Development costs don’t have to rise. l would gladly play games with pixel graphics or even ps2/3 graphics. Art direction >>> Graphical fidelity.
Right. The two games I play the most are Minecraft and Factorio. Both not amazing graphically but they’re fun.
Looking at you Valheim
Indy games are art. Find an artist(s), pay them a living wage, and let them do their art largely undisturbed, guided by a vision of what the game should be, so they keep working towards the same goal. Let them learn from their mistakes and make their next game better. That leads to Baldur’s Gate 3.
CEO of an AAAAAAA+ game developer/publisher: “No games are a product. The most important thing is that the line goes up, so we check what the user feedback is and listen to the loudest crowd that wants the same old shit, only to complain that they always get the same old shit. Also, hire cheap, treat people terribly and get everyone out of the industry as quickly as possible, and none of that art nonsense - I mean, how am I going to sell that to the shareholders, they just want an estimate of how many skins we will sell in 2025 so they will agree to my pay rise?”
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Users: “Stop spending so much on development. Smaller teams, shorter cycles, more games. Stop making everything an all-or-nothing gamble.”
NEXON Games boardroom: “I think it’s trying to communicate!”
Pika pika
“we may not know how much money we can make by developing a certain game, but we can get a feeling as to what kind of game will make users happy. That’s why we test games even in the middle of development and collect feedback.”
That sounds a lot like using data collection to design games. And hey, it’s hard to create art. Art can fail even at its best.
