There’s definitely weird people making games on itch and sometimes in the depths of Steam.
By its very definition weird isn’t going to sell to mass market. That being said I do agree that we need more weird AAA or AA games.
Looking from another angle from Yoko Taro’s point, I’d say that, in fear of failing due to being too big, companies would rather play it safe, but that causes creations to grow sterile.
And as consequence, people allegedly “weird”, which I wouldn’t think are necessarily people with curious antiques as Yoko Taro himself, but simply people whose game ideas are far from a safe ground, go for making indie titles instead as then they can be free to do whatever they want.
There’s definitely weird people making games on itch and sometimes in the depths of Steam.
Oh yes. Ever heard of Beautycopter?
I have. Watched two beings play it. I sincerely hope the person(s) who made that game make more games.
Deity Driving was their first Steam release.
i am so glad that only costs 2 bucks because flying through rings is giving me serious n65 superman flashbacks. they’re so bad i can’t find the number 5 on my computer. the one next to that.
Weird still exists, true, but the combination of weird + budget is what’s really missing.
The only recent example I can think of is Death Stranding.
It’s not quite as weird, but Alan Wake 2 as well qualifies I think.
I found a game on itch about a laundromat that washes women in the machines.
Hmm. On second thought, maybe games were a mistake.
The Alters just released, is AA, weird, and very good! Indies are definitely the home for weird experimental shit but I feel like there are going to be more strange, niche games being made for larger budgets as the AAA space splinters and devours itself.
That’s the entire tech industry. I got in at the tail end of it being full of nerds who were interested in computers. Then jocks and the like found out it pays really well and now it isn’t fun anymore.
Yeah man all those well known jocks like Spez and Zuckerberg sure did a number on tech.
+1 to this, I feel like having a ton of money is what corrupts leadership, not necessarily their technical background.
Maybe Spez and Zuck haven’t changed much, but I feel like some others started out as relatively reasonable people who were also technically brilliant, but eventually their companies started doing shitty things and they are both aware and apparently unwilling to stop it.
Perhaps corruption in the Soviet Union is a good example of how even people from normal hard working backgrounds (i.e. not billionaires who have never worked a day in their life) can still be corrupted by power and a lack of accountability.
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Is he actually good at it or are guys who want to hang out with a billionaire saying he’s good at it?
Jocks != Business c suite
Too many business majors joined game dev teams
I stopped playing AAA games years ago. They are all trash.
Indie games are where it’s at
I dunno I like elden ring and rdr2. Some are still good, just not most, anymore
Yeah I’m playing cyberpunk for the first time and really enjoying it. i don’t know how much it innovates, but I’d say it was certainly a good game.
Not all, but yeah. 75% of my wishlists are weird and interesting indie stuff from the constant Steam demo fests.
They’re polished, but nearly all of them are too safe.
The ones that subvert things a little are always best for me, and these always get mixed reactions from people who went in with a set idea of what they wanted from it.
Red Dead Redemption 2 being a slow paced wild west simulator rather than Grand Theft Horse is a prime example. It didn’t play by safety and doing popular things. It did what they wanted it to be, and it’s all the better for it.
I’ve mainly been an Indie gamer since 2012 or so. My last gaming build is almost 7 years old, but I think the last AAA game I played was during lockdown and that was just because it was a way to hang with friends. At this point I just play indie ports on my phone.
Funny enough, after going through my Steam recently played, the last AAA game I enjoyed was Nier.
The good ones are solid tho and last a long time, I do prefer indie/smallteam for the most part now
vrs got some cool unique stuff, vtol vr is solid gaming still got some really cool stuff coming out, I wanna live in a world where vtol vr is as popular as cod
Some are quite good tho
The indie scene is so much fun.
The weird people are still there, but development teams are much larger now, so their input is not as prominent. Plus the budgets are so large that a flop can heavily damage a company or even ruin it, so they’re very risk-averse. We need more AA or A games instead of relying so much on heavy-hitters.
The weird people still make tons of indie games.
Indie games are great and all, but everybody I know is still waiting for great AAA games again that we can play together.
I mean, sure, complaining and while doing the same thing and expecting a different result is one strategy. AAA games are purely capitalistic endeavours.
Part of the issue is that AAA still hasn’t learned how to manage and produce passion projects, which most great games are. They keep wanting to use what’s working elsewhere with no regard for what makes sense in their own game.
Yeah really. They should be more like campuses funding a hundred small teams each trying to make something they’re individually passionate about. Hell, even give them the IPs to play with and see what they come up with.
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Happens with any industry that gets big, I think. More profits=more suits/vampires coming in and replacing artists/scientists or whoever is more qualified to make key decisions.
This won’t stop unless infinite wealth hoarding is tackled by governments, if ever.
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Happened even with Boeing. I think it should be illegal for anyone with an MBA to be CEO or CTO of any company. They can be CFO if they want to, but not any role with actual decision power over products.
Spicy, but I love that take
But then you get those people opening studios like Sandfall and creating masterpieces like Clair Obscura…
I know im late to the party but… I just started playing Death Stranding. Lets just say its more than just a walking simulator…
It is mental, but I also kind of wish he’d hire somebody else to write dialogue for him.
And maybe somebody to check all the women characters, and make sure he’s not coming across as being a little bit odd.
And maybe somebody to check all the women characters, and make sure he’s not coming across as being a little bit odd.
Yeah…
And Death Stranding is better about its female characters than most of the MGS games…
I JUST started collecting chrysalis crystals. (so mabyt 4-5 delvilvery/walking sim missions in)
To quote an old meme, ‘I know nothing Jon Snow’ but one i saw the ::: spoiler Title Hand prints in the sand, :::
I knew this was more than a walking simulator
By the time you finish the game, whatever you’ve seen so far will seem like the most normal thing in the world.
Definitely a lot of standard Kojima gameplay in there, among the apocalyptic Deliveroo simulator and bonkers 4th wall breaking.
I mean, it’s being a mail carrier in a world that is maximum Kojima.
Yoko Taro talking about weird shows a healthy deal of self awareness… +1 respect in my book
No worries. There is plenty of weird to find with indie games.
Yeah, but how survivable is making indie games? Unless you make it big, you aren’t paying rent that way.
That’s why you need public funding to support and nourish the industry. We’ve got that in our state where we can get grants to start up studios. This allowed for studios such as Massive Monster to be created.
VC funding isn’t great because they can pull out if the project or investment doesn’t suit them. See League of Geeks.
This take sucks. There’s a clear cap on what indies can do because they have a limited budget. Whatever their output is, it’s not comparable to big studios output.
What the market lacks is quirky games on a medium budget, which’s not what indie scenes provide.
That’s why bg3 felt so special. For us by us at that scale
“Do you think video games are silly little things?”
Next you’ll tell me mainstream is not niche
There are plenty of weird people making weird games if you know where to look. itch io and DLSite, for instance.
That was literally his point…that the weird people make indie games and not AAA games.
Read the article, you say? What a radical notion.
Sorry, I’m illiterate (this was written by my editor).
I didn’t even read the article that information is right in the title LOL
It’s pretty short too!
And it’s for the better, the AAA games industry devours talent and spits out mediocrity and burnouts. I would prefer that small indie studios keep control of their creative output rather than being devoured by the money machine.
There is a space between ‘itch.io freebie that runs in terminal’ and ‘TROUT: Sacred Band 8’ and the unprecedented level if sliders for dicks in character creation
Capitalism at its finest.
