive for. Why the hell shouldn’t you try?
The crazy thing is, a game with a scope like BG3 is WELL within all AAA studios’ capabilities. Yes, it will take longer to make games as good as Baldur’s gate but I think the majority of gamers will wait for quality rather than playing yearly released dogshit.
@@jankyjoe_ exactly! and to add to the artist pov, that amazing artwork you feel is unimaginably beyond your own capability really is within your reach. it just takes time, just like making a good game. good things take time and if you ask anyone, more often than not people will say they prefer quality over quantity
It’s because the people in charge of these projects aren’t artists, they’re businessmen. They don’t care about the art, just the capital. Also I’m not talking about the devs that genuinely try and put out good content, I’m talking about the publishers and execs.
@@jankyjoe_ it's a bit more complex than that. First of there is risk reward. Triple a games COULD try to emulate bg3. But then they would run the risk of loss of profit. And if the game bombs then it hits the company even harder. Second is the man hours. Bg3 was a passion project. Not everybody in game development have that passion for games. So the man hours might be too much for them. Personally, as a game developer, the only thing I disprove of bg3 is thay they sold an early access game with triple a price. That's a dangerous precedence to take.
One possibility: a lot of AAA devs didn't get where they are because of creativity, talent, or skill, and are sweating buckets whenever an opportunity to step up actually arrives.
@@cybertruckeralpha Spoken like someone who has never had their boss demand they work 90 hour weeks for less pay. Person you replied to is spot on. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
I'm a fan of Baldur's Gate since the first one when I was young. After playing JRPGs for years it was a bit of a religious experience playing Baldur's Gate on PC. I still remember getting the game at Half Price Books and immediately being enthralled by the box itself. It's just so poetic that a sequel to one of my most beloved favorite series of all time is the new standard of what people want from our games. Gary Gygax must be smiling right now. Of course it's a Dungeons & Dragons game.
@@Ichthyodactyl I am talking about Baldur's Gate 3. I have read a lot of his biographies. His personally designed modules were often times extremely bad like Tombs of Horror. If you play it today it's a nightmare to run and enjoy unless you have players that are deeply into the gameplay rather than the roleplay.
@@Ichthyodactyl I am saying that I'm sure he would be happy that something part of his legacy, Baldur's Gate 3, is the new standard of video games. Whether or not he would hate the new rules is irrelevant. I am specifically only talking about this situation itself.
@@R3TR0J4N I am mainly happy about the variety of games available in CRPGs and TTRPGs. I like a lot of the classics like the Gold Box Games with Pool of Radiance. The well done first person RPGs like Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Hack, etc. The Temple of Elemental Evil is probably the best if you want a pure dungeon focused D&D game that was made by Troika Games. Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, the original Baldur's Gates. Just so many.
Hey! Actual game dev here; this stuff does take lots of time, but the tools we have progress woth time as well, and honestly it really doesn't matter the "graphics" and "audio" and other stuff as long as all of it combines to create fun, actionpacked gameplay. The problem isn't that the checklist is bigger now (though it is) its that these corp games have no soul behind them. Like btd6. Simple enough graphics for mobile, but still clearly has a identity. Something AAA seems to lack.
Crazy that Larian released Baldurs Gate into early access 3 years ago, took into account all the player feedback, released a massive great game with zero microtransactions/battle passes, etc...Holy crap! What were they thinking? Same thing basically happened when Eldin Ring came out to raves, with no microtransactions, etc...and suddenly all these other devs, a lot of whom have bigger studios and budgets, were all upset about it. The reaction to this is nuts. Larian added devs over the years they've worked on this game, after honing their skills on Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 that were also great. I think the biggest thing to me is what their CEO pointed out...Microsoft apparently looked into buying Larian, but he said NO. He didn't want a monolithic corporation telling them what they could or couldn't do or could or couldn't include. They made the game they wanted to. That's the main reason people were against MS buying Activision/Blizzard, already slipping as studios, but now they will suck royally once releasing games built entirely under MS. Bethesda as well. Look at Bioware under EA. I don't think it's good when giant corporations buy studios and turn their development into a conveyor belt factory type place. I don't mind as much Sony as they only set up exclusives at times, and if they buy a studio it's A. Usually a studio who has developed 90+% for them for years anyway, and B. Usually a small studio meant to fit a specific role, like a place no one's really heard of brought in to do pc ports, etc. Nintendo just straight up does things best. They don't feel the need to buy anybody, and they release games when they're ready, meaning not broken, polished, and little if any extra microtransactions...only if online multi-player, and even then it's usually an expansion like with Splatoon, they rarely even have day one updates. I can buy a Nintendo first party game 3 years after launch and there will still be no update files to install. And they know how to compress games so they don't take all your memory, like Call of Duty or Jedi Survivor did. The reaction to Baldurs Gate from fellow devs has been one of pure entitlement. They should be embarrassed for basically attacking one of their own for making the Dream RPG of both Larian and tons of gamers. It's a really bad look.
Except the initial conversation on twitter from the devs was never to attack it, but to explain how a game like BG3 comes to be. One of those devs was the director of Fallout New Vegas, another cult classic, who understands that lightning is a bottle IS lightning in a bottle. And Obsidian, just like Bioware, Interplay, Troika, all RPG companies that made big, great titles, suffered heavily and either closed or nearly closed in the following years. Maybe listen to what those devs have to say since, you know, they actually develop games...
@@juicejooos tbh thats a dev's concern not the customer's, the customers at the end of the day shouldnt and cant really understand unless they operate in the same job etc. And tbh obsidian was told to FNV within a short amount of time, in a time period where that was done and was not so out of the norm, Obsidian was already on the way out and a overhyped team. Bioware isnt even the same people anymore so no wonder, all the others are likely in similar boats, at the end of the day no you shouldnt listen to devs who just want to make money instead of creating art and success like all the others before them had to.
@@cheesbeesneeze_2500 game freak isn't owned by Nintendo though, is it? If Pokémon was first party I believe it would get Mario treatment and put out better games. But maybe I'm wrong on that. Honestly I've never been a Pokémon player. Only one I played was Arceus, which I didn't finish, but it seemed decent. I would like to see what a Pokémon game looked like taking full advantage of today's tech, but in my argument I was mainly referring to consoles and first party studios and how best to go about getting exclusives without just buying entire companies that always supported everyone. If Nintendo doesn't own Game Freak, it would make sense to buy them since they basically only make games for them anyway and Nintendo has good quality control on first party. It made sense for Microsoft to buy the Forza studio and Undead Labs for same reason, although the people who built the studios aren't there anymore, which seems to happen to anyone MS buys. Sony does similarly. Insomniac always made games for Sony except their 2 lowest selling, Sunset Overdrive and Fuse.
@@perseus3115 Obsidian a overhyped team, in 2010? You must have not been there. "Bioware isn't the same people anymore, so no wonder" No wonder what? That's exactly my point, the industry shafted them just like many others. And the same for everything you said after that, you're just feeding on my point. But you just want to cut it short and leave it to "devs' fault, they're lazy", instead of actually saying that the people who call the shots on whether a project even sees the light of day of all things, which are shareholders and publishers, are the issue about the industry: one of the main reasons Baldur's Gate 3 is even a thing is because of the power behind D&D in its mainstream that WotC has. Also, did you honestly just say it's not the gamers' job to understand how the industry behind their consumed media works? It's actually baffling you can say that with a straight face. Sure, but then shut up when things happen and you don't understand how any of it works. You asked to be ignorant, and you admitted it's up to the developers, so don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong, no? In fact, this whole BG3 situation started BECAUSE devs wanted to share information about what it takes for a project to come into fruition, but gamers willingly rejected it because it would break their fantasy of meritocracy within the industry. They've done it before, so it's nothing new.
The problem is that most game developers actually want to make a great game, with tons of replayability and lots to do, but the higher ups want to push out an unfinished product and tack on micro transactions everywhere for maximum profits. I do rly think that many game devs want to do better, but are not allowed to
And the thing is. I don't think anyone is silly enough to think every game will be as good as BG3, we just want games to be good and finished at launch. Fuck last month people were raving about Dave the Diver, a small linear indie game. If publishers just took a step back and let devs do their thing, we would get far more creative and interesting video games as a result. Instead of lazy annual COD and FIFA.
BG3 took 6 years minimum to make (almost certainly was being worked on before this 6 years started) people will literally start sending death threats to devs if they delay their game release by even a week. it is no surprise that they arent comfortable with taking years longer than normal to release a game
You're right. Every game developer wants to make an amazing game. They wanted to make games because they are gamers themselves. It sucks that gameplay has to be designed around micro transactions and live service crap. Look at Diablo 4. The core gameplay is amazing. Skills are fun to use and the legendary loot trait system is awesome. The designers and programmers should be proud of what they made. But that gameplay and its systems get butchered and Frankensteined together in order to accommodate the shit business decisions. If the developers of Diablo 4 were allowed to make the game they obviously wanted to make it would be a masterpiece, imo.
BG3 is fairly far out of my usual gaming genres, but after taking it for a spin for an hour I immediately was blown away by the quality and effort that was put into the game. I'm absolutely hooked and I feel like the game was well worth every penny spent. It was so refreshing to get a complete, innovative game rather than "Oh the DLC will fix that for a price".
great video. i work at a AAA publishing studio and wholeheartedly believe live services is ruining the industry slowly but surely. even the inception of projects is laced nowadays with 'how can we monetize this feature longterm and keep the player returning to funnel money into the game', *instead* of delivering a full, complete-at-launch, enjoyable playing experience
Live services isn't ruining the industry. It's just greedy price gouging and locking needed content behind paywalls. Also publishers and devs wanting to exploit the player base for as much as possible.
@@JohnDoe-vt8vpI personally much prefer the Warframe style. You can put money in to speed up the process of getting new frames or cosmetics, but they even allow trading the buyable currency, so even if you have no money, you can put some work into getting stuff worth selling and buying what you want. Played the game for years and got everything I wanted with no money put in.
How they haven't figured out yet that a functional live service game is only possible because the original game itself was good. The game HAS to create a natural replayability to keep players interested in the grind. Not, create a grind to keep players interested in the game.
Things that help games imo. 1: betas, allows people to find and fix bugs as well as change content if needed. 2: community feedback, to an extent you can’t always listen to every idea but if something is suggested multiple times listen to it. 3: a FINISHED product… yes sometimes things even after launch will be found but for the most part it should be a functional game with minor bugs
Finished products aren’t entirely required for Indie games, which need traction to create that final product. Early access makes perfect since if you don’t already have the resources or team to create a full game, however there’s no reason a AAA studio needs to release an unfinished game, they have the resources and teams to create a finished game but choose to push buggy garbage with 70 patches.
From personal experience in the professional engineering and creative spaces, I can nearly guarantee that the reason game studios are angry about Baldur's Gate 3 is because it prevents them from churning out a quick release with shit content (if any at all) and recording insane profits. The focus is on studio growth, not customer loyalty or experience. This is the big edge that so many indie developers have is that desire to connect with their audience. Large studios lose touch with that so often and it's a damn shame.
It's funny how little the devs are willing to increase standards... which mind you this "increase" is simply restoring the previous standard that was set 15-20ish years ago.
Maybe if you got out of your basement(which by this point is possibly now filled up by your ladwhale-type bodymass) and looked around, you'd see that while prices have been going nowhere but up, games have cried as if they got cut with a knife when a game is more than 60 dollars! Boo-hoo, developers need to eat!
This IGN journalist was from screwattack aeons ago and did gaming news segment .The fact he still being himself after all this years bring smile to my face.
If people stopped paying for the mediocrity things could change. Baldurs Gare 3, Tears of the Kingdom, and Elden Ring are all amazing examples of what a AAA game should be in 2023. Awesome job! Baldurs Gate 3 is truly amazing!
That would require the gamer demographic, who are objectively the most self destructive, nileistic consumer market in the world to actually learn to vote with their money. The problem with that logic is it would also require channels like this to not be embroiled in the overall culture of gaming itself. Gamers get their kicks out of controversy and what is currently horrible. They deserve the market they have right now because they voted for it.
I'm pretty excited that BG3 will hopefully see us getting more good modern CRPGs. I know we've already had games like Disco Elysium, Underrail and Divinity: Original Sin (just to name a few), but those are still relatively niche games, whereas everyone is playing BG3 so hopefully this will revitalize the genre and we can get more games with their own variety and quirks and takes on the CRPG genre. And of course it's Larian that's breaking that ice
Gaming is one of the few remaining markets that haven't been monopolized in any sense. Game devs whining that people have high expectations would be like going to a burger place. Getting a raw burger, taking it to the counter and having them go "you get what you get, go somewhere else if you want better food" could you imagine the tsunami of Karen's blasting that location
If the customers were just like gamers, they would whine about the raw burger, but still chug the burger in one bite,. Especially Pokémon fans/Nintendo fans in general. 😂
Bro what r u talking about Microsoft has bought out soooo many developers. And EA literally has a stranglehold on FOOTBALL. Like the whole sport, for video games. Open your eyes bud
Its even worse when you think that the people saying "yeah but we cant make games that good so dont expect it" are enforcing that to the developers, saying stuff like "hey dont make it too good or they wont buy the next game in the series"
don't worry, there are a LOT of pumped up and motivated and excited game developers in the industry, doing their absolute best to deliver amazing games... however, you will find most of them in small indie studios. The past years have been showing that over and over and over again.
They havent, but perspective is screwed. people dont expect much for a 5-20$ game, and dont get nearly as mad when disappointed. pretty sure there's the same amount of unfinished trash games per witcher three in the AAA scene as there is abandoned 0.13b greenlight trash for stardew valley in the indie scene.
@@leonhardableit's hard to spot them because they don't have that kind of resources and money like a AAA game, but there are really good and hidden gems out there
@@leonhardable Hollow Knight, SiGNALiS, DUSK, Blasphemous, Ultrakill, Cruelty Squad, incision, Fear n hunger - just to name a few ; these games are toptier games regardless of whatever price tag they have on and made by passionate and talented devs. some of them are solo/duo dev projects the perception is really not as screwed as u are making it out to be. if anything some games are so good i feel like sc^mmer for paying low price for purcgasing such gems
@@leonhardable100%. On top of that, tons of skilled passionate devs exist in the AAA space. Unfortunately most AAA games are made by corporations, and profit motives keep finding new and exciting ways to waste those dev's skill and dedication.
I think that the main issue occuring with big devs like blizzard, EA, etc. is how the work life is internally. They probably have no drive because the toxic culture and lack of reward that directly stems from the money hungry executives in the company. They probably push the employees to get shit out at a strict time frame and the executive couldnt give a hoot about quality. Its the quality department for sure, if there even is one. Thats why indie devs are always top tier. Weird comparison i guess, but its like amazon vs etsy. Youll most of the time see quality instead of cheaply designed products at etsy. This comment was not sponsored by etsy.
Ign actually has some decent people working for them. Recentlt i just watched a video they posted about nier automata and a certain mod that "shook" the community. It was actually very well made.
The only nuance I would add is that there are some indie developers who definitely shouldn’t be judged by the elevated graphical standards or voice over as BG 3. AAA absolutely should be. People should scream in their executives faces every day, “why aren’t you as good as Larian?, why are you such a disappointment to everyone?” But for smaller studios it’s not reasonable.
In boulders gate 3, I haven't even made it passed the first major area (druid temple and the goblin camp) mainly because I've been starting new profiles to try and experience everything that I can. It's so amazing and fun, that if they came out with ANY amount of DLC I would buy it without looking. And there's so much replayability that they could probably keep making new DLC for the next 7 years and still make a profit.
Imagine ordering food at a high end restaurant, only to receive garbage, and when you question the quality you get slapped in the face by the waitress who then tells you "don't you realize how hard it is to cook high end food?!" Yes I know it's hard, that's why I went to a high end restaurant whom I expected had chefs with the qualifications and skill-sets to make those hard-to-make dishes.
If BG3 is your first Larian game I recommend also picking up Divinity 2. That’s the only other one that I’ve played but it is not too different from BG3 in that it massively over delivers and changes your perspective of what an Rpg can and should be.
@@samlambert4770 I kinda hated D:OS1, not gonna lie. But I heard the second one was better, so I'm still going to give it a chance eventually, and seeing the route Larian is taking is definitely making me more willing to keep giving their games chances. I did like Ego Draconis after all... even though it did fall off towards the end.
As somebody working in game development: It's usually some manager that gives you unrealistic deadlines with tiny budgets, even for studios that have money to afford it. They have dollar signs in their eyes, they overhired during covid. Now a lot of companies are in panic mode, trying to make more money then they did during covid, but with way less people and budget. It's rarely about a dev being lazy
There's an easy solution: be very selective about AAA games. Yeah, most of them blow. When a ton of money is invested in a thing, the overriding goal is not to produce a great thing, but to make a lot of money. Those two goals occasionally intersect, but often come into conflict when it comes to individual decisions.
What I've been doing that for years it's called being patient my friend dropped 200 on destiny 2 alone and I've spent 60 bucks and got dark souls 1-3 Bloodborne the uncharted games doom eternal sea of thieves and horizon forbidden West for that
I've put 90 hours into BG3 since launch and already have plans for the next 3 playthroughs I do on it because one run isn't enough to experience everything. Incredibly refreshing change from the recent state of releases
I remember when AAA game devs complained about the "poor graphics" of Elden Ring. Elden Rings graphics are absolutely terrific! One of the few games I took screen shots of for backgrounds.
i love elden ring but the main gripe from other studios was not the graphics at all. it was the UI from what i remember, i don’t think any major studio would have came out against the graphics of elden ring when even at release it was still considered one of the most graphical intense open world games to date. I agree with your sentiment but don’t just say shit
I think the issue is that I’m sure a lot of game devs want to make and be apart of something great but the issue is that being beaten down by the CEOs and Stockholders has probably demoralized them and given them a nihilistic outlook towards game development and their industry as a whole, still agree with what you said thought these are just my thoughts
I just picked it up now because of all this controversy. May never would have heard of the game if not for devs complaining about it being "too good" so thank you, Streisand Effect 👏 Honestly when your competition says something is too good and dont expect more, you really _should_ jump on it because...you know...there won't be more 😂 😉
I'm really glad Baldurs Gate did as well as it did. I went into Early Access pretty much blind. I just heard that Neil Newbon played a hot vampire, and after hearing his lines from Detroit Become Human, and Resident Evil Village. It was just something I had to have If Neil is in a game, it's gonna be a banger.
When americans lack any societal foundation so they replace their own personality with a hypersexualisation of every aspect of life. Bet you gave Cuties a 5 star
You know for as many jokes as charlie makes, this video made me realize that hes actually really wellspoken, the part "you should be celebrating that someone has released an incredible product in your industry", like dang man fr
Honestly I was totally on board with the in my first viewing but after looking into it a bit I think Charlie is coming at this wrong. Everyone is arguing about a point that wasn’t made, they weren’t saying they can’t/won’t produce quality games it’s more “BG3 is such an anomaly for what went into it and the tools+time they had is so far outside the scope of what the current developer space allows you can’t expect it going forward in the current climate”
I felt the same way about elden ring and the ff7 remake.. both of those were genuine masterpieces to me.. and bg3 is right up there with them for me now
Might be a hot take from me but i think Elden ring, Baldur’s gate 3, and the final fantasy games are and will be the best games since 2020 and will still be the greatest games we’ve gotten until l 2025.
@@jankyjoe_ Ff7 remake was earth shatteringly good for me I play on PC and mod it and have played through 10+ times just trying to 100% achievements and just having a good time
I do a little game dev across different platforms, and one thing that is very apparent is that many game developers are heavily egotistical either directly or indirectly, and it doesn't simply pass as "confidence", there's a boat load of contempt, superiority complexes, acts of narcissism, etc. (I am no better than they are) I personally find it disgusting, and quite fitting given that many game developers are sorta shaping their own version of reality through their craft, but the behavior is definitely present enough for these responses to occur without financial incentive.
You're absolutely right, when someone in your industry creates a product that's better than yours it's a bad thing in the short term, but a great thing in the long term. They've done the hard work for you and found out how to make a better product - now you just need to copy and imitate them and your product will improve as well!
It really is.. Its the type of game I thought the future would bring, back when I was playing baldurs gate 2, kotor, morrowind... Sadly it generally didnt turn out that way, but its so nice to see this kind of passion in a game again.
I never imagined getting a sequel to the games I played the hell out of as a kid... and I definitely never imagined getting one so faithful and just... good. Baldur's Gate 3 isnt a product, its a game. It feels like playing a game from 20 years ago with all the paint and polish of today. It feels like there was passion, care, and interest put into making the game.
The problem is game journalism wasn't a career path where one went in, excelled at, then moved up in because of merit. It started as a pet project for failed journalists from other sectors, they pretty much got to build the industry from the ground up to suit them. The problem is these people think they are overqualified for game journalism and become bitter, or they think integrity isn't important for game journalism because gaming isn't important, so they just use it as an opportunity to grease their own palms.
One thing to remember in this conversation is most Devs have little say in what they produce, how much time they can spend on it, what they can add, and how it is monetized. Most of it comes down to the executives. And I am playing and liking BG3 a lot and wish more games were like it.
I work in construction and even we share new developments and tools . If a new type of accessory comes out you can bet the warehouse is going to be a buzz about it Monday morning
Game dev here just wanted to share my perspective. Almost everyone at the office is playing BG3 and it’s more *goals* and inspiration and being fanboys/girls when we like a game and a studio. The problem IMO lies more with investors and when a developer want to make a passion project with too large of a scope. Larian Studios started as indie and Divinity Original Sin was originally a Kickstarter game that had the opportunity with great backing to envision their passion project and eventually making enough profit with the release to grow their company. Meanwhile you look at Hardsuit Labs who wanted to make the remake of Vampire The Maquerade that turned to a publisher, Paradox Interactive, who eventually dropped Hardsuit Labs from development and hired a new team to push for release in order to make back their investments for the project because the developers wanted to keep expanding on the game. It’s really a limit to how big you can go in terms of money and the team you need to develop a great game, but it’s every developer’s dream to make their passion project so it’s unfair to say the problem lies in the “developers”.
I think that's the overall subtext here though from gamers. We want the big companies to see how much better a game is when it's actually run by devs with a passion for what they are doing rather than marketing suits. Now if we can just make that the more profitable option...
@@philipfahy9658 Yeah with the AAA company structure it’s usually lead by a CEO with a profit mindset. Not many original creators of the company stays onboard once the company turned into a large cogwheel machine, many leave to start a new smaller studio to have the creative freedom and try different things. When you see a series of like Battlefield 1, 2, 4, 5 etc. it’s usually the “cashcow” that is guaranteed to make a profit and the reason why they play the safecard and any new projects are always going to go through a market analysis to see what’s “hot” on the market. That’s why I like the indie game space because you always see new creative ideas, but it’s usually run by like 1-2 or like a group of 5-10ppl, is not as well polished and they basically work for free and and sacrifice a lot of their own free time in order to get it done. And a lot, a lot of burnout.
@@philipfahy9658It is not the overall subtext because this whole "BG3 backlash" thing comes from developers who completely agree with OP and talked in a very civil way about the truth behind game development, but everyone took it and reduced it to "Devs lazy, devs jealous, if only they were good games would be good".
