Instead of fostering the free-to-play market with their own competitive titles, the big names decided to tear the free-to-play model apart and incorporate the spare parts into their own games. Unfortunately the only parts that they utilized were those that contained microtransactions.
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
EA is laying off an unknown number of individuals from across its Battlefield teams, including workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios, IGN understands.
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When logic meets EA it generates anti-matter ..... so try not to apply it in any meaningful way. Entropy is what matters in there !!
cue the apologist saying that these are mostly just contractors hired for this specific project bla bla bla
The free-to-play reboot topped 15 million players in under three weeks, but EA now claims it needs to reshape the development team.
The community warned them this would happen but nope they knew better they continued with the live service push the made the art style cartoonish and this is the result
It's always so bizarre when studios announce something super early in development under the suggestion of forming the game to player feedback, and then they push against all feedback heading straight for the cliff while everyone is warning them along the way
Reviewers are going to have to start basing games partially on the "rip-off level" of micro-transactions. whether they are crucial to completing a game "super rip off" or give an unfair advantage in multi-player "rip off" (skill is superseded by how much money your willing to pay for all the advantages.)
All these new ways Developers and Publishers are trying to bilk their already loyal, paying customers is so disillusioning, they are slowly killing gaming.
maybe what we need is another crash in the gaming industry like what happened in the 80's, have everyone reorganize and get back on track seeing what the customer really is,... the most important part of the industry.
sure they can, they make money. I wish people were smart but that's another topic ;) lol got a disagree before my comment loaded you trolls are quick :P
Of course they can be justified. It's funny that they have Dead Space 3 as the picture, since as far as I can tell all that DLC just helps out people who are too lazy to play the game correctly, earning their weapons and suits. That's not something I'd ever buy, but there's nothing wrong with selling shortcuts to people who want them. What sucks is when they sell you the end of the story you thought you already paid for. Microtransactions are fine in theory. It just matters how they are used by the devs. Shortcuts and cosmetic changes are fine, though I'd say Trophies/Achievements should be disabled if you buy a shortcut.