RickySpanish, on 06 March 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:
Here's an article with research on the rising cost of video-games, crucially where possible the writer factored out marketing costs:
https://venturebeat....-cost-of-games/
You can see there that costs have increased hugely. The reasons are many, but pretty much all boil down to consumer demand for higher fidelity graphics, audio, animation and gameplay mechanics.
Every article and every research is sponsored by somebody. I have exactly zero reason to believe any of that because it is obvious who has the money to sponsor the research that'll happen to be favorable to them. I also happen to understand a thing or two about programming and have a number of if not friends, but good acquaintances working in the industry, specifically making game-engines. Talking to them over the years I know very well exactly how the industry has changed its approach to various things, including for example said audio and animation. All I'm gonna say is that the exact same things are being done with spending 100-1000 times more money. Feel free to guess yourself were the difference between actual cost and money spent goes.
RickySpanish, on 06 March 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:
People back in the 80s were no better at writing performant, reliable code than they are now. Indeed, the ET game of '83 is widely considered to be the vanguard of the great video-game collapse, and that game was a pile of bug ridden rubbish.
Load of BS.
RickySpanish, on 06 March 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:
The history of gaming is littered with poorly written crap, the difference with modern games is that there's an opportunity to fix them... to an extent. When one looks back at games it's easy to remember all the good ones, and to falsely assume that since there are so many bad games coming out now, that the quality of games has decreased. Actually, you are just remembering the classics.
Yeah, right ... lol
So, how happens that even though there are far far more games being made each year now, there is actually less "classics" made per year?
RickySpanish, on 06 March 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:
Yes. You could. I know this because I did. With more advanced tools come more advanced expectations. At the very beginning of the gaming era in the 80s it was perfectly possible for a single programmer to create an entire game, including art and sound effects. The reason that everyone and their Mum wasn't doing it back then was because games were a newly emerging entertainment medium.
There are brilliant games being made by a single person or a very small groups of people today all the same. The difference is that nowadays everyone and their mum does do it and thus 99% of games made are utter garbage. Not only that, but everyone and their mums actually expect people to pay for their garbage. And whats worse, people do pay for said garbage, or even for empty space where garbage was supposed to be. And there isn't any kind of repercussions for the devs who take money and deliver nothing.
Game devs have shoved this concept where they get paid first and then maybe they'll make a semi-decent game down our throats. It kills the industry plain and simple. The only way to go is to have a developer invest into his game first and then sell it. Because its the only way to ensure there is responsibility for the quality of the product.
RickySpanish, on 06 March 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:
Again you're remembering only the classics, there were lots of buggy failures released back in the day that simply bombed because they had some game breaking issues that could not be patched.
Stop assuming what I'm remembering. There were plenty of bugged games. But not even close percentage wise to how many bugged games are made now, and surely not even close to the amount of games that never progress beyond alpha yet are being sold. Again, back then people wouldn't even dare realease a game in a state, that seems to be normal to be released now. And the amount of games that actually do get patched today is hilariously low. "Be glad we've released smth you've payed us for at all" is a go-to motto.
Edited by PhoenixFire55, 06 March 2020 - 12:33 PM.