Uncharted 2, from Sony Group Corp’s Naughty Dog, was released in 2009 and had a budget of $20 million. The studio’s latest game, The Last of Us: Part 2, cost more than $200 million.

So, uh...why can't we do that anymore? Even if you account for salary increases and avoiding crunch and such, $40M-$50M for a game as good as Uncharted 2 sounds great!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Because graphics still sell games. You can do simplified graphics like Nintendo and still sell games, but lots of people want the photo realistic experience and the bar for that has gone way way up incrementally over the years.

https://youtu.be/GB20A8CitRU?si=ZN-V-FAnKjnxGHBs

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I think we're seeing that that's no longer true. Minecraft is the best-selling game ever, for instance. If you want to build the photo realistic experience, maybe aim for a smaller scope of video game, like the more linear action games we used to get, because otherwise, the industry ends up in the state it's in.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, maybe I'm just wrong in general ... The above doesn't look that different from say black ops 6 footage.

I definitely wish for a return to the linear format (or simi linear where there are a few concurrent linear quests going on). I think straight up open world just lends itself to making a lot of walking simulators.

Halo Infinity was one of the most boring games I ever played between the weapons sounding like toys and the spread out objectives with no clear central mission.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I don't think you're necessarily wrong on this. Part of the problem is new IPs are risky, and I'm sure market research is telling the big publishers that you'd better not suddenly downgrade your graphics on an established property. Nintendo's very comfortable in this space because they haven't really gone this route with first party. They've even managed to thread the needle on Mario, Metroid, and Zelda by having both 2D and 3D offerings.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Nintendo is in a very envious spot in general. Hell, I think Nintendo makes some great games, I just wish they wouldn't force me to buy yet another computer solely for the purpose of playing their games. I haven't owned a Mario Kart or Zelda game in years but I'd love to play if I could do so on PC/Linux.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Uncharted and Last of Us are first party Sony games. If they were to say that a game can still be enjoyable without cutting edge graphics no one would want to buy the latest PlayStation iteration.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

I think they're already running out of people who want to buy the latest PlayStation, and Sony clearly can't afford to throw hundreds of millions of dollars after this level of graphics anymore, because it's not resulting in equivalent growth of console sales to make up for it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

There are plenty of games that don't do high-end graphics and are still very good, even games that look intentionally low res/quality like Valheim did very well.

Graphics are only really a thing for games that aim for realistic visuals in the first place, but even then it doesn't need to be so overly high in visual fidelity and pushing better graphics every time. The average gamer isn't going to care about being able to see reflected objects in windows that you can see in the reflections of puddles, or that a leaf from a tree has a diffused shadow 300 meters away. Yet a lot of these big studios are pushing this tech and stuffing it in their games.

Not saying that's a bad development, but they're creating a lot of these budget problems for themselves by setting bars so insanely high and focusing on side-stuff that only increase the scope of the project. Where small indi developers create masterpieces on a budget barely a percentage of what those corporations are throwing at their projects.