The video game industry is a beast that is constantly changing and evolving. As a result of this there have been multiple highs and lows throughout the years. The past few years have been something of a mixed bag. We’ve seen multiple games by triple A developers be absolute flops. Many of these boasting large price tags. Meanwhile, games made by smaller studios with lower prices have been hits. This could be showing a change in the status quo.
The Triple A Blunders
There’s no one thing that have caused triple A games to nose-dive in recent years, but there is certainly a pattern that helps break it down.
Remasters
There’s nothing wrong with seeing a remaster or port of a game that you love. And many remasters such as the N. Sane Trilogy have been handled particularly well. However, many, perhaps most remasters over the past two or three years have been disappointing to say the least. There’s many examples to pull from but there’s three in particular that sum it up best. One of the worst offenders is the new Classic Battlefront. At first it seemed like everything fans had wanted. A faithful remake of the original two Battlefront games with a little extra content. However upon release the problems were immediately apparent. Particularly the absurd file size and the fact that on release there were only two PC servers to play on. Making it so only about 200 people could play at once.
Battlefront remasters were nearly unplayable upon release.
Another is the lazy Red Dead Redemption port for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch. While this wasn’t necessarily a “remaster”, for the price it should’ve been. The price they set it at was $50. It offered no new content and only a minor graphics update. Upon release, it didn’t even run at 60 fps. It wasn’t until an update months later that it would be able to run at 60 fps.
Rockstar also fumbled the GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas remasters. These were some of the anticipated remasters and they also turned out to be some of the worst. The style of the graphics was compared to The Sims as opposed to any effort to make them look more realistic. Additionally, all of the old files were still present, including music they no longer had licenses to, and the infamous “hot coffee” game mode. This means that they basically just recycled everything instead of putting in the effort to change it. Not to mention the poor framerates and vast amount of glitches.
Shaky Releases
Many games over the past few years have been pretty bad on release. More often than not this is caused by glitches in the game. The most common example of this is Cyberpunk 2077. As with most cases the biggest problem is it was plagued with glitches upon release. This was also a big problem with Starfield. While both games did still end up being relatively popular, both of them were hurt severely with the negative reception on release, and would have resonated much better with players had the glitches not been an issue.
T-posing was one of the many glitches plaguing Cyberpunk 2077 on release.
This relates in part to many games not being optimized on release. This is particularly a problem on PC. This is especially problematic with the rise in PC gaming in recent years, and with many portable devices running Windows. A large issue is file size.
Suicide Squad is a great example of a game that had an absolutely atrocious release. Largely in part to it being a live service game when it had no reason to be. This also feeds into an issue that many players point out. Many of these games are in development for years and are still releasing in these states. Suicide Squad was nine years in the making and still released in an inexcusable state. The fact that it was live service and had what many fans consider to be some of the worst writing in a DC game, made the game basically dead on release.
Abandonment
Unfortunately, games being abandoned is becoming an increasing trend. This isn’t always entirely the fault of the developers, as sometimes the games just grow old and lose their player base, but that’s not always the case. Not to dog pile on Rockstar once again, but this is the case with Red Dead Redemption 2. The game hasn’t been completely abandoned as there are still updates being made to it, but these updates are mostly just small changes to the online mode. Red Dead Online still has an extremely active player base, but Rockstar’s focus has been mainly on GTA 6. The issue however is GTA 5 Online is still receiving major updates. So clearly, Rockstar is just more focused on their more profitable game. It has been 2 years since Red Dead Online has received a major update, and even longer since single-player has.
It’s been years since RDO’s last major update.
Then there are cases of absolute abandonment. Ubisoft is having this issue right now with their game, The Crew. The Crew was an open world, MMO style driving game. Ubisoft recently shut down the servers for the game and released no offline patch so the game is unplayable. Now there was a chance to salvage it, since people could’ve played on private servers, but Ubisoft took away that possibility. Not only has Ubisoft delisted the game, but they have made it impossible to access through Ubisoft Connect. So not only has Ubisoft abandoned this game, they made it impossible to access through legal channels.
The Light in the Darkness
It’s not only important to explain what Triple A developers have done wrong, but give specific examples to show why these failures have ruined potentially great games. This also gives solid evidence of these blunders ruining the games. But, some of the most successful games recently have been given to us by small developers, and sometimes even teams of just a few people. And the biggest difference is the price tag on these games.
A great example is Helldivers 2. Helldivers 2 is only $40 and has lots of care put into it. And since its release only a few weeks ago, there have been consistent updates improving the game. This game has great graphics and amazing gameplay with devs that actively listen to the community. Another game that has been wildly popular is Lethal Company. This of course is on the opposite side of the spectrum of Helldivers but it’s a game that is just genuinely fun to play. Even Among Us from a few years ago could fit into this category.
Helldivers 2 has made its way to one of the top selling games on Steam.
The most important thing these games have is passion. Developers who genuinely care about the game and are want to give players a fun experience. Moreover, these they are far less than the $60, $70, and $80 games we’ve seen of late. They are great games that don’t break the bank. Helldivers 2, Lethal Company, and even Palworld were also some of the top selling games on Steam. Not only that, but they are still trending topics on social media with plenty of memes and TikToks about each. And of course there are dozens of other examples you can pull from.
Despite a rough couple of years in the gaming industry, the positive takeaway is things seem to be changing. These games made by smaller developers are full of passion and offer a great experience to the gaming community as a whole. And, many of them are only $10-$40. Not the $70 flops we’ve seen recently. So, if we keeping rewarding these games, hopefully we’ll continue to see a positive shift in the industry.
