Are there any AAA games made with Unity?

There's no doubt that the large majority of AAA companies use their own engines. But the fact is that if an engine is capable of making a AAA game sooner or later it will be done, and then you can basically say "yeah that's what this engine is capable of, it can do that sort of stuff". It hasn't happened with Unity so far, but has many times with other engines.

OK but tell me then, on what other attribute can we discuss Unity being able to make AAA games? As I said a game engine in just a rendering platform with an API - I mean you can make a game in Blender if you really want to. Really, if Unity is so good and easy to use and code with (which I think it is, and going by what Zombiegorilla and others have said about using it for prototyping and such, it seems to be believed in AAA studios as well) then I can't imagine what could be holding it back from being used by AAA companies if not the graphics?

This is all very true, however it doesn't change the fact that there's no evidence that Unity could show this effort off as well as other engines. It's quite easy for a skilled indie artist to make a static scene that looks AAA in the right engine, I see AAA-quality scenes all the time on polycount, but not in Unity.

In fact the ex battlefield devs working on Project Wight I imagine are as skilled as the best you could find, are using Quixel megascans and hiring out the developer of RTP and so on, and quite frankly the screenshots don't look as good imo as the average AAA game I see out there.

So Unity comes up short graphically. That may not be a problem for a lot of us at our current skill and budget level, but that wasn't the point of the question. And in fact I think it would make all of our games look better if the graphics (postfx and lighting) were improved, which is what has happened with the Unity 5 improvements, and I hope continues to happen all the way until it can compete with the best out there.

 

You lack imagination. Several people in this very thread have already pointed out very convincing reasons. Source control is a major one. Earlier versions of the engine did not provide source control. For a major studio, not having access to an engine's source control is often a deal breaker. Large-scale studios don't like being dependent on development outside their control. It's why so many of them opt to use proprietary in-house engines. Unity has loosened up a little on this recently, but this is only a recent development. And games get made over the course of years, so it will be a while before that recent change is seen having any effect in the market.

As far as your bizarre hang-up on graphics, I'm still perplexed by it. Unity is entirely capable of the kind of graphics you keep citing. The primary difference is that Unity isn't built to accommodate those graphics out of the box. It doesn't come with a pre-built library of specifically targeted shaders or materials. And it can't. If it did, it would be too specialized, too focused on providing a specific aesthetic. And the biggest strength of Unity has always been it's generalized approach to game development. It's a blank slate.

You ever notice how so many Unreal 3 powered games looked similar to each other? There was a reason for that. The graphical shortcuts that Epic provided in their engine provided a fast way for developers to get detail into their games. But those same developers also didn't deviate from a lot of the built-in shaders and materials for the sake of efficiency. And this created a "generic" look that permeated a lot of games built with that engine. The same has been true of most licensed game engines.

Unity has the potential to look as good as Unreal Engine 4. What it doesn't have is a bunch of cookie-cutter shortcuts to get to that particular style bundled into the software. You have to put all of those things together yourself. You might even have to (gasp) write a custom shader, instead of using a pre-built shader bundled with the engine. Unreal Engine 4 and CryEngine are so often used to showcase high-end game art because they require no extra programming effort on the part of the artists. 3D modelers can drop their models and textures right into the engine and call it a day. And you don't see most Unity developers pushing to create that style of high-detail graphics, because that style of graphics is way, WAY more expensive to produce. Literally, it takes four or five times as much time and effort to make that kind of high-detail graphical assets, and smaller teams just can't afford that kind of expense.

I'm all for taking Unity to task on what they provide. Constant improvement and polishing is how you make an effort like this better. But I look around the technical forums and there is nitpicking a-plenty. I don't think they're really hurting for critical feedback. I "defend" them when I see people attempting to claim that Unity should be something different from what it is reasonably trying to be. It isn't really sensible for them to be chasing after their competitors. It is often a better approach for them to fill a niche that their competitors aren't serving.

 

Pipeline/workflow, third party dependencies, skill/knowledge/library investment, deep modifications... mainly full control and no external dependencies.

 

You can't and shouldn't be. It doesn't make any sense. That is the whole point. If you have a AAA game company... AAA resources at your disposal and choose to use Unity and strive to get the best of the best in all areas of presentation, pro voice acting, pro music production, pro sound fx, people working on characters, more working on environment, more working on GUI, more working on cut scenes and others focused entirely on updating the graphics to be cutting edge and you apply that across all areas of presentation and polish.... then you will make a AAA game.

If the company who made Battlefield series decided for some reason to switch engine (very unlikely due to cost of investment so far) and chose Unity you would see a AAA Battlefield game in Unity. Because if the graphics engine needed to be updated to be cutting edge that AAA company would spend the money needed on resources to do it just as they do on their current engines.

 

Missed that one. That would certainly not help things.

It's not a hang-up, any more than worrying about the performance of a car is a 'hang-up' when you're on the market for one.

This is simply wrong. Show me the graphics.

The blank slate argument sounds uncomfortably similar to the idea of an empty C++ file in Visual Studio. That's what a blank slate really is. Unless you're more specific, I don't really know what else to say about that.

And if you're going for a 'realistic' non-stylized game as most games are, you'll have to try harder to convince me that people are falling over themselves with anxiety about getting too stuck in a 'particular aesthetic'. The aesthetic of certain other AAA engines, which look much, much better graphically, would be quite fine for a large percentage of games, and can be easily tweaked.

Most AAA games look pretty much the same to me graphically in terms of lighting and postfx, regardless of whether they're using an in-house engine or something else. But they don't look like Unity unfortunately.

Having written a few fairly basic shaders myself, it seems they rely on pre-calculated lighting. Are you telling me that you can write the entire illumination of an AAA engine in a shader without doing something horribly inefficient?

No doubt this is true, but it doesn't change the fact that regardless of what most people do, you will always find examples showing what an engine is truly capable of.

Here's project wight, a game in Unity made by ex-AAA devs, by all accounts putting quite a bit of effort into the graphics too - and probably the best-looking graphics I have seen in fairly vanilla Unity 5:



Is that really the greatest lighting you've ever seen? Need I provide comparisons? And if you're worried about material quality, as far as I know they use Quixel megascans for most of the environment, and that stuff simply is good.

Criticizing graphics in a game engine is not nit-picking. Regardless of personal preferences, the fact is that graphics not only accounts for most of what a game is built on, but also what a game engine is built for.

I'm not sure quite what you mean with your last sentence, but well I don't doubt that it's more useful to them right now to be chasing useability since that's their strength. But I would like to see the graphics continue to improve a lot. They need to add SEGI to the engine, basically, is my point of view. I wouldn't want to see the dev lose out there after such great work, but I don't think Unity should have ever put someone in the position of selling an add-on which is such an integral feature, and making them solely responsible for it.

PS just in case anyone thinks I'm derailing the thread, let me make it clear that I think graphics capability, alongside source code access probably, is one of the main reasons why I think there is a lack of AAA games made with Unity.

 

I can definitely see how the source code access changes things, which I missed. But what else is there that is not also a problem with other engines that have been used for AAA games?

I don't know much about other engines in terms of third party dependencies, so that may be a difference.

 

Again I have to ask, if Unity is not constituted by its graphics capability, what is it consitituted by? What is an engine if not its ability to render things nicely? Amongst a few other things of course, but graphics is a huge part.

If I bought the Unity source code, deleted it all and started again, it's obviously not going to still be 'Unity'. So at what point is it worth still calling a heavily-modified engine 'Unity'?

 

I don't know how else to explain it. Other than just saying even if Unity provided continual advancement every week on graphics to be cutting edge you nor any other person here will make a AAA game. You may make a tiny game that LOOKs similar to a AAA game but it won't be a AAA game period.

I get completely that graphics are the most important thing to you and every thread you are pushing for Unity to update the graphics. It seems like you are so focused on just the graphics & lighting itself that you are ignoring all of the other things that go into making a AAA game. The scope, the budget, the number of people involved, the audio, all of the content, the polish on everything.

 

Unity is the third party. It isn't about having 'access' to the source, it is about owning and managing the source. Unity is a general purpose engine, that is updated constantly. A typical AAA game will fork from the last project and move forward. (with back merging when possible) While having the source for unity is helpful in some cases, the challenge is that since the engine is updated so often, it becomes a challenge constantly merging. And if you are going to do sweeping changes, management of source between what your engine team and what Unity is doing becomes impractical. Usually the source is integrated with game on those type of engines, it is a vastly different process than Unity. It's not like Battlefield is a "project" that can be opened in the latest "Frostbite" IDE. The workflow is very different.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you here, I'm not trying to say anything about my own ability or anyone else's to make an AAA game. There's already a thread for that

But I think it's part of why we haven't seen a lot of AAA games made in Unity by AAA studios. That's what this thread is all about.

Anyway, I wasn't really planning on going on about graphics in yet another thread, but I find it a bit disconcerting to find that people are responding to these threads with the idea that by using some magic artistic skill you can make Unity look however you like. If shaders were all it took to make Unity look as good as other engines, someone would have made some by now, and I guarantee everyone would be using them, and posting screenshots of art that looked as good as other engines.

 

I understand that, and no doubt it's why there aren't a lot of AAA games made in any known engine, but it's a problem that all third party engines share. Yet other engines have been used for AAA games.

And as a general point, regardless of whether any of us are worried about graphics, no doubt AAA studios are more worried than most, considering how easy it is to hook gamers on the visual experience especially when you have a decent marketing budget. So for them it must be a huge factor which third party engine (if they are going to use one) looks the best.

 

Not so much anymore, most use in house for that reason. Prior to general purpose engines (and still with some), once you license the code, you typically get the source, and from that point forward you maintain it yourself for the lifecycle of the game, you aren't getting "updates" from the vendor, though you may have a relationship and a support contract.

General purpose engines are a completely different eco-system. You trade deep level control for not having to maintain a thousand moving parts. Madden/FIFA/etc, don't need support a variety of device or need 2d physics, but they need do things no third party engine will ever support, and need to constantly break new ground.

Which is why unity dominates mobile and smaller dev cycle games. They handle the constant hardware and software changes that are a nightmare, there are literally thousands of device platforms, that update constantly. A typical AAA game is a few years in the making, and by definition target the "latest" hardware, that doesn't exist when the development starts. And it is hardware and dev kits that aren't available to the general developer. Unity and other general purpose engines allow you develop for current targets right now. By definition it won't be cutting edge, because cutting edge is still being developed by those with resources and skill stable to do so.

 

Not sure if it's AAA and barely even started, but I thought The Signal From Tolva looks quite pretty:

 

Let me spell this out in terms of tools.

Let's say you need to cut through a log. You have a swiss army knife in your pocket. But it is an awfully big log. So instead of using the swiss army knife, you go out and get a chainsaw instead.

You could cut through the log with the swiss army knife. It would take longer, and that tool really isn't designed for the task. But it has a tiny saw on it, so it can be done. But the chainsaw is designed specifically for sawing through thick logs, and will get the job done a whole lot faster and more efficiently.

In this situation, the log is a large-budget, graphically intensive game you want to develop. The swiss army knife is Unity. The chainsaw is a proprietary in-house engine, or a more focused engine like Unreal 4.

The argument here is "why wouldn't you just always get the chainsaw?" Or perhaps more accurately, "why doesn't the swiss army just design and build chainsaws instead of bothering with those dinky little knives?" The answer is obvious. Sometimes you don't need to saw logs. Sometimes you need to saw sticks. And sometimes you need to unscrew something. Or pull a cork out of a bottle. Or maybe even pick your teeth. When those other tasks crop up, the chainsaw isn't a lot of use. It's great for the one task it's designed for, but is considerably less effective for everything else. The swiss army knife can't do any one thing nearly as good as something designed solely for that task, but it can do a lot of different things, making it considerably more flexible. It's also a lot less expensive than a chainsaw.

If you just want to make graphically intensive games with huge budgets, by all means go ahead and get a chainsaw. Nobody is stopping you. But just as there is room in the market for focused tools like a chainsaw, there is also a place for a more general/flexible tool like Unity. And the market benefits from having this kind of tool available.

Also, Billy, I'm starting to get really annoyed by your seeming conflation of "realistic graphics" with "quality visuals." Realism in graphical representations are a stylistic choice, not a metric for quality. There are plenty of non-realistic graphical games that look really good. And there are plenty of games with realistic graphical styles that look terrible. Having lots of detail does not automatically improve a games graphical presentation. Ori and the Blind Forest and Firewatch are both very beautiful games with exceptionally good graphics. Both games are produced using Unity. They look good because of their exceptional art styles and the skill with which their developers utilized Unity's graphical abilities.

 

I may throw in also another "small" little fact....most of those companies that you can consider AAA nowadays, are companies that were made by older generations, where people were quite used to having learned everything from the ground up without the help of game engines. In other words, people in charge of most AAA companies might simply not see a reason to use any engine at all.
Give it a few more years, so that the current indie devs have time to build up and become AAA developers and companies....I wouldn't even be surprised if it becomes standard to use outsourced tools like game engines because pcs and software become more and more complex and technologies so advanced that not everyone can do everything anymore in sense of keeping up with modern technology without relying on specialists...

 

If this analogy of unity being a swiss army knife has to do with its ability to easily port to a lot of different platforms, well I agree, no doubt this restricts Unity's ability to push things to the limit. For example having to have Enlighten run on mobile and so forth.

I have no doubt that Unity have a good reason to be exactly where they are. But that doesn't mean you can simply tweak some shaders and get AAA-level lighting and graphics if that's what you want. And that may well have affected some studios decisions on whether to use it or not.

Not sure what you mean by your last paragraph, but I haven't talked a lot about realism in graphics on this thread. I have my own opinion on what looks good (and it isn't precisely 'realism' either) but that isn't the point here - it's a question of why AAA studios aren't using Unity. And even in very stylized games like Abzu, lighting and overall graphics quality is extremely important, and maybe even more important than for more 'realistic' games.

Anyway, I get it, I need to stop talking about graphics on random threads. Although there seems to be an incredible lot of misunderstanding about it, and what Unity can do in this area.

 

Things like Unity (engine) and Steam ( distribution) have almost removed any meaningful classification for ´AAA´ and Indie.. there is so much overlap and blur that even trying to define it is pointless.

Probably the only real distinction now would be marketing budget and the scope that comes with that budget. Indie usually means you are counting on word-of-mouth and free advertising pre-launch while AAA games buy advertising.

 

That is broad generalization that isn't necessarily accurate. A lot the tech creatives and driving folks in many of the AAA studios are spread across several generations. Gaming being a viable career, has brought in a lot of talent that was more scarce than in prior generations. Tech art, engineers, designers and producers are much younger than in the past because of they had the ability to focus on it as a career, and not a sideline for much of their early life. You look at companies like Naughty Dog, EA, Bioware, Crystal, etc, and a there are lot of brilliant younger folks really pushing the tech. By contrast, a lot of the old guard are moving to independent studios, and using tools like unity with smaller teams. For folks who have been building from scratch for years, the draw of being able to focus on building games and not always reinventing the wheel every couple of years is pretty attractive. In my experience, the age range is pretty freaking wide, key creative and some engineering and animation tends to be genX, with producers and studio heads younger. But even that is overly broad. Some of the successful indies made up of industry vets. And it isn't uncommon to see indie games using custom built tech these days either. NMS, Fez, Braid, Minecraft, etc.. Really it is wide open, change is the only constant. It's difficult to generalize about the make up of (successful) game developers.

 

AAA thread that actually has interesting info. That's gotta be a first.

 

So I think a common mistake that starting developers make (and believe me, I've made this too over the years) is that the engine makes the game, or somehow dictates how good the graphics look. While this is true in some sense, in that many engines come with default shaders and effects, stuff that will look nice with a sample project, there's no reason you have to make a game with default shaders, and you probably won't want to anyway (if you are chasing latest and greatest graphics). Not to mention the contribution of professional artwork, which is most of what people are looking at when they think of "graphics."

The thing is, the game engine is really just a nice abstraction and friendly interface to a series of core components. Most of these components are shared between many engines, for example: using DirectX for graphics, PhysX for physics, etc. When you draw graphics or run shaders in Unity, under the hood they are still just making DirectX calls, same as any engine. In theory, you could write your own material shaders, write your own lighting equations, customize the renderer (like adding your own deferred rendering passes, which you can do without source code), etc.

You could make a game in Unity that looks exactly like the latest Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed or whatever, *provided* you had a team of expert graphics programmers and professional 3d artists. The issue is, most people using Unity *don't* have a whole team of professionals and probably aren't as skilled as the people working at AAA studios. If you had 100 elite pros and millions of dollars, you could certainly make Call of Duty in Unity. The issue is never the engine, it is and always will be your ability and your resources.

 

Link me! Can't seem to find it.

 

https://unity3d.com/showcase/gallery

genre and platform dropdowns dont do anything

 

What does a AAA class game like Battlefield look like? I understand the workflow will vary widely from game to game, but can you give a sense for what these kinds of massive project workflows look like?

I remember looking at some video for a chase sequence in Uncharted 4. You could replace everything in that sequence with primitives and it would still be miles beyond what smaller efforts would be capable of. The logistics, organization and planning alone for best of breed sequences like that are on a different level.

 

pff, Martin, I missed seeing the "PC only" requirement in this topic I thought its for "AAA Games" but since that is a mobile game, it doesn't fit to AAA, right?

 

Of course Mobile Games can be AAA.

 

Unfortunately to some... no. Because they confuse AAA with always on cutting edge of presentation PERIOD... instead of realizing AAA is all about resources, processes, focus, etc. So it has to be desktop and possibly the very latest consoles (for a year or two after release).

 

Call it what you will, I mean games that break new ground technically.

• Assassins Creed broke new ground in animation. The work there was simply on another level than anything done before. The freerunning system, the combat itself, the fluid controls were revolutionary.
• Madden worked to create interactive animations that recreate sports on a level never achieved before. Again, the animation work here is just incredible. I hate sports games, but I've watched tons of video looking at the raw quality of the animation.

Or games that simply polish existing technical ground to the state of the art:

• Uncharted is the composition: the total package. Best of breed interactivity, best of breed environmental response, best of breed everything, all in one package.

The reason I think Tarkov is dipping it's toe in this category, is because they're pushing the limit of realism. From stuff like the weapon modeling to stuff like character responses. They're touching virgin ground in terms of precision presentation, and doing so with very high detail rendering.

That's why people keep mentioning Tarkov as 'the most impressive unity game', it's because they're pushing the limit and taking the presentation of hyper realism to a new level.

Major work in the mobile space can break new ground also. "I can't believe this is running on my phone!". But I imagine (no experience here, so admittedly talking out of my ass), that the real ground being broken in mobile come from working within the boundaries of more limited hardware.

Hearthstone is AAA mobile. They're running into serious problems with download sizes, the game is simply getting too big for phones. Each expansion increases the number of cards, which increase the amount of hard drive space required. The Hearthstone team will almost certainly break new technical ground in terms of working within that limitation. But breaking ground under a tight set of restraints is just not as sexy as "wow I've never seen anything like that" moments on traditional 'living room console' hardware.

I think Mobile will have it's time to really shine with more AR stuff. Pokemon Go was (arguably) groundbreaking. But I think when AR starts to really hit it's stride is when the average gamer starts looking to mobile for the 'newest and hottest'.

But until then, it's games like Tarkov that will do the most to improve Unity's reputation both with gamers and with studios looking to break ground in technical presentation not just stylistic presentation.

The next time an elitist gamer goes, "Pfeh, Unity is crap", I can say, "You loved Tarkov right? That was Unity".

 

Yep that's basically what I was getting at. You can have a cutting edge mobile game but that is a different expectation than a cutting edge desktop / latest gen console game.

 

Madden/FIFA are endlessly fascinating from development perspective. (I don't play them either). Their production is so far removed from other game development it is difficult to even consider them in the same class. Not only is animation incredible, but the physics and complexity are as well. They release a new game every year, but they are pretty constrained on core gameplay. It's not like can just drop in mechs or zombies to spice it up. So they invest in tech, things like animation and physics. The games still do about a 2 year dev cycle, but those releases focus on things like tech improvements, or support tech. (Motion and likeness capture). And some of the tech isn't always transferable to other uses (some is). Not to mention impressive live ops, as the games constantly update based on the real world. All this, and they are constantly the top selling games in the world. Those two games are nearly an industry in and of themselves.

 

Fixed now. It is actually the old MWU website and is being kept live for reference purposes. Use this instead: https://madewith.unity.com/

 

Madden is really pretty crazy.

I feel like they weren't really trying to make a sports game with Madden as much as make a TV show. You are not the quarterback, you are not the coach, what you are, is controlling the action on Monday Night Football. It's really amazing how successful they were at nailing that.

FIFA also, but I think FIFA needed to be more about playing since Soccer is a more fluid game. American Football is broken into short plays so the announcer commentary and stuff really gets to shine.

 

If you haven't seen this already, it is a fun watch:

 

Exactly, that should have told you something. Nothing really defines "AAA" . Popularity is probably one of the most important metrics of whether a game is AAA. Just like in movies. A movie can be objectively garbage (ie transformers 3, avatar) yet cost a lot of money and is popular, hence it is a "AAA" movie haha. I wonder if anyone would say "Waterworld" was a AAA movie lol.

From an objective view, I would say AAA game means 1) custom assets that are polished to high standard, 2) game is finished 3) doesn't crash on 95% of intended platform. That could mean a game that is 5 minutes long, or a game that is 1000 hrs long.

When people say AAA usually that invokes the idea that there is an existing (and financially stable) studio of people that work full time on its production. There are plenty of studios that are AAA under that criteria that produce objective garbage (aka like Transformers 2). There are also studios like that, that produce games that are incomplete and/or riddled with bugs/crash. Are those AAA games?

The technology platform/engine is not really a factor in AAA status or not. The final product is.

To answer your question. Yes UNITY can produce AAA, because it doesn't depend on Unity, it depends on the people using it. If you were a AAA studio, you might want to develop some proprietary tools/engines for various business reasons, and abandon Unity (or Cry Engine) (or UR engine, etc). You could imagine a game studio that produces AAA games start off with Unity and then start building its own internal engine in order to protect it's Intellectual property.

 

Critical reception may not have been very good but the movie was eventually profitable. Additionally it received video games (I've played the DOS one), a pinball machine, theme park attractions, a novel and a comic book. Remember to factor in the year too. What may have once been AAA quickly becomes far less after only a few years.

By the way it was the ninth highest grossing film of 1995. Says a lot about that year doesn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_in_film#Highest-grossing_films

 

Yup they are. Colonial Marines comes to mind. AAA isn't grade of quality, it is simply an indicator of production category. It is comparable to (and derives from) sports. Is it possible for a local single A baseball team to be better than a AAA or Major league team? Sure, but they don't have their own stadium and news coverage, deep bench or the resources to hire the best talent that wants to compete at that level. And many (my sister being very vocal on this point) would argue that going to a local/city league game is more enjoyable. Certainly that is (imho) is the case with hockey.

A great game is a great game regardless of the production. (as is a crappy game). In fact, it is much more impressive when a solo or small team makes a great game, at least to developers, as we know what is involved. In the end, the game matters, not the developer/development back story.

 

That's an apt analogy there. AAA more defines the size and resources the developer/studio has at its disposal. One should EXPECT that the New York Yankees are a better team and perform better than the Lansing Lugnuts. However, strange things happen in gaming/software development where that is not always the case. Often times the indie studios are the ones pushing the industry forward with new ideas and new tech (because they can take risks whereas they AAA guys can't).

So it is very possible that an indie studio using Unity can produce a AAA title! (At least I hope my title will be seen that way eventually, lol)

 

Can EA can spend 100 million with 200 developers to make an indie title?

 

Sure, if they were competing head to head, but they don't. But going to Lugnuts game could very easily be a much more enjoyable experience. Growing up, our family went to a lot Eugene Emeralds games (local minor league team), it was always a blast. I've been to a few MLB games and they weren't nearly as fun.

Not really with tech, but ideas? Definitely. An AAA title is a huge investment banking on a huge return, risks are heavily minimized. While they do take risks, they are usually minor and mixed in with mostly safe bets. Hence so many sequels. They aren't trying to be groundbreaking overall, just enough edge out competition and prior titles. It's not that they "can't", its just not the goal.

But there are exceptions in both. Spore was very innovative, and a huge risk (doesn't always pay off), and there are other AAA examples (good and bad). On the flip side, innovation isn't something that all indie's strive for (most don't). How many indie horror/pixel platformers/zombie/generic fps/etc fill steam and other markets? But there are some truly stand-out innovative indie titles (things you would never likely see come from a AAA studio), a quick browse of the Unity showcase highlights some of the best in class.

AAA/Franchise/Big Studio titles and Indie/Small Team/Innovative titles (and the areas in between) aren't in competition with each other anymore than an 2d Platformer is a competitor to an RTS. They are different segments of a very diverse market. It's about all about the games the developer wants to create. Neither is "better" objectively, only subjectively depending on your own drives/desires.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree with you on this point. While a AAA may not feel threatened by indie developed games, the reality is that the market is made up of a pool of dollars. So anything that will take dollars out of that pool is part of the competition. If an indie studio comes up with a game like Flappy Bird, or Candy crush, or Angry Birds, they end up dominating that segment of the market. I can guarantee you that made the big guys pay attention (which is why those titles were acquired by big companies). Those are examples of a new segment (mobile) that AAA studios weren't really interested in at first. Anyone on these forums could be in direct competition with Zynga, Ubisoft, or many other AAA players in mobile space, and possible other markets as well.

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/list/62773/top-50-mobile-game-developers-of-2016/entry/23/

 

Could the New York Yankees pay $200mm to its players and still suck? Yes, it's possible. Money doesn't guarantee quality or market domination. It certainly helps. A lot. The main thing is that the EXPECTATION from the business is that if it invests X it will get X+Y back. Indie devs invest closer to zero and hope to get 0+Y back.

EA and many other large conglomerations have smaller sub-studios that are in direct competition with indie studios. I don't think Madden 2057 is what they are worrying about. I think they are more worried about capturing growth in segments where they have a hard time competing (mobile is the prime example) for lack of ideas.

 

That literally didn't happen to any of those mentioned. Two were are already decent size studios (that got bigger) and one just went away.

The market doesn't really work like that (specifically the mobile market). The average premium title consumer purchases many titles. In a real practical sense, premium games are largely a competition amongst indies, they produce the most in that category, and one sale doesn't really preclude another.
The largest revenue area is F2P, and that is largely a competition amongst the big players. Those games games have incredibly high UA and operational costs, small companies and indies don't have the resources to compete in that area. There is a middle range in that segment that can be very profitable for right companies (fingers crossed). That second tier isn't remotely in the same revenue range, but a studio without the overhead of the top tier games can be very successful. There is some direct competition there, but like the others, the competition for players is with others in the same segment. There are multiple market segments, and games compete with others in the same space for that share. Clash Royal isn't compete for players for Fishdom or Candy Crush, or vice versa.

While, in theory, anything is possible, that is highly improbable, and there aren't really any examples of that happening. For one, and indie or small company doesn't have the resources to produce a game like those at the top tiers. Sure they could technically make a similar title, but wouldn't have the UA resources or infrastructure (and funds) needed to take it to that level. But more importantly, if an indie/small team were setting out with that goal (to compete with the top tier titles), they are pretty much doomed from the start due to lack of understanding of what they are doing. That would be an insane business decision. Those games make the revenue they do because they are trading margin for volume. Their marketing, UA and infrastructure costs are huge, they make pennies off players, but with hundreds of millions of players a day, that adds up. A new title (large or small company), can't get there without a massive war chest up front to eat millions in costs until they can hopefully build a player base and brand to get a return.

BUT, that is completely unnecessary for an indie or small team. Competing in the top tier is a losing battle. If for example a two person indie team spends a year making and releasing a game that makes them a few million in revenue, that is a massive success! For a large (and even medium size studios), that would be a massive failure. Economies of scale. "Games" isn't a single market, any more than "food" is. You are competing in a segment, and choosing the correct segment and making smart choices based on understanding your market is how you succeed.

This... is not true. It is true that most (if not all) large studios have many smaller studios, it has nothing remotely related to "competing with indies". There is no interest or sense in competing with indies. And practically speaking, there is no standard indie model to compete against. You don't compete with vague descriptions or other studios, you compete with other titles in your market space.

Internal small vertical teams serve several purposes.
1) Companion & collateral games. These are games that are much smaller in scope and development costs, but not necessarily are intended to make a profit themselves. They are largely marketing tools. Disney has several studios dedicated to this purpose, given that IP is the profit center, not games. The purpose of these types of titles are to promote and keep the user engaged with IP (brand recognition). Companion games are same, they are meant to drive sales on the primary title/francise not be a revenue center themselves.
2) Labs & Ideation. Basic R&D. Tech moves fast, and new tech comes out all the time with little or initial driving implementation. VR/AR/Geo are examples of this. The primary market for these is still emerging and largely untapped. Any decent sized studio you can think of has teams working on these (and other less known emerging tech). Best case outcome is to create a new standard or market, failing that, at least have the ability move in the space quickly should it emerge.
3) Staging & Exploration. Large studio games are built in parallel, not serial. Small teams are building and prototyping the next games to be built. (and in some cases small games that may be built by partners or co-dev). The largest, non-franchise titles from big studios start out small, built by small teams. The ones that survive the culling, are moved into full production. That may be either handing it off to a larger production team, or converting the small team into production and restocking the small studio. (usually a mix).
They can be more structured in larger companies or a mix. Small studios often have a "A" and "B" team that leapfrog. (though in almost every case they really cool names, not A and B).

The idea that large companies are trying to compete with indies just doesn't make sense. As above economies of scale is key here. The practical (and sometimes frustrating) reality of large studios is that production costs and revenue models place a serious restriction on what is practical to produce. If you look closely at the revenue and ua/production costs of a majority of the top selling / most popular titles (indie or otherwise) in the mobile space, for example, most translate to loss for a large company. I know this because we did this every two weeks, as part of ideation. A successful title from small studio who did well through guerilla marketing, could cost many times as much for large studio to make. And a sad reality is that there are lot of titles out there that are popular, highly rated and perceived as successful that really aren't when it comes to the bottom line. Studios just scraping by, hopefully leveraging that notability to make the next game a bigger hit. (which does actually happen pretty often). For a large studio, moving a game into production usually means that it is projected to meet a certain number in lifetime revenue. Under that target, it won't be built. If it is built and the time it took to make the title the market has changed or the title doesn't meet up to expectations or initial geo beta revenue expectations, it will be scrapped before it is released. (never a fun thing). And usually that target revenue number is way beyond what most indies titles can ever come even close to. But that is just the reality of a large company, the costs are many, many times that of a small team. Games from studios like this are built based on heavily researched criteria, not on speculation. If a game can prove it can potentially produce X ltr, can built at Y budget with Z live ops burn rate, it may be produced. Projections are still not a guarantee, and the reality is that game may not be good, the projections are based on real world data. Even the most popular indies don't make the kind of revenue to justify the investment and competing against.

In fact, large studios not only don't compete with small/indie titles, there is a much better approach. Partnering. Disney practiced this a lot. Crossy road for example (and many more, temple run, puzzle quest, angry birds, tiny tower, etc). While Crossy Road was very popular and successful, its actual revenue wouldn't justify it being built vertically. Also, competing/cloning a popular title like that rarely works out well. But, partnering / branding is very effective. It adds additional revenue and marketing for the studio that created it, and good bet for the large studio. Though the revenue is lower, without the development costs, smaller bets make financial sense.

The game industry is large, and varied and nuanced. It changes and evolves. Simple and broad assumptions don't really work out, like any industry there are many segments and markets. Being successful in it comes down to understanding it, and finding and understanding where you fit in to best leverage that. If you kick ass at making innovate puzzle games, but decide to try to compete by yourself against games like COC because they make a lot of money, you will fail. There is no luck, there is just making smart choices.

 

Both Angry Birds and Candy Crush were actually developed by the companies that own them. Angry Birds was developed by Rovio Entertainment as their 52nd attempt to create a game that didn't suck and Candy Crush was developed by King who actually knew what they were doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovio_Entertainment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_(company)

Neither Flappy Bird nor the company that developed it were bought up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotGEARS

 

@zombiegorilla has some good points, although I think you misinterpreted what I said, and kinda proved what I was saying with some of your thorough analysis.
@Ryiah, also yes, true. My main point is that those games could EASILY be developed through Unity and a team of 1 person. They might not really meet anyone's definition of AAA titles, however they were popular and dominated their segments. So logically it is possible for an small team to dominate a segment in which a AAA studio exists.

more importantly: @zombiegorilla you said this:
"If you look closely at the revenue and ua/production costs of a majority of the top selling / most popular titles (indie or otherwise) in the mobile space, for example, most translate to loss for a large company. I know this because we did this every two weeks, as part of ideation "

How do I get my hands on data like this? Revenue data is tightly controlled. I'd love to see what the market is in the segment I'm trying to enter (PC-RTS).

@zombiegorilla "There is no luck" I wholeheartedly disagree, prepare your dissertation please haha. But I do believe that smart choices helps tremendously.

 

Two main ways:
1) There are many companies that specialize in providing this kind of information. however, for the pc market it can be a little tricky because of market fragmentation. Steam numbers could provide some insight, but it isn't the whole picture. For mobile, it is easy, as there there is only one point of distribution for IOS and a couple for Android. Enterprise accounts with AppAnnie and others provide deep data. Those numbers are actually interesting... because they are not truly accurate, but they are almost perfectly inaccurate. In other words, the numbers are always off... but they are always off by nearly the exact same factor/percent.

2) For larger companies, it is internal numbers and partnerships with other companies. For EA, for example, they have a huge catalog and 100% accurate numbers for those. They have numbers for every title they distribute and publish as well. Disney was the same, numbers for every game we made and every game that was licensed or published by us (which includes a many EA titles). On top of that, those companies often share that data as well.

So, you can purchase some data, but it isn't cheap, and for your market (pc), may not be super accurate/complete.

It's also important to note that revenue alone is only one of the KPIs for understanding success of titles, and may not always tell a solid picture of the games performance.

True... ish. AB was a first mover in a new market. The market was very small when they launched, and there weren't any juggernauts at the time. (maybe Peggle). Candy Crush was already a massive hit in another space and migrated to a new market. It was possible at the time, but highly unlikely today. CC was highly innovative and basically defined a market, done through tons of research and development. It seems like a small team could do that, but of course that is always the case after the fact, never before. The light bulb is crazy simple, after someone already created it. AB and CC did things others didn't, based on trial, error, research and iteration with a specific goal. It wasn't luck, it was a lot of research. Flappy Bird.... similar, but on a tiny scale.

The challenge today, is that the market has evolved and somewhat stabilized. (and to be fair, will continue to evolve). The popular & high revenue games require massive infrastructure, and ua costs. A small team can't build a Clash of Clans competitor, they literally don't have the money. Or a direct LoL competitor. They exist and succeed because of capital and resources. You can't compete in those areas without that.

That said, small teams/games can make a killing at premium games. AAA has largely moved away from that area. Innovation can also lead to success, maybe not with a single title but a small team with a significant hit in a new area, and quickly become the go-to for larger companies to partner and license, that happens a lot... like really a lot. AR/VR is still like the early days of mobile, not really a killer app yet, a small team could easily break that one open.

It's also important to recognize, (and you may already get this... though many don't) there is almost never, never a small team or developer or game that comes out of nowhere to compete directly within an existing market and succeeds. The ones that do great things are the ones that create a new space, or have a ton of previous tries, building success upon success eventually hitting on the right formula. Overnight success and first game hits (on that scale) just don't happen.

 

I came to see lists... But saw none.

My simple suggestion to the concept of AAA is this:
What a trained artist can do with MSPaint, is far better than anything most of us can.
In the same way most of us might not be able to do something worthy of a real canvas and paint & brushes.

In other words, give a AAA studio Unity, and I'm sure they can make a AAA game out of it.

 

the question can be, if i ever intend to make a game tht looks like assassins creed anytime in my life, my knowledge of unity will be usefull ? or should i go to unreal now?

people are complayimg how AAA cause discussions to break, and thus breaking the discussion, while they could simply give examples, you know what AAA means, the games people complain are bad, but have good looking graphics, like assassins creed, call of duty gears of war

so, to simplify , are there any fps made with unity that resembles call of duty or even splatoon, or only unreal can do this ?

and as someone said AAA studios use it to make prototypes, so i think it is worth learning unity because even if your aim is not making your own game, but working in a big studio, that knowledge will be useful

 

You can't make it in Unreal or Unity, because an AAA game is more about the cost of the media.

Simply, you aren't able to do it because even if you take the best AAA programmer in the world, and the best AAA artist in the world, and give them the best AAA engine in the world, they will still only make a small village with a couple of people in it after a couple of years (unless it's mostly procedural).

So the engine isn't stopping you.

 

I'm still not sure what people mean by 'AAA' sometimes, but
looking at the Made with Unity page, its very nice, and Adam! more of a movie maybe.
But, the game side is just mechanics, and User control would be nothing, everything else is just visuals and UI.
Of my current project more than 3/4's of time has been UI, coding the game mechanics maybe a week or two.
Pretty sure Unity can easily handle whatever people think AAA is.