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[Men_in_Boxes]

Rust is huge.
DayZ is huge.
Ark is huge.
The Long Dark is huge.
The Forest is huge.
No Man's Sky is huge.
Minecraft is huge.
Valheim is huge.
Lego Fortnite is huge.

Now...Palworld is huge. What are the odds?

All the above games were made by small teams and they all went on to outsell a number of AAA games.

Why hasn't the AAA industry recognized this market trend sooner and delivered a proper big budget survival game? I think the only one in the cooker at the moment is Blizzards Project Odyssey but that is still likely a few years off. What's with the hesitancy? Why have the big publishers avoided the genre for so long?

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Its the issue of making it good, and has to standout from others. Just making another of the same thing isnt how you should go about things. Following trends when they are trends is already too late. You have to be in on it before its trending.

 

[Interfectum]

Because AAA is full of bloat, they are scared of Early Access (which is pivotal for these games) and they are too busy worrying about diversity hires instead of people who've actually made games like these before.

 

[Punished Miku]

Why is AAA taking so long? Because it is AAA. That's what it means. Slow, time consuming development, risk averse and not open to quick adaptation. But those graphics!

 

[SmokedMeat]

Probably because they’re not really huge on consoles.

 

[AV]

Most of those games look and feel like half-baked asset flip jank. I'm not saying they're not massive - they are - but if AAA is going to make a push on a AAA survival game, it has to look and feel, well, AAA. I tried The Forest when it 1.0'd after being told for a year how good it was and it was like playing a student project. Just horrible, and now they're straight onto The Forest 2 instead of actually finishing their game. From what I know, Ark is still an early access game in all but name.

Not to mention, did you forget that No Man's Sky was supposed to be a AAA survival game? It was Sony's baby, it just got shat out in an incomplete state and got fixed over a decade.

 

[Guilty_AI]

New World tried didn't it?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Its the issue of making it good, and has to standout from others. Just making another of the same thing isnt how you should go about things. Following trends when they are trends is already too late. You have to be in on it before its trending.

I would argue the survival game trend has been on an upward trajectory for the last 15 years and we still haven't reached its peak. I'm not sure if "too late" is really in the equation here.

You would think a studio with 200+ employees would look at the games listed in the OP and think "Yeah, we can do that. We can do that but raise the bar significantly."

 

[Bungie]

Most AAA devs have a agenda and a roadmap spanning longer than you think, also this would be a publishers call and I doubt these publishers let most studios take these kinds of risk, most of those survival game started off early access and very barebones, it's taken some of them so many years to get to be 1.0. 7 million budget and Palworld is really fun but doesn't feel AAA in the slightest.

Don't even want to know what I'd cost a AAA dev team to make a fully done survival game out the box because they don't do early access but I am with you, I'd love to see one.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

why bother spending AAA money on a genre where gamers will gladly buy jank?

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I love these types of games and spent a ton of time in H1Z1 zombies mode building bases and surviving

 

[lughnasadh123]

"Why does the AAA industry follow trends?
also

"Why doesn't the AAA industry follow trends?"

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

why bother spending AAA money on a genre where gamers will gladly buy jank?

Because AAA flops are all too common and polished, high production value efforts should have a considerable advantage over games with jank.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Honestly thought it would have been more time spent in H1Z1 and yeah can't bring myself to remove it from my library even though its been dead for years, my son and I had too much fun in it

 

[Wildebeest]

Far Cry and Tomb Raider both went hard on "survival" features. Then you have Elden Ring, Zelda and Horizon. As of now, crafting and survival are too old of a trend for even the slow pace of AAA game development to chase, they are just totally folded into what is expected.

 

[CeeJay]

It's probably a lot to do with the way the game is monetised differently by the two different models.

AAA have to have ongoing revenue from MTs to be able to carry on adding to it and creating new content whereas a developer releasing to early access can use a slightly different model where word of mouth and constant updates bring in new sales that provide revenue over a long period. AAA GAAS rely on your character and/or weapons having fancy shiny skins and upgrades that you can purchase from the store. To be able to use this business model you must be able to give access to that content straight away when customers purchase them, it would be a bit shit if a customer bought a skin but couldn't use it because their character hadn't invented it yet. Survival games usually start off with basic clothing and tools and you slowly craft better and better gear, items and tech. Its much easier for a developer to build on a game in early access where they don't need to worry about how those new features and items will affect the back catalogue of MTs that they have already sold, they can get feedback from the gamers and then steer the development in the direction of that feedback.

Look at something like Sea of Thieves, the game has grown immensely since it was originally released in a very bare bones state but... There are still the exact same number of ship options, the same weapons and the same clothing slots, each ship has the same customisation options and those options are interchangeable across all 3 type of ships. All the different skins are purely cosmetic and there is no difference in utility between them. Before the game was released the microtransaction model was already set in stone and going forward they are going to be restricted in what they can do by those decisions. This is the AAA GAAS model and how it has to work. In the early access business model you can release a bare bones game and then build it out adding whatever the hell you want and take the game in whatever direction the playerbase wants to steer it. A survival type game is a perfect fit for early access as you can just keep adding new systems and depth to the game, different types of clothing, items and weapons can have totally different utility. A survival type game would be a bit of a nightmare to develop for the AAA GAAS studios.

 

[Porticus]

AAA companies are too big to be able to spend time doing trashy survival games, you literally can't do that for a miriad of reasons, while for an indie company there's no issues at all.

 

[Tomeru]

Why wait when you cdn play Stslker GAMMA now?

 

[FoxMcChief]

Because they can’t justify spending so little on a game.

 

[crackajack]

I have played none of those. Genres are becoming more and more blurry anyway but if survival means crafting shit on random workbenches or unlocking the craft ability, weapons becoming useless all the time, in need for repair, me having to eat to not collapse or some other repetitive pointless annoying shit, there is already too much of survival garbage in games. eg. recently played Rage, which had some half baked ideas with its rc car bombs, sentry guns, building ammunition, but it was more trouble to create it yourself than just buying that stuff in shops and neither the levels asked for the use of them, nor were the controls suited to launch these objects easily. It just added to the convolution most of games suffer since we got too many buttons on the pad. I rather have fun games than complex games just for the sake of it. But maybe that is AAA trying to incorporate survival aspects and it missed the point of what makes survival games good and special?

 

[KimDongHwan]

"Why does the AAA industry follow trends?
also

"Why doesn't the AAA industry follow trends?"

I think some would argue that they always follow trends, just with a delay of 4-6 years. Some of this companies are still chasing the Uncharted 2 trend.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Because AAA flops are all too common and polished, high production value efforts should have a considerable advantage over games with jank.

Palworld just sold 6 million in 4 days. There are very few games ever that have equaled that, let alone survival games - and I'm not sure nicer graphics or polish would have added many additional sales.

 

[MirageMew2]

Light No Fire trailer has 17 million views. It’s coming.

 

[HL3.exe]

Because that survival market is already saturated on its own.

We've been 'mashing rocks with sticks to create an axe' for more then 10 years now

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Palworld just sold 6 million in 4 days. There are very few games ever that have equaled that, let alone survival games - and I'm not sure nicer graphics or polish would have added many additional sales.

There's a loooot more you can do with big budgets than simply nicer graphics or polish. Plus, there's too many AAA flops to really think this way. How many people made Forespoken, for example?

 

[CeeJay]

Because that survival market is already saturated on its own.

We've been 'mashing rocks with sticks to create an axe' for more then 10 years now

Palworld has sold gangbusters and second highest concurrent players on Steam ever in just 6 days?? Doesn't sound like a saturated market to me, it sounds like people are very thirsty for them.

 

[Viz108]

Survival games require experimentation to be unique and stand out in a genre filled with every half-bit studio throwing their hat in the ring, and if there's anything AAA studios hate it's experimentation.

Somewhat unrelated, but SovietWomble's video on experimenting in the survival genre goes over a lot of the intricacies of survival games, and I would highly recommend it just for a fun watch:

 

[HL3.exe]

Palworld has sold gangbusters and second highest concurrent players on Steam ever in just 6 days?? Doesn't sound like a saturated market to me, it sounds like people are very thirsty for them.

For one survival hit, there's always a shitload of survival sim shovelware flooding steam, because of their semi easy to clone, copy-paste design.

Good on them for striking big with mashing survival sims with pokemon! I'm personally done with these stale design tropes.

 

[Audiophile]

They can't help but go overboard with the monetisation; which sucks the life out of games.

The temptation is too great for them: "what if our game was huge like theirs, but we had heavy monetisation in place when it hits big?!"

 

[amigastar]

I bet the Blizzard Survival game will be a huge success. Personally i'm not that interested in Survival games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Palworld has sold gangbusters and second highest concurrent players on Steam ever in just 6 days?? Doesn't sound like a saturated market to me, it sounds like people are very thirsty for them.

I honestly think people, a lot of people, have redefined the word saturated to mean - I don't like.

 

[Evil Calvin]

AAA publishers have zero patience and are adverse to making a game from a new IP.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

None compare to Left 4 Dead that adrenaline getting to the plane you're teams being killed and you just leave and panic and the relief getting on the plane just for an Achievement but it was worth it.

 

[crackajack]

There's a loooot more you can do with big budgets than simply nicer graphics or polish.

I would argue you possibly can do less with a big budget. The whole process how a game is created seems different, less risky, less experimental, less all parts of the team reaaallly pulling together. While those niche breakout hits are probably made with a team that's more similar to PS3 teams at max or more likely even earlier team sizes, were everyone had a much closer understanding of everything of everyone else's work. But AAA teams are just bloated in every phase, work happening all over the world and mashed together only now and then. Many of those smaller budget hits are relying on early access to even see a release and actually be shaped largely after public feedback. Even Fortnite for example was heavily reworked over the early years. AAA too often thinks they nail the pre alpha phase but often fail spectacularly right there already. No one can tell me that the majority of gamers (at least the core developers should be gamers at heart) would not have laughed at an early prototype of Callisto Protocoll with its left right left right QTE like evade system. That shit was only possible because someone full of themselves or never thought it being used as anything but a placeholder was in charge for gameplay and no one else ever gave feedback that it's shite and the whole other armada of people just happily hammered away their portions of the game, hours after hours. Any small team would have stopped it, asking not only if it works but also why it is not fun. AAA is an uncontrollable mess if the heads are not really masters.

 

[dorkimoe]

Because the vocal group of nerds who need a good story wont shut up. Not every game needs some ridiculous story, just let us play

 

[MiguelItUp]

Between the amount of competition that exists in the Survival market (on PC) and the amount of money that AAA throws around, I wouldn't be surprised if they're just too hesitant to do such a thing. Probably feels too niche or risky in their eyes for that kind of spending.

Probably because they’re not really huge on consoles.

Couldn't agree more. AAA still really cares about appealing to (and reaching) the masses. PCs have become more popular over the decades, sure. But Survival games just aren't a thing on console ATM.

Palworld has sold gangbusters and second highest concurrent players on Steam ever in just 6 days?? Doesn't sound like a saturated market to me, it sounds like people are very thirsty for them.

I honestly feel like people were initially interested in Palworld because it looked so ridiculous. "Pokemon with guns" was being tossed around everywhere, and made the game get noticed more, and more. I wonder how much of the survival mechanics are what sold it as opposed to everything else attached to it.

 

[Arsic]

It’s the same reason we don’t get new MMOs—- too risk adverse.

I want a AAA extraction shooter like Tarkov by a competent company but still no one has done it. Which is insane because Tarkov is on its 8th year? So if they had chased Tarkov from the jump we would have it by now and your only competition is… Tarkov still.

The industry chases its tail.

The devs that just get shit done are Japanese studios at this point. Last standing beacon.

 

[StueyDuck]

There's some bigger budget good looking ones coming this year. Dune awakening, nightengale, enshrouded.

Survival games about to get good this year hopefully

 

[BennyBlanco]

Skill issue

 

[Griffon]

Yep. The Minecraft generation can't get enough of that shit. I think it's just a matter of current senior devs in decision-making positions not having a taste for it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It’s the same reason we don’t get new MMOs—- too risk adverse.

There's a big difference between MMOs and Survival Games. The MMO space saw a number of high effort flops over the last 20 years.

Have we seen a single high effort flop in the Survival Genre?

 

[CamHostage]

For one survival hit, there's always a shitload of survival sim shovelware flooding steam, because of their semi easy to clone, copy-paste design.

Good on them for striking big with mashing survival sims with pokemon! I'm personally done with these stale design tropes.

...A shitload of survival sim shovelware flooding Steam, including a previous one made by the makers of Palworld.

Craftopia | Pocketpair,Inc.

www.pocketpair.jp

Palworld is kind of a gimmicky sequel/reboot of that (though they're still keeping Craftopia open for Early Access.) The parody ploy worked for 6mil+, whereas Craftopia has done I think I saw 500k or somewhere around there.

Also, Minecraft is a survival game, Fortnite was built on a survival foundation (many of these current survival games use UE and Fortnite mechanics,) Grounded is survival, LOTR has a mining survival game (instead of traditional "farming"), there's Dune Awakening, State of Decay 3, the Occupy games, etc. We have no "DragonBall Survival" or "Sonic Survival" or whatever other brand is popular which could make a spin-off survival game, no publisher has tried to make a name brand "AAA Survival" game, but crafting and gathering and various survival mechanics have been peppered into other game types.

 

[tr1p1ex]

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has a lot of survival game elements to it.

 

[Fabieter]

Because AAA is full of bloat, they are scared of Early Access (which is pivotal for these games) and they are too busy worrying about diversity hires instead of people who've actually made games like these before.

They also would get shit for trying early access to its understandable.

 

[Meicyn]

Because that survival market is already saturated on its own.

We've been 'mashing rocks with sticks to create an axe' for more then 10 years now

That’s a reductionist take. I mean, we’ve been hopping on goombas with a fat red Italian plumber since 1985 but the platforming game formula has been incrementally evolving over nearly four decades. It’s why Nintendo continues to sell millions of copies every time.

There’s plenty of room for iteration in any genre.

 

[darrylgorn]

 

[SHA]

Those devs don't stop making games, keep that in mind, you may not hear about their next project for various reasons but they're there, just keep trying different games, you'll find some elements in games of different genres you're familiar with and be surprised that the stuff you're looking for isn't really dead and exist right there.

 

[Success]

This has to be the most thought provoking question I have read this year on NeoGAF.

I don't even have an answer because you are right.

Why the hell are there no AAA survival games when there has been this big GaaS push.

 

[N30RYU]

You can't just follow trends... or once you finish your AAA game the trend could be over.

 

[AJUMP23]

Balance Danielson.