Then your statement is even worse. No one makes a game thinking it's going to be bad and is willing to take the risk. Definitely not when it comes to AAA games.

Instead of saying making, lets say releasing. Releasing bad games is a great way to ruin trust. Sega for example has obviously released numerous games knowing they were objectively bad. Fewer polished releases would have been more worthwhile then a lot of crap. For what its worth, crappy games hitting the market is less of an issue.

However, lets take into consideration good and great games fail as well. Games stuggling to make money isn't exclusive to bad games.

Out of curiosity, do you consider Sega games AAA games? Because I don't. Beyond, Zelda, Halo, Tomb Raider are AAA for me. Puppeteer, Yakuza, Sonic games, not as much. At least in terms of budget.  A good example would be Assassin's Creed: Unity being a good AAA game, released in a bad state.

Same goes with movies and every form of entertainment when a lot of money is invested.

There are risks, but if the product is good the risks minimize.

This article is fucking stupid.

Every game is financially risky.

Well I look at NIntendo stuff and its hard to gauge what kind of money Nintendo spends on game development. I mean they aren't heavy on story telling, cutting edge visuals, etc. If anything, maybe they spend AAA budgets making sure their products are polished. I wouldn't be surprised if this new Zelda game is NIntendo's biggest budget title ever. A lot of Sega games last gen have been kinda ambitious but fail on gameplay.

I think Sonic games have AAA money put into them, they often just suck. But I assume NIntendo helped fun those awful Wii U games.

Sega isn't really in the AAA arena anymore. Total Warhammer might be an exception. Alien Isolation was AAA but I don't get the impression Sega wants to do more of that. Sega is fine though, doing niche stuff seems to be working for them and sometimes they make a gem like Sonic Transformed (but 3rd party developed).

What have happened to you Puggsly? I've been away for only 7 months and now I find myself agreeing with you and even admire the way you argue.

You're right about SCE taking far less risks this gen compared to the last and while that is understandable they have to keep experimenting and take risks. Because that's what me and many other gamers liked about them last gen. You will have some misses but eventually strike gold and get a hit.

For me, the many quality exclusives on PS3 is the sole reason why it was able to compete with (and eventually overtake) my 360 that had both superior OS, online and controller imo.

Luckily 2016 looks to be great for every platform.

You can't have the cake and eat it too. The author can't say the game is a risk because it has a begining a middle and an end and them throw everything that is big but has a clear beginign middle and an end into a diferent basket. Witcher 3 might be a 200 hours game but it is 100% finite. And taked on MP is just that, taked on MP (btw Rise of the Tomb Rider and most Batamam games dont have those either), nobody bought Uncharted only because it had MP and its nice that you can invade ppl and get help if you need on the Souls series but nobody would even look From Softs way if the single player experience wasn't as awesome as it is.

The author of the article kinda tried to say single player games are dying out when its more than evident they aren't and will never die actualy, as I said theres a limit to how many MP focused games the market can handle, if someone is playing CoD for 2 years straight he isnt going to play any other online shooter. Also his logic is flawed because Quantum Break isn't a risk because its SP only, its a risk because it is AAA and therefore you invest a lot of money and if it doesn't have a lot of return you are screwed, MP focused games crash and burn as much as do SP focused ones.

I don't think that's what the author tried to say. It seems to me that what he tried to say is that in 2016 it's a huge risk to invest a ton of money on a single player game that also happens to be a new IP. It may end up selling 1m or close to that, but that's not enough for a game with a huge budget. If you look at the top 10 selling games, it's mostly mutiplayer games. That's what brings the most money (Ninty is the exception). Not games like The Order, Infamous, Until Dawn, Tearaway, Ratchet and Clank or Heavenly Sword, but Halo, Cod, Battlefield, Fifa, etc.

If memory serves, Until Dawn didn't have a huge budget and neither did Heavy Rain.

Games like Devil May Cry (even 5, if it's ever made), Bayonetta 3 etc are at a bigger risk than games with multiplayer due to the second hand market. If you look for a COD game, you'll see that it's expensive even a year after it releases, both new and used.

But you can finish it in 100 different ways.
Shouldn't that benefit?

I get the article intention, though. Online is always a saver bet. Unless you fuck up badly