Games with multi-million dollar budgets are called triple-A or AAA games and it is logical to think that such games can easily top the charts. However, it is very surprising that a lot of these AAA games became major disappointments. Game analysts and critics have managed to pinpoint three main reasons why some big budget games are not faring well today.
Abandoning story-telling to showcase mere graphics
This is one of the major mistakes AAA game developers make when creating games. Popular game critics such as Joe Vargas of the Angry Joe show, Doug Walker of Nostalgia critic and James Rolfe to name a few, all pointed out this trend and constantly remind game companies that a good story is worth more than superb graphics.
Titles like “The Order: 1886”, “Mass Effect 4” and the dismal “Star Wars Battlefront” all had this flaw, effectively turning them to mere interactive eye candies than a medium to tell compelling stories. All of these games have top quality graphics, yet didn’t fared well because of its lackluster and even absent story line.
Unable to surpass previous achievements
There are just a few game franchises that have constantly provided fans their money’s worth. An example is “Super Mario Bros.” which during its heyday was constantly popular even after a string of sequels that are essentially recycled game levels sold separately.
Today, even the revered Mass Effect trilogy, which is considered by many as the pinnacle of story-telling succumbed to the pressure of surpassing previous achievements.
Because of the lackluster story, “Mass Effect: Andromeda” was overshadowed by the epic story line of previous installments in the franchise and thus lost its traction.
Over-hyped fans with trailers only to deliver none of it on release day
The classic example of this mistake is “No Man’s Sky” or No Man’s lie to disgruntled fans.
Sean Murray, the man who heavily promoted the game was criticized for over-hyping and frankly lying to fans about game features that were simply not included in the game.
After the release of “No Man’s Sky,” the game received horrendous reviews that almost destroyed its developer, Hello Games.
Many AAA games have over the top promotions, trailers and aggressive advertising during events such as E3, but releases bare minimum and glitchy games that desperately needs day-one patches and DLCs. These three major reasons are slowly consuming the game developing industry and may hurt the market if not addressed promptly.
