If Ironfall is a competent and fun Gears clone made by three people then what other games were made by unnessecarily large teams?

Obviously shooters have ALOT of tools, so alot of them naturally go on this list.

Games like 3D World were probably made by larger teams because they needed to nail the physics engines but even it had a small enough team by industry standards if I recall - remember it was a GOTY candidate in its launch year.

How wasteful are we as an industry being? How many more game a year might we be capable of having without changing quality? Could smaller teams actually be a boon to quality?

Ironwhat?

I think some scaled back experiences could be good but I don't think one needs to replace the other.

The top example I can think of is Torchlight 1 & 2, which are excellent games. Diablo clones, sure, but probably with a fraction of the budget.

Many. I seriously don't think most AAA games need that much staff if most are just working on DLC anyway.

Been waiting for this for so long!!

How it does show that we can get great games for l less Dev costs. Would be a boon to the industry.

Gears of War clone Nintendo had done on the cheap for the 3DS to show off the second analogue stick when used with the NEW 3DS. Previews say its competent and enjoyable but lacking  in variety; my thinking is you don't need even ten times the amount of people to add a little more enemy diversity, environmental flare, and story. 

Well for starters Gears of War was actually understaffed.

Secondly Gears of War was the pinnacle of graphics and innovation in 2006. They only continued this throughout the generation with other games also joining the club graphically.

third off Gears of War has a very strong story that mastered gameplay and had big focus on mutliplayer as well

This is one of those questions that seems like little thought was put in it.  Youre talking about a game that defined a genre compared to......a clone that will undoubtely not compare

, h!exxxhh We aren't talking about Gears of War then;

Sure, the industry might be able to release many more games per year, but how many more games per year will consumers support? Are the same people who bought Gears of War going to be interested in a cheap Gears knock off? Probably not. We're already faced with a glut of content as it is. So unless these leaner, meaner, and far more numerous teams are making truly innovative games which scratch an itch that existing games don't, they're better off working on polishing up games that will actually sell instead of making ones destined to be part of a "20 games for just $1!" Humble Bundle within a few months of release.

Sorry, phone has gone nuts. I meant we aren't talking about it back then, rather wondering why modern attempts to copy it with a twist are so highly priced to make. Its like 2D platformers in that it shouldn't be THAT hard to do now. Gears as a template is as golden as Mario, but its been made as easy to copy because of it.