MAAAGGA (Make AAA Games Great Again)!

 

    We’ve been attracted to video games since its inception. Something about it just makes us wildly-susceptible to the promise of a fun adventure, deeply-intriguing puzzles, and steep competition. As games have evolved over time, so too have the storytelling and graphical capabilities of the developers. The more they learn what works for an audience, the more technology slides along the razor’s edge of Moore’s Law, the better games become—or so the theory goes. But what if that weren’t the case? What if video games, despite all of the market research, despite the graphics of the highest fidelity, actually sucked? Could you imagine that Twilight Zone of a world? It would certainly be a terrible thing if that were rea—AW, DAMN IT.
    

    Well, here we are. 2024, and AAA games seem to flop more than succeed. There’s a plethora of YouTube videos and gaming articles that go into why, and I don’t want to bog this article down with that. In fact, when I started writing the above paragraph, I even started to get lost in my own sauce and forgot the main topic of discussion—and it’s not what you think… So for now, let’s just get the reasons for why games in the AAA industry suck today out of the way so we can move onto the real meat and potatoes of the article: mainstream gaming has gotten too big for its own britches. Whether it’s a lack of vision, mandates from clueless and tone-deaf corporate interests, or jumping on the bandwagon of other competing models, the AAA industry is frankly not even for the gamers anymore. It’s for the shareholders who expect us to slurp up any slop they serve. Microsoft decided they wanted an Overwatch, and showed us a game devoid of any real creativity during this summer’s Game Showcase. Even the characters look calculated and samey compared to all the other Arena Hero Shooters out there. There was literally nothing unique about its gameplay, aesthetics, and marketing strategy—okay, actually that last one is not true: they falsely claimed that the game drew from a rich universe; one cursory search later, and there is literally nothing to suggest that they drew from anything already available. But hey: they know the audience that actually picks this game up is stupid and won’t even look into it anyway. There, I said it.
    

    
    Games today are not meant to be fun; they are meant to be financial bomb shelters to be thrown away the moment it stops being profitable—hell, they won’t even get that far in some cases; the law of diminishing returns dictates that they won’t improve a game if it costs more than it will make. The only time they will spend more money on a turd of a game is if they legally must deliver on promises that have not yet been made. A good example: Battlefield 2042. EA had the obligation to finish what it started despite losing more money on it than they made. The same was true for Anthem. And Mass Effect Andromeda. And FIFA. And--you know what? EA is just good at losing money, let's leave it at that. If they can squeeze any amount of money out of you, they will prioritize that scheme over literally any other decision, including fun factors. And single-player games are not exempt from this! Many games have included microtransactions (referred to as MtX for the remainder of this article) in their single-player experiences. A great example of this was Middle Earth: Shadow of War. The decision was so poorly-received they walked it back. However, they really tried to get away with such a stupid decision. Eventually, Shadow of War went on to be a bigger success then its predecessor: Shadow of Mordor.
    

    This is just the financial look at things. We haven’t even covered other factors that bring down a game’s success such as forced diversity and political talking points, questionable artistic direction, empty open worlds, padding the runtime, repetitive gameplay, bugs, and just downright terrible story. But these are subjects for another time. Right now, I want to focus on something a little bit different. And to explain this, I want to talk about something that’s completely out in left field: Sonic ‘06.

    

Who remembers this game? I know I do! I actually enjoyed the game for the most part—that is, until the interface got too frustrating in the endgame. There were definitely some annoying parts, such as fighting with the physics engine. But overall it was okay at best. That being said, Sonic ‘06 was considered by many at the time to be one of the worst AAA games ever made, right up there with ET and Superman 64; others suggest Donkey Kong 64 belongs on that list, but I shall never besmirch the greatest game of my childhood. Originally for Xbox 360 and PS3, Microsoft made the stupid-ass decision in the 11^th hour to demand that it be available for the brand-new, totally-not drunk Windows Vista (which, by the way, also forced Gearbox to make the absolutely ridiculous Halo 2 port; now that I think about it, the XBox 360 really was Microsoft's last best creation, wasn't it?). This caused many, many problems as they approached their deadline, and the resulting build that shipped with all three versions of the game caused it to be hilariously unstable. It doesn’t help that the game had a hard time keeping up with Sonic and Co.’s speed, but the game also had trouble with the physics engine. Certain unavoidable actions that have nothing to do with player input, such as bouncing on the star buttons, didn’t happen properly and players would lose out on a life because Shadow the Hedgehog phased right through a button that should have caught him. Silver the Hedgehog’s levitation mechanic was notoriously-bad when it played with the physics engine, and an endgame portion where you had to float near a black hole was downright impossible to get through because of it. The story was also criticized for its inferences of bestiality due to a scene where an underage human princess kisses Sonic to bring him back to life. Now, the game itself was not terrible other than these parts. It had 3 great storylines that followed 3 characters respectively: Sonic, Shadow, and Silver. There was plenty of gameplay, and it was a pretty long story all the way through, with a 4^th storyline that concludes the game after you 100% the other three. Of course, the graphics were also fairly decent for the time, the prerendered cutscenes looking downright gorgeous (with the exception of the realistic-looking Eggman).

    Now, why am I bringing this terrible game up? It’s actually quite simple. A little while ago it was brought to my attention that someone was modding the game to become not only playable but to give it a major overhaul. Many of the characters will have their combat kits changed, the stability of the game will be completely fixed, and various story elements will be altered to make more sense with the overall story (I do not know if the bestiality aspect will be fixed, but given the scene in question happens in a prerendered cutscene I doubt this very much). The modder believes that this was a good game marred by poor corporate decisions, and despite me having 99% finished this game I agree (that stupid Silver portion in the endgame still irks me!). As I sit and watch the progress this modder is having with the game of my teenage years on the Xbox 360, I have been pondering the massive success of other AAA games in today’s day and age—namely the lack thereof.

    
    Most people agree that newer games just plain suck in the AAA scene. Several of the franchises we love are ruined by poor developer decisions coerced by the corporate hand. In fact, what spawned this article was another one I read very recently regarding a survey done that showed a large portion of the community were playing older games; the same was true of older shows such as Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls, and Supernatural. Why? Well, it’s simple: people want fun, and they want to do it without opening their wallets. Services such as Game Pass are a great way to do it, as there is mass access to these older titles, as well as select new ones. Some people definitely remember history with rose-tinted glasses, sure. But they’re actually coming back and watching/playing these titles. It’s more than just remembering the good old days. I mentioned Donkey Kong 64 earlier. A few months ago, I got a ROM for it to play on Retroarch so I could play with my son and show him the games I used to play when I was his age. Not only did I feel right at home after meddling with the settings (the emulator has problems playing the game right out of the box because DK64 is just… weird), but I noticed that I had accidentally played the game for 4 hours; I can’t usually play for half that these days. The same was true when I showed my son Bomberman 64. There’s something that’s just… addictive about these older titles, which were made with fun in mind. Something is very much missing in these newer titles.

    Well, that’s where my thoughts about Sonic ‘06 come into play. I realized that in today’s day and age, there is a rather large modding community that wants to make games fun. And these lemons that keep getting dropped may seem like nothing but hopelessness to some, but to me they are rich playgrounds for the modding community when the time comes that they become available to mod. We’re behind the curve on technology for certain titles right now—especially the always-online ones. We don’t yet have the tools or means to overcome those, and even if we wanted to we have to wait for the game to be dropped officially by the developers. When this happens, especially for games with online-only functionality, the games will become unplayable. But modders are nothing if not persistent; these are the people who brought nudity to Club Penguin, for crying out loud! The dedication of people who wanted to love these terrible games is going to win out over corporate interests who have dumped their title in lieu of the next title they’re going to hotdrop and dump.

    

    Imagine, for instance Square Enix’s Avengers game they have. As is, it’s a total gooch of a game and they are lucky to get a dozen players a day. But, it’s got an always-online model, and its servers are still run by Square Enix for whatever reason. The game is horrid and is littered with MtX, but as soon as they end service for it, then the modders can come in and fix it. Perhaps in the future we can spoof the online signature of the game and create servers that players can populate, with mods that remove MtX entirely in favor of a different system. The same is true of games like For Honor, Battlefield 2042, and Overwatch 2. Imagine the state of these piss-poor AAA titles when they are put into the hands of skilled modders; imagine the life they can breathe into these games, like what the modding community has done for the likes of the still-in-service EA Battlefront II. The modding community is bigger on Battlefront II than the vanilla scene! I’ve seen it, and it is LIVELY. However, because the game is still in service the players and modders have to do a lot of work to maintain it. A true shame, really. EA should just give up the ghost on this one, and leave it to the dedicated fans who are treating it better than they are.

    Of course, there is the concern that developers will try to sue those who physically cut out the money-making aspects of their game. I know they will certainly try. The answer to this is simple: they have cut off service to their game, thus themselves cutting off any source of revenue. Once this happens, they forfeit any profits they could have made, and the game is the community’s to have. People still have to buy the game in order to play it, so they’re still getting money from sales. In fact, with these stinking hunks of garbage they’re trying to defend, they’re probably going to end up making more from the modders than if the modders never got a chance in the first place. They don’t have any legal recourse to sue someone over a game they have officially dropped service for. Hell, some modders would be able to use copyrighted mechanics, such as Shadow or Mordor/War’s Nemesis System in mods and WB has no means to stop them. They can’t stop modders from modding a game no longer in service. One man’s trash, as the saying goes…

    I have a vision of a future where modders rule the AAA scene, where corporate interests can get their money after the dedicated fans vote with their mods instead of their wallets. I truly believe that the gaming landscape should not belong to the shareholders, but to the gamers. And someday, when modding is more powerful than developing, this landscape will drastically-change. Once-vilified games will become classics, the zeroes becoming heroes. And if AAA developers don’t want to wait for their game to become good by people who don’t get paid by them, then they will make a game that does not have to get modded. In other words, things will return to the way they once were, where modders are only necessary to refresh a timeless classic in a way you can play it for the 21^st time with a fresh perspective—very similarly to how I enjoy my Halo games nowadays (article on that coming soon). I hope that I’ve convinced you of a bright future where crappy titles can be resurrected… a future where we Make AAA Games Great Again (MAAAGGA)!