this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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I think it's more that the megacorp business model is fundamentally incompatible with making good video games. Their only reliable competitive advantage is money, they can spend more on a single project. But if they spend so much, they can't go as risky as indies go. A ton of indies publish shit games, it's just that some are absolute gems.
Point is, AAA games can only match indies in originality if they are okay with tanking the IP and the studio just to make something original. But since they are megacorps, they will never be okay with that. The also can't amortise the risk over a lot of small projects, because then they lose the ability to outspend indies and would have to compete with them directly.
It's like a sort of inverse economies of scale.
They could go for more double A games. Still more budget than indies, not as risky or innovative, but not as big of an investment as AAA. Studios could work on new IPs in shorter cycles and smaller games, and eventually release big AAA sequels to the successful ones.
Having trouble finding the link now, but apparently at a big dev conference with a bunch of the business suits involved, they want to make games faster. But not make them smaller or have worse graphics. Just faster.
And yes, shoving AI slop into everything is part of that plan.
In other words, the industry is completely lost, and I will continue to spend the majority of my gaming time on indie titles.
Yeah, but there's the catch, they would have to compete on equal footing with indies then. Money is their only advantage.