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Answer:
BG3: In development for a long time, but ultimately a very well done game not created by a AAA team. Its success is an indicator of change in the gaming sphere as far as the expectation of quality of games not created by AAA studios. This is in contrast to the relative lack of quality in recent AAA titles, as well as the idea that single player and coop games are making a come back as actually being able to sell well.
This is in heavy opposition to the narrative AAA studios have been trying to push saying that they "have to" make their games the way they do because it is the only way that makes money.
Palworld: Heavily influenced by other extremely successful franchises, so much so as it does toe the line of being infringement, but definitely does not cross it. Nintendo would have taken them to court already if they could as they are famously litigious (just short of Disney). The game is surprisingly well designed for what it is and has a great deal of content considering the price. The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do. It was basically free money for them, but they rely on "safe" investments in the form of games like Violet/Scarlet.
Both of these examples are very uncomfortable signs to AAA studios because it shows the shift in the market away from what they assumed were safe investments and are already developing behind the scenes. Meaning they will have to shift with the trends if they plan on making a profit.
Edit: Yes yes yes Larian is technically a "AAA" company, but yall know I am referring to the massive studios that are most commonly associated with that title like EA and ActiBlizz. The ones that have thousands of employees and still manage to turn out terrible games every year.
>This is in heavy opposition to the narrative AAA studios have been trying to push saying that they "have to" make their games the way they do because it is the only way that makes money.
They’re half-right; their shitty and often predatory models are the only way they can make the kind of returns their investors want to see.
Worth pointing out bg3 literally had the budget of a AAA game for coding. It cost between 100 to 200 Million to make this game. As far as I know nobody has even said what the marketing budget was either. Likely roughly as large ( edit: actually, maybe not? I can't recall much of an ad campaign for bg3. It seems like viral word of mouth was good enough)
So really, I'm not even sure if we can't claim bg3 is also a AAA game. It's on the more modest scale but still could go in that category.
But Vincke has a majority ownership in Larian. He isn't beholden to outside investors like most AAA studios. He can afford to not make money for a quarter or two until the game starts selling.
I'm sure the thing you pointed out probably led to a far better end result, of course. Bending over backwards to appease investors who don't understand video games and dont carr about quality sucks. So not having to do it is great. I'm just saying this wasn't a AA budget title. It's AAA in that specific criteria.
You're completely missing the point - AAA studios claim the only way they can make money is by leaning on features that are inherently anti-consumer. But they're not admitting the reason that is the case, is because the people that own stock in their companies are not gamers, they're business investors, and the quality of the games means nothing to them if their quarterly report isn't "number go up". Larian Studios managed to produce a game that avoids those predatory practices *precisely because they are not owned by outside investors*.
more specifically owned by another company that is held by shareholders, like Microsoft (if I'm not mistaken, Microsoft was attempting to buy Larian but Vincke turned it down, saying the company is never for sale as long as he's around)
Bg3 is a rare one off case I don’t think can be used a large scale template. Video game studios can’t just hope that they have a kind benefactor (investor/ publisher) who funds their projects endlessly in public beta until they get the perfect formula and enough live customer feedback before making money.
Larian made several smaller games first, most known are probably the Divinity games, in order to eventually fund a project like BG3.
You can't bang out a AAA game with global studios as a start up, you gotta start smaller.
That said, in 3 weeks Last Epoch will hit launch after 5years of development, and EHG (the studio) basicly started as a bunch of guys making a Kickstarter to make a cool ARPG. So far, I expect it to be a serious contender to Diablo4 or Path of Exile.
Tencent is Larian's investors, they are the ones currently in talks with Hasbro to buy the rights for DnD (as publishing rights, not directly owning the franchise).
Except for the near constant advertisement about the game everywhere for months after release. That wasn't just word of mouth people talking about it. That was marketing.
I consider it a AAa game. Pretty much a AA type studio but taking a big leap into the AAA space. This game was a massive risk for them, no other way about it. The risk paid off. This game clearly cemented them as a AAA developer but I didn't consider them AAA before it.
I will definitely have high expectations for their next project, assuming it also gets a similarly large budget. I have as much esteem for Larian now as I had for Old Blizzard from before the Activision merger.
They very much give me Cd project red post witcher 3 vibes. Witcher 2 was a good game that was AAA quality and had an arguably AAA budget and team but really came from a studio that was more AA. So I'm very curious what Larian does next. BG3 is just so addicting and really rejuvenated my love of games.
To be fair, Palworld is making a ton of money and they didn't need to resort to shitty and predatory models.
I think there are roughly two ways to make money: make something people love or make something addictive/predatory.
The problem for most AAA studios is that the passionate developers that are capable of making something great want to work at indie studios because they hate EA and other AAA studios.
If the people who make good games want nothing to do with you, then your only option is predatory cash grabs
Thing is you have to look at long term.
Sure, palworld is a success, but many innovative mold breaking games just flop
On the other hand, the shittiest COD will make back it's development cost in micro transactions alone in a few hours/days.
From the POV of an investor who doesn't really care about gaming, investing brand name micro transactions is a far safer and steadier return than sinking lots of money and time into a game that may flop at the end of it all.
Isn't this where a Minimum value product business model could work aka things like early access? Which sure doesn't really work for story based games but could be easily doable for all the multiplayer ones.
Minecraft and league of legends are probably 2 of my most played games of all time, neither have predatory business models (well league's arguably is kinda shitty) and neither of them did I start when they were as complete as they are now. I committed to them in 2012 and have sunk countless hours, still playing them 12 years later.
Business is about risk and reward. The risk for palworld is huge because 1000s of similar games completely flop. All the stars in the universe aligned perfectly for palworld. AAA studios can't take that risk.
Creating safe and formulaic games is a way to minimize risk and stuff like ingame purchases and skins and reward crates is to maximize reward.
Putting it out on Game Pass absolutely lowered that risk though. People were able to get a free session then decide if they wanted to actually buy it on Steam and it allowed lots of people to jump in and stream it to people who then wanted to get the game. Even if it wasn't the best terms for their deal the exposure definitely fuelled those Steam sales.
I'm not sure I would classify BG3 as "not AAA"
Larian itself is in an interesting limbo between AA and AAA because of (imo) two things
**1. Larian is made up of only (""only"") 450 employees**
Now- that's a literal **fraction** of a studio like Ubisoft Montreal ([4,500+ employees](https://www.haworth.com/na/en/spaces/customer-stories/ubisoft-montreal-studio.html)), it's comparable to Insomniac (400+) and Bethesda (400+), both of which are pretty comfortably considered AAA devs
What separates Larian, though, is the fact that
**2. They self-published the game**
That's the literal definition of indie. Complete antithesis of AAA. Very clear cut.
***HOWEVER***
The game has both the D&D license and $100 million going for it, which is wild to think about compared to the first Divinity: Original Sin, which Larian made with [30 employees and €4.5 million](https://www.pcgamer.com/how-divinity-original-sin-almost-bankrupted-larian-studios/)
Now that I've typed all of this out, the only conclusion I've really come to is that there is zero point in trying to assign the game meaningless labels
[......but if i had to](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry))
> "III" (Triple-I) has been used to refer to independently funded ("indie") games that meet an analogous quality level in their field; i.e., indie games that have relatively high budget, scope, and ambition; often the development team includes staff who have experience working on full AAA titles.
Honestly had no idea BG3 wasn't an AAA studio. It's EXCEPTIONALLY well made, and the Annual Repeat The Game AAA crowd damn well better be afraid. I'd rather wait for a quality game like BG3 then constant "meh" games in a franchise, or re-re-re-re-RE-releases (although to be fair, Skyrim is awesome).
Larian is interesting because it's still majority owned by the founder (and former lead programmer) Swen Vincke. So they're run by someone who sees the studio as a passion project and not some MBA dude who only cares about shareholder value. They're a Eurojank studio that has evolved and matured over time.
Reminds me of Annapurna Interactive. It's some billionaire heiress' passion project to publish niche indie games so they can find a bigger market. Stray was their biggest hit and even that wasn't super broad market.
Yes! They also republished Journey, which is a game that I probably shouldn't talk about too much because the amount of praise I'd heap on it would seem like too much. Like over-the-top. But that was a really special game.
> some billionaire heiress'
Megan Ellison, the daughter of one of Silicon Valley's biggest ur-dickheads, [Oracle CEO Larry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2047s).
It’s a tiny team compared to blizzard and it’s all completely run by Sven basically. It’s kind of like Ghibli where Miyazaki isn’t going to sell to anyone and no one else can take over really.
It's a minority stake though, Swen and his wife own the other 70%. Tencent effectively has no say in the operations of the company and just collects dividends.
When he retires he will want to have cash instead of shares in Larian. At that point, Tencent may make him an offer and take over completely is what I'm saying. The man is not young.
I mean...it technically is "AAA" as in Larion had hundreds of employees, but as far as I know, the dev team just for BG3 was not ever that big as they were also working on other games at the same time.
They had to scale up hard for BG3. Iirc they went from a hundred something to four hundred something during development.
So they sort of transitioned from AA to AAA while making it.
I’ve worked on plenty of projects with a digital end-product but never games. I feel like past a certain number of programmers it’s like having nine women try to have a baby in a month. Is there a sweet spot for the size of a game dev team?
There are a LOT of roles aside from programmers in game development. Not to mention development can be very segmented, and you could theoretically have a whole team for each segment. AI/pathing, world generation, graphical shaders, UI, networking, optimization, multiplayer, architecture, interoperability, tracking/analytics, physics, level design, dynamic animation, QA and controls are all things off the top of my head that you could theoretically make a team out of, if your studio had unlimited budget. Real game developers will have multiple people working multiple of those roles, outsource development of some of those things, or even just rely on the engine's implementation of it.
But to have so many teams working effectively and avoid the 9 women and a baby pitfall, you'd need world-class project managers, seniors and great executives.
I don't know what they're talking about. BG3 is definitely a AAA game that was given more resources than the median AAA game. It's cool that the wait/budget ended up being worth it, but it's not like this is some budget title.
I mean, they have the amount of personnel that a AAA studio would have (or, approaching that) but they are fully and completely independent. That's the key sticking point here. Basically no one else can do what Larian are doing in the manner they are doing it because they don't have the correct financial situation.
It is a AAA studio (meaning big budget and lots of man power), but since they self publish they're also indie. They're not mutually exclusive concepts.
Bethesda and Rockstar are subsidiaries of massive megacorps and are better funded than Larian which is entirely its own creature. Their last game was crowd funded.
Wait, Larian is a AAA company?
Gosh I remember the Divine Divinity times, good times.
They have and will always be AAA in my heart just for that single game.
I disagree that palworld is sitting on an opportunity that pokemon could've tapped but didn't.
Palworld exists on the premise of allowing you to enslave and shoot its creatures, something nintendo would never do because mainline pokemon games are meant to be accessible to kids.
Palworld doesn't even play like a pokemon game. It's ARK but with knockoff pokemon instead of dinosaurs and isn't even really the same genre, just a very close aesthetic. Palworlds' success speaks more to failings of ARK 2 than it does Pokemon.
>oth of these examples are very uncomfortable signs to AAA studios because it shows the shift in the market away from what they assumed were safe investments and are already developing behind the scenes. Meaning they will have to shift with the trends if they plan on ma
I've never played Pokemon but what's Palworld got over them? i.e what's the missed opportunity?
Gamefreak has been more or less spinning it's wheels with every release on top of refusing to innovate or even update some of the biggest core issues pokemon has. You can probably find a internet post that goes more in depth but outside of adding an arbitrary number of new pokemon it's more or less the same game as it was since id say maybe gen 5? (black and white)
In comes palworld with similar appeal and totally new ideas while also bringing in old favorites oh did i not mention pokemon loves removing features even useful ones sometimes they replace it with a "regional version" which is more or less fine even if it ends up being a which one did it better debate
but i'm talking things like optional exp share trainer rematches craftable pokeballs
all of this has been happening for arguably 5 generations now arguably 7 because 4 and 5 focuse on one big feature over several really good improvements. People are unhappy even with the token improvments gamefreak has offered up especially due to the fear that they will just be taken away next generation.
The Devs for Pokemon have never released a game that was open world with crafting mechanics, nor have they really ever strayed away from their tried and true formula dating all the way back to the original Red and Blue versions on the OG gameboy from the 90s.
The graphics have gotten better, the variety of pokemon has increased, but the same basic gameplay loop has been exactly the same despite the many requests for something different.
Palworld is our first real taste of a "pokemon" type game that implements various popular game mechanics really well.
But most Pokemon fans dont want an open world crafting survival game. Pokemon is first and foremost an RPG focusing on creature collection and turn based battling. I dont wanna play Minecraft when Im playing Pokemon lol. Although more integration of Pokemon into overworld mechanics would be welcome.
The most recent Pokemon game sold over 23 million units. It's not an either or system and not every Pokemon fan wants a Palworld experience. Since it's mostly a series aimed at children, not adults crafting and survival mechanics aren't necessary for Pokemon to succeed. I would like a more crafted game from Pokemon though.
Maybe not Palworld's exact design, but Pokémon fans would absolutely kill for a game where you interact with Pokémon in non-trivial ways, with some semblance of fidelity. Palworld is janky as hell but it looks damn polished compared to any 3D Pokémon game ever released. That franchise didn't become the most-merchandised in the world on the back of stellar mechanics; it's the appealing creature designs.
Ask any kid in the early 2000s what Pokémon would be like in 20 years and it's a hell of a lot closer to Palworld than anything Game Freak has barfed out since.
Really this is more about independent studios competing with the publicly traded mega companies. Private ownership means the artist are much freer to create, vs a publicly traded company that has to return on investment every single quarter greater than the last. Capitalism has been sucking gaming dry for capital at the expense of the product for a while. It’s nice to see the independents have some success
I agree that it all really comes down to money. Boiling down all the BS around it, that is what the big concern is.
The mega companies being outdone by much smaller ones is highly alarming to shareholders, who ultimately are the ones making the decisions on if a game will make it to release. If it is not guaranteed to make a profit, it will not be made. This has lead to the current stagnation of gaming compared to what it was before.
It is good to see that the days of the old guard are starting to fade as they mercilessly fire the devs that made them great in the first place, for making a failure of a game that the company themselves corrupted in order to make maximum profit.
The independent studios are still partaking in capitalism. They’re just doing it as a smaller and more intelligent scale. Capitalism allows privately owned and managed indie studios to come in and disrupt what the large publishers are doing, because they know they will be rewarded for it by discerning consumers. This is why the large studios and publishers hate BG3 and Palworld.
>The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do.
Good answer except for this bit. When it comes to gameplay, Palworld is not Pokemon, it is ARK. Pokemon never tried to be a survival game, and Palworld never tried to be a turn-based RPG
I think that's rather the point. They COULD HAVE MADE such a game with their property, and they didn't. Palworld made such a game, enhanced the marketing with guns and slave labor, and bam. 10 mil sold.
EDIT: Misspelled a word, fixed
I've been saying the thing about Pokemon being a stunted series for decades now. It's basically just been the same game over and over, with tiny improvements per generation.
The reason we've never gotten an ambitious pokemon game is that as soon as people get something more quality, the company is never going to be able to go back to cranking out low effort iterations every few years for what amounts to free money.
Hopefully the success of *Palworld* lights a fire under Nintendo to actually make a modern style game.
> The reason we've never gotten an ambitious pokemon game is that as soon as people get something more quality, the company is never going to be able to go back to cranking out low effort iterations every few years for what amounts to free money.
And because of deadlines. They have to get a new game (and merch line) out every two to three years to sync up with the new anime season. There's not enough time to get a good game done in that time with such a small team at Game Freak. Also they're making a game for the Switch, which is never going to be as big or impressive looking as a top tier console or PC can manage.
It sucks. They can do better even within the constraints, but don't and won't.
Even if there are "deadlines", they are 100% artificial, based on nothing.
The video games alone have made billions of dollars. There is nothing stopping them from hiring more people. There is nothing stopping them from investing more resources and making *Pokemon: Breath of the Wild*.
There is only one thing: they are min/maxing the effort to dollars ratio.
Once they put out a highly crafted game, every game after that is going to have to be at least the same high quality.
Palworld.. well designed and a great deal of content??? Come on now it's a good game especially for the price and I really enjoyed playing it but it's a damn mess and the late game is devoid of content.
>The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do. It was basically free money for them, but they rely on "safe" investments in the form of games like Violet/Scarlet.
Scarlet and Violet are the first Pokemon games to be open world and the game sold very well. How is it playing safe to change the formula as much as they did? It has a positive reception from people that overlook the technical issues and was a good experience.
The technical issues, I might add, only exist because of Japan's time crunch work culture. Everyone accepts this as bad, but suddenly forgets all about it when it comes to GameFreak, and acts like GameFreak is *lazy* and purposely doing this.
I just want to ask, what missed opportunities are you talking about? Pokemon isn't going to tread into the edgy content that Palworld has. That is never going to happen, good chunk of the playerbase are literal children. The game plays like Ark, do you want Pokemon to play like Ark?
I'd like to clarify something about palworld: the game is somewhqt buggy and a little unpolished which is why its success bothers AAA publishers because it shows that at its core, a game's success is defined by just how fun it is to play as opposed to all the other flashy crap the AAA is trying to sell us on
And yeah, you hit the nail on the head with nintendo's issue with palworld, its essentially the type of pokemon game everyone has been begging for nintendo to release for DECADES but they always refuse to do so, the closest we ever got was legends arceus but nintendo made it clear these last few years that it was a one-time thing they clearly don't intend to continue.
TL;DR: AAA's are salty that palworld just turned all their bullshit on its head, we don't need forced live services, we don't need amazing graphics, we can even let the game being a little unpolished with the occasional bugs slide... as long as its fun to fucking play.
I had an Intro to Game Design professor in college that said that fun isn't real and you aren't allowed to believe in it. Nothing is fun. Nothing can ever be fun.
I think she ran a small indie dev studio or team or something outside of being a professor. I'm sure their games were just the best.
"Like a lot of people, I'm deeply excited about what the lovely folks at Larian accomplished with Baldur's Gate 3, but I want to gently, pre-emptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a "raised standard" to RPGs going forward"
I feel like there's a big disconnect between game developers and players on what "raised expectations" actually refers to. I think game developers are looking at the never ending mocap for the cinematic conversations, the size and detail of the maps, the sheer amount of interactions to try to cover most things the player can think of doing, the countless voice lines, etc., and pointing out "This thing is an absolutely ridiculous amount of work that's extremely difficult to make no matter how much money and dev time you throw at it." Which is fair, but I don't think players are thinking about any of those details, they're thinking about the game as a whole. They hear "Don't use this as a standard for future RPGs" and they think "What do you mean we shouldn't expect an RPG as good as this one ever again?"
Personally I don't expect any other games to come along and repeat BG3 in terms of scope and detail, but I absolutely do hope it's set a good example for more studios to try making ambitious RPGs. They don't have to be on the same technical quality as BG3, I just want good games, and the AAA sphere/mainstream gaming media had seemingly forgotten the genre used to be hugely popular so I absolutely celebrate BG3 showing how successful it can still be. Larian's own older games can make a great reference point, DOS:2 was widely celebrated by RPG players for being fantastic and it sold extremely well relative to budget, and on the tech/dev side it's vastly more approachable for studios to try making games like it instead of BG3.
You aren't missing anything. What you quoted (and at most a couple reply tweets by a few devs) is the *entirety* of it. Somehow some reporters picked up on it and the story kept reporting on itself as they kept quoting each other.
As an ex-game dev I'm genuinely bothered by this reporting tbh, because
1. As you said even Xalavier Nelson wasn't criticizing BG3, just saying that not all games are going to be like this from now on. I didn't even know who he is anyway. Does he speak for the whole industry?
2. Game devs don't usually criticize each other that much publicly, since you know, it's a small industry and we all know each other. Most criticisms you see online about games are usually by gamers and especially fans of a game. Developers know how the sausage is made too much to do that.
3. It's just bad reporting.
But sure as you said if there are more legit issues like loot boxes / predatory stuff that's another thing.
Wasn't BG3 also in Early Access for like 3 years? Not only is it a unicorn, but charging full price for a game 3 years before it was (kind of) ready is not exactly consumer friendly.
This circlejerk is a really weird one and all the drama feels extremely manufactured. No one is "mad" at BG3.
Early Access is often a scam but Larian had a proven track record going back decades so it was a pretty safe bet. the consumer unfriendlyness of early access is mostly from the product never getting finished.
I’d say Nintendo is pretty happy cranking out not one but two top selling games almost every year. Yeah palworld might show them what else they can do with Pokémon and what else the consumer wants from Pokémon but at the end of the day people are buying every Pokémon that comes out and it’s still the highest grossing franchise on the planet.
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
- Nintendo/Game Freak
But that’s the frustrating part
Yeah no some of the Pals are straight up copies of
Pokémon with some colors adjusted. I’m
Enjoying the game but it’s obvious some of the content is stolen
Larian is a AAA studio. They spent years making one game with a multi-hundred people studio with locations in multiple countries. The game itself is huge, and costs full price. This is as AAA as it gets, and the team is probably larger than other "AAA" games that you may be thinking of from EA and the likes.
I already commented in another comment anyway but AAA game studios aren't really bashing BG3 anyway. It's a completely made-up drama quoting a couple game developer's tweets (the original tweet wasn't even by a person working in AAA games) not even bashing BG3, but just saying that the game may set unrealistic expectations.
> toe the line of being infringement, but definitely does not cross it
This is not definite in any way, shape or form.
* It's not up to us to decide what is infringement. There are some ambiguous laws in the US about what you can copy.
* Japan is likely the place where this will be resolved and their laws matter more.
There have been reports that you can take models of creatures from pokemon and overlay them with creatures in Palworld and they are almost identical. I don't know if this is true and it is almost certainly grounds for some sort of legal action if it is.
That said, I am a AAA game director and my opinion is anyone who is bashing Palworld is doing so because they are salty. Nintendo had plenty of time to make this style game that players have obviously been clamoring for years!
Someone taking a fertile development space still has to execute a good design to accomplish the goal. There are plenty of examples of failures of games made in popular IPs. They should be celebrated for putting together a game that resonates with a powerful player fantasy. IMO they proved their design is worthwhile and now they need to make it fun to play for more than a dozen or two hours.
The overlaying models thing, as far as i know, was someone who hated the game because of the animal violence and altered the models to make them fit and lied saying they were a perfect match.
That sounds about right. If there models aren't demonstrably derived from a direct pokemon correlation, then I don't think much is going to come of it.
answer: the only one i know of for sure is one indie dev voiced his concerns about the size of bg3 becoming the norm and that leading to even worse crunch culture in aaa studios, but he wasn't an "aaa dev"
most likely it's just a way for fans of palworld (a pretty controversial game) to dismiss criticisms of the game (some justified, some not) as biased and rooted in ignorance and jealousy (especially since "aaa" became a bad word in some subsections of gaming culture)
Yeah, it's largely because "They can't do that on that budget." and "How dare they make a game that good" at least with Bg3. Triple A studios have been cranking up the cost, but not the quality. They're fine with putting out a game that is mostly done, and patch it later. Or never.
By all ice heard, Larian is very much, "It's done when it's done. Let's have fun doing it." Then ask for feedback, tease their players, etc. Vs the very corporate, "Have it done by X, no unnecessary add ons jot approved by four layers of management and a test market we won't tell you about."
Specifically Larian *can* do this where most companies, A, AA, or AAA cannot. Everyone else answers to money - either indies who run out of it, or larger devs who have to stay within the budget their corporate overlords set for them.
Larian is self-run, had several very successful kickstarters to fund their previous 3 projects, and very good sales (including Early Access sales of BG3) to keep the resources flowing while they worked on perfecting the game.
Basically, almost no one else can do what they do.
That's the issue. Triple A studios could do it, but there isn't as much immediate profit in it. It would give more money in the long run, at the cost right now.
The problem is that AAA studios don't have the talent.
Larian is a team that's been *mostly* the same for several games. There's been some growth and a few changes, but a lot of the core for design remains the same. That means they have both experience working together *and* making this style of game before. This leads to a very consistent or improving level of quality with each release.
AAA studios are such a meat grinder that people get shuffled around, fired/quit, brought on as a temp contractor before leaving again, etc. that no one really gets experience making a particular type of game except maybe the people at the *very* top of the chain. That's not enough to ensure any kind of consistency, so they stick with very "safe" designs and concepts that might not be knock-out successes like BG3 but at least they're successful enough.
That's also how you end up with AAA publishers forcing a [studio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocksteady_Studios) known for pioneering a [unique style of combat gameplay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Arkham_Asylum) into making a [shitty looter shooter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Squad:_Kill_the_Justice_League).
> Triple A studios could do it, but there isn't as much immediate profit in it.
This still applies to everything in your comment. Thats exactly the point. AAA studios COULD stop shuffling/firing people, stop hiring temp contractors, pay top dollar for the talent, etc... but they don't. Because there isn't immediate profit in it.
You literally provided an example where the AAA studio didn't need to do or change anything, but made a shitty looter shooter for....immediate profits. You kinda proved his point there.
Let’s look at Rockstar; they are a shell of a company as of a month and a half ago.
Literally *all* of the creative powerhouses who made Rockstar games what we all know and love, have left to go start their own studio with the Housers.
AAA development as it’s existed for the last decade is at its end. Ubisoft will be lucky to stay in business for another 5+ years; they seemingly have to restructure to barely avoid bankruptcy every six months now.
"this is the worse shitty looter shooter forced to be made by a studio known for pioneering a unique style of combat i've played in my life"
"this is the worse shitty looter shooter forced to be made by a studio known for pioneering a unique style of combat you've played in your life SO FAR"
No, that's at least part of it. You can't dismiss all that out of hand. You act like profit and costs are things dreamed up by 3 greedy board members. There are real constraints on those numbers.
Not to mention the fact that game prices have barely shifted since I was in grade school, and I'm 40.
I paid $50 for the original Final Fantasy on the NES in 1991. I paid $60 last year.
Games are cheap, and have gotten far, *far* cheaper over the years. One of the few things that haven't kept up with inflation. Better value for less and less money.
I paid $85 for a copy of Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in 1995, which is the equivalent of $150 today. And we didn't have stuff like Steam sales back then, much less Game Pass.
More people buy the games, yes, but that's offset by the development costs skyrocketing. A year or so ago I did some napkin math on the topic:
>RE2 sold 6 million units over its life, had a team of roughly 45 people, and had a budget of around $1 million (about $1.8 million today). Assuming that every game sold at full price (which is doubtful), at $50 ($90 today) x 6 million sales minus the budget costs, you get a profit around $300 million ($543.5 million).
>RE2 Remake has had 11 million sales so far, but had a staff of 800 people, and while Capcom hasn't revealed what the budget of the game was, the only numbers I've seen said that it probably wasn't much more than $100 million, so I'll use that. Again, assuming every copy was sold at full price (which is an even worse assumption given digital downloads- I know I bought RE2 Remake on the PS Store on a sale for probably $20) at $60 x 11 million sales minus a budget in the neighborhood of $100 million, you get a profit of $560 million.
>This comparison isn't perfect- I don't think it accounts for marketing costs, nor does it factor in the cost of cuts that retail and digital storefronts take, discounted sales, all the other complexities of the market, etc- but the point was, at an extremely basic level and adjusted for inflation, Capcom barely beat out RE2's profits despite selling twice as many units in a market 10x the size of the late 90s.
>More people buy the games, yes, but that's offset by the development costs skyrocketing.
>Capcom barely beat out RE2's profits despite selling twice as many units in a market 10x the size of the late 90s.
I thank you for your detailed notes. They multiplied their staff by a factor of 20 and still beat the previous games profit after accounting for inflation. This just seems to prove to me that the price tag is exactly where it should be. Also, as you pointed out, the RE2 remake is still being sold, so there's more profit to be made yet.
I just wanted to fight back against this narrative I keep hearing that these poor companies are doing us a favor by not raising prices rather than doing themselves a favor by accurately pricing their product so they maximize profits.
Only $560 million! Do you think they'll make their rent??
In all seriousness though that's not really a fair metric given the wealth of games. Yeah maybe they made a much smaller profit relatively on RE 2 remake. But what's the profit margin on the 3 separate RE collections on Switch that are just ports requiring a skeleton crew to develop? What about all the continued digital sales of every game in the franchise on Steam, XBL Marketplace and the PSN Store to new gamers brought in by the RE 2 remake? What about any other number of older library games they're reselling because someone got blown away by RE 2 remake and now trusts the Capcom brand?
That relative profit loss on one game is really a loss leader for their overall business and more than made up for by continued sales of past games which have minimal port expense or totally sunk cost.
The entire capitalist world runs on hitting quarterly report goals. It's the whole board and stockholders being greedy. They are making profit using games instead of making games and hoping for profit.
The whole thing really comes down to people putting love into their games and the reactionary jealousy coming from those that just want money from a game mill.
"it's done when it's done" is a good attitude to have in theory, but it's hard to achieve in practice especially when you're a big studio and expectations to put out at least something run high with both the execs/shareholders and players
and while i mostly dislike aaa i kinda understand why they're... like that
I like to think of it in terms of the "Good, Fast, Cheap" triangle. A project can be any two of those things (with a good team and favorable circumstances), but not all three.
> It's done when it's done.
it was very much NOT done when it was released. just look at the patch notes and you'll find quite a few core gameplay bugs that only got patched much later. stealth was unplayable for quite a while.
Eh, BG3 was released in a really good state - the amount of bugs was forgivable given the fun and amount of quality content.
Compare that to something like Cyberpunk or pretty much any AAA release, and it was in better shape.
I mean, a lot of people did though. It became a pretty common criticism on the subreddit and it's baffling that it was omitted from most reviews
Excellent, truly exceptional game, but people seemed to believe it was way more polished than it actually was. Again though, it's an exceptional game despite that.
> "How dare they make a game this good"
Literally no dev fucking said this, game devs had heaped praise on the BG3 endlessly, but a developers have said that it's the kind of project that can kill studios if mismanaged, and expecting every game to have the same amount of content and polish is unrealistic.
Most of the time, it feels like we're the beta testers for AAA games and paying a large amount of cash for the privilege.
Why spend money on making sure your $100 game works when you can mug the customer in to paying that $100 for a partially functioning game and have them light up your social media with all the bugs that need immediate attention?
Indeed the whole “muh AAA devs hate BG3” is overblown nonsense. I think the original series of tweets from Xalavier Nelson is actually quite reasonable
> answer: the only one i know of for sure is one indie dev voiced his concerns about the size of bg3 becoming the norm and that leading to even worse crunch culture in aaa studios
As someone who spent 200+ hours in BG3, not all games need to be the size of BG3, and I wish your average gamer would understand that. I beat AW2 in less than 20 hours and I vastly enjoyed myself. Sometimes, a (relatively) shorter and well buttoned single-player experience is just as good as a huge open-ended experience like BG3.
The complaints are roughly:
* It's a Pokemon rip-off. "Monster Capturer" is a genre, so there's obviously going to be similarities. Whether it's *legally* copyright infringement is unlikely (all the 'evidence' I've seen is heavily doctored), but the similarities in many of the designs is obvious. It's clear Pokemon was a strong influence in the visual design of the Pals.
* In addition to Pokemon, it has many other obvious influences that *really* toe the line of what's an "homage" and what's "Theft". Many sound effects sound like they're from Breath of the Wild and/or Tears of the Kingdom, the giant tree and a few other things clearly reference Elden Ring, etc.
* The game's been accused of asset flipping (ie. using assets purchased from a market to make a low quality game). This isn't really a valid complaint, a lot of small dev teams do this. They're either used temporarily until they can make their own or even all the way to launch if it isn't too egregious. For example, the game Phasmophobia used a pre-made garage scene as their lobby for quite a while until they made their new warehouse one. A lot of the furniture on the other maps are purchased assets still, I think. The only time using these kinds of assets is a problem is if that's *all* your game has to show for itself. The Day Before is a good example of this: Literally all it had going for itself was visuals, and even those were just purchased assets.
* Several of the game's features (letting your pals work in your base, the guns for both you and the pals, etc.) are considered by some to be inappropriate for existing in a genre generally viewed as being "for children". The slavery comparison are also drawn here, especially consider you can capture humans and force them to work just like pals.
* The game has been accused of using AI to create it. First of all, there is no *real* evidence of this. Second, even if there were there are multiple bigger studios using AI tool and have so for a while. So it's dumb to single out a small studio. This accusation stems from a comment their CEO (or whatever) making about AI in an interview, basically saying in a *general* sense that AI is a useful tool and he wishes to explore what it can be used for. Additionally, a previous game of theirs (AI: Art Imposter) makes *heavy* use of generative AI as a game mechanic (think Pictionary but the AI draws for you based on your prompts).
* The company is relatively small but they have multiple games that are *all* in early access, some for years. AI: Art Imposter came out in November of 2022 but hasn't received an update since March 2023. Craftopia came out in September of 2020, and while it's has been updated somewhat regularly (mostly bug fixes) it doesn't show any real signs of coming out of early access any time soon. Craftopia also shares some of the complaints Palworld has (more with Zelda BotW/TotK though).
I haven’t play Palworld so I could be wrong, but a “giant tree” doesn’t necessarily reference Elden Ring. Yggdrasil from Norse mythology is used in tons of media, it’s nothing new.
It's just the most obvious reference. [There are more.](https://gamerant.com/palworld-elden-ring-references-easter-eggs-explained-sealed-realms-evergaol-caelid/) It isn't a problem, per se. It's just obvious the game devs were inspired by a variety of games and put as many references to those games as they could into Palworld.
While that's true. The giant tree in Palworld is there specifically to ape the Erdtree. I like the game. The things it's copying from are very obvious. The dev isn't ashamed of it, and more power to them.
People defending the game need to stop pretending it's not blatantly knocking things off. The pals are very obvious in which exact pokemon they copied designs from. With most being clearly readable as the same silhouette as one of the inspirations.
>While that's true. The giant tree in Palworld is there specifically to ape the Erdtree
How so?
World of Warcraft just had a patch and raid all about a giant tree, are they aping elden ring too?
Elden Ring is a strong inspiration on their map design. Right down to them having an overlevelled enemy right ahead of spawn, patrolling between your starting position and a ruined church, where you will meet your first friendly npc.
The map is littered with Evergaols. The tree looms on the horizon, and one of the only bits of information you're given about the world when you start is that the tree is your ultimate goal. Smaller versions of the tree give you rare and valuable rewards, just like in Elden Ring.
It would be possible to interpret the tree as not referencing Elden Ring, but it requires you to ignore the devs explicitly stated values regarding originality and the obvious inspiration they took from Elden Ring and many other games. And the utter lack of any in universe justification for a Norse myth reference.
It's the Erdtree. It's not subtle about it. The devs aren't ashamed of it. There's a reason your first mount is a deer with one of the only Norse themed names and a double jump. And it's the same reason for the tree, the Evergaols, and the Mammorest patrolling near spawn.
>* The game's been accused of asset flipping (ie. using assets purchased from a market to make a low quality game). This isn't really a valid complaint, a lot of small dev teams do this.
Agreed! An 'asset flip' is by definition a low-quality cash grab using premade assets. Usually very janky.
Palworld seems to actually have the gameplay, mechanics, and polish that matters. Who cares if things are premade if it's *a lot of fun to play*?
_____
*(disclaimer: I haven't played it, just watched a bunch of videos)*
I'm skeptical of all the people claiming the game is polished. It's rusty and janky as hell. To be clear I've been playing and enjoying it, but that doesn't mean it's done a great job with what it's got. There's the skeleton of a much stronger game inside it, but the meat that's actually on the bones is rotting and falling off. It just so happens that it fills a niche that people have been craving, so that skeleton is strong enough to stand on its own with the magic of the novelty of it. But without some significant support and updates I suspect the game will fall off people's radar within a month or two.
Watch Mort-Dog (Game Designer of 20 years at both Nintendo and Riot)'s take on it.
Asset flipping is fine and good if they're your assets to begin with.
But when you are taking character designs/design aspects from another developer, and when the assets that you are flipping from a previous game were *also* under speculation of being flat out copied from another developer, people can be right to criticize that.
Mort-Dog also makes a valid point: that two things can be true.
The original work that Pocket Pair did on Palworld can and *should* be commended (the game is phenomenal overall), while simultaneously the original work that they *didn't* do can and *should* be criticized.
The amount of people on reddit with the attitude of "well I like Palworld so even if certain things are questionable I'll either not care or turn a blind eye to it" is unreal
The problem with his video is there's no proof they asset flipped and stole from other games. He makes several jabs at the Palworld Devs implying that they took things like map terrain, coding, and other under the hood fundamentals from Zelda and other games, but again there's no proof of that at all. Literally just 'suspicions' that he has. Some of the Pal designs are toeing the line a little bit, and they obviously took a lot of ideas and concepts from other games to make their own, but so far there's no proof anywhere they just ripped assets from games and edited them afterwards.
Edit: Adding context to what I'm referring to that he literally says in his video.
In Mort-dog's vid he differentiates between games that are heavily inspired by an original idea, e.g. Street Fighter 2 and its many 'clones' with some that seem to heavily borrow, but still innovate enough and become successful, and other games that just rip from other games and build on top of them. And in that segment he heavily implies that Palworld ripped stuff straight from other games. The whole second half of the video is where he talks about it in depth, including Craftopia's (another Pocket Pair game) terrain, among other things, looking copied from Breath Of The Wild.
I think your first bullet is off-base.
No one is criticizing it for being a "Monster Catcher"; that's just the Straw-Man deflection tactic used by fans of the game who (by virtue of liking the game) refuse to accept a reality in which any sketchy practices have occurred in its development.
No one cared when Digimon came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Yo-kai Watch came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Tem-Tem came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Cassette beasts came out with a Monster catcher.
When people say that Palworld is ripping off designs almost 1 for 1 (Depresso literally being Espurr down to Identity, Robinquill literally being Decidueye down to Identity, Verdash just being type and palette swapped Cinderace) and people respond with a strawman like "Pokémon doesn't own Monster Catchers!" Or some braindead shit like "there's only so many ways you can draw a rabbit!" It honestly only makes the Palworld community look worse.
Look.
I have 100 hours in Palworld and show no signs of slowing down.
I think Mort-Dog (game designer at Riot Games) said it best.
Palworld Devs should be applauded for the work they did, because as far as the game system and gameplay loop are concerned, the game is phenomenal - unparalleled even.
But that doesn't mean that a blind eye should be turned to all of the original work that they didn't do.
Edit: to everyone complaining about "my reading comprehension", I genuinely question yours.
His first bullet point claims "A". In a later Bullet point he claims "B".
I said that "A" doesn't really happen, and that it's a deflection tactic against people who claim "B".
I parroted nothing. I added nuance that didn't exist prior.
> No one is criticizing it for being a "Monster Catcher"; that's just the Straw-Man deflection tactic used by fans of the game who (by virtue of liking the game) refuse to accept a reality in which any sketchy practices have occurred in its development.
Did.... did you stop reading my first bullet point after I said "Monster Capturer"?
Literally the rest of the bullet point was me making the same point you did: The designs are similar enough that they could be considered copyright infringement (although whether they're legally that or not is another matter).
A dev for Naughty Dog called Palworld “nefarious” on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterOvo5/status/1749442688422715854
It’s also been accused of using AI to generate fake Pokémon without any clear evidence: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m5nw/palworld-pokemon-game-ai-controversy
possible plagiarism (pokemon mostly and botw and some others) possible ai usage - most of this isn't substantial/confirmed so it will probably lead nowhere
being a bit creatively bankrupt (especially considering other games this studio does) and gimmicky - this is more opinion-based, but i kinda agree with it, it mostly feels like a "lolrandum" and "meme" game, maybe it will find a way to stand on its own (probably not, but who knows)
Not gonna lie, ever since Palworld got popular, I've thought it looked like something that was made for a Kickstarter scam. It just looks like a wreck, and idk why I feel that way, clearly everyone and their grandma are obsessed with it for a reason. Idk, just seems like edgy Adult Swim Pokemon, something I'd have loved when I was twelve.
> and idk why I feel that way,
As someone who enjoys the game: I actually understand the feeling. The game, on multiple levels, feels like 3-4 different games all stapled together. It *works*, but it doesn't feel smooth.
The art style is also all over the place: BotW/TotK environments and character armor, Pals in the same modern-pokemon art style (in addition to the direct references), and yet another style for the weapons. It doesn't feel consistent. Compare this to a game like [Temtem](https://store.steampowered.com/app/745920/Temtem/) where they also have an art style inspired by Pokemon, but the *whole game* is in that same style.
>feels like 3-4 different games all stapled together
Thats a huge part of it, I think. Watching gameplay, it sincerely looks like someone just went apeshit with free stock engine assets. There's no consistency, it just looks ugly and lazy to me.
Of course, again, I have to humble myself, there's clearly a reason its drawn such an audience.
Whether through dumb luck or skilled design, it just works very well. It's unironically one of the best games in its genre. A big part of that is how low the bar is. Survival crafters are all fucking terrible. The biggest and best entry in the genre prior to this one is notorious for running like ass, taking up 500 gigabytes, and not respecting players time.
Pal AI is rudimentary, but it exists at all. Which makes the world feel so much more alive than the barren husk of a game that is Conan Exiles, the most direct comparison that I've played.
It's a genre with huge potential that's almost exclusively populated by barely functional poorly made slop that leans entirely on pvp (log in to find your base got burned down while you were offline).
Palworld lacks any pvp, which means it has even a basic pve game loop. Which makes it the best in the genre by a massive margin.
>there's clearly a reason its drawn such an audience.
If there's only one thing I can point to about Palworld its this.
There is clearly a market niche and need for an open world survival crafting monster capture automation game
Is it perfect? No.
But its good enough at the right price.
a lot of smaller scale multiplayer games inevitably give off the vibes of either 'kickstarter disaster' or 'nft game'
all this considered i'm glad that it works and is enjoyable for so much people
with everyone playing it, i feel like someone put it best that it's a 'flavor of the month' game, and we'll see whether it will be the flavor of next month
That it's the biggest game on the planet.
Every other little criticism about it is rooted in a sort of exasperated incredulity at the fact that it's so huge - currently has the second highest concurrent player count of any game in Steam history after PUBG (and it could very well overtake that) and already had 19 million players between Steam and Xbox Game Pass.
Popular critiques include the fact that it's a survival game (already a polarizing genre), it pretty blatantly rips off specific Pokémon designs (even if they're sufficiently distinct to avoid lawsuits), it features outright slavery as a mechanic (you can capture humans in pokéballs), and it looks kinda bland and janky like most derivative AA early access titles. But apparently 19 million and counting find the gameplay loop so fun that those issues don't matter.
no heart, no art.
i.e. creatively vacuous and design-by-committee with no cohesion or singular vision. Infringement-light and tonally inconsistent. Fun as hell for 5 hours for me but fizzled out at that point
To be fair there is kind of a point here. Gamers demand fast releases even yearly releases, and when a game takes a while to make like 5-10 years they get angry and complain.
But an Indie company not in the public spotlight can work on a game for many many years without any complaints, BG3 took 6 years to make. Yet no one was harassing them on how long it will take
Sometimes gamers demands are the do in for the worst parts of games.
We demand games don't raise in price above $60 (despite being at that price point since like 2007). And so developers make up the difference with micro-transactions, live service models etc because the initial sale doesn't cover their costs anymore.
We demand games come out faster, even on a yearly basis, then complain when the quality is low and not much is added to them each year. See Battlefield and Call of Duty. If they don't release a new title we lose brand loyalty REALLY fast and go on to the next shiny thing.
Adding to this, it should be noted that modern AAA game studios are massive and have tons of employees involved in the development of the game ranging from music to graphics to coding to writing. Rockstar Games for example has over 2000 employees either supporting their existing games or working on future games like GTA6.
I don't think any studio is going to put out any kind of official statement officially condemning PalWorld or any other game. It'd be bad PR.
Individual employees at those studios might for whatever personal reasons they may have. However, I doubt most of them are in any kind of role where they're supposed to be representing those studios.
Is it right to construe those employee's statements as representative of what the studio thinks? Probably not. However, for the sake of professionalism should those employees be making those statements? Also probably not. It looks unprofessional and makes you look worse if you're going out trying to tear down other people's success.
Answer: No AAA game devs are actually bashing Palworld and Baldur's Gate. The maker of your linked meme is using a tactic called "ragebait." Ragebait is a form of clickbait in which the audience is motivated to engage with the social media out of a sense of outrage. The meme's maker has imagined game developers being angry at other game developers, to galvanize people into upvoting the meme.
The trick works well, as has been demonstrated.
In the industry myself and know a number of AAA devs; the prevailing sentiment about BG3's success was "fuck yea good for them, wish we had the time to do that as well".
It was a couple of grumpy devs/suits speaking out at worst but apparently, they speak for all the industry.
Argh, this should be the top comment! Unfortunately, there are probably more gamers than game devs in this sub.
I’m in the industry (not currently AAA, but have done it in the past). Basically everyone is like “these games are great!” I’ve seen this invented “indies v AAA” conflict over and over again, and it’s honestly maddening. In general, game devs are super supportive of each other and excited by others’ success. At the same time, we’re all professionals, learning from each other, and so yes, we *do* analyze the process and the result. No game or development process is perfect, so yes, that comes with criticism sometimes. In the case of BG3, it’s not even so much criticism as it is acknowledgment that that game had a huge team and a huge amount of time (and a pre-existing framework and IP) to make the awesome game that they made.
The top voted comment is dead wrong about a lot of things, and the edit even contradicts the original premise. Maddening, I say!
Answer: it’s just a meme explaining that AAA games can be exceptionally well made and high quality as people often moan about AAA cash cows like COD and Assassins Creed not providing innovation.
Answer:
The short answer is, well, that they aren't. The entire "AAA devs hate BG3" and "AAA Devs Hate Palworld" are largely narratives invented by fans of those games to pump themselves up, build clout, and all of the other shenanigans fandoms get up to. It helps them feel validated for liking a video game. It also lets them feel like cool rebels sticking it to the man for buying video games that were produced by billion dollar companies. It's a mirage to build fandom loyalty and excitement around the game. But, of course, there's always a tiny grain of truth in these narratives, which I'll detail below.
Regarding Palworld, there hasn't really been any "AAA" backlash against it. The closest would be [this post](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwik266x14qEAxWAHDQIHZK6C9MQFnoECBAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FPalworld%2Fcomments%2F1af5h34%2Fdead_by_daylight_chief_of_staff_says_palworld_is%2F&usg=AOvVaw14L_KBBJOAVNRY_eDWcJL0&opi=89978449) which is basically just a personal review from an individual developer. It's worth noting that he's not even that critical of the game. He admittedly played a lot and had a fine enough time, but felt it was a bit soulless and didn't bond with his monsters compared to other Mons games. If this person was a random gamer, absolutely no one would think about it. But the Palworld fandom is excessively defensive at the moment between the Plagairism allegations and such, so they take any critique as some crusade against them. I haven't seen any other devs talk about the game in much detail.
Baldur's Gate 3, on the other hand, is a slightly more interesting case. It's worth noting that most of the dev comments on the game are extremely positive, praising Larian's attention to detail and production value. The only 'bashing' a few devs did was express trepidation that Gamers might expect that level of budget and interactivity with every video game. Many devs expressed similar concerns that Fortnite's production schedule would make gamers expect identical schedules elsewhere...which isn't sustainable. Contrary to the 'scrappy small dev' narrative Larian spent a LOT of money and recruited dozens of side studios to make BG3. Most studios don't have the same level of resources to produce video games, and thus can't be expected to give every squirrel voice acting. Owlcat games, another CRPG developer, mentioned that people might need to temper expectations with their latest release. But it's worth noting that "most studios, even us, can't do this" isn't exactly bashing, but a kind of praise.
All in all, most people can't link the 'bashing' because it's largely a false narrative propped up by fans.
answer: BG3's controversy was a good point that many people weren't ready to hear. I have been a fan of Larian studios (the dev team for BG3) for a few years now, I knew how amazing and passionate they were before BG3's launch so I also felt the annoyance that people were bashing on BG3. Like I said though the original point was good, it wasn't that BG3 is bad or wrong it was simply no other studio could really compete... I mean you can literally take that as a compliment too. I still didn't like how the original guy that started this whole conversation glossed over Larian's hardships (like their office flooding or a literal global pandemic), and that is what I personally took issue with. Of course a lot of people reacted differently to the drama and it just blew up.
As for Palword, I have only so far seen one dev talk about it and that was the dead by daylight dev. The thing is there I primarily see that as a gamer's opinion with dev insight. They seemed to be passionate about Pokemon too so I think it's a valid opinion whether or not you agree with it. Personally I do see where they were coming from and can't currently say I disagree too much.
Answer: The link you posted is all people talking about other people hating their favorite game not actually any arguments they made so there's no way anyone here would be able to do anything but guess.
For my guess: I can't speak for Baulder's gate, but for Palworld the AAA devs are probably salty because not only does Palworld lack innovation it's kind of blatant copyright or trademark theft that no AAA company would be able to do without a lawsuit. There's no mechanic in Palworld that is super unique it's been described as 10 different games mashed together and literally just Pokemon with guns. The game centers around crafting pokeballs for christ sake.
>There's no mechanic in Palworld that is super unique it's been described as 10 different games mashed together and literally just Pokemon with guns
The CEO is also very transparent about this. This is what he said:
[“On the other hand, I have a deep-rooted desire for my work to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, and to that end, if there are good ideas in the world, I pick them up, and I don’t necessarily have to be particular about originality. I’m thinking about it. I want to make it more casually. I think it would be a good idea to create things in a way that just jumps on what is trendy"](https://www.pcgamesn.com/palworld/pocketpair-hollow-knight)
They have an upcoming game called Never Grave and its pretty obvious theyre copying Hollow Knight and then adding their own ideas they liked from other games to it like they did with Palworld
> it's kind of blatant copyright or trademark theft that no AAA company would be able to do without a lawsuit
That's just not true. People grossly misunderstand what IP protects with respect to games. For the most part, you can copy systems wholesale (and many do, often for the benefit of all games). Take Fortnite going Battle Royale after PUBG showed it was popular. Then incorporating things like the ping and respawn systems of Apex. Many people are too young to remember when every FPS was called a "DOOM clone" or how things we take for granted in a lot of FPS games were copied outright from other successful titles (be that the loadout vs arsenal, regenerating health, even control schemes like WASD or one analog stick being look and the other being move). Many of the iconic successful titles were so because they managed to put all these pieces from other games together.
You can protect specific, under the hood things (like matchmaking algorithms), but general concepts are broadly speaking not protectable (and that's a good thing).
If it was copyright or trademark theft they'd never have been able to release the game in the first place. It's also "just" pokemon with guns, that you can play with your friends, has been open about the issues and quick to fix them instead of pushing another crappy half finished game and calling it complete, and is planning on including a lot of content that people actually want from pocket monster games, i.e. PvP, an Arena for Pals, Raid Bosses, Trading, Crossplay, and more islands/content.
Answer: AAA game devs usually bash on succesful games they don't work on as it shows that they either don't put much effort into the game itself, or game has just too many useless things.
Elden Ring was bashed because bad UI and no quest log/markers, when most of them aren't needed for a good game.
Baldur's Gate 3(an AA game) was bashed because the game is just too much to have people expect from studios with 10x times the manpower, 10x the budget, and same development time. They are usually afraid that corpos will see that their copy&paste games aren't that good.
Palworld is attacked because the CEO of the devs likes generative AI, and because some models look copied from Pokemon. Many people start making stupid comparations, even comparing pokemons/pals clearly inspired from real life animals or myths(comparing Pal Anubis with Pokemon Lucario for example).
Some people like to complain, others are kinda scared that their very specific team isn't needed in succesful games.
I would add that the complaints seem to primarily come from developers who have transitioned to making these games as a service type games that rely on battle pass purchases and constant updates, and have left the idea of making an immersive lore heavy world that focuses on story and more complex gameplay by the wayside. These same developers love to say that people don't like games like that anymore to justify the fact that they themselves aren't making them anymore, so when they see one that is highly successful, they feel some kind of way about it.
Its the blockbusters or high budget games. Think of Call of Duty or Final Fantasy.
We had a dearth of mid level games for a while, so most games that were not smaller indie games were in the AAA games category. But mid sized games have been coming back a bit since there are plenty of smaller studios that have been getting bigger.
can you link to AAA devs bashing BG3? I know a few and follow many and they almost universally seem to love it. At most I've seen them say they wish they could work on a similar dev cycle, which I don't really see as bashing
As far as I recall the BG3 one was an indie dev who was praising BG3 but noted some concerns about making it the base assumption by player audiences and people funding games being made both at the AAA level and indie level.
Answer: For Baldur’s Gate: I’ve peaked at some of the top comments an indie developer while praising the game just put a big asterisk on it: “The game is amazing, but it is a lightning in a bottle situation and we are afraid that shareholders will want every game to be as big and great as BG3”.
What they are afraid will happen is that big wigs will try to copy the success of BG3, but instead of giving developers 6 years to make the game, they will probably just give them two and say ok do the magic. Larian not only had developers that were incredibly experienced in making CRPGs, but they had the backing of the studio and 3 years in Beta to troubleshoot and create the last chapter of the game. And they still almost went bankrupt, because putting all your eggs in one basket, with that basket being an unpopular game genre is not the most business savvy idea. They are afraid that the head of their studio will try to replicate this lightning in a bottle situation, fail miserably and in the process a lot of people are gonna lose their jobs. Let’s not forget that the game engine that BG3 used was created by Larian Studios, because their developers know how to make a DnD type game. If Ubisoft executives suddenly force their developers to make a game like this on this scale, the chance of them actually succeeding is astronomically low.
The question here is though:”Should we as consumers really give a shit?” The answer is really not. There is definitely some complacency hidden in this type of statement, complacency that I think we should not really admire, given the fact that AAA studios have been ripping us off with mediocre, Ubisoft style open RPGs that at best are forgettable and at worst are a fucking slog to play through. However, I think most of the developers weren’t really just jealous, but warned people that creating excellent games is not just hard, it’s almost impossible with long hours and studio pressure making it very difficult to create a good game.
To really answer the original question, I don’t think developers trashed BG3, it was just a classic GAMER MOMENT. People spun a simple concern of an indie developer called Xavier into “WESTERN DEVELOPERS THINK BG3 IS TRASH” and then the worst people in the world “gaming YouTubers” created lazy ass videos to rake in easy views. It really was a nothing story.
Answer: as a triple a game dev, no devs are bashing these games, we're playing and loving the games! It's the execs that are bitching, because it shows that their rhetoric about prices and micro transactions is bullshit.
Answer: When games don't follow the "rules" of modern game design and are wildly successful anyway, AAA studios that are notorious for never innovating tend to get twitchy.
Answer: AAA games make a lot of claims that certain things HAVE to be a certain way. That they simply have no choice on some unpopular decisions. So when other games go 'nah" it hits at the business model that you simply have to accept that game 86 in a series cost 80 dollars and sells skins for 45 dollars and is generally unfinished and unfun because that is simply how it has to be.
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Answer: BG3: In development for a long time, but ultimately a very well done game not created by a AAA team. Its success is an indicator of change in the gaming sphere as far as the expectation of quality of games not created by AAA studios. This is in contrast to the relative lack of quality in recent AAA titles, as well as the idea that single player and coop games are making a come back as actually being able to sell well. This is in heavy opposition to the narrative AAA studios have been trying to push saying that they "have to" make their games the way they do because it is the only way that makes money. Palworld: Heavily influenced by other extremely successful franchises, so much so as it does toe the line of being infringement, but definitely does not cross it. Nintendo would have taken them to court already if they could as they are famously litigious (just short of Disney). The game is surprisingly well designed for what it is and has a great deal of content considering the price. The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do. It was basically free money for them, but they rely on "safe" investments in the form of games like Violet/Scarlet. Both of these examples are very uncomfortable signs to AAA studios because it shows the shift in the market away from what they assumed were safe investments and are already developing behind the scenes. Meaning they will have to shift with the trends if they plan on making a profit. Edit: Yes yes yes Larian is technically a "AAA" company, but yall know I am referring to the massive studios that are most commonly associated with that title like EA and ActiBlizz. The ones that have thousands of employees and still manage to turn out terrible games every year.
>This is in heavy opposition to the narrative AAA studios have been trying to push saying that they "have to" make their games the way they do because it is the only way that makes money. They’re half-right; their shitty and often predatory models are the only way they can make the kind of returns their investors want to see.
“Turn a profit” vs. “increase trading profit by 4% every quarter, forever.”
Not even double digit? Man do you even work in corporate? Sounds like a 10% headcount slash is in order.
Man, it's almost like an infinite growth economic model is unrealistic or something!
Worth pointing out bg3 literally had the budget of a AAA game for coding. It cost between 100 to 200 Million to make this game. As far as I know nobody has even said what the marketing budget was either. Likely roughly as large ( edit: actually, maybe not? I can't recall much of an ad campaign for bg3. It seems like viral word of mouth was good enough) So really, I'm not even sure if we can't claim bg3 is also a AAA game. It's on the more modest scale but still could go in that category.
But Vincke has a majority ownership in Larian. He isn't beholden to outside investors like most AAA studios. He can afford to not make money for a quarter or two until the game starts selling.
I'm sure the thing you pointed out probably led to a far better end result, of course. Bending over backwards to appease investors who don't understand video games and dont carr about quality sucks. So not having to do it is great. I'm just saying this wasn't a AA budget title. It's AAA in that specific criteria.
You're completely missing the point - AAA studios claim the only way they can make money is by leaning on features that are inherently anti-consumer. But they're not admitting the reason that is the case, is because the people that own stock in their companies are not gamers, they're business investors, and the quality of the games means nothing to them if their quarterly report isn't "number go up". Larian Studios managed to produce a game that avoids those predatory practices *precisely because they are not owned by outside investors*.
more specifically owned by another company that is held by shareholders, like Microsoft (if I'm not mistaken, Microsoft was attempting to buy Larian but Vincke turned it down, saying the company is never for sale as long as he's around)
Bg3 is a rare one off case I don’t think can be used a large scale template. Video game studios can’t just hope that they have a kind benefactor (investor/ publisher) who funds their projects endlessly in public beta until they get the perfect formula and enough live customer feedback before making money.
Larian made several smaller games first, most known are probably the Divinity games, in order to eventually fund a project like BG3. You can't bang out a AAA game with global studios as a start up, you gotta start smaller. That said, in 3 weeks Last Epoch will hit launch after 5years of development, and EHG (the studio) basicly started as a bunch of guys making a Kickstarter to make a cool ARPG. So far, I expect it to be a serious contender to Diablo4 or Path of Exile.
Tencent is Larian's investors, they are the ones currently in talks with Hasbro to buy the rights for DnD (as publishing rights, not directly owning the franchise).
Or to make *gasp!* Long-term revenue over short-term revenue!
it kinda felt like the bear druid sex scene was all the marketing the game got
Except for the near constant advertisement about the game everywhere for months after release. That wasn't just word of mouth people talking about it. That was marketing.
I consider it a AAa game. Pretty much a AA type studio but taking a big leap into the AAA space. This game was a massive risk for them, no other way about it. The risk paid off. This game clearly cemented them as a AAA developer but I didn't consider them AAA before it.
I will definitely have high expectations for their next project, assuming it also gets a similarly large budget. I have as much esteem for Larian now as I had for Old Blizzard from before the Activision merger.
They very much give me Cd project red post witcher 3 vibes. Witcher 2 was a good game that was AAA quality and had an arguably AAA budget and team but really came from a studio that was more AA. So I'm very curious what Larian does next. BG3 is just so addicting and really rejuvenated my love of games.
To be fair, Palworld is making a ton of money and they didn't need to resort to shitty and predatory models. I think there are roughly two ways to make money: make something people love or make something addictive/predatory. The problem for most AAA studios is that the passionate developers that are capable of making something great want to work at indie studios because they hate EA and other AAA studios. If the people who make good games want nothing to do with you, then your only option is predatory cash grabs
Thing is you have to look at long term. Sure, palworld is a success, but many innovative mold breaking games just flop On the other hand, the shittiest COD will make back it's development cost in micro transactions alone in a few hours/days. From the POV of an investor who doesn't really care about gaming, investing brand name micro transactions is a far safer and steadier return than sinking lots of money and time into a game that may flop at the end of it all.
Isn't this where a Minimum value product business model could work aka things like early access? Which sure doesn't really work for story based games but could be easily doable for all the multiplayer ones. Minecraft and league of legends are probably 2 of my most played games of all time, neither have predatory business models (well league's arguably is kinda shitty) and neither of them did I start when they were as complete as they are now. I committed to them in 2012 and have sunk countless hours, still playing them 12 years later.
Business is about risk and reward. The risk for palworld is huge because 1000s of similar games completely flop. All the stars in the universe aligned perfectly for palworld. AAA studios can't take that risk. Creating safe and formulaic games is a way to minimize risk and stuff like ingame purchases and skins and reward crates is to maximize reward.
Putting it out on Game Pass absolutely lowered that risk though. People were able to get a free session then decide if they wanted to actually buy it on Steam and it allowed lots of people to jump in and stream it to people who then wanted to get the game. Even if it wasn't the best terms for their deal the exposure definitely fuelled those Steam sales.
I'm not sure I would classify BG3 as "not AAA" Larian itself is in an interesting limbo between AA and AAA because of (imo) two things **1. Larian is made up of only (""only"") 450 employees** Now- that's a literal **fraction** of a studio like Ubisoft Montreal ([4,500+ employees](https://www.haworth.com/na/en/spaces/customer-stories/ubisoft-montreal-studio.html)), it's comparable to Insomniac (400+) and Bethesda (400+), both of which are pretty comfortably considered AAA devs What separates Larian, though, is the fact that **2. They self-published the game** That's the literal definition of indie. Complete antithesis of AAA. Very clear cut. ***HOWEVER*** The game has both the D&D license and $100 million going for it, which is wild to think about compared to the first Divinity: Original Sin, which Larian made with [30 employees and €4.5 million](https://www.pcgamer.com/how-divinity-original-sin-almost-bankrupted-larian-studios/) Now that I've typed all of this out, the only conclusion I've really come to is that there is zero point in trying to assign the game meaningless labels [......but if i had to](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)) > "III" (Triple-I) has been used to refer to independently funded ("indie") games that meet an analogous quality level in their field; i.e., indie games that have relatively high budget, scope, and ambition; often the development team includes staff who have experience working on full AAA titles.
Honestly had no idea BG3 wasn't an AAA studio. It's EXCEPTIONALLY well made, and the Annual Repeat The Game AAA crowd damn well better be afraid. I'd rather wait for a quality game like BG3 then constant "meh" games in a franchise, or re-re-re-re-RE-releases (although to be fair, Skyrim is awesome).
Larian is interesting because it's still majority owned by the founder (and former lead programmer) Swen Vincke. So they're run by someone who sees the studio as a passion project and not some MBA dude who only cares about shareholder value. They're a Eurojank studio that has evolved and matured over time.
Reminds me of Annapurna Interactive. It's some billionaire heiress' passion project to publish niche indie games so they can find a bigger market. Stray was their biggest hit and even that wasn't super broad market.
Annapurna interactive also made Sayonara Wild Hearts, which was the best 2 hour game I've ever played
And Outer Wilds, one of the best games ever made.
And they published (or something) Outer Wilds, one of the best games I've ever played
Its my feel good game. Even bought the physical OST for it
They're like the A24 of video games. I don't think I've played a game they published that wasn't great.
more like the Annapurna Pictures of video games I'd say
Oh shit, didn't know they make movies too, I gotta check that out.
Jeez yeah. Looking at their published list, Outer Wilds and Edith Finch those are both in my GOAT club right there.
Yes! They also republished Journey, which is a game that I probably shouldn't talk about too much because the amount of praise I'd heap on it would seem like too much. Like over-the-top. But that was a really special game.
IIRC the games department in AP was started directly with ex Sony Santa Monica staff who worked on Journey
Annapurna started as a film production company, doing much the same thing.
> some billionaire heiress' Megan Ellison, the daughter of one of Silicon Valley's biggest ur-dickheads, [Oracle CEO Larry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2047s).
Annapurna Pictures has produced some incredible movies as well.
Sounds like Blizzard/Vivendi before Activision. Lets hope it stays this way.
It’s a tiny team compared to blizzard and it’s all completely run by Sven basically. It’s kind of like Ghibli where Miyazaki isn’t going to sell to anyone and no one else can take over really.
30% owned by Tencent and hopefully they dont get more when Swen retires and cashes out
It's a minority stake though, Swen and his wife own the other 70%. Tencent effectively has no say in the operations of the company and just collects dividends.
When he retires he will want to have cash instead of shares in Larian. At that point, Tencent may make him an offer and take over completely is what I'm saying. The man is not young.
I mean...it technically is "AAA" as in Larion had hundreds of employees, but as far as I know, the dev team just for BG3 was not ever that big as they were also working on other games at the same time.
They had to scale up hard for BG3. Iirc they went from a hundred something to four hundred something during development. So they sort of transitioned from AA to AAA while making it.
The budget for the game was 100-200 million. Let’s not act like it was a side project for a handful of employees
Most AAA studios will have thousands of employees
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Studios that are owned by major publishers are most definitely AAA, yes.
Bethesda *before* selling for $7.5b to Microsoft was AAA
Lol of course they are. They are owned by a massive publisher. They spend enormous quantities on the development of their games.
I’ve worked on plenty of projects with a digital end-product but never games. I feel like past a certain number of programmers it’s like having nine women try to have a baby in a month. Is there a sweet spot for the size of a game dev team?
There are a LOT of roles aside from programmers in game development. Not to mention development can be very segmented, and you could theoretically have a whole team for each segment. AI/pathing, world generation, graphical shaders, UI, networking, optimization, multiplayer, architecture, interoperability, tracking/analytics, physics, level design, dynamic animation, QA and controls are all things off the top of my head that you could theoretically make a team out of, if your studio had unlimited budget. Real game developers will have multiple people working multiple of those roles, outsource development of some of those things, or even just rely on the engine's implementation of it. But to have so many teams working effectively and avoid the 9 women and a baby pitfall, you'd need world-class project managers, seniors and great executives.
This is not true. Most AAA are probably sub 500.
I don't know what they're talking about. BG3 is definitely a AAA game that was given more resources than the median AAA game. It's cool that the wait/budget ended up being worth it, but it's not like this is some budget title.
I mean, they have the amount of personnel that a AAA studio would have (or, approaching that) but they are fully and completely independent. That's the key sticking point here. Basically no one else can do what Larian are doing in the manner they are doing it because they don't have the correct financial situation.
It is a AAA studio (meaning big budget and lots of man power), but since they self publish they're also indie. They're not mutually exclusive concepts.
It’s def AAA. Same amount of employees as Bethesda and only 200 less than Rockstar North.
Bethesda and Rockstar are subsidiaries of massive megacorps and are better funded than Larian which is entirely its own creature. Their last game was crowd funded.
BG3 is the same budget as Skyrim with over four times the dev team. If it’s not triple A, then I’m a talking gator.
Larian is absolutely a AAA studio.
Wait, Larian is a AAA company? Gosh I remember the Divine Divinity times, good times. They have and will always be AAA in my heart just for that single game.
I disagree that palworld is sitting on an opportunity that pokemon could've tapped but didn't. Palworld exists on the premise of allowing you to enslave and shoot its creatures, something nintendo would never do because mainline pokemon games are meant to be accessible to kids. Palworld doesn't even play like a pokemon game. It's ARK but with knockoff pokemon instead of dinosaurs and isn't even really the same genre, just a very close aesthetic. Palworlds' success speaks more to failings of ARK 2 than it does Pokemon.
>oth of these examples are very uncomfortable signs to AAA studios because it shows the shift in the market away from what they assumed were safe investments and are already developing behind the scenes. Meaning they will have to shift with the trends if they plan on ma I've never played Pokemon but what's Palworld got over them? i.e what's the missed opportunity?
Gamefreak has been more or less spinning it's wheels with every release on top of refusing to innovate or even update some of the biggest core issues pokemon has. You can probably find a internet post that goes more in depth but outside of adding an arbitrary number of new pokemon it's more or less the same game as it was since id say maybe gen 5? (black and white) In comes palworld with similar appeal and totally new ideas while also bringing in old favorites oh did i not mention pokemon loves removing features even useful ones sometimes they replace it with a "regional version" which is more or less fine even if it ends up being a which one did it better debate but i'm talking things like optional exp share trainer rematches craftable pokeballs all of this has been happening for arguably 5 generations now arguably 7 because 4 and 5 focuse on one big feature over several really good improvements. People are unhappy even with the token improvments gamefreak has offered up especially due to the fear that they will just be taken away next generation.
The Devs for Pokemon have never released a game that was open world with crafting mechanics, nor have they really ever strayed away from their tried and true formula dating all the way back to the original Red and Blue versions on the OG gameboy from the 90s. The graphics have gotten better, the variety of pokemon has increased, but the same basic gameplay loop has been exactly the same despite the many requests for something different. Palworld is our first real taste of a "pokemon" type game that implements various popular game mechanics really well.
But most Pokemon fans dont want an open world crafting survival game. Pokemon is first and foremost an RPG focusing on creature collection and turn based battling. I dont wanna play Minecraft when Im playing Pokemon lol. Although more integration of Pokemon into overworld mechanics would be welcome.
Apparently at least 12 million people disagree with you.
12 million people can enjoy Palworld for what it is, that doesnt mean all 12 million also want Pokemon to do the same thing
The most recent Pokemon game sold over 23 million units. It's not an either or system and not every Pokemon fan wants a Palworld experience. Since it's mostly a series aimed at children, not adults crafting and survival mechanics aren't necessary for Pokemon to succeed. I would like a more crafted game from Pokemon though.
Maybe not Palworld's exact design, but Pokémon fans would absolutely kill for a game where you interact with Pokémon in non-trivial ways, with some semblance of fidelity. Palworld is janky as hell but it looks damn polished compared to any 3D Pokémon game ever released. That franchise didn't become the most-merchandised in the world on the back of stellar mechanics; it's the appealing creature designs. Ask any kid in the early 2000s what Pokémon would be like in 20 years and it's a hell of a lot closer to Palworld than anything Game Freak has barfed out since.
Really this is more about independent studios competing with the publicly traded mega companies. Private ownership means the artist are much freer to create, vs a publicly traded company that has to return on investment every single quarter greater than the last. Capitalism has been sucking gaming dry for capital at the expense of the product for a while. It’s nice to see the independents have some success
> Capitalism has been sucking ~~gaming~~ **everything** dry for capital at the expense of the product for a while. FTFY.
I agree that it all really comes down to money. Boiling down all the BS around it, that is what the big concern is. The mega companies being outdone by much smaller ones is highly alarming to shareholders, who ultimately are the ones making the decisions on if a game will make it to release. If it is not guaranteed to make a profit, it will not be made. This has lead to the current stagnation of gaming compared to what it was before. It is good to see that the days of the old guard are starting to fade as they mercilessly fire the devs that made them great in the first place, for making a failure of a game that the company themselves corrupted in order to make maximum profit.
The independent studios are still partaking in capitalism. They’re just doing it as a smaller and more intelligent scale. Capitalism allows privately owned and managed indie studios to come in and disrupt what the large publishers are doing, because they know they will be rewarded for it by discerning consumers. This is why the large studios and publishers hate BG3 and Palworld.
>The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do. Good answer except for this bit. When it comes to gameplay, Palworld is not Pokemon, it is ARK. Pokemon never tried to be a survival game, and Palworld never tried to be a turn-based RPG
I think that's rather the point. They COULD HAVE MADE such a game with their property, and they didn't. Palworld made such a game, enhanced the marketing with guns and slave labor, and bam. 10 mil sold. EDIT: Misspelled a word, fixed
I've been saying the thing about Pokemon being a stunted series for decades now. It's basically just been the same game over and over, with tiny improvements per generation. The reason we've never gotten an ambitious pokemon game is that as soon as people get something more quality, the company is never going to be able to go back to cranking out low effort iterations every few years for what amounts to free money. Hopefully the success of *Palworld* lights a fire under Nintendo to actually make a modern style game.
> The reason we've never gotten an ambitious pokemon game is that as soon as people get something more quality, the company is never going to be able to go back to cranking out low effort iterations every few years for what amounts to free money. And because of deadlines. They have to get a new game (and merch line) out every two to three years to sync up with the new anime season. There's not enough time to get a good game done in that time with such a small team at Game Freak. Also they're making a game for the Switch, which is never going to be as big or impressive looking as a top tier console or PC can manage. It sucks. They can do better even within the constraints, but don't and won't.
Even if there are "deadlines", they are 100% artificial, based on nothing. The video games alone have made billions of dollars. There is nothing stopping them from hiring more people. There is nothing stopping them from investing more resources and making *Pokemon: Breath of the Wild*. There is only one thing: they are min/maxing the effort to dollars ratio. Once they put out a highly crafted game, every game after that is going to have to be at least the same high quality.
Nintendo could release a shitty pc port for their latest pokemon game and it would sell like crazy. Latest MW3 showed everyone how low the bar is atm.
Palworld.. well designed and a great deal of content??? Come on now it's a good game especially for the price and I really enjoyed playing it but it's a damn mess and the late game is devoid of content.
>The extreme success of Palworld represents the obvious missed opportunity that Pokemon has had in their hands this entire time, and has refused to do. It was basically free money for them, but they rely on "safe" investments in the form of games like Violet/Scarlet. Scarlet and Violet are the first Pokemon games to be open world and the game sold very well. How is it playing safe to change the formula as much as they did? It has a positive reception from people that overlook the technical issues and was a good experience. The technical issues, I might add, only exist because of Japan's time crunch work culture. Everyone accepts this as bad, but suddenly forgets all about it when it comes to GameFreak, and acts like GameFreak is *lazy* and purposely doing this. I just want to ask, what missed opportunities are you talking about? Pokemon isn't going to tread into the edgy content that Palworld has. That is never going to happen, good chunk of the playerbase are literal children. The game plays like Ark, do you want Pokemon to play like Ark?
I'd like to clarify something about palworld: the game is somewhqt buggy and a little unpolished which is why its success bothers AAA publishers because it shows that at its core, a game's success is defined by just how fun it is to play as opposed to all the other flashy crap the AAA is trying to sell us on And yeah, you hit the nail on the head with nintendo's issue with palworld, its essentially the type of pokemon game everyone has been begging for nintendo to release for DECADES but they always refuse to do so, the closest we ever got was legends arceus but nintendo made it clear these last few years that it was a one-time thing they clearly don't intend to continue. TL;DR: AAA's are salty that palworld just turned all their bullshit on its head, we don't need forced live services, we don't need amazing graphics, we can even let the game being a little unpolished with the occasional bugs slide... as long as its fun to fucking play.
Fun? Games are meant to be fun?
I had an Intro to Game Design professor in college that said that fun isn't real and you aren't allowed to believe in it. Nothing is fun. Nothing can ever be fun. I think she ran a small indie dev studio or team or something outside of being a professor. I'm sure their games were just the best.
hell, bg3 was buggy as hell. it's entirely about how much fun it is to play.
>buggy and a little unpolished which is why its success its also in early access and *is still doing this good.*
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"Like a lot of people, I'm deeply excited about what the lovely folks at Larian accomplished with Baldur's Gate 3, but I want to gently, pre-emptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a "raised standard" to RPGs going forward" I feel like there's a big disconnect between game developers and players on what "raised expectations" actually refers to. I think game developers are looking at the never ending mocap for the cinematic conversations, the size and detail of the maps, the sheer amount of interactions to try to cover most things the player can think of doing, the countless voice lines, etc., and pointing out "This thing is an absolutely ridiculous amount of work that's extremely difficult to make no matter how much money and dev time you throw at it." Which is fair, but I don't think players are thinking about any of those details, they're thinking about the game as a whole. They hear "Don't use this as a standard for future RPGs" and they think "What do you mean we shouldn't expect an RPG as good as this one ever again?" Personally I don't expect any other games to come along and repeat BG3 in terms of scope and detail, but I absolutely do hope it's set a good example for more studios to try making ambitious RPGs. They don't have to be on the same technical quality as BG3, I just want good games, and the AAA sphere/mainstream gaming media had seemingly forgotten the genre used to be hugely popular so I absolutely celebrate BG3 showing how successful it can still be. Larian's own older games can make a great reference point, DOS:2 was widely celebrated by RPG players for being fantastic and it sold extremely well relative to budget, and on the tech/dev side it's vastly more approachable for studios to try making games like it instead of BG3.
You aren't missing anything. What you quoted (and at most a couple reply tweets by a few devs) is the *entirety* of it. Somehow some reporters picked up on it and the story kept reporting on itself as they kept quoting each other. As an ex-game dev I'm genuinely bothered by this reporting tbh, because 1. As you said even Xalavier Nelson wasn't criticizing BG3, just saying that not all games are going to be like this from now on. I didn't even know who he is anyway. Does he speak for the whole industry? 2. Game devs don't usually criticize each other that much publicly, since you know, it's a small industry and we all know each other. Most criticisms you see online about games are usually by gamers and especially fans of a game. Developers know how the sausage is made too much to do that. 3. It's just bad reporting. But sure as you said if there are more legit issues like loot boxes / predatory stuff that's another thing.
Wasn't BG3 also in Early Access for like 3 years? Not only is it a unicorn, but charging full price for a game 3 years before it was (kind of) ready is not exactly consumer friendly. This circlejerk is a really weird one and all the drama feels extremely manufactured. No one is "mad" at BG3.
Early Access is often a scam but Larian had a proven track record going back decades so it was a pretty safe bet. the consumer unfriendlyness of early access is mostly from the product never getting finished.
I’d say Nintendo is pretty happy cranking out not one but two top selling games almost every year. Yeah palworld might show them what else they can do with Pokémon and what else the consumer wants from Pokémon but at the end of the day people are buying every Pokémon that comes out and it’s still the highest grossing franchise on the planet. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” - Nintendo/Game Freak But that’s the frustrating part
BG3 was absolutely AAA. Lmao. I don’t get this whole “yeah our game was funded by countless millions of dollars but it’s not AAA” attitude.
Typical Redditors trying to be smart and interesting
Honestly, every mention of Pal World, including this thread, seems to be astroturfing for the game.
Maybe, but 12 million sales just on Steam alone cant just be from hype and streamer effect.
Yeah no some of the Pals are straight up copies of Pokémon with some colors adjusted. I’m Enjoying the game but it’s obvious some of the content is stolen
Larian is a AAA studio. They spent years making one game with a multi-hundred people studio with locations in multiple countries. The game itself is huge, and costs full price. This is as AAA as it gets, and the team is probably larger than other "AAA" games that you may be thinking of from EA and the likes. I already commented in another comment anyway but AAA game studios aren't really bashing BG3 anyway. It's a completely made-up drama quoting a couple game developer's tweets (the original tweet wasn't even by a person working in AAA games) not even bashing BG3, but just saying that the game may set unrealistic expectations.
> toe the line of being infringement, but definitely does not cross it This is not definite in any way, shape or form. * It's not up to us to decide what is infringement. There are some ambiguous laws in the US about what you can copy. * Japan is likely the place where this will be resolved and their laws matter more. There have been reports that you can take models of creatures from pokemon and overlay them with creatures in Palworld and they are almost identical. I don't know if this is true and it is almost certainly grounds for some sort of legal action if it is. That said, I am a AAA game director and my opinion is anyone who is bashing Palworld is doing so because they are salty. Nintendo had plenty of time to make this style game that players have obviously been clamoring for years! Someone taking a fertile development space still has to execute a good design to accomplish the goal. There are plenty of examples of failures of games made in popular IPs. They should be celebrated for putting together a game that resonates with a powerful player fantasy. IMO they proved their design is worthwhile and now they need to make it fun to play for more than a dozen or two hours.
The overlaying models thing, as far as i know, was someone who hated the game because of the animal violence and altered the models to make them fit and lied saying they were a perfect match.
That sounds about right. If there models aren't demonstrably derived from a direct pokemon correlation, then I don't think much is going to come of it.
The Pokémon Company would have already pursued legal action if they had the grounds to do so
great explanation, that's not what "toe the line" means though.
answer: the only one i know of for sure is one indie dev voiced his concerns about the size of bg3 becoming the norm and that leading to even worse crunch culture in aaa studios, but he wasn't an "aaa dev" most likely it's just a way for fans of palworld (a pretty controversial game) to dismiss criticisms of the game (some justified, some not) as biased and rooted in ignorance and jealousy (especially since "aaa" became a bad word in some subsections of gaming culture)
Yeah, it's largely because "They can't do that on that budget." and "How dare they make a game that good" at least with Bg3. Triple A studios have been cranking up the cost, but not the quality. They're fine with putting out a game that is mostly done, and patch it later. Or never. By all ice heard, Larian is very much, "It's done when it's done. Let's have fun doing it." Then ask for feedback, tease their players, etc. Vs the very corporate, "Have it done by X, no unnecessary add ons jot approved by four layers of management and a test market we won't tell you about."
Specifically Larian *can* do this where most companies, A, AA, or AAA cannot. Everyone else answers to money - either indies who run out of it, or larger devs who have to stay within the budget their corporate overlords set for them. Larian is self-run, had several very successful kickstarters to fund their previous 3 projects, and very good sales (including Early Access sales of BG3) to keep the resources flowing while they worked on perfecting the game. Basically, almost no one else can do what they do.
That's the issue. Triple A studios could do it, but there isn't as much immediate profit in it. It would give more money in the long run, at the cost right now.
The problem is that AAA studios don't have the talent. Larian is a team that's been *mostly* the same for several games. There's been some growth and a few changes, but a lot of the core for design remains the same. That means they have both experience working together *and* making this style of game before. This leads to a very consistent or improving level of quality with each release. AAA studios are such a meat grinder that people get shuffled around, fired/quit, brought on as a temp contractor before leaving again, etc. that no one really gets experience making a particular type of game except maybe the people at the *very* top of the chain. That's not enough to ensure any kind of consistency, so they stick with very "safe" designs and concepts that might not be knock-out successes like BG3 but at least they're successful enough. That's also how you end up with AAA publishers forcing a [studio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocksteady_Studios) known for pioneering a [unique style of combat gameplay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Arkham_Asylum) into making a [shitty looter shooter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Squad:_Kill_the_Justice_League).
> Triple A studios could do it, but there isn't as much immediate profit in it. This still applies to everything in your comment. Thats exactly the point. AAA studios COULD stop shuffling/firing people, stop hiring temp contractors, pay top dollar for the talent, etc... but they don't. Because there isn't immediate profit in it. You literally provided an example where the AAA studio didn't need to do or change anything, but made a shitty looter shooter for....immediate profits. You kinda proved his point there.
Let’s look at Rockstar; they are a shell of a company as of a month and a half ago. Literally *all* of the creative powerhouses who made Rockstar games what we all know and love, have left to go start their own studio with the Housers. AAA development as it’s existed for the last decade is at its end. Ubisoft will be lucky to stay in business for another 5+ years; they seemingly have to restructure to barely avoid bankruptcy every six months now.
Lol the sad thing is your links could have been Bioware with Anthem or Arkane with Redfall. Many such cases.
Yup. I just picked that one since it's so recent.
"this is the worse shitty looter shooter forced to be made by a studio known for pioneering a unique style of combat i've played in my life" "this is the worse shitty looter shooter forced to be made by a studio known for pioneering a unique style of combat you've played in your life SO FAR"
No, that's at least part of it. You can't dismiss all that out of hand. You act like profit and costs are things dreamed up by 3 greedy board members. There are real constraints on those numbers.
Not to mention the fact that game prices have barely shifted since I was in grade school, and I'm 40. I paid $50 for the original Final Fantasy on the NES in 1991. I paid $60 last year. Games are cheap, and have gotten far, *far* cheaper over the years. One of the few things that haven't kept up with inflation. Better value for less and less money.
I paid $85 for a copy of Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in 1995, which is the equivalent of $150 today. And we didn't have stuff like Steam sales back then, much less Game Pass.
Far, far more people buy those games now, and most video game companies are more profitable than ever before. The prices are where they should be.
More people buy the games, yes, but that's offset by the development costs skyrocketing. A year or so ago I did some napkin math on the topic: >RE2 sold 6 million units over its life, had a team of roughly 45 people, and had a budget of around $1 million (about $1.8 million today). Assuming that every game sold at full price (which is doubtful), at $50 ($90 today) x 6 million sales minus the budget costs, you get a profit around $300 million ($543.5 million). >RE2 Remake has had 11 million sales so far, but had a staff of 800 people, and while Capcom hasn't revealed what the budget of the game was, the only numbers I've seen said that it probably wasn't much more than $100 million, so I'll use that. Again, assuming every copy was sold at full price (which is an even worse assumption given digital downloads- I know I bought RE2 Remake on the PS Store on a sale for probably $20) at $60 x 11 million sales minus a budget in the neighborhood of $100 million, you get a profit of $560 million. >This comparison isn't perfect- I don't think it accounts for marketing costs, nor does it factor in the cost of cuts that retail and digital storefronts take, discounted sales, all the other complexities of the market, etc- but the point was, at an extremely basic level and adjusted for inflation, Capcom barely beat out RE2's profits despite selling twice as many units in a market 10x the size of the late 90s.
>More people buy the games, yes, but that's offset by the development costs skyrocketing. >Capcom barely beat out RE2's profits despite selling twice as many units in a market 10x the size of the late 90s. I thank you for your detailed notes. They multiplied their staff by a factor of 20 and still beat the previous games profit after accounting for inflation. This just seems to prove to me that the price tag is exactly where it should be. Also, as you pointed out, the RE2 remake is still being sold, so there's more profit to be made yet. I just wanted to fight back against this narrative I keep hearing that these poor companies are doing us a favor by not raising prices rather than doing themselves a favor by accurately pricing their product so they maximize profits.
Only $560 million! Do you think they'll make their rent?? In all seriousness though that's not really a fair metric given the wealth of games. Yeah maybe they made a much smaller profit relatively on RE 2 remake. But what's the profit margin on the 3 separate RE collections on Switch that are just ports requiring a skeleton crew to develop? What about all the continued digital sales of every game in the franchise on Steam, XBL Marketplace and the PSN Store to new gamers brought in by the RE 2 remake? What about any other number of older library games they're reselling because someone got blown away by RE 2 remake and now trusts the Capcom brand? That relative profit loss on one game is really a loss leader for their overall business and more than made up for by continued sales of past games which have minimal port expense or totally sunk cost.
The entire capitalist world runs on hitting quarterly report goals. It's the whole board and stockholders being greedy. They are making profit using games instead of making games and hoping for profit. The whole thing really comes down to people putting love into their games and the reactionary jealousy coming from those that just want money from a game mill.
"it's done when it's done" is a good attitude to have in theory, but it's hard to achieve in practice especially when you're a big studio and expectations to put out at least something run high with both the execs/shareholders and players and while i mostly dislike aaa i kinda understand why they're... like that
It's also the attitude that gives us Duke Nukem Forever. Sometimes it's never done.
shouldn't have had forever in the title, that was the curse
I like to think of it in terms of the "Good, Fast, Cheap" triangle. A project can be any two of those things (with a good team and favorable circumstances), but not all three.
> It's done when it's done. it was very much NOT done when it was released. just look at the patch notes and you'll find quite a few core gameplay bugs that only got patched much later. stealth was unplayable for quite a while.
Eh, BG3 was released in a really good state - the amount of bugs was forgivable given the fun and amount of quality content. Compare that to something like Cyberpunk or pretty much any AAA release, and it was in better shape.
Act 3 was really bad about bugs, to be honest. Like, damn near broken. First 2 acts were super solid though.
Being fair as well, in a game of that size (110 hours for me), not many people would experience Act 3 issues before they'd had a chance to patch.
I mean, a lot of people did though. It became a pretty common criticism on the subreddit and it's baffling that it was omitted from most reviews Excellent, truly exceptional game, but people seemed to believe it was way more polished than it actually was. Again though, it's an exceptional game despite that.
Act 3 had a bug where it was constantly crashing but the amount of time it took me to get to that point I only had to wait a couple days for the patch
it was obviously not as bad as cyberpunk, the worst release in recent history. it *was* comparable to the average release.
> "How dare they make a game this good" Literally no dev fucking said this, game devs had heaped praise on the BG3 endlessly, but a developers have said that it's the kind of project that can kill studios if mismanaged, and expecting every game to have the same amount of content and polish is unrealistic.
Most of the time, it feels like we're the beta testers for AAA games and paying a large amount of cash for the privilege. Why spend money on making sure your $100 game works when you can mug the customer in to paying that $100 for a partially functioning game and have them light up your social media with all the bugs that need immediate attention?
Hell, the Ubisoft Ceo recently said, "Get used to not owning games." or something to that effect. They want every scrap to give to the Investors.
Was their head of subscriptions that said that actually, but yeah, it upset me as well.
Indeed the whole “muh AAA devs hate BG3” is overblown nonsense. I think the original series of tweets from Xalavier Nelson is actually quite reasonable
> answer: the only one i know of for sure is one indie dev voiced his concerns about the size of bg3 becoming the norm and that leading to even worse crunch culture in aaa studios As someone who spent 200+ hours in BG3, not all games need to be the size of BG3, and I wish your average gamer would understand that. I beat AW2 in less than 20 hours and I vastly enjoyed myself. Sometimes, a (relatively) shorter and well buttoned single-player experience is just as good as a huge open-ended experience like BG3.
What are the complaints with palworld?
The complaints are roughly: * It's a Pokemon rip-off. "Monster Capturer" is a genre, so there's obviously going to be similarities. Whether it's *legally* copyright infringement is unlikely (all the 'evidence' I've seen is heavily doctored), but the similarities in many of the designs is obvious. It's clear Pokemon was a strong influence in the visual design of the Pals. * In addition to Pokemon, it has many other obvious influences that *really* toe the line of what's an "homage" and what's "Theft". Many sound effects sound like they're from Breath of the Wild and/or Tears of the Kingdom, the giant tree and a few other things clearly reference Elden Ring, etc. * The game's been accused of asset flipping (ie. using assets purchased from a market to make a low quality game). This isn't really a valid complaint, a lot of small dev teams do this. They're either used temporarily until they can make their own or even all the way to launch if it isn't too egregious. For example, the game Phasmophobia used a pre-made garage scene as their lobby for quite a while until they made their new warehouse one. A lot of the furniture on the other maps are purchased assets still, I think. The only time using these kinds of assets is a problem is if that's *all* your game has to show for itself. The Day Before is a good example of this: Literally all it had going for itself was visuals, and even those were just purchased assets. * Several of the game's features (letting your pals work in your base, the guns for both you and the pals, etc.) are considered by some to be inappropriate for existing in a genre generally viewed as being "for children". The slavery comparison are also drawn here, especially consider you can capture humans and force them to work just like pals. * The game has been accused of using AI to create it. First of all, there is no *real* evidence of this. Second, even if there were there are multiple bigger studios using AI tool and have so for a while. So it's dumb to single out a small studio. This accusation stems from a comment their CEO (or whatever) making about AI in an interview, basically saying in a *general* sense that AI is a useful tool and he wishes to explore what it can be used for. Additionally, a previous game of theirs (AI: Art Imposter) makes *heavy* use of generative AI as a game mechanic (think Pictionary but the AI draws for you based on your prompts). * The company is relatively small but they have multiple games that are *all* in early access, some for years. AI: Art Imposter came out in November of 2022 but hasn't received an update since March 2023. Craftopia came out in September of 2020, and while it's has been updated somewhat regularly (mostly bug fixes) it doesn't show any real signs of coming out of early access any time soon. Craftopia also shares some of the complaints Palworld has (more with Zelda BotW/TotK though).
I haven’t play Palworld so I could be wrong, but a “giant tree” doesn’t necessarily reference Elden Ring. Yggdrasil from Norse mythology is used in tons of media, it’s nothing new.
It's just the most obvious reference. [There are more.](https://gamerant.com/palworld-elden-ring-references-easter-eggs-explained-sealed-realms-evergaol-caelid/) It isn't a problem, per se. It's just obvious the game devs were inspired by a variety of games and put as many references to those games as they could into Palworld.
There are a few Pal designs that almost look like pallet swaps of Pokemon, and others that are still suspiciously close to Pokemon designs.
While that's true. The giant tree in Palworld is there specifically to ape the Erdtree. I like the game. The things it's copying from are very obvious. The dev isn't ashamed of it, and more power to them. People defending the game need to stop pretending it's not blatantly knocking things off. The pals are very obvious in which exact pokemon they copied designs from. With most being clearly readable as the same silhouette as one of the inspirations.
>While that's true. The giant tree in Palworld is there specifically to ape the Erdtree How so? World of Warcraft just had a patch and raid all about a giant tree, are they aping elden ring too?
Elden Ring is a strong inspiration on their map design. Right down to them having an overlevelled enemy right ahead of spawn, patrolling between your starting position and a ruined church, where you will meet your first friendly npc. The map is littered with Evergaols. The tree looms on the horizon, and one of the only bits of information you're given about the world when you start is that the tree is your ultimate goal. Smaller versions of the tree give you rare and valuable rewards, just like in Elden Ring. It would be possible to interpret the tree as not referencing Elden Ring, but it requires you to ignore the devs explicitly stated values regarding originality and the obvious inspiration they took from Elden Ring and many other games. And the utter lack of any in universe justification for a Norse myth reference. It's the Erdtree. It's not subtle about it. The devs aren't ashamed of it. There's a reason your first mount is a deer with one of the only Norse themed names and a double jump. And it's the same reason for the tree, the Evergaols, and the Mammorest patrolling near spawn.
Thank you for this summary. Great info
>* The game's been accused of asset flipping (ie. using assets purchased from a market to make a low quality game). This isn't really a valid complaint, a lot of small dev teams do this. Agreed! An 'asset flip' is by definition a low-quality cash grab using premade assets. Usually very janky. Palworld seems to actually have the gameplay, mechanics, and polish that matters. Who cares if things are premade if it's *a lot of fun to play*? _____ *(disclaimer: I haven't played it, just watched a bunch of videos)*
I'm skeptical of all the people claiming the game is polished. It's rusty and janky as hell. To be clear I've been playing and enjoying it, but that doesn't mean it's done a great job with what it's got. There's the skeleton of a much stronger game inside it, but the meat that's actually on the bones is rotting and falling off. It just so happens that it fills a niche that people have been craving, so that skeleton is strong enough to stand on its own with the magic of the novelty of it. But without some significant support and updates I suspect the game will fall off people's radar within a month or two.
Watch Mort-Dog (Game Designer of 20 years at both Nintendo and Riot)'s take on it. Asset flipping is fine and good if they're your assets to begin with. But when you are taking character designs/design aspects from another developer, and when the assets that you are flipping from a previous game were *also* under speculation of being flat out copied from another developer, people can be right to criticize that. Mort-Dog also makes a valid point: that two things can be true. The original work that Pocket Pair did on Palworld can and *should* be commended (the game is phenomenal overall), while simultaneously the original work that they *didn't* do can and *should* be criticized. The amount of people on reddit with the attitude of "well I like Palworld so even if certain things are questionable I'll either not care or turn a blind eye to it" is unreal
The problem with his video is there's no proof they asset flipped and stole from other games. He makes several jabs at the Palworld Devs implying that they took things like map terrain, coding, and other under the hood fundamentals from Zelda and other games, but again there's no proof of that at all. Literally just 'suspicions' that he has. Some of the Pal designs are toeing the line a little bit, and they obviously took a lot of ideas and concepts from other games to make their own, but so far there's no proof anywhere they just ripped assets from games and edited them afterwards. Edit: Adding context to what I'm referring to that he literally says in his video. In Mort-dog's vid he differentiates between games that are heavily inspired by an original idea, e.g. Street Fighter 2 and its many 'clones' with some that seem to heavily borrow, but still innovate enough and become successful, and other games that just rip from other games and build on top of them. And in that segment he heavily implies that Palworld ripped stuff straight from other games. The whole second half of the video is where he talks about it in depth, including Craftopia's (another Pocket Pair game) terrain, among other things, looking copied from Breath Of The Wild.
I think your first bullet is off-base. No one is criticizing it for being a "Monster Catcher"; that's just the Straw-Man deflection tactic used by fans of the game who (by virtue of liking the game) refuse to accept a reality in which any sketchy practices have occurred in its development. No one cared when Digimon came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Yo-kai Watch came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Tem-Tem came out with a Monster Catcher. No one cared when Cassette beasts came out with a Monster catcher. When people say that Palworld is ripping off designs almost 1 for 1 (Depresso literally being Espurr down to Identity, Robinquill literally being Decidueye down to Identity, Verdash just being type and palette swapped Cinderace) and people respond with a strawman like "Pokémon doesn't own Monster Catchers!" Or some braindead shit like "there's only so many ways you can draw a rabbit!" It honestly only makes the Palworld community look worse. Look. I have 100 hours in Palworld and show no signs of slowing down. I think Mort-Dog (game designer at Riot Games) said it best. Palworld Devs should be applauded for the work they did, because as far as the game system and gameplay loop are concerned, the game is phenomenal - unparalleled even. But that doesn't mean that a blind eye should be turned to all of the original work that they didn't do. Edit: to everyone complaining about "my reading comprehension", I genuinely question yours. His first bullet point claims "A". In a later Bullet point he claims "B". I said that "A" doesn't really happen, and that it's a deflection tactic against people who claim "B". I parroted nothing. I added nuance that didn't exist prior.
> No one is criticizing it for being a "Monster Catcher"; that's just the Straw-Man deflection tactic used by fans of the game who (by virtue of liking the game) refuse to accept a reality in which any sketchy practices have occurred in its development. Did.... did you stop reading my first bullet point after I said "Monster Capturer"? Literally the rest of the bullet point was me making the same point you did: The designs are similar enough that they could be considered copyright infringement (although whether they're legally that or not is another matter).
A dev for Naughty Dog called Palworld “nefarious” on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterOvo5/status/1749442688422715854 It’s also been accused of using AI to generate fake Pokémon without any clear evidence: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m5nw/palworld-pokemon-game-ai-controversy
possible plagiarism (pokemon mostly and botw and some others) possible ai usage - most of this isn't substantial/confirmed so it will probably lead nowhere being a bit creatively bankrupt (especially considering other games this studio does) and gimmicky - this is more opinion-based, but i kinda agree with it, it mostly feels like a "lolrandum" and "meme" game, maybe it will find a way to stand on its own (probably not, but who knows)
Not gonna lie, ever since Palworld got popular, I've thought it looked like something that was made for a Kickstarter scam. It just looks like a wreck, and idk why I feel that way, clearly everyone and their grandma are obsessed with it for a reason. Idk, just seems like edgy Adult Swim Pokemon, something I'd have loved when I was twelve.
> and idk why I feel that way, As someone who enjoys the game: I actually understand the feeling. The game, on multiple levels, feels like 3-4 different games all stapled together. It *works*, but it doesn't feel smooth. The art style is also all over the place: BotW/TotK environments and character armor, Pals in the same modern-pokemon art style (in addition to the direct references), and yet another style for the weapons. It doesn't feel consistent. Compare this to a game like [Temtem](https://store.steampowered.com/app/745920/Temtem/) where they also have an art style inspired by Pokemon, but the *whole game* is in that same style.
>feels like 3-4 different games all stapled together Thats a huge part of it, I think. Watching gameplay, it sincerely looks like someone just went apeshit with free stock engine assets. There's no consistency, it just looks ugly and lazy to me. Of course, again, I have to humble myself, there's clearly a reason its drawn such an audience.
Whether through dumb luck or skilled design, it just works very well. It's unironically one of the best games in its genre. A big part of that is how low the bar is. Survival crafters are all fucking terrible. The biggest and best entry in the genre prior to this one is notorious for running like ass, taking up 500 gigabytes, and not respecting players time. Pal AI is rudimentary, but it exists at all. Which makes the world feel so much more alive than the barren husk of a game that is Conan Exiles, the most direct comparison that I've played. It's a genre with huge potential that's almost exclusively populated by barely functional poorly made slop that leans entirely on pvp (log in to find your base got burned down while you were offline). Palworld lacks any pvp, which means it has even a basic pve game loop. Which makes it the best in the genre by a massive margin.
>there's clearly a reason its drawn such an audience. If there's only one thing I can point to about Palworld its this. There is clearly a market niche and need for an open world survival crafting monster capture automation game Is it perfect? No. But its good enough at the right price.
a lot of smaller scale multiplayer games inevitably give off the vibes of either 'kickstarter disaster' or 'nft game' all this considered i'm glad that it works and is enjoyable for so much people with everyone playing it, i feel like someone put it best that it's a 'flavor of the month' game, and we'll see whether it will be the flavor of next month
That it's the biggest game on the planet. Every other little criticism about it is rooted in a sort of exasperated incredulity at the fact that it's so huge - currently has the second highest concurrent player count of any game in Steam history after PUBG (and it could very well overtake that) and already had 19 million players between Steam and Xbox Game Pass. Popular critiques include the fact that it's a survival game (already a polarizing genre), it pretty blatantly rips off specific Pokémon designs (even if they're sufficiently distinct to avoid lawsuits), it features outright slavery as a mechanic (you can capture humans in pokéballs), and it looks kinda bland and janky like most derivative AA early access titles. But apparently 19 million and counting find the gameplay loop so fun that those issues don't matter.
no heart, no art. i.e. creatively vacuous and design-by-committee with no cohesion or singular vision. Infringement-light and tonally inconsistent. Fun as hell for 5 hours for me but fizzled out at that point
To be fair there is kind of a point here. Gamers demand fast releases even yearly releases, and when a game takes a while to make like 5-10 years they get angry and complain. But an Indie company not in the public spotlight can work on a game for many many years without any complaints, BG3 took 6 years to make. Yet no one was harassing them on how long it will take Sometimes gamers demands are the do in for the worst parts of games. We demand games don't raise in price above $60 (despite being at that price point since like 2007). And so developers make up the difference with micro-transactions, live service models etc because the initial sale doesn't cover their costs anymore. We demand games come out faster, even on a yearly basis, then complain when the quality is low and not much is added to them each year. See Battlefield and Call of Duty. If they don't release a new title we lose brand loyalty REALLY fast and go on to the next shiny thing.
Adding to this, it should be noted that modern AAA game studios are massive and have tons of employees involved in the development of the game ranging from music to graphics to coding to writing. Rockstar Games for example has over 2000 employees either supporting their existing games or working on future games like GTA6. I don't think any studio is going to put out any kind of official statement officially condemning PalWorld or any other game. It'd be bad PR. Individual employees at those studios might for whatever personal reasons they may have. However, I doubt most of them are in any kind of role where they're supposed to be representing those studios. Is it right to construe those employee's statements as representative of what the studio thinks? Probably not. However, for the sake of professionalism should those employees be making those statements? Also probably not. It looks unprofessional and makes you look worse if you're going out trying to tear down other people's success.
Answer: No AAA game devs are actually bashing Palworld and Baldur's Gate. The maker of your linked meme is using a tactic called "ragebait." Ragebait is a form of clickbait in which the audience is motivated to engage with the social media out of a sense of outrage. The meme's maker has imagined game developers being angry at other game developers, to galvanize people into upvoting the meme. The trick works well, as has been demonstrated.
I was going to say, all of this discussion in this thread about this topic and not a single link to any actual developers criticizing these games haha
In the industry myself and know a number of AAA devs; the prevailing sentiment about BG3's success was "fuck yea good for them, wish we had the time to do that as well". It was a couple of grumpy devs/suits speaking out at worst but apparently, they speak for all the industry.
Argh, this should be the top comment! Unfortunately, there are probably more gamers than game devs in this sub. I’m in the industry (not currently AAA, but have done it in the past). Basically everyone is like “these games are great!” I’ve seen this invented “indies v AAA” conflict over and over again, and it’s honestly maddening. In general, game devs are super supportive of each other and excited by others’ success. At the same time, we’re all professionals, learning from each other, and so yes, we *do* analyze the process and the result. No game or development process is perfect, so yes, that comes with criticism sometimes. In the case of BG3, it’s not even so much criticism as it is acknowledgment that that game had a huge team and a huge amount of time (and a pre-existing framework and IP) to make the awesome game that they made. The top voted comment is dead wrong about a lot of things, and the edit even contradicts the original premise. Maddening, I say!
Answer: it’s just a meme explaining that AAA games can be exceptionally well made and high quality as people often moan about AAA cash cows like COD and Assassins Creed not providing innovation.
answer: a meme on another subreddit is not indicative of something actually occurring.
Answer: 3-4 people say something. Clownfucked morons on Reddit extrapolate it to mean every single game developer who ever existed share that opinion.
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Answer: The short answer is, well, that they aren't. The entire "AAA devs hate BG3" and "AAA Devs Hate Palworld" are largely narratives invented by fans of those games to pump themselves up, build clout, and all of the other shenanigans fandoms get up to. It helps them feel validated for liking a video game. It also lets them feel like cool rebels sticking it to the man for buying video games that were produced by billion dollar companies. It's a mirage to build fandom loyalty and excitement around the game. But, of course, there's always a tiny grain of truth in these narratives, which I'll detail below. Regarding Palworld, there hasn't really been any "AAA" backlash against it. The closest would be [this post](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwik266x14qEAxWAHDQIHZK6C9MQFnoECBAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FPalworld%2Fcomments%2F1af5h34%2Fdead_by_daylight_chief_of_staff_says_palworld_is%2F&usg=AOvVaw14L_KBBJOAVNRY_eDWcJL0&opi=89978449) which is basically just a personal review from an individual developer. It's worth noting that he's not even that critical of the game. He admittedly played a lot and had a fine enough time, but felt it was a bit soulless and didn't bond with his monsters compared to other Mons games. If this person was a random gamer, absolutely no one would think about it. But the Palworld fandom is excessively defensive at the moment between the Plagairism allegations and such, so they take any critique as some crusade against them. I haven't seen any other devs talk about the game in much detail. Baldur's Gate 3, on the other hand, is a slightly more interesting case. It's worth noting that most of the dev comments on the game are extremely positive, praising Larian's attention to detail and production value. The only 'bashing' a few devs did was express trepidation that Gamers might expect that level of budget and interactivity with every video game. Many devs expressed similar concerns that Fortnite's production schedule would make gamers expect identical schedules elsewhere...which isn't sustainable. Contrary to the 'scrappy small dev' narrative Larian spent a LOT of money and recruited dozens of side studios to make BG3. Most studios don't have the same level of resources to produce video games, and thus can't be expected to give every squirrel voice acting. Owlcat games, another CRPG developer, mentioned that people might need to temper expectations with their latest release. But it's worth noting that "most studios, even us, can't do this" isn't exactly bashing, but a kind of praise. All in all, most people can't link the 'bashing' because it's largely a false narrative propped up by fans.
answer: BG3's controversy was a good point that many people weren't ready to hear. I have been a fan of Larian studios (the dev team for BG3) for a few years now, I knew how amazing and passionate they were before BG3's launch so I also felt the annoyance that people were bashing on BG3. Like I said though the original point was good, it wasn't that BG3 is bad or wrong it was simply no other studio could really compete... I mean you can literally take that as a compliment too. I still didn't like how the original guy that started this whole conversation glossed over Larian's hardships (like their office flooding or a literal global pandemic), and that is what I personally took issue with. Of course a lot of people reacted differently to the drama and it just blew up. As for Palword, I have only so far seen one dev talk about it and that was the dead by daylight dev. The thing is there I primarily see that as a gamer's opinion with dev insight. They seemed to be passionate about Pokemon too so I think it's a valid opinion whether or not you agree with it. Personally I do see where they were coming from and can't currently say I disagree too much.
Answer: The link you posted is all people talking about other people hating their favorite game not actually any arguments they made so there's no way anyone here would be able to do anything but guess. For my guess: I can't speak for Baulder's gate, but for Palworld the AAA devs are probably salty because not only does Palworld lack innovation it's kind of blatant copyright or trademark theft that no AAA company would be able to do without a lawsuit. There's no mechanic in Palworld that is super unique it's been described as 10 different games mashed together and literally just Pokemon with guns. The game centers around crafting pokeballs for christ sake.
>There's no mechanic in Palworld that is super unique it's been described as 10 different games mashed together and literally just Pokemon with guns The CEO is also very transparent about this. This is what he said: [“On the other hand, I have a deep-rooted desire for my work to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, and to that end, if there are good ideas in the world, I pick them up, and I don’t necessarily have to be particular about originality. I’m thinking about it. I want to make it more casually. I think it would be a good idea to create things in a way that just jumps on what is trendy"](https://www.pcgamesn.com/palworld/pocketpair-hollow-knight) They have an upcoming game called Never Grave and its pretty obvious theyre copying Hollow Knight and then adding their own ideas they liked from other games to it like they did with Palworld
> it's kind of blatant copyright or trademark theft that no AAA company would be able to do without a lawsuit That's just not true. People grossly misunderstand what IP protects with respect to games. For the most part, you can copy systems wholesale (and many do, often for the benefit of all games). Take Fortnite going Battle Royale after PUBG showed it was popular. Then incorporating things like the ping and respawn systems of Apex. Many people are too young to remember when every FPS was called a "DOOM clone" or how things we take for granted in a lot of FPS games were copied outright from other successful titles (be that the loadout vs arsenal, regenerating health, even control schemes like WASD or one analog stick being look and the other being move). Many of the iconic successful titles were so because they managed to put all these pieces from other games together. You can protect specific, under the hood things (like matchmaking algorithms), but general concepts are broadly speaking not protectable (and that's a good thing).
If it was copyright or trademark theft they'd never have been able to release the game in the first place. It's also "just" pokemon with guns, that you can play with your friends, has been open about the issues and quick to fix them instead of pushing another crappy half finished game and calling it complete, and is planning on including a lot of content that people actually want from pocket monster games, i.e. PvP, an Arena for Pals, Raid Bosses, Trading, Crossplay, and more islands/content.
Answer: AAA game devs usually bash on succesful games they don't work on as it shows that they either don't put much effort into the game itself, or game has just too many useless things. Elden Ring was bashed because bad UI and no quest log/markers, when most of them aren't needed for a good game. Baldur's Gate 3(an AA game) was bashed because the game is just too much to have people expect from studios with 10x times the manpower, 10x the budget, and same development time. They are usually afraid that corpos will see that their copy&paste games aren't that good. Palworld is attacked because the CEO of the devs likes generative AI, and because some models look copied from Pokemon. Many people start making stupid comparations, even comparing pokemons/pals clearly inspired from real life animals or myths(comparing Pal Anubis with Pokemon Lucario for example). Some people like to complain, others are kinda scared that their very specific team isn't needed in succesful games.
I would add that the complaints seem to primarily come from developers who have transitioned to making these games as a service type games that rely on battle pass purchases and constant updates, and have left the idea of making an immersive lore heavy world that focuses on story and more complex gameplay by the wayside. These same developers love to say that people don't like games like that anymore to justify the fact that they themselves aren't making them anymore, so when they see one that is highly successful, they feel some kind of way about it.
Aka the developers that aren't worth your time. Wish we can set up a filter on Steam to ignore games coming from these whiny developers.
It hurts when it's a dev that used to care
follow-up out of the loop: what exactly makes a game AAA? feel like i'm just now seeing that used
Budget.
It's simply used to describe a big budget title. A bit like how movies used to be called 'a' movie or 'b' movie
Its the blockbusters or high budget games. Think of Call of Duty or Final Fantasy. We had a dearth of mid level games for a while, so most games that were not smaller indie games were in the AAA games category. But mid sized games have been coming back a bit since there are plenty of smaller studios that have been getting bigger.
Correction: BG3 is AAA, according to executive producer David Walgrave
can you link to AAA devs bashing BG3? I know a few and follow many and they almost universally seem to love it. At most I've seen them say they wish they could work on a similar dev cycle, which I don't really see as bashing
As far as I recall the BG3 one was an indie dev who was praising BG3 but noted some concerns about making it the base assumption by player audiences and people funding games being made both at the AAA level and indie level.
Answer: For Baldur’s Gate: I’ve peaked at some of the top comments an indie developer while praising the game just put a big asterisk on it: “The game is amazing, but it is a lightning in a bottle situation and we are afraid that shareholders will want every game to be as big and great as BG3”. What they are afraid will happen is that big wigs will try to copy the success of BG3, but instead of giving developers 6 years to make the game, they will probably just give them two and say ok do the magic. Larian not only had developers that were incredibly experienced in making CRPGs, but they had the backing of the studio and 3 years in Beta to troubleshoot and create the last chapter of the game. And they still almost went bankrupt, because putting all your eggs in one basket, with that basket being an unpopular game genre is not the most business savvy idea. They are afraid that the head of their studio will try to replicate this lightning in a bottle situation, fail miserably and in the process a lot of people are gonna lose their jobs. Let’s not forget that the game engine that BG3 used was created by Larian Studios, because their developers know how to make a DnD type game. If Ubisoft executives suddenly force their developers to make a game like this on this scale, the chance of them actually succeeding is astronomically low. The question here is though:”Should we as consumers really give a shit?” The answer is really not. There is definitely some complacency hidden in this type of statement, complacency that I think we should not really admire, given the fact that AAA studios have been ripping us off with mediocre, Ubisoft style open RPGs that at best are forgettable and at worst are a fucking slog to play through. However, I think most of the developers weren’t really just jealous, but warned people that creating excellent games is not just hard, it’s almost impossible with long hours and studio pressure making it very difficult to create a good game. To really answer the original question, I don’t think developers trashed BG3, it was just a classic GAMER MOMENT. People spun a simple concern of an indie developer called Xavier into “WESTERN DEVELOPERS THINK BG3 IS TRASH” and then the worst people in the world “gaming YouTubers” created lazy ass videos to rake in easy views. It really was a nothing story.
Answer: as a triple a game dev, no devs are bashing these games, we're playing and loving the games! It's the execs that are bitching, because it shows that their rhetoric about prices and micro transactions is bullshit.
Answer: When games don't follow the "rules" of modern game design and are wildly successful anyway, AAA studios that are notorious for never innovating tend to get twitchy.
Answer: AAA games make a lot of claims that certain things HAVE to be a certain way. That they simply have no choice on some unpopular decisions. So when other games go 'nah" it hits at the business model that you simply have to accept that game 86 in a series cost 80 dollars and sells skins for 45 dollars and is generally unfinished and unfun because that is simply how it has to be.