r/gaming • u/CiabattaKatsuie Console • Oct 01 '24

The games industry is undergoing a 'generational change,' says Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: 'A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling'

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-games-industry-is-undergoing-a-generational-change-says-epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-a-lot-of-games-are-released-with-high-budgets-and-theyre-not-selling/

Tim Sweeney apparently thinks big budget games fail because... They aren't social enough? I personally feel that this is BS, but what do you guys think? Is there a trend to support his comments?

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u/domiran Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 02 '24

There are plenty of single player games that sell extremely well that aren't social at all, though?

Complain all you want about Valve. As long as they stay a private company, I'm happy with them effectively holding the reigns of PC gaming.

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u/JingleJangleJin Oct 02 '24

It's been almost fifteen years since EA boldly stated 'single player games are finished'.

These corpo fucks are choosing to be ignorant.

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u/domiran Oct 02 '24 edited Oct 02 '24

Final Fantasy 16, Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, God of War, and like every Zelda game says hi. 🙄

[Edit]

Added a few more obvious games.

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u/Sharktoothdecay Oct 02 '24

pokemon the most profitable thing ever is a single player experience first for most of the games before you can trade and battle

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u/Akrevics Oct 02 '24

and they're still getting lazy with that. there's so much they could do to make that experience richer for the billions of fans they have, yet they're churning out weird mechanics for another 100 more Pokémon or variations in another bs region and oops ran out of time, here's a half-assed rendered world to plop them into, we'll take your $€60 and no sales 5 years after release.

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u/Golden-Owl Switch Oct 02 '24

Because that’s where the money is.

Pokemon is an oddball among game franchises because the actual game sales only comprise a minority of their profits

The bulk of the franchise’s income stems from the ludicrous volume of merchandise and licensing they do based on the Pokemon designs. It’s like 4-5 times the game sales

It’s no exaggeration to say that the 100+ new designs per game they make generate far more profit that the game they were made in

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u/FewAdvertising9647 Oct 02 '24

I mean its not the oddball, its the endgoal for all major IPs. For the western world, an example is Star Wars. the game sales don't really matter, the bulk of their profit is merchandise.

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u/TakingThe7 Oct 02 '24

Ultimately game quality does help in merchandise selling. You’re not gonna buy merchandise for a shitty game.

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u/Sharktoothdecay Oct 02 '24

ever since they graduated from the 3ds these games have gotten bad and i say this as a life long pokemon fan

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u/sephtis Oct 02 '24

It started with the 3DS. Sun and Moon was the last game I bought.
How do you lag a console by making a pokemons model glow?

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u/TandBusquets Oct 02 '24

3DS was the start of the series being bad and stagnant

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u/basketofseals Oct 02 '24

I wonder how much of it can be blamed on B&W. That really felt like their highest effort game yet, and they kinda got punched in the nads for it.

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u/TandBusquets Oct 02 '24

I never played B&W or B&W2 and I still feel the stagnancy in the series.

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u/EasternSquadGoosey Oct 02 '24

Not B&W, more so B2&W2, back when those came out I refused to buy them because I wasnt paying 40€ for the same game again. How naive...

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u/fweb34 Oct 02 '24

Did you play Legends Arceus? That game was actually fun. Otherwise I fully agree and I got Scarlet/Violet refunded bc it was buggy empty trash where you could only go inside 1% of the buildings. Like fuck.. I want to find a weird item in some guys trashcan after he says some inane thing to me after I barge into his house

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u/Zeusicideal-Heart Oct 02 '24

Wasnt Arceus outsourced? I could see that beimg the reason it wasnt buggy garbage

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u/fweb34 Oct 09 '24

I dont think so, i remember hearing that it was their "B Team"

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u/Zeusicideal-Heart Oct 10 '24

Aah, thank you for clarifying!

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u/TheBman26 Oct 02 '24

Arceous was the best game in years.

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u/ReleaseTheCracken69 Oct 02 '24

That's not saying much though

1

u/FuzzyPuddingBowl Oct 02 '24

Same, was actually about collecting/interacting with pokemon, which is really what it's all about imo. I mean the tagline is gotta catch em all. Not battle 100 trainers mashing your abilities. Hope they do another similar style.

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u/Money_Echidna2605 Oct 02 '24

that shit isnt pokemon tho? i wanna play a pokemon game not breathe of the wild lmao. its a cool spin off but saying its the best pokemon game in years is dumb as shit

1

u/Jona_cc Oct 02 '24

I still haven’t touched the game again.I’ve been waiting patiently for them to release a good one on switch.

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

The Pokémon Company are some of the laziest people going. They refuse to release a VIrtual Console for the Switch, which would allow you to play all the older games from the GB, DS, GameCube and other eras.

Their open world ideas suck and fall flat. Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet were just terrible. Legends Arceus has been the only good Switch game so far and that's because it was made by an entirely different team.

And let's not even go there with how they butchered the Gen 4 remakes. I'm never forgiving them for that.

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u/Akrevics Oct 02 '24

The remakes, imo, were the better ones because they at least modernised them and didn’t add these new bs mechanics. There was no 3d environment to not give a shit about like arceus, scarlet and violet, no weird new Pokémon, etc. I’m not a gen-one’er, I would’ve *loved arceus and SV had they given them another year to polish the graphics. BOTW proves it’s not a limitation of the console they’re on, it’s just pure laziness and unnecessary rushing. Pokémon are quickly finding out that graphics matter when you enter 3D games, less so with sprite games.

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u/kalex33 Oct 02 '24

Pokémon is living of its brand and nostalgia though.

The game quality has been dogshit for years, and they are only getting worse. Pokémon scarlet is so terribly bad optimized that you drop below 20 FPS when walking outside in the grass.

We had the golden era of Emerald, HeartGold/SoulSilver that were high quality games with tons of content. Honorary mentions being Platinum with decent post-game content.

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u/Sharktoothdecay Oct 02 '24

i love platinum the most because it had the most content and story

love that game so much

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u/Wassertopf Oct 02 '24

Pokémon is different. They sell primarily merchandise and occasionally some games.

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u/hankypanky87 Oct 02 '24

That’s why it blows my mind there are almost no turn based battle games coming out.

People play video games to relax, if I need to step away from the game for a half hour and come back to cast thunderbolt I appreciate being able to do it with no consequences.

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u/TheSoupKitchen Oct 02 '24

Let's not have Pokémon in a discussion about good video games.

Strip the IP off those games and they are undoubtedly some of the worst video games of the modern day.

Game Freak struck gold a few decades ago and have been coasting ever since.

But yes you are right. It is a single player game that sells well.

1

u/smash8890 Oct 02 '24

What? Pokémon has a massive online competitive scene that the entire game is balanced around and it gets regular updates and tournaments.