It’s not about specs or scope, it’s about designing a game to be actually FUN.

This is the key point that these publishers and studios are trying to avoid.

• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on designing microtransaction psychologically manipulative money sinks (dark designs)?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on creating addiction in the player-base so that they keep playing the game (and spending money)?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit DLC (not actual new content)?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit to satisfy shareholders?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on shit the devs don’t want, but executives do?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit padding for marketing purposes?
• How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit DRM?

And keep in mind, by budgets here, I mean both the dollar amount AND time spent by devs that could be spent elsewhere (which is part of the dollar amount since salaries, but I wanted to make it clear that time spent is also important).

Some of the absolute best games in the industry have literally none of that, and people still want to play and buy them years after release because gasp they’re actually fun, but these publishers and devs don’t want to compare to those, because they WANT the industry to be a bunch of “GAAS” bullshit that’s basically a vacuum pushed into people’s wallets, cause hey, if it worked for Candy Crush…