What a weird example to use… You don’t understand the economic difference between paying a small indie studio vs paying 500-1000+ devs making complex 3d games where the work of setting up one character dwarves the work of one sprite based 2d character?
Silksong is a beautiful game worthy of all the praise in the world, but this comparison makes no sense.
I was born at the beginning of the 1983 video game crash before Nintendo revived the medium, and I suspect another crash is in our future. Late-stage capitalism isn’t helping either, but here we are!
Most modern AAA games don’t appeal to my old ass, but I remember games when they were made by people who like to play games. These are our modern indie studios and it brings joy to see them succeed.
Maybe a AAA crash cause they keep aiming for the cash grabs and battle pass/cosmetic slop. But I’ve been buying too many indie(ish?) games lately and I have not been disappointed by the majority of them.
indi continues to save the gaming industry
The video games industry needs to learn to not be afraid of letting games cook for a little longer. Silksong took a long time to come out, but what we eventually got was a good game made by a small team. Imagine if instead of the 500+ team members working on the next annual release of Assassins Creed, they peel off 50 artists, writers and programmers to create a new IP over the course of the next 5-7 years? Kind of like the original decision to do just that which got us… Assassin’s Creed for the original Xbox.
There has got to be a good balance between “Here is EA Sportsball 20XX, that will be $70 please.” where you get an underwhelming and uninspired annual release title with minor changes from the previous year, and Duke Nukem Forever or Cyberpunk 2077 that were trapped in decades-long development hell and released a sub-par, buggy product.
It’s not the $70 price tag that’s the issue, it’s “what am I getting for the extra $10 I am paying for this?”. If the answer is a more polished and refined product, I’m all for it - but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I doubt this’ll be well received, but I actually don’t think Silksong should be used to set price expectations. Hollow Knight made a shocking amount of money, massive sales were guaranteed, and the tiny dev team has enough money to pretty much vibe and make cool stuff forever.
Please don’t compare other indie game prices to this, when those games can’t guarantee their financial security, or massive sales number to turn a profit regardless of price.
Also, unrelated, but reading through the Bloomberg interview, and knowing what they charged for HK, 20$ is actually exactly what I assumed Silksong would cost well before it was announced, the shock for that kinda caught me off guard.
$20 doesn’t make sense for AAA games with budgets in the $100 million range. Maybe we need fewer of those though.
maybe it’s the other way around. I’m not convinced budgets in the $100 million range makes sense.
Silksong was primarily developed by 3 people. For comparison, Baldur’s Gate 3 was developed by around 300. There are probably more than 700 people making Battlefield 6.
Didn’t some AAA studios complain that Balder’s Gate is “only” 60€ and too high quality, so it sets unrealistic standards/expectations.
Of course they did. They want to sell barely working alpha builds for hundreds of dollars. Good games for a fair price screw up their plan.
Arguably Team Cherry is much, much leaner/more efficient. They don’t have to pay starving managers and CEOs industry standard salaries so they can feed their families 😁
Once again the parasite class ruins things.
I feel like everyone knows the ownership class is ruining everything, but no one wants to do anything.
But that’s not true. I just hang out with people with more class consciousness, I guess. The average idiot probably blames the queers and the non-whites. “They had to raise the price of CoD because of all the money spent on sensitivity and diversity!” is probably something a dud sincerely believes.
Sometimes I wish real life was more like some video games, and I could just crouch behind those people, snap their neck, and dump the body in a bush with no consequences.
Huge gaming studios churning out reskinned versions of the same franchises that have been running for a decade+ with no real original content? $70+. Indie gaming studio putting out original content? $25.
Not to defend big companies, but big companies have larger operating costs and they have more corporate responsibilities, to companies and people who fund them.
AAA game costs tens or hundreds of millions to make. Indie game can be made with 50k.
When game costs +40 million to make, you really cant take much risks and cant expect that the guys with the wallet wont want to interviene with you.
Yes because something like cyber punk is obviously as much work as silk song.
Is cyberpunk part of a franchise? You are missing the point completly.
I mean, technically yes. Cyberpunk was a pre-existing IP before 2077.
There’s just no way you could ever convince me that a 2d side scroller should ever be over $30.
100%. Terraria should be the standard. If you’re making a 2d side scroller it should hav as much content as terraria/promise to deliver on it later, or be $15 or less.
Arizona Tea is thinking about raising the price of their tea from $1 to $1.29 for the first time in 30+ years, but the fourth Call of Duty game to come out this year needs a 15% price hike.
Let that sink in.
Wait, they didn’t already? I feel like a year ago, it magically went up to 1.25 everywhere by me, so I just assumed they actually raised it. Some good news is I have seen it in grocery stores on sale a lot for .66 a can which kind of works out to the same price as the jug so I will just get a bunch of cans instead.
No, they did not. That’s just the greedy stores near you: https://www.today.com/food/news/why-arizona-iced-tea-costs-more-than-99-cents-at-some-stores-rcna160216
Damn, four in a year?
I think it’s sad tyre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty
Latest release Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 October 25, 2024
EDIT : What in the name of fuck? So, COD1 was :
[made by] a new studio formed in 2002 originally consisting of 21 employees, many of whom were project lead developers of the successful Medal of Honor: Allied Assault released the same year. [COD 1 released 2003]
MOH:AA :
Development spanned from 2000 to late 2001
COD2 : Released 2005.
So basically, from 2000, they released 3 games within 2 years of each other. After COD2, EVERY SINGLE YEAR a new COD game was released without fail. Holy fuck.
They really might as well have put the annual franchise number on the fucking box. Forget CODBLOPS 7 , just call it COD 2026 (because they always put release year+1 on the fucking product label).
Sounds like the EA Sports model.
CEO needs another yacht
yaRrr the $70 games
$70 is just not that much more than $60.
I think the only people complaining about $70 games are people who don’t buy their own groceries.
I buy my own groceries and j refuse to spend 70 on a video game. Because I have to buy my own groceries.
Prices go up.
While costs go down and wages stagnate. But hey, the CEO needs a new yacht, so you plebs just need to suck it up and spend more.
Costs aren’t down. Game development is more expensive than ever.
In any specific case where a game goes to $70 and the difference all goes into the CEO’s pocket, then yeah, I agree, let’s all boycott. But the employees at games studios need to get paid too.
Ultimately, ten extra bucks just isn’t that unreasonable for a video game. Looking at the historical prices of games, they’ve been lower than they ever used to be even though costs have gone up.
Would I rather pay $60? Of course. But it’s just silly to act like a $70 game is some grave sin against gamer kind.
Choosing to spend more on something is not the same as it costing more. Games are cheaper than ever to develop, the barrier to entry is lower than ever. Hiring 5 studios and 1000 employees to make one game is a decision, its not the cost of doing business.
But the employees at games studios need to get paid too.
I’m sorry, were the developers not getting paid until the price hike? I find it hard to believe that there wasn’t enough money to pay the developers before than. How much did the CEOs salaries go up after that price hike?
Ultimately, ten extra bucks just isn’t that unreasonable for a video game.
Maybe not, but the value certainly hasn’t changed. Why would I pay more for the same value? And that extra ten bucks is being squeezed out of everyone everywhere for everything in life, its not just a problem in the video game industry. Its simply a matter of corporate greed. Fuck the corpos and fuck their simps. They don’t care about you, stop defending their greedy practices.
On top of that, it isn’t ‘just $10 more’. It’s $70 more as it has to compete with games I already bought. What does Battlefield Next offer that Battlefield Previous doesn’t? Yeah, nope, Titan mode on 2142 is still fun. Flying choppers in 1942’s Desert Combat mod is still fun.
And when I do want a new game, look, Silksong is right there for $20. Beats the price proposition on some rehashed game for $70 out of the damn water.
Hollow Knight seems like mainstream game industry shit to me. Solid game, massive hype, lots of sales. And I wouldn’t even remember it in a couple months if not for other people.
It’s like how Shovel Knight is a really good platformer but then you play it and it’s… just a good platformer. An indie gem! But also, something you’ve played before.
You know what AAA companies didn’t do 20 years ago? Dwarf Fortress.
Shovel Knight is actually fantastic though. You have AAA industry vets failing to meet its standard. Hell, compare SK to Mighty No. 9. Even Megaman can’t make a megaman as good as that anymore. Plus it isn’t just Shovel Knight, it has the Plague Knight, Specter Knight, and King of Cards sequels which are all genuinely great retro platformers.
No argument about DF though, and I still need to pick that up now that it has an actual UI.
What games do you find memorable, out of curiosity? (It’s likely this is a ‘you’ thing; HK and SK are very memorable to a lot of people, and certainly weren’t cookie cutter industry shit. Just curious what does float your boat, though, if not them.)
Not him but:
Risk of rain (returns) Hades 1/2 Nebulous fleet command Star sector Homeworld 1, cataclysm (emergence), 2 Battletech (!!!) Spaz 1 (not 2!) Mechwarrior 2 Mechwarrior 5 mercs/clans Terraria FTL Steamworld games (all) Cortex command (interesting pile of shit) Kerbal Etc… So much.
More or less mainstream games: Helldivers2 (!!!) Xcom (ufo: enemy unknown) Xcom Xcom 2 Civilisation Etc…
With Games, like with all art, it’s impossible to point to 1 or two which are the best. I’ve read many books, watched many films, series, plays, listened to music and played a lot of games… i can’t just pick one or two which where “the best”. I can name a bunch which where great though.
In Markdown, you should add two spaces at the end of the line, to break it into the next line.
Are they still nerfing the fun out of Helldivers 2 every patch?
Definitely not. I can’t remember the last time they did that. Seems like it’s always charger-busting strats that get the bat.
Tell me you never properly played Hollow Knight without telling me you never properly played Hollow Knight ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We have thousands of games that cost even less. You should stop behaving like that Silksong’s price is somehow outstanding.
It’s not that the price in and of itself is outstanding, it’s that it’s one of if not the most anticipated game of the decade and they could easily have charged twice that and still sold millions of copies, but they chose not to. They doubtless would have made more money if they’d came in at a higher price point, but rather than putting profit above all else, they elected to make their game affordable.
Is it uncommon for people to make games for fun, not to get as much money as possible?
Why would they even need more money?
If nothing else, to sustain themselves. The more they profit off one game, the longer they can develop their next project without worrying.
Say one of them has an idea for an awesome 3D Soulslike, but they’d have to triple their team size to make it in a reasonable time frame. They could afford that with more money.
It’s not uncommon for people to make games for fun and to not get as much money as possible from them. It’s less common for companies and studios to not try to get as much money as possible from games, even less common for them to make games purely for fun.
Because generating fun doesn’t pay bills.
Its a really small company
Not wanting to make as much money as possible doesnt mean not wanting to make money at all
one of if not the most anticipated game of the decade
That’s one of, if not the biggest, exaggerations of the decade.
It was literally the most wishlisted game on Steam, beating out all of the AAA titles. And it’s been being hyped for 7 years. If that doesn’t make it one of the most anticipated games of the decade, I’m really not sure what metrics you’re looking for for that statistic.
Hyped for 7 years with basically no action or advertising from the devs, too. They didn’t need to stoke the hype at all.
Hm. Ok. These numbers are rather unexpected for me. It looks like you’re right.
It crashed all major gaming store fronts for several minutes. No other game this decade has done that, and theoretically it should get harder each day as systems scale to handle more traffic. The fact that it wasn’t just one store or half of them is incredible to me and shows how anticipated this game was.
Minutes? Damn near 2.5 hours for me on Steam, and I was seriously trying lol
Because it couldn’t be preordered. Surge capacity’s always lower than sustained.
It’s one of the very few games ive been anticipating.
