€30 vs €80 and I can play it hundreds of hours. Is that so hard of an equation ?
You can play assassin’s Creed for a hundred hours too. Another part of the equation is creativity and ingenuity in mechanics. Paying full price for the same game 4 times with different skins doesn’t cut it
Innovative mechanics are generally where indies are shining though.
I’m not arguing that some AAA don’t have merits either in play time or other but from a euro per minute of pleasure overall they are not as good as indie games these last 10 or so years.
… That’s the point of what I just said
It’s as if making a game that players enjoy and want to play while keeping the pricing honest and without bullshit battlepasses and dlc’s worked better than making the uptenth slop made to milk the players with nothing but the shareholders in mind. Shocking, I know.
I think part of it is that game budgets are too massive.
Yep, and massive game budgets lead to needing lots of customers to offset the costs which leads to sanding off everything that stands out for “broad market appeal” which leads to “a game for everyone is a game for no one.”
The lesson? If making a AAA game without creative risk and without an exploitative funding model is too much of a financial risk for your studio, don’t make AAA games.
Palworld looks like it was made out of cheap knock-off toy plastic and it still rules*
*like a despot, specifically
