somebody at Ubi knew it was one of their two remaining moneymakers and couldn’t find the guts to take a risk or the creativity to find a new hit
And that’s exactly the problem with AAA, they tend to take the lower risk path.
Indies have to take massive risks to stand out, and while most fail, the few that stand out are absolutely incredible. They can’t rely on the GFX or marketing departments to carry the game for them, it has to be so good people want to share it with their friends. One of the first indies I played was FTL, and that was because a friend recommended it to me.
I don’t for a minute think Zelda is cheaper than other games
The estimates I’ve seen are that BOTW is ~$120M, whereas AC games are >$300M (even $500M). Figures like these are hard to come by, especially for Nintendo, and they’re generally not very comparable since different studios need different marketing budgets.
takes deep breath
So mostly Nintendo and Sony, and a handful of others. Note, these are pretty much all Japanese studios, who are generally known for more frequent, smaller-scale, and more inventive game releases.
The problem seems to be more an issue with western AAA studios, so Rockstar (Red Dead kind of diversified them), Activision/Blizzard (lots of samey games, little innovation), Ubisoft, EA (they’re great at killing interesting ideas), etc. They spend way too much on graphics and way too little on interesting content. Rockstar is the only one on the list that I’ve played a recent game from, assuming you consider RDR2 and GTA V “recent.”
Favorite studios release good games with a reasonable length that aren’t massive open-world collectathons. In fact, I didn’t even really like BOTW, despite praising them for trying something new (I hate that they killed the best part of Zelda to me: dungeons). It’s not that I don’t like open world games in general (love Elder Scrolls games), I just don’t like games that are open world for the sake of it, and that’s what seems to balloon budgets and encourages filler.
And that’s exactly the problem with AAA, they tend to take the lower risk path.
Indies have to take massive risks to stand out, and while most fail, the few that stand out are absolutely incredible. They can’t rely on the GFX or marketing departments to carry the game for them, it has to be so good people want to share it with their friends. One of the first indies I played was FTL, and that was because a friend recommended it to me.
The estimates I’ve seen are that BOTW is ~$120M, whereas AC games are >$300M (even $500M). Figures like these are hard to come by, especially for Nintendo, and they’re generally not very comparable since different studios need different marketing budgets.
So mostly Nintendo and Sony, and a handful of others. Note, these are pretty much all Japanese studios, who are generally known for more frequent, smaller-scale, and more inventive game releases.
The problem seems to be more an issue with western AAA studios, so Rockstar (Red Dead kind of diversified them), Activision/Blizzard (lots of samey games, little innovation), Ubisoft, EA (they’re great at killing interesting ideas), etc. They spend way too much on graphics and way too little on interesting content. Rockstar is the only one on the list that I’ve played a recent game from, assuming you consider RDR2 and GTA V “recent.”
Favorite studios release good games with a reasonable length that aren’t massive open-world collectathons. In fact, I didn’t even really like BOTW, despite praising them for trying something new (I hate that they killed the best part of Zelda to me: dungeons). It’s not that I don’t like open world games in general (love Elder Scrolls games), I just don’t like games that are open world for the sake of it, and that’s what seems to balloon budgets and encourages filler.