Why games are too big

foreign weeks of gaming discourse got me disrupted I feel like a moon man it's old news by now but you've heard the discourse right baldus Gate 3 comes out game of a year praised by players critics and most Developers for it's everything some of these spineless amoeba and the AAA space though they're scared that it'll set a new standard seems they've grown so complacent so apathetic that they feel threatened by the existence of video game essentially they're afraid that they'll have to make something as good as Baldur's Gate 3. what a crazy thing for developers to say almost unbelievable one might add The Gaming Community at large has been eating itself alive like the sweatiest imaginable version of that thing where the snake eats itself alive and all over something that nobody even said whether or not you bought into the rage cycle sparked by an offhand Twitter thread and reignited by te YouTube gaming scene I'm hoping that by the time I'm done I'll have changed your mind a bit on where the industry's gone wrong lately I don't want to focus too much on Nelson the dude behind the original thread God knows he's had enough death threats and diapers flung his way already instead I want to focus solely on what he said what he didn't say and hopefully find some common ground per chance even Ballers Gate 3 is a massive game it is insanely huge and that's really cool it's amazing what Larry in the studio behind the game managed to accomplish and they deserve the praise they're getting now of course not everyone in the industry can make games as earth-shittingly large as Baldur's gaming 3. but like games don't need to be as earth-shittingly large as balding 3 to be good meaningful well-made stable games at launch obviously we know this because we are intelligent if you agree with that sentiment you agree with Nelson this guy's on your side all developers are everyone is we Gamers developers are Gamers all want good games with no slimy monetization made sustainably by talented people this is why he chose to write a thread about a concerning Trend that he noticed I want to gently preemptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a raised standard to RPGs going forward I highly encourage you to read the whole thread yourself it's it's not that long it's worth the look but to summarize for time he basically highlights a bunch of things Larry and had going for them that likely contributed to the game's success it's been in the oven for six ish years three of which were Early Access they've got the Baldur's Gate and D dips back in them up they have hundreds of developers working on the thing they've already got heaps of software tools that they specifically made to streamline the production of this exact type of game but the list goes on this isn't a breakthrough it's a culmination if they go as big or bigger with their next title larion themselves could die that's the risk and reward of the mega game when he says big he doesn't just mean the typical see that mountain you can fuck that mountain kind of shit it's a sprawling conversation trees the voice acting the animation the graphics fucking you get the idea it's all more iteration more manpower more QA more marketing more money it's layer upon layer upon layer of tedious minutia that doesn't just stack but complicates everything else nobody likes to think about this stuff because it's boring and gay and I'm an ally but I don't like boring things but those hidden fucklers trials are what turns a promising manageable project into a multi-million dollar disappointment even if it works out for a while that scale just isn't sustainable industry-wide this is not a new Baseline for RPGs this is an anomaly trying to do the same thing in the same way especially without the same advantages could kill an entire group of Studios games are a perfect example of this they've been in the game since 2011 and their latest release Shadow Gambit the cursed crew was received super well by both critics and fans all of that means Shadow gamut the cursed crew sets sail as perhaps the finest stealth tactics game ever made charting a course for the genre's future that's brighter than ever please celebrate the achievement represented by Baldur's Gate 3.

it looks like a massive amount of effort is about to pay off for one of the brightest voices in the medium but if you shout that every RPG should be like this going forward you have no excuse you've not only missed the point you've created the expectation and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again Baldur's Gate 3 can't be the new standard Nelson isn't saying that the game is too big or too polished it's not by the way act three is rough he's saying that expecting other Studios even the biggest AAA Studios out there to compete with the likes of larion naughty dog rock star in terms of sheer scale is not only missing what we actually want from games for them to be good but it'll run Studios into the ground not everyone has years of Early Access not every developer is free of pressure from shareholders not every Studio has hundreds of employees and even the ones that do are incapable of guaranteeing a perfect game every time because that's that's not how creativity has ever worked none of this is to excuse the big failures that might have left you feeling robbed we're just trying to explain why it keeps happening are you saying we should expect our games to not be good meaningful well made stable games at launch and I'm not saying that at all what I am saying is that the terrifying thing about investing into video games is that money time and specialized development staff do not guarantee quality they don't it can give a talented Dev team space to fail and then succeed it can give you space to put more game inside of your game but it does not guarantee quality or that the game will come out at all and that means that the one thing that money time and development staff do guarantee is risk if we want more good games we need to cultivate an environment that encourages more good games to be made which means enabling Studios to learn from their mistakes which means not pressuring every single project to be so unfathomably huge and intricate that it could kill the studio behind it if it isn't a runaway hit because for as much as the marketing would have you believe otherwise big is not synonymous with good that is what Nelson was getting at if the industry continues to push for Gigantic scales of game regardless of circumstance we're just gonna keep getting more bloated botched predatory uncreative unfulfilling junk food train wrecks year after year after year and studios are going to keep dying trying to keep up we also have to acknowledge that our future production costs are growing faster than potential revenues of our genre The increased Financial pressure and level of risk became unsustainable additionally whenever our games get close to release and we're finally fun to play a new fight for funding of the following projects started making this a continuous cycle thank you so what is up with the excuses a game came along that is amazing is selling well is being praised by developers and fans alike and the response is well we can't do that well sweet if that doesn't get me high for Mass Effect or I don't know what will US Gamers famous for our level-headed disposition saw the Olive Branch extended tripped over it hit our heads will weary hard and proceeded to blame the tree AAA game developers want you to know that this is Rockstar level nonsense for scope that it's foolhardy to set expectations higher and Baldur's Gate 3 should not be used as a raise standard to RPGs going forward why was the first response to defend the current state of AAA gaming as opposed to saying hey maybe we can learn a thing or two from Baldur's Gate 3 and make our game better for our customers now if you've been paying attention and you are gifted of brain you might already know what I'm about to say raised standard is in quotation marks for a reason he's only referring to scale not quality not slimy monetization this narrative that developers are scared that the game is too good rules because nobody fucking said that and yet this fundamental misunderstanding is what fueled the entire conversation for months he furthermore added that trying to reach the same bar without the same experience and advantages could kill an entire group of studios and that's fair to some degree but I think it's kind of an excuse for the AAA games industry Waldo's Gate 3 is causing some developers to panic and the video is it's pretty good it is this IGN great video like it actually actually a great video yeah yeah the guy makes very good points and I forget who it is you know what what are they actually thinking don't let this become a become the white devs had unanimously agreed on this bizarre don't over deliver tactic is because it creates a baseline to give thousands of devs room to release games of varying quality that either work fine or not at all in release and this is just how things are apparently it's such a whiny horrible look for you it is so fucking for you for your studio for your product for everyone we're gonna give up we're gonna keep being shitty but you yeah we have to enjoy it yeah give us better ratings than Rotten Tomatoes and spoiled brats yeah it's like we're gonna keep giving you shit and you're entitled for thinking we should do anything better In fairness to these guys they aren't journalists they saw a video from one of the biggest gaming Publications in the world one that voiced the exact same concerns they had and ran with it one could make the argument that one should do more research before spreading misinformation to millions of people but not me I would never talk shit on the influencer I do not expect anyone who isn't in the industry to already have the context required to identify the source of problems with the current system but you need that context to contribute in a meaningful way I'm sorry you just do and Destin on behalf of IGN is in the industry what really Clips my mind is how he goes out of his way to defend his own lack of understanding in the name of consumerism excavator's tweet was well intentioned and he went on to add a lot of important context but I think it misses the perspective of the consumer we don't know anything about game designer how hard it is I guess you can lead a dog to Chocolate but you can't stop it from shitting blood in the kitchen later you know what I mean listen the issue was never that people are identifying problems with fart box Terra games the issue is that without deeper Insight we're liable to attack each other for no reason and throw Diapers at strawman rather than having a productive conversation about how he actually got here and listening not talking past one another imagine am I in the wrong for not wanting microtransactions in a stable video game at launch are you saying we should expect our games to not be good meaningful well made stable games that launch and I'm not saying that at all there are some developers who have pushed back on this video in particular citing a bunch of smart things that I will mindlessly regurgitate shortly but that conversation happened mostly on Twitter between developers while Gamers at large seem to be circling the drain look you're all very pretty today I'm not here to call anyone who covered this mess stupid or malicious cringe cometh before the growth we're only Gamers my only real beef is with this willful defensive ignorance I'm not trying to stir the pot but like devs were harassed and sent death threats over this there's a responsibility to do the bare minimum in terms of research and thought before spreading just misinformations of millions of people especially when you're employed as a journalist at IGN but what do I know I'm just a YouTuber don't rush off when we get back I'll do an awesome backflip here on the rational consumer can't find nothing to watch scrolling through Prime from night till morning stop it stop stop not kidding stop the Ia has a better way the highly rated open source cruelty free VPN what's a VPN Jesus sorry I thought I thought you were Ray William Johnson a VPN helps me to hide my true IP enabling me to watch region restricted content like mxp most extreme primate anywhere in the world but wait sorry I thought he found me luckily with the Pia's proven in court no logging policy not even Rey himself could ever track me down use Pia on 47 Samsung Note 7s all at once they don't care I also don't care with my incantation you can get an 83 discounts plus four months free which is more than none money but less than lots money consume visit piabpn. com noodle to get 83 off in four months for free with his exclusive online offer this offer is not available in stores but it will last so there's no rush but you should click it right now in in my opinion ask your parents before going online oh you're back sick okay check this oh [Music] so what about everything else safe to say that a lot of the Rage of the modern gamer comes from a more General dissatisfaction with where we are as an industry right now a lesser YouTuber might ask are Gamers all just entitled moonbrained cringe maxing Plankton who missed when Mommy bought them Uncrustables at Sam's Club of course not that would be so embarrassing there's got to be something deeper to all this so if it's not lazy greedy developers and it's not Nostalgia poisoned man children then what is it why are so many big games these days over promising and under delivering why can't every 70 dollar game just have lay fucking awesome fruit physics tragically the subject is nuanced there's no simple answer there's no objectively correct answer I'm sure as fuck not an expert and if I wanted to I could write a PhD thesis trying to answer the question but I dropped out so we're going to keep things broad we are sack deep in speculative territory here but based on what I've learned from developers through the past few years of talking to them ingesting a dome expanding number of GDC talks and stalking their home their Twitter threads there seems to be a a sort of dark and twisted pipeline a cause and effect that continually manifests worse and worse conditions for Developers firstly you know I don't know if you know this but corporations don't actually give a shit about you I know I'm sorry I didn't want to be the one to tell you this I'm sorry the Mickey Mouse isn't real there's actually a guy in there these Publishers are publicly traded companies Mickey is by law obligated to grow and accrue capital above all else it's so funny to me when people just suggest that you know we just got to tell people what we want we got to tell the companies I implore AAA devs to look at these games that are being celebrated and look at your pipeline to see why the consumer is getting frustrated about the experience I outline in this video people talk like the guys in charge of monetization at blizzard right now have no idea they pissed off Gamers but like if you walked up to their office right now they'd be like oh well I I thought they loved buying the season pass by mistake oh oh man we fucked up oh like no dude they know exactly what they're doing here's here's the real bastard of it though these kinds of guy not the ones making the floor textures but the ones in charge of things like monetization strategy they wouldn't be able to keep getting away with shit like this if the market wasn't constantly rewarding them for doing business like this Mickey don't just got that guy in him that guy in him got that Mickey in him the reason Mickey talks like this behind closed doors I'll leave the morality of it out of the talk we can discuss it if we have time later you see see the goblin going with these clocks tick tock I'll take it away from you I'll take it away from you this is a brilliant way to to get more people to to spend more to really hook it down we need to ask people to do something for us do a little bit of work because then they become an emotionally attached to that aside from the fact that he is a scum fuck homunculus is because he exists in a system that encourages him to think like this this isn't what you'd call an ideal landscape for games to be made in but it's basically the only one that exists right now this is what happens when we vote with our wallets the votes are in the diapers have been counted huge Publishers are reporting record profits right now money talks and boy are we fucking loud speaking of Agony there's also the matter of how we interact with advertising we love it if you're Gamers you'll know how much the gamer loves his marketing we reminisce over commercials we get hyped for marketing campaigns we love being advertised to Gamers will be told that Mega fuck 14 has a hundred plus hours of content has the most incredible Graphics since the Mario has the most next genest most openest world since the Mario and they'll come the most ambitious come ever in their pants before they can even pre-order we've become convinced that the bigger a game is the more it tries to do every single thing at once better than everyone else the more fulfilling it'll be when in reality these selling points are often at odds with the quality not the standards the quality that we're actually hungry for we want focused meaningful games made by people with a Clear Vision not some cynical slop directed by committee but the more you scale up the harder it becomes to achieve that especially without cutting corners or crunching your staff I can name plenty of interesting engaging fulfilling fun video games that are enabled by virtue of doing none of the above and I take any of them over another fucking Far Cry we've been conditioned to want things that don't actually make games better and because of that all developers Indie and AAA are stuck trying to compete against or outdo this imaginary idea of the perfect biggest game ever regardless of whether that's what the actual game or the studio really needs we almost didn't get Baldur's Gate 3.