Phil Spencer writes in an email about how AAA games are the biggest cancer killing video games and how it's unsustainable and how making smaller games and newer IPs is the way forward for the games industry.
NEW LEAK
Phil Spencer writes in an email about how AAA games are the biggest cancer killing video games and how it's unsustainable and how making smaller games and newer IPs is the way forward for the games industry.
Gaz is a homosexual.
Iwata already talked about this
nintenod never made a AAA game. Only AAA in their games is the marketing budget(90% of the game dev costs)
thanks for confirming that Iwata was a really smart person.
Mario Odyssey probably has a budget compatible with AAAs.
It really doesn't. Budget comes from paying people to sit in the building, you can compare Oydssey's credits to that of an Assassin's Creed.
Biggest budget hog is graphics. There's a reason that people know RDR2 for its individually shrinking horse testicles and not its level design.
Even TotK likely used, at most, 35 - 50% of what most games do despite taking 6 years. That's including all dev stats and advertising.
That's every aaa game they blow 70% on marketing a mid game
Every game with 100+ full time employees is AAA - BotW and TotK were well beyond that.
Look at the credits of Nintendo's biggest games, they're absolutely AAA. What separates them from western AAA is that they don't put a ton of resources into having a dozen or more hours of cutscenes.
Iwata is dead and Nintendo almost never makes any new IPs, instead they're porting, remastering, and reskinning their franchises more than anyone else.
How and when?
NEW LEAK
Phil Spencer writes a blogpost about how he jerks off to scat and how he once sent his own crusty cum sock to a coworker
I can see this happening unironically. CEO's can be fricked up Black folk
wasn't there a ceo who was caught dragging Black folk to his home where he'd drug them up and have gay Black person sex with them and sometimes they'd OD and die?
I think you might be thinking of a serial killer
I think his name is ed buck and he's a democrat donor. The video game equivalent is the high level Sony guy luring in young boys.
>buck
Reality can be jus’ downright peculiar sometimes
Nah, CEOs aren't like that. CEOs are just boring pedophiles flying to raves at Epstein's.
O captain my captain
he's just like me fr fr
wtf i want to buy an xbox now
I'd believe it if it was from Randy Pitchford.
You got it mixed up, he sent the crusty cumsock to Rare along with the order to make nothing but Kinect games. Rare still hasn’t recovered.
true. starfield vs baldur's gate is the literal proof. AAA is absolute trash with very rare exceptions nowadays
>true. starfield vs baldur's gate is the literal proof.
both of them are AAA games you dumb Black person
Larian is an independant studio
NTA but Larian definitely had backing from Hasbro.
And Blackwiener.
>backing from Hasbro.
They paid Hasbro a licensing fee, that's not the same thing
AAA doesn't define if it's independent or publicly traded company you piece of shit moron.
AAA as a term is related to the scale of funding the game gets.
Bigger the funding = less risks they are able to take, larger the common denominator needs to be etc.
Please have a nice day. Underage morons like you have ruined Ganker.
Calm down you spastic. AAA has no set in stone definition but pretty much every one given includes having a publisher.
Why would it include having a publisher, when many large studio have the ability to self publish?
Go ask wikipedia
If that’s what you are going with, then their also go by their definition of publisher, which allows a company to publish its own games.
>baldur's gate 3, Cyberpunk, the witcher 3, REmake4, monster hunter world, Street fighter 6, Elden Ring, Dark souls 3, FFXVI, Totk, FFXV are indie games while The messenger, outer wilds and tunic aren't
morons
>literally 20% of the budget of Starfield
>still BTFO's it
other anon is right. larian is an indie studio. they made a AA game that just feels AAA, and totally fricked starfield to boot.
Both are fricking trash
>AA
>with BG3's speculated budget and size of production
wat
Do you not know what AA means? Shit do you think Hi-Fi Rush is AA? Shit, fricking Fortnite is a AAA game. D:OS IS an AA game. BG3 isn't.
Many people do not know what AAA means, it's a common occurrence on this board.
They take some pride in 'not playing AAA' while they play AAA. And so they become rather emotional when faced with the reality of things.
I think people have a misconception about indie studios that they can't make AAA games at all. It's very rare but it happens. An example would be something like Senua, which actually marketed itself as such.
Does senua count as AAA? Because it's fancy, sure, but it's a typical bare bones indie where it's half walking sim and half brawler with copy/paste encounters. It's a discount nuGod of War.
Senua ,the first game, marketed itself as such but I believe I wouldn't really call it as per definition (it's strictly AA). Ninja Theory during production for it was like only around 20 people. I think the sequel would boost it to AAA given MS is really promoting it as a huge first-party title sort of what happened to Sony when they got their hands on NMS.
>baldur’s gate is triple A
the shit Ganker says holy shit
It is. It even ignited the debate if AAA games should or should not be allowed to use early access.
I think he meant that a new IP starfield bombed while a sequel to an old series succeeded.
>starfield bombed
>10 million+ players
Fricking hell Gankertards you are so deranged.
Ok, show them.
>10 million+ players
>2-3 million actual sales tops
Its a monumental flop and the fact that they arent gloating about SALES but people that tried the game even if it was for 2 minutes using an already existing gamepass sub says it all dude.
Both games are unplayable trash too.
Western AAA game industry finally understanding mid 00s era nintendo was correct. 2 decades behind schedule and too late to change anything.
Nothing wrong with scat
Well he's absolutely right about that at least.
On the same time he argues for game pass another cancer
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/phil-spencer-argues-aaa-publishers-are-riding-the-success-of-franchises-created-10-years-ago-in-leaked-mail
>We launched our new subscription platform from the existing device platform. We've offered to help AAA publishers, and we are with EA Access carried in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate this year (very possible that Ubisoft's subscription comes to XGPU as well) but overall the AAA publishers are too reluctant to put $60 retail at risk to create a more predictable revenue stream and without an existing per user monetization platform they lack real distribution.
BTW independent user monetisation was solved decade ago
Make you own launcher and distribute your games digitally, internet exists ffs.
>BTW independent user monetisation was solved decade ago
>Make you own launcher and distribute your games digitally, internet exists ffs.
People don't know that a game is out if they don't lauch on steam.
LoL and Escape from Tarkov want to have word with you.
See for single install "normal" sp game exposure through platform makes sense.
For "perpetual" multiplayer games it doesn't.
You answered yourself. If multiplayer games died tomorrow I would sleep tight, the problem is with actual games.
MP is bread and butter of the market.
MP play hours are like 90% of the all hours played. Gamers play MP games. They like MP games, people pay for things they like. You may not like it but this how market is this where money is.
have a nice day, normalgays.
The games industry makes more money than nearly every other entertainment medium. It's not 1982 any more you mouth breather, videogames aren't a niche hobby.
wrong. video games is just like furries. it's a niche hobby with high spenders. the money is actually extremely disproportionate to the audience numbers in comparison to movies, books, music
you are a moron
you spend 15 dollars on a movie. you spend 80 dollars on a video game, if not a hundred or more. the math checks out
I don't care. I only care about good videogames. Now have a nice day.
stop being moronic, if this was right, we wouldnt see things like Candy Crush, Subway Ride, Angry Birds, the Sims or the hundreds of other SP games.
>stop being moronic,
See for yourself.
>steam is the whole gaming market
I fricken hate steamBlack folk like you wouldnt believe it
>If multiplayer games died tomorrow I would sleep tight, the problem is with actual games.
So many of you are insufferable c**ts, holy shit.
He talks about exactly that devaluing the AAA industry, they used to be who you had to go to to secure distribution, that's what gave them leverage over the industry. Digital distribution solved that which is why the AAA industry continues to get undermined by indies who manage to top popularity charts without going through companies like EA. He's trying to sell Gamepass as a new way for AAA to come back to building new IPs, something like Hi-Fi Rush being the new ideal - medium budget new IP with a built-in customer base who'll play it because they're subbed to the service
>. He's trying to sell Gamepass as a new way for AAA to come back to building new IPs, something like Hi-Fi Rush being the new ideal - medium budget new IP with a built-in customer base who'll play it because they're subbed to the service
See same thing. He bangs head against same probelm. Digital disturbution solved distribution (on PC, closed gardens is another thing). If developer made star there is no sense for him to give fat cut to AAA industry publishers. Just let download game from your site lol. He tries another attempt to create a publisher advantage like it was with physical distribution. But it goes nowhere. Because perfect alternative (download game form the developer site) exists. He tries another attempt in the slot battle.
What decides success now? Good games. But this is the horror. "Like think about gamers and what they want? Noooo!" They don't want to face game rs they don't want to make good games. They try to brutforce slop sells just in another package (smaller cans).
What you need for success is to make Good Games. And tie monetisation to amount of play. Good games would bring fountains of gold. Bad games? Well everybody makes mistake just move on. Just make good one next time.
And this is horror industry doesn't want to face. Making good games.
marketing determines success 99% of the time. and that’s something publishers and platform owners can still control. want to go indie? want to go multiplat? ok enjoy having no money to market your game. for every baldur’s gate 3 there are ten more TWEWY NEO and octopath 2 that died from no marketing
>what is LoL, what is WoT, what is PUBG.
>for every baldur’s gate 3 there are ten more TWEWY NEO and octopath 2 that died from no marketing
can you read
So? Lesson is gaming is venture enterprise. Don't expect ecery game to be star (this is BTW weakness of AAA, big investments demand guaranteed success).
the point is not that games are an unpredictable investment. the point is that there obviously exist exceptions that succeed in spite of a lack of marketing, but most games cannot do that
>LoL
>zero marketing
That shit had more marketing than DotA 2 and sought to corner Korea heavily.
>That shit had more marketing than DotA
After they became big and money rivers started to flowing in. Riot was unironically small indie company they had no weight to throw aroundat the start.
They unironically won players with gameplay.
This BTW draws pattern for making games. Start small and if gameplay is welcomed expand.
The distribution is no longer a barrier to entry, the barrier to entry is firstly customers even knowing about your game and secondly wanting to buy your game. Game pass solves the second because that's no longer a barrier. It's like buying DVDs from a store vs. Netflix, if you have to spend money sight unseen you're going to pick the known quantity, a sequel to something you've already seen and liked or something everyone else says is good, whereas on Netflix you might give something a go just because it has an interesting title or synopsis, just look at all the foreign shows that would've had zero traction outside their domestic market a few decades ago hit the mainstream globally.
>. Game pass solves the second
Kind of. Too much choice can also be an issue, it can easily result in smaller titles being burried. I I want to try something new but don't want to spend much, I might pick up a cheaper indie game or something that's gone on sale. If I have gamepass then I can just play whatever big new release came out. The shows that blow up on netflix are still the ones they choose to push. This is why game pass itself hasn't caused any smaller game to blow up. Despite the hype Hi-Fi rush just didn't do crazy numbers
Yeah, but if he's trying to sell Gamepass as an IP incubator for the AAA industry visibility isn't an issue, your EAs and Ubisofts can publish a bunch of mid-budget new IPs, get MS to stick them on the front page for the week of release, then whatever gets good player numbers + retention gets a full price sequel somewhere down the line while MS funds the tentpole big budget stuff that goes straight to Gamepass to keep the subscribers paying their monthly fee
WRONG. It's marketing that determines success.
Success doesn't always correlate (but it usually does) with monetary gain. Good games that have been made into cult classics has had devs close down their studios or in the verge of because of overspending and not making it in return. Shit like mobile games and its systems (i.e. gacha) proved that the game doesn't even have to be all that intricate or deep, just that it needs people to keep playing (F2P games can and have shown to make wicked bank)then the whales start pouring in.
>Shit like mobile games and its systems (i.e. gacha) proved that the game doesn't even have to be all that intricate or deep
They need to be good for the players, give them value. Yeah mobile gacha value is cute anime girls, but it IS value for the player. And players flock on the game that gives them value, values may be different: engaging multiplayer, cute anime girls, many types but main point game need to have substance for the player.
And OP email literally doesn't have "lets just make good games". It's like corporate meeting meme "talking about games?". It just talks about how to corall players with some sort of monopoly agam, in the world were disturbution costs approach zero.
>they used to be who you had to go to to secure distribution, that's what gave them leverage over the industry
Can someone explain this better to a moron who doesn't understand business?
If you're head of a small game company and you want to sell your game in stores across your country or internationally you need the help of a big frick off company with lots of money and contacts to manufacture and ship all those boxed copies.
It means they controlled network of physical stores and developers wanting to sell their games were forced to pay large share of profits to these stores owners.
Making your own nation wide store network was prohibitively expensive.
I don't want another launcher, either put it on steam or give me a direct download
>Make you own launcher and distribute your games digitally
That's not a solution, obviously, else everyone wouldn't run to one of three launchers.
And then he proceeds to greenlit actual dogshit in digital form like Halo Infinite.
They just mean
>Making games is too much effort we must make sure gamers will own no games and pay rent just to be able to play goyslop
Ah yes, the hero that buys studios to shut them down.
>Microsoft killed rare!
>released kameo a rare game through and through
>made a banjo kazoo game on 360
>released a perfect dark sequel
>made sea of theived a massively successful game with rare dna through out
Sick of this narrative.
>Buys Lionhead Studios
>Turn them into a Kinect studio when all they've made are console rpgs
>Kills the Fable franchise
>Now trying to revive the Fable IP instead of just making something new
Microsoft are retrds
they resurrected age of empires, a franchise that unlike fable isn't completely shit
Glad AoE is back, but Fable had it's charm and I liked it
What does Halo Wars have to do with Lionhead or Fable? The only Fable game we got after MS bought LH was Fable 3 and some other forgettable trash. Even Phil himself admitted that MS fricked up by turning LH into a Kinect studio
>ignores halo wars
>ignores that they got multiple fable games
Sad to see them go but
halo wars
What the frick are you talking about? The same Halo Wars that Ensemble was frogmarched into making as a final indignity before being shot in the head?
>one studio
>multiplayer shit
>sick of the truth
MS has ruined every single developer that they've bought
You can't ruin Blizzard, it has already been ruined.
Nintendo would have sent someone to throw desks around the office until those were good games.
Broken clock is right twice a day
they literally had xbox live indie games and shut it down
They don't need xbox live arcade to support indie devs. They simply moved on from that
What is ID@Xbox
Didn't almost everyone say this? Iwata, Layden and the others have said that ages ago.
Ubisoft literally spelled it out ages ago. But it's short sighted. Over time and each generation it just makes each AAA game take longer and longer to make that just let's AA run rings around them.
Nintendo practically dominate this generation because merging handheld/console divisions they release loads of AA production value games that have big names behind them to sell millions and a handful of AAA games as marquee titles.
based and accurate. only reason to check out a lot of aaa games now is to see the fancy graphics and production values.
every schmo on Ganker could have told you that, tho, not a gigantic leak
You know what would be a wake up call? GTA6 crashing and burning. But you morons won't let it happen. There are morons on this board who genuenly believe that you can't skip GTA games because they are that big and important.
>Le thug life sim
>Most the the world is third worlders playing it
Geez I wonder why it's succesfull.
It's literally not up to anyone on this site, and you are delusional if you believe so. GTA is THE normalgay IP, and GTA6 will be an unprecedented happening for them.
GTA 6 could reach a point where even by getting profits of 1 billion USD would still be not enough to cover development and marketing costs, causing that wake up call.
Thats what gta online is for. Rockstar already has the template from gta v. The singleplayer game isn’t what will get them money, its whoring out the multiplayer mtx for a decade.
>Rockstar already has the template from gta v.
And that template failed with Red Dead Online.
Even GTA+ seems to not be a real success, since its rewards have been shitty in the last few months and they resort now to give the shitty trilogy demake to "add" some value.
I have zero faith that the online part of GTA 6 would be as good as current GTA Online.
Hope they die then
GTA Online works because you can buy cars and there’s an easy money sink. There’s jack shit to buy in Red Dead Online, they’re gonna add a thousand revolvers or repeaters? Add a new horse no cares about. Keeping GTA6 modern is the smartest thing they did financially because it means they can add as many cars and guns and clothing from any era until the end of time.
GTA is the only fun western series and game so yeah, never going to bomb.
He's right but is looking at it from more of a controlling angle. AAA directed the industry for a long time so you had to play ball with all those publishers. Now it is possible for some random indie game to be a big hit out of nowhere, and MS's strategy has always been buy up everything you can so one day they'll get their second Halo. For him this is way easier if stuff is cheaper in general. Plus if they only sell digital and game pass became an unstoppable force then publishers are entirely beholden to MS. Maybe also a bit of a cope, its other platforms where AAA still does best unlike the 360 era,
That's not the only thing killing the industry, things like gamepass, mtx, season pass, mass appeal, exclusivity, 'console wars', closed off ecosystem limiting the user, and political climate are also killing it. Domino effect.
Most of that shit came from AAA developers thinking they controlled the industry if you're spending $100m+ to make a game to monopolise the industry then you'll introduce mtx, season passes, etc. to make that money back.
mtx is anti-consumer, but it’s been a huge revenue generator and hasn’t gotten significant consumer pushback, so i don’t think it’s been ‘killing the industry’, more like funding it
It has actually got significant customer pushback, just look at battlefront and the careers it ended. But the problem is the handful of people who accept it make so much money for them that it's worth it to them to kill off popular support chasing idiot whales.
the original mtx pushback was forza 5 if you are old enough to even remember ho much shit went down about that
It's getting pushback called burnout. You're running on the same high as people saying Disney is just fine when in reality they're in a death spiral. The collapse when it happens is going to be spectacular, all it takes is one AAA flop due to the hidden burnout factor and good night. Same thing happened to Disney, they had a full two years of flops and now they're on the brink of bankruptcy.
i feel like mtx is one of those things where there's just enough people who eat that shit up for the blowback to not matter as long as you've got the right audience. like the people who play fifa and their eleventeen billion mtx or god forbid asian gacha games seriously do not care at all
Gamba games will be cracked down upon eventually. And the burnout factor means a small percentage of the total player base leaves year over year which forces companies to squeeze the stone harder for money, eventually the mtx strategy will kill the playerbase altogether or there's going to be enough complaints about gamba abuse because some 8 year old maxed out their mom's credit cards. It's an unsustainable, unethical strategy.
maybe europe would do something about them but i highly doubt burgers let alone the asians would crack down on mtx
No there will be a crack down in America, keep in mind online gambling IS illegal here. All you have to do is line up several high profile cases and it's illegal. And it WILL happen, just takes a couple kids getting their parent's house foreclosed.
i thought the burgers legalized online sports betting in 2018. seems more like they're happy to let it happen
Regardless, it doesn't change my point NO ONE LIKES IT. There is burnout. All the gamba addicts in the world can't support these bloated shit fests forever.
It's state by state. States use fake moral outrage to try and get extra tax bucks. See New York.
I think xbox is in a weird space with all that. The appeal of gamepass is you're meant to get endless stuff for a lower price. But live service stuff and all DLC entails kind of goes against it. Play this one game forever, make it your third place and log in to do your dailies. Unless it all gets bundled in the pass at which point xbox has to pay even more. Plus will I spend microtransactions on a game I only sort of own?
You might be able to remedy this by making a F2P game but let gamepass users have access to monthly in-game currency. Let’s take Fortnite. Let’s say most skins cost like 2000 coins and gamepass gives you a 1000 a month, the consumer will now spend money to buy the rest of the coins as they think they’re saving money with gamepass, facilitating purchases.
yeah it's as if people get tired of seeing the exact same fricking kind of games releasing. Nothing but movie games, open world games or some looter shooter (or a mix of these). Nintendo actually had the right idea by releasing a big variety of games so they can attract as many different kinds of players to their system.
nintendo has been busy shitting out open world slop though. zelda and pokemon have gone open world to positive reception, soon mario and the rest will follow
yeah but they still release games like metroid dread or fire emblem three houses or pikmin 4. An open world game or two is okay when you actually release non-open world games. Not every game needs to sell 10 million+ copies. Sometimes you just need different kinds of games to attract a wider variety of customers
i'd happily settle for 2 gen old graphics if it meant getting a complete game with possible expansions (not dlc). leave all your season pass micro dlc cancer out
well he's right
Not a new thing, plenty of AAA devs talk about the massive budgets, massive expecations, long ass production cycles, etc etc.
An article I remember from earlier this year.
https://www.pcgamer.com/were-running-at-a-f-ing-wall-and-were-gonna-crashcd-projekts-lead-quest-designer-on-big-budget-rpgs/
Also dont forget how some games were shit on by investors by missing sales by a couple million while having sold multiple millions. Think that was about tomb raider reboot or something.
this is a CMLL board
i got it anon, it's okay
He's right, but not only Microsoft is guilty of same thing (Halo, Gears) they also put no effort in creating new IPs on any scale when Hi-Fi Rush decisively proved you can steal the spotlight with smaller games.
>Hi-Fi Rush decisively proved you can steal the spotlight with smaller games.
Anon LoL did it 14 years ago.
>viva pinata
>sea of thrives
>re:core
>hi fi rush
Oh for sure they have not tried
He's right.
Why don't they just consider the sensible option and put MMO subs (World of Warcraft) in game pass with a discount?
E.g. upsell them both bundled as some kind of super game pass for $20 or something. Then that'll give you some random in-gme swag.
The big problem with gamepass is that a lot of people don't stay subbed after playing the game they like.
They don't own Activision Blizzard yet. Probably will in the next fortnight.
They don't even need to.
What's the point in paying Blizzard to put WoW on Gamepass now when they will just own them?
>xbox says the thing sony does better isnt good and that all the indie xbox game sthat noone likes or buys are the future and game pass is great and why would we nee dto make aaa games anyway just eat the slop goy?
frick xbox fuxk america frick digital
Wtf, I love Phil now
>NEW LEAK
source?
sounds like he's just shilling for his all-digital future
True but that's what PC players are now anyways.
Phil doesn't release smaller or larger games. Isn't under him that we got the AAAA studio?
CP2077 is an AAAA game that under-delivered heavily.
Diablo Immortal enjoyed one of the most negative marketing feedbacks in the history of the industry BUT still made around half a BILLION in less than a year. Games don't have to be good to be "successful", just addicting.
Why do people care what Phil Spencer says? He hasn’t done one thing right since taking over Xbox except for publishing Hi-Fi Rush.
He holds the hope of a better Xbox so the other companies can finally be kicked into overdrive from being lazy shits.
He's about to buy ABK.
>Games like Fortnite and Dota 2 were not created by AAA
moron alert
>clearly diagnoses AAA publishing's issues with risk aversion and new IPs
>buys Bethesda
>who are developing a new IP that is mediocre on arrival due to how aggressively risk averse it is ("Fallout in space", down to reusing Fallout 4 perks)
A bit odd
The solution is just to kill of the ~~*marketing*~~ team. That alone will save tens of millions of not a hundred million dollars.
You sell a triple AAA game at $60, lose a third to storefronts at worse it is now bringing in $40 per game. You sell an easy million at worse nets you 40 million.
That can get you 100 employees at 80k each over 5 years. Some AAA games don't take that long but have more staff, some will use pajeet code monkeys paying a dollar a day.
If the game nets 5 mil sales you are laughing all the way to the bank if you gut your marketing budget
>kill marketing team
Good luck trying to convince anybody that. Products, have lived or died on the vine due to lack of marketing and it has proven so
>after they became big
Which was when exactly? Because LoL was already pretty big around 2010, displaying ads everywhere in the internet, even in the DotA website. I can vividly remember it being everywhere all at once come 2011.
>even in the DotA website.
Like Riot was literally the DotA developers, only they changed name to IP lock and monetisation? No wonder they displayed ADs on no money Warcraft 3 mod site...
>Like Riot was literally the DotA developers,
Not exactly. The founders poached SOME people who worked on Allstars because they saw the potential of a live-service game that DotA technically was making via updating maps. Ryze and Tryndamere were not DotA devs at all, in fact they were business people first and foremost.
But some products have also succeeded by just word of mouth or very little marketing
I actually don't know the meaning of success you're using in this case. I think you'd be hardpressed to actually have a good game in your hands that the devs didn't bother to market.
But do you need that marketing department spending hundreds of millions of dollars?
I just said originally to kill off the ~~*marketing*~~ team.
Again though there have been products that have had very little marketing to even none at all besides word of mouth suceeed in making a positive return on investment or an ongoing postive cash flow
Hype really does sell a game, anon. I don't think it even matters what the game is, bad or good. It's a phenomena I don't actually understand.
And funnily enough you can still build hype without spending hundreds of millions for it.
>triple a game
>100 employees
nobody tell him
He's right. But he gives devs and publishers too much credit.
Creating new IP is hard work and requires skill. Not gonna happen.
>Creating new IP is hard work and requires skill.
It requires luck no less.
If it's only was about work and skill people would be making "star" games left and right. But you dont light up stars. Stars light up themselves.
Luck here is more about "trendsetting" which is why companies spend so much trying to seek out what's popular or what's about to be. Most of the time it didn't even matter whether you're first, just that you're the "best" in the customer's eyes. And how do you do that? Marketing.
He is right BUT its also hypocritical complaining about it when xbox forced AAA to be a major thing back in the early 360 era. Yes phil wasnt in charge during that era but xbox is guilty for killing gaming during that era by forcing DLC, MTX, paid online, and AAA gaming
He just wants to mass produce shovelware for gamepass. Its like if netflix failed to become the next big thing and its CEO started to b***h about people going to the cinema
>He just wants to mass produce shovelware for gamepass
No, he wants everyone else to mass produce gamepass shovelware for microsoft.
>can' make a single good AAA game in 10 years while everyone else can.
>"i-it's the AAA's fault please redeem the game pass with indie game"
Yeah what he says sounds good on paper but in reality he just wants to give you significantly less for the same amount of money because their acquired studios can't produce shit.
At least his studios all got rid of crunch and everyone's got coushy hours and vacation time now, lol.
He's just butthurt Sony and Nintendo games get all the accolades while his can't even get shipped, he needs to whine less and crack the whip way the frick more.
Nah this is a problem Sony is also facing. Look at the exclusive output for PS5. It’s pretty bad and all they have that’s promising to look forward to is Spider man 2 and wolverine. Shit like Horizon cost $200 million to make. It’s unsustainable that they have to put it on PC and they’ve been banking on Final Fantasy timed deals to keep up momentum. Square’s also been doing pretty bad lately since they spend so much time and money on like 6 games with many flopping, mostly their western section. This is actually a problem many big studios are facing.
Sony is doing the same thing but just relying on a lot of licensed IPs instead of their own, yeah. They *are* trying to make their own IPs still, but they just don't catch on anymore. Horizon is a fricking joke, TLOU burned itself down and who even remembers shit like The Order or Knack?
I think the mistake that publishers do is believe that they can create a hit.
no one can create a hit. it takes passionate artists trying to make it, and a lot of luck. final fantasy didnt become popular overnight on playstation. thet first made several games on the NES, then on the SNES, they kept increasing their knowledge getting reputation and hiring other passionate artists. You can' just order a hit success like Metal Gear Solid or Final fantasy VII like you would order a taco.
and frankly the environment required to create these hits is clearly not what AAA publishers seem to be providing. they seem to intervene a lot, force devs to make the game more "accessible" by making it and uninteresting. all this corporate stuff is the death of art.
And they seem to usually cut budgets a lot for unexpensive things that matter a lot, like the music, the story, the characters designers etc. All these great games usually have a myriad of things they do really well. even a game like the first Counter strike has many things you might not think about, it has good animations for drawing and reload, good sound effects, good spread, damage formulas, camera movement etc. all this stuff has been carefully made by intellignet people who understood their craft and had a passion for it
most of the modern games seem to more often than not steer to the opposite direction
i think the biggest problem of aaa publishers if that the top is full of people who do not know video games. investors investing in stuff they dont know usually lose money. well people managing stuff they dont know as well. they can use their corporate skills to make sure everything does not crumble, but they do not have the skills to do great things.
shareholders too present as well. gotta hit those numbers all the time, barely making it out of the water. games constructed withaddiction, micrtotransactions, caasualization, in mind all this corporate stuff. of course they can never make a hit.
>and frankly the environment required to create these hits is clearly not what AAA publishers seem to be providing. they seem to intervene a lot, force devs to make the game more "accessible" by making it and uninteresting. all this corporate stuff is the death of art.
>i think the biggest problem of aaa publishers if that the top is full of people who do not know video games. investors investing in stuff they dont know usually lose money. well people managing stuff they dont know as well. they can use their corporate skills to make sure everything does not crumble, but they do not have the skills to do great things.
You get it. That's exactly the problem.
It's not a problem that these companies are greedy to the core, because arguably that's a company's whole reason for existing. The problem is they're greedy and huge morons on top. They keep doing the stupidest shit that shows they don't understand their audience and inevitably backtracking on stupid shit while fricking their IPs harder than Big Bubba in the prison shower and inevitably rebooting them once they have gone past the point of staleness. The space to create a new hit IP isn't there anymore at most publishers.
When is the last time a western IP came out that was a huge success and changed the landscape? I argue it hasn't happened for the last decade. Probably not since the 360, at least.
i'd argue payday 2 kinda made some noise,darktide didnt make huge noise but still a really good gameof which the devs climbed in ranks
all seem to point at new IPS coming from AA land where though talent and tricks they either manage to make the game feel AAA or in paydays case get really lucky with their music composer
but the west usually mad eits great games on PC in general, most of the stuff from the older eras come from japanese developers
another common point seems to be that they usually dont make it on the first ityeration. they make one game, really improve in the second one to get recognition and either make it on the second one or make money on the second one to make a meaty third one that is pretty much a AAA at this point
publishers expecting profits on the first iteration instead of building an IP to get better profits later are shooting themselves in the foot, but you need people who know what they re doing
>all this stuff has been carefully made by intellignet people who understood their craft and had a passion for it
>most of the modern games seem to more often than not steer to the opposite direction
Regarding this point, the problem is that the assets are outsourced, often from countries where the people are technically moronic like India.
Of course, there are examples where this works, Gran Turismo 7 for example has high quality art even though the 3D models are made by Indians, but perhaps scanning real objects is less of a problem than creating art?
Now I don't know how anyone is going to create a game with a consistent look when the assets that depend on the talent and vision of the original artist are being bought in droves from several different companies often employing very low quality and clinically moronic artists.
Can Xbox go third party yet?
JFC
No, they just sell what they can and shutdown everything else.
He’s saying this after spending 50 billion buying Activision
I think what Phil is getting at is that the AAA devs need to make NEW shit that works rather than playing it safe with rehashes, remakes and reboots that don't really amount to a new trend that he (Xbox) can trailblaze in.
Nah what he means is that he wants new games made fast since triple A is too slow to feed gamepass and companies wont allow their expensive 60 dollar games to be put on gamepass.
Hes basically b***hing about not being able to buy games for his sub service
The only way gamepass would be substainable was if microsoft was able to produce enough games themselves like netflix or disney do (and even then look how that worked out for them in the long run). Problem is xbox is just not capable of making even 6/10 games
Didn't Phil say that the schedule for the release of first-party games is four every year?
I can't actually remember the last time an AAA developer made something completely original that sold gangbusters against its competitors in the year of release. It literally doesn't happen anymore
Has the microsoft game studios actually produced even a single decent game at all? Its halo and thats it, right?
KI2013 was a cross effort between MS and Double Helix and then Iron Galaxy
Depends what exactly you mean by Microsoft Game Studios, like the studio pre-2011? Then everything from 2000-2011. Xbox Game Studio, the one that we have now, got rebranded on 2019 starting with their acquisition of Double Fine.
""""""leak""""""" and definitely not a PR move
iwata said this twenty fricking years ago but hey it's nice to see even the western publishers slowly realizing it. when you got a game that takes 5 years and tens of millions theres no room to innovate
but honestly does every game need that much time and budget? im glad japanese companies still make aa games at least, but even those are slowing down compared to even 10 years ago and especially ~20 years ago. there used to be a time where gta games came out regularly in all sizes and forms, mainlines and spin offs and dlc, but now we got gta5 for the past 15 years. nuff said.
the stupid thing is, there is a perfect platform where you could easily dump all your smaller experimental stuff, and yet most publishers do jack and shit with it even though its the third best selling console *in history*. multiplats pretty much always sell better on that fricking thing, which i can confirm from my own figures as well. i also imagine your talent would be really happy to not have to work on gta/cod/fifa/ass creed/battlefield/whatever all the time, give em a small budget and tell them to do whatever, release on steam and switch and there you go. keeps the talent happy, keeps consumers happy and its almost guaranteed to make some money back. and if it catches on, you got a new ip on your hands. if it doesnt, small loss.
i find it sad that ms out of all companies is so lenient with their devs cause i hate them and their "just buy it up" mentality and non-existent leadership but they give devs the space to make new things. ea and activision and the likes would never have given projects like hi-fi rush or cuphead the green light.
if only there was a reasonable middle between "letting devs do anything and not even caring if they release something on time and on budget" and "your game didnt sell cod numbers, off to the unemployment office you go. hope your resume is up to date"
>there is a perfect platform where you could easily dump all your smaller experimental stuff, and yet most publishers do jack and shit with it even though its the third best selling console *in history*. multiplats pretty much always sell better on that fricking thing, which i can confirm from my own figures as well
>octopath 2 and twewy neo
>octopath 2 and twewy neo
What about them? Octopath and TWEWY are good examples of smaller stuff, but games like that are still not common from the big guys.
I find it weird how Square-Enix works anyway, especially how they expected ground-breaking numbers for all their western games but their in-house shit can flop and it's not an issue apparently.
they were mid-sized multiplats that were published on the switch and bombed because se didn't want to fund the marketing for them and nintendo obviously wouldn't help them with marketing either, since they were multiplats instead of switch exclusives
Ah. Yeah, Square-Enix is moronic. Obviously marketing will always be important.
they cant because managers are greedy midwits. the fault on people hiring them, abnd on people hiring people doing the hiring. basically stupid people reaping what they deserve. companies get corrupted over time. let them die. they re cying because they can only remake for so long, let these useless fricks die off and get a real job
That's a big problem in this industry in particular, yes. The CEOs don't understand their product, or target audience, at all. Not every consumer wants a 200 hour long open world with an epic story.
I think what Nintendo is doing right now with the Switch is very smart. That console was a huge success and are using it to bring back a lot of old and/or slightly neglected IPs, so they got pretty much every kind of game you'd want, and it clearly worked out for them. Pretty much every Switch game they put out is making sales records for every franchise it touches.
It's definitely going to kill Square.
he only complains about it because it makes no financial sense to put these big titles on goypass, that's why he's praising cheap indie shit
his complaints are also funny considering their entire games output has basically been gears, halo, forza for more than a decade
The only reason hwy they can't make hit franchises is because they don't know how to make good games and they re way too fricking greedy. Get the conomists and psychologists out of the production and lets devs do their fricking jobs, and end the diversity hire and you MAY get a start. Oh and give more % of the profits to devs as well as royalties to them forever if the game keeps selling in the future, quit cutting off bugets and forcing to release half assed garbage.
ANd start with lower ambitions. homosexualS
I actually think Xbox has no money left to give to studios that doesn't already get spent on shit like acquiring games on GP.
This. The supposed AAA games he speaks of often use cheap assets and cut corners, use engines like Unreal with bog standard lighting and post processing and release unfinished anyways.
I played the new MW2 campaign, a supposed AAA game, and every mission stretched one action setpiece for the entire mission and placed enemies with little thought to combat flow. It reeked of cheapness and just plopping shit down in a map editor and calling it a day. MW2 2009 had many handcrafted setpieces in each mission and was MADE CHEAPER.
It's clear all talent has rightfully left an industry that doesn't respect them and somehow games are getting more expensive to make anyways.
But sure, it's all due to whatever Phil thinks because he has no idea what goes on in the studios
Phil isn't talking about just xbox here. He's talking about EA and take two being unable to create successful new IP as well
Surprising that someone in a high position seems to know what they're talking about. Usually they have their heads so far up their own asses.
He's right though. AAA gaming is cancer.
Interesting that the clowns who run the industry are deeply aware of the problem, but nothing is changing.
All those words are meaningless because every triplA publisher is chasing after the Halo Infinite game design where the entire engine is built from the ground up for maximum monetization and gameplay/story is tacked onto that, instead of it being the literal opposite, which builds new IPs, moats, replayability and grows the audience. His platform and flagship IP is the biggest offender of his entire rant.
Giga keks.
Every game project has to be the biggest thing ever with predatory monetization to ensure maximized profits.
Joking aside, the death of AA gaming has been a huge hindrance for gaming. It's fine to having smaller projects in production in the same production cycle as flagship games. But indie games have been filling in the void.
I can't help but read this in Colonel Campbell's voice
I don't work on Xbox or in the gaming shit at all, but I'm employed with Microsoft, live in Redmond, and the absolute shitshow of mismanagement that goes on in this company is mind boggling. It doesn't shock me that their gaming division is probably fricked sideways too. Also software developers are such uppity scrawny gun obsessed gays it's insane.
These emails can't be used for anything except to incriminate the person who leaked them.
Nah.
It's you fricking homosexuals whining about visuals and reused assets that caused this. Your bed was made, sleep in it.
He is right anyway were are my AA games phil?
it's true big games nowadays take fricking 5-7 years to make and cost half a small country's GDP to make. Only for it to be mid as frick.
you deleted the other thread and I don't feel like repeating myself so heres some ai art to trigger the mods because they decided they can make decisions for us and I think they can go frick themselves.
while I'm glad a big name understands he's only singing this tune because they're now losing the race, and it's not that easy to put the jack back in the box. the most responsible thing he could do for this course of action is lead the industry to an actual crash. if they can't get rid of ~~*investors*~~ we'll just keep circling the drain.
name 1 (three) modern AAA titles that isn't using generic bland photorealism
Are nintendo games AAA? Maybe botw and Mario Odyssey
really makes you think
>Phil Spencer writes in an email about how AAA games are the biggest cancer killing video games
We've been saying this for years.
>making smaller games and newer IPs is the way forward for the games industry.
Good, the same thing is going to be true for the movies industry, meaning that me writing my book is going to make millions if not billions of dollars.
A bit funny he bring up Minecraft.
Well he's right, too bad the cancer is terminal and I hope it fricking kills this industry.