You're right, the best selling games have been single-player focused. So why has Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, ActivisionBlizzard, Warner Bros, and Sony Interactive been pushing to jump on the recent extraction shooter trend? Hell, find me a triple A publisher that does not have a live-service game being maintained, I'll wait.

If you're argument is that AAA is not wasting millions of dollars on chasing trends, you'll have to find more evidence than all their projects being failures.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Larian

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That just proves other strategies have success. AAA bullshit and good games can both be successful.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Uhhh… k? BG3 is not a AAA game?

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

It's AAA in a sense, but it isn't bullshit. In fact, indie games can be bullshit in the form of asset flips, knock offs, and uninspired crap. Budget doesn't directly determine bullshit, it's just that AAA bullshit is a more noticeable issue.

Regardless, great media makes money alongside trash media. That's how it's always been, we just don't remember the trash as much.

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago

Because they're not all failures, they're also making single player games and you're assuming that the one example of publishers wanting to tick a box in their lineup is somehow all they (let alone the entire industry) are producing.

The fact that people are making extraction shooters doesn't mean they're not making anything else. Warner's biggest game this year is a narrative RPG. EA's biggest game is (as always) a sports game, and their highest reviewed games are a Star Wars single player action game and a single player horror game. Sony's biggest game is an open world superhero action game. I don't know about Ubi's sales off the top of my head, but what they've shipped recently is a 2D metroidvania and a throwback to classic Assassin's Creed.

I don't understand why you want publishers to be judged by what they don't make, as opposed to what they make. Major publishers are billion dollar companies that put out many games. I have zero problems with EA running Apex Legends if I get to play Dead Space. I have zero problems with Sony trying to get a live service game going if they keep making insanely refined narrative action games. I don't enjoy every game people make, but I don't hate that people make games that are not for me if there are also games for me happening at the same time.