Team Cherry winning
Team Cherry winning
Comments
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Cannot wait to buy another Ubislop-like that costs $80, takes 70+ hours to complete the mainstory and plays exactly the same as the last 20 iterations over the past decade
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I think it's great they're charging such a reasonable price, but I hope people don't hold other smaller devs to this standard and compare them one to one. It's a lot easier to charge $20 when you're about to sell a bajillion copies of something. A solo dev making something way smaller might charge $20, too, but they may only sell a few dozen copies.
In other words, celebrate the pro consumer decision but please don't use it as a cudgel against other indies in the future.
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Indie devs keep winning. I can't really remember the last time I played a really good AAA game. Mid maybe, but not good.
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I'm playing prey at the moment, I think that was considered AAA? Anyway, I'm enjoying it a lot. But yeah, generally I agree with you. Also, I never buy them on release, only a few years later on sale. Way too expensive otherwise, it's refreshing to see a game come out at an affordable price.
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I cannot wait for all the AAA developers to whine, cry, and complain about how everyone is saying Silksong is so good and that AAA can't compete with their own games.
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If this is a reference to the BG3 thing, it was only like one person who originally said that, and I'm pretty sure it was a smaller dev talking about small games compared to BG3. That whole situation got blown way out of proportion.
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The $199 side omits that the poor ceo had to buy his 3rd luxury car in 2 years time because reasons.
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*yacht
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Destiny 2 moment
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Indie games are showing the way with the amount of content these days
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I didn't realize 7 years was a full decade.
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I'm just wondering why it's the decade's fault for the long delay.
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I'm not saying that it's not irresponsible to grow to the size that they have, but I don't think people understand the staggering difference in the size of the development teams between GTA and Hollow Knight.
MobyGames lists 4,771 people in the credits for GTA V and just 85 for Hollow Knight. Honestly most of those on Hollow Knight are translators and testers, people who weren't working the full length of development time.
As a reminder, 99.9% of the cost of a game is number of staff * salary * time.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/62275/grand-theft-auto-v/credits/windows/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/84194/hollow-knight/credits/windows/ -
i’m all for boycotting big companies slop in general; gotta stop rewarding mass produced, corner cutting productions
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Yeah, well ‘gamers’ do what they do at scale.
Apparently they can’t even be bothered to price shop for GPUs, as Nvidia has 94% market share at a time when Intel and AMD are selling sublime mid range cards. How can we expect folks to stop buying Call of Duty on principle?
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let’s see more passionate small teams than micromanaged large teams appeasing their quarterly shareholders
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This could very much represent troubles not just in video game development, but project development in an investor-driven market entirely.
Everyone is focused on short-term wins and profits - so they can demonstrate they're a fantastic manager making incredible things. They hire 1000 people, then show the grandiose things they made with those people in 2 years so they can take more investment. But the way creative work goes, there are far better ways to play that lottery - they just don't involve as much active management, and are far less showy.
As a publisher, you could just start 50 small studios of only 10 employees each, with occasional external support as needed to each one, and give all of them 5 years to develop. That would equate to the same or much lesser cost as some of these gigantic multi-outsourced projects, but it means investments are left for longer. And of course, few of them would be a "Hollow Knight" or "Minecraft", but just enough of them would likely succeed to pay for all the others.
You can see similar concerns in R&D and other similar fields across industries, that give randomized and unpredictable benefit when every manager is watching every quarter's earnings.
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As a publisher, you could just start
This actually happens a lot, but kind of the other way around. Small indie shops run out of money and small publishers / companies swoop in with venture, throw a lifeline worth of money for a decent stake in the product. It either gets made, or it gets bought by a bigger fish. Sometimes the product is already done and they just need help expanding the audiience
Places like forklift.gg, who helped accelerate Cash Cleaner Simulator
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And of course, few of them would be a “Hollow Knight” or “Minecraft”, but just enough of them would likely succeed to pay for all the others.
I would contest this. The vast majority of indie games ‘fail,’ and there is some Machiavellian logic to “let’s make a mediocre game we know will sell.”
Basically zero “micro team” indies turn into Rimworld or Hollow Knight or Stardew Valley, statistically, much less Minecraft. That’s a fantasy.
…That being said, I think there is a “sweet spot” dev team size where diminishing returns are quickly hit. Coffee Stain (the Satisfactory dev) is my classic sweet spot example: Big enough to license Unreal Engine and pretty dependably make something “big” and fantastic, without burning cash detailing pores in ass cheeks and making some broken custom engine to fulfill some suit's “1st party synergy” fantasy.
They have marketers and such, but it’s frugally spent.
And publishers are pursuing this strategy. Paradox seems to be on a spending spree for mid sized studios, and Embracer Group is notorious for it.
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The funny fact than i don't give a fuck for both games
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ITT: Folks comparing labor hours without cost of those hours.
Folks, coders who understand how game engines work and can make graphically intense well running games are 3.5-4 times more expensive per hour.
I really can't believe I have to spell this out for everyone. Do you really think naughty dog or Rockstar aren't hiring folks at 200k+ to work on these games for thousands of hours only still to fuck out up after 6 years of development?
I'm not saying 3d is better, it's clearly too expensive for everyone to push these boundaries and different tools for different games; but this is just the economic reality.
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But graphically intense is a supply side decision not a demand side one, most of the big hit indie games including 3D ones are either overtly styalized or doing a kind of pseudorealism that looks clean without having to model the refraction index of individual rain drops.
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Silksong is using a 2D hand-animated style, which is not cheap to make, not because of coders but because it requires way more work from artists than other art styles.
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I designed this penis slicer using the absolutely best components, and years of German engineering. I'm charging $1000, which is a steal if you think about the cost of the labor and parts.
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Removed by Moderator — Modlog
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Who asked for these games to look photo real, I used to like GTA back in the San Andreas and Vice City days. I hated the look of GTA 5 and didn't even finish it, the older games had cartoon graphics and lots of charm, these new ones suck
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valheim out there setting a massive record in sales, with graphics that look like the PS1 with better lighting
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Everyone who isn't being pedantic and ignoring the vast majority and economic data and sales that led us to giant graphically intensive open worlds rpg and action games.
You don't like that shit, good for you. But pretending the demand isn't there is head in sand dumb.
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The left part is the reference to what? Who is Lucia?
Plus, you can't realistically ask more than 20 bucks for a 2d platformer.-
It honestly bugged me that people think there's like a ceiling price for 2d even though it require artist to animate frame by frame, but 3d it's unlimited even though you could tweak everything far more easily.
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2D is not even less work than 3D imo if you're comparing "good looking" 3D and 2D work. Modern techniques have all but rendered them as merely separate art styles.
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There is a price for every D. You go to the store and buy a D for like 15 bucks, so reselling it for more than 20 is criminal. You get one D for free with a game engine, then you buy another D, that's why the top price for two D is 20 bucks. You would think a game with 3 D will be capped at 40, but then you need to add some A to it, so it's OK if a game with 3 D and 3 A costs 80 bucks at retail, A aren't free.
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It's not about hours. It's the cost of those hours. Despite tons of helpers, performant 3d is hard as fuck. And with that comes expensive coders. In extreme cases you're talking about 3.5:1.
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That's capitalism for you: first you say that the price doesn't depend on the production expenses and can be as big as the seller wants, and now you try to explain the price with "production expenses". No. It is a 2d platformer. 20 bucks is already a very high price.
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Luca and the two people on the left are a reference to the protagonists from GTA6 which is rumored to cost ~80 USD.
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I would have paid $40-50 myself. Maybe I'll get a second copy at some point.
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I don’t think anyone would have complained if it was $30-$40. They could have sold well at $60 with some people complaining about it and others defending them for the choice.
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That’s like N64 game prices.
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subject to inflation
yeah, since everything costs more and wages have barely increased, it's more like 15$ these days if you want to keep buying things like "food" and "transportation"