About half of every triple A game is actually indie by the strict definition. Look at world of Warcraft for example. But the strict definition it’s indie :P
Self published is a bad metric to go by and means basically nothing. There’s a good reason the term has lost basically all meaningful definition and is just a vibes based measuring stick nowadays.
The series was very good, but it was still a low budget project. BG1 was developed for an estimated $1.5-3M. BG2 was developed for $7M. I can’t even find budgets for Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment.
But compare that the BG3’s $100M budget (closer to $200M after marketing).
These were great games, but they were largely indie games. None of them had AAA budgets back in the 90s. Even at the scale of the era, Ultima XI cost $12M to produce. The OG FF7 cost $45M.
By that metric there were maybe two AAA PC games in all of 1998. BG1 you can make the case (but given that it was an Interplay-published, licensed game meant for relatively performant hardware, it was absolutely in line with AAA PC releases of the day). BG2? Absolutely not. Bordering on eight digits in 2000 was not a small game at all. And of course neither were independent games by definition.
For sure BG3 is absurdly large and the historical comparisons break down a bit in the sheer scale of what that thing is. But nobody in the late 90s was buying a top down D&D CRPG with the production values of BG (or an action RPG in the vein of Diablo the previous year) and thinking they were slumming it in the dregs of small budget gaming.
By that metric there were maybe two AAA PC games in all of 1998.
There were a lot fewer, certainly. FF7 was the heavyweight. Zelda: Ocarina, MGS, and StarCraft were in the running. Shenmu (produced a year later) had a budget north of $47M (the high fluctuation in Yen value making this a hard calculation).
But you wouldn’t see truly big budget gaming until GTA4 crested the nine digit mark.
Bordering on eight digits in 2000 was not a small game at all.
The difference between $7M and $47M is a buncha lotta money.
This sentence makes my brain hurt. They co-opted it how? You’re just entirely unwilling to engage with any piece of media the far right actually likes just on principle? As in, regardless of how… not far right the piece of media itself happens to be?
I think the last AAA I tried was Baldur’s Gate 3.
Pretty good tbh.
BG3 is technically an indie game if you go by the literal definition of the term!
About half of every triple A game is actually indie by the strict definition. Look at world of Warcraft for example. But the strict definition it’s indie :P
Self published is a bad metric to go by and means basically nothing. There’s a good reason the term has lost basically all meaningful definition and is just a vibes based measuring stick nowadays.
It’s weird to think of a top-down historically-isometric RPG as “AAA”. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Apparently we’ve gone all the way around, because there has been no numbered Baldur’s Gate game that wasn’t AAA as absolute fuck.
The series was very good, but it was still a low budget project. BG1 was developed for an estimated $1.5-3M. BG2 was developed for $7M. I can’t even find budgets for Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment.
But compare that the BG3’s $100M budget (closer to $200M after marketing).
These were great games, but they were largely indie games. None of them had AAA budgets back in the 90s. Even at the scale of the era, Ultima XI cost $12M to produce. The OG FF7 cost $45M.
By that metric there were maybe two AAA PC games in all of 1998. BG1 you can make the case (but given that it was an Interplay-published, licensed game meant for relatively performant hardware, it was absolutely in line with AAA PC releases of the day). BG2? Absolutely not. Bordering on eight digits in 2000 was not a small game at all. And of course neither were independent games by definition.
For sure BG3 is absurdly large and the historical comparisons break down a bit in the sheer scale of what that thing is. But nobody in the late 90s was buying a top down D&D CRPG with the production values of BG (or an action RPG in the vein of Diablo the previous year) and thinking they were slumming it in the dregs of small budget gaming.
There were a lot fewer, certainly. FF7 was the heavyweight. Zelda: Ocarina, MGS, and StarCraft were in the running. Shenmu (produced a year later) had a budget north of $47M (the high fluctuation in Yen value making this a hard calculation).
But you wouldn’t see truly big budget gaming until GTA4 crested the nine digit mark.
The difference between $7M and $47M is a buncha lotta money.
Nightreign pretty damn good too
I played BG3 and liked it, but stopped because the game seems to have been co-opted by the Far Right
Huh?
This sentence makes my brain hurt. They co-opted it how? You’re just entirely unwilling to engage with any piece of media the far right actually likes just on principle? As in, regardless of how… not far right the piece of media itself happens to be?
I hate this century. This century sucks.
Oh no, I hadn’t heard about this yet. What’d they do?
They played it, probably.
The game had massive success on the entire political spectrum.