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Comment by mdoms | Hacker News Reader

The triple-A gaming industry in general seems to be in a bit of a crisis. Quality of releases for the past couple of years has been abysmal, and creative direction seems to be now entirely in the hands of overpaid, unengaged executives who are totally disconnected from the gaming world.

Games are routinely being released in a half-baked state. How could a developer with a real love for the medium be happy working at organisations like this?

Ubisoft is one of the worst offenders (especially in terms of creative direction) so it's no surprise that they are the most affected.

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Red Dead Redemption 2 is an absolute gem in all terms and it was released in 2019, not so long ago. Shiny new Halo Infinite is very nice too. There were failures like Cyberpunk 2077, but such cases were always present in the industry. What abysmal quality are you talking about?

>The triple-A gaming industry in general seems to be in a bit of a crisis

Aren't they making more money than ever before? Why is that a crisis? Imagine you're the most profitable you've ever been even with the quality issues - why is that a crisis at all?

The purpose of the companies is to make money and they are. The games are just the widget they're selling. If people keep buying widgets, whether they're subscription widgets or microtransaction widgets, the business is working.

> Why is that a crisis?

For the exact reasons I stated in the rest of my post? I didn't say "AAA companies aren't making money".

Neither management nor shareholders are in trouble, so people in charge don't care, so its not a crisis and nothing will be done.

That's like saying there's no housing crisis because landlords and property developers are making tons of money.

Who isn't making money? EA? Activision Blizzard? Lots of big companies are making money.

You are literally responding to a post where I said 'I didn't say "AAA companies aren't making money"'.

It's kind of like saying Hollywood is in crisis because mid-budget fresh IP movies are almost extinct because the studios only want to make comic book movies that pull in a billion dollars at the box office.

From a creative output standpoint it is probably true, but the only thing that matters in Hollywood is money and by that measure they are doing fine.

yes exactly. There's no crisis if only mid level hot dogs aren't selling. cheap hot dogs and expensive hot dogs are making huge money, ergo there is no hot dog crisis. There is perhaps room for someone to figure out how to make mid level hot dogs profitable but that's no crisis.

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