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'

[u/CiabattaKatsuie]

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?

[u/Difficult-Celery-891]

I think developing a good team of developers and not firing them right after a game is launched is pretty important too. I don't believe it's just a gaming industry issue but companies don't put enough money into staff training and retention. They should treat good developers and managers like star athletes and work on their bullpens.

[u/Golden-Owl → u/Difficult-Celery-891]

“If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.”

• Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo, 2013

Note that this was during their worse years of the Wii U era

It’s important to have corporate leaders who understand both the business AND game development aspects of their company and industry. Without that experience and personal investment, a company will not achieve meaningful long term growth

[u/SuperSaiyanIR → u/Golden-Owl]

Nintendo maybe a piece of shit company to consumers and customers alike, but they know how to make games. Unfortunately, Pokemon isn't one of them, but hopefully that changes.

[u/Golden-Owl → u/SuperSaiyanIR]

Personally speaking, as both a consumer and (former) developer, that’s the most important thing

I buy a game because I want a good game, and Nintendo, to this day, consistently makes good games

Not every project they make is maximally profitable, but every bit adds to their total portfolio, which pays serious dividends in the long term thanks to remakes and remasters

Too many other big game companies nowadays are too busy floundering around with other nonsense and aren’t focusing on that most basic of principles

I personally feel that Nintendo still understands the core values of the craft, and definitely are NOT a “piece of shit company to customers and consumers”. But we’ll agree to disagree there

Also they aren’t in charge of Pokemon. They only have a partial ownership over TPCi

[u/The4th88 → u/Golden-Owl]

I buy a game because I want a good game, and Nintendo, to this day, consistently makes good games

Holy shit, this.

It doesn't matter what console gen in history you're talking about. You could walk into a shop at any time since the release of the N64, buy a brand new console and any random Nintendo IP launch title blind and you're guaranteed of a few things:

• The game will be good.

• The game will be finished.

• The game will be playable on your hardware.

It's a sad indictment of the rest of the gaming industry that at least points 2 and 3 aren't the standard, but that's the current gaming environment.

[u/JirachiWishmaker → u/The4th88]

Heck, bump it back to the SNES. SNES has one of the greatest launch title lineups in console history. NES launch lineup was pretty cool too, but definitely took a shotgun approach and not all games landed as well.

[u/Sanguinusshiboleth → u/The4th88]

This is what helped them in the American market when the NES was first released; the 1983 viseo game saw the American market flooded with cheap games, causing companies like Atari to massive loss of consumer confidence. When Nintendo came it focused on making few better games, which sold better, where a better use of resources and limited the supply of games to avoid market saturation.

[u/shadowylurking → u/The4th88]

“Game would be finished” is a crazy underrated met expectation

[u/maladroitx → u/Golden-Owl]

Also, Nintendo doesn't spend 57754677 trillion dollars making their games because Nintendo Switch is a very simple console that can't run something quite complex like most Playstation, Xbox or AAA PC games. Less money spent = better financial management = less people being fired (although this can still happen) = more willingness from devs to try out new ideas = more creative, fun and quality games, and I'm saying this as a PS owner that don't have a Switch.

[u/alexchrist → u/maladroitx]

If you have the money for it, then I would highly recommend buying a switch just to play Tears of the Kingdom. It's honestly the best gaming experience I had last year

[u/XoRMiAS → u/alexchrist]

Yeah, it’s already one of my favorite games.
I think a huge part is that they could reuse a lot from BotW. Just goes to show that if you’re making a sequel, you shouldn’t use it as an opportunity to cheap out; use it as an opportunity to deliver a game with twice as much content.

[u/Pharmakokinetic → u/Golden-Owl]

Yeah, Nintendo has their own issues of "the Japanese businessmen really still do not understand the internet at all and don't get why people want internet features like cloud saves" but, fundamentally they still just provide games to people the way they have since the late 80s now