…leaving over 87% of classic games legally inaccessible through any practical means
Sounds to me like 87% of classic games are now morally greenlit to be pirated and modded to work on modern systems. Fuck the publishers.
It’s really telling how their shiny new games are so lacking in substance that they are afraid of retro games. ‘Surely it can’t be that out generic mmofps crafting shooter collectathon battle Royale clone game is bad. It must be that damn Tetris game stealing all our sales!’
They think these older games would cannibalize sales from newer releases.
To be fair, as an indie dev one of my major concerns during development has been why someone would buy my game when they could just download a ROM of something in a similar genre. It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t use pixel art.
I don’t know what you are developing, but I mostly play RPGs. And sure, I tend to go towards older games I’ve played and know a lot. But I also picked up Eiyuden Chronicles, Sea of Stars, and Octopath Traveler 1 and 2 and played them through completely.
The issue for me is that new games try really hard to emulate and reference older titles in the genre. They act as a love letter to the original games and, in my humble opinion, end up worse for it.
The developers chase nostalgia and don’t let their games stand on their own two feet. They don’t trust the game they made to be good without being propped up by the old games they reference. They fail to write a compelling and unique story instead of filling them with references to games they loved. In some cases, they try to have all these different systems and mini games that were innovative in their original form, but now are clodged together and fighting each other for my limited attention.
Take Eiyuden Chronicles for example, I loved the Suikoden games and have played them multiple times. But they added every single minigame from the 5 games that came before it as well as adding new ones. I couldn’t focus on the story while trying to navigate all these little systems. I’m not young and with a ton of free time anymore. I don’t want to study in order to figure out some skill tree with hundreds of branching options. I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out on story or game play because 20 minutes in I had to make a decision where I wasn’t aware of the consequences.
Personally, I just want an emotional story that I can immerse myself in without having to study how to play a game or time pressure where I can’t enjoy the journey.
Anyway, if you take anything away from that long winded rant it should be: if you make your game good, trust that it will be able to stand on its own against those old ROMs then people WILL play it and love it. Don’t compare yourself to the past and people falling back to their “comfort games” and make your game as great as you can. Create the game that you love and would want to play and know that others will want to as well.
My game is linked to in my profile. It’s a metroidvania that also takes influence from immersive sims like System Shock and Deus Ex as well as cinematic platformers like Another World and Flashback. It uses a combination of high-definition 2D art (sometimes with normal maps applied for lighting) and cel-shaded 3D graphics.
That sounds like a good mix of things I like, how far along in development are you?
They’re pissed cause the talent that made all their great games have all moved on and they can’t figure it out like indie studios can.
What? How is that game selling!? Theres no season pass, new content isn’t constantly being revolved, and theres no in-game storefront?! This doesnt make sense!
- AAAA Execs
The idiots are acting like we don’t already have it all and they’re just marking themselves to be ignored when they try to hype up their latest cash grab.
