this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Baldur's Gate 3 dev says AAA is "perversely fascinated" by indie games, because those devs still understand how to make good ideas that aren't reliant on data (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 4 days ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[โ€“] Ashtear@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Stardew Valley's success had more to do with smart marketing than anything. The game has the exact same formula as Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, which are very corporate-run series, just not at AAA scale. The difference was Eric Barone cultivating word-of-mouth marketing via influencers and online communities to reintroduce the genre to the Western market (along with lucking into capitalizing on what was then a more nascent pixel art indie gaming trend).

Undertale's a good example, though (I'll still note this particular example is a huge spoiler). I did the thing and it was a very fresh idea, and one of the best hooks I've seen in a video game. Thing is though, I doubt even 10% took that route to see it. That's something the game has in common with Baldur's Gate 3, which is full of those low-percentage moments. AAA devs don't like investing a lot of resources into things most people aren't going to see.

[โ€“] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 3 days ago

Good marketing and luck do play their roles, but aren't enough by themselves. With those two but without pulling your emotional strings, SV wouldn't be seen nowadays as a "spiritual successor" to Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons, but rather as a "cheap knock-off".

Doubly so for an indie game - indie devs don't have enough money to make shit look like ambrosia, unlike AAA studios.

Also note HM/SoS did not start as a corporate-run series. The formula was already there in the SNES game, developed by a rather unknown studio (Amccus). Apparently Yasuhiro Wada came up with the idea because he wanted to try something different, and he's from a rural background.

Corporate is kind of lucky the formula is enough - to make someone feel proud of their farm (like in Ech's answer) or relate to the characters (interacting with them often, giving them gifts, seeing cutscenes etc.), otherwise it would've ruined it with "more graphics! 9001 love interests! 9001 crops! ...what do you mean, the characters aren't relatable?".