Video game programming cant continue forever like this

How much bigger can video games get? Video games are only getting more costly, in more ways than one. And it doesn't seem like they're sustainable.

There's the human cost: contract workers are continually undervalued and taken advantage of, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 developer Treyarch is reported to do.

When you adjust for inflation, the retail cost of video games has never been cheaper, and it's been this way for some time.

Since changing the price point seems to be anathema, we've seen the industry attempt to compensate with all manner of alternatives: higher-priced collector's editions, live service games that offer annual passes or regular expansions a la Destiny, microtransactions, and free-to-play games. Then you have loot boxes.

We're more than halfway through 2019, and Electronic Arts has only published one single-player game, the indie Sea of Solitude. Last year was much the same, with two indies as its only single-player releases: Fe and Unraveled 2.

Activision's portfolio of single-player games looks even thinner: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the only exclusively single-player, non-remake game that the publisher has released since 2015's Transformers: Devastation.

Ubisoft is an exception, regularly releasing entries in single-player game franchises like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. But it buttresses them with aggressive microtransactions and extensive season pass plans.

The big-budget single-player experience is now almost entirely the domain of first-party studios making marquee games for console manufacturers, which bankroll games like Spider-Man and God of War.

The economics of first-party exclusives are totally different -- they're less about making money by themselves and more about drawing players into the console's ecosystem. This is worth considering, because as big publishers prioritize live, service-oriented games, the number of games on their schedules has dropped.

Attached: doom.jpg (980x555, 98K)

Other urls found in this thread:

kotaku.com/the-video-game-industry-cant-go-on-like-this-1836606033
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

*ahem*

FUCK ubisoft
FUCK bethesda
FUCK eletronic arts
FUCK cd project red
FUCK respawn entertainment
FUCK blizzard entertainment
FUCK activision
FUCK square enix
FUCK epic games
FUCK bioware
FUCK rockstar games
FUCK nintendo
FUCK valve
FUCK riot games
FUCK naughty dog
FUCK capcom
FUCK konami
FUCK bungie
FUCK 2k games
FUCK take two interactive
FUCK zenimax
FUCK dice
FUCK remedy entertainment

and FUCK PC GAMING in general. Let the shit burn. These shitty GAMING developer/publishers treat their employees horribly, inject the games with micro-transactions and day one DLC even thought game sells at full price, knowingly launches their game with unfinished shit and known bugs, glitches and unoptimization.

GAMING industry is becoming what Hollywood became 10 years ago. They are milking the paying customers for everything that they can. Hollywood movies have shit CGI now because redditor retards will still buy expensive tickets to see the next capeshit film. Same thing is happening with GAMING.

Let them go bankrupt. Spit their graves.

>muh gaymes goin extinct!
>no! I spilled my gaymer energy drink on my RGB gaymer keyboard!
>I can't wait to pay $2,000 for the next GPU! Gaymes!
Based, /thread, fpbp

Attached: pep.jpg (1280x720, 61K)

Unironically I don't mind playing 3D games from 2004 onwards. I think they look perfectly fine, and sprites are timeless so I still play HoMM and think it looks good.
I only have an issue with awful framerates and garbage polygon graphics like the PS1 and N64 era of games.
I'm glad this is unsustainable because when the next crash happens we will go back to innovative ideas to sell games instead of selling glorified benchmarks like the new Tomb Raider shit
Developers shot themselves in the foot by making grafics their main selling point instead of a solid core of features and gameplay.

Attached: 1521937120079.png (606x603, 258K)

>Developers shot themselves in the foot by making grafics their main selling point instead of a solid core of features and gameplay.
I blame Jaguar. You literally can't do shit with it. I have mild hope for a next gen.

although you mentioned programming in the title, this thread is actually, unironically (as in, not just "you mentioned video games fuck off" shit) firmly in territory

but really, all the games I play these days are either old as shit or made by small teams, so they don't face the same scale (whether of funding, development, or just providing enough stuff for the player to actually do in their large environments) issues that AAA titles would

>>/v/
Just because you threw "programming" in the title doesn't make it a Jow Forums topic.

>reddit spacing
Downvoted

Why not just link the article??

kotaku.com/the-video-game-industry-cant-go-on-like-this-1836606033

Would you rather it be just a giant block of text?

this
all I play is either japanese, indie or older than a decade
the AAA industry hasn't made a single good game as far as I'm aware, at best it will be something that has potential but ends up mediocre due to trying to appeal to a mass audience since it's the only way they'd be able to recoup cost

AAA is shit, more news at 11

There's a perfectly acceptable method of posting on Jow Forums. Lurk more you dumb reddit nigger.

Its good you bring up inflation and stagnant retail cost, but that isn't the entire picture from an economic point of view. Video games, and really everything else tech related, can afford to keep the prices the same provided they keep expanding their market to increase revenue. In this case it isn't about finding the golden price point from a profitability standpoint, so long as revenue increases the profitability does as well.

The argument then becomes a question of how much can the market bear, and whether they've reached as many consumers as they can. Its a good question, and I don't know that they've reached that point yet.

How long until we have AI that can program video games and it's just people telling the AI what they want?

Have sex.

Ignore him. Nice post.

>huge annual profit spikes on 's games
>inb4 *gives an example of one with a slight dip*
>advertised to (man)children and brainlets
nu-gaming the most profitable it has ever been, with the perfect demographic to go with them
if you feel like you have to play games - the latest ones at that - then you deserve it

yawn, nothing new

Can you teach a computer what fun is?

AI generated art assets

you need to go back

>Video games are only getting more costly
you realize publishers make 300%+ on average margins on video games, right? that's before microwhalesactions, it goes to 1000% after that
videogames are more than fine with increasing costs

Blame Crysis for this.
It was so badly optimized that running it on a decent rig in 2012, six years after its release, at maximum settings wasn't trivial.

I unironically wish they would. DOOM was badass.

wish you'd stop spouting bullshit and read some quarterly revenue reports
publishers never did as good as they do now

Blizzard is semi based because it got pozzed by Activision but still makes great games like World of Warcraft

Kek

>still makes great games like World of Warcraft
based frozen in ice since 2004 user

games have a higher audience than ever today, do not cost very much to make (especially open world), and almost everything is built on middleware so there doesn't even need to be anyone talented working on the projects

this current path is not only sustainable, it's flourishing and record shattering

>Fuck Capcom
Capcom has been making fucking amazing singleplayer games recently you faggot. like Resident evil 7, Monster Hunter world, megaman 11, Devil May Cry 5 and the amazing Resident evil 2 remake

Attached: IMG_20190721_224305.jpg (99x125, 9K)

Incredibly based

Attached: theabsolutestateofnudoom.png (1280x680, 909K)

There isnt a problem with videogames industry. Unlike many other industries, this one is actual TRUE FREE MARKET. Literally anybody can go and make a game in few months and make millions just like
>undertale
>minecraft
>rust
>dwarf fortress
>hunie pop
And the entrance fee for PC market is literally 100 dollars (steam). You dont need any corporate boot licking, getting your game developer licence or paying some parasite in gov to release a fun little game.

Every single time some souless "aaa" studio dies all it does it make more potential customers for ifferent game. Also dont forget 3rd world countries like czechia (mafia, kingdom come deliverance), poland (witcher) and ukraine (stalker) where their workforce is so cheap they can sell AAA for the same 60$ like EA or Ubisoft and make 10 times more profit simply because of wage gap and different purchase powers.

>fuck PC gaming in general
Behold, a corporate boot licker. He loves to pay for online, he loves the developers have to censor and cripple their games so they pass the "QA", he loves buying overpriced DRM boxes. He literally believes that minecraft would be ever created if there wasnt PC gaming market. Corporate CEOs would never give that fat hack notch a chance to sell his shit game on consoles. One of many examples.

Attached: beee yourself.jpg (1024x576, 81K)

>Video games are only getting more costly, in more ways than one.
Wrong. Modern game engines take care of 95% of development. Making vidya is easier and cheaper than ever.

>t. Cuckcom shill

Fuck YOU.

...

I's there a way to filter a single tripfag in all threads?

Thats debatable. Its true that the hardest (as in: you need to study linear algebra, shitton of other math for 3D geometry, sprinkle of physic for physics and be really really good software engineer otherwise the game will run like minecraft: shit) part of any game is the engine, but engine itself is just barebones nothing.

You still need music, textures, 3D models, 3D animation, level design and the standards and quality are rising up over the years. Making decent 40x40 texture for a box containing ammo was way easier 30 years ago. These days you can spend a week in blender just making the 3D model and then few days editing stolen 4K texture so it looks decent on it.

The skill floor needed for developing game went down, but all other production values went up a lot. Pic related wouldnt pass as todays AA game...

Attached: downloadfile-2.jpg (2560x1440, 532K)

>72030005
>CD Projekt Red
Dilate

Everything you wrote is wrong. Today there's more gamers than ever and digital distribution has 0 costs as opposes to the old CDs that have to be pressed and distributed. Just think about it, 15 years ago gaming was unknown in China and today there's 100 millions buying DLC shit daily.

This is also being done in other industries, have shit tier products because idiots will still buy it because they have have to (water, clothes, food)

Taleworlds is the best gaming company.
They don't have gays, trannies or niggers in their games.

Attached: maxresdefault[1].jpg (1280x720, 216K)

fuck kotaku is so bad..
>muh toxic gamers
>muh burnouts
>muh PTSD from doing some CGI animations
are these guys for real?! when did society become such a bubble full of entitled little children that demand more just because?

>Turks

biggest problem with games today is they're aren't about having fun, they're about TELLING A STORY

fuck videogames

If you take mughgraphics away what is left the most generic story in the univers and the most generic interaction you can have with the world IE mughbullet

>true free market
>relies on nonfree software
>must pay an entry fee to a DRM company that exerts near full control of the market and can delete your product whenever it feels like

There is literally zero stuff preventing you to write your game / product from scratch, make it support any platform you want and sell it however you want (as long as you target PC platform). If you want to include linux or BDS built of your game, you are free to do so.

Steam has the advantage of one button click files hosting, customer support (forums), free advertising (positive customer reviews), dealing with regional pricing and dealing with pay systems. You will spend more hours writing and keeping your server than earning 100$ in minimum wage job.
>exerts near full controll
Gog, epic, discord, origin, that ubishit, MS store, humblebundle and probably 10 others you have never heard about. Pick your poison or just make your own store if you suffer from
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
You wont be first nor last developer who reinvented wheel just to sell their own software.

Attached: 76933.png (286x395, 179K)

Programming bloat is killing everything across the board. We have these really fucking fast PCs now, but they are too bogged down with performance killing programming by untalented and lazy devs.

Not that it matters. Playing video games is a dead end life choice. If you play video games, you deserve what you are getting yourself into.

Attached: Modern World Bloat.png (1880x2172, 180K)

none of those are advantages when the entire store is a DRM botnet
all those other stores exist but are a fraction of the market
see /v/ where all the steam shills like yourself have been out in full force demanding that devs release their games on steam or they won't buy

Game developers can act all smug and release whatever product they want in any state under any licence but in the end its the customer alone who decides what he will buy.

You are either in to make money and then you release your game fucking EVERYWHERE to maximize profits, or you are some sort of idealist and idealistic people die from hunger in the age of capitalism.

Now go and make your own not-botnet drmfree store and see if anybody is interested in such thing.

A lot of video games aren't costly to make. And they sell good as well.

In fact, a lot of bad visuals (8-bit bullshit) actually aid in peoples immersion, as they allow for people to imagine things themselves.

Besides, a lot of games with amazing visuals tend to become smaller scale. Or reuse assets.

but steam reduces my profits because of the forced 30% and the arbitrary bans, they are the ones who want me to die from hunger
>not-botnet drmfree store
i already have one and steam shills aren't interested because they already have 500+ DRM-locked games in their steam libraries and will never switch as long as gaben has total control of their games and refuses to let them transfer to other stores

I'm not him, but taking a 30% cut isn't really that high for distribution (and a bit of marketing).

In the past you had to set up a network with retail shops, localize your products, package it, ship it and then the retail shop would need a big cut.
So in that regard distributing video games has become a lot cheaper.

>a network with retail shops
Or find a distributor.

capcom and nintendo are mostly good

>b-b-but 30% isn't that bad just accept it! y-y-you don't know how good you have it! t-t-thank you based gaben!
like clockwork, did i wander into /v/ by mistake?

>No FUCK Tencent

Gaben literally is the reason why people started buying video games online. And that 30% cut was a huge reduction in expenses. It's just a fact.

And without Steam many games wouldn't have reached they audience they have reached today. Because quite frankly, 99% of the developers suck at marketing.

>gaben invented downloading things over the internet
>gaben invented marketing
>gaben invented cost reductions therefore 30% is okay because the great and all powerful gaben decreed it in his holy scriptures
can you fags at least make an effort to hide your shilling

He didnt invent marketing. He just has a huge audience. At every single moment there are more gamers online on steam than people live in Denmark.

this thread is retarded

they'll use ai fag

and his store is also a DRM botnet

The major problems are a) greed and b) not giving a fuck about optimisation aka also greed.
Fuck the video games industry they deserve to go under.

Only a small percentage requires Steam to run.

Let the industry die I don't give a fuck. AAA studios haven't been able to deliver a decent product in years. Standards have been slipping for at least the last 15 years.

This. The last "tRiPlE a GaMe" I bought was HiTMAN 2. And I literally don't even remember the last big studio game I bought before that. As far as I am concerned the big studios haven't shat out anything of value for over a decade and their gambling bullshit and abuse of customers and employees alike is just the icing on the top.
The industry crashed once before and it's fucking time for another crash with literally no survivors. All the big studios deserve and need to go under.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is based.

Attached: pepe toast.png (225x227, 15K)

That doesn't make up for decades of jewing. Capcom is one of the earliest and worst offenders when it comes to iterative sequel bullshit and shitty DLC schemes.

And this is the /thread for literally any discussion about "b-but t-they made that one halfway decent game recently!"

You've just been to scool and clearly no nothing yourself.

you dont and let the AAA industry die. Back to independent software created by a team less than 30 persons. Some of the most industry forward pushing games have been made by small studios with small publishers. Online distribution may have killed the fine art of game manuals, thats my only gripe with this future

>How much bigger can video games get?
But user, they are getting smaller.

Agreed, modern major games are all garbage. A little while ago I was debating upgrading my PC, but then I realized I literally haven't bothered playing through a single modern game made after 2016. And it's not like I'm just a "tired gamer" who doesn't feel like doing anything. I still play tons of games made across various platforms and generations, just nothing recent. It's all just so fucking stagnant.

Only thing on the horizon that even slightly interests me is Cyberpunk2077, and even that I have massive reservations about, because every time I see new info on the game, it seems to be less and less of the RPG that I was originally expecting going back to the 2012 teaser.

Having said that, there will no "video game crash". A romantic idea, but it's just not going to happen. The context in 1983 was totally different. It was this new thing and not a longstanding cultural phenomenon. Nowadays saying the vidya industry is going to crash is like saying the film industry is going to crash. No, not going to happen. There might be paradigm shifts within the industry with certain players collapsing and certain trends arising, but no actual "crash"

>Some of the most industry forward pushing games have been made by small studios with small publishers
Name one game post Half Life 2 that actually advanced the industry in any way that isn't ripping the customer off more efficiently or look at these god rays that have been made by more than a dozen people at most.

AI will soon create the art assets and do the programming

Sold my desktop last week, PC gaming is dead. stadia is going to come in and the redditors will gobble it up. Never touch video games again or you will become a basedboy.

take the /vr/ pill

Attached: sonic 2 crt.jpg (3264x2448, 3.04M)

>wh*Tes

How to spot a redditor in disguise

Its not like that really. Its all just made to cause or create controversy, thats how it all started. Make the most cringe but clickable shit and youre making money on ad revenue. Even if youre just spouting lies and slander its actually fucking OK because the fuckers that invented that system defend that disgusting way of journalism.
read Trust Me Im Lying by Ryan Holiday

>hoomans

>based
Go back to your corporate cuckshed

Fully agreed on all of that. Especially Cyberpunk 2077, I want it to be good but I doubt it. I also still play a lot of games. Just nothing recent. I only upgraded my PC "recently" because some of my tech projects needed beefier hardware.
And I am fully aware a industry crash is at best a fever dream but I won't give up hope that some day it might just happen.

Define "advanced the industry." Minecraft kickstarted several industry shaping trends (more random generation, open worlds, crafting mechanics, etc), but I'm willing to bet you'll say that doesn't count because reasons.

DF

BASED

doesn't change that it's a DRM botnet

>forced 30%
As i said, go develop your own store or try to persuade gog or whoever that your game is so important you wont accept more than 5% cut. Good luck.

As i said before, you are dragging ideologies into bussiness world. I bet you didnt even know that VISA, master card and paypal all take their own cut FROM EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION. You should be angry at them as well and demand online stores to accept offline currency to avoid these cuts.

In the end of the day, someones has to pay the software devs, sysadmins, the hardware, the network infrastructure itself and the electricity. Internet itself isnt stricly online. Its all very real hardware and people behind it keeping it alive. Every single one of these want a cut from every piece of traffic.

Attached: 1562536682113.jpg (605x605, 114K)

What annoys me the most about "video game journalism" is that even when people know full well they're full of shit, they still give them clout and treat their opinions as worthy of consideration.

For example, that whole fake "controversy" with that Mordhau game. The devs of that game fucked up the moment they even tried responding seriously to Kotaku's bitching. The correct power move in that situation would've been to just completely fucking ignore them, because they're irrelevant and have no power but what people allow them to have over themselves.

Based post I c u user

No that is exactly what I meant. Ignoring the retarded decision to use Java as the engine that was by far one of the best games in years made by a fucking neck beard with too much free time. Minecraft would be my number one example of the only good games in the industry being made by indies.

>And I am fully aware a industry crash is at best a fever dream but I won't give up hope that some day it might just happen.
It's not as bad as that. Change can still happen, it's just that it won't be this massive cinematic "collapse" like people would like. Instead change will occur gradually. Whether that change is positive or negative is impossible to say, but it's still possible for positive change to happen in the future. That's what you should be praying for.

I know there won't be any collapse and I know there will be change, I just doubt it will be for the better. Eventually sure, there will be positive trends again but for the foreseeable future all I can see is more exploitation, more gambling, more micro transactions and generally more bullshit.

cringe

You haven't even addressed a single argument. Steam's 30% cut is completely fair. There's a lot of stuff wrong with Steam, but this isn't among that list.
Also 99% of indie developers are complete cunts so I don't even give a shit even if you get fucked over.

Ignoring them wouldve also created a shitstorm should the original article had created bigger waves.
>Update:We've not received a confirmation on our bias created assumption to the developer from the developer so they are still racist
Thankfully, the whole industry is leaving behind such practices, firing incompetent staff (remember LEARN 2 CODE) and the rise of the Fake News alert on normies (i unironically thank Trump on this, not for his opinions but actually shading light on the scummy journalism they forced on him and then to everyone else)