Assasins Creed 3 will be the last "AAA" game
- Thread starter Vault101
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The traditional sales model can't sustain the costs of the fidelity and general technological quality people have come to expect in their games. That is why publishers are increasingly adopting the idea of DLC, because it is really just an attempt to find some means of retaining a net profit.
The Verge put up a very interesting article on the subject [http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/7/2/3125866/the-state-of-games-state-of-aaa] only few months ago.
We could very well be looking at a future crash of the current AAA game.
The Verge put up a very interesting article on the subject [http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/7/2/3125866/the-state-of-games-state-of-aaa] only few months ago.
We could very well be looking at a future crash of the current AAA game.
Personally, I think it's very close to being right. The current model in AAA gaming is unsustainable, especially considering production costs have gone up over this cycle not down as one would expect with devs becoming more familiar with the tech. If this trend continues into the next console generation/tech generation there are going to be very few, if any at all, developers that can afford the expense to make AAA games at all with even a minimal profit. Those dev/pubs being Activision/Blizzard, EA, Epic Games and maybe Valve.
Honestly we as consumers have fueled this just as much as pubs/devs. So, ultimately, we have done this to ourselves if this eventuality comes to pass. By supporting graphics whoring, huge budget blockbusters with short campaigns/crap multiplayer and the gamut of other problems endemic to AAA gaming the gaming community has sent the message "this is what we want." The industry saw the dollar signs and went for it, without a care for long term financial stability.
All that said, I doubt we will see the end of AAA gaming. What we will see is smaller games with larger multiplayer suites. More crappy map-pack dlc and day one dlc garbage as well as indy devs being almost unable to compete in the next generation due to huge cost overruns.
Honestly we as consumers have fueled this just as much as pubs/devs. So, ultimately, we have done this to ourselves if this eventuality comes to pass. By supporting graphics whoring, huge budget blockbusters with short campaigns/crap multiplayer and the gamut of other problems endemic to AAA gaming the gaming community has sent the message "this is what we want." The industry saw the dollar signs and went for it, without a care for long term financial stability.
All that said, I doubt we will see the end of AAA gaming. What we will see is smaller games with larger multiplayer suites. More crappy map-pack dlc and day one dlc garbage as well as indy devs being almost unable to compete in the next generation due to huge cost overruns.
Ah it's just a sales pitch "we are bigger and better then anyone ever was or will be"... that is it really.
Maybe if AAA titles actually took some damn initiative once in a while instead of the endless cycle of sequels, prequels and remakes we are forced with, more people would be interested in supporting them.
Perhaps he means believes the next gen of consoles resulting in AAA becoming unprofitable or the market is going to collapse due to the over-saturation of FPS games.Vault101 said:
I remember when people were saying this about God of War 3.
Funny how it turned out to be false.
I doubt AAA games will last that long, but to say AC3 will be the last is wrong. Last I checked, there's still a Call of Duty, Halo, and Grand Theft Auto to come out.
Funny how it turned out to be false.
I doubt AAA games will last that long, but to say AC3 will be the last is wrong. Last I checked, there's still a Call of Duty, Halo, and Grand Theft Auto to come out.
Ah, I see what you mean. But this part...well, if we don't buy AAA games, they will fail (as in that standard for AAA) if we do buy them, they are doomed to fail some time later. Damned if we do, damned if we don't situation.electric method said:
But yeah, AAA games will persevere, not in the current form, I'm pretty sure but they will. After all, even the very definition of triple-A is a bit muddled - it can change to accommodate other sort of expectations.
So core gamers still make up a large and influential part of the market, the new console generation is coming, and the next set of Halo games, the reboot of Tomb Raider, whatever Bethesda does next and of course the ongoing Call of Duty and Modern Warfare series are all on the horizon, yet somehow Assassin's Creed 3 is the 'last of the AAA titles.'
I think someone's a little bit up himself personally.
I think someone's a little bit up himself personally.
I have already gotten comfortable with the idea of riding a sea of shlock. Oh sure there has been a few good things here and there, but nothing to justify 6+ years. Almost everything I loved in gaming is already gone, I had nothing left to lose but hope, and that's gone now to. The moment the Mass Effect team said, "We didn't add ____ because it was too video gamey" and the Resident Evil director said, "I want 'Call of Duty's' sales', I knew that was it... it's over. There is nothing left to hope for, there is nothing left to save.Casual Shinji said:
Just let it all burn down...
It can if they become financially unsustainable, and they quickly are. Maybe CoD can handle it, but Dead Space needs five million sales to keep the franchise going? Studios being shut down for making games that dared only be GOOD successes?Vault101 said:
The writing's on the wall. AAA gaming can't sustain itself.
Also, 3D games aren't going anywhere, nor is voice acting (unfortunately).
I tend to agree with you. Although, I don't quite see it as damned if we do, damned if we don't nor would I go as far to say "if we don't buy AAA games, they will fail." The AAA market we are currently "in" is a result of greed on the pubs/devs part and outright ignorance on the consumers.DoPo said:
What I will say is this; as consumers we accepted the status quo, then outright fueled the insane spending dev/pubs went with by continually buying those games. As consumers we didn't start the overblown budgets of AAA gaming the devs and pubs did that themselves. In all honesty, from a purely business perspective, the state of AAA gaming should not have happened. Mainly due to the fact that it is a huge risk/low reward scenario that no investor in their right mind would take. As an e.g. what we see in EA's stock value and earnings statements. Huge yearly losses and tanking stock prices.
AAA games won't disappear, it will likely just become increasingly difficult for newer companies and IPs to break into. The idea that the AAA gaming would crash in any spectacular fashion is rather silly, decline, maybe.
As of now I think many companies have been setting unreasonable expectations and those at the top of management don't really understand the business they are in and that not everyone can have CoD success all the time.
As of now I think many companies have been setting unreasonable expectations and those at the top of management don't really understand the business they are in and that not everyone can have CoD success all the time.
No, what I meant was that if we don't buy the games that follow the unsustainable model, the model will not be widely adopted. If we do buy them, the model gets adopted and it crumbles onto itself later on. That's what I meant by damned if we do damned if we don't. Of course "damned" is not the best choice of words, but it's how the saying goes.electric method said:
Ad for if its should have happened or not...yeah. I think I kind of see why it began - people are awful when it comes to software projects. Even the software community suffers a lot from it. And we're talking about a software project for a specific purpouse and clearly laid out specs here, they are notorious for going over budget and/or underperforming. The fault can often be fount at both sides of the projects. And a game is a software project. Furthermore, they are even younger than the rest of the software industry. Triple-A games are enormous ones and they even have three sides at stake - the developers, the guys who pay them and the gamers. Trying to juggle everything to balance requires skills that, quite frankly, are not up to EA and the rest. It's a known thing for people outsider (or even, hell, from inside) the software industry to not fully understand how it works and to have unrealistic expectations. I don't really blame them, since software engineering is damn hard and more or less new field. It's when they act upon those unrealistic expectations is when things go bad.
I'm not necessarily saying it's this, but it may very well be why the unsustainable model came to be. Or at least it's part of why.
I'm honestly somewhat looking forward to it. Not the actual burning down, but the change that's going to have take place eventually. The big fat epic rollercoaster ride console games are not going to work next generation, except maybe for the WiiU, or if the retail prices go way up.xPixelatedx said:
And you'll probably still beat it in a day or two because difficulty settings RUIN THE GAME.Scrustle said:
OT:
If it's just hype, then they're assholes which... well, they're Ubisoft.
If they're talking about actual memory and the space on the disk?
Umm...
Considering the fact that there are plenty of games slated for 2013 that could fit the extremely vague AAA bill, I sincerely doubt that.
What im gathering from this (and I may be wrong), but it sounds that this is less the death of the AAA game, and more the sliming down of the AAA game. I basically see this as him saying, "in the next generation, it wont be viable finacally to spend $XXX million to make a AAA game." So AC3 may be the last AAA game to have a huge budget.
So it seems to me he is implying that AAA games will be made with smaller budgets.
This about right?
So it seems to me he is implying that AAA games will be made with smaller budgets.
This about right?
Yeah, there is that to. I have to keep remembering that catastrophe brings change. The great quality we've gotten over the last 20 years was due to the Atari gaming crash, which was also contributed to a bunch of companies getting too greedy and stupid, coincidentally enough. Then Nintendo came in and blew everyone's minds, resurrecting the entire medium. We got 20+ years of fantastic gaming out of that. ...I think another crash would do us good! If history repeats itself it will prove the gaming industry to be some sort of entity that destroys and renews itself, cycling out the garbage at the end of each cycle to make way for a strong run.Casual Shinji said: