“People have unrealistic expectations for AAA games! It’s impossible to make them as good as people expect them to be!”
I remember lots of big studios saying that shit after Baldur’s Gate 3 officially released. The work of a comparatively small studio with a Skyrim budget (100 million USD) did what many bigger budgets failed to do. How was that possible? Clearly, it’s the fault of gamers for expecting too much!
Side note: Witcher 3’s budget was around 34 million USD, with less than 13m for development proper, which is another good example of a game that even at release was already looking and playing great.
And those examples are not hard to come up with either. For example:
any Nintendo game
games with a passionate designer - "Nier: Automata* and Death Stranding come to mind
refined, broad market appeal sequels to popular niche games - as Elden Ring is to Dark Souls
Starfield was a mediocre rehash of their Elder Scrolls formula, but without the interesting variation that Elder Scrolls games have. And performance sucks, so you’re paying a penalty for an average gameplay experience.
“People have unrealistic expectations for AAA games! It’s impossible to make them as good as people expect them to be!”
I remember lots of big studios saying that shit after Baldur’s Gate 3 officially released. The work of a comparatively small studio with a Skyrim budget (100 million USD) did what many bigger budgets failed to do. How was that possible? Clearly, it’s the fault of gamers for expecting too much!
Side note: Witcher 3’s budget was around 34 million USD, with less than 13m for development proper, which is another good example of a game that even at release was already looking and playing great.
And those examples are not hard to come up with either. For example:
Starfield was a mediocre rehash of their Elder Scrolls formula, but without the interesting variation that Elder Scrolls games have. And performance sucks, so you’re paying a penalty for an average gameplay experience.