"A dried husk of a product": former Doom producer berates Microsoft for making Halo a "mid-tier" game and mourns the "financialisation" of AAA (www.rockpapershotgun.com)

submitted 6 days ago by GamingBot@lemmy.zip to c/gaming@lemmy.zip

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[-] absquatulate@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

we're starting to get to the point where the financialisation period is taking place in video games in which, you know, basically every level of AAA gaming is managed by these people.

Not sure what he means with this "financialisation" period. Didn't AAA always mean "big budget" (implying quality but not necessarily delivering) ? Of course they'll want to manage every aspect, because developing AAA means they sunk a boatload of money into it.

[-] fonix232@fedia.io 6 points 5 days ago

20 or so years ago, AAA titles were indeed big budget, but most of the game decisions were up to the developers and artists working on it.

Today, developers at studios are being forced to implement crap mechanics, change the gameplay, the story, the details, all to “make the game more viable for a large audience” in hopes of larger and larger ROI.

[-] wraithcoop@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

Yep, because it's not about making games, and it's not just about making money, but making more money than other possible investments.

This article is from 2 years ago: https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/05/24/square-enix-final-fantasy-unrealistic-sales-targets-jacob-navok

this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026

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