The publishing and investment climate https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ron-gilbert-cancels-rpg-projec...

It's pretty tough getting a game funded right now.

It's self-inflicted. The big studios are beyond terrible. The games are more about social conditioning than entertainment.

See Clair Obscur. They got funding from the State of France and the French National Centre for Cinema, and the game is 100x better than the slop the big studios publish.

Social conditioning? Clair Obscur is good and was very unique, but is not 100x than “the slop big studios publish”.

Infinity times better coukd be a better hyperbole, very goos game versus no good. Dividing by zero gets you infinity instead of just 100

"Let's just all make Clair Obscur/Minecraft/Blue Prince" is not a repeatable strategy (every indie dev is trying to make good games). How much did it cost to make the Beatles' albums? A piano, drums, a couple of guitars and salaries for 4 guys? Why don't the big studios today with all their money just hire another Beatles?

Same reason why Ubisoft isn't just making another Balatro. Industrializing culture isn't (yet?) a solved problem.

> How much did it cost to make the Beatles' albums? A piano, drums, a couple of guitars and salaries for 4 guys?

The Beatles did only take a few days to knock out each of their earliest LPs. However, per Wikipedia, "the group spent 700 hours on [Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]. The final cost [...] was approximately £25,000 (equivalent to £573,000 in 2023)."

So, actually, envelope-pushing cultural landmarks typically do require a lot of effort and money to complete.

On the other hand I'm kind of shocked that the big gaming studios never seem to be fast followers. It feels like we've been through multiple waves of Balatro-likes from indie developers already. Where is the Ubisoft Lethal Company or something? You'd think having a studio full of experienced developers with tons of tech they could hop on trends quickly. It seems like they think it's beneath them or something though. Or maybe they're just structurally incapable of moving quickly. It did take 11 years and like 4 redesigns to make Skull & Bones after all.

The more people you add the slower you get, not faster. Large companies are nutorously slow moving (and particularly slow to change directions) vs small upstarts.

yeah, but at this point it's weird they just don't grab a studio, give them a funding for 2 years and say them 'copy the latest indie trends with a tad more polish' and let them cook to see what comes out.

They tried that, e.g. "EA Originals"[0] is basically that (there are similar programs at other major publishers). I suspect it proved to not be a big money maker at the scale required to move the needle at publishers of that size., and that they are keeping these on as a sort of prestige programs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#EA_Originals

This is a conjencture, even if I do work in the industry but not AAA, but: Following the trends simply isn't part of their business model. Following current trends is a very unpredictable business. Many try, and many fail. AAA had the luxury of somewhat predictable sales. They can make big bets like working years on a game, since they know they will have millions of players. And they know smaller studios can't compete with them in that business.

But, of course, making games is hard, and sometimes they fail. And now the free tools are getting really good, and smaller studios are becoming increasingly competent. Will we soon see the big ones fall? Their only way to survive is to keep going bigger, escaping the smaller studios to a place they can't reach. Now we have AAAA games. But is there a limit where players stop caring how many As a game has?

>Industrializing culture isn’t a solved problem

Someone’s never heard of the American music industry

Correct, a better description.

Yes, it is 100x better than the slop the big studios publish.

Enter: parasitic storytelling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxu3Q71NvE

Your mention of "social conditioning" a propos of nothing gives you away like the "three fingers" in Inglorious Basterds. I would highly suggest not basing your entire personality and opinions on a slack-jawed streamer's meandering rant delivered from his RGB gaming chair for 5 hours straight.

Here, educate yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxu3Q71NvE

Jesus fucking christ

He can't be trusted after fumbling the ending of Return to Monkey Island.

In his defence, Monkey Island is Ron’s creation and the ending is probably what he always intended. It felt like a fitting conclusion to me that neatly tied a bow on the whole saga.

He's also been creating absurdist controversial endings to adventure games for a long time before Return to Monkey Island (SoMI2, Thimbleweed Park)...

I thought the ending was lovely as well. We get sincerity, but seems some people can't go to sleep without an epic boss fight and some dramatic reveal of the "secret". This was the better way to do it and for me the best point and click ever made.

So instead you get a sophomoric meta-ending that has absolutely no originality and shits on decades of storytelling? The ending is trash and an insult to the fans' intelligence because the author can't accept he's "just" writing adventure fiction, as if that's beneath him and instead needs to make some philosophical point about the nature of aging, thereby completely stepping out of his skill set. Go read Proust, Ron Gilbert, and leave that silly ambition to rest.

But that's Ron. He's a Portland Gen X Socialist. Irony and cynicism are the only things he knows.

I believe that, as far as "The Secret" goes, this is what he always intended. The idea had been floating around forums for quite a while and I have no objections to that.

Having said that, RtMI feels like Ron Gilbert telling me to go away and do something else with my life. The world is falling apart, the game characters don't care, the ending itself gives up on you and, in case you didn't get it, there's a letter afterwards from Ron Gilbert himself telling you that, if you try to recapture the past, "you'll sort of get what [you] want but it won't be what [you] expected".

As far as I'm concerned, I would have preferred it if he hadn't made the game at all.

Truly infuriating.

There is an alternative ending if you know what to look for: https://www.trueachievements.com/a375369/i-dont-believe-achi...

My issue with it was not even the end, but everything else: it felt like a nostalgia tour and retreading of old ideas. Even the themes of the soundtrack were based off the originals. I quit a couple hours in; I wanted a new Monkey Island story, all I got was a game for people that simply wanted to relive their youth.

birds are immune to pepper heat