This is just my observation, there's really very few AAA PC games coming out year after year... and 90% of the games coming out are indie games

[January's Ghost]

notices... bans everyone who went off topic... gee, its awfully quiet around here.

I guess its one the main difference between most AAA/Indie titles... what sort of PC you need to run them.
mainly stems from fact AAA games take so long to make because of all the time wasted on way tracing and other graphics features and not on the actual game play.
Indie take risks, AAA buy the Indie companies that succeed... and rip them to shreds trying to understand why it succeeded... often just ending with a dead carcass at end. That is why you could call them vultures.

Graphical features are a part of it, but making them bigger and more complex, mismanagement, and chasing trends (which can change direction of a game during development) all affect the length of a triple A game.

Note that these can also affect indie games, a lot of the time we may not know the overall time it takes to develop an indie game. I have no idea how long Balatro took, for example, but smaller devs tend to be more focused and change their minds less.

And note when I say "indie" I don't mean "amateur" which is what most of the games release on Steam are...amateur. I mean, how many games on Steam do you ignore solely because they look like some high school project?

 

[Fleetboy2024]

Graphical features are a part of it, but making them bigger and more complex, mismanagement, and chasing trends (which can change direction of a game during development) all affect the length of a triple A game.

Note that these can also affect indie games, a lot of the time we may not know the overall time it takes to develop an indie game. I have no idea how long Balatro took, for example, but smaller devs tend to be more focused and change their minds less.

And note when I say "indie" I don't mean "amateur" which is what most of the games release on Steam are...amateur. I mean, how many games on Steam do you ignore solely because they look like some high school project?

isnt Balatro made by one person?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I do use AB from time to time, but one of the games I was referring to has an in-game VRAM usage bar. I'm fairly certain they are actual usage as Star Wars: Outlaws in particular has a memory leak, and you can see the darned VRAM slowly going up over time. When it gets above 10GB, the game starts to stutter.

Missed this, fair enough. Techpowerup does pretty comprehensive performance reviews of most popular AAA games and the latest ones are touching 12GB at 4k highest settings including RT and Frame Gen it seems.

It suits Nvidia to limit VRAM, it cuts costs and encourages people to upgrade earlier than they might have to. Having said that they have to try and tread a line, so I think if the 5060 comes with 8GB RAM its because they believe it will do 1080p medium to low for a few years yet.

isnt Balatro made by one person?

I think they had a little help here and there but its basically a single dev as far as has been reported.

 

[red_5ive]

It suits Nvidia to limit VRAM, it cuts costs and encourages people to upgrade earlier than they might have to

Completely agree. My only point was just that 12 GB probably won't be able to cut it soon. And since xx70 cards are generally targeted for the 1440 crowd, I don't see 12GB being effective for too much longer, especially if they keep pushing RT. And as I mentioned, games are starting to not have an option to disable RT entirely. The Ti versions are of course the next best option as current models are 16 GB, but those don't usually release until the latter half of the gen cycle, and of course are pricier.

 

[ZedClampet]

so I think if the 5060 comes with 8GB RAM its because they believe it will do 1080p medium to low for a few years yet.

Well, I brought back Guido's old laptop with a 3060 in it, and it had the RE4 remake on it, and it ran it just fine in between medium and high settings. If they add DLSS 4 to it, a 5060 desktop card will destroy it and probably most other games with that tech in them.

 

[Zloth]

Indie take risks, AAA buy the Indie companies that succeed... and rip them to shreds trying to understand why it succeeded... often just ending with a dead carcass at end. That is why you could call them vultures.

That sounded right, but I couldn't come up with much when I tried to think of some examples. And there have been some pretty funky AAA games lately: Death Stranding, Control, Marvel's Midnight Suns.

Firaxis/2K picking up XCOM is a nice example of AAA bringing an entire dead genre back to life.

 

[Colif]

Its hard to find the failures since they wouldn't be publicised
Success is easy to find... Notch sold his little game to Microsoft. People used to come on here and ask about it...

 

[SHR-51]

Control

You consider Remedy games AAA? I've always thought of them as a seminal AA outfit.

 

[DXCHASE]

You consider Remedy games AAA? I've always thought of them as a seminal AA outfit.

Remedy is AAA imo, you have Max Payne and the Alan Wake games from them, Quantum Break too.

 

[JCgames]

Missed this, fair enough. Techpowerup does pretty comprehensive performance reviews of most popular AAA games and the latest ones are touching 12GB at 4k highest settings including RT and Frame Gen it seems.

It suits Nvidia to limit VRAM, it cuts costs and encourages people to upgrade earlier than they might have to. Having said that they have to try and tread a line, so I think if the 5060 comes with 8GB RAM its because they believe it will do 1080p medium to low for a few years yet.

If there is not a 12gb 5060 I won't be buying, I'll wait for a 6060 in that case. Besides, right now I don't really see an intell chip I want, it just not worth the cost to go from a 10600 to 14600. I prefer the lower power draws and less heat.

Besides at this point I may just skip windows 11, I'm still on 10 so my plan was to build a comp this fall. But now I'm even more tempted to let 12 mature a year and wait for perhaps a 5060 ti 12gb.

i do want to pick up flight Sim 2024, and I think with 64gb ram my sys should be OK and starwars outlaws and the new dragon age as my most resource intense will run just fine at 1080p, So why not just wait? Like I always say, the comp or console you need is completely dependent on what ypu want to play.

Maybe I'll start using turbo in bios for the small over clock if I have too, but up to now it's not been nessessary

 

[Colif]

Windows 12 is still vapourware. It is rumoured to be out October but its way too soon to know if they get it out. It was meant to be out last year but they turned it into Win 11 24H2.

Its unclear what it will require. Unlikely to be an NPU since no desktop CPU are being made with them. And although I know MS think everyone uses a laptop, we really don't. Probably require Secure Boot be enabled instead of just capable of being enabled - I worry about this when it happens... I like You might be on a new PC by then so it doesn't matter. I just stay on 11 on this PC unless there is something actually worth getting 12 for apart from a new UI... thats all they mostly change. Probably make Co Pilot even harder to ignore.

 

[Zloth]

You consider Remedy games AAA? I've always thought of them as a seminal AA outfit.

Yeah, that's always a pretty arbitrary choice. Especially with companies spending more and more.

 

[SHR-51]

Yeah, that's always a pretty arbitrary choice. Especially with companies spending more and more.

Fair enough, it's definitely not an objective metric of any kind.

 

[mjs warlord]

I prefer games made by indie companies because they seem to take more care in making sure their games work as they should. Big companies have dozens of people working on projects and it only takes one person to have a bad day and miss something and all of a sudden its unplayable.

IMHO .... Their are several reasons why fewer games are coming out and one of the reasons is that they are getting bigger so take longer to make. I also think games writers are running out of ideas , how many satisfactory and valheim look a like games can you name.

A challenge for you all .... name a game type or theme that has not yet been done.

 

[isleepinabed]

A challenge for you all .... name a game type or theme that has not yet been done.

That seems like one for our AI drones.

I'll start with one I'd like to try: Point & click adventure mystery set during the bronze age

 

[Zloth]

A challenge for you all .... name a game type or theme that has not yet been done.

One of the interesting things about the Witcher series was that it tapped into some of the historical mythologies of the regions in/around Poland. There are thousands of other sources from around the world that have never been explored in any RPG.

 

[January's Ghost]

I prefer games made by indie companies because they seem to take more care in making sure their games work as they should.

I don't think that's true. Just the more popular ones and they're popular because they're well designed and designed properly.

Remember, most of the indie games that come out are garbage. Interesting but incomplete ideas, asset flips, janky performance due to reliance on low quality premade scripts, models, or animations.

I honestly don't like the term "indie" as it applies to ANY developers that aren't attached to a big name studio. Often times the best indie devs as just as skilled as the big players, sometimes more so. Sadly indie even covers amateur devs that deliver crap either through lack of skill , lack of care, or lack of morals.

 

[Colif]

All of the categories don't make sense. AAA just means how much you wasted making game, its not a standard of quality like it is heralded as being.

Indie might need more sub categories as you right, too many things getting lumped together. I am not going to try

 

[isleepinabed]

Regarding this point, in Japan there is a category called doujin, which is sometimes translated as indie. It also applies to japanese comics (manga), for instance. Some of the most notorious doujin games have been Cave Story or the Touhou series of shooters.

The big difference to indies in the west, is that doujin doesn't imply making a living from it. It's just a personal DIY project, made by amateurs, for fans, usually at very low prices, practically the cost of the physical media (if it's a physical release).

So, somewhat like the fanzine scenes used to be in the west. These days, it seems being indie is most about being free from corporate interests or even having full control of copyright or creative. Somewhat like when Activision or Electronic Arts began in the 1980s before they became huge.

I'm sure some indie games these days have bigger budgets than some corporate games had 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation.

 

[JCgames]

How can you even compare with just using the term indy?


in development for 10+ years. Asylum, made by one guy and a very small team on a shoe string budget, I'm not sure the total but it's under a mill I think, maybe even closer to 100 or 200k, im realky unsure about the numbers other than its small which is one reason why its taken so long. It had a kickstarter 10 years ago and some extra over the years. Apparently it's launching March 6th

Star citizen, it's an indy game that will probably hit 1b before it ever launches. This game on the other hand is taking for ever in part because it has soon much money and could be the best looking game to ever exist

Baldures gate 3, I dunno the cost but it's many millions and over 5 or 6 years and even they don't call themselves indy and how unfair it is to consider them an indy dev to actual indy devs (their words)

Random point and clicks by wajet eye, some are done for 100-200k. (My favorite kind of indy game)

Even more indy, try out the Free heroines quest, but you will want to buy the supporter pack because it's such a classic indy game and made with next to no budget

Banished, one guy and a great survival city builder, I'm not sure we would have manor lords with out it. Maybe though I'm not to up on that one other than many have referenced banished. there are also a few banished spiritual successors one is called foundation I think?

How can you possibly compare any of these to other projects AAA or otherwise? It's far to wide of scope. To me you really need to add a price range and go from there. Midnight suns was 200m, and that pales to what starcitzen has, how does that compare to bg3 or something like wasteland 3?

I know midnight suns spent a ton on animation, voice acting and cinematic, and it shows. It's also partly why it wasn't successfull had the gone with the indy approach and cut back on the cinematic a bit, maybe less vo, and more reading and cut it down to 25m, it might have been super successful, though half the game, but more likely to see an other. That one not being super successful really bummed me out as it's provably my favorite AAA game of the last 10 years

 

[Colif]

There are more indie games as its easier for a small team to agree on something than it is a huge team to accept any changes.

indie just defines the possible size of the team making it and how much money they have to spend. AAA does as well. It doesn't really mean anything else.

AAA have enough money to waste on UE5 and spend years making a game, but it doesn't mean the game will be good. They also have the money to waste on marketing to make the games visible to players... something Indie lacks, it relies on players telling others its a good game. Or social media.

Indie games need to be good to sell, AAA can sometimes get away with just marketing.

Neither are a sign of quality.

 

[Zloth]

There are more indie games as its easier for a small team to agree on something than it is a huge team to accept any changes.

A very small team, yeah, where each person controls a somewhat independent part of the game. Ideally, one person controlling everything. Ideal for fast decisions, anyway. It lowers the chance of miscommunication, too. But you also have fewer people putting in ideas, so whatever satisfactory idea the individual dreams up first will tend to be the one used. A group should come up with better ideas.