Confessions of an AAA-supporter.

[josemlopes]

To me I just like what I think its good, if EA launches a good game with good support I buy it, if they fuck up and screw the entire thing then fuck them (that applies to everyone, even if Free Radical came back from the dead and made Haze 2 I wouldnt buy it, fuck that shitty game, how did it manage to send a top quality studio to the trash? They really werent prepared for the 7th generation).

Free Radical died because hardly anyone bought their games. Haze was a dog, but Second Sight, Timesplitter 1, 2 and Future Perfect were all great, but are still reputed to have sold under a million copies each.

Going all the way back to Rare they never topped Goldeneye's 8million, even Perfect Dark was in the region of 2.5million sold and Starfox Adventures was their last confirmed million seller (although the Free Radical guys left late in it's development).

When it came down to it, Free Radical couldn't get publishers to invest in them, never mind. What they've done as part of Crytek suggests the publishers might have been right...

Yeah, the truth hurts, could it have been related to the marketing? These games (with the exception of Second Sight that got a somewhat mediocre reception because of the close release with Psi-Ops) were all very well scored (Timesplitters 2 has a 90 critic score on Metacritic) and in an interview with a Free Radical dev that talked about it:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-27-ex-free-radical-devs-reveal-why-publishers-turned-down-timesplitters-4

"Secondly, their marketing person would say something along the lines of, 'I don't know how to sell this.' The unanimous opinion among all publishers that we pitched TimeSplitters 4 to is that you can't market a game that is based around a diverse set of characters and environments - you need a clear and easily communicated marketing message, and TimeSplitters doesn't have one."

Its all stuff to take with a grain of salt (of course someone from Free Radical will say that it wasnt their fault) but it does make sense for publishers from a marketing standpoint.

And to be honest the marketing for Timesplitters Future Perfect was abysmal, this is the official trailer.

(of all 3 available this is the best one)

Spoiler: FP Trailer

Even Perfect Dark in 99 had a better trailer.

Spoiler: PD Trailer

Future Perfect was released in 2005, in 2004 there were already trailers like these:

Spoiler: Ace Combat Trailer

Shit, this is a trailer for a game about planes, Future Perfect had so much content that would so nicely fit in a trailer. It just... hurts so much

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

I love triple-A, I'm pretty much guaranteed to like any game like it. I liked Aliens: Colonial Marines, I like all CoD games, I loved Mass Effect 3 and and just about any game people say is 'watered-down' or bloated or rushed or whatever word they think they know what it means. I think EA and Activision are great companies.
And I'm not a huge fan of indie so hey, sue me.

im not sure if you are serious or not



anyhow while current AAA titles have been overwhelmingly uninteresting or disappointing i must say in the past those were some of my favorite games ever, things like MGS3:S, SotC, HL2, are games that will be always close to my heart, as far as current AAA titles go, only Valve has been able to deliver consistently amazing titles lately, altough i must admit i havent played all the AAA that exist

 

[Nazulu]

Good for you mate. For me though, they look lackluster and there's nothing particular aimed at me too, except maybe Smash 4 (why didn't they call it Doujin?). And that's how I see most indie games as well. Including some of the business practices behind some of 'em can kiss my ass.

Saying you like Triple-A on the Escapist these days is like saying you support anti-gay laws.

Hahaha that really does seem to be the case these days.

And those who are not interested in any of them must have a problem , ey' Shiny.

That's what also got from not getting into Game Of Thrones and other over rated stuff, is that there is something wrong with me. Popularity does that usually.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Im with ya there buddy. Whilst I do feel like a lot of games for the newest gen haven't found their stride yet, I look forward to what's being made in the future. With Square Enix realising their errors, and the consumer backlashing, we could potentially see a mend to the AAA image. But there's always the potential that it could go the other way entirely.

Maybe because I'm a 3D artist I can appreciate all the glitzy graphics. Currently I'm just drinking in Second Sons particle systems, colouring me jelly.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Good for you mate. For me though, they look lackluster and there's nothing particular aimed at me too, except maybe Smash 4 (why didn't they call it Doujin?). And that's how I see most indie games as well. Including some of the business practices behind some of 'em can kiss my ass.

Saying you like Triple-A on the Escapist these days is like saying you support anti-gay laws.

Hahaha that really does seem to be the case these days.

And those who are not interested in any of them must have a problem , ey' Shiny.

That's what also got from not getting into Game Of Thrones and other over rated stuff, is that there is something wrong with me. Popularity does that usually.

Haha damn straight, but let's not start this again.

 

[RicoADF]

Gimme five!

I love Triple-A games as much now as I did when I got my first PSX. Maybe even more since a lot of niche titles have been getting Triple-A injections, like Journey, Rayman, and the Tell Tale games.

Last year I've gotten experiences that I could've only dreamed of 10 years ago with The Last of Us and Assassin's Creed 4.

Saying you like Triple-A on the Escapist these days is like saying you support anti-gay laws.

Journey and Tell Tale games aren't AAA, their Indie/AA, not sure about Rayman. That said I don't hate AAA games (I loved GTA V and Assassin Creed 4 was damn fun!), but I do think a lot of them are getting too big for their boots and doing stupid things out of pure greed. It's not good enough to make money, they want to make Hollywood and CoD levels of cash and shun anything that's niche. Things like space sims/combat games have become so rare almost extinct, its no wonder Star Citizen made so much so easier, Chris Taylor's game literally filled a want which no-one was fulfilling (X series is good but a different kettle of fish, Star Citizen/Freespace etc are space combat games while X series are more like space sandbox/RPG's. Similar but are played for different reasons.)

Add that a lot of them (especially EA/Activison) treat their customers like criminals and screw them over due to their own paranoia of pirates that they ruin our gaming experience and even make it so they wont be playable in 10 years time due to relying on servers that will get shut down doesn't put them into the best of light and is why a lot of us hate them and what their doing. They are killing our medium for a quick buck today, stuff tomorrow.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

You don't have to confess for liking something.

You want an actual confession? Here's one -

I think indie games are mostly garbage. They're unique in the same way that the Wii was. You play them for about 3-4 hours and they're done. They lack the replayability, the mechanics, the depth, the storytelling, the artwork, and so much more that AAA games have. And as for the games being "risky" and "different", a good 90% of them are 2D side scrollers with pixel-art style graphics.

Now, of course, there are exceptions to this (Braid, Swapper, Journey, Brothers), but a substantial majority of indie titles are nothing more than conversation starters. If you love games for the discussions / debates that you can have rather than enjoying the game itself, then they're fine.

I'll back you on this. There are a few indie games I've liked (Minecraft, Game Dev Tycoon, Don't Starve and Papers, Please to be exact) but I totally share your sentiment that most of them seem to be 2D side scrollers that are dipping way down into nostalgia with their pixel art art direction. But there's also the problem of many indie games just being too pretentious. They aim at some sort of high brow intellectual discussion about games while often supporting this narrative with fairly poor gameplay.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

The problem is not that people dislike AAA games, its that they dislike the business practices behind those games.

Like the micro-transactions in ACIII/IV multiplayer, the insignificance of Titanfall's content, Ground Zeroes, etc.

People like AAA games, they just dislike the publishers being dicks, which is far too often for my liking.