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I mean we had pretty recent example of Hades and Among Us launching on the Switch first - there is a divergence in gaming that has always existed. But in the previous gen it was mostly Japanese 3rd Parties making games for the 3DS/PSV, the one before it you had all types of 3rd Parties making games for the DS/PSP. This group of games has always existed and will continue to exist. Some of the biggest games on the planet aren't exactly pushing killer graphics - PUBG, Dota 2, LoL, WoW, Fortnite, CS etc.

Launching AAA titles brings substantial risk as the marketing costs for Cyberpunk 2077/Marvel's Avengers would probably cover the development costs of hundreds of Hades, Among Us, Sakuras, Human Fall Flats etc . This is an overlooked fact but in order to succeed with your AAA in most cases you need a huge marketing budget on multiple very large media markets. When a studio invests in such a game they invest in some cases over 100M and because of this huge investment they also want to design the game with the latest monetization techniques, "turning players into payers" was a tag line a few years ago - and overtime excessive monitzation on consoles has been normalized.

AA & indies provide escape from this, and there is a big audience looking for that type of thing - from parents worried about their children's gambling habits to people worried where this design philosophy might lead to.

Last edited by noshten - on 20 December 2020