AAA game studio

[KingEnergy]

Especially asking @Leo Gura and all other people who have worked in the video game industry.

One of my goals is to own a big gaming company and create amazing, epic & artful games. I know this is an enormous and difficult ambition. It is my intent to first make money with other work and business, and then in 15 years or so have enough to start the gaming business.

Any tips on how to approach creating a semi-stage green gaming company, which makes good profit? My goal is not to maximize profit like EA because that will make shit games with lootboxes etc. But of course I want to make profit for myself and the company, I want the company to be big. I want to make full fledged video games so the costs will be astronomical.

How to best balance the need for profit and artistic integrity? In film Christopher Nolan is a great example, creating films like Inception which is both a blockbuster and an artistic masterpiece.

Thanks.

[Thestarguitarist14]

This sounds dope.

 

I have been working in Hollywood since 2014.  If you are looking to create a video game company with a higher level of consciousness, it all starts with story.  Make telling a good story the main focus.  That’s the coolest thing about Japanese video games like Final Fantasy and the Legend of Zelda or visual novels like Steins Gate.  They are great stories with messages first, video games second.

[nistake]

@Yog has been working in the gaming industry for some time now. He may have some useful information.

Edited October 1, 2020 by nistake

[Leo Gura]

On 9/25/2020 at 6:52 PM, KingEnergy said:

Any tips on how to approach creating a semi-stage green gaming company

Nobody is going to tell you how to do that. You'd have to be a genius businessman and innovator.

Realistically you will never succeed in that without having years of experience working in AAA games. Money alone is not enough. You need to understand how game development and game biz works. You can't understand that from the outside looking in. AAA game development is so toxic for good reason: it's virtually impossible to do it any other way. But you won't understand that without actually shipping some AAA games.

If you are serious, I would drop the notion of AAA games and just focus on making quality small games with artistic integrity. This is much more doable and healthy. And if you succeed enough in that, you might one day have a shot at making a larger game. Although you might be a fool to do it. You'd be a fool to give up successful indie dev for working with a 300 person team on some conservative corporate monstrosity.

Don't get obsessed with the size of a game. Just focus on quality games.

Your goal should be to create something like the next Minecraft rather than the next Halo or Assassin's Creed. Small indie games can still be massively successful. Minecraft pulled in $2 billion.

[Extreme Z7]

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you are serious, I would drop the notion of AAA games and just focus on making quality small games with artistic integrity. This is much more doable and healthy. And if you succeed enough in that, you might one day have a shot at making a larger game. Although you might be a fool to do it. You'd be a fool to give up successful indie dev for working with a 300 person team on some conservative corporate monstrosity.

I'd just like to throw in: The title 'AAA' is pretty pretentious anyway. It's a marketing buzzword for big-budget promotion on games that usually aren't even that good.

It's no wonder that Ubisoft has even unironically started using the term 'AAAA games' when talking about it's own releases for the new upcoming console generation. It's just as dumb as it sounds. I'm not sure they realize 'AAAA' just sounds like screaming at this point.

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Extreme Z7 said:

It's no wonder that Ubisoft has even unironically started using the term 'AAAA games'

Haha, Ubisoft...

[Yog]

@KingEnergy  I'll give you few tips for starters. This is from what I have seen while working for couple of gaming companies and observing indies.

Its a bad idea to start a big gaming company. Making games is way more complex than many think. The pipelines and workflows are also non-linear and everything is webbed together. It is not linear like in the animation or film industry. It will scale with many difficulties in the way because of the non-linearity. You will probably also miscalculate time and budget targets.

1. Its better to start with very small and crucial indie team composed of very competent people. I would even keep the small team and never scale it.
Like for EG:
-One great generalist artist
-One great game/level designer.
-One great coder.
-One all purpose sound guy.

2. Focus on creating something short fun, artistic, unique and minimalist in every aspect of the game. No more than couple of hours of total game-play. You do not need to create 10 ways you can hit an enemy, you create 1 way and make it work extremely well and be fun all the time.

See games such as:
-Inside
-Limbo
-Little Nightmares
-Samorost 3
-Conarium

3. Play at least 10 short indie games and you'll naturally get what am I saying.

4. Rapid prototyping. Spend a lot of time prototyping and gray-boxing. Think of it as game-sketching, try out everything that comes to mind, quickly and unpolished, just throw it in and see how it works, if it doesn't, or adds unnecessary complexity, delete it. Sketch a lot on paper too.

Check out the rapid iterative workflow that they did for "Ori and the blind forest"
 

5. Plan the art to be as unique as possible, good looking and easy to create. Lets say for eg have something stylized and comic book looking. This will save you time modeling and texturing because the look can be mostly done in shader. If its 3D i mean. You can also add simple color scheme, focus on good composition and lighting ect....ect...

This is a great example:

Follow and watch these: Its YT game dev channels.

https://www.youtube.com/user/thomasmbrush

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hwKJdF3KRAy4QIaiCSMgQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JB7TSe49lg56u6qH8y_MQ

This is a playlist:

Some of them have discord servers, there are also forums you can find. If you google you can find more.

Anyway, I would first watch and research stuff at least a couple of months before I start any game. Slowly building a pitch, a simple google doc outlining the stuff I want to make in as simple way as possible. Than after I got something that makes sense, I would rapid-prototype a lot.

Its crucial to nail the core stuff. Because if one does not, there can be no fixing and going back.
Don't let this turn you into a waiting perfectionist, just do a lot of research strategically before you start and start smartly.

Much luck! What do you want to actually make ?
 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Yog

[Yarco]

What is it about AAA studios that appeals to you?

Creating your own AAA game studio sounds like an extremely lofty goal. I'm guessing most game studios start as indies and then grow over time with the success of their games? You could try to go work for an AAA to get a feel for it. I'm not sure what about it being an AAA studio makes it particularly appealing. It seems like the most stressful and grindy kind of studio you could work for.

Definitely as an employee, working at an AAA studio doesn't seem like a life purpose to me. It lacks the artistic integrity you mention, you're just a cog in a machine.

I would look to games like Stardew Valley. Wildly successful, 10+ million copies sold. Just one guy did all of the programming, artwork, and music for it. That's $100 million + straight in his pocket. And you can tell that he was living his life purpose in creating it.

Look at a game like Assassin's Creed. One of the biggest AAA franchises and it's only sold 140 million copies across all games. Then deduct the massive overhead cost of the studio, all of the employees, and everything else from that.

IMO indie is the way to go, and Minecraft isn't the only one who has made a killing at it. Dead Cells, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Prison Architect, Enter The Gungeon, Celeste, etc etc etc... all sold 1 million or more copies.

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, Extreme Z7 said:

Ubisoft has even unironically started using the term 'AAAA games' when talking about it's own releases

They gotta justify that new $70 price point somehow.

[Preety_India]

Samorost 3 is the best 

[Michael569]

On 26/09/2020 at 2:52 AM, KingEnergy said:

I want to make full fledged video games so the costs will be astronomical.

Forget about AAA, it is a mass market. In your situation (forgive me if this sounds rude) you have neither the time nor the resources to compete on AAA market. This market is full. Instead, think about smallest viable market you can serve. Create a concept of game that does not require 1,200$ PC to run but that actually carries a message and grabs the user with the content and the story rather than graphics, gore and ultra-realistic ragdoll. 

Never try to serve everyone because you'll end up serving no one and your game will be pissed & shat over by likes of Besthesda, Ubisoft and EA. 

Who is your "ideal player"? What are they looking for in game? Why are they disgusted with the current gaming industry? Can you serve them something simple but beautiful, creative and with a story worth an oscar? You don't need to spend 20 millions to create that sort of game. 

Consider reading Seth Godin's - This is Marketing to understand what the smallest viable market is and how to get there. 

[KingEnergy]

Thanks for all answers people.