8 full time 100k salaried employees is quite a bit more than "small team." Doom was 6 people. That many people are simply not required to make the games that are being produced; they can choose to size down any time they want. If they want to go "all in" on making a "AAAA" game, then they need to deal with that reality and make a game that is actually worth $60.
Their games ranged from $30-$50 and had every sale, bundle, giveaway, and promotional opportunity you could think of.
Perhaps that's part of the problem? Maybe they should have priced their works more fairly from the start and not rely on bundles and givaways which surely aren't going to make them more money.
My point is, the "average" game is absolutely not worth $30. Most games should flop because they're overproduced trash, and we should return to smaller, more artistic-focused development with a smaller scale, more consumer friendly pricing, and where the (few) devs get more slices of their pie.
"Moderately budgeted" compared to what? Modern AAA game budgets have absolutely exploded and are not sustainable, turning game dev cycles into 5+ year marathons and giving it Hollywood Syndrome where every game needs to be a blockbuster to be considered a success and no risks are able to be taken because of the massive investment each project requires. Do you think that's sustainable? Or do you think that perhaps things have gone out of control when a $90 price point is being floated, even in conjunction with money printing anti-consumer features like lootboxes?
ATOM RPG like other users said. A very faithful (sometimes too faithful tbh imo) spiritual successor to Fallout 1/2 except set in the USSR. I highly recommend it if you are into Fallout style CRPGs. As in, you can recruit followers but you don't directly control them in combat, charisma/speech can have a huge impact on how some conflicts are solved, you get Action Points to use every turn, overworld traveling with random encounters, cultural references and silly bits even to a detriment (just like Fallout!), etc.
It's the closest thing to a Fallout remake but in 3d and some (only some) modernizations.
none of that has anything to do with what I said, go seethe about democrats on your blog, I don't care what your 5th grade teacher said because it has nothing to do with democratic policies
They thought automation would drastically reduce the amount of work someone needs to do to survive, instead of just increasing corporate profit and leading to layoffs.
True, but that all exists on a spectrum, and a law which prohibits all children from using a device because you don't want your kid using that device and they'll get bullied if they're the only one, seems a little excessive. Might as well ban expensive sneakers or shiny pokemon cards too.
The root of the issue is parents controlling how much their child uses a device, and you just cannot legislate that away. Even if it was 100% illegal, you think parents wouldn't let kids use the devices in their home if it made things easier? "Just ban it" never works, you need to incentivize alternate behavior.
8 full time 100k salaried employees is quite a bit more than "small team." Doom was 6 people. That many people are simply not required to make the games that are being produced; they can choose to size down any time they want. If they want to go "all in" on making a "AAAA" game, then they need to deal with that reality and make a game that is actually worth $60.
Perhaps that's part of the problem? Maybe they should have priced their works more fairly from the start and not rely on bundles and givaways which surely aren't going to make them more money.
My point is, the "average" game is absolutely not worth $30. Most games should flop because they're overproduced trash, and we should return to smaller, more artistic-focused development with a smaller scale, more consumer friendly pricing, and where the (few) devs get more slices of their pie.