I hate to say it, but good. I feel for those losing their jobs, but it’s time to bring back smaller game dev companies that produce titles of substance.
“Bring back”? They already exist. There are an endless number of small devs out there. Most of them don’t have good games, let alone “titles of substance”, so you have to do some work yourself to find the good stuff rather than expecting a constant stream of approved content to just fall in your lap.
People don’t read minds. You either write so your post is understandable, or not. Which you have failed, since yeah - plenty of smaller devs doing small things and it isn’t clear what you are advocating for. Splitting up studios? Lone wolves who make the game for 10 years?
Wow, that triggered my trauma really bad for a split second. I used to get told that all the time when I was a kid, just because I was curious and neurodivergent. Eventually I came to see that sentence as a symbol of the poor empathy of neurotypicals for autistic people, and of ableism in general. If you said that in my house to a member of my family you’d probably start a domestic incident, because every autistic person I know has a similar experience.
it’s time to bring back smaller game dev companies that produce titles of substance
Just want to point out, the latest round was Microsoft closing smaller studios, with very well received titles, they had bought so that they can focus more on large “blockbuster” titles. The layoffs is the exact opposite of what you want happening
100% agreed. We don’t need games filled with padding content and realistic graphics. We need FUN games.
There’s a ton of fun games out there. The number of great 5-10 hour indie/small studio games I’ve played via gamepass is huge. There’s even more fun games today than in the past, IMO, you just have to look a bit deeper.
I do feel the age of lots of great AAA games is behind us, so many of these are design by committee due to how much money is involved. There are still some great ones every few years, but it’s the exception, not the norm.
Indeed, not only indies but also AA games. I just have finished playing Risk of Rain 2. It’s been 70 hours of fun an it cost me under €20.
What are you talking about!!! Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield are all really fun games and absolutely totally unique. When a sequel comes out its multiplayer is amazing right away and all the best playlists are there with tons of maps right away! I never have to ask “why didn’t they include the playlist or mode from the last one that everyone loved” just to wait a year for some DLC that is the exact thing from the prior game.
cough nuketown cough
Halo specifically even gets the community involved by letting them make maps and then using those maps to deliver new experiences for players. They never reuse parts of maps in other maps that could be seen as lazy or obvious.
Just in case people can’t tell from my tone /s.
You forgot that they also have more than one rock model!
Halo is unique. At a time when the military shooter genre was closed in terrestrial (or at best, mars) spaces, Halo presented natural environments filled with gorgeous alien architecture that presents an ancient mystery and a sense of wonder at the scale and the age of a place. Perfectly augmented by the monk-like vocalisations, Halo defies the conventions of military shooters by putting you in a beautiful place that you have to explore, and slowly come to understand.
