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AppGameKit Classic Chat / Do You Prefer Large High-Budget Games or Small to Tiny No-to-Low-Budget Games?

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 6th Jul 2017 18:26 Edited at: 6th Jul 2017 18:40
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Hey all.

I am curious what are your views on game size when it comes to desktop play?

Do you prefer games the size and production quality of Witcher 3, the latest COD and other modern AAA games?

Or do you prefer small or even tiny games with low production quality?

Or do you not have any preference and like all games regardless of size and production quality?


Tiny no-to-low-budget production games I define as being like these...

Bit Blaster XL


ORCS


Boot Hill Blaster



Small no-to-low-budget production games I define as being like these...

Delver


Environmental Station Alpha


Intrude



Just for the record... when I refer to these games as tiny or small and no-to-low-budget I am in no way making light of them or the effort involved to create them. I am just talking within the context of the overall gaming industry. Compared to something like Skyrim, Witcher 3, Diablo 3, etc these games are small and even tiny and they are truly often no-to-very-low-budget.

Also... I greatly enjoy these kind of games and to me they represent the true Indies. I know many people won't agree because they go by the record company definition of an Indie being any developer not receiving backing by a big publisher but to me Indie has and always will mean "the little guys and gals". Very much like the solo and extremely tiny teams making shareware games years ago. These are the kind of people I want to support.

I should say... I DO play AAA games too. It's just that I greatly appreciate the games the tiny Indies are creating. It makes for a much more diverse and interesting gaming landscape!

How about you? Do you prefer mainstream gaming? The games produced by huge Indie teams? Or do you prefer the works of the tiny Indies?
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PartTimeCoder
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Posted: 6th Jul 2017 18:56
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Depends really never really thought about it, I do not have a specific preference as some small indie games can be very addicting and some AAA games bore me to death, I think it depends on the platform I'm using, on the XBox I generally like driving games so expect AAA standards, I'm currently playing Dirt 4, I don't have the patience or eyesight to play AAA games on mobile so tend to only play small clicker games while waiting for a train/bus etc some are indie but some from pretty big studios, on the PC FPS is my thing so again AAA is best but still play some small indie and web clicker games.

I have been watching "Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit" and "Go 8 Bit DLC" on Dave (UK TV channel) .... its a good walk down memory lane and kinda covers the topic you have brought up here.
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Lucas Tiridath
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Posted: 6th Jul 2017 19:33
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Perhaps ironically, seeing how I work for a fairly large game studio producing stuff more at the AAA end, whilst my own independent efforts fall very much at the "no-to-low-budget" end, I think the games I enjoy the most actually tend fall somewhere in between the two. Looking at the credits, they tend to be developed by very small independent teams, but usually ones that still have some financial resources and operate somewhat more professionally than the really tiny indies. I'm thinking here of games like The Banner Saga (Stoic), Sunless Sea (Failbetter), Prison Architect (Introversion), Jotun (Thunder Lotus), Banished (Shining Rock), This War of Mine (11 bit) etc.

Obviously there's quite a bit of variety even within that, and I do enjoy games outside of that spectrum too. I played a fair bit of The Witcher 3, and still tend to buy some of the big name strategy games like Civilization, Total War etc., and there are definitely some super-low budget gems out there too (e.g. Pony Island), but overall, I'd say that most of my recent favourites have fallen into the small-medium indie space on the spectrum.
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Markus
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Posted: 6th Jul 2017 20:09 Edited at: 6th Jul 2017 20:10
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i grown up with c64 and pixels, but currently i like AAA titles because they use the hardware, have very nice graphics, and a story where you feel you are part of a movie.
most of the small games are so simple and repeating the same concept again and again. you need one button to hit something and everything will kill you.
in small budget i like hidden object games, they have good graphics and also a story.
"free" games i using none because annoying advertising. i reject also games with in-app purchase and virtual currency, means games with avarice for money.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 6th Jul 2017 20:30 Edited at: 6th Jul 2017 20:31
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Thanks for all of the participation guys!

This is excellent very interesting information.

It sounds like the majority of you are more keen on what I'd consider large and even AAA-Indie (for lack of a better term... well big budget Indie perhaps) games.
Which I think certainly represents the majority of gamers so is not that surprising.

I'd be interested in hearing from more people particularly the developers here who are making Indie games along the lines of the ones I listed above. Actually that one game Boot Hill Blaster was created by a person here.

I guess that is what I am wondering now...

Do you buy and enjoy playing the kind of games you are creating & selling as an Indie?

I think the answers to that will be quite interesting indeed!

Maybe I should make a separate thread for that so this can stay completely targeted. But if anyone wants to share their answer to that question feel free to.
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Lucas Tiridath
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Posted: 7th Jul 2017 16:53
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Quote: "Which I think certainly represents the majority of gamers so is not that surprising."

Do you think that's true? I always feel like the big AAA titles still soak up most of the market. Maybe that's just the impression you get from the size of their marketing budgets though!

Quote: "Do you buy and enjoy playing the kind of games you are creating & selling as an Indie?"

I certainly aspire to make the kind of games I actually like to play, although my efforts have invariably fallen short, both due to a lack of skill and resources on my part.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 7th Jul 2017 17:14 Edited at: 7th Jul 2017 17:15
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Hey @Lucas Tiridath I meant most gamers (desktop) I believe tend to prefer games that are larger with higher production quality more than tiny no-to-low budget games. Definitely think AAA games sell far more on average than Indie games (although there have been one or more exceptions in recent years) and yes I do believe a huge part of that is due to the massive marketing power of the AAA game companies and brand recognition.

If you put $100 million into smart marketing I suspect you could sell a lot of any game even a straightforward Space Invaders clone.

AAA has to go for more generic games taking much less risk on new ideas so they can count on the games appealing to a large number of gamers. And this gives us COD 4000 (ok not quite yet) and other lines of sequels. Where they mainly innovate and iterate is on the presentation / production quality.

At least that is the way I see it... AAA recipe is make the same basic game as they made last time only improve the graphics and other aspects of presentation and maybe include few tiny new ideas but nothing revolutionary so they don't risk alienating their audience because they NEED to make millions and even tens of millions of sales.

Thanks for participating in the discussion!
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SpecTre
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Posted: 7th Jul 2017 23:47 Edited at: 7th Jul 2017 23:49
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Hi GarBenjamin,

I have to admit I am not a fan of AAA games, although I have a PS3/4, XBOX 360/ONE and Wii U.
I much prefer the type of games you are showing above and am mad on retro games.
Hell I bought the XBOX One for Rare Replay!


When I get chance to play some games I always go back to the XBOX OG and coinops though

The Amiga and Amos were great!
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 8th Jul 2017 00:38
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@SpecTre that's awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing those videos. And I also greatly like the old arcade coin-ops.

I completely get that each person has things they like & dislike but one thing I have never quite understood are the number of people who come into game dev (in recent years) wanting to make a COD clone, Skyrim clone and so forth. I mean I understand those games are very impressive as far as the graphics are concerned and primarily for the amount of content they have. But really I don't think these games are nearly as innovative and diverse as the games used to be many years ago. The arcades were filled with all kinds of cool games. And the home computers had their own distinct style of games as well. And the consoles too. I mean sure some of them all had arcade ports but they all had their unique titles and provided a somewhat unique gaming experience too IMO.

A solo developer (or even a team of 3 to 4 people) are not going to make something equivalent of a modern AAA game. And even if they could somehow clone themselves 20 times over and pull it off they won't have the marketing muscle to compete with the AAA games. So it makes a lot more sense for these folks to do what the successful Indie devs are doing. Stop looking at the AAA games (at least in whole) and focus on making very small, somewhat innovative, polished games. And I think a great base for that is taking a classic game and building on it. Of course, a person could also take a modern AAA game and extract only one aspect of it and build a game solely around that. Kind of like rts games and tower defense games.
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Richard_6
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Posted: 8th Jul 2017 03:39 Edited at: 8th Jul 2017 03:42
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I like in special creative Indie 2D games like these 3:







They might not be AAA, but they provide a great atmosphere!
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 8th Jul 2017 05:26 Edited at: 8th Jul 2017 05:27
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@Richard_6 thanks for sharing those. I must say those games are not my cup of tea so to speak but I can see why there would be people who greatly enjoy them. They have a very distinct presentation and even gameplay for the most part. And two of the three appear to be deep games in that they seem to be exploring aspects of humans / human life. And definitely these are awesome examples of Indie games. Being completely different from AAA releases. This is another great way for Indies to carve out a niche... exploring things the AAA will never do... cannot afford to do.
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Dybing
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Posted: 8th Jul 2017 18:16 Edited at: 8th Jul 2017 18:19
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I enjoy good games - regardless of budget. How much cash is sunk into a project need not be an indicator of quality. Though that said, what you see from AAA titles from major publishers is more or less akin to what you see from Hollywood - endless sequels designed by focus-group. Which is to say bland and forgettable as they try and please too many at once. Which make room for more 'niche' games from smaller developers. Some recent titles I've enjoyed very much is Factorio and Transport Fever - both made by really small teams and mostly word-of-mouth PR. Great quality and enjoyable - if not addictive - gameplay helped too naturally.

(edit: I had to quit playing Factorio as it inflamed my Carpal-Tunnel on my 'keyboard' hand... Stretching that out took a good two weeks of pain!)
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 8th Jul 2017 22:09
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@Dybing I searched for those on YouTube and yes both look interesting. Seems like you prefer games with a strategy / management focus. Definitely agree about the niche games being the way to go. That is another reason I don't understand the number of people I have seen hit the Unity forums over the years asking about making Skyrim, COD, etc. The AAA companies are already making those games and have far more resources to put into them. Make something smaller. Something different.
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Richard_6
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Posted: 9th Jul 2017 05:28 Edited at: 9th Jul 2017 05:30
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Talking about gaming styles and strategy, as soon as I started with AppGameKit, I was researching the great-grand-father of computer games... the board games. I was trying to understand why some games are so incredible and others are just good, but not outstanding. In board games, I learned that the specialists separate the tactics and the strategy. Strategy is the big plan to win while tactics is the ongoing play steps.

Somehow, games that have these two elements well balanced have more chances to succeed. In the computer arena, I would say we have strategy, tactics and operations (which could be called arcade). In my opinion, games like Clash Royale have a great balance for that (not a kind of game that attracts me though). Sometimes even arcade games have strategy elements... specially if we think that we are "molding" our characters or ships in our way to prepare them to the upcoming events.

Well... just some thoughts to help us define what we want in our games I still don't have much experience developing games, so I'll keep learning from you guys!

Btw, would be nice if there was a thread where we could team up with other AppGameKit developers to build games together
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PartTimeCoder
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Posted: 9th Jul 2017 05:40 Edited at: 9th Jul 2017 05:42
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Quote: "Btw, would be nice if there was a thread where we could team up with other AppGameKit developers to build games together"


Generally speaking I don't think TGC like people to be making "team requests", I have seen users get a lot of stick in the past so I would read the AUP before proceeding with that one.

Edit: found it
AUP wrote: "
Team Requests

We do not allow any form of team requests. This sort of discussion should be handled via the PM system in the majority of cases, with the exception of the Off Topic board where we do allow team requests for established projects only! This includes asking to join a team, asking people to join your team or asking about creating teams."
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SpecTre
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Posted: 10th Jul 2017 01:02
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Quote: "Btw, would be nice if there was a thread where we could team up with other AppGameKit developers to build games together"


Head over to the official Slack channel as there is a section there for team requests.
Not as many people on the Slack channel yet as there are in the forums.
The Amiga and Amos were great!
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