How Long Can AAA Publishers Survive?

"Perhaps more than anything, we’ll look to this generation as the point where the AAA publishers began to stumble towards an inevitable crash sometime in the near future." - Joe Garcia

[cyguration]

They'll last as long as idiot gaming media keeps pushing their content into the faces of gamers who don't have the will power to resist all the wallet-ravaging DLC schemes.

Hopefully major gaming media and AAA publishers will go the way of dinosaurs soon and together...it will be a befitting end to two destructive forces currently ruining the gaming industry.

[hennessey86]

I do and as far as I can tell DLC is an option not a requirement.

[Ravenor]

Not all DLC is bad, it's very easy to pick and choose what's worth the price and what isn't.

The author also doesn't seem to realize it's fairly common practice now for studio's to staff up and ramp up as development progresses and then dump those people after. It's contract work, not permanent employment.

[Nafon]

I hope they go the way of dinosaurs as well... BATTLEFIELD 4 DINO MODE THAT IS!

[cleft5]

When you have AAA publishers ignoring major companies like Nintendo, they aren't going to last very long at all. More developers are going the indie route and the quality of those indie titles are vastly improving. I am sure AAA publishers will be around for a while longer, but I don't see them being around forever or even past 20 to 30 years.

[oof46]

Nintendo is also a AAA publisher.

[cleft5]

Yes, but in there case they are also a manufacture of a console and rights holder of many more popular IPs. This is something that other AAA publishers can't claim. My point was simple, if you are in the business of selling games than you don't ignore major platforms for whatever reason.

[brewin]

It depends on what is considered AAA. Companies tend to have a different opinion of what constitutes a AAA product. I mean, EA thinks that Medal of Honor, Madden, and Battlefield are AAA gmaes. I disagree. Battlefield is good, but whats so AAA about it? Sure it has good graphics and gameplay but it isnt anything new or really that exciting. Infamous,God of War, Ni No Kuni,Skyrim, Mario Galaxy series, Zelda, etc. are AAA titles and none of them involve shooting people in the face over and over and over.

Publishers and Developers seem to think that shooting everything possible immediately signifies AAA quality and its getting ridiculous. Even the new Tomb Raider has more shooting than raiding of tombs. How much shit can people shoot before getting fed up with shooting shit?

I love GTA, Halo, and many other shooting games, but I am sick of "me too" FPS and 3rd person shooters. If publishers can diversify what they consider to be AAA then Im sure they will have no problem surviving. AAA companies need to be more like Sony and cover all the bases (while embracing indie devs) as good as they do in order to survive. Juast look at how they brought the PS3 back form the brink of the grave with their stellar lineup, which included a hell of a lot more than shooters. Sure they had their fair share of those, but the late generation diversity they have provided has been astounding to say the least!

This repettive shooter shit is going to be the death of the industry right along with "free-to-play." I shudder when I really think of what the industry has become. Developers dont really make decisions anymore. The suit and tie guys in a room teel them what to make and they make another cookie-cutter shooter to shove in peoples faces...

[Evil_Ryu]

Triple A games are big budget games so that includes paying for voice actors, sounds effect , etc not just graphics

[MikeyDucati1]

Forever. Some people enjoy the Michael Bay and some just like the Sundance festival films.

[CEOSteveBallmer]

It really depends how you comprehend triple A games. To me triple A games are games that have high budget and production. I don't see this as a negative thing. If a person says so he is a "hypocrite". almost all blockbuster games that was released on PC and consoles are triple A games. Halo, gears, fable, final fantasy, metal gear, resident evil, uncharted, god of war, COD, battlefield, GTA, bioshock and even recent mario games, yes mario games have high budget production values too. legend of zelda metroid are even expensive to make. So I don't think triple A will go anywhere else. and lets not talk about DLCs because not all triple A have DLCs. casual and mobile games have DLCs too almost every good free game on iOS and android has DLCs in it. So if triple A gaming is going anywhere, what is the use of having a console and a PC gaming rig?? we might just well go back to playing atari consoles and gameboy. So to answer how long publishers will last, they will as long as PC and consoles exist.

[oof46]

There will always be AAA games. Publishers will adapt their business models to fit whatever is the money making flavor of the time.

Remember when DLC first started with Oblivion and horse armor? It took a while for companies to figure it out, but they got it right (in a business sense). Next generation will be about finding the right free to play model or micro transaction.

[maliciousNPC]

I really hope big publishers go by the wayside.. Get out of my games... They tamper with the talent and the development process.

[yugovega]

why does every site that posts on n4g just go for hits? it's always doom to this or doom to that. what happened to actually covering gaming? maybe aaa games are having it rough but why not talk about the ones coming out instead of wondering if it'll last? this site is so stupid.

[klecser]

They'll slowly decline as long as they keep producing cloned FPS franchises. The AAA marketplace is nothing but a dozen clones of "run around shooting things". Its boring.

[TruthbeTold]

Each one will last until they put that amount of money into a game that has a few problems and everyone abandons them. Then the top developers in said group will migrate elsewhere. Contraction, contraction, and contraction. Until eventually everyone ends up at EA, Activision, Nintendo, Sony, and maybe Rock*.

Not good. There's got to be a better balance, where the expense of making these games doesn't cripple a company after one or two mistakes.