CGI-Quality said:
One has to wonder, once again, how such a conclusion can be drawn after one week of sales? This entire topic should die off until the game is more than a week out of its release, because some of the responses I'm seeing show a clear misunderstanding (or make wild assumptions). Take your pick.
Even more, your entire theory about "AAA games trying to mimic Hollywood movies" is completely moot, since plenty of games have succeeded (Heavy Rain, The Last Of Us, ALL of the Uncharteds, Call of Duty, etc.....).
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Moot, eh? Tell that to Factor 5. Or Free Radical Design. Or Grin. Or 3D Realms. Or Silicon Knights. Or Midway. Or THQ/Vigil. etc. etc.
Just within the last decade, how many development studios and publishers have gone under because of the rising, bloated costs of HD, "AAA" budget game development? How many companies are either now gone, or were absorbed/bought by bigger studios. And how about you ask Capcom or Square, for example, how they feel about the rising costs of their games, coupled with the diminishing sales? Or the fact that many companies, such as Konami, Namco, hell, even Activision, have recently cut their number of releases per year. It's getting to the point (ignoring the PC and indie game markets) that the only developers who can survive, are the ones being subsidized by bigger companies, whether that be a huge publisher like Activision or EA, or a first party like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft.
But it's a fact that in some cases just one major big budget flop has recently sunk many studios. It's also a fact that just a couple generations ago, a game doing 100,000 or a few 100k in sales, could still be a financial success. Not anymore. Not the "AAA" kind. It's a graphics arms race that is not going to go away anytime soon, but it certainly has had some drastic and honestly terrible effects on the industry at large. I'm not saying there shouldn't be ANY "AAA" budget games. They have their place. But the gaming industry is becoming more and more like Hollywood, where the only games that get published or get financial backing, are the games that studios think are going to rake in that mega-cash, just like the pre-order Gamestop darlings such as GTA, or Halo, or Assassin's Creed, or CoD. You're seeing less creativity and risk taking in game mainstream console game development. You're seeing a lot of games that are all very much like each other, because developers and publishers are more interested in trying to emulate the succcess of something else that sold big, than they are in trying to create something fresh and unique. That is not universal of course, but it IS becoming the rule to very few exceptions. Just like Hollywood. The "Blockbuster Syndrome" in the movie industry has done quite a bit to ruin it, if you ask me. And it's having the same kind of effect on gaming.
If you honestly want to sit there and try to argue that the point is "moot", go right ahead. But I'm not entirely sure you really understand the way the gaming business, or the entertainment industry in general, works, if you really think that this "AAA" model everyone is trying to follow is smart, let alone sustainable. Cinematic games have their place. But it's also an unneccisary roll of the dice for a lot of companies, when they could be making far more creative, and far less expensive games just as well.
