Indie vs AAA games

I'm firmly in the indie games camp. There are so many excellent, affordable, unique experiences in the indie world, and I know my money goes directly to individuals who worked hard on the game. Almost all of my favorite games in the last five years are from smaller studios or even individual creators.

I still dabble in AAA titles (looking at you, Tears of the Kingdom) but overall I'm pretty wary of blockbuster games.

There's very little I care about from AAAs. Pretty much just Nintendo really, and only a few of their IPs.

I think what I miss most though is the space that existed in between. Small spinoff projects from large studios. Those mostly flourished on handheld, and when handhelds died so did an entire class of games.

As a 38 year old who used to game a lot but stopped about 10 years ago, the steam deck has rekindled my love of gaming. The accessibility it offers, particularly with indie games has been wonderful. The deck is a more open and budget friendly version of the switch (to me at least).

I find triple a games try to do too much, combined with their virtually insatiable hunger for maximizing profit (through dlc, in game micro transactions, loot boxes, etc.) really turns me off of them.

Yeah, over the past couple of years, the amount of AAA games that actually enticed me were very low, and some of the few that I actually got, were actually duds in the long run. I've actually experienced a renaissance in my own enjoyment of retro gaming instead, alongside a few select indie titles. I've found I'm generally having more fun exploring games that are 10-20 years old now, than anything new. There are so many good games that I did not experience back then, that are still excellent today. Things from the arcade ere, emulation of all the consoles up to the PS2 generation, and some stuff on GoG. There are so many more good games to experience today than what new AAA releases would have you believe.

The only AAA game I am hyped about, is the new ARMORED CORE 6. I am dying to play that and it looks like it's gonna be great. FromSoftware never misses.

Indie games nowadays (usually) are what AAA games used to be. Polished, fleshed-out, and actually give a damn. The AAA games of today are rushed clones of past glories in a desperate attempt to grab as much cash from the franchise as possible before it's driven into the ground.

@zauri27 I've been burnt too many times by fancy trailers and beautiful graphics... I mean, I'm a Star Citizen backer, I was fooled by pretty JPEGS! 😂

Most of the innovative things happen within the Indie community it seems, with people who are truly connected to their projects. They are driven by love for their craft AND the profit, unlike AAA-studio executives that focus only on the profits.

I got into gaming as a young kid (3/4 years old) with super nintendo and genesis lol. Back then everything was just AAA and AA console releases (and some AAA pc games). Indies really weren't a thing (maybe on pc, but not well known). Nintendo first party is always good, but I ended up loving the AA-tier games.

Nowadays AA-tier games are remarkably uncommon/rare unfortunately. And indies started picking up... was it a decade ago? or maybe a little further back. I'm fond of indie games since they have that AA magic, but at the same time indie games feel too "diy" at times and don't have that AA-tier polish or professionalism a lot of the time. A lot of them end up feeling more like fan games than actual proper games lol.

As you mention, AAA games really have gotten quite bad in recent years. I don't even buy playstation or xbox as a result. And Nintendo games this gen also have declined in quality. I think that's largely due to modern game design, along with this huge emphasis on "big open world" and "very good graphics" so you end up with these really high-budget, shallow games that just push graphics and big worlds, and just end up not being very fun.

AA games in comparison never cared about pushing specs or graphics, and they existed before this "big game many hours" nonsense. So you just get these professional well-polished absolute gems. But since indies became a thing, and big companies focus on AAA, AA games kinda died. There's not much demand/supply for them anymore unfortunately.

Especially now that indies are being published by these smaller "indie publishers" and getting physical releases, AA games are really struggling to get attention and it's just sad.

For AA, look at the many professional visual novels, or games like story of seasons. Smaller titles end up being stuff like Pretty Princess Party. These are fantastic professional-quality games, but get overlooked by the huge flood of AAA and indie titles. They're so overlooked you forgot to even mention them lol.

It's really sad that I'm basically stuck choosing between impossibly large/long AAA game with shallow gameplay vs very tiny low budget indie that has interesting gameplay design. Why can't we get some mid-sized games? Why can't we get more games like DDR, katamari, or okami? those games are great!

I almost always prefer a quirky game that does its own thing to a bland game with mass market appeal. Most AAA studios, especially as game budgets have exploded, are afraid to experiment with their gameplay or do anything new. Nintendo is probably the largest exception to this rule, but it comes with the caveat that they generally don't release new entries unless they come up with something new, which is sad for, like, Star Fox and F-Zero fans. But ultimately the more a game costs the less room there is for the sort of risk that makes for the truly special games

EA/Ubisoft/Activision/etc. used to put out like 50 games per year, and now they put out like 5. This is a result of many things, including ballooning the size of the games that they make, but measurably, they are just making fewer games. That means games you used to enjoy playing no longer get made, whether that's Burnout or Deus Ex. Companies like Anna Purna, Devolver, TinyBuild, Paradox, and Embracer are rising to meet that middle ground of production value to feed those hungry customers the kinds of things they want but haven't been served in years.

I find myself gravitating toward indie games a lot more due to the homogeneity in the AAA space. It feels like AAA games are like half storefront half game these days, and their prices are just getting more expensive.

Meanwhile indies and small studios with publishers are pumping out games that take risks, and offer unique experiences, and they're like $20. I can get three of those and a six pack for the same price as one broken-at-launch AAA game.

I'll occasionally play an AAA game if it's on sale, but usually I stick with indies. Indie games have the best stories, most unique art styles, and know how to make things challenging but fair.

I'm down to paying a full $60 price tag for a game, maybe 1-3 times a year at most. And one of those is usually a family/shared game for my wife or son. It's whatever big zeitgeist game I can't miss like Elden Ring. Next one will probably be Zelda TotK around Christmas. Maybe 2 copies of Diablo 4 if the wife wants to play it badly. Other than that I'm usually playing some indie game. Or a AAA that's 5+ years old. The household is 2 gaming PCs and just the switch for the living room.

Both! I lean toward indie games, but there have been some banger AAA games with TOTK, Elden Ring, FF7 Remake, Persona, etc..

For me it’s more about a couple of things.

1. Is it a pay to win? Buying skins are fine. Guilty Gear is a good example. You get a full game and if you want to support the devs buy some skins. Effect looks not gameplay.

2. Is it shovelware? Lots of indie and AAA games are copies or cash grabs. Steam’s early access is terrible and the store is full shovelware. The console stores have no quality control and put up anything.

3. Does it work as expected or is it playable? I know this more AAA because this year has been hard on them.

I think it’s weird to only look at AAA or indie.

I don't really care whether a game is indie or AAA. I just see a game that I want to play and looks interesting, and then I'll play it.

But I will say, that once I had kids and began having limited time to play (or at least limited time to focus on games for more than small chunks of time), I've tended to favor AAA games over indie games. Mainly because there are plenty of games out there in the AAA space if you have varied insterest in genres.

In the last six-ish months I've played Destiny 2, Diablo IV, LotRO, Elden Ring, Code Vein, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, emulated FFII (still AAA), Lost Odyssey, Diablo 2 Resurrected, Disgaea 5 Complete, Atelier Ryza 2, Pokemon Violet, Skyrim and Vagrant Story. The games that might be considered indie that I've spent time on is Hades and SOMA.

There just isn't a lot of room to fit in other indie games between all of those. And I'm still not even playing all the games I've technically purchased in that time period which includes Shin Megami Tensei V and Tales of Vesparia for the Switch.

There are genres that each do well in.

For example, some of my most-loved games are roguelikes. In that particular area, I can't think of anything even approaching an AAA release.

But on the other hand, I also enjoy open-world first-person games like Fallout: New Vegas, and there isn't much by way of indie titles there. Big asset creation costs that aren't really practical for small-budget games.