indie
You keep using that word, AAA developer/publisher Square Enix. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Haha, they probably means the smaller games they release. Like that “Various Daylife”, what to call these games? They aren’t AAA or AA.
Now that is a business strategy. Just make them ownable and not all looter shooters and people will probably buy them
Edit: typing whoopsie
It’s interesting because I swear I buzzed by an article the other day with some eye roll complaint about there being too many games, and that’s why it was hard for games to sell.
There are a lot of games, but it means that people want to engage with games that are actually fun and aren’t soulless cash grabs or half baked early access with no real value or fun.
It’s just the basic “quality versus quantity” principle. Instead of shoveling out crap like Rise of Kong, Gollum, The Day Before, etc etc, just focus your efforts on a single good game. The only recent exception to this rule I guess would be Starfield, but that’s for Bethesda to figure out on how to salvage.
Speaking of salvage…at this point I think Bethesda themselves might be worth salvage value at this point. If they were willing to release a turd like Starfield, imagine what they’ll do to TES VI.
Turds eat shit part six.
Whoa whoa whoa…when did Todd Howard become the protagonist?
Yeah… I don’t have high hopes for TESVI. After FO76 and Starfield, they’ve got a lot of trust to win back. I expect it to be the following;
- Slow rise in hype after 2025
- Sharp rise in hype within year of release
- Honeymoon phase for first 5 days after release, criticism drowned out by fan boys
- Collective realization the game is shit with only the most delusional still protecting/coping
That’s basically what happened with Starfield, and unless they prove otherwise, it’s what I expect for TESVI
I’ve started turning more and more to indie games now, and I’ve found quite a few games I’ve loved that way. Deep Rock Galactic, Streets of Rogue, Valheim (before realising it’s abandonware)…honestly, good fucking riddance to the consoles who make it impossible to enjoy games by smaller studios.
Same. Indie games and emulators is what I’ve been putting a lot of my time into. I’ve learned that “AAA” studios are a lot like their alkaline counterparts - basically obsolete.
Valheim I agree. I did get a ton of enjoyment out of it on release, so it’s not really a matter of disappointment in the sense of fun per dollar, just disappointment in the glacial pace of updates. My feeling is that the Devs got their bag, then decided to just coast. It makes me wonder that if it didn’t explode in sales at the start, would they have put more effort into updates or would they have just given up. Guess we’ll never truly know
I think that’s going to be the big one in terms of changing the pattern of early purchases. It will also make it much harder for future indie devs to sell their games, which really fucking sucks.
Square Enix Wants To Make Fewer Games
Oh please, go ahead, your garbage won’t be missed!
I think that’s a good idea. There are so many games coming out all the time and if they spend more resources on a single game it’ll be better. Right?
Eh. Hopefully this doesn’t include their 2DHD department. Those are probably classified as low budget but are by far and away the best games they make rn.
Yeah that’s working out so well for the big Hollywood Studios. Put all their eggs in 1 or 2 Big Summer Blockbusters and hope they pay off.
What’s the game shown in the thumbnail?
FF VII
This article was a wild ride. I have not been keeping up with Square Enix so I had no idea they were all in on the web3 hype and now AI, too. I am wondering what is going on with the title “Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai”, did AI come up with that wordy name? What even is a Strash?
Someone needs to teach this company about sunk costs. Just because they invested in blockchain and AI doesn’t mean they need to keep throwing money and resources at it. Maybe they would have a better marketing budget and better market research into the new trends in their field if they weren’t so busy constantly salivating over all the latest tech bro hype.
I can’t say I agree with the approach. Someone like Sony can perhaps get away with this knowing that even with routine mechanics, they can reliably sell a good story.
But Square is sort of discovering their niche for modern Japanese RPGs; if their singular high budget games are going to be like Final Fantasy 16, there’s definitely some risk of overinvestment in stories people are “meh” about. Meanwhile, if people were asked to name their favorite JRPG stories, I imagine a lot of them were not ridiculously high budget.
