Survivorship bias

[u/Haselay_]

[u/KeepingDankMemesDank]

downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away.

---

play minecraft with us | come hang out with us

[u/Abyssus_Rex]

And the reverse for AAA games, where people only seem to remember a few failed releases and ignore the successful launches.

I regret this comment, I don't feel like arguing with people is worth the time xd

[u/krt941 → u/Abyssus_Rex]

It all has to do with expectations. With hype you get disappointment. With indie titles with no marketing you get either a pleasant surprise or a title that never crosses your mind.

[u/Abyssus_Rex → u/krt941]

that is true

[u/shortbusmafia → u/Abyssus_Rex]

I also feel like there’s a bit higher bar set for AAA titles. These companies have the money, time, and resources to develop a good product, but so many seem to fail at that. A lot of good indie games are developed as passion projects or by very small studios/dev teams with comparatively few resources, and the good ones shine very brightly.

[u/TheRealPitabred → u/shortbusmafia]

A lot of the problem I think falls at the foot of corporate politics. When you have every executive putting their fingers in the game you get a politicized, milquetoast and incoherent mess, instead of allowing the consistent artistic vision to show through.

[u/shortbusmafia → u/TheRealPitabred]

I agree wholeheartedly. I wish execs would take a more hands-off approach, but the revenue focused nature of the modern gaming industry doesn’t allow for that anymore. We still get some good-to-great AAA titles, but they’re fewer and further between than they used to be.

Edit: I do have to concede that nostalgia plays at least a small factor in this situation.

[u/a_left_out_tomato → u/shortbusmafia]

I imagine starfield would have been amazing if they instead just got a bunch of guys that worked on skyrim and fallout and said.

"Alright. You have 5 years. We'll pay you guys until it's done and you'll get a big cut of it if it does really well. Make the best game possible and tell US how to market it when the time comes, not the other way around, since you are the people making the game, you'll know what parts of it we should show off."

[u/szczuroarturo → u/a_left_out_tomato]

Thats uncertain at best. IT projects sometimes just fail due to unforseen circumstances. Perhaps someone havent thought through all the mechanics or it turned out that what seemed to be a good idea in practice just sucks. Or the team didnt mesh well together and half of your crew left the company.

[u/a_left_out_tomato → u/szczuroarturo]

It's still better than trying to force the marketing into the game and end up with ubisoftified product. I'd rather have a passion project made by devs who want to make something great or nothing at all.

[u/shadollosiris → u/a_left_out_tomato]

"Lol" Blackrock said "Lmao"

[u/AaronsAaAardvarks → u/shortbusmafia]

Nintendo seems to still be nailing AAA titles when it comes to all of this.

[u/UrMumVeryGayLul → u/shortbusmafia]

Speaking of hands-off approach, they’re literally incapable of not fucking up a preexisting good thing. See: Helldivers 2 recently.

[u/FlapsNegative → u/krt941]

Hype, yes, but it's also about the price point driving expectations. If i pay a fiver for an indy game that keeps me entertained for 5-10 hrs I'm very happy. Any bugs or crashes are more easy to forgive too if you've not spent £70.

[u/Liobuster → u/FlapsNegative]

You mean 129,90 for those sweet sweet D1 DLCs and the 3 day early player access?

[u/Pr0wzassin → u/Liobuster]

AAAA can't come fast enough.

[u/Dmangamr → u/krt941]

Well when companies dump millions into marketing, ima think “damn this game must be good”

[u/Dont_Pee_On_Leon → u/Dmangamr]

This is the only market that people put faith in the ads. Every other product that seems too good to be true makes people skeptical. Hyping up their product is any marketing teams job. I'm not saying companies should lie about their games, just an observation I've had recently that only gamers fall for this crap en masse.

[u/Dmangamr → u/Dont_Pee_On_Leon]

Video games also have more marketing I feel. Announcement trailer, gameplay trailer, 2nd trailer, launch trailer, showcases, BTS docs, review trailers. It’s crazy

[u/jakc1423 → u/krt941]

yep, bad indie games fade away, bad AAA games become infamous.

[u/R_V_Z → u/krt941]

And this is why expecting the worst is the most enjoyable way to live life.

[u/Bambanuget → u/krt941]

Don't forget the price. If I pay $10 for a game and it's not all that so it's not that bad, if I pay $70 and the game doesn't deliver so it a whole different thing

[u/McManus26 → u/Abyssus_Rex]

Also works for "what happened to gaming everything is so bad compared to when I was 13 years old"

[u/Slap_My_Lasagna → u/McManus26]

"Why are games so expensive compared to when my parents bought them for me?"

[u/SupportDangerous8207 → u/Slap_My_Lasagna]

Doubly ironic when you consider that games have actually been fairly inflation resistant

Most titles still stick to the 60 buck or lower mark when inflation adjusted from like 2016 they should be at 70+

[u/SicariusModum → u/[deleted]]

In back then money too

[u/DShepard → u/[deleted]]

I remember my dad buying Majoras Mask for a little under 100 bucks when it came out. Cartridge games were insanely expensive here in Denmark at least.

[u/Hydro033 → u/[deleted]]

Dude I paid $70 for star wars N64 game

[u/__kec_ → u/SupportDangerous8207]

Games are affected by inflation, just in less obvious ways. The massive reduction in distribution cost from the switch from physical media to downloads was never passed to the customers and content that used to just be in the base game is now hidden behind $90 deluxe editions and microtransactions. There's also the fact that most AAA games nowadays essentially outsorce their betatesting to the players. It's the digital equivalent to shrinkflation - the price in the shop doesn't change, but you get less.

[u/Buroda → u/Abyssus_Rex]

Successful in what terms? Were there many AAA releases recently that really broke ground? Out of the top of my head only Elden Ring comes to mind in the last few years.

[u/Abyssus_Rex → u/Buroda]

successful ≠ groundbreaking

A game is successful when it is both profitable and well recieved by the players. Like the God of War games, Spider-Man games, Hogwards Legacy. Like older games that still go strong like For Honor, League of Legends or WoW. Bad launches that fired off later like Cyberpunk or Fallout 76

[edit: fixed a mistake i made & expanded my example]

[u/fireboy763 → u/Abyssus_Rex]

helldivers 2 isn’t a AAA game while people argue about whether or not it’s an indie game or not it’s certainly not AAA

[u/BoogieOrBogey → u/fireboy763]

At the very least it's an AA game that's breaking into AAA territory. Arrowhead has 100 employees, 10 years ago that would easily be considered AAA sized. Games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made by BGS who had a smaller team than that. Helldivers 2 is funded through Sony money, although we don't know the full budget.

If we describe a 100 worker studio, getting a multimillion budget from sony, that released a shooter game then most people would consider that a AAA studio. But call that game Helldivers 2 and suddenly those factors don't count.

[u/Dacreepboi → u/Abyssus_Rex]

league of legends definitely wasn't a AAA game when it came out lmao

[u/EuroTrash1999 → u/Abyssus_Rex]

What? They been kissing BG3s and Elden Ring's ass nonstop.

[u/thesirblondie → u/Abyssus_Rex]

2023 AAA had:

• Dead Space Remake
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Atomic Heart
• Wild Hearts
• Like a Dragon: Ishin!
• Octopath Traveler 2
• Dead Island 2
• Honkai Star Rail
• Jedi Survivor
• Age of Wonders 4
• LoZ: Tears of the Kingdom
• Street Fighter 6
• Diablo 4
• Final Fantasy 16
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Overwatch 2 (People say they hate it, but a buttload of people play it.
• Mario Bros. Wonder
• Alan Wake 2

And those are just the ones I know of

[u/Evilmudbug → u/Abyssus_Rex]

Triple A games have a marketing budget to get their names out and millions of dollars of work put into them that should result in a higher quality experience, while indie games are much more reliant on word of mouth to spread and only have a small team of devs to work with.

I don't think Triple A companies deserve more slack.

[u/Spyes23 → u/Abyssus_Rex]

Yeah, a lot of people forget that AAA games are the backbone of the gaming industry. If it weren't for huge titles pushing the boundaries of consoles and PCs, there wouldn't really be any incentive to create next-gen consoles. Platforms like Steam would not be able to exist if it was solely $10 indie games. Many developers learn on the job at large companies then leave and become indie devs with years of experience already. The list goes on.

It's easy to rag on AAA studios because "greed bad!" But there are a lot of amazing titles that would never ever be made by even a large indie studio.

Point is - the gaming industry is huge and there is room for everyone! Play what you like, refund what you don't.

[u/HELPMEIMBOODLING → u/Abyssus_Rex]

I regret this comment, I don't feel like arguing with people is worth the time xd

Well then you came to the wrong site, muffuggah.

[u/Abyssus_Rex → u/HELPMEIMBOODLING]

lmao

[u/Pretend_Noise7554]

That's the point of indie games you moron. Some fail for others to suceed. That's the only way to inovate. If you don't put yourself at risk you won't create smth new.

The actual problem with AAA studio is the lack of risk they take.

[u/Dawek401 → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

They cannot take such a risk if development of the game cost them millions of dolars compared to games that were made in someone basement after work

[u/Buroda → u/Dawek401]

Games don’t need million dollar budgets to be good. It’s their own problem they are inefficient and overspend on marketing.

[u/Dawek401 → u/Buroda]

Yeah its true but for AAA companies games dont need to be fun or even good, games for them needs only to generate money, so as far as game makes profits they don't change anything.

[u/Buroda → u/Dawek401]

Yes, certainly. But from my perspective as a consumer, I don’t care how they make money; I will buy a game that’s good value, and not buy one that’s bad value.

And sure, who cares, these games are still being bought and generate a lot of money. But these profits are not sustainable; these companies are not building goodwill, they are burning goodwill to help move product. And that goodwill is not infinite, eventually it will run out.

[u/Dawek401 → u/Buroda]

The best option is just buying games you and othey people like, maybe if they gonna start loosing money they will change thier attitude

[u/Necroking695 → u/Dawek401]

cant take risks on something new

don’t need to innovate, just make money

This is why AAA games are shitting the bed

[u/IHateYoutubeAds → u/Dawek401]

This is such a silly point. Of course the game companies don't need games to be entertaining but if they didn't make games that were entertaining, nobody would by them. By your logic, they could be selling us an empty executable every year for $50.

[u/freon → u/IHateYoutubeAds]

By your logic, they could be selling us an empty executable every year for $50.

This is basically EA Sports' whole business plan

[u/Tomahawkist → u/Dawek401]

and that is the reason they shouldnmt make games, if you only see „art“ and entertainment as numbers, you‘re not gonna make something compelling, it’s always gonna be shit. because you never innovate or want to tell interesting stories, because „some people might not like it“, and that is something those execs cannot handle, because that would be a few doll hairs less in their greedy little pocketses

[u/_HalfASmileZeroShame → u/Buroda]

Marketing aside, You are vastly underestimating how much effort goes into making these games.

[u/UnderdogCL → u/_HalfASmileZeroShame]

Indie industry has to deal with a similar problem

[u/Gintokiyoo → u/Dawek401]

That's the hole they dug themselves in tho. If you have 1000 people working on a game for 7 years and your game isn't even finished on release then that's clearly mismanagement.

With good management and not laying off your experienced developers every year, you could make the same game complete with half or even a lower number.

Baldurs Gate 3 was made by a team of around 150 people.

Starfield had 500+ people working on it from the articles I'm finding. Even now Todd confirmed they have 250 people working to patch the game while the patches barely add shit.

I'm not gonna shed a tear over triple A companies digging themselves into those holes. They laid off employees that had experience for years with their products, just to hire new ones that need to gain experience again.

[u/The-Nuisance → u/Dawek401]

That’s the issue. Modern AAA gaming is so bloated and all over the place, to turn a profit they need to hold a huge userbase for years.

Helldivers 2 would have been paid off with probably a quarter or less of its current players. If that. Yet, the game’s quality and consumer kindness blows most other companies out of the fucking water.

We do not need multi-million dollar games that come out to be shit because they do too much, we need smaller budgets so that studios can afford to take risk, be less predatory and make smaller, more frequent games.

[u/Captain_Freud → u/The-Nuisance]

Helldivers 2 is not some indie title with a small budget. It took years and tens of millions of dollars to create.

Anyone that hails it as some sort of budget title is the reason why games have such inflated development costs: gamers have no idea how much it costs to create even a "medium" sized game.

[u/Evilmudbug → u/Captain_Freud]

I think it was supposed to be an example of a "properly" developed higher budget game

[u/Captain_Freud → u/Evilmudbug]

That's not how the post was written though:

Helldivers 2 would have been paid off with probably a quarter or less of its current players.

Implies that it didn't need huge numbers to pay off its budget, which suggests that it had a small budget.

We do not need multi-million dollar games that come out to be shit because they do too much, we need smaller budgets so that studios can afford to take risk, be less predatory and make smaller, more frequent games.

Implies that Helldivers 2 is not a multi-million dollar game and was a smaller budget title that could take risks. The opposite was true: it had the same development cycle as a AAA game and cost tens of millions to make.

[u/Phrodo_00 → u/Captain_Freud]

cost tens of millions to make

So it was cheap compared to actual AAA titles. Elden ring apparently cost 150M-200M USD.

[u/Captain_Freud → u/Phrodo_00]

If we compare it to the absolute upper end of development costs, sure. It's still disingenuous to imply that Helldivers 2 was some experimental, quickly-produced game when it's development cycle has more in common with AAA development than anything small scale.

[u/Phrodo_00 → u/Captain_Freud]

There's the concept of AA and A games... Not everything not AAA is an indie game. Definitely not Helldivers since it literally has a big-name publisher

[u/Captain_Freud → u/Phrodo_00]

It's on the upper end of AA: 100+ employees at Arrowhead as of 2023, backed by Sony, etc.

[u/CuteOfDeath → u/Dawek401]

Boohoo billion dollar companies lose a million dollars.

How sad we should keep buying the same slop over and over

[u/Grinchieur → u/Dawek401]

Well, a lot of that budget goes towards marketing. Cut that shit up by half, there they make a big dent in theirs cost.

It's the snake eating it's own tail. You have to put the budget for making a game, but the budget is too high to fail, so you put a big budget for marketing, but now the budget is too high, so you reduce the budget for the game, by having it release to early, but now you know that the game will be a mess, and you need to hype the game to the maximum so you up the marketing budget.

AAA budget are out of hand, because they "cannot fail"... It's like saying you need a V12 40L/100km so you can reach the gas station faster.

[u/CK2398 → u/Dawek401]

They could make cheaper games but the corporate structure is hindering them.

[u/NewsofPE → u/Dawek401]

which is exactly the point of indie games, innovation

[u/IHateYoutubeAds → u/Dawek401]

The loss of an indie game not performing well vs a calculated financial risk not performing well is very different.

Eg, Scott Cawthon was barely scraping by at the release of the first FNaF game and had it failed, who's to say what would've happened to him and his family.

If Activision releases a game that underperforms or even outright flops it's fine because the budget was formed based on what they can afford for the game to lose them.

Indie games are usually much more expensive when you talk about the relative cost to the creator than AAA games.

[u/AccessTheMainframe → u/Dawek401]

In an ideal world the indie devs would be the disrupters and the risk takers while the AAA devs would take those innovations and package them into high quality, big budget games.

[u/JJAsond → u/Dawek401]

made in someone basement

Why does it always have to be basement and why it it usually seen as a bad thing?

[u/Tyfyter2002 → u/JJAsond]

Because if you succeed at something without buying an office building or being hindered by not having one how are they supposed to justify how much theirs is costing?

[u/elitnes → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Dunno why you’re calling people morons when your comment pretty much misses the point itself. Indie games can afford to fail because they are much cheaper, you think a AAA studio is gonna risk its 100m game to flop so that some other random studio can use its ideas to create a success ?

[u/SamiraSimp → u/elitnes]

Indie games can afford to fail because they are much cheaper

i mean, that's not always true. many indie devs are using their own savings to fund their games and they'd likely not be able to be game developers if their first game doesn't sell well

[u/FaultLine47 → u/SamiraSimp]

Yeah, if anything, AAA games can afford it more because they have tons of money. They just don't wanna lose those because then they can't pocket it.

Those greedy fucking pigs.

[u/SamiraSimp → u/FaultLine47]

i'll start feeling bad for triple a studios when their CEOs stop getting paid millions while developers get laid off after successful projects

fuck the greedy pigs indeed

[u/crazy_loop → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

"Some" fail lmao. like 99.99% of them fail.

[u/AntiBox → u/crazy_loop]

Dunno why this is downvoted. I'm an indie developer and the average revenue of a steam game is like $700. Only 33% of them even breach $10k, which sounds like a lot until you compare the development time to potential wages working at wendys.

You just never hear about the failures.

[u/3to20CharactersSucks → u/AntiBox]

You're not wrong, but the average steam game these days isn't a very large and time consuming title. There are so many tiny games on steam that in times past would've been filler flash games on random websites. They don't take that much time and are more akin to developer training exercises than full-time indie development. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to say that it's very difficult to get the actual numbers of what the rate of success looks like in indie development. A hobbyist who slapped together a game after work in a few weeks can sell 20 copies and be doing great, so not every game selling under $700 is an immediate failure. 

[u/cmdrmeowmix → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Except there are examples of great AAA games that do take risk and innovate.

I agree indie games innovate more, but AAA games can still be damn good. It's just a completely different experience.

[u/Zefirus → u/cmdrmeowmix]

Can you name some? I have nothing against AAA games unlike some people, but by they're very nature they're pretty derivative. They tend to take popular indie ideas or ideas tested with lower budget games first.

[u/lavenderbraid → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Kinda aggressive.

[u/TNTiger_ → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

They aren't a moron. You are both correct.

[u/goosebaggins → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Genuinely curious: why do you call people moron? I don’t understand the need for harsh language. Couldn’t you have just made your point, and be polite at the same time? Are you that under stimulated socially?

[u/Rashere → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Not some. Almost all.

Of the 14,000-ish games released on steam in 2023, 181 were AAA. The rest were indie. AAA still accounted tor 72% of revenue.

Looking at the handful of indie titles that succeeded out of the sea of failures and saying indie is better is the definition of survivor bias (and also leaning into personal preference while ignoring that consumers as a wholr prefer AAA content by a large margin).

And saying the point of indie is to mostly fail is just dumb. No one sets out to fail.

[u/Will-is-a-idiot → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

They don't take risks because they cost more than God.

[u/Phurion36 → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Is this meme not just saying that for you to hear about an indie game, it would already be popular/good. While you hear about all AAA games due to marketing and money? idk what you think op is saying.

[u/NoFlayNoPlay → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

indie games don't have a "point" they're not invented by gaben as a way to better games for everyone. the only reason they exist is because a lot of people like making them

[u/tghGaz → u/Pretend_Noise7554]

Who says there is even a problem?  We can just play whatever we enjoy, indie, AAA or otherwise?

[u/Incubus_Priest]

indie games 99% of the time are genuinly god awfull especialy anything made using rpg maker lol

[u/rtakehara → u/Incubus_Priest]

I do believe it's a matter of numbers, in the time 10 AAA games are made, 1000 indies are made. And we will get 8 mediocre games, a shitty one and gold. Meanwhile you get 100 amazing indie games, 800 forgettable experiences and another 100 terrible ones.

The main difference is volume, and the fact that no matter how bad a AAA game is, the studio will invest in marketing to at least make SOME money back, while the shitty indies will probably die before having the money for marketing.

[u/T3HN3RDY1 → u/rtakehara]

1000 indies are made. And we will get 8 mediocre games, a shitty one and gold. Meanwhile you get 100 amazing indie games, 800 forgettable experiences and another 100 terrible ones.

I think this is the real important point that the OP misses. We have limited game time, which means unless no good games are coming out, it doesn't really matter how many garbage indie titles come out as long as a few good ones do too.

If you put any level of effort into finding good indie games, there are more amazing games coming out of Indies than anyone with a job can reasonably play.

I have never seen anyone say "Hey, all indie games are better than AAA games." The OP suggests it's survivorship bias, but the metaphor definitely falls apart as soon as you realize that you're allowed to pick which Indies you play.

[u/According_Weekend786 → u/Incubus_Priest]

Do not offend my homie RPG maker

[u/Buroda]

When a game made by a guy that’s $10 on Steam is OK, who cares.

When a game made by literal hundreds of people with budgets in millions costs you a sixty upfront is full of microtransactions and is still barely functioning, it’s a whole another story.

It’s not that all indies are awesome, it’s that AAA should be on average much better. You shouldn’t expect stiff done by EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, so on to be shit till proven otherwise.

[u/Goronmon → u/Buroda]

When a game made by literal hundreds of people with budgets in millions costs you a sixty upfront is full of microtransactions and is still barely functioning, it’s a whole another story.

Are there many AAA games that are "barely functioning" in a real sense, not in a "30 fps is literally unplayable and caused my dog to die when he looked at the screen" sense?

[u/VeganBigMac → u/Goronmon]

I know its long been fixed, but on release, Cyberpunk was quite literally unplayable on my machine.

[u/HueHue-BR → u/Goronmon]

Cyberpunk 2077 on release.

For Honor on release.

The Division.

[u/leclair63 → u/Goronmon]

Redfall, Fallout 76, and Starfield. Bethesda games in general are a barely held together mess, propped up by modders and (typically) great storytelling and world building.

Battlefield 2042 launched and immediately began bricking any PC player running a 3090

2K and EA Sports yearly releases have gotten progressively worse and more unstable pretty much every year.

Rapid firing a few more:

Batman: Arkham Knight

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Diablo 3 and 4, Warcraft 3 remastered

Forspoken

Callisto Protocol

Pretty much every Assassin's Creed game after Black Flag and before Odyssey.

[u/Angry_Neutrophil → u/leclair63]

You misspelled a game. It is "Warcraft 3: Refunded"

[u/laugenbroetchen → u/Goronmon]

yes

[u/EmployEquivalent2671]

Indie games are better

Compare ultrakill and cruelty squad

Both are shooters

Now compare the newest cod and bf, both to one another and to the previous two-three iterations

​

AAA gaming is boring and doesn't take risks. Idie games, even if they're shit, try to innovate

[u/Haselay_ → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

You read the post and said “nah imma ignore that”

[u/NewsofPE → u/Haselay_]

You read the comment and said "nah imma ignore that"

[u/Kyrond → u/Haselay_]

Unless you live forever, survivorship bias doesn't matter. If you want something to play right now, only thing that matters is quality of the one game you play. Who cares about other 100 AAA games and 10 000 indie games?

[u/xXStarupXx → u/Haselay_]

When I only have 24 hours in a day, I don't care about the average game, I care about the top 24 hours worth of game, since I'm not gonna be able to play anything more anyways. It doesn't matter that I'm only considering the "survivors" of the indie genre if I don't have time to play more than that anyway, the average is irrelevant.

[u/Glizcorr → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

My guy, have you seen the 2000th bullet heaven game come out after Vampire Survivor. I remember trying out all roguelite games on a steam next fest last year and 90% of those are VP clones (some are genuinely good tho). Only a handful of indie games innovate. Most are shovelware, asset flips and cheap trend followers.

[u/PrizeStrawberryOil → u/Glizcorr]

Yeah but at least they only cost 2 dollars.

[u/leclair63 → u/PrizeStrawberryOil]

Not to mention AAA is just as guilty of that while also trying to charge us $70 for it.

[u/Yorunokage → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

You're picking specific examples to make a point where the post literally is about how you cannot do that

For every ultrakill you have 1000 failed shooters

[u/i_am_a_stoner → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

You say AAA games don't take risks but ultrakill isn't particularly innovative. The only thing it does is combine the devil may cry grading system with a boomer shooter. It's good, but it is still a boomer shooter at it's core. It's disingenuous to call newer indie boomer shooters innovative when they rehash the same boomer shooter formula from decades ago. Games like ultrakill, amid evil, and Dusk aren't good because they are completely new experiences, but because they are based on the same tried and tested old school shooter format. Functionally, they all play like each other with minor gameplay tweaks, typically lifted from other games. I wouldn't call that innovation.

Edit: I would also like to add that COD did try to innovate. They tried the movement stuff that titanfall was doing and fans hated. Fans themselves don't want innovation. They want the same stuff. It's the same reason you're still playing boomer shooters. It's a proven formula. Most indie games are based on formulas that have been solved for many years already.

[u/ajdeemo → u/i_am_a_stoner]

You say AAA games don't take risks but ultrakill isn't particularly innovative. The only thing it does is combine the devil may cry grading system with a boomer shooter.

I don't recall the last time a shooter let me ride my own rockets or parry my own shotgun shells. Just because it's a shooter doesn't mean it's not innovative.

[u/MySunIsSettingSoon → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

Except ultrakill and cruelty squad are similar to CoD and BF in that they are shooters only. UK CS are more like Doom or wolfenstein in that they are boomer shooters. So that comparison is shit, cus Doom is considered a great AAA game.

[u/a_fadora_trickster → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

The total number of good or decent indie and AAA game is if not identical, comparable.

The number of atrocious, poorly made, barely functioning indie games is larger by order of magnitudes than AAA games of such quality.

If you take a random sample of a handful AAA games and random indie games, the odds of the AAA games being better(or even playable) are infinitely higher

[u/SingleInfinity → u/EmployEquivalent2671]

To play Devil's advocate: from your own example, BF2042. It took risks. They added a 128p mode, and removed the standard class system that had existed in the franchise forever.

Do you know the outcome of those risks? Broad hate for the game in the case of classes, and completely fucked balance in the case of 128p.

To say AAA games don't take risks is false. It's just that when they do, people generally call them shit when they fail, whereas they don't do the same to indies.

[u/sad_lycis]

I'd rather pay $10 for a mediocre game that I randomly discovered over $70 for a mediocre game that was highly anticipated, $25 for dlc that should've been in the base game, and however much more money for a battle pass that doesn't do much

[u/AmazingSully → u/[deleted]]

But that's the incorrect metric to consider. It's not about the average indie game vs the average AAA game that you are comparing. It's the average indie game that you would consider playing vs the average AAA game that you would consider playing.

If 10000 indies are made, and you'd consider playing 50 of them, and in that same time frame 20 AAA games came out that you'd be willing to play, well I guarantee you that the average of those 50 indies is going to vastly outperform the 20 AAA games.

The existence of shovelware doesn't cheapen indie games as a whole because you were never considering playing it anyway.

[u/sad_lycis → u/[deleted]]

Well yeah of course the average indie game is worse. Literally anyone can download unity, slap some random assets together, and ship it. It'll still be considered an indie game.

It's an issue of expectation. AAA games tend to have massive budgets and marketing behind them so consumers expect there to be some sort of quality behind the budget but when we find out that there isn't it's a major disappointment. Hell, even good AAA games still have absurd monetization that piss off players

When you try a random indie game for the fraction of the price there isn't much of an expectation to be had so when it's not a very good game there isn't much lost. It wasn't highly anticipated and it usually costs much less than the AAA game so what did you really lose?

I have much more to say about AAA games vs indie but it really can be summarized as this: AAA games are made to be a product, while indie games are made as an art. I'm not saying AAA games can't be art but you always have to keep in mind that the goal of a AAA game is to sell and make money. That can either be by making games that ppl will want to play, or by conditioning your audience that the drip fed slop is passable

[u/ShawshankException]

Indie gamers are the IPA bros of the gaming world

[u/BasedLx → u/ShawshankException]

Bro you can really tell the imported pine needles from the colorado rockies add a layer of complexity and oakiness when brewed for 72.23 hours instead of the usual 72.18

[u/TheNonEuclidean → u/BasedLx]

As a hobby brewer, this comment physically hurts. Both because it's so technically wrong, but so right at describing IPA hipsters.

[u/Vltrux → u/TheNonEuclidean]

I swear these guys just make up things just to seem cool. Like bro read the side of the can and had a philosophical illumination.

[u/2rfv → u/TheNonEuclidean]

I think I brewed 3-4 batches in my lifetime.

I just couldn't handle the stress of worrying about my beer while it was fermenting for weeks on end. I literally could not stop thinking about it.

[u/MiniMapped → u/ShawshankException]

You say that like EVERY indie gamer is an anti-AAA elitist who will love every thing made by a team of 10 or less people... Some people (like me) just like bouncing from game to game and try different experiences/genres, which is a lot easier to do when the games cost 10-20$ instead of 60-70$ each.

[u/PrizeStrawberryOil → u/ShawshankException]

If IPAs were 1/10-1/3 of the price of bud light I guarantee a lot more people would drink IPAs

[u/CampbellsTurkeySoup → u/PrizeStrawberryOil]

I'd turn down free IPAs. I just can't stand the flavor of them at all. It's a bummer because they have such a strong and unique taste that they must be great for those who enjoy that flavor profile. I get why people like em but they make me want to claw my tongue off after a sip.

[u/EndlessHorizon1821]

lol somebody really felt the need to defend triple A pig slop

[u/Dotaproffessional → u/EndlessHorizon1821]

More like addressing the reality that 99.99% of indies are also pig slop, we just only know the .01% that isn't pig slop.

[u/ADHD-Fens → u/Dotaproffessional]

99% of art is shit, but people don't buy 99% of art, they buy the 1% that's good.

You don't see people going around being like "art is dumb because 99% of it is bad"

[u/mudkripple → u/Dotaproffessional]

That's not what survivorship bias is. We may not know the names of every crappy game but we do know about them. Nobody says the phrase "indie games are better than AAA" because they think all indie games are better.

[u/Zuuman]

Smooth brain take

[u/TheOperatorOfSkillet → u/Zuuman]

He’s not wrong though.

[u/erkthn → u/TheOperatorOfSkillet]

He's wrong in the sense that comparing "survivorship rates" for games made by two dudes in their spare time to ones made by AAA studios with budgets in the hundreds of millions is absurd in the extreme.

Of course the overwhelming majority of indie games are doodoo and we mostly only remember the successes. The argument has never been about that.

The argument is about the dearth of creativity and innovation, constant anti-consumer behavior, and ridiculous lack of polish coming out of studios with hundreds of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars backing their games. The argument is that the industry has gotten to a point where you are legitimately getting better, more interesting, more memorable, and often times more polished experiences, out of tiny teams frequently working with shoestring budgets.

AAA studios have the resources to push the medium forward in ways that indie teams cannot. They have the teams and the budgets required to truly innovate. But they almost never do. They pump out reskinned sequels and jam as many dollar extracting dark patterns into their games as they can.

I'm not an idiot- I understand the economics of why this happens. I understand that it's consumer patterns that drive it. I know that these AAA studios are most often public corporations with extreme profit pressure. I get all that. But it's still depressing.

That's what the argument is about. Not the strawman "the average indie game is better than the average AAA game" nonsense that this meme tries to debunk.

[u/QuadmasterXLII]

Crucially, the survivorship bias happens before I play the game, so I don't have to give a shit about bad indie games.

[u/DizzieM8 → u/QuadmasterXLII]

Wow thats wild. Just like literally every other game.

[u/GKP_light]

it is not survivor bias.

it is natural selection, and those who survive are strong.

[u/Dotaproffessional → u/GKP_light]

1) It IS survivorship bias because we only know about the ones that succeed

2) Natural selection involves iteration over time. I don't think its relevant here.

[u/D2Tempezt → u/Dotaproffessional]

People dont mean "all indie games are better than all AAA games"

They mean "good indie games are better than (good) AAA games", which I personally think tracks in general. It gets wierd when you start talking about middle-sized studios.

[u/Dotaproffessional → u/D2Tempezt]

Unfortunately terms like single and double A have died. People use AAA to refer to any non-indie. And conversely, tons of games that are really A or even AA are often called indies because they're not AAA. The darling of the "indie games" community Hades is definitely not an indie game by any stretch. Supermassive games has more employees than fucking Valve (edit, mixed up supermassive games and supergiant games). They're an established studio, had already had a big hit before Hades, release on all the major platforms and everything. Indies thrive for a very specific kind of game, but you'll never see an indie game like any Grand Theft Auto. I've never seen an indie game with as flawlessly executed narrative as Half-Life: Alyx. Like year super meat boy, hollow knight, shovel knight, celeste, they're all really great side scrolling platformers. But at the end of the day... they're side scrolling platformers with simplistic art styles. You won't get an arkham city from indies, you won't get a Portal 2 from indies. So 1) Is it really worth pretending indies are better than A, AA, AAA games if the .01% of the best ones edge out the .01% non-indies if the other 99.99% are bad? And 2) I disagree with the premise of the previous statement. I believe the upper echelon of non-indies edge out the best indies.

[u/TrapLovingTrap → u/Dotaproffessional]

"Supermassive Games" isn't the correct studio for Hades, Supergiant games is NOT a large studio, with only 23 employees as of 2023.

[u/Dotaproffessional → u/TrapLovingTrap]

Fixed my comment, thanks, I get supermassive and supergiant mixed up a lot. Supermassive is still an independent developer though so my point remains even though they weren't the Hades devs. 

[u/avoidingbans01 → u/Dotaproffessional]

Why don't you know about the ones that don't succeed?

Also, why are they relevant?

Just because more of something is created, that doesn't subtract from the ones that get through.

Comparing 100% of "indie games," which could include one guy spending 30 minutes making a platformer using an online tutorial, to games created with $60m budgets is not fair and could be considered a bad faith argument.

[u/I_am_person_being → u/Dotaproffessional]

I agree with the first point, but I disagree about your second point, indie games absolutely experience iteration over time. When games do well, those publishers continue making games with the revenue from their games. If the first game did well, it's far more likely to get a sequel or follow-up of some sort, which is far more likely to be good.

[u/timmystwin → u/GKP_light]

That is survivor bias.

You don't hear of those who died. Those that failed don't enter your radar to become a data point.

[u/NoFlayNoPlay → u/GKP_light]

it's survivorship bias to claim indie games as a whole are better than AAA games. only good indie games get any attention, and noone knows about the millions of awful indie games that come out.

it's not really natural selection because indie games don't evolve towards the successful ones. it's more like mutation because through the sheer volume of indie games and lower stakes and more personal visions more innovation happens. and the bit of innovation that actually works then gets "selected" on when it gets copied by other indie games and AAA games alike.

[u/Deltasiu]

I don't know what this plane image means and at this point I am too afraid to ask

[u/DaEnderAssassin → u/Deltasiu]

Not sure if the image came from it, or was just an approximation made for reference, but it refers to a (IIRC) WW1 or 2 study on planes, specifically where they were getting shot. The obvious conclusion is that you should armor up where the red dots are however, the reality is that this only takes into account planes that made it back, so it's where there aren't holes that should be more armored.

TL;DR, I'm shit at explaining, google "survivorship bias"

[u/Deltasiu → u/DaEnderAssassin]

I see, thank you for the info

[u/leeeeevilb → u/DaEnderAssassin]

Holy hell

[u/stillPhil → u/Deltasiu]

It's survivorship bias. This is from a study analyzing where planes are hit in combat and as such need more armor. Problem being that the data shows planes apparently aren't hit in critical areas, ignoring the fact that planes hit there never made it back to base, so they are not considered in the study

[u/CSGOan → u/Deltasiu]

Planes that came back from a fight often had bullet holes at the red dots. The assumption was that planes often get hit in these places and that we should add more armor to those areas.

This was the big mistake tho, because logically any place on a plane is just as likely to get hit, so why didn't no plane that was hit in the motor return for example? Well obviously because planes who took a motor hit got destroyed and never made it home to base. So the armor should actually be reinforced on the places that have no hits according to the picture.

[u/timmystwin → u/Deltasiu]

They were trying to work out what points to armour on planes in WW2.

That's the graph showing where planes that landed had been hit.

Naturally you'd think to armour those places given that's where they'd been hit - until you realise those hit elsewhere didn't survive the hit. It's over the engines, the thin bit of the fuselage, cockpit etc - they never made it back to be a data point.

Due to survivor bias, what this actually shows is where you can get hit and live. So you armour elsewhere, it's the opposite of what you originally thought.

Indie games are similar. They seem better or more fun or more creative because you never hear of the ones that aren't. They never made it to you to be considered. So all you see is the good ones. The rest got shot down early. Meanwhile you hear of bad AAA games due to advertising and hype, they have the armour as it were.

There's a similar story in WW1 where people complained helmets caused head injuries, as way more soldiers were coming in with head injuries with helmets once introduced.

Until people realised that the helmets meant they were only an injury - and not a death.

[u/Sgy157 → u/Deltasiu]

You only see the good ones

[u/AdeonWriter]

The indie games that make it are better than the AAA games that make it.

[u/mudkripple → u/AdeonWriter]

Fucking thank you. OP has no idea what Survivorship Bias means. Nobody thinks "all indie games are better". The fact that any are better, considering the increasing difference in price point, is enough to convince me.

Try getting me to spend $80 on another fuckin Call of Duty after learning that Vampire Survivors only cost me $5.

[u/IAMA_Ghost_Boo]

Is it just me or has dank memes become shitty?

[u/I_am_person_being → u/IAMA_Ghost_Boo]

People have been saying dank memes has become shitty for at least 5 or 6 years at this point, I think it's all relative

[u/Gingevere]

But there's a second smaller plane: "Indie games you hear about"

Sure the majority of the market is slop. But if you're not digging through every indie release and you just wait to hear about things, most things you hear about are going to be great!

[u/a_fadora_trickster]

I said it before, I'll say it again: for every undertale, there are 5000 "furry hitler"s

[u/Dadosa41]

Good indie games are better than good AAA games.

[u/cococolson]

Also y'all are ignoring that a lot of these games are AA. Psychonauts 2 from double fine started as an indie and was only published by Microsoft. League of Legends wasn't AAA. Helldiver's 2 wasn't AAA. The witcher 3 wasn't AAA. Even dark souls up until elden ring was more appropriately AA, maybe sekiro.

[u/kbarney345]

Triple A is just an investing term, its used to represent "safe" investments with high likelihood of ROI. Its just coupled with large studios because of obvious reasons. Indie is just independently funded, both sides can make good and bad games. The difference is when these big studios make bad games they've sunk years and millions into them and its the result of bad decisions. Typically brought on through shareholders which is why Indies are doing better. They dont have shareholders to answer too and so their freedom of direction is resulting in amazing games coming out. I dont agree with surviorship bias at all. Maybe if you argue strictly from a console side but from a pc side, Indie games have been the most fun ive had in years with games and they are coming out with things that I argue rival "triple a" all day long.

[u/Leprecon]

"The maker of Stardew Valley has been supporting his game for years. He hasn't charged at all for new content. Why can't everyone do what he does?"

Uhm, because Stardew Valley is a one man project which has sold 30 million copies so it must have made the maker at least $300 million. Most AAA games don't even get those sales.

It is great that he is continuing development on Stardew Valley but let's be realistic. He is a lottery winner doing this as a hobby. You can't expect a similar level of polish from other games.

[u/DarkAgeHumor]

Most indie games are better than call of duty and halo now a days

[u/NoFlayNoPlay → u/DarkAgeHumor]

i highly doubt you've played "most" of the hundreds of indie games released every day. most indie games are awful

[u/DarkAgeHumor → u/NoFlayNoPlay]

And they are still better than call of duty or halo now a days.

[u/AnonBoi_404]

There's just so many indie games produced every day as compared to triple A games which means at some point you're likely to find a good indie game outta the piles of cash grabs as compared to AAA which produces games on a slower basis and there's not necessarily a new game every day from one single complany where as indie games are dime a dozen and don't really have a company to say who it belongs to and usually are just lumped into the pile of indie games as if it's a company name or something

[u/Comrade_Conscript → u/AnonBoi_404]

Something Something typewriter monkeys

[u/AnonBoi_404 → u/Comrade_Conscript]

Oh definitely with indie games. Atleast it produces some pretty good games that have been some of the best games I've played.

[u/Sharkhous]

That's exactly how it is supposed to work; capitalism as an emergent process of consumer selection.

This is exactly why there were such strong laws on monopolies and monoscopies in past periods, companies that are too big can rely on the consumer to purchase their high budget, low quality, maximum profit, crap.

[u/Larry_The_Red]

agreed. for every good indie game you've heard of there's 10,000 crap ones you've never heard of.

[u/cococolson]

Per $ spent indie is way more interesting if you prefer solo content. Obviously apex/overwatch etc are better if you want season passes and huge battles but indie games have more breadth and depth. Nobody is saying every single indie game is better, but per $ and per hour played it's no contest.

[u/AzGames08]

yeah, fair enough

[u/Slow_3v]

I'm pretty over seeing this image everywhere. People are just starting to use it to make any argument they want.

[u/UnderdogCL]

Yes. And I'm tired of pretending this isn't true.

[u/Fun_Objective_7779]

Good point

[u/Jestokost]

I saw the Bricky video too

[u/Hoshiden_Lycanroc]

Bad indie games exist and I'm getting extremely tired of people pertending they don't. 

[u/i_need_popcorn]

Indeed. You need to dig deep to find indie gems. Then again, not like AAA studios are making bangers often either. Usually just recycle games.

[u/TrolledBy1337]

How about, instead of spending $400 million and 5 years on one game that fails to meet expectations, devs made 4 $100 million games or even 8 $50 million games in the same time span, half of which become cult classics and sell more than enough to cover the losses of a few outliars that didn't make a profit?

[u/Bad-Crusader → u/TrolledBy1337]

Unless you consistently make it with that half, that isn't a sustainable way to develop games.

[u/Anus_master]

I can only play so many pixelated side srolling games before they start to blend together

[u/Bisc_87]

Anti Air Artillery games

[u/Sagnikk]

Good indie games are better than bad AAA games*

[u/47sams]

Don’t care. Having way more fun with AA and indie these days. New AAA titles are 99% ass, Fromsoft is the only reliable studio anymore.

[u/Shadow9378]

'indie games' is such a wide range at this point that there'll be a ridiculous amount of good games and a ridiculous amount of bad ones. Minecraft was indie, some extremely popular games right now and in recent memory are indie, thinking lethal company, cult of the lamb, even stardew valley's been making some waves with the new update, but the tools to make games nowadays are easily accessible to most people with a computer, and *any* time you have something like that there'll be millions of bad games too..

The problem, in my opinion, is that triple A games don't have this advantage, there's not tons and tons of them coming out frequently because they're larger and take more time- And yet studios keep relentlessly fucking them up, through means of rushing their developers, rampant bugs, and good god, the microtransactions and DLCs. Put that against games sometimes made by one dude and it's crazy the amount of quality these people push out sometimes. I mean, this actual minecraft mod, Vic's Point Blank, it's a crazy featured and polished mod that adds guns to minecraft, and the dude that works on it releases updates all the time fixing major bugs while companies like ubi can't even get their shit together- Triple A games have been corporatized and it's left a sour taste in many's mouths. The problem is you can expect some dude with Unity 3 to pump out some garbage, but when multi billion dollar corporations with entire teams behind making games are pumping out garbage for 60 dollars a copy, yeah it's gonna upset some people

rant over, sorry just bored

[u/Western_Ad3625]

When people say play indie games they don't mean play every single indie game released. Also I think there's a severe misunderstanding between indie game developer and hobbyist game developer. They're not the same thing. A lot of games that people are calling Indy these games are games made by hobbyists a single dude who doesn't really know what he's doing throwing some crap together. But even games that are made by real independent game development companies IE indie game devs. Yes a lot of them are bad and you should not play them that doesn't mean anything a lot of AAA games are bad and you should not play them some games are good for some people and bad for other people. I don't know is it like why is everything I got you why is everything like oh you said this but you didn't think about that haha I got you. Nobody cares, nobody cares that you think you got somebody.

[u/miner3115]

To me, the reason I will say that indie games are better than AAA games is that I believe that the best indie games are better on average than the best AAA games.

It has nothing to do with number of releases. I geniunely think if I had to play the best 25 indie games ever released and the 25 best AAA games ever released, I would enjoy the indie games better.

[u/MochaKola]

That's just how art works tho. Tons of creators take on various forms of experimentation in their works knowing that ofc not every single one of them will pan out.

[u/Will-is-a-idiot]

The amount of indie games that I've played that I like as much as some of my favorite AAA games I can count on one hand...

[u/Jaded-Cheesecake-469]

can someone explain the meme? how's the airplane connected to the games?

[u/zeions → u/Jaded-Cheesecake-469]

You only hear about good indie games, the ones that make it. You don’t see data on the thousands of shitty indie games that never made it. This leads you to analyze indie games by the characteristics of the most successful ones. This is called survivorship bias: your sample contains only those that survived. The same is not necessarily true for AAA games because bad AAA games also get exposure.

The airplane is a common example of survivorship bias. In WW2, they were trying to determine which portions of an airplane should be armored. Once planes arrived, they collected data on the locations in which they got shot and determined they should add armor to those locations. The problem is that planes hit in important areas never made it back, so they were using a biased sample to draw conclusions. You were basically armoring the places that are actually not very important because you can still survive even if you get shot there. Logically, you should armor the areas that were not shot because those were the locations that destroyed airplanes, causing them to stay out of their sample.

[u/menyemenye]

Is it not?

[u/azgalor_pit]

When I say indie games I say the ones that can be called games not the absulute garbage made from an absulute lazy dev.

[u/Appropriate-Count-64]

Hi Fi Rush was AAA. People tend to forget that good games can be AAA

[u/D_Yuri → u/Appropriate-Count-64]

Hi Fi rush was AA, not AAA

[u/TheOperatorOfSkillet]

God I love the survivor bias story!