Low-Budget Games Steal Spotlight After Covid Delays Big Names (bloomberg.com) 42
The annual video game convention E3 is normally full of teasers for splashy, graphic-rich games from big-name studios and surprise announcements about new titles. But this year's online-only event was much quieter, with many hot releases delayed as a result of the pandemic. That gave games from independent studios a chance to steal the show. From a report: Some of the most impressive reveals this year were small-scale, indie games that may not have the wow factor of something like Ubisoft Entertainment SA's Assassin's Creed but appealed to fans with interesting story lines, quirky graphics or unusual gameplay. Highlights included Replaced, a gorgeous cyberpunk-themed action game and debut title from Sad Cat Studios, and Twelve Minutes, in which players must break a time loop full of betrayal and murder. The game, from a division of film company Annapurna Pictures, stars Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe. Entries like these delighted fans and showcased the breadth of possibilities of video games.
Most years, E3 takes place in Los Angeles, where fans and industry professionals convene at the convention center to play demos and watch trailers for the hottest new games. Commercials and giant posters from expensive series like Call of Duty compete for attendees' eyeballs, and fans come away excited about what's coming in the fall. This year, while there will be Microsoft's Halo Infinite, promised in time for the holidays after a year's delay, Nintendo's highly anticipated next game in the Zelda series won't come until next year. Same with Elden Ring, a much-hyped dark fantasy based on the book that inspired Game of Thrones. Fans didn't seem to mind, and left the show raving instead about Tunic, a Zelda-inspired action-adventure game starring a small fox developed by Canadian creator Andrew Shouldice, and Neko Ghost, Jump, a platforming game from Burgos Games, in which you can shift between 2D and 3D perspectives.
This explosion of independent games, which are usually made by small teams that aren't funded by multi-billion-dollar corporations like Electronic Arts, or Activision Blizzard, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the late 2000s, developers mostly had to partner with big publishers to get their games to audiences. The rise of digital distribution on PCs and consoles combined with the increased accessibility of game-making tools such as the Unity Engine have made it easy for solo developers, or two or three people working in a garage, to release successful games on their own. Some companies, such as Annapurna Interactive and Devolver Digital, have thrived as independent publishers, partnering with developers to release exclusively small, creative games.
Most years, E3 takes place in Los Angeles, where fans and industry professionals convene at the convention center to play demos and watch trailers for the hottest new games. Commercials and giant posters from expensive series like Call of Duty compete for attendees' eyeballs, and fans come away excited about what's coming in the fall. This year, while there will be Microsoft's Halo Infinite, promised in time for the holidays after a year's delay, Nintendo's highly anticipated next game in the Zelda series won't come until next year. Same with Elden Ring, a much-hyped dark fantasy based on the book that inspired Game of Thrones. Fans didn't seem to mind, and left the show raving instead about Tunic, a Zelda-inspired action-adventure game starring a small fox developed by Canadian creator Andrew Shouldice, and Neko Ghost, Jump, a platforming game from Burgos Games, in which you can shift between 2D and 3D perspectives.
This explosion of independent games, which are usually made by small teams that aren't funded by multi-billion-dollar corporations like Electronic Arts, or Activision Blizzard, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the late 2000s, developers mostly had to partner with big publishers to get their games to audiences. The rise of digital distribution on PCs and consoles combined with the increased accessibility of game-making tools such as the Unity Engine have made it easy for solo developers, or two or three people working in a garage, to release successful games on their own. Some companies, such as Annapurna Interactive and Devolver Digital, have thrived as independent publishers, partnering with developers to release exclusively small, creative games.
Indie games can be really good (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Indie games can be really good (Score:5, Insightful)
Cannot agree more. The non-AAA titles often have more playablility, and even though they may not have the latest and greatest graphics, which is often cleverly worked around by a retro feel, going with an animation style, or other items, they often are worth far more for the money than the titles that one winds up paying a huge chunk of cash for it + DLC, then losing access to once the console maker shuts down the network.
This is also why I recommend GOG for games as a primary source, then Steam after that. Until the console and video card shortages are done with, might as well kick back and play something that doesn't have to push hardware to its limits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indie games for the many years now have been really good like Hollow Knight which was made by 3 people originally.
Agreed. I bought FTL maybe a year after the two-man team released it and I still find myself playing it for 20-40 minutes here and there while I wait for something else close to a decade later. Can't say that about many of the AAA games I've bought in the past decade.
Re: Indie games can be really good (Score:2)
Agreed agreed. I've had many hours from Prison Architect. With AAA games I'd struggle to think of a title other than Civ V that has held my interest.
Re: (Score:2)
Indie games for the many years now have been really good like Hollow Knight which was made by 3 people originally. They are limited in that a small studio cannot make a photo realistic FPS like CoD but there is a lot of originality and creativity in the games. Also the games are way cheaper than the big studios. I would encourage people to buy them on Steam or console online store. At worst you spent a little money even if you do not like the game in the end.
One thing I've learned from gaming for almost 30 years, is that gameplay and stability are king (shininess is pretty much dead last), and that there's generally an inverse relationship between price and fun. Any time I spend $50 on a PC game, I end up disappointed, but the $10-20 ones I end up putting 100s of hours into. I'm also usually skeptical of anything cross-developed for consoles, as those tend to be dumbed down for mass market appeal, with cumbersome interfaces that get in the way of just enjoying
The EASY button. (Score:2)
This explosion of independent games, which are usually made by small teams that aren't funded by multi-billion-dollar corporations like Electronic Arts, or Activision Blizzard, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the late 2000s, developers mostly had to partner with big publishers to get their games to audiences. The rise of digital distribution on PCs and consoles combined with the increased accessibility of game-making tools such as the Unity Engine have made it easy for solo developers, or two or three people working in a garage, to release successful games on their own.
Yes it has, and as the early days of Steam's Greenlighting and perpetual Early Access has shown it also has a lot of less than stellar titles as well. Tools and easy distribution are no substitute for talent and skill.
Re:The EASY button. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it has, and as the early days of Steam's Greenlighting and perpetual Early Access has shown it also has a lot of less than stellar titles as well. Tools and easy distribution are no substitute for talent and skill.
Sturgeon's Law tells us that 90% of everything is crap. Back when it was just the big studios churning out video game titles we could at least generally count on the turds being highly polished. But they were still crap. With the bar for entry so low these days, however, we're seeing a constant stream of unpolished turds, but we're also seeing an explosion in innovative ideas that are helping to keep things fresh. It's also nice that so many of these smaller studios recognize that a smaller game shouldn't cost as much, so rather than paying $70 for a mediocre 80+ hour game, you can pay $5-20 for something really special that doesn't overstay its welcome beyond the few hours that make sense.
Moreover, given that early access can be safely ignored by anyone—such as myself—who wants to play it safe, and that it's allowed a number of great games that almost certainly wouldn't have made it otherwise to be funded all the way through to release, I view it was a very good thing. Ideas that are worthy and that find their niche in the market are able to get the funding they need to make it. Ideas that aren't worthwhile get weeded out. I mean, the game that popularized the idea of early access is now the best-selling game of all-time—Minecraft—so we know it can result in good outcomes, and we've seen a large number of additional success stories in the time since then (e.g. Fortnite, Subnautica, Kerbal Space Program, Prison Architect, Don't Starve, DayZ, Dead Cells, etc., all of which began in early access, though some of them obviously had publisher backing).
Re: The EASY button. (Score:2)
Does Steam still offer games that aren't in early access?
I haven't come across a fully working title on Steam in years. It's a cesspool.
Re: (Score:3)
I haven't come across a fully working title on Steam in years. It's a cesspool.
That's just the state of the industry these days. Ever since patches became possible with the Internet, quality has dropped off significantly. Even though they don't bill them as such, AAA games regularly launch in an incomplete state that should be treated as beta or early access. Play a AAA title a year after it launches, and it'll oftentimes feel and play like a completely different game.
That's not Steam's fault. The problem you're describing is the result of sleazy publishers (read: most of them) trying
Re: (Score:2)
It's kind of Steams fault when the "early" part kind of becomes a running joke when a game is still in it eight years [steampowered.com] and going and still on mostly in alpha.
Re: (Score:2)
It's kind of Steams fault when the "early" part kind of becomes a running joke when a game is still in it eight years [steampowered.com] and going and still on mostly in alpha.
I wish they'd just left it alone back when it was zombie Minecraft with collapsible blocks.
It didn't get cool base building features like I hoped, instead it went down an annoying survival sim path with dysentery... and rabies and crap.
That's another problem with early access, besides the project might stall out, it can also change dramatically from where you hoped it would go, but you already paid for it.
Like Planetary Annihilation trading on Total Annihilation's name then ending up nowhere remotely close
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Or at least get some IRL friends.
Good luck with that for the next several months, at least until your IRL friends and their children become eligible to get vaccinated against the cause of the present pandemic.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Score:2)
But no mention of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. My son has been looking forward to it since it was first supposed to come out last year
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they definitely have a strange definition of "Spring" 2021....
Yo Grark
Re: (Score:3)
But no mention of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. My son has been looking forward to it since it was first supposed to come out last year
Because that's from a major studio with a tie-in to a massive corporations property, and isn't what we're talking about at all?
Grumpy old man voice (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good story, nice to hear, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
re: COVID (Score:2)
Exactly! I don't know what kind of mismanagement is going on at major game dev studios -- but I would have thought:
1. The mainstream video game market would be absolutely booming with everyone stuck at home for over a year, unwilling to go out much and looking for anything to do for entertainment.
2. Software development was one of very few things that could continue pretty much uninterrupted by all of this, since your devs can code from home just fine and can collaborate via videoconferencing or chat sessi
Re: (Score:2)
I have to lol when I think of the heads of game development at big studios seizing on COVID-19 as a catch-all justification for game delays.
Development delays are basically the norm, but writing this off as an excuse is poor form. It's painfully evident that 2020 / 2021 has been a far worse than normal year for big development studios across the board. Right now about the only thing they have in common is a pandemic. It is far easier for an indie studio to keep working than fill a building up full of people.
That said you are undoubtedly right about some of these delays. I'm sure there are plenty of studios simply using COVID as a scapegoat too.
Re:Good story, nice to hear, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Slashdot in general is bad about understanding things outside their bubble. Those discussions about being in the office apply double in creative oriented professions like game design because people are bouncing ideas off each other on a regular basis. Something harder to capture in a remote setting.
Re: (Score:2)
Pandemic delaying games (Score:4, Interesting)
In the article, the comment about the pandemic delaying games links to a Bloomberg article about remote work slowing development [bloomberg.com]. Here on Slashdot I get the impression that everyone loves remote work and nobody thinks going into the office is a good thing any longer. I see comments about there being no evidence that working remotely is slower.
Yet few individuals I have spoken with in person claim that their remote work experience is as efficient as coming into the office. Many people *prefer* remote work, but they are not denying the efficiency loss. The biggest benefit cited is eliminating travel time. The delays reported in the Bloomberg article are not surprising. Having been employed writing software for >20 years, I have been on remote projects many times. Some were a mix. Every company that has remote teams acknowledges it is a challenge. Running a team with people in different time zones is especially painful. Every company in that situation has a travel budget because some meetings just needed to get people face-to-face. Those days where you fly to the customer site and hammer things out in a room full of whiteboards are mentally intense and efficient.
Yes, some executives abused that to fly 1st-class and take vacations. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It is more difficult to collaborate on a design over the phone. Video conferences + screen share are a poor substitute for what we can do in a room together. There have been times when we have driven or flown into the office because we needed a white board, some sheets of paper, and some shared monitors to get something done. Just this week I was working with a group troubleshooting a network problem and we got stuck because we needed an easy way to draw a diagram and start crossing off network links that we knew were not the problem. Visio + MSPaint + screen share + the whiteboard app in Microsoft Teams just wasn't cutting it. Perhaps there are ways to collaborate efficiently with just audio + a screen, but what I have seen in the last year is the same thing I experienced a decade ago when I was working remotely: it's just not the same.
Some industries will be hit worse. Web design might not be as tough as engineering. Games seem quite virtual, why delays there? Well, if you visit a game studio you see people with crazy high-end tower computers, multiple video cards, developer versions of consoles, multiple controllers, many sized monitors, artwork plastered on the wall everywhere - that's not easy to replicate remotely.
I look forward to a mix of remote and office work, and kids going back to live schooling. This has been an interesting experiment for sure.
Re:Pandemic delaying games (Score:4, Informative)
This is video game dev. The fact that your home has a bed already puts the studio at a disadvantage. When you're at the office crunching 24/7, you can't sleep comfortably and discouraged from doing it at all.
Visio + MSPaint + screen share + the whiteboard app in Microsoft Teams just wasn't cutting it.
Spend the money on a Wacom or other drawing tablet. Nothing fancy - something like the Bamboo. My wife runs a program where college students who have already passed a class with a good grade host weekly study sessions with those currently in the class. After moving to Zoom, it was a bit of a challenge at first.
Once they got their hands on drawing tablets, it was pretty well as good as paper/whiteboard again, even over zoom.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a fabulous idea! I'm gonna try that.
Re: (Score:3)
Here on Slashdot I get the impression that everyone loves remote work and nobody thinks going into the office is a good thing any longer. I see comments about there being no evidence that working remotely is slower.
The results are HIGHLY dependent on profession and design of your team. Personally I feel like I get far more done. Generally I feel like my company is suffering without us being in the office. The number of problems we solved in hallways and at watercoolers which now require some scheduled Teams call from people whose calendars are full are ludicrous.
If you live and work in a bubble, not being in the office full of distractions would be great. If you however work in a team that needs to remain in constant
Re: Pandemic delaying games (Score:2)
We shipped a AAA game with no more delays than we normally see. Some people adapted poorly, some (like me) had no trouble. Communication is a conscious effort, and so those of us that were committed to making it work (and weren't also trying to wrangle kids or whatever) made it work. No doubt there were growing pains, but just the ability to work somewhere quiet for the day made me more productive than I could be at the office. Open plans are the devil; if I had had a private office before the pandemic, may
Re: Pandemic delaying games (Score:2)
Oh, and as for the high end computers, we just used Remote Desktop and Stadia dev. It was no problem. I did most of my work at home on an old Mac Mini connected to a PC at my old desk.
Indie games are better (Score:2)
Because what big studios like EA have lost touch with is the heart and care that goes into crafting a a compelling narrative that reaches an emotional attachment to the player. Fancy graphics don't do that.
Re: (Score:1)
AAA- capable rigs are impossible to build now (Score:1)
I've been an avid PC gamer for over 30 years. (Score:2)
This is not something new. None of the big studio shit shows trying to milk their long dead franchises started out that way.
Some of the smaller studios can put together BETTER EXPERIENCES than the AAA sweat shops trying to get quarterly bonuses. Indie games are also where practically all innovation and new ideas come from.
In fact, if all you wanted to play was rehashed AAA garbage there would be no need to have a PC at all, much less even an marginal gaming one.
I recently finished Starcom Nexus (1 man stu
Re: (Score:2)
Only 30? I remember when Paradroid, Stunt Car Racer and Attack of the Mutant Camels were the best games available, with better gameplay than studio titles and graphics just as good.
Sure, Repton 3 hasn't aged too well but Elite's influence continues to resonate through the industry.
The computer games industry has always had a massive indie element to it, that's continually put out innovative and deep games and that pushes boundaries in ways the big studios then look to copy and incorporate into their large b