Pi's hot take

[the-pi-guy]

My hot take is that people don't generally understand why movies/games/etc are successful or why they fail. 

There are some creators who seem to be pretty consistent at making highly critically rated or popular stuff, but there's no template. A lot of times creators fail to make successful sequels.

Kind of a corollary to this, is that if there was a template on how to make successful or critically acclaimed products, companies would have an easier time. For example, Sony wouldn't have had a Concord failure.



This is a thought that I've had for a while. But I feel like it's more important to me to post about it now.

A very troublesome aspect, is that a lot of times analytics are done on superficial aspects.

If Horizon 1 was a failure, Sony could have came to the conclusion that people don't want a woman as a protagonist.

Or right now, companies are coming to the conclusion that people don't really want single player games.   

I find it very frustrating at times when I hear executives talk about games. It often feels very clear, for example that the people that run Sony right now, don't really understand why people buy their games.

I think it's a big reason why the industry has a very superficial view on budget. Bigger is just better.

To a big extent I find it concerning.

[Legend]

If Horizon 1 was a failure, Sony could have came to the conclusion that people don't want a woman as a protagonist.

I think Aloy was smart for a few reasons, but one of them was that she was a departure from the studio's past work. Horizon changed as much as it could from Killzone and that really helped it feel unique.

Like you said with superficial aspects, other games come in and say "well horizon had a female protagonist, why isn't our game selling?"

Kind of a corollary to this, is that if there was a template on how to make successful or critically acclaimed products, companies would have an easier time. For example, Sony wouldn't have had a Concord failure.

Don't know if Concord is an example of that lol. I imagine a ton of voices were shouting "wtf don't do that" and Sony/the devs kept doing it anyway. Which oftentimes is smart, it's the only way to make something really groundbreaking, but Concord was just such a predictable failure from my point of view at least.

I think it's a big reason why the industry has a very superficial view on budget. Bigger is just better.

Preach. I remember us talking about this back with Nier Automata. Now we have Expedition 33 which is another example.

Big AAA games cannot guarantee they will have better stories, better characters, better pacing, etc. But they can have more content and that seems to be the thing they're doubling down on.

[BasilZero]

Blueberry pie is the best.

Dont @me.

[Legend]

Blueberry pie is the best.

Dont @me.

Cherry or pecan. 

[nnodley]

The inflated budgets of modern AAA games is insane. There are so many free tools or a lot of assets that can be used and easily tweaked to make whatever look you want. I could easily see all the premade assets that expedition 33 used when I played it, but they did them in such a unique way most people wont see or care. 

Game dev is fudgy hard but there has never been a time that's it's been as easy to make one