If you are going to compete with AAA games it’s going to require a big budget, which not all Devs have access to.
A high quality AA game would probably do great, but would be unlikely to outsell a AAA with hundreds of millions of dollars for budget.
Obsidian made a fantastic game with Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire but it was considered a ‘failure’ sales wise (at least at launch), despite being well received.
Obsidian sold to Micro$oft despite making very high quality games and their crowdfunding campaigns consistently earning more money than they were asking for. The stated reason was they found it hard to keep their employees paid consistently and they didn’t want to lay people off. Also that they thought they could do just as good as other big players in the industry if they had access to larger budgets.
I think it was a bad move. They managed to survive the massive round of 9,000 jobs cuts to Microsoft’s gaming division (this time), but you just know that Microsoft would cut them in a heartbeat if they thought it would save them a dime in the future. That being said I think it’s understandable to want to see your employees paid, and it’s just a sad fact that AAA games require huge budgets nowadays, so I can kind of understand why they sold, even if I don’t agree with it.
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If you are going to compete with AAA games it’s going to require a big budget, which not all Devs have access to.
A high quality AA game would probably do great, but would be unlikely to outsell a AAA with hundreds of millions of dollars for budget.
Obsidian made a fantastic game with Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire but it was considered a ‘failure’ sales wise (at least at launch), despite being well received.
Obsidian sold to Micro$oft despite making very high quality games and their crowdfunding campaigns consistently earning more money than they were asking for. The stated reason was they found it hard to keep their employees paid consistently and they didn’t want to lay people off. Also that they thought they could do just as good as other big players in the industry if they had access to larger budgets.
I think it was a bad move. They managed to survive the massive round of 9,000 jobs cuts to Microsoft’s gaming division (this time), but you just know that Microsoft would cut them in a heartbeat if they thought it would save them a dime in the future. That being said I think it’s understandable to want to see your employees paid, and it’s just a sad fact that AAA games require huge budgets nowadays, so I can kind of understand why they sold, even if I don’t agree with it.
I’m still waiting for Obsidian to finish writing the second half of Tyranny and I won’t be buying another of their games until they do.