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No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

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Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#21

Post by virtue3 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #18
bob1029 wrote: post #13

The biggest issue is that it has become very accessible to approach AA quality in a solo setting. The jump from indie to AA is much more plausible than the jump from AA to AAA. The middle of the market is in a gigantic space trash compactor right now. I could sit down with one other level designer / environmental artist and create something that would be visually competitive with Myst in record time using modern tool…

Why is using it for code more acceptable than for art? I can't imagine we aren't already seeing tons of both in indie games. Maybe aaa too? Is there any ramification for leaving off the disclosure, or adding one? Personally if the gameplay is good I kind of don't care if it used lots of ai.

you can test case / bug fix your way through bad code. You can't always do that with art.

Also - the playerbase is sometimes ok with buggy games; for example - the first ARK game was a buggy nightmare, but it was still awesome and fun (it used the unreal engine visual development system...)

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#22

Post by flohofwoe »

The article reads like it's about 15 years late to reality. Trying to get funding from a publisher as an independent studio was always somewhere between hard and impossible, and especially towards the 2010s. That's why Kickstarter became such an unbelievable success.

PS: The one exception was when Epic was on its aggressive rampage to buy as many exclusives for the Epic Game Store as possible. But I guess that money shower has also dried up by now.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#23

Post by tsimionescu »

galangalalgol wrote: post #18
bob1029 wrote: post #13

The biggest issue is that it has become very accessible to approach AA quality in a solo setting. The jump from indie to AA is much more plausible than the jump from AA to AAA. The middle of the market is in a gigantic space trash compactor right now. I could sit down with one other level designer / environmental artist and create something that would be visually competitive with Myst in record time using modern tool…

Why is using it for code more acceptable than for art? I can't imagine we aren't already seeing tons of both in indie games. Maybe aaa too? Is there any ramification for leaving off the disclosure, or adding one? Personally if the gameplay is good I kind of don't care if it used lots of ai.

Because code is utilitarian, it is only valued for what it does, while art is not utilitarian - it is valued for subjective human reasons, which, for many people, include human authorship. It's the same reason people build their games out of code libraries, but generally design bespoke art for it (with some exceptions).

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#24

Post by the__alchemist »

This is surprising to read in a world where we received Blue Prince, Expedition 33, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in the same year. All top-tier games (When ranked among all games in history), all recent, and all with a moderate budget and studio size, on the size order of Cyan's in its hayday. And Blue Prince has deep puzzle elements that would be at home to a Myst player.

This article and headline present a conflicting version of reality to the one I experience.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#25

Post by llm_nerd »

Interesting read, but this sort of framing is so common and self-deluding-

> At the same time, gaming platforms like Steam—which indie and double-A games once depended on for discovery—have been flooded with low-quality dreck. According to the AI Transparency Index, more than 18,000 games on Steam now feature AI usage disclosures. “User trust in platform stores as a curatorial layer has been all but erased,” says North Cook. “When you feed people enough ads and slop, they just check out.”

What a laughable, ridiculous non-sequitur (the casual, slop correlation between AI and the quality problem), and you see this same hilariously broken logic here on HN all the time, where people imagine some pre-AI era of only goodness and greatness.

Steam was absolutely swamped with low quality garbage long before AI tools. You could as easily, if not more accurately, blame more accessible game development tools like Unity for broadening the ability of people to get into game development. Steam was more curated in earlier years, as well, and the move to basically letting anyone publish on it flooded the space.

It's so astonishingly lazy for so many to use AI as their boogeyman for everything now (ironically...the AI is to blame rhetoric is such low effort slop). The world was filled with low-skill, low-effort, low-value garbage and dreck before AI.

And FWIW, in many ways it's an ideal market being flooded for every wild niche or need. If your game is good do a bit of advertising and get word of mouth and you're the next Balatro. But people pushing weak offerings hoped limited choice and a captive audience would be their win.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#26

Post by rdbl27 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #23
galangalalgol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is using it for code more acceptable than for art? I can't imagine we aren't already seeing tons of both in indie games. Maybe aaa too? Is there any ramification for leaving off the disclosure, or adding one? Personally if the gameplay is good I kind of don't care if it used lots of ai.

Because code is utilitarian, it is only valued for what it does, while art is not utilitarian - it is valued for subjective human reasons, which, for many people, include human authorship. It's the same reason people build their games out of code libraries, but generally design bespoke art for it (with some exceptions).

The fact that these same people can't tell whether it was authored by a human or an AI without a seperate disclosure is strong evidence that human authorship as such is not what they value at all.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#27

Post by flohofwoe »

jdw64 wrote: post #15

Games fundamentally require a lot of artistry, depend on user device performance, and involve many factors to consider. from engine licensing costs to labor costs. There's this concept of 'AA games' or 'Myst games' that sit between AAA and indie titles. From what I hear across most of the industry and genres, as people's disposable income shrinks, the market is polarizing into reliable AAA games on one side and small…

Video game sales usually have been very recession proof. E.g. people still want entertainment and escapism when shit hits the fan.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#28

Post by freeCandy »

sgt wrote: post #11

Games is one of those industries that I can't fathom how to do profitably, and that's why I'm not a game designer. There's just so much competition and I don't really understand the market either.

You have to see games differently from other software. Treat games as consumables, that are meant to be finished. Once a player finishes a game, the desire to replay it soon after is going to be pretty low, no matter how good the experience was.

However, players will desire more of that similar experience. Ask anybody who just finished a good game and they'll tell you how finishing it left a void, and that they're looking for a similar game to fill that void again. Once you see this, it's easy to understand why there is an ocean of very similar games out there that still manage to sell in good numbers.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#29

Post by ramesh31 »

the__alchemist wrote: post #24

This is surprising to read in a world where we received Blue Prince, Expedition 33, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in the same year. All top-tier games (When ranked among all games in history), all recent, and all with a moderate budget and studio size, on the size order of Cyan's in its hayday. And Blue Prince has deep puzzle elements that would be at home to a Myst player. This article and headline present a confl…

>This is surprising to read in a world where we got Blue Prince, Expedition 33, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in the same year.

Note that none of these were made in the US like Myst was.

The cost of living is just too damn high to afford even a small team without massive funding for the amount of time it takes to make games like these. It's why every single notable AA game of the last decade has been made elsewhere now.

Re: No one can afford to make Myst games anymore

#30

Post by jdw64 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #27
jdw64 wrote: post #15

Games fundamentally require a lot of artistry, depend on user device performance, and involve many factors to consider. from engine licensing costs to labor costs. There's this concept of 'AA games' or 'Myst games' that sit between AAA and indie titles. From what I hear across most of the industry and genres, as people's disposable income shrinks, the market is polarizing into reliable AAA games on one side and small…

Video game sales usually have been very recession proof. E.g. people still want entertainment and escapism when shit hits the fan.

I agree with some points, but I also disagree with others.

I agree that the 'overall' video game industry is recession resistant. Over the long term, it will continue to grow.

But I don't think the 'polarization' of video games makes the middle tier recession resistant

So, because the game industry has an escapist quality to some extent, I can understand why people set aside a budget for hobbies. But apart from that, I think game consumption itself is becoming polarized."

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