AAA

That's really connecting with their communities, connecting with their brands and being on the platform to do that.

And I'm seeing these like really large AAA studios are struggling.

They're coming across as that bot who goes in a Reddit thread saying, buy my game.

And they're finding it so much more difficult to kind of move.

That's cool.

I think like the big discourse for the average thing that, you know, that people are talking about, or that's bringing up conversation in the community is like, why like okay if some random guy came up with this probably by himself like how has there not been comparable blizzard type things in wow to do right because clearly this is up their alley when they you know like they did things like plunder storm they could make this right this is that that's crazy yeah well well exactly right like that's kind of i think what everybody's really disappointed about is not so much that like oh this is the next cool game it's like Aren't they a AAA studio with millions and millions of dollars and a lot of the best minds in game development? How is there not just...

stuff like this coming out for for us for blizzard right like we talked about that idea originally in dragonflight about how they're trying to add value to the wow subscription and have stuff and like little mini games and why are we getting you know ascended assault void corrupted stone missions for the 17th time rather than this right like where is this how and again like the closest thing they did announce something like this in the the blizzcon or ever but like you know so you know how it's been in the works for six months and they have to hype it up and it's not coming in four months and it's like why i don't know just it just sort of makes you realize how little blizzard is doing or how much more that we want them to be doing

yeah i mean they do have this tailbound thing which is like a a roguelite which the last time i heard that blizzard was coming out with a roguelite was torgast and that was a smashing success um Yeah, I mean, when is this coming out? It's available for...

The issue is the phrase quality control is quite poignant in this situation, right? Because notoriously we've had some of the lowest quality, most buggy, worst patches that have come out in video games as a whole.

And I love to try and defend Blizzard in these things, but they are undefendable now at this point.

So If they were to hide behind the guise of we are a AAA studio and everything we publish must be extremely high quality and bug-free when it releases, that's laughable at this point, right? That to me is – and I understand you're just trying to do it for them, but that is not a defensible reason in my eyes.

Look, that's just the reason that it happens is that they go through all the layers.

Yeah.

I mean, let's just talk about morale amongst AAA studio development employees.

Whether you work at EA or Xbox, any of the Bethesda studios, Activision, Blizzard, any of that.

It's like, how do you even...

And I think it's something where you will only be able to figure out what works for you by trying all of these different things.

So it is really, really helpful to be looking at studios, whether they're indie or AAA or something, figure out what they're doing, figure out why it's working, and then specifically figure out what you like about it, and then adapting that for yourself.

I struggle to call this marketing, but in a way it was.

When I was making Qualia, I really wanted to make DLC.

Or EA Games.

going to live service games because it makes them money, right? Versus single player games, right? That don't really make these AAA or AA studios money at all.

So, yeah, it's insane where the gaming industry is going other than, you know, it's changing for...

Either the worst or the best.

So Saber Interactive boss champions the return of AA games following the Hellraiser success as they revealed this week that Hellraiser Revival is performing extremely well financially relative to its budget.

The Sabre leadership argued that focused mid-budget AA games offer lower financial risk and represent the most sustainable path forward for industry growth compared to below AAA budgets.

And I would agree that Hellraiser is a perfect example of a really high caliber AA game.

Like, you're not going to get your big 40, 50, 60 hours out of it.

faffing? I can't see sales numbers anywhere, but the full quote from...

Karch came on LinkedIn and it was the game is a testament to the notion that an established IP and solid AA development with controlled costs can produce great results and high user scores.

I believe a greater focus on these middle market IP driven products rather than AAA behemoths is the future to maintaining growth and momentum in the gaming industry.

While I believe there will always be a place for the properly developed and budgeted AAA experience, a AA game that provides a great immersive experience for a lower price is less risky and can provide much greater returns on average.

But Joe...

Saber Interactive, okay, St. Petersburg, the Space Marine 2 developer, is apparently working on a AAA first-person shooter title set in a very well-known universe.

And this is coming from the Gamer League, so I put that with a grain of salt.

But this isn't the first time I've heard of it.

And apparently they weren't allowed to talk about Destiny in the studio because they didn't want comparisons to it.

But like, know getting that live service i mean anthem was not a great game um it had some interesting ideas but the execution was was piss poor uh valgaard valgaard i think is more to do with executive meddling i think a big problem with that game was that it changed so many times in terms of like it was originally this thing and then it was going to be a co-op thing and then it was going to be a live service game and then it basically they had to salvage it um jason try actually just released a video about kind of the the shutdown of um of bioware and some of the stuff that's kind of you know come out about it which is really interesting so go check that out but it is, it's unfortunate, but yeah, it is like, you know, they only had 50 people there, you know, and which is like, you know, not a, not a small team, but like in the AAA space with, with a company like EA, like that's like, who's there, you know, but they do.

Yeah.

They do have a story to history.