Why do devs care so much about Metacritic when the review scores are so blatantly hand picked that even a blind individual could see that?

Thanks a lot for the reply. So it is all a matter of hardware. I wonder how that interferes with PC game programming, since it is made for so different machines.

One aspect of gaming that could really change gameplay is the quality of AI, it mostly appears over the many years to have changed very little in games, yet it is one thing that could make a huge difference in making a game world feel really alive even more so than graphics

Are developers having real problems in this area? Or is it a case of concentrating on graphics because it's obvious and it sells games, and complex AI is not as noticeable, wont sell games and more demanding from the developer's point of view?

What are your views of AI in relation to next-gen?

Thank you in advance

AI for storytelling has never really been held back by console power, it has however been held back by story complexity and general unwillingness to add extra work, essentially, people buy the dumbed down games so why go the extra mile?

For more intense AI, it can put a strain on the console but again its more about the time needed to make that ai believable, you cant just say "wow this game sucks they all do x or y when i attack", because youre expecting too much if you want your enemies to respond uniquely every time regardless of the geometry around them or your input, and the input of those around them, its just too much work when relatively basic ai does the job for the most part just fine.

new generation and cloud processing isnt going to change the fact that developers and publishers are only going to put enough effort in to make the game work, and more importantly, sell. anything beyond that is just extra.

look at cod for example, see how much shit they got for bothering to make the fish swim away from you?, laughing stock for pointing it out.

and people wonder why developers dont give a shit most of the time.

i dont write scripts or story, as such i dont know the thought process and cant answer you.

Publishers care more because it can effect sales performance, devs only care when their hard work gets shat on.

Really interesting thread. 

Is no mystery that a lot of people (myself included to some extend) think the days of AAA games are coming to an end, or at the very least, only a few number of publishers will be able to make profit out of these games; some people think we will reach a point where the games will either be AAA or indie, everything in between will be extremely rare. The state of the industry is not in a very good shape, publishers closing doors, not meeting expectations, layoffs, etc. As a developer, what's your take on this situation? Is this doom and gloom really justified or is it just people exaggerating the situation? 

First, thank you for this thread. Many of us here are genuinely interested in gaming, it's our hobby after all, but as Frequency said, most of our information is second-hand at best and we really can never know which source is the most accurate. I certainly understand the face-palms, though I think at the same time some of us are simply doing the best we can with what we've got. Which is, of course, why threads like this are a great help.

My question is about the potential of the new consoles. A few developers, in interviews, have indicated that the previous generation was holding back game development by a significant degree and that the coming gen would see noticeable improvements in game-play elements such as AI, environment interaction, the size of playable levels, and the number of events and NPCs on-screen at once. Conversely, there are critics who believe that the next gen will mainly be about everything looking prettier. How do you guys view this situation?

Also, and this one might be tricky so I'll understand if it's avoided, but there are a lot of people who think that most DLC is purposely chopped from the original game in order to make more money. That doesn't really seem like a logical process to me, to be honest, as it seems as though it would cause a lot of problems, but it's a widely held belief. Which side is closer to the truth? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

Again, thank you for doing this.

There's a huge difference between image quality per pixel, when we compare games that lauched at the bennining of current gen vs the end of it, Do you think history will repeat itself this time or since both platform are so close to PC, it will more stable

All people with basic chemistry skills know how to make Meth redox reactions are highschool level chemistry.

@Nileveia : You said "look at cod for example, see how much shit they got for bothering to make the fish swim away from you?, laughing stock for pointing it out"

I do think it was more like God we're in 2013 Mario already did that a couple or years ago and many more games. It's just basic AI that consumer take for granted for a Next Gen game. It was kind of weird that infinity ward showed their fish AI as being that much marvelous and Next Gen ! Especially when his direct competitor was showing Next Gen destruction.

The truth is money was holding back game development because of the ps3 and 360, engines for multiplatform games had to be designed with all three in mind as such the pc versions suffered with little to no extra features or options in many games, we got stuck in a rut where pc games didnt evolve because the money is in console games and the hardware was reaching a ripe old age, what we see now is developers being able to better use high end pc hardware and not worry so much about getting it running on the new consoles.

by rights everything will be improved, just dont expect it all at once, we need to wade through the all looks and no brains first wave that, ironically, wont even look that good in a year or two, launch games are generally glorified tech demos unless those games are being developed for other consoles or had been in development for more than 3 years prior to launch.

dlc and microtransactions are up to the publisher for the most part, and a publishers number 1 goal is to make money, so it stands to reason that they will milk your wallet any way they can.

Exaggeration, indies are a stepping stone towards bigger things, games in between end up as digital titles - digital titles is where the creativity will stem from, small studios and indies that go on to bigger and bolder things, the platform of support is in place so in 3-4 years we should see some really incredible titles, from new studios setup by smaller companies and successful indie developers.

eventually, these small studios and indie developers will be the staple AAA creators of a new generation, so seeing people talk shit about them now is pathetic - one day these people, or their kids, will choose their console based on the creations these teams make.

Of course, you can burry your head in the sand and pretend that the current AAA publishers are invincable and will be around forever, that just isnt the case.

PC is a very losely optimized platform, hardware updates are essentially band aid fixes for poor code optimization, after working with both systems for an extended period of time, I am more or less sure that if you took a similar spec pc and compared the games now, there would not be a lot in it but compare the same spec pc in 5 years time and it will not be able to match the console in terms of performance and graphics capability, there will of course be better pc hardware then and most pc gamers will probably be running the latest games at 4K, but again, that will always be the case with a modular platform.