Indie games vs AAA games

[Pierce]

I feel there's a huge contrast to how AAA games worked a decade ago to now.

AAA games were meant to show the full experience of a game through immersive storytelling or beautiful gameplay. Something I would generally expect back then.
Today, said AAA games in general seem to gouge every penny out of the gamer in order to achieve the same experience, especially online and grind-based ones.

I am guessing one of two things for the gouge:
Inflation (Games remain the same in cost 20 years ago while the development cost of games have consistently risen)
Stakeholders (Investors demand a positive gain on their investments)

Indie developers on the other hand develop passion projects without the creative restrictions AAA industries usually impose on their own developers, while not largely funded as the AAA's they are usually well focused on making a game done right, even if the deadlines overshoot.

What do you think?

[Feathers]

I'm somewhere in the middle. A lot AAA and indie games in my opinion, are uninspiring clones of AAA games or of OTHER indie games. Seriously look at all the damn Minecraft clones (a very good RARE OLD indie game and the OG creator is already gone so I really don't care about it now). Every time I see a fake Minecraft clone I want to vomit already.

In the middle area, like say Compile Heart or Koei Tecmo. So I guess could say "AA" Games are my preference at the moment. I was an exclusive AAA gamer before, but now not SOOO much, although Doom Eternal really raised the bar back haha. Stuff like Assassins Creeds rehashes, overhyped games like The Last of Us 2, and endless indie platformers with S/NES graphics bore me to death.

Fire Emblem is trying to be AAA and Pokémon has gotten even more disgusting with their endless DLC scams. Same with Smash Bros. "extra fighters". How do we know this content wasn't simply withheld? Of course it was! AAA is run by DLC, some offline games are practically a subscription in some cases. No Man's Sky earned my respect though, they have done well for an indie company and keep improving it.

I could go on and on, but either I'm not against either so I can't fully back one or the other. Simple answer: It depends on the game. I can't really generalize and I realize this more after typing my first respond and then thinking about it again later.

[Blake81]

You're pretty much on-spot; now every single Triple-A title needs to run a prototype through a board of corporate suits before it's even approved to continue development. These suits, mostly a cadre of decaying septuagenarians, or a whole bunch of corporate dullards who've never played a game in their lives, are pretty much giving the final Yay or Nay on what gets made and what doesn't. And this, in turn, is basically causing the industry to start "bleeding" talent, as this Old Guard of developers, many of which were Franchise Founding Fathers, are leaving the companies to become Indies/Freelancers, and are being replaced either with talentless hacks who are out to twist games into what they want them to be, or simply new blood, fresh off college, who think they've made it big because they got hired by Triple-A, before they come to realize the nefarious nature of the places they've stepped into, which leads us to the second problem.

The problem with Triple-A goes beyond mere cash milking and corporate meddling, the conditions in which Triple-A Developers work is downright inhumane. Jim Sterling in particular has done A LOT of videos on this particular problem; on how Big Triple-A considers mass layoffs, crunch, unpaid overtime and workplace psychological abuse not just the norm, but an ABSOLUTE NEED in order to deliver a finished product.

Oh, and while it's true that inflation has gone up and game prices had stayed the same, bear in mind that many, MANY Triple-A games are simply beyond overfunded (considering the quality of what they deliver), and that a whole lot of that money doesn't go to development, but to the bonuses and royalties of all the suits in charge.

So, you have a legion of stressed and unmotivated workers, doing the bare minimum they need to make to please their corporate overlords and deliver a product that's "showy" enough to attract sales, while still being as marketable as possible. Which means that any kind of risky, original or unique ideas, get put aside to continue repeating the tried and true formulas that have the stats proving that they sell.

Also, since said corporates usually promise the moon in the sky to their stockholder vultures, whenever a game makes less than "All of the money in the world", it's considered a failure (even if the game was well accepted and loved by the playerbase). Which is why you see the perpetual hype machine being cranked even higher every year, only to fall even harder on its face.

Now, thanks to the SW:BF2 debacle, and politicians worldwide clamping down on Lootboxes and Microtransactions as a whole, this particular problem has been lessened up a lot in recent times, as the industry retreats back to other less-controversial methods like Subscriptions and Cosmetic Stores (with the exception of the Mobile Market, where Microtransactions and Lootboxes rule supreme) until the outrage is fully past and the waters are calm for them to try sailing that ship again. Although given how many countries are outright banning anything they see as "Gambling in Games", I highly doubt that the Lootbox will make a comeback any time soon.


Now, looking at the other side of the coin, both Indies, and what's being called "Double-A Developers" (basically that gentle mid range between "small indie game" and "big-budget Triple-A") have been improving both in quality and quantity over this last decade. Sure, asset flippers and meme games still exist, as do perpetually Early Access games, but the death of Steam Greenlight has certainly curbed their appearance.

Indies have, since forever, been the haven of creativity and innovation of this industry; with developer only being limited by time and money (and this last one has been greatly remedied by services such as Kickstarter or Patreon, which provide either a bulk sum or a steady stream of revenue). However, Indies are usually the choice of the "cultured" gamer; that OG gamer who's been playing since before it was Mainstream and that often has a discerning eye for quality and content that (most) Triple-A simply won't meet. Sadly, most of the money made by game sales nowadays comes from Casuals; these new generation of gamers who game because it's "Cool" and will pay for what's essentially the same game with an incremental number or subtitle at the end as many times as possible. So, sadly, Indies can't compete with Triple-A when it comes to raw profit, no matter how popular the game is. Their biggest enemy is exposure; lacking the massive marketing budgets of Triple-A, they must either rely on hearsay, the Steam algorithm, or more recently, YT reviewers liking their game and making mention of it (P.D. ACQUIRE BRIGADOR, it's GREAT).

Double-A, however, are an entirely different animal. Many of them are successful Indies, who've basically "leveled up" enough to start tackling more ambitious projects. These are basically smaller but better well known studios like Firaxis, Paradox, CDPR (who is in the process of ascending to Triple-A), and the like, who can deliver better looking (and hence, more Casual-appealing) games, and who can afford some amount of marketing to make themselves known. These are the guys who are currently leading the market, and many may even grow enough to become Triple-A themselves (for better or worse), and this is causing many changes in the market, specially as Big Triple-A tries to "eat" those smaller studios into themselves, and some fight against it.

Speaking about market changes, however... one of the most unpredictable thing of recent years is the fact that now there are full-blow porn/hentai games announcing AND SELLING themselves on Steam and funding themselves through Kickstarter. And I don't mean just VNs. Games like Subverse (Basically a Mass Effect-style game created by well-known/dreaded 3D Porn Makers STUDIOFOW), Breeders of Nephelym (Breeding Season/Cloud Meadow knock-off), Princess & Conquest (Towergirls' Official Game) and many other titles that, years back, would've only existed in obscure internet forums, or on hentai sharing sites. This is also causing for many Hentai/Porn veteran developers of many kinds to step out of the shadows and start showing their talent as Indies (for instance, the recently extremely popular game, Helltaker, had its music made by Mittsies, a Legendary Furry Game Music Composer), which has created this strangeness in where you can find fully pornographic stuff on Steam. It merely locked behind an age filter.

So, yeah, given the way things are looking, as old studios bleed and rot away, new ones are rising from the Indie crowd, porn games become more visible and accepted, we are indeed upon a new era; an era where all of these Indie, Triple-A or Double-A are kinda meaningless; as long as you like the game, that's all that matters.

No Man's Sky earned my respect though, they have done well for an indie company and keep improving it.

Yes they have, and it's not half bad now. And believe it or not, Fallout 76 is also good now.

The Wastelanders patch made for a Fallout experience I've frankly enjoyed more than FO4 (mainly because the old style dialogue, with skill-checks and intelligence/charisma choices, is back). Also, believe it or not, the Atom Shop is the least annoying "Cash Store" I've stumbled upon in YEARS. Because the game pretty much SHOWERS you with Atoms as you play it, meaning that, unless you wanna buy EVERY SINGLE THING, you can usually buy stuff without paying one penny, just using your earned Atoms.

Also, the "Pay-2-Win" stuff (the repair kits and scrap kits) aren't as much "Pay-2-Win" as they are "Pay-2-Not-Play", because anyone willing to put half a grain of effort on it can do without them (also, they sometimes drop as prizes from certain quests/events which can be done limitlessly).

[Feathers]

I saw FO76 was supposedly better. FF14 remake better or No Man's Sky better? I've been avoiding it.

[Blake81]

Haven't played FF14, so can't say on that one.

NMS kinda lost the appeal to me once I finished learning all things, built up my base on a nice ice world, and started exploring the rest of the universe to find... nothing I hadn't seen before. And since my base world had the Buried Scrap modifier, I was basically farming those and getting rich without leaving my backyard, which kinda killed any motivation I had to keep exploring. Also, while not the same experience, Subnautica did the whole Survival thing a thousand times better IMHO.

As for F76, well, I got the game on a free weekend, mostly thinking to see some hilarious bugs before I got too frustrated and stopped playing. But instead... I was met with a FUKKEN HUGE MAP (TODD wasn't lying with the "Four Times the Size of FO4", at least...) to explore and some rather interesting quests to take now that NPCs are in, just bear in mind that Fast Travel now costs caps to all places but your CAMP or the starting Vault. Also, the map has FIXED LEVELS now, just like FO3 and FNV did; no more of that bullshit level scaling from FO4. So, if you're a lowby, and wanna level up fast, it IS perfectly plausible to go into the higher level areas and start carefully hunting down smaller groups of baddies (specially Watoga on the Southeast, as it has permanently-respawning robots which will attack you until you do that area's main quest). Also, if you stick by bands of high-lvl players, you won't even need to be on the same team, just land ONE SHOT on the big monster they're killing, and you get ALL the XP.

Now, this isn't me saying that there AREN'T bugs, there are, but they are very specific, and can be avoided if you know what you're doing.

VATS is pretty much gone; the new VATS system has no pause, so you can no longer use it the way you used to, but due to that, they've increased the overall "iron sights" damage if you get good with a sniper rifle (I'm playing the stealthy sniper as usual). Meaning that headshots DO COUNT, specially if you have the right perks.

Speaking of perks, you may wanna decide what kind of build you're gonna be BEFORE you start playing, as it can give you an idea of how you'll allocate your SPECIAL points, which you get one every level until you reach lvl 50 (which is the "softcap" of levels; as weapons and gear don't go beyond lvl 45-50). Beyond that, you get a new perk of your choice every level, OR move a SPECIAL point around (which is a good way of polishing your build), and there's really no level cap as far as I know (seen lvl 350 dudes). As for the build, automatic weapons and shotguns with power armor are honestly better than sniper stealth (but I just love being sneaky), and melee is surprisingly OP (compared to previous Fallouts), so if you wanna do a "Tank" build, that's pretty solid (pun unintended) right now, and will carry you OK to the endgame.

People-wise, this game has a surprisingly friend community; people will give you free 3-Stars rares or spare blueprints if you do as much as ask, and so far I've only met one asshole Griefer, which really, REALLY wanted to grief me (throwing racial slurs at me while asking if I was a "G_y N____r"), but couldn't thanks to the AMAZINGLY GOOD ANTI-GRIEF SYSTEM the game has (it was hilarious to see the asshole pretty much throw a tantrum when he realized that he couldn't grief me without my permission). Basically, if someone shoots you, they do no damage, and you get a warning, with the name and all, of the dude who just shot you, AND UNLESS YOU FIRE BACK AT HIM, ALL HIS ATTACKS WILL KEEP DOING ZERO DAMAGE. Meaning that PvP is compulsively optional; you simply CAN'T be griefed. Also, people just... don't care about PvP; if they kill you they only get the JUNK you were carrying, not your weapons, stimpaks or anything of REAL value, and since junk is all over the place, and you can get stuff by just asking nicely, there's simply no PvP outside of the Nuclear Winter mode (Battle Royale mode, which is separate, and pretty much mothballed).

Crafting base-wise, quite a bit has been improved from FO4, now you can LITERALLY build ANYWHERE; just plop down your CAMP and start building. The only annoyance being that, if your camp gets too complex and you move it, you'll fail to place it again (one of the few bugs), and that you have a "Limit" on how much you can build. Also, while your camp can get attacked by monsters, it's PvP-free as well. There are also "Mineral Deposits" you can install an extractor on and make use off to get certain materials for free (I do this with Lead, for easier ammo crafting). Items-wise, you basically have a Stash (with a limited weight cap, sadly) where you store all your stuff and nobody can steal from it. Storage won't be a problem at first, but once you start reaching end-game, you'll find yourself lacking space regularly. There are also "Workshops", places you take over which give you some specific benefits (like certain kinds of loot you won't find anywhere else) but that must be defended from regular waves of baddies, and your ownership of them goes away whenever you log out. They are "technically" the PvP place, as player "were supposed to" fight over controlling them, but everyone's cool with sharing so hostile takeovers almost never happen. Also, while you still need perks to craft stuff, now you also need Plans/Recipes to craft many things. Weapon and Armor plans are either found or randomly acquired by scrapping said weapon/armor, while food/medicine quests are only found (and many important ones are only given during the early main quest, so DO THE MAIN QUEST).

Quests-wise, there are a lot of new things, many which I must admit are rather FNV-esque. While fetch-quests are still there, some have rather interesting twists and unusual ways to go about then, even the repeatable and daily ones. Same goes for "events" (basically free repeatable quests that show up randomly around the map), and I found the main quest to be surprisingly absorbing (also, big advise, try to follow it until you at least finish the Responders part of it, they give a lot of essentials, like the crafting benches, for free).

As a whole, I'm enjoying it quite a bit, even if I'm finding my stealthy build a bit underpowered for endgame (or at least it was until I got the Chinese Stealth Suit and a Legendary Shotgun SO FUKKEN OP a lvl 255 dude offered me 13K caps for it, which considering that the max caps you can have is 30K, that's a downright fortune... and of course, I said no ). The real endgame lies, as usual, in getting yourself the best Legendary Weapons and the like, as well as the rarer stuff, and TBH, it's quite fun.

[Feathers]

Final Fantasy XIV as in the game was completely remade because the initial release was so awful. Same here as I never saw or played F076, the backlash was so bad I avoided it hard lol. I am a huge fan of FO3 and 4 (1-2 look boring to me). Right I'm playing PSO2 though since it's finally in English haha.

Also yea NMS was from an indie perspective, it came a long way from the pile of crap it was. I play it every once and a while it's the updates that impress me the most as in they don't charge $20 for a little update.

[Pierce]

For the moment. I've been sticking to niche games with a fickle of indie origins.

I just think it's absurd to have to pay full price for a game, with expensive dlc that far exceeds the initial purchase price point and slapped with a subscription, as if they think people are money trees.

And Feathers, I agree cloned games are oversaturated and annoying. It's like the time Street fighter 2 exploded in popularity and people copycat the formula in order to make a fast buck. Also can't forget how China blatantly cloned Overwatch for mobile gamers.

Though, I've given up on console gaming and will stick to PC gaming. All that's left is getting a fight stick, a joystick and steering wheel with pedals and a shifter to turn my PC into a home arcade system.

[Pokemonaces]

Though I of course find the idea that the games these days do lay out dlc upon dlc and paid content to get stuff that should have been in the game, I do play a lot of AAA ganes, though some of the ones I do play usually have DLC free like monster hunter world.

Dlc back then was meant to be a metaphorical cherry on top, adding a little something to the game which is already complete, but now companies know people will spend money to get the DLC so they're going to take advantage of it as long as the profits they make out of it supersede the negativity they get from said transactions.

Indie games are not ones I'm inclined to play too often, but I do have a couple, though most are short, they are fun. Its nice that those games have everything that's meant to be in it without DLC padding.

[Feathers]

For the moment. I've been sticking to niche games with a fickle of indie origins.

I just think it's absurd to have to pay full price for a game, with expensive dlc that far exceeds the initial purchase price point and slapped with a subscription, as if they think people are money trees.

And Feathers, I agree cloned games are oversaturated and annoying. It's like the time Street fighter 2 exploded in popularity and people copycat the formula in order to make a fast buck. Also can't forget how China blatantly cloned Overwatch for mobile gamers.

Though, I've given up on console gaming and will stick to PC gaming. All that's left is getting a fight stick, a joystick and steering wheel with pedals and a shifter to turn my PC into a home arcade system.

Niiiice welcome to PC crew.

I've always been a fringe gamer myself, once things get too popular or too much into "big money" I get bored. Heroes of the Storm is still considered "dead" by a lot of people but I like a lot even after 6 years. I loved League of Legends for 3 years, then it was basically taken over by 10C, and turned into their own game. Which is making them big money. LoL/Riot is trying to be "AAA" and they are churning out so much boring stuff now like a Pokémon League of Legends clone.

Fire Emblem was always niche, but now it's AAA and it showed in the Switch game. There was really no interesting story or character interactions, since the game is designed to have characters die, it was a bore. The DLC completely threw it off by adding a 4th house when the entire game is called 3 houses, what a sham. I knew after 3DS released 3 friggin versions of the same game it was kill the series for me. Again, AAA greed.

Persona 5 really let me down releasing yet another "remake" with "added content". ATLUS was one of the few companies I HAD respect for (it was niche before), but their AAA shoes are getting bigger and bigger, and the greed is rolling in. Yet they have zero word on SMT V..after 3 years.

People will argue that AAA "needs" DLC so they can keep afloat, but it's funny how that wasn't true before. They just keep focusing on raising the bar and forcing people into getting to PC hardware (a common hole I fall into) instead of the game instead. DOOM 3 made this huge mistake back in Windows XP days, that's why DOOM Eternal made me very happy when it when back to its roots. I already see they are starting the DLC "Season Pass" disease though...but DOOM tends to have very fair sales so I'll let it slide. >_<