Decline The lack of recovery among American RPGs, visualised with graphs

[rusty_shackleford]

The thing with US and cRPGs is the same problem behind most issues that country has: greed and an relentlessness focus on profit over everything else. Big companies make games that will give them the biggest return on investment, while indies create games that can be quickly made and are easy to sell. When you create cRPG you need to put more effort and can expect to get lower profits than you would if you did other genres. The idea of putting more effort for lower RoI literary breaks a neoliberal brain. They can't handle the idea, they are are too cynical for that. It's like trying to teach a dog to do math. A corporate brain rot is antithetical to creating good cRPGs or good anything else.

"People wanting to be able to afford rent is greed"
ok

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If Todd Howard had made Age of Decadence rather than the Elder Scrolls, it wouldn't have given him a fraction of the wealth, fame, and power he currently possesses.

So what, am I supposed to empathize with his choice to abandon any pretense to artisanship in exchange for a bag of shekles and a place at a wannabe-movie premiere where cheaply bought d-list celebrities shit all over the ‘product’ he was pushing (and totally sidelined his people who actually made it)?

If I had to choose between being Todd Howard or Vince, I'd take Todd Howard's position any day of the week. Anyone else pretending otherwise is a big fat liar.
Video games are entertainment, Todd's money is generational wealth for your family.

 

[Van-d-all]

American (and Western) RPGs, just like games in general, became a major part of entertainment industry and as such, first and foremost are made as a high return investment. Interesting stories, elaborate quests and complex mechanics are all shunned as potential risks in maximizing sales. Production effort is put on marketing and graphics, because those games are products that don't have to be good, they need to earn as much as possible. This business trend is slowly coming to other regions, CDPR being a great example.

 

[JarlFrank]

Also, there's an inherent bias for old=good, you can see this in e.g., the slow overall rising opinion of DAO.

DAO made Codex GOTY in 2009 because there was barely any competition (Risen and KotC were the only serious contenders). There was no slow rising opinion, people liked it back then but already had some criticisms.

I liked it back then because it was a decent new RPG released during a time of almost no new RPGs.

My opinion lessened over the years though because of how utterly horrible 90% of the game's encounter design is.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

American (and Western) RPGs, just like games in general, became a major part of entertainment industry and as such, first and foremost are made as a high return investment. Interesting stories, elaborate quests and complex mechanics are all shunned as potential risks in maximizing sales. Production effort is put on marketing and graphics, because those games are products that don't have to be good, they need to earn as much as possible. This business trend is slowly coming to other regions, CDPR being a great example.

I'm not sure why you guys keep reducing it to "profit" and "more profit", it's "profit" or "company goes under".
The list of western developers that survived the great purge without changing their target demographic is what... Larian and PB? And Larian was on the brink of going under many, many times.
The rest are either defunct or zombie corporations being kept alive by necrophiliac publishers.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I guess the issue here is that both Risen and KotC are much better games an much better crpgs than DAO.

 

[Hace El Oso]

If I had to choose between being Todd Howard or Vince, I'd take Todd Howard's position any day of the week. Anyone else pretending otherwise is a big fat liar.
Video games are entertainment, Todd's money is generational wealth for your family.

Vince can support himself and his family while retaining his honor and integrity as a craftsman while Todd threw all that away for an expensive sports car and the chance to be in the same room as Snoop Dog. Glorifying this level of schysterism is completely un-American.

 

[JarlFrank]

I guess the issue here is that both Risen and KotC are much better games an much better crpgs than DAO.

I fully agree with that statement. The conclusion is that DAO has been overrated here from day one, rather than "slowly gaining popularity because it's old".

 

[NJClaw]

Also, there's an inherent bias for old=good, you can see this in e.g., the slow overall rising opinion of DAO.

DAO made Codex GOTY in 2009 because there was barely any competition (Risen and KotC were the only serious contenders). There was no slow rising opinion, people liked it back then but already had some criticisms.

Do you seriously expect rusty to back up his statement with actual facts? Are you delusional?

 

[Van-d-all]

I'm not sure why you guys keep reducing it to "profit" and "more profit", it's "profit" or "company goes under".

Even so, playing it safe is now their preferred way to go, and nothing great will ever come without taking risks. Soon all AA and above RPGs will be soylent green grade like The Outer Worlds.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If I had to choose between being Todd Howard or Vince, I'd take Todd Howard's position any day of the week. Anyone else pretending otherwise is a big fat liar.
Video games are entertainment, Todd's money is generational wealth for your family.

Vince can support himself and his family while retaining his honor and integrity as a craftsman while Todd threw all that away for an expensive sports car and the chance to be in the same room as Snoop Dog. Glorifying this level of schysterism is completely un-American.

I think you heavily overestimate just how much AoD has made Vince.
AoD has a revenue of just a bit over 2 million USD(we know because ITS is very open with their financials) in about 5+ years. Seems decent, right? This is presumably(I assume Vince pays his employees) split between development cost, multiple developers salaries, and future development costs. I won't pretend to know how much of this he actually ended up putting in his wallet, but I'd imagine it's a lot less than you seem to think it is.

Todd Howard's family will never have to worry about financial insecurity ever.
I can't imagine what kind of person wouldn't jump at that opportunity. Yes, opportunities for your children far outweigh any "honor and integrity as a craftsman"

 

[Heroic Liberator]

while retaining his honor and integrity as a craftsman

He's a businessman in the entertainment industry, not an artisan with wealthy patrons that have good tastes in RPGs. Artistic integrity is for hobbyists.

 

[Van-d-all]

Artistic integrity is for hobbyists.

And as long as corporate industry keeps grinding them to dust slaving their time away in annualized generic AAA to make a living, we won't have good RPGs. Simple.

 

[JarlFrank]

As long as your business can support yourself, it is successful.

And once you have made millions with a hit game, you're set for life.

Now you can just keep realizing your artistic visions with no care for the profit.

That's how it should be done.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The thing with US and cRPGs is the same problem behind most issues that country has: greed and an relentlessness focus on profit over everything else. Big companies make games that will give them the biggest return on investment, while indies create games that can be quickly made and are easy to sell. When you create cRPG you need to put more effort and can expect to get lower profits than you would if you did other genres. The idea of putting more effort for lower RoI literary breaks a neoliberal brain. They can't handle the idea, they are are too cynical for that. It's like trying to teach a dog to do math. A corporate brain rot is antithetical to creating good cRPGs or good anything else.

"People wanting to be able to afford rent is greed"
ok

It's not people who have problems affording rent that are in charge. It amazes me how much mental gymnastics one is willing to do to defend pathological attitudes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Artistic integrity is for hobbyists.

And as long as corporate industry keeps grinding them to dust slaving their time away in annualized generic AAA to make a living, we won't have good RPGs. Simple.

I see nothing to suggest that titles with large production costs are actually the more profitable(or safe) choice over multiple smaller titles.
People keep pining for the AA and lamenting the AAA -- I hate to tell you, but it's already here. Regularly released medium budget games like Outer Worlds -- especially ones suitable for various game subscription services -- is the current situation and the foreseeable future.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

As long as your business can support yourself, it is successful.

Most (all?) AAA devs don't have 'their' businesses, but shareholders that they answer to. So if you pursue your vision to the detriment of their safe profits, you'll either loose their financial backing or be forced to take a backseat from lead design.

 

[Van-d-all]

And once you have made millions with a hit game, you're set for life.

Now you can just keep realizing your artistic visions with no care for the profit.

Appetite comes with eating though, because that's where that artistic integrity should kick in, was there any left in them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The thing with US and cRPGs is the same problem behind most issues that country has: greed and an relentlessness focus on profit over everything else. Big companies make games that will give them the biggest return on investment, while indies create games that can be quickly made and are easy to sell. When you create cRPG you need to put more effort and can expect to get lower profits than you would if you did other genres. The idea of putting more effort for lower RoI literary breaks a neoliberal brain. They can't handle the idea, they are are too cynical for that. It's like trying to teach a dog to do math. A corporate brain rot is antithetical to creating good cRPGs or good anything else.

"People wanting to be able to afford rent is greed"
ok

It's not people who have problems affording rent that are in charge. It amazes me how much mental gymnastics one is willing to do to defend pathological attitudes.

No, it's people who can't afford to pay their employees because they aren't making enough money.
I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand but in some places of the world we pay people for labor.

 

[mondblut]

If I had to choose between being Todd Howard or Vince, I'd take Todd Howard's position any day of the week. Anyone else pretending otherwise is a big fat liar.

Owning McDonalds is alright. Eating at McDonalds, on the other hand...

 

[Mortmal]

I have previously noted that there is a dearth of good new RPGs from the US, which never really recovered from the console assault in the mid-2000s. Apart from New Vegas, the Great American RPG has been essentially vanquished by the console invasion .

No console invasion, nintendo and sega were super popular and we had rpgs . That's only when the xbox 360 basically a mid range gaming pc for cheap appeared we had a rpg draught, simply because it offered mainstream a way to play high resolution , high poly games. Those games requires high budget and large teams , they simply cant allow failure so it must sell a lot. RPG are hard to make and doesnt sell . Then MMOs like ultima online and everquest help to kill solo RPGS. If high end pc were a common thing amongst mainstream you would only see high poly battle royales and such still. Even during the amiga atari st days, rpg were the less popular and less pirated games, it was all about arcade games port.

 

[Van-d-all]

Artistic integrity is for hobbyists.

And as long as corporate industry keeps grinding them to dust slaving their time away in annualized generic AAA to make a living, we won't have good RPGs. Simple.

I see nothing to suggest that titles with large production costs are actually the more profitable(or safe) choice over multiple smaller titles.
People keep pining for the AA and lamenting the AAA -- I hate to tell you, but it's already here. Regularly released medium budget games like Outer Worlds -- especially ones suitable for various game subscription services -- is the current situation and the foreseeable future.

And I never said otherwise. I'm quite certain, that game industry, like movie industry will slowly move towards releasing several cost optimized mediocre games instead of fewer large ones. The AAA tag is there pretty much just to stay afloat among other corpos. Like the multi-million dollar SFX in dumbshit movies. What I meant, is the job market became almost exclusive to corporations, swallowing the hobbyists wholesale and squishing any trace of their creative individualism. Look how Boyarsky's artstyle (and aesthetic taste) changed during his time in Blizzard.

 

[Grauken]

The thing with US and cRPGs is the same problem behind most issues that country has: greed and an relentlessness focus on profit over everything else. Big companies make games that will give them the biggest return on investment, while indies create games that can be quickly made and are easy to sell. When you create cRPG you need to put more effort and can expect to get lower profits than you would if you did other genres. The idea of putting more effort for lower RoI literary breaks a neoliberal brain. They can't handle the idea, they are are too cynical for that. It's like trying to teach a dog to do math. A corporate brain rot is antithetical to creating good cRPGs or good anything else.

"People wanting to be able to afford rent is greed"
ok

It's not people who have problems affording rent that are in charge. It amazes me how much mental gymnastics one is willing to do to defend pathological attitudes.

No, it's people who can't afford to pay their employees because they aren't making enough money.
I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand but in some places of the world we pay people for labor.

In most places better than the US

 

[Ladonna]

If Todd Howard had made Age of Decadence rather than the Elder Scrolls, it wouldn't have given him a fraction of the wealth, fame, and power he currently possesses.

So what, am I supposed to empathize with his choice to abandon any pretense to artisanship in exchange for a bag of shekles and a place at a wannabe-movie premiere where cheaply bought d-list celebrities shit all over the ‘product’ he was pushing (and totally sidelined his people who actually made it)?

If I had to choose between being Todd Howard or Vince, I'd take Todd Howard's position any day of the week. Anyone else pretending otherwise is a big fat liar.
Video games are entertainment, Todd's money is generational wealth for your family.

Todd has a family?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

American (and Western) RPGs, just like games in general, became a major part of entertainment industry and as such, first and foremost are made as a high return investment. Interesting stories, elaborate quests and complex mechanics are all shunned as potential risks in maximizing sales. Production effort is put on marketing and graphics, because those games are products that don't have to be good, they need to earn as much as possible. This business trend is slowly coming to other regions, CDPR being a great example.

I'm not sure why you guys keep reducing it to "profit" and "more profit", it's "profit" or "company goes under".
The list of western developers that survived the great purge without changing their target demographic is what... Larian and PB? And Larian was on the brink of going under many, many times.
The rest are either defunct or zombie corporations being kept alive by necrophiliac publishers.

Those were different times, times of physical media. There was a limited shelf space, so not all games could be available for sale. If store chain wouldn't buy your game you were screwed and chains were interested only in giving shelf space to games who offered the biggest RoI to them. This forced you to adapt to mainstream taste or die. There are reasons so many people speculate if Troika would be able to survive is digital distribution was a thing back then.