Decline Retold, Remade, Reforged, Resurrected, Remastered - Where are new IPs?

[Hellraiser]

If and when they decide to start giving reasonable budgets again, it will embolden developers to start taking chances because there's less financial risk. Essentially, publisher risk and developer risk are inversely correlated.

Reasonable is highly relative in relation to available cash flow and other resources the company has as well as project scope. The most likely trigger for down-scaling budgets would be losing money on flops and needing to pay off accrued debt. If that happens what you will get is more of what works game-design wise, the suits focusing on "core business" where they perceive they have less market risk/competitive advantage and the axing of new ventures/spin-off businesses similar to the recent gutting of Private Division by Take Two* (along with other lesser known studios and unannounced projects outside of PD) when those guys felt the financial squeeze.

You have to ask yourself what is causing the budget bloat in the first place and what would cause those factors to change or disappear. Bear in mind that as stupid as the average kwan business school graduate is even they don't throw money around and write 300 million checks rather than 50 million just because they can. Keeping costs down is hammered into their heads, at some point there has to exist a spreadsheet saying the ROI on the 300 million project is plain better (and that it is less risky regarding guessing how many units it well sell) and this is what lets the very notion of spending so much money pass through all the levels of management. And this kind of spreadsheet has to exist in multiple companies at the same time and justify both dev team sizes and insane marketing expenses.

One or two publishers being plain dumb with money would quickly solve itself (and many times did in the past), what these guys are doing works consistently for at least 15 years if not more. Per the market lifecycle graphic I posted earlier we're at late-stage decline, which means that what is currently left are the darwinian winners that out-survived the competition and are best adapted to the market conditions as they are. You would need a drastic change of environment to force new approaches (with smaller budgets) to evolve, things like heavy state intervention radically changing consumer habits (think Chinese online gaming time limitations/rationing) or someone inventing a substitution market, the next best thing, which would leech normies and other decline enablers away from games and into that. What we have now is the natural and logical consequence of gaming going mainstream and becoming a big business coalescing into a mostly stable equilibrium.

*although PD was no doubt a mismanaged shitshow showing why big publisher corporate culture cannot find "the second minecraft" (as PD claimed it wanted to) at the pitch stage. For one it took minecraft years to become a runaway hit, and this is incompatible with quarterly figure oriented businesses that have CEOs rewarded for stock performance.

 

[Necrensha]

While indie games having access to way better graphics is always nice, it's not really important nor relevant to the lack of new IPs being created.
More importantly is how ridiculously hard is to make your average pleb care about something that they don't know about.
Look at Baldur 3. 99% of the players never even heard of the first two, and yet it was a gigantic success. Why?
Bear sex. Not the fact that bear sex was present, but rather that showing it to the audience before release indicates that Larian is actually doing something *outside* the ordinary, that they are not afraid that someone will cancel them after a youtuber discovers the secret bear sex scene.
Being bold attracts attention, being ''safe'' does not, a lesson that most modern devs and publishers should've learn already after pissing away potentially billions on pure garbage but we all know that they probably are not even aware of what those failed IPs look like or what they all have in common.
Take for instance Forspoken and Immortals of aveum:
-Both unbelievably expensive, and yet lack impressive art or technical display of any kind
-So bland in every imaginable way that you probably forgot they existed 5 seconds after watching their reveal trailer
-Your eyes also skipped past all the marketing and only became vaguely aware of their existence after hearing of catastrophic financial results
-Both are the safest, most inoffensive, most boring games that you can possibly think about
So, these new IPs tried to offend nobody, had insane budgets, both wanted to quickstart a new franchise, both were absolutely ignored by the public.
Personality(or viral marketing) are the most important things needed to get a new franchise off the ground, your average AAA company is completely incapable of either since they are colossal behemoths with a thousand different voices claiming for vision that will(not) attract every market and reach every demographic.

 

[lightbane]

With AI, I could see indies doing games with the quality of MGS3, Jak 2, Planescape and so on. However, indies are also influenced by current trends, so I don't know if having better tech would help much. Not until there's a cultural shift and things get better again (if it ever happens).

 

[Storyfag]

Indies are the future. And the future is now:

 

[Damned Registrations]

Per the market lifecycle graphic I posted earlier we're at late-stage decline, which means that what is currently left are the darwinian winners that out-survived the competition and are best adapted to the market conditions as they are.

Too bad every economist ever conveniently forgets that marketing is a thing as soon as they want to model something. These games aren't best adapted to the market conditions, they just happen to be attached to the tumour that is the modern advertising industry. You can sell fucking any garbage you want as long as you suppress the ability of the customer to find out about better alternatives. A monopoly on awareness is just as good as a monopoly on supply. It's why everything is shit and companies can get away with scams like planned obsolescence and employing slaves.

 

[NecroLord]

Suppress the competition and smear and discredit it?

WOW!
It has never been tried before.
Truly ingenious strategy.

On a more serious note, some of the Triple A companies have become "too big to fail".
Even with all their blunders, they know they can keep making the same games ad infinitum and there will still be many customers and buyers...

 

[Hellraiser]

These games aren't best adapted to the market conditions, they just happen to be attached to the tumour that is the modern advertising industry. You can sell fucking any garbage you want as long as you suppress the ability of the customer to find out about better alternatives. A monopoly on awareness is just as good as a monopoly on supply.

I disagree, no ability of theirs is being suppressed, certainly not when you consider gaming media (and thus publishers) had more of a stranglehold on information before the broadband age (the circle of nerdy friends replaced by thousands of online autists with no life that sampled a larger portion of available titles). Most people from what I have seen are just intellectually lazy and choose to go with the flow unless they are emotionally invested in something. To actively seek out new things within a hobby one has to be passionate about it, the casual mainstream audience will never be that by the mere nature of it being "casual".

You can try to steer the flow, shape what is the target of FOMO etc. but even that fails and shows that marketing isn't an all powerful force that can alter individual wills, plenty of overhyped by media shit flopped.

While some popularity of creatively bankrupt AAA releases can be dismissed as the effect of group psychology, the fundamental truth is that whether you believe it is a fake need or not, some kind of need is addressed and that's why the consumer buys more of the stuff. And if the audience is what it is how can you claim the companies are not best adapted to the market if they actively exploit the habits of the mass consumer?

One could argue that this is not yet the optimum and more sales could be gotten somehow with the market growing bigger with a different approach, but do we really want to know how gaming could get even bigger and what crowds would it draw in?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I disagree, no ability of theirs is being suppressed, certainly not when you consider gaming media (and thus publishers) had more of a stranglehold on information before the broadband age (the circle of nerdy friends replaced by thousands of online autists with no life that sampled a larger portion of available titles).

You're looking at a weird niche sample. The vast bulk of the market isn't people with a circle of nerdy friends, it's normies. Children whose games are bought by their parents, and adults who've spent a grand total of 20 hours playing video games, ever. Control what those people look at, and you control the lion's share of the market. The idea that these megacorps have perfected the artform and given everyone what they want is beyond insane. It's the same thing that's happened in every other industry. Good luck trying to sell something new when multiple AAA studios are competing for the ad space, retail space, and media space to squeeze you out. The only reason any of the indie stuff sells is because it occasionally goes viral from some streamer. It's why the space is flooded with hidden gems with practically no sales despite games of comparable quality selling 100x as many copies. It's why utter trash like minecraft and Roblox are raking it in. It's got nothing to do with what people want and everything to do with what people are even able to be aware of.

 

[Necrensha]

I'm pretty sure that the videogame audience has either reached it's upper limit or is close to it and about to plateau.
Who hasn't joined videogames yet? Bored housewives? Those boomers that do nothing but watch TV all day long? The guys from North Sentinel Island? North Korea?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Indies are the future. And the future is 3-4 years from now:

Fixed it for you

 

[luj1]

I can't be the only one who notices luj1's thread are all about "modern gaming is bad", right?
Talk about something new or insightful for a change ffs.

High gaming standard will be publicly enforced whether you like it or not. Because that is for the greater good.

 

[luj1]

Cross Code, Hollow Knight, Starsector, Factorio, Monster Sanctuary are all games that look great, have good music, and have plenty of scale, rich mechanics and style. Shadow Empire makes all the paradox games look like the shallow end of the kiddie pool. Stardew Valley was aping a game from over 30 years ago and crushed the fucking market with it's very simple 2D graphics

Excellent point

 

[Ravielsk]

This is fable, from 2004.

No, that is the remake "Anniversary" version from 2014. The real 2004 looked more like this.

 

[luj1]

I'm pretty sure that the videogame audience has either reached it's upper limit or is close to it and about to plateau.
Who hasn't joined videogames yet? Bored housewives?

Very important but often neglected point

 

[Ravielsk]

I'm pretty sure that the videogame audience has either reached it's upper limit or is close to it and about to plateau.
Who hasn't joined videogames yet? Bored housewives?

Very important but often neglected point

I personally believe that a very substantial chunk of the issue is that modern publishers operate with a false impression of how the market is actually structured. They seem to be working under the impression that the market is both infinitely inflatable and completely amorphous. Meaning that if you are playing COD you must also be equally interested in Fortnite or WoW or Assassins Creed or whatever scam is popular on mobile right now. There are no more or less addressable market segments there is only one amorphous blob.

Picture for demonstration

The reality is that the market is more like a atom with a superdense core of customers that are relatively few in number but purchase many games from many genres and level of quality(this would be your average white male toxic gamer).
Surrounding them are huge blobs of single product customers who still can be identified as part of the same broad group but outside of their very narrow focus do not care about much else(this is your Fortnite, COD, WoW and other giga sellers). These groups are big but exist in effective isolation because of how much investment they demand.
And then you have mobile which while still technically in the same market group but functions on a completely different set of principles and overlaps more on the basis of size rather than anything else.

Again picture for demonstration

Point being that the modern industry seems to live under the delusion of the first model while living in a world of the second one. So often they are both under- and overestimating the size and the behavior of their customer base. This is how they can reach the conclusion that infinitely remastering old crap is a safe bet but a sequel (or god forbid a spiritual sequel) to said old crap is a risky move.

 

[Hellraiser]

Ravielsk FYI I was listening in to the snorefest that was Take Two's earning presentation call back in May and I also read a few of their prior quarterly presentations. They don't treat the market as an amorphous blob where everyone will buy everything if marketing, no, they are much too smart for that. Instead they divide it into "core" (as in hardcore) and everything else, r00fles.

You're looking at a weird niche sample. The vast bulk of the market isn't people with a circle of nerdy friends, it's normies. Children whose games are bought by their parents, and adults who've spent a grand total of 20 hours playing video games, ever. Control what those people look at, and you control the lion's share of the market.

You missed the point here. That was merely an example of what kind of change widespread internet access brought as far access to independent (not paid off) information on games was concerned. Those normies also have access to the same sources of information, which is a lot more than was once available as I mentioned, they're not at all using it because they choose not to. That was the point I was making. None of those people would have went out and looked for games on their own. If marketing disappeared over night they would just buy some other hip toy, that's really the scope of substitute products games compete with in that buyer demographic.

Also you're honestly overestimating the size of the "confused grandma buying kids games" segment of the market.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/189582/age-of-us-video-game-players/

Only 24% of the US audience is under 18. Hardly the lion's share even before considering how many of those are teens buying games with their own money and how many are actual kids.

The idea that these megacorps have perfected the artform and given everyone what they want is beyond insane. It's the same thing that's happened in every other industry. Good luck trying to sell something new when multiple AAA studios are competing for the ad space, retail space, and media space to squeeze you out.

They mastered the artform that is squeezing the market dry for revenue, sales figures, market share etc. You yourself admit that the gaming industry follows trends in other industries regarding market consolidation, brand entrenchment and preventing new competitors from rising. It's working in multiple industries, how is it then not the optimal business strategy?

As for giving everybody what they want, I'll address it together with the next quote.

It's why utter trash like minecraft and Roblox are raking it in. It's got nothing to do with what people want and everything to do with what people are even able to be aware of.

One man's trash is another man's treasure and here subjectivity is the core issue. The individual needs differ as does the evaluation process by which they judge games to be good or not due to personal biases.

Honestly this take in the quote makes you sound like you are too autistic to understand the market appeal of both games for other groups of people (or failing to understand differences in tastes and preference in general as a concept). They're practically substitute goods for lego and other creative toys and competing with such, just like the Sims hit the jackpot because it was a substitute for dollhouses and the same principle applies to a lot of sandbox games.

For you they are trash because either you have additional needs that should go in tandem and aren't met (but are met by other games, those that you rather play), or because your needs and wants do not in any way overlap with what those games offer. The people playing those mentioned games wouldn't be playing whatever you think is the better game just because it got more exposure, they would only play it if it did appeal to their other interests. Ravielsk already touched upon this point that the audience is much more diverse tastes and not an amorphous blob.

 

[JarlFrank]

I would be fine with getting games that look like Thief, Morrowind, Deus Ex, etc again. That's all the production value I need.

 

[luj1]

I don't need better graphics than 2004-2007 era graphics

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

Creative sterility and focusing on pleasing people in suits who will never play video games is one of many reasons why we are here.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Honestly this take in the quote makes you sound like you are too autistic to understand the market appeal of both games for other groups of people (or failing to understand differences in tastes and preference in general as a concept). They're practically substitute goods for lego and other creative toys and competing with such, just like the Sims hit the jackpot because it was a substitute for dollhouses and the same principle applies to a lot of sandbox games.

Nah, you don't understand what the kids playing these games actually do. They're not playing legos. They're playing incredibly shit bootleg versions of battle royale games and gambling simulators and so forth. I've got a nephew that I've watched grow up playing this crap. He doesn't build fuck all. He copies streamers, and the streamers shill for popular games with marketing budgets and the ones advertised to children play shit like minecraft and roblox. He switched to fortnite once he was old enough for his mom to buy it for him. No doubt he'll switch to CoD or whatever when he's older, having grown up on such shit.

I grew up playing jrpgs and Dune 2 and Herzog Zwei because out of the dozens of different games and genres at the local rental store, those were the coolest, way better than the fucking lion king or hockey games my friends owned that were all they had ever played besides mario or the sidescrollers the console came with and my brother bought. Also Rogue and Might and Magic 3, because it happened to be on the computer we got from a flea market. Guess what shit I play 30 years later?

People aren't so cleanly divided into enthusiasts that seek new stuff and people content to do the same shit forever. You need to be exposed to something better than what you've gotten used to to spark curiosity and start looking for better. It applies to video game just as much as any other entertainment, or food or a bunch of other shit. People don't even know what they don't know. Once they realize they've been missing out people jump ship from Monopoly to something actually suited to their tastes pretty quickly, and those tastes vary wildly.

Arguing CoD is what most people want because it has market share is the same as making that argument for Monopoly and Risk and Sorry 30 years ago instead of recognizing that Hasbro owned 90% of the shelf space and Walmart wasn't going to put anything not made for 6 year olds anywhere someone could actually find it, and commercials were too expensive for a game like Wingspan or Agricola to get discovered.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

This is fable, from 2004.

No, that is the remake "Anniversary" version from 2014. The real 2004 looked more like this.

Whoever took the second pic was playing on a potato.

For my money, the original is vastly superior. Better lighting, far more cheerful palette. Everything looks dull in the remaster.

 

[Ravielsk]

This is fable, from 2004.

No, that is the remake "Anniversary" version from 2014. The real 2004 looked more like this.

Whoever took the second pic was playing on a potato.

For my money, the original is vastly superior. Better lighting, far more cheerful palette. Everything looks dull in the remaster.

Agreed. Its the curse of technically more accurate but far less considered and authored lightning. Anniversary probably could look better but that would require someone to go in and redo the lightning sources and this a step too far for what is pretty much a cashgrab for consoles.

 

[luj1]

Are we not going to talk about remasters being worse than the originals?

Diablo II Resurrected - worse than the original
Warcraft III Reforged - worse than the original
Heroes 3 HD - worse than the original
Age of Mythology Retold - worse than the original

Starcraft Remastered and Red Alert 1 remaster were the only good ones

 

[Butter]

Are we not going to talk about remasters being worse than the originals?

Diablo II Resurrected - worse than the original
Warcraft III Reforged - worse than the original
Heroes 3 HD - worse than the original
Age of Mythology Retold - worse than the original

Starcraft Remastered and Red Alert 1 remaster were the only good ones

I haven't followed D2 Resurrected. Are there mechanical differences between it and the original? I had the impression that you can toggle between new graphics and old.

 

[luj1]

- the animations are worse
- introduced charms that break immunities and other casual stuff which dumbs the game down
- the UI is worse
- legacy graphics have stutters and bad gamma and missing glide wrapper (inferior to original 3dfx glide graphics)
- item art and fonts look worse