Why don't we have better games?

[GamerErrant]

@Sitrec;294363

Well, while I agree that the developers of studios that push out the same game over and over aren’t greedy nor lazy, I do think that their publishers or whoever decide that they should puke out a new version every year most definitely is very greedy and lazy. I’m however not saying that they are stupid or that most wouldn’t do the same in their situation since it obviously works, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t greedy either.

So if you ship a successful game that sells extremely well, you shouldn’t even consider making a sequel? When someone stumbles on a game idea that has a huge fan following, you should do your best to avoid making something similar? Sorry, if you want to be a successful business you go where the money is - how unique and original your games are doesn’t mean jack when your studio goes under before your second title is released. Even medium sized independent studios pump out sequels to their most popular titles and steal ideas from other popular games. It’s not greed or laziness - it’s how you sustain a successful studio. Pay the bills with stuff that sells, and build your experimental ideas on the side in hopes that they spawn a new IP to milk - rinse and repeat. I mean, would we even have this awesome engine if Epic hadn’t milked the Unreal series to keep afloat?

And lets not forget, for every independent studio that creates a new and unique gameplay experience, there are 99 more that are just making clones of other popular games… it’s hardly a practice reserved for the mega-publishers of the world.

@Sitrec;294363

I don’t think anyone blames the regular people that are working hard at these studios making these games. But there is definitely “easy” money to be made if you compare it to titles that are developed for way longer and contains tons of original content rather than a reskin with some new gimmick that took less than two years to make.

The person I replied to was, literally, saying independent developers were more creative and open-minded.

Game development is largely an iterative process, in every sense of the word. As someone who’s worked at small independent start-ups, medium sized indie studios, and large mega-publishers - it annoys me when people paint this broad brush idea that only ‘indie’ studios are the ones being (or capable of being) creative. Publishers take sizable risks all the time - the only difference is when a mega-publisher fails everyone sees it. The game usually still gets released, gets bad press, the layoffs are announced, and commentators wax poetic about how the studio ‘sold out’, ‘had it coming’, and ‘isn’t the same’. It’s a very public failure, and a situation successful studios try to avoid.

When the small indie startup fails - nobody hears about it. No game is released, no fanbase is upset, no press coverage, no mass-layoffs… just a dead idea nobody really knew about. It’s very easy to pick out the handful of good indie games that ‘made it’ and claim how original indie developers are - while simultaneously ignoring the thousands of indie games that were just clones of other successful games or never even made it to release.