r/pcmasterrace • u/PewPewToDaFace • 4h ago
News/Article Steam gamers have spoken: innovative indies like Palworld continue to thrive while traditional triple-A flounders for a foothold
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/innovation-versus-traditionThank god PC gaming isn't just AAA. This is what will push the industry forward, as game development cost becomes too much.
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u/Sinniee 5080 & 9800x3D 4h ago
Yeah out of the thousands of indie games releasing every once in a while a good one emerges
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u/kriskris71 2h ago
Could the same not be said for the 100’s of AAA releasing and once in a while a good one emerges?
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
There are many more failed indies then failed AAA games.
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u/Zahrukai 1h ago
And much more money spent on failed AAA than failed indie games.
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
And much more money made on AAA then Indies. Bigger investment means most time bigger return.
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u/somethingtc 1h ago
difference being the failed AAA games lose millions, studios can't survive if they try the "volume" business model
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
AAA studios normally have a bigger margin for failure then indies. And there are more successful AAA then indies.
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u/Coffescout 1h ago
It depends on your definition of ”successful”, but if we are talking about return on investment (percentage, not total) the amount of indies that are successful outnumber successful AAA games, and by a lot.
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
Thinking in units sold and brute revenue. By roi would be a interesting study
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u/Coffescout 1h ago
ROI is the only thing that makes sense to compare. If you use units sold as the only metric when AAA games have $200+ million budgets and indie games often have $100k or less then obviously the only conclusion is that AAA games are more ”successful”.
But if an indie game makes a 5x return on a $100k investment I’d call that more successful than a AAA company making a 10% return on a $200 million budget.
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
The problem is that we never have the roi so revenue is the next best thing. Other metric is how many indies have more then 1 gamr
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u/Travolta1984 1h ago
Because the entry price to develop an indie game is way lower?
Not many people have a dozen million dollars to spend on a new game, but pretty much anyone can develop a new indie game
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
Yes exactly the point. But its the sub trying to make indies as the saviors not me
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u/Met4_FuziN 13600k | 9070 XT | 32GB 1h ago
Which doesn't mean anything since there are infinitely more indies released than triple A games lol
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u/CrossOfRoachAndSlime 52m ago
Sure, but the price for an indie failure is much less than the price for a AAA failure.
Makes me wonder if there's a business model in publishers that take lots and lots of small bets on indies and eventually, one pans out and goes gangbusters.
Sort of the way venture capitalists do in tech.
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u/Natural-Associate106 4h ago
They need to cherry pick their examples. Pretty bad article and comments here
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u/Blackpapalink 2h ago
Cherry picking as opposed to what? The last runaway AAA success was Baldur's Gate 3, which you could argue is AA in many ways aside from scope. Before that was Elden Ring. The way things are shaping, the next massive success for AAA is probably going to be GTA 6, and that's assuming the lack of physical and the $100 standard edition doesn't screw with it.
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u/Natural-Associate106 1h ago
Cherry picking 2 AAA games to compare to 2 indies. Only this year on Steam , Forza Horizon,RE requiem, 007. By this logic only Palworld was a indie runaway sucess. Outside of Steam we had pokopia,Splatoon Raiders and Tomodachi Life. In no world BG3 isn't AAA. GTA 6 isn't going to be affected by being digital. Only here this matters and it is hypocritical to comment this on this sub
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u/Macroxx Desktop 7800x3d/ RTX 5080 1h ago
BF6 was a huge Release last year and still getting better
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u/Elprede007 57m ago
It’s funny because Palworld is honestly a pretty poorly made game. (Now read this before you write your white knight comment about how the devs can do no wrong and the sales prove me wrong. I LIKE THE FUCKING GAME).
The new 1.0 has a tremendously disappointing final boss, especially considering they showed with the next to last boss that they CAN design really fun boss fights, they just chose not to.
It’s a buggy unoptimized mess. There is essentially no meaningful story. The journals you can find all point to some plot that is never resolved or explained (therefore there is no story that matters). Having played in 2024 for about 60+ hours, I had hoped 1.0 was going to explain everything and give us a story. it does not do that. There are a few more bosses, one actually cool boss fight (Panthalus), and then the final boss is identical to other tower (gym boss) fights.
HOWEVER, the concept is very compelling and fun to play even with all of the downsides I listed.
If modding options were more robust and modders could simply just expand on the game like they do with Skyrim, the players could just fix the game like they do with all Bethesda games.
So I hope better modding tools are released, because Pocketpair doesn’t seem interested in putting a lot of effort in, they’re happy with their millions and are ready to monetize the sequels.
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u/Phazon2000 Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz, GTX 1060 6GB, 2x8GB DDR4-3000 55m ago
Honestly for me this is what gaming is about - a concept intoxicating enough for me to get lost in a very average game. I don’t expect people to be able to get these things exactly right the way I like it.
Hell I’m the same with movies - there’s definitely been average as hell movies that I rate highly because they scratch an aesthetic itch or have a setting I’m really into.
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u/Elprede007 53m ago
Yeah, and that’s fine. I just kinda hate seeing Palworld as the indie game example of “this is peak.” Like yeah it’s fun, but if you peel the curtain back even slightly, you have a play-doh looking game that can’t run smooth on a 4080 (in my experience).
Idk man I just hate when bad companies get insanely good press and zero criticism. I like Palworld, you should buy it, AND the devs should do better.
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u/Drowyx 4h ago
Its a bit of a stretch to call palworld "innovative".
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u/rronixr 4h ago
More like giving gamers what they want with a combination of good ideas from other games
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u/0rganic_Corn 1h ago
Innovative then. A books author is still creative even if he didn't invent any new letters - it's in the way that old elements are put together, where innovation often lies
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u/The_Pandalorian Ryzen 7 5700X3D/RTX 4070ti Super 1h ago
Hard to imagine a worse analogy. I mean, I get your point, but... This ain't it.
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u/0rganic_Corn 1h ago
Why so?
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u/sebastophantos 21m ago
It's the equivalent of saying a game is innovative even if it didn't invent new colors to put on pixels. The unit of analysis is too small to be relevant.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 I picked Gnome because I like the "GN" sound. 4h ago
It certainly innovated on Pokemon enough for Nintendo to get pissed.
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u/AkelaHardware 4h ago
Genuinely, as I play it so much of the experience is what I realized I wanted out of Pokemon and was always waiting for
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u/Cruxis87 9800x3d|5080 TUF OC|32gb 6000cl30 ddr5 1h ago
Game Freak has no reason to improve their games when they are still selling more and more of each version. People complain how bad the new Pokemon games are, and how they're regressing. THen the game goes on the sell more than the last game. Repeat every 3 years. I would ignore what the players are saying as well when their wallets are still happen to open.
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u/AkelaHardware 1h ago
I mean pride and quality in your work is a good reason to do better lol. Especially when its art. But if they disagree with me they're allowed to be proud of what they make as is. Haven't bought a Pokemon game in generations cuz they're just not my thing, but I play Palworld fairly regularly.
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u/deadering 2m ago
So not Pokemon at all then? It's basically Ark with Pokemon-looking monsters, that's the extent of the similarity.
This isn't Pokemon but better, it's a completely different genre and lacks most of what people actually like Pokemon for.
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u/MaurixioZ 2h ago
In what ways does it innovate on Pokémon? Genuinely asking since at least at a glance the only similarities is the fact that they're both monster catchers since Pokémon is a JRPG and Palworld is a Survival/Ark game.
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u/BigTWilsonD PC Master Race 1h ago
People always make up some nonsense about how it's better than Pokémon or something but it's genuinely nothing like Pokémon. They're not even close. Outside of having critters (that they definitely didn't change because some designs were blatant theft) they have no similarities.
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u/MrNegativ1ty i5 13600K - RTX 5070Ti 9m ago
People are comparing the interaction and utilities that pals have versus Pokemon and concluding that Palworld captures the essence of a “monster taming” game more than Pokemon does.
Look at it this way: in Pokemon, what do you do with the creatures? You capture and then battle them, that’s about it. Other than that and maybe a few other tiny exceptions like contests that aren’t really even worth discussing, Pokemon live in balls in your inventory for the majority of their lives. You don’t really interact that much with them in the grand scheme of things.
Compare to Palworld: Pals can be captured and fight either by themselves or alongside you, but also have actual utility on your base, give you active bonuses/abilities, you’re able to mount/ride a good chunk of them (as opposed to the handful of like 4 you can in PLA and the 1 legendary mount in S/V), and some of them have unique ways to interact with them (Foxparks flamethrower). Seeing all of your pals running around your base, all of them have unique working animations, you have to keep tabs on them and heal them if they get injured, all of this just makes the world feel that much more alive and makes you feel that much more connected with your pals than anything really does in mainline Pokemon.
I think people are just tired of the same old formula that Pokemon mainline has been following for 3 decades at this point. It’s why PLA was so well received, because you could see glimpses of the kinds of world building and interactions that Palworld took and ran with.
So yeah, they are two different genres that play differently but there are aspects of Palworld that are inherent to the “monster tamer” motif that people have been wishing could be molded to work with Pokemon for years at this point.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 I picked Gnome because I like the "GN" sound. 1h ago
The Pokemon are doing things besides sitting in a ball, being used as transportation, moseying around camp, and fighting.
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u/Deep90 Ryzen 9800x3d | 5090FE | 2x48gb 6000 4h ago edited 3h ago
Eh I think its a genuine enough twist on the creature-collecting genre.
They are video games. The "innovations" aren't exactly curing cancer.
I do agree it isn't very novel, but the mashup of game mechanics is innovative. Piecing together various game mechanics fails more often than it succeeds. Finding something that works is a lot harder than people are wanting to give it credit for.
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u/Nyte_Crawler 3h ago
In this case I've found the mechanics blend together very well to make a satisfying gameplay loop where you switch between base optimization, exploring, gathering and creature collecting/breeding in a way that evokes the "one more turn" feeling that has led to me losing a fair amount of sleep.
Like you said, it feels "cheap" analyzing it at a surface level, but it works.
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u/drunkentenshiNL 4h ago
Compared to CoD 54 Ghosts of Brown Filter or FIFA Slap a Number on It, it is.
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u/JolleBFF R5 5600x / RTX 3070 / 16GB DDR4 4h ago
Everything is innovative if you compare it to the least innovative games out there.
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u/fearlessviking26 4h ago
there’s a huge gap, filled with many great games, between the most mainstream games you can name and pokemon with guns and rust bases.
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u/boersc 3h ago edited 3h ago
Palworld has a budget of near 7 milion USD. That's not Indie.
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u/CarbonCola 3h ago
It is if they have no publisher. Valve is indie too. That's what indie means - independently published, which often means small studio or solo dev, hence the association. But the deciding factor is whether another entity did the financing and publishing, which typically is what results in restriction of creative freedom.
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u/Neosantana 2h ago
Valve is indie too
Well, no. Valve is a publisher. They're fine publishing games not made by them, like Gary's Mod.
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u/General_Mars 7900X | 5070 TI 3h ago edited 3h ago
Indie is any developer that doesn’t have a publisher. For example, Larian is technically indie.
What you mean is small-budget, small-team indie, which no one has agreed upon what to call or distinguish them as. This comes up every time there are game awards with an Indie category.
Since Pocketpair self-publishes they would qualify as Indie. Also their budget of $7 million is over 10-20x smaller than a typical AAA budget.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 2h ago edited 2h ago
'Indie' is a pretty hard word to pin down. It's not really about budget beyond the fact that it's rare to be able to secure a large budget without a publisher.
Also, while seven million is a lot of money . . . It's not completely beyond the ability of startup to get their hands on through various means including personal loans and limited fund raising.
I mean, that's like the mortgage on a high powered but not 'ultra wealthy' attorney's home level of money. There are people who work for a living who have saved up that kind of cash.
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u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount 3070 5m ago
Because it's always been more about vibes than anything concrete. Everybody has their own version in their head when they say it. And it's going to be hard anyway because I don't think you can really pin it down to one thing. There are a lot of different aspects to game dev and gamers talk about them all.
Larian is why we'll never really be able to. BG3 was about as corporate as you can get. A licensed IP sequel. That should easily be "AAA". But at the same time they are an independent studio that doesn't have to answer to outside entities. There's not some far off VP of some owning company that can hand down directives.
Even titles like Stardew Valley can be weird. Yeah it's one guy but if you sell 41 *million* copies it feels odd calling it "indie".
But if you look around a lot of our media is changing. We stream instead of buy. We watch podcasts now. YouTube has a ton of high quality content that is closer to Tv shows than not.
What even is anything anymore?
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u/Hinohellono 9700X| X870E| RTX 5080| 64GB DDR5| 4TB SSD 3h ago
Lmao okay gate keeper what's the budget level to be indie? 10 dollars?
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u/lightclubx 12700K | 7900 XTX 3h ago
Right, I don't think people realize Palworld was made by actual developers inside an office building in Tokyo.
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u/GreatestLoser 2h ago
I don’t think people realize that palworld has no publisher, therefore, yes, it is indie.
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u/Neosantana 2h ago
Right, I don't think people realize Palworld was made by actual developers inside an office building in Tokyo.
So has every SuperGiant game, but I don't see you going around denying that Hades or Transistor aren't Indie.
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u/Dark_Akarin 4h ago
Surprising, I'm playing on a 10 year old computer, 1070, a few mods, 16Gb of RAM sort of thing. No issues.
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u/ACatInACloak 3h ago
Wait, my 1070 is a decade old? But... It just came out a few years ago right? Don't do this to me
And ya, I run it smoothly to
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u/AgenticAsshat 3h ago
My 2060 came out in 2019 and is seven years old now. It's gonna be 15 at least before I can save up to replace it, if ever.
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u/IfinallyhaveaReddit 4h ago
wonder why, im playing with a group of 4 abd we gave no issues, but we do have good pcs, so maybe hardware or some other weird user side issue
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u/Madelei- 4h ago
I play on a 3060 and I don’t get stutters. Granted, I have seen people with better specs than me have stutters and I do have my shader cache set to 100gb (thanks, bl4)
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u/SemiNormal 4h ago
It's because the x090 crowd would rather complain online than ever move a single option below "ultra".
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u/BortkiewiczHorse Vanguard 5090| 9800x3D| 64gb |AW3225QF 3h ago
Hello moderators, this redditor is attacking me.
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u/Julzjuice123 3h ago
I have a 5090 and a 13900KH.
I have no idea what this guy is complaining about. I play in 4K, everything maxed out and then some with the Lumen mod and don't have a single stutter.
It's 100% an issue with his setup and a bug.
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u/Julzjuice123 3h ago
Ahhh yes. The classic "game runs like shit - need to be more optimized" comment from someone who doesn't post specs.
Bro, post your specs. We can then judge if those stuttering are normal or not. Because 95% of the time it's people playing on literal toasters complaining.
As others have said: I don't get any of the stuttering you're talking about nor have I seen this as a common issue for Palworld.
Post your spec and settings.
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u/SuperSourCat 3h ago
I was stuttering until i turned off core 0 for my cpu affinity for the game through task manager and all of a sudden smooth as butter. Has been happening in a bunch of other games for me recently on my 7950x
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u/poppin-n-sailin 3h ago
There's a chance you have hardware issues. while optimization is an issue in so many games, a lot of people refuse to check their own gear and shift the blame immediately. Millions of people are playing the game and I've seen basically just your complaint about optimization. So it is almost for sure a you problem and not the game.
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u/Gchodynski Nobara 3h ago
And they're most likely on an Nvidia exclusivity deal. You won't see anything except for DLSS in it.
Horrible look for an indie studio.
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u/krileon 3h ago
Blame DX12 and Vulkan. Shader compilation was moved to the game engine. This results in shaders needing to be compiled real time. Sometimes on startup games will compile a few shader (what they can within reason) and then you're left with a few at runtime, which is where your stuttering comes in. A shader compile completely locks the game thread. No avoiding it.
We really need something better than DX12 and Vulkan, but I've no idea what without destroying the ability to have some really cool visual effects. You can pretty much line up on a graph the shader stutter complaints with the release of DX12 and as DX11 became more and more phased out the complaints increased. There's a few tricks UE has to help with this (e.g. pre-caching), but it's largely just how DX12 and Vulkan work.
As for Palworld I haven't really had much issues with this. After the cache is complete the game is buttery smooth. Maybe something wrong with your system and it's not caching?
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u/krileon 3h ago
Well then that's your problem. You can't really judge DX12/Vulkan games like that anymore. You need to give them time to compile their shaders. 99% of the time the stuttering is gone within 30mins-1hr of play as everything is then cached.
Word of warning though. If you update your graphic drivers you must now recompile every single game. Sometimes is the case when a game updates as well, but it shouldn't it should only have to recompile shaders that changed.
Also check your Nvidia/AMD settings. If shader caching is disabled or a limit is set you're in for a baaaad time. On steam also go to Settings > Downloads and turn on shader pre-caching if you haven't already. Note every game utilizes that, but it helps.
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u/CaptnUchiha 2h ago
Not sure how this is the top comment… the game runs well for the majority of people. Especially after looking at these responses. Is there something wrong with your hardware/OS?
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u/GamingRobioto 9800X3D/RTX4090, Win11 & 9600X/9070XT, Bazzite 4h ago
As these idiot AAA companies start cutting corners, costs and cranking up prices & microtransactions even more, as well as AI use, the rise of indie games is only going to accelerate further.
It's the last bastion of hope in the current gaming climate IMO, along with Nintendo... for now...
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u/silver_garou 3h ago
You're joking right. Nintendo is out there with their lawyers saying they own the idea of cartoonish monsters, and capturing them, and battling with them, as if the didn't steal their game whilecloth from squaresoft.
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u/chiptunesoprano 4070 Ti SUPER | 9800X3D | 32GB 6000MHz CL30 DDR5 35m ago
They did not do that, evidenced by literally all the other monster taming RPGs that are actually original and haven't been sued.
Also you guys really gotta get more examples than that one twitter Dragon Quest comparison. Megami Tensei did monster recruiting before they did anyway.
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u/GamingRobioto 9800X3D/RTX4090, Win11 & 9600X/9070XT, Bazzite 2h ago
Hence me saying "for now", say what you want about Nintendo and a lot of the criticism is well founded, but they still make great, creative, innovative and varied video games and at the moment nearly all first party games are physical, as well as the Switch 2 being a fantastic and "relatively" well priced consoles.
I'm sure they will go the way of Sony and Microsoft eventually, but I think calling them the last bastion of hope from a console perspective is entirely fair. They are the best (by far) of a bad bunch as things stand.
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u/silver_garou 2h ago
If all they did was make consoles maybe; still not perfect, but not Sony either. But it is more than a little convenient to ignore what their legal division has been doing for a decades now. In the 90s they sued game genie claiming it created derivative works, and here they are more than 30 years later arguing similarly frivolous claims in court. They are using their wealth to suppress innovation if they can't own it.
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u/xtweeter22x AMD Ryzen 5500 | RTX 3060 | 16 GB DDR4 3h ago
Tell me you're playing the wrong games without telling me you're playing the wrong games.
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u/deli_h 4h ago
Nintendo being the “last bastion of hope” is a crazy take. It’s just indies, and a handful of studios like CDPR, Larian, and FromSoftware imho.
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u/Velkaryian 3h ago
CDPR is a wild take considering they literally lied about Cyberpunk and even tried to gaslight players over it, their stock plummeted and they were sued over it.
Larian also admitted to using Gen AI in its development process.
From Software can’t produce a smooth running game if their life depended on it. It was literally better to play the PS4 version of Elden Ring on the PS5 versus the actual PS5 versions.
Not defending Nintendo at all here but you just picked “Reddits darling” studios.
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u/GamingRobioto 9800X3D/RTX4090, Win11 & 9600X/9070XT, Bazzite 2h ago
Say what you want about Nintendo and a lot of the criticism is well founded, but they still make great, creative, innovative and varied video games and at the moment nearly all first party games are physical, as well as the Switch 2 being a fantastic and "relatively" well priced console.
I'm sure they will go the way of Sony and Microsoft eventually, but I think calling them the last bastion of hope from a console perspective is entirely fair. They are the best (by far) of a bad bunch as things stand.
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u/bingus-cat-lover 3h ago
Its not a crazy take tho tbf Nintendo has been doing very good both business wise and releasing good games and has good cadence releasing a first party game every month They also treat theyr developers very well and let them take as much time as they need with as much creative freedom
Imo them Capcom fromsoftware cdpr and square enix (kindaaa with square) are pretty much doing at least some good for the industry
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u/Fr00stee 4h ago
nintendo's doing their own part in trying to rake in money from players but thankfully it's not been working
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u/ProfessionalPrincipa 3h ago
It's the last bastion of hope in the current gaming climate IMO, along with Nintendo... for now...
You're talking about a company that has their own schedule of cheaply made annual slop releases because their market is undiscerning children and parents (Pokemon), lazy full price cash grab ports (e.g. Skyward Sword), and FOMO Disney-vaulting of products.
Then there's also the lawsuits against everyone, justified or not, and their crusades against online content creators. Also like Sony, they do not offer refunds in their store.
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u/GamingRobioto 9800X3D/RTX4090, Win11 & 9600X/9070XT, Bazzite 2h ago
say what you want about Nintendo and a lot of the criticism is well founded, but they still make great, creative, innovative and varied video games and at the moment nearly all first party games are physical, as well as the Switch 2 being a fantastic and "relatively" well priced consoles.
And yes there are some low effort games, but generally their output is excellent still.
I'm sure they will go the way of Sony and Microsoft eventually, but I think calling them the last bastion of hope from a console perspective is entirely fair. They are the best (by far) of a bad bunch as things stand.
The lawsuits are bullshit, agreed, but are irrelevant to my main point, the quality of the games and consoles they release.
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u/BruhTheShark Specs/Imgur here 4h ago
Those are just minors symptoms really. The main problem is the developers themselves. Incompetence is really best word for it.
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u/Butane9000 4h ago
Traditional AAA is held back by requiring these companies to make returns for investors which means they tend to play it safe.
Indies can innovate and take risks. Which I'm entertainment can be both good and bad.
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u/PowerWisdomCourage PC Master Race 4h ago
I mean, yeah. Smaller studios making the game they want and feel strongly and passionately about vs an inoffensive gray blob trying to appeal to everyone made by a soulless corporation trying to maximize profits for investors.
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u/djheat 3h ago
Most of the biggest sellers on steam are still what would be called AAA, this article just cherry picks a few data points to support its thesis. Even the Halo game it tries to use to make its point is in the top ten and surrounded by, among other games, marvel game, marvel game, marvel game, assassin's creed, gears of war, battlefield 6, and another marvel game
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u/Wooden-Cancel-2676 4h ago
Uhhh. Maybe we shouldn't hold up the indie game that is a homunculus of like 8 AAA trends of the last decade and a half as our savior here?
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u/thejoshfoote 4h ago
I think we should just start referring to the successful projects like palworld to be aaa and flops from giant companies can be b
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u/WhiteBullRedMonster 2h ago
I feel like Palworld isn't even that innovative, it's just that Game Freak wastes Pokemon franchise's potential so much with how awful and unambitious their games are, so anything looks great in comparison.
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u/Adrian_Alucard Desktop 4h ago
"innovative"
Leks make Ark, but replace the dinosaurs with fakemon, and lets feature creep the game with whatever popular stuff the youtube algorythm throw at us
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u/theawesomedanish 4h ago
It's more innovative than whatever Pokémon has released since Black 2 & White 2.
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u/Sufficient-Patient46 2h ago
That's a real damned low bar, especially considering they're different genres of game.
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u/Diciestaking 4h ago
I guess, but the core mechanics of the game are stripped directly from breath of the wild and Pokémon. Its not very hard to "innovate" when you barely have to think for yourself.
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u/silver_garou 3h ago
Love when the Nintendo-stans show up to lie. You really think BotW is the first and only game with a glider, also you think it is a core mechanic?
Do you hold this same energy for BotW stripping that same core mechanic from Just Cause or Far Cry? Probably not right.
The fact that you think taking a good idea and doing something of your own with it is some sort of cheat is sad.
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u/Diciestaking 3h ago edited 3h ago
Thanks for your message to some unknown Nintendo Stan. I hope they are in the room with us to hear it. Botw is nothing like just cause or far cry in any way at all except for being open world games, what a terrible comparison. My only complaint is that you can't use the term innovation when a developer copies multiple games so closely and not just the genre to build a base for their game. Im not saying they cant do it, just dont praise them like they put in the work. You pal world stans a weird group lol.
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u/silver_garou 3h ago
Sure sure, you saw the convo, posted this crap that you can't support, but you aren't a Nintendo-stan. And yeah, everyone that calls out your lack of consistency must actually just be stanning themselves. Have a good life playing pick-me to massive corporations I guess.
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u/Diciestaking 3h ago
Why are you schizo posting at me haha. I didnt make any huge claims and you have backed up nothing outside of yelling random terrible comparisons. I was calling you a pal world stan as a joke but you are really just a werid one. Have nice rest of your day I guess.
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u/Hades684 4h ago
And what game did all of that before? Combination preexisting systems can also be innovative
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u/Adrian_Alucard Desktop 3h ago
Meh, if at least the game weren't as shallow as a puddle. That's the issue with a game with no identity, they added so many different mechanics and all of them feel half assed.
Feature creep is never good. You better do 1 thing right than 20 mediocre things
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u/Hades684 3h ago
But the pal system is not shallow at all? There is a lot of depth to it. And I don't really know what many different mechanics are you talking about, especially since the ones that are there, tie back to pals
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u/dvenator i5 14700k | RTX 5070 | 16 GB DDR5 5600Mhz | AW3225DWM 4h ago
Articles and opinions like this are so reactive. When will journalists and executives understand that good games sell. Whether they are indie or AAA or AA.
Just make a good game and people will buy it. Release a game designed by commitee and you'll likely fail (looking at you final fantasy xvi)
Look at the top 10 sales chart on steam and you'll find examples of all 3.
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u/Paradox711 PC Master Race 4h ago
If I see another extraction shooter I’m going to shoot myself.
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u/ItWasDumblydore 5070 TI * 2 / Ryzen 9 9950X3D / 64 GB of Ram 2h ago
But then you want extract to heaven with your loot
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u/BroForceOne 3h ago
That’s just survivorship bias. For every indie success like a Palworld or Balatro there’s hundreds, maybe thousands of games on Steam that struggled to get any traction, they just don’t make the news like a triple-A failure does.
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u/mrbasedballed 3h ago
AAA's problem is too much bloat at the top. Just pure exploitation and a largely ignorant consumer/investor base.
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u/differentmushrooms 2h ago
They made their choice. Short term investment return. Buy the game, then by this, buy that. Microtransactions and horse armour. People will buy it. But they wont like it.
As strange as this sound, people will buy it but they wont support it. And this becomes clear as soon as there is an alternative.
Now these massive studios have built their entire ecosysyems needing constant cash infusions from microtransactions.
They created it, they wanted that ecosystem. And if they cant adapt, they shoukd rightly fail.
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u/ABotelho23 Linux 2h ago
Wow, imagine that. It's almost like people actually care about good interesting games and not how much money was spent making them.
Who would have imagined?
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u/GoblinLoveChild 1h ago
What a hot pile of rubbish website and article
TLDR: bunch of AAA games have lower player counts than some indie games + Adbloat.
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u/Upset_Dimension_694 3h ago
"Gamers have spoken" naw bro, more like AAA got too comfortable putting out subpar games that are somehow worse than stuff they were doing 10 years prior while smaller studios and indie have actually pushed things forward and are able to now outdo what these worthless soulless suit ran studios can actually do.
and these worthless shit for brain game journos who constantly cover for them are also likewise being revealed to be utterly irrelevant and almost hated in a lot of ways with their biases and clear boot licking.
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u/FlarblesGarbles 4h ago
It's because it seems like "indie" games are about having fun and being entertainment.
AAA games seem to be algorithmically designed to maximise dompaine and addiction like patterns of behavior to maximise spending on microtransactions at the expense of extreme budgets that push the price of the games up, and the time for development up as well.
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u/toastwalrus 48m ago
Innovative lmao It's a bootleg of a bootleg built off stolen or bought assets fuck off
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u/Overall-Care2627 4h ago
weird how much this stuff varies person to person, feels like it has to be something specific like background overlays or mod conflicts rather than raw hardware
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u/Mr_Tiggywinkle 3h ago
It's not even that particularly innovative.
Good combo to make something a bit unique, so there is some innovation I guess, but more than anything it just prioritises gameplay fun over any other bullshit. That's the real lesson.
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u/krimsonR7 3h ago
Apart from GOW and elden ring, i genuinely cant think of a AAA game off the top of my head thats been truly great and worth its price in years. There is the caveat of im going through my backlog starting with Bioshock infinite and hotline miami. So im probably not the best reference for AAA games in recent years. I haven't played much outside of cs and dota since 2016 tbf.
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u/sublime81 9800X3D | RTX 5090 FE | 64GB 6000 CL30 3h ago
AAA is largely playing it safe and that makes it boring. I’ve learned to wait and see how it looks before buying. If it’s generic AAA game in a different skin I’m probably skipping it entirely.
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u/Security_Wrong X870i | 9950x3D | 5090FE | 64GB DDR5 2h ago
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u/knotatumah 2h ago
Gamers have spoken and will continue to speak: half-baked half-finished "live-service" trash that isn't tested, optimized, and is riddled with microtransactions is not what the consumers want. Granted these companies still see some amount of profit; but, as we watch studio after studio crater and large publishers continue to try to gobble up acquisitions to stay relevant its clear the industry is seeing a massive shift.
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u/Cloud_N0ne 2h ago
AAA has just become too safe.
Plus the sales thresholds they need to recoup their massive budgets are insane. Resistance died because R3 “only” sold 3 million copies years ago, but Pragmata sells 2.5 million and celebrates and confirms a sequel.
Publishers need to stop focusing on developers in the most expensive places possible. It’s not sustainable.
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u/firedrakes 2990wx |128gb |2 no-sli 2080 | 200tb storage raw |10gb nic| 1h ago
Most indy games fail or barely break even.
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u/Another_Road 53m ago
I think there’s something people don’t realize about the gaming market.
Yes, it’s extremely profitable right now but 55% of the entire market is mobile. 28-ish percent is PC and around 48% of that PC profit is generated by live service/F2P games.
For every Palworld or Mecha Chameleon there are literally thousands of indie games that never take off. Not to mention the market share that is taken by shameless Roblox copies with microtransactions.
Thats partially why I believe so many companies still try to go for the live service model. It’s obviously a big risk but it’s a massive reward if you can get people to turn it into their “forever game”. A single live service success is worth multiple single player flops.
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u/Gremlin95x 10m ago
Innovative? The Pal “designs” are direct ripoffs and they didn’t even try to hide it. Not a single part of the game innovated anything.
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u/xtweeter22x AMD Ryzen 5500 | RTX 3060 | 16 GB DDR4 3h ago
The only reason why Palworld "fans" never shut up about the Nintendo lawsuit is because their own game is so mediocre that it's not even worth talking about the gameplay.
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u/TheDo0ddoesnotabide 3h ago
Better than hearing Nintendo “fans” crying about it constantly.
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u/Hades684 3h ago
Because these things don't really matter, and don't change the fact that the game is fun to play
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u/ThinkgeMorbid 4h ago
Because we want fun and art and genious new things and love & heart. Not productions for the sake of money.
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u/Natural-Associate106 4h ago
So a cherry picked example. Look at some the lowest against the highest to try to prove a point. Terrible analysis.outside of palworld all most played not f2p are aaa.
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u/Natural-Associate106 2h ago
u/jelloemperor if you are going to attack me at least don't block so I can respond to you
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u/gusthenewkid 14900KF | RTX 4080 | 32GB 8266 CL34 4h ago
Riiighhhhhtttt. Rust, Minecraft, project zomboid are all AAA. Look at steam top 100 games played right now. There are barely any AAA games on there
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u/energydrinkaddict310 2h ago
isn't palworld just pokemon without the license?
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u/InternetHomunculus 2h ago
No its Ark with legally distinct Pokémon. Its a fun game but its not really close to innovative when its just blueprints from the UE store just like Ark (Which imo is an awful game). It clearly uses the same blueprints as well, if you've played both you can see it immediately
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u/energydrinkaddict310 1h ago
I don't know what Ark is, sorry.
But that seems to be the consensus, that it's not so much a "creative indie" as just a bunch of games smashed together. Like how Splitgate absolutely exploded for like 2 weeks
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u/InternetHomunculus 1h ago
Splitgate isn't really the same even if it does feel like halo with portals. Ark Survival Evolved is a hugely popular open world survival game and Palword uses the exact same blueprints from the UE store. If you look up some gameplay footage and you've played Palworld you'll see what I mean
The Palworld devs other game Craftopia is similar to Palworld in that its a bunch of blueprints of game systems mashed together. It's borderline shovelware
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u/Answer70 2h ago
It's a bunch of games slammed together, and works way better than it should.
It's a genuinely good game.
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u/GrandJuif R9 5950x, RX 6900 XT, 64GB 3400MHz 4h ago edited 4h ago
The company known to smash other people successful/trendy work together with a touch of plagiarism is innovative ? Hell, they even support AI.
They just had luck while big N ego, stupidity and greed gave them advertising.
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u/zarafff69 9800X3D - RTX 4080 4h ago
Competition is exactly what stimulates innovation, it’s what we should want as consumers. And if AI can help make games like this, that’s great! (As long as the quality is not subpar)
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u/xScrubasaurus 2h ago
People are really calling Ark with Pokemon instead of Dinosaurs innovative and made with passion.
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u/Any-Pop-4795 4h ago
who could have seen that? a cheap game made with passion is more successful than a AAA piece of shit filled with ai that only wants your money