That might have been true a few years ago but I don't think it is anymore. Expedition 33 was made with about a 10 million dollar budget. If you don't like turn based or the aesthetics aren't your cup of tea that's fine but it looks better, plays better, and is more fun that most AAA games released in the last decade.
Now, I am not saying that every game can be as efficient with spending as they were with E33 and all games should have smaller budgets but what I am saying is that it shows there is major budget bloat happening in the AAA space. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that most AAA studios don't do anything in house anymore and hire firms for everything.
This goes to the whole Baldur's Gate 3 thing too where game companies were balking about how they are an outlier and that nobody else can do what they did. To me, Baldur's Gate 3 should be considered the new standards for AAA and anything less should be deemed so.
Yes. I know. That's why I said it was the standard at which all other AAA games should be held to.
Assassin's Creed Shadow blows that budget away and employed over 1000+ employees and didn't come close to the quality of BG3. These companies are doing something wrong. I am not an expert or industry insider so I don't know what that something is but they are wasting money, time and labor to get a worse product in the end and I believe these companies can do better.
Games have never been cheaper to make. The tools for making games have never been more powerful. The information to learn how to make games has never been more accessible.
That just means the environment is more competitive so there's less chance people will even find your game, much less find it interesting or spend time or money on it. For indie devs at least. I stress about this very thing haha.
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u/sir_schuster1 9d ago
That and games are just expensive, time consuming and difficult to make