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I miss AA games. The games that are between AAA soulless factory products and pretentious indie crap. Games made with about 20, 30 people, that are have some money (a few millions) but generally not enough for publishers to really care about them and can offer more hardcore, different or innovative experience while still being 3d and a bit bigger than your average indie pixel art game.
Those teams were really present 10 years ago, and that's why we saw so many interesting and good games on PC and PS2. Now, the development for 3d games is more expensive and they can't compete with 150 member teams with millions and millions of dollars behind them, at least visually not, so people are inclined to not purchase the game.
One of those examples is Styx, which I really liked. Anything else like that? Not a stealth game necessarily, but an underrated AA game not many mainstream people know about or is underrated? I think good examples would also be stuff like Stalker, Darksiders, Divinity Original Sin, Cryostasis, Singularity... any more?
>>321575175
Paradox pretty much specialises in publishing games like that.
>>321575175
or you know they could not dedicate HALF the budget to marketing and push out games in HALF the time
>>321575175
This is a problem in the western vidya industry right now. It's swamped with AAA compromise and indie pixelshit with little ground in between.
I guess Tripwire is still AA but they won't be for long.
>>321575175
They call this the "middle market", and I also miss it. The 6th generation was pretty much the last time it existed.
>>321575175
I've always felt like the games industry has been missing something since the PS3/360/Wii generation, and now I realize that what it was missing was just what you describe.
What are some good AA PS4 games?
>>321577917
There aren't any. AA games don't really exist anymore.
>>321577552
Yeah, I've been figuring that out for a while as well. I think the time this really died was around 2008 or so, with giant blockbusters starting to come out. 2007 was the last year of the golden age.
>>321577348
There are some here and there, but really rare.
>>321577917
Styx and Divinity Original Sin are available on PS4, other than that not so much.
But yes, I really miss some good AA games. I remember I could just pick up a random PS2 game and it was great, stuff like The Suffering for example.
Can we put the "AA" meme to rest pls, it never fucking existed. Games have always been expensive to develop and make, we didn't get different tiers of games until we hit the 1080p era and budgets spiraled out of control.
>>321578261
Are you retarded?
>>321578261
wrong
>>321578261
Did you not read the OP?
>>321578261
It exists, in movies and games.
AA game or movie is somewhere between 1 and 10 million, which actually isn't much for games or movies. They are produced with a small team and can afford to be more risky, since they didn't spend much money on it.
The big blockbusters are made with at least 100 millions, and therefore must be widely accepted by everyone.
Japan still does those. They just tend to aim at specific niche audiences.
For example Vanillaware is solidly in that middle market area, they're not indie but they're a small team working with small budgests (Dragon's Crown was their most expensive game and the budget on that was only ~$1,000,000).
>>321578261
That's simply not true. Let's take the PS2, for example. You had stuff like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid - big budget AAA games from big studios, with massive marketing. Then you had stuff like Psi-Ops, Darkwatch, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. Those were good games that weren't huge.
Now you're either CoD or Gone Home. The disparity is greater.
Second sight was good.
Come to think of it, freedom fighters was good to, albeit a bit simplistic.
And for me personally, the army of two games have that AA feel to them.
>>321579086
Yeah, Japan targets a niche audience and usually makes better games because of that. A more popular game like that is Dark Souls.
>>321579221
Second Sight and Psi Ops were great. I think most IO interactive games were kinda AA games, especially Hitman games (up to Blood Money).
>>321579092
>>321578261
Basically - back then it was easier to make games that looked up to par with what AAA games were doing. You didn't need a lighting artist, 7 level designers with different tasks, particle effects guy, tens of programmers for realistic shaders and I dunno what else.
You could do everything with a small team and it still looked pretty damn good. Luckily this might soon change with stuff like UE4 and Unity going free, so people might churn out some good things again. We'll see.
>>321575175
Darksiders was very fun
THQ used to have plenty of those too
Klei comes to mind. Still consumer friendly but their games push the pure indie boundary.
There was an interview with some developer recently who I can't remember saying AA games are the future
It might have been Swen from Larian
>>321580190
I hope he's right. The middle market was often where most of the best games were.
>>321575175
Risen was comfy as fuck.
>>321580190
Well yes, what else is? Pixel games are slowly dying off, so small indie teams need to think bigger. With UE4 being free, as well as stuff like Unity and upcoming engines, it's easier than ever to keep up with AAA games, at least on a first glance.
Also, a lot of people joined gaming in 2007 with 8th generation market. That's almost 8 years now, and those people, believe it or not, started growing some taste after playing a lot of games. COD games, AC games, etc., even fucking Fallout 4 this year, are losing the popularity and people acknowledge that they aren't as good. So they might be ready for something new.
We'll see. Hopefully it happens.
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>>321580620
A negative side effect, at least over the last couple of years, of more powerful engiens becoming cheaper and easier to develop for, is the fucking tidal wave of bland indie "open world survival" games.
I actually gave up counting them all.
>>321581641
They sell well so they keep making them.
>>321581641
It's a new genre.
>>321580620
I hope you're right. I had hopes for indie devs until it became apparent that they mostly wanted to make artsy retro-looking stuff instead of traditional games with lower budgets and more creativity.
>>321581641
I was trying to get in the games industry as an artist a couple of years ago. Since then I have changed two employers. Both working on autism-cubes type of game with sandbox gameplay and survival elements.
And the current employer is using Unity on top of that.
Not exactly something I was preparing for, but can't complain.
>>321583119
Most modern indies is "I want to make a game but can't program or make 3d models". So they end up with something that can be done using a bunch of tutorials.
I mean oftentimes the games are not very good artistically either. People can't draw so they end up doing crappy pixel sprites.
It's annoying as fuck, and I'm kinda glad that these games are flopping because of the market saturation.
>>321575175
Oh god this. Anyone remember torchlight?
>>321583571
I could even get past lower-quality graphics if the games themselves were simply lower-budget alternatives to regular games, in all the usual genres (and some that are mostly dead, like space sims).
I also wish so many of them weren't so dead set on being "quirky" and took themselves seriously.
>>321584304
I love Torchlight.
>>321575175
Tripwire Interactive is pretty good, even if Killing Floor 2 is being developed at snail speed, I can't wait for Rising Storm 2
>>321577917
EDF 4.1
>>321575175
The fuck is a AA game?
>>321586683
try reading the thread retard
>>321575175
The AI being fucking retarded was my only problem with this game, otherwise I enjoyed it even though it was easy.
Of Orcs and Men 2 when?
