Post

People want to blame graphical fidelity, scope expectations, etc etc etc for ballooning budgets and schedules when DA:V, a game with stylized visuals and constrained content expectations, "cost" however the fuck many hundreds of millions to come out because they made three games and shipped one

Whether any given AAA game is profitable or a financial disaster is now largely a definitional question around what "counts" as the production for that game and not 1-2 other canceled projects

You can look at Veilguard as a game that cost too much money to make or you can look at Veilguard as a cheap salvage operation subsidized by the asset overhang of canceled projects, and how EA chooses to view it is just a function of internecine politics.

See like, I think there’s truth to the idea of blaming graphics expectations for higher game budgets, but not on anywhere near this scale. Like, a Ty 5 would cost Krome Studio a lot more to make than 1-3, but that’s not the problem with the likes of EA and Insomniac.

So, the issue is that the ones who pushed for higher fidelity are the stupid fuck higher ups. Doesn't matter which company. Because they're stupid, stubborn, old males who are in full denial of the popularity of games like Stardew, Pokemon, Fall Guys, Among Us, etc, etc, etc.

Pokémon’s popularity is very much in spite of its ass visuals, let’s be real here. What makes it such a titan of a franchise is its gorgeous anime.