Well Triple A games are kinda different then a triple A studio.
Most games that are released commercially are not triple A games. Heck I don't even think Starcraft was a Triple A at the time.
Blizzard was fairly successful company by the time that Starcraft rolled around, with having D1 and WC2 being great hits, along with their moderate console titles, that everyone has forgotten.
The reason why Triple A games tend to be rather "safe" is mostly because they are extremely expencive, the reason they are so lowest common denominator is because they HAVE to appeal to a wide audiance or else they will fail (If a triple A game doesn't sell millions of copies they lose money).
The folks that make the game, tend to get paid less if they were working in other industries. So, its not really the money there either. Production Studios, tend to be more about the money, but it is their money on the line, and if they keep investing in games that cant do RoI, they'll be out of business too. Its not bad that games are commercial.
It is something indie games don't have to deal with. Indie games can appeal to a niche market and can rely on anywhere from a hundred to a thousand sales and thus they are not constrained by the market.
Where Triple-A games can be criticised, however, is that the market for them is larger then producers and developers think it is and that they are often done purely for money. Which the issue isn't that they want to make money but rather that a lot of these games feel almost entirely about the money. Which given that games are often considered a form of artistic expression it means that triple As are often like terrible but popular popsongs that are manufactured to sell.
You're contradicting yourself. You cant bemoan Triple A studio for not making a 'niche' game, while admitting they need to sell millions when the market is only a few thousand.
My disapointment isn't that triple A games are usually bland and unchallenging. My disapointment is that even a lot of the non-triple A titles are going for gold. While my disapointment in indie games is a lot of them just take certain elements of "classics" but don't pull them off to the same degree or polish of the same games they are taking from.
Note: I am using the definition of Triple A to refer to the production and not the sale.
I wouldnt call most triple A games bland. Their storyworld can be pretty neat and have enveloped our modern story culture thingy. Look at Dishonored, as a fairly recent addition. I also wouldnt call them unchallenging. Challenge is pretty personal word there. Theres lot of challenge in older games, which are artifical and or just totally unfair. Just as an arbitrarily example, I was playing through King Quest 1, and that game was fairly hard but it wasnt hard because of player agency but because the game was just being a dick. Like, first screen, I walked right into the moat. That was balls, even back then. And there other things like, the Parser isnt as neat as it should be, like searching the tree stump for the bag in it. That requires very particular verbage to do.
And yea, I do agree that a lot of Indy games are just clamoring for 8-bit classic, or whatever, while falling fairly short of the polish and tenacity that the 8-bit classic had.
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Topic: FTL - Faster than light - spaceship crew management and roguelike. (Read 373287 times)