Baggie@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Yeah, exclusivity is dead, and games take half a decade to make these days.
Bioware used to be able to make good AAA games quickly :
With epic soundtrack, voice acting, cinematography, …
Even an independant (back then) studio like CD Projekt “only” needed 4 years between each Witcher game (2007, 2011, 2015), while making their own engine for the 2nd and 3rd
I don’t know where the years get lost in game development nowadays, except pre-production (lack of direction/managment) and… “open world”
“Quickly” - the “Bioware magic” used to be years of lack of direction followed by one year of “HOLY SHIT WE NEED TO DELIVER!” crunch
But the former executive producer of Dragon Age, Mark Darrah (…) posted a YouTube video about how the so-called “BioWare magic” really worked. According to Darrah, it referred to a hockey stick graph where most of the progress is nearly unnoticeable. It’s nearly flat, and “if you draw that line out, then your game is shipping in like 30 years.” At a certain point, the developers hit a “pivotal point” when the game would finally shape up and a lot of progress would be made in a short amount of time. According to the developer, that tipping point is what is known as“BioWare magic.”
Half a decade for a subpar product that’s barely out of beta.
Back in the day we’ve got subpar products barely out of beta that we had to patch from magazine cds far faster. Oh - and they were more fun because developers had to make something out of nothing. I feel today, where everything is possible as the engine used delivers a toolset for anything, games easily are so overly stuffed with “mechanics” that they just feel like work. I don’t like that.
I feel like given the amount of work required to make the kind of games that triple a represents, and the amount of money in and out, every game becomes a mess of different ideas and motivations with no unifying force. Every game must be everything to justify the price tag, but there’s no unifying passion or vision behind it. Of course the more you stuff in there, the more you can market it as well.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
What’s crazy is lots of good games don’t take that long. You don’t need an epic sound track, textures, physics, etc to make a good game. There are so many amazing low budget games that are not that technically challenging or that demanding of musicians/graphic artists.
bilgamesch@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
That’s the one thing where I would raise an objection. An epic soundtrack is that one thing that adds to the experience more than fancy graphics or overly complicated game mechanics. Epic doesn’t necessarily mean expensive. Monkey Island had phantastic soundtracks, as well as other older games like The Settlers 2, early Anno games etc. They just set a mood. They supported their narratives. That was good stuff - and I guess you might now be able to extrapolate how old I am.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
I’m not saying I don’t like an epic sound track. I have a lot that I’ve even purchased. But think of some games that do not and still sell well.
What I mean is, you can have a good sounding soundtrack that isn’t expensive. Some games record orchestras, for example, and others just make a good tune in FL studio. One is much more expensive than the other.