Decline Video-Game Executives Lament Lost Creativity at Developer’s Show GDC

[911 Jumper]

Designers of some the top-selling video games in the world gathered this week in San Francisco but the mood at this year’s Game Developers Conference was at times dour.

Game companies have been coping with layoffs, mergers and product cancellations. And while 2023 delivered some huge hits, many executives roaming the Moscone Center said rising development costs, slow growth and the pressure to deliver winners has led to a play-it-safe approach at the biggest companies, taking some of the edginess out of the industry.

“It’s harder to take risks,” said Martin Sibille, a vice president at Tencent Games who previously spent 15 years with Electronic Arts Inc.

Top titles can cost up to $300 million to develop — the same as a blockbuster movie. And just as the film industry loaded up on superhero pictures, video-game makers are relying on well-known franchises as budgets balloon, according to executives at some of the industry’s top companies.

Slow growth explains some of the caution. Market researcher NewZoo predicts the $184 billion industry will expand by less than 1% this year. More than 6,000 workers have lost their jobs recently as the major companies reduced spending.

Under new owner Microsoft Corp., Activision Blizzard canceled its Odyssey survival game, which had been in development for six years. Tencent’s Riot Games unit, Sony Group Corp.’s PlayStation Studios, Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. and Embracer Group AB are among the firms canceling dozens of unannounced titles. Electronic Arts halted work on a new first-person shooter in the Star Wars universe as it laid off 670 workers.

Players’ increasingly high demands for graphics and game play, paired with the continued popularity of “service” titles that stick around for years, has raised the barrier for new entrants.

“The video-game industry has not grown to accommodate budgets,” said Saxs Persson, a vice president at Epic Games. “You’re going to get things that people perceive as being safe. Nobody wants to play safe. Nobody says, ‘This is a good, predictable game.’”

At some point, he said, even well-known franchises might become cost prohibitive. The studio behind the award-winning Spider-Man 2, Insomniac Games, let staffers go this year despite selling 10 million copies of the $70 game, which cost $300 million to develop.

Investors have other options, such as a platform where users can make their own games — like Roblox Corp. or Epic Games’ Unreal Editor for Fortnite — because, for big-budget games the “hit rate is too low, it’s too unpredictable, it’s too long-range, and too many things can go wrong, not right,” Persson said.

Indie publisher Devolver Digital Inc. is one of the few firms that hasn’t rethought its approach amid the pressure in the industry. The company works with game budgets in the $1 million to $5 million range, like hits Cult of the Lamb and Hotline Miami.

“Our strategy is to weather what’s going on right now,” said Chief Marketing Officer Nigel Lowrie, who says small developers haven’t failed the company yet. “The risks are still there, but they’re not so high that it’s cataclysmic.”

At the conference, one studio head’s stark diversion from the trend generated praise from peers. Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke told attendees that his company won’t make another sequel to last year’s hit Baldur’s Gate III. The Dungeons & Dragons-themed game will be the last in the series.

“We want to do big, new things,” Vincke said on a panel. “We don’t want to rehash the thing that we’ve done already.”

Source: Bloomberg

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

This is akin to a serial killer lamenting all the lost space in his basement due to the dead bodies piled up everywhere.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Development costs go up because the newest tech is always a priority. It's obvious that you can't sustain a business model like that, especially when high end hardware is as expensive as it is. Nvidia realized that, and they're slowly but surely becoming a business-centered solution provider (in this case, with AI) because gaming isn't something you can focus on in the scope they wanted to.

 

[tritosine2k]

Development costs go up because the newest tech is always a priority. It's obvious that you can't sustain a business model like that, especially when high end hardware is as expensive as it is. Nvidia realized that, and they're slowly but surely becoming a business-centered solution provider (in this case, with AI) because gaming isn't something you can focus on in the scope they wanted to.

nvidia was always like that, you were supposed to buy quadro for opengl and GTX on directx worked so well bc. PS4 era stuff was prerender oriented and on PC you had BOTH framerate and MSAA and even stereo for a good while.

As soon as prerender became less, the PC hiccups and erratic shader compilation stuff started now RTX diverges totally and it's doubtful the usual paypigs will be there to sustain RTX, hence crypto and AI.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Development costs go up because the newest tech is always a priority. It's obvious that you can't sustain a business model like that, especially when high end hardware is as expensive as it is. Nvidia realized that, and they're slowly but surely becoming a business-centered solution provider (in this case, with AI) because gaming isn't something you can focus on in the scope they wanted to.

nvidia was always like that, you were supposed to buy quadro for opengl and GTX on directx worked so well bc. PS4 era stuff was prerender oriented and on PC you had BOTH framerate and MSAA and even stereo for a good while.

As soon as prerender became less, the PC hiccups and erratic shader compilation stuff started now RTX diverges totally and it's doubtful the usual paypigs will be there to sustain RTX, hence crypto and AI.

AI is an industry-wide application that will become the norm in almost every business (I'm not talking about ai generated images or videos, but actual AI automation of business workflows). Nvidia wants to be part of that because it's more profitable and global than just silly games and gfx things.

 

[tritosine2k]

Development costs go up because the newest tech is always a priority. It's obvious that you can't sustain a business model like that, especially when high end hardware is as expensive as it is. Nvidia realized that, and they're slowly but surely becoming a business-centered solution provider (in this case, with AI) because gaming isn't something you can focus on in the scope they wanted to.

nvidia was always like that, you were supposed to buy quadro for opengl and GTX on directx worked so well bc. PS4 era stuff was prerender oriented and on PC you had BOTH framerate and MSAA and even stereo for a good while.

As soon as prerender became less, the PC hiccups and erratic shader compilation stuff started now RTX diverges totally and it's doubtful the usual paypigs will be there to sustain RTX, hence crypto and AI.

AI is an industry-wide application that will become the norm in almost every business (I'm not talking about ai generated images or videos, but actual AI automation of business workflows). Nvidia wants to be part of that because it's more profitable and global than just silly games and gfx things.

it's hardly silly when you have starcraft bot research on prestious journals like IEEE. It's just nv simply isn't the valiant PC gaming savior fans usually portray them. Even when they deal with e-sport it's some dumb stuff. Hell their first chip, nv1 ran sega saturn games and you plugged in gamepads.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

“hit rate is too low, it’s too unpredictable, it’s too long-range, and too many things can go wrong, not right,”

just don't hire retards and have a proper testing, 99% of the issues are gone. after all, size of market already demonstrates people are more than willing to eat shit.
take for instance this: on windows 11 if you tab out and right click on the desktop it tabs back for absolutely no reason, 100% happening, 100% reproducible. i discovered it the first two hours i got my hands on it. there's absolutely NO WAY ANYONE who actually used it for more than 3 hours never experienced it. they knew the bug was there, they didn't give a flying fuck about it and after years they still can't be arsed to fix such a retarded simple problem. and this is an operative system, i see no reason why it couldn't be enormously worse with stupid games.
we can only hope they burn down once and for all, they won't be missed.

 

[NecroLord]

Bold of those motherfuckers in the Triple A Studios to call themselves "creative".

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Players’ increasingly high demands for graphics and game play, paired with the continued popularity of “service” titles that stick around for years, has raised the barrier for new entrants.

 

[911 Jumper]

(Sorry can't upvote/react to posts – still a few months to go until I [hopefully] gain access to the basic set of reaction buttons.)

I posted that article because talking about the Decline is a frequent topic here. Having seen the points made here and elsewhere over the last year or so, a few things come to mind.

1. People often say that the industry should move away from Triple A games and shift towards Double A games, which could mean less graphically impressive games. The thing is, will the majority of today's gamers accept this? Will they actually accept games being less visually impressive than what they expect with each new tech generation? Nintendo is able to get away with the graphics you see in the Switch Pokémon games because it's... Nintendo. The other two wouldn't be able to do that. Returnal is a good example of what happens when Sony tries to make a game that scales things back a bit – it sold poorly, it's never getting a sequel.

2. Is the talent actually there in the industry? Again there's this assumption that there's loads of creative people in this industry who'd unleash lots of brilliant experimental games if rising costs and suits at these big companies weren't holding them back. But is that actually true? The indie scene shows even when today's game devs have more creative freedom than your average Triple A dev studio, a lot of them just end up making copies of what has come before.

When you read or see interviews with these devs, they'll often cite other games or modern TV shows and films as their main sources of inspiration. It's rare to actually come across indie devs who have unusual sources of inspiration. I don't think the creative talent is there like it used to be. Thanks to the network effect of the internet, a lot of people are influenced by the same stuff (in a way that they would not have been before), and a lot of that stuff is just garbage (I'm of the view that the emergence of the internet has generally made people less creative). Anyway just some thoughts I had in regard to this topic.

 

[luj1]

All of this was caused by the worldwide decline in education, culture, morals

 

[gabel]

All of this was caused by Jews.

I agree.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

Gee, I wonder why. Don't revel in mediocrity and stop hiring shitty consultancy companies.

 

[tritosine2k]

"AI" in modern games is 5% CPU or even less. It shouldn't even run on CPU to begin with & not even locally to begin with.

So it's all scripted encounters and QTE. These ARPG spawns aren't even encounters..

Gamers simply don't process this fact so high on cognitive dissonance bc they spent whatever on whatever CPU so <5% should be enough, fun fact F76 doesn't even have followers when it's not even local game yet somehow escapes attention, wheres muh npc schedule in this and that game I downloaded xD

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

2. Is the talent actually there in the industry?

nope. not since it's been drowned in the dangerhair tide.
the era of talent is over, since it needs constrains to really shine. if you have unlimited resource, i'm obliged to demand unlimited results. ultima was absolutely stunning when it recreated a living, moving world on computers which just recently had managed to conquer sound and color. when was the last time something has been just barely comparable? gothic? 25 years ago? they're not even attempting, because quality means investing emotionally and physically in a job, and why getting tired when you can delegate to a bunch of street shitters and let the enormous size of the market alone earn for you?
we're not going to see any quality until we get another 1982-84.

 

[tritosine2k]

Guys you don't have the slightest idea how much enemy agency counts...
It's immensely funny when in practice UE5 graphical fidelity will be reflected by debris and JUNK at this very moment they compare literal dustbins in gfx forums...

Whereas if enemy had sufficient agency it would shape its surroundings itself, and now you have level designers placing junk and litter but be amazed & shit.

 

[Iucounu]

1. People often say that the industry should move away from Triple A games and shift towards Double A games, which could mean less graphically impressive games. The thing is, will the majority of today's gamers accept this? Will they actually accept games being less visually impressive than what they expect with each new tech generation?

There are a few successful games like that, such as Fortnite, Palworld, The Long Dark and Valheim. Or maybe some of these just look simple on the surface, but use advanced graphics technology for lighting etc?

2. Is the talent actually there in the industry? Again there's this assumption that there's loads of creative people in this industry who'd unleash lots of brilliant experimental games if rising costs and suits at these big companies weren't holding them back. But is that actually true? The indie scene shows even when today's game devs have more creative freedom than your average Triple A dev studio, a lot of them just end up making copies of what has come before.

I imagine that talented individuals in AAA studios get burned out quickly, especially if their best ideas are discarded because Marketing doesn't like them. Also the industry has grown so much that there's not enough talent to go around for all the indie studios. Maybe if 75% of them closed down their best staff could get together?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

“Demand for live service games”? What the fuck world are they living in? Point me to the last live-service AAA title that was a resounding success.

“We keep, unfortunately making the wrong flavor of shit. We know our customers want to eat shit, it’s just we’re not getting the blend right. It’s definitely not that people don’t want to pay money to eat shit.”

Fucking retards.

 

[laclongquan]

1. People often say that the industry should move away from Triple A games and shift towards Double A games, which could mean less graphically impressive games. The thing is, will the majority of today's gamers accept this? Will they actually accept games being less visually impressive than what they expect with each new tech generation? Nintendo is able to get away with the graphics you see in the Switch Pokémon games because it's... Nintendo. The other two wouldn't be able to do that. Returnal is a good example of what happens when Sony tries to make a game that scales things back a bit – it sold poorly, it's never getting a sequel.

I have to say the continued popularity of Fallout New Vegas (with mods) and Fallout 4 show that people can accept AA games instead of AAA. The question, as always, is that it's hard to make a good game whether with AA or AAA level of graphic.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

New Vegas was very much a AAA game in its day though, it's just that people can't afford top of the line hardware in this GPU market, where the newest GPU can be twice as expensive as your current computer

 

[Roguey]

Meanwhile Nintendo keeps trucking along with creative games that have graphics that look like they're from over ten years ago and beating everyone else in sales.

 

[tritosine2k]

Meanwhile Nintendo keeps trucking along with creative games that have graphics that look like they're from over ten years ago and beating everyone else in sales.

Well yeah they managed not to put the cart ahead of the horse.

 

[Roguey]

New Vegas was very much a AAA game in its day though, it's just that people can't afford top of the line hardware in this GPU market, where the newest GPU can be twice as expensive as your current computer

When it comes to marketing budget, yes. Development budget, absolutely not. It had a core team of 60 and AAA team sizes were a hundred to several hundred.

 

[Jaedar]

“Demand for live service games”? What the fuck world are they living in? Point me to the last live-service AAA title that was a resounding success.

That's the thing though. AAA devs don't have what it takes to make good (live-service) products. But they're still being squeezed by stuff like fortnite, destiny, etc, etc.

Turns out that if all you can make is unchallenging slop meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator... the lowest common denominator will just keep eating the slop they already have in front of them.

I can only hope this finally leads to the death of AAA. Shit's been a cancer upon gaming for a long time now.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Dug their own grave.