Let me begin by saying, indie titles lately have been absolutely flying, from Cult of the Lamb to Hades and Still Wakes the Deep, indie developers are coming out swinging! Though, more to the point, why aren’t we seeing the triple-A video game developers hitting a relative level of quality and success as of late? Read on my fellow nerds and prepare yourself for a controversial take.
Due to a huge surge in popularity, indie developers are reaping the rewards and gaining more of a foothold in the modern gaming landscape. We all know how quickly gaming fans can turn their heads but let’s face the facts here, triple-A games have been, as a whole, pretty hit-or-miss as of late. Moreso missing with many of the overly hyped-up games that have come crashing down on their own heads.
A grand example of this would be Battlefield 2042, which was pitched to be a revolutionary entry in the Battlefield franchise that would reinvigorate prior fans and bring in new players alike, yet it was absolutely the opposite, much like Dragon Age: The Veilguard which fell way short of expectations as well. EA as a company has typically been associated with stellar game franchises like Mass Effect and Battlefield among many others, and hopefully in future projects will seek to rediscover and exhibit some of that former glory. Star Wars Outlaws, was another big budget title developed by a triple-A studio that was met with general critical and commercial failure, though it was initially destined for the stars with its vast marketing campaign and expensive licensing deals, but it just lost sight of the fun factor.
What I’m saying is that triple-A games aren’t hitting those triple-A expectations, and this is where indie developers are gaining the edge in the market and cutting through the gaps. The big point is that the Indie devs can be more creative and more innovative simply down to the fact that they aren’t beholden to stakeholders and other commercial pressure. Triple-A studios on the other hand, face immense pressure to perform at a minimum threshold, move units and sell on a big scale (yes, I’m looking at you Warner Bros, go away with your Suicide Squad battle pass). Another mention to the same point is that many indie developers are free to take unique approaches to games in the presentation of their mechanics, storytelling and artistic styles. This is what triple-A titles are overlooking and saturating the market with rinse and repeat ideas, complete with live service add-ons.
When was the last time that a big studio listened to the fans by the way? I can’t think of many, apart from Techland listening to their fans about climbing to the top of the antenna in Dying Light 2 and adding guns (mad respect to Techland), or Capcom actually utilizing the feedback from their player surveys. Big wigs who sit atop the hierarchy of development make the decisions for a profitable quarter for their shareholders more often than not, leaving fans of the properties that they are mismanaging disinterested and often disgusted with the handling of their favorite IPs. Those guys haven’t listened to the common gaming community for a long, long time, and it has greatly affected their bottom line.
This isn’t me saying that big studios don’t listen, because there are studios that invest in providing consistent updates to their games based on community feedback, such as Capcom, CD Projekt Red, Techland, and SEGA, who literally employ talented fans to their company to help improve the experience for fans with similar interests and opinions. My point is that Indie studios have a strong community connection, as quite a lot of Indie titles are crowdfunded such as Star Citizen, The Sinking City, and Hollow Knight to name a few. This isn’t the full extent of their reach as their community’s input typically finds its way into the titles, and big surprise, players enjoy that!
Now, let us talk about the elephant in the room here, cost efficiency. Triple-A studios often face scrutiny on their incoming sales vs their outgoings on development, this makes it a very tight spot for some of the big studios to venture far from the path in terms of making a title more creative and in turn have to deal with more complex systems in development.
Not only this, they also have to combat the pressures of having a high budget and keeping the performance of the game at the very center of focus, however what we do know as fellow gamers that just because a game has an unlimited budget does not mean by any margin that it will be a good game, many big budget games have been let-downs as previously mentioned but on the flip side not all big budget games fail such as your GTA‘s, previous Call Of Duty‘s and Red Dead‘s.
On the opposite end of the scale to this, smaller studios such as your indie ones can play around with a smaller budget meaning they have that room to make a mistake because they can have a quicker turnaround time meaning they can create a new title on the back of a mistake. This makes the indie studios generally never-ending in terms of how they can remodel games and get those creative juices flowing, but not just this, those little studios can collect feedback and roll with the punches far easier than the big boys can (move along Mindseye, no one wants you here).
Look, this isn’t me bashing triple-A titles and studios for the sake of indie developers doing well right now. I just firmly believe that right now indie studios are doing very well at what they are doing, producing hits which are bending the knee of large titles, however not all big scale titles are taking hits as easy as others are.
Whatever type of gamer you are, it’s a fantastic time to be alive, there are games for everyone, and the market is thriving with new titles being released weekly and genres being expanded in ways we have never seen before! It all boils down to what you prefer or if you have a varied taste, comparing the two against each other will always show obvious differences and similarities, however indie games have been taking the gaps in the market and really rolling with them.
For me personally, I believe that indie titles are thinking outside the box and coming into the market with new and exciting ways for us to play our games, which is where the big studios sometimes fail as they stick to the old plan and try to muddle through. One example of this is Rocksteady hitting the ball out the park with the Arkham series with the Batman titles absolutely running the show for Rocksteady, then all of a sudden Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad came along and literally broke that formula down because of poor choices from the studio in desperation for money. Yes, that IS me saying we should have got another addition to the Arkham series in the form of a reformed Batman.
Let us know what you guys think in the comments below. Do you think that indie gaming is revolutionizing the gaming scene?
