> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression?
Kingdom come deliverance, baldirs gate are two massive titles in the last 12 months. God of war, spiderman, Indiana jones are other titles that are just stand alone artistic experiences, again in the last little while.
> What's the next big budget release that will actually move the needle of the medium meaningfully?
I think it’s funny you mention that because the games you sniped at (Fortnite Minecraft GTa) were seismic shifts in gaming - in the last few years - Fortnite wrote the book on live service games IMO. But, when they’re “popular” suddenly they’re not cool anymore.
> It's hard to imagine what a solid shakeup of these behemoth, mature industries could look like.
What do you want? IMO the industry is in an ok place - aside from the mass layoffs over the last 24 months. But for consumers there’s so much choice - there’s massive hundred million dollar budget tiles with new content every year (Ubisoft/CoD/ Sony/microsoft doing these) there’s “smaller” budget games in the 50-80millon mark that are achieving critical success on PC and Console, there’s AA-budget games in the 15-30 million mark coming out every month that are hits and misses, there’s a thriving indie scene for every genre you could possibly imagine, and many you can’t (e.g. trombone champ).
There’s options at every level, dozens of games coming out every year - more than any single person could ever play.
disclaimer: I’ve worked on one of the titles you’re talking about here, but don’t anymore. Opinion is mine, not theirs.
In my experience working there - it comes and goes in waves. Layoffs happen, people leave and start their own studios. We saw consolidation under publishers in the 90’s and people laud it as one of the best periods of games.
I do think we lost our way a little from around about 2018-2022 where we had these absolutely gargantuan flops like Concord that were a symptom of many things, but I really really believe we’re in another golden age right now.
Kingdom come deliverance, baldirs gate are two massive titles in the last 12 months. God of war, spiderman, Indiana jones are other titles that are just stand alone artistic experiences, again in the last little while.
> What's the next big budget release that will actually move the needle of the medium meaningfully?
I think it’s funny you mention that because the games you sniped at (Fortnite Minecraft GTa) were seismic shifts in gaming - in the last few years - Fortnite wrote the book on live service games IMO. But, when they’re “popular” suddenly they’re not cool anymore.
> It's hard to imagine what a solid shakeup of these behemoth, mature industries could look like.
What do you want? IMO the industry is in an ok place - aside from the mass layoffs over the last 24 months. But for consumers there’s so much choice - there’s massive hundred million dollar budget tiles with new content every year (Ubisoft/CoD/ Sony/microsoft doing these) there’s “smaller” budget games in the 50-80millon mark that are achieving critical success on PC and Console, there’s AA-budget games in the 15-30 million mark coming out every month that are hits and misses, there’s a thriving indie scene for every genre you could possibly imagine, and many you can’t (e.g. trombone champ).
There’s options at every level, dozens of games coming out every year - more than any single person could ever play.
disclaimer: I’ve worked on one of the titles you’re talking about here, but don’t anymore. Opinion is mine, not theirs.