Why aren't there more AAA "cartoony" style games? For movies there's a huge market, why not for games?

[Darkstar0155]

I say it's because of the gameplay most people want to play atm. What do the biggest franchises all involve as a game play hook? Shooting/killing something in one form or another. It's pretty much across the board for major AAA games (and even non AAA these are the games that generally sell the most in the west). That type of game play doesn't really work with for an all ages story for the most part. I mean are you going to have a story about a child finding a new bond with a parent or pet that also involves killing/shooting things? (Last guardian is one example that does fit but it's not really cartoon per say)

What kind of gameplay hook are you going to have the player do in a more cartoon/younger themed story in a 3d world? It can't really be focused on killing if your wanting a pixar/Disney style themed game. The only gameplay styles that would work, puzzles, platformers, collectathon adventure style, etc just dont have a big enough market to truly ever be abe to justify a AAA budget.

I guess you can argue that something like argue Lion King game or The Jungle Book could be written in a way to retain the family friendly story and still have a gameplay hook most woukd enjoy (killing things), but I think those would only really sell because they are known IPs, a game like that, even with a huge AAA budget I just don't think woukd garner the sales to justify the budget.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I say it's because of the gameplay most people want to play atm. What do the biggest franchises all involve as a game play hook? Shooting/killing something in one form or another. It's pretty much across the board for major AAA games (and even non AAA these are the games that generally sell the most in the west). That type of game play doesn't really work with for an all ages story for the most part. I mean are you going to have a story about a child finding a new bond with a parent or pet that also involves killing/shooting things? (Last guardian is one example that does fit but it's not really cartoon per say)

What kind of gameplay hook are you going to have the player do in a more cartoon/younger themed story in a 3d world? It can't really be focused on killing if your wanting a pixar/Disney style themed game. The only gameplay styles that would work, puzzles, platformers, collectathon adventure style, etc just dont have a big enough market to truly ever be abe to justify a AAA budget.

I guess you can argue that something like argue Lion King game or The Jungle Book could be written in a way to retain the family friendly story and still have a gameplay hook most woukd enjoy (killing things), but I think those would only really sell because they are known IPs, a game like that, even with a huge AAA budget I just don't think woukd garner the sales to justify the budget.

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Overwatch and Fortnite are two of of the most popular shooter games of the generation. Possibly THE most popular shooter games from this gen.

 

[HK-47]

No one is cultivating a market for this kinda stuff.

 

[Darkstar0155]

Overwatch and Fortnite are two of of the most popular shooter games of the generation. Possibly THE most popular shooter games from this gen.

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But those aren't games driven around a family friendly narrative which is what I think the OP is talking about. A AAA I'm the vein of a pixar or Disney movie. Cartoon both in gfx and storyline and geared towards all ages. At least that's how I took it to mean after the edit.

 

[Dolce]

Videogames are art, and art isn't for children.

 

[Slam Tilt]

But those aren't games driven around a family friendly narrative which is what I think the OP is talking about.

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Splatoon.

 

[Darkstar0155]

Splatoon.

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Serious question cause I've never played it.. is splatoon very story driven? I always got thr impression it's mostly a arena shooter with a twist. It doesn't seem to fit what the OP is asking for but I could be wrong and there are a lot more cut scenes and a more start to end narrative then I knew.

 

[Aiustis]

It's not something that appeals to manbaby gamers.

 

[Baccus]

There's a healthy middle between brown shooter and Kirby.

Devs should stylize their games better. Stuff like, say, El Shaddai isn't childish per se, yet it trumps realism. Other games like this gens' work from FROM are gritty yet stylized and will age very well.

I understand it's hard, but it can be done.

 

[Slam Tilt]

Serious question cause I've never played it.. is splatoon very story driven? I always got thr impression it's mostly a arena shooter with a twist. It doesn't seem to fit what the OP is asking for but I could be wrong and there are a lot more cut scenes and a more start to end narrative then I knew.

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The single-player campaigns (Splatoon had one, S2 has two if you count the Octoling Expansion DLC) are story-driven action platformers. A lot of the lore is implied or hinted at through background stuff, but the campaigns have the most story, including "artifacts" to find that really go deep.

 

[Glio]

Videogames are art, and art isn't for children.

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Excuse me, what the fuck

 

[Toriko]

The OP is not talking about games like Splatoon but games like Ratchet & Clank. I really wish ND or Insomniac continue to make AAA games with that art style

 

[Deleted member 41931]

Unfortunately gaming still hasn't gotten over its insecurity from being labeled as for kids for so long. This mentality has infected the consumers resulting in those that do try to not sell as well and the creators that can like Naughty Dog not to

"No, I don't, because we've got an amazing team of people making some really expressive performances with our current stable of realistic characters. I mean, animating the stylised stuff is a lot of fun, but the stories that we're trying to tell right now are a little bit more grounded and a little bit more grown up than they were back in the Jak and Daxter days."

 

[Toriko]

Unfortunately gaming still hasn't gotten over its insecurity from being labeled as for kids for so long. This mentality has infected the consumers resulting in those that do try to not sell as well and the creators that can like Naughty Dog not to

"No, I don't, because we've got an amazing team of people making some really expressive performances with our current stable of realistic characters. I mean, animating the stylised stuff is a lot of fun, but the stories that we're trying to tell right now are a little bit more grounded and a little bit more grown up than they were back in the Jak and Daxter days."

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Nothing about any of that is insecurity but rather a studio wanting to move on and do what they really want to do.

 

[Deleted member 41931]

Nothing about any of that is insecurity but rather a studio wanting to move on and do what they really want to do.

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If they said that realism is just the direction they wanted to take, that would be fine, but they're being dismissive of cartoony ascetic as just being for fun. Saying they're doing it because their stories are now "grounded and a little bit more grown up", implies realism is a necessity for their current story telling direction when it's not. Persepolis is a semi-autobigraphical story about a girl growing up in during the Iranian Revolution, yet it looks like this

 

[MrMephistoX]

Japan's got you covered also Blizzard and Insomniac. Wish there were more which is why Disney could make great games but chose not to.

 

[Toriko]

If they said that realism is just the direction they wanted to take, that would be fine, but they're being dismissive of cartoony ascetic as just being for fun. Saying they're doing it because their stories are now "grounded and a little bit more grown up", implies realism is a necessity for their current story telling direction when it's not. Persepolis is a semi-autobigraphical story about a girl growing up in during the Iranian Revolution, yet it looks like this

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All I got from that was them saying that they want to tell a grounded tale and Jak and Daxter was not the right property for it and it absolutely wasn't. It would have been like changing cars or wreck it ralph into a deeply depressing tale which does not make much sense and not doing justice to Jak and Daxter's fanbase.

I dont think anything is precluding them from doing a somber tale with that aesthetic in your post though. I agree with you. They should explore these art styles..

 

[Crayolan]

Because the AAA space mostly consists of western companies trying to appeal to teens, and in the west most teens go through a "too cool for cartoons" phase.

Nintendo and Blizzard are just about the only companies to make cartoony games with a AAA budget.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

We had that with Telltale and they went under last year

Photorealism is easier to sell to the mass market than stylized visuals

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Telltale was never AAA.

 

[Deleted member 41931]

All I got from that was them saying that they want to tell a grounded tale and Jak and Daxter was not the right property for it and it absolutely wasn't. It would have been like changing cars or wreck it ralph into a deeply depressing tale which does not make much sense and not doing justice to Jak and Daxter's fanbase.

I dont think anything is precluding them from doing a somber tale with that aesthetic in your post though. I agree with you. They should explore these art styles..

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They were asked about doing stuff with less realistic art like Jak and Crash. So I interpretate that as being in reference to unrealistic art in general.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

OP, what you ask is mostly on Japan for Square Enix, Nintendo and other companies. In the west, pretty much Blizzard is the only one who does that between the big ones with AAA games.

KH3 as an example is kinda cheating IMO as it uses preexisting Disney characters and models. It's still visually great in that aspect though. Even brought up discussions of whether or not we actually reached Toy Story levels of quality when it comes to ingame rendering.

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Not really as there's many original characters.

 

[Crossing Eden]

But those aren't games driven around a family friendly narrative which is what I think the OP is talking about. A AAA I'm the vein of a pixar or Disney movie. Cartoon both in gfx and storyline and geared towards all ages. At least that's how I took it to mean after the edit.

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Because you people didn't buy Sunset Overdrive....

 

[ISOM]

I think their point is there's a difference between stylized and cartoony. Something I would argue invalidates Fortnite as "Cartoony" as well.

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Dreamworks, Pixar and Disney aren't cartoony going by that logic either so this entire thread's premise is bunk.

 

[Toriko]

Because you people didn't buy Sunset Overdrive....

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They bought Ratchet at least.. 5 million of them. Hopefully that means we get the strongly rumored AAA ratchet this year which would fit OP's criteria

 

[eraFROMAN]

People don't think those games are worth 60 bucks. Even when they're fantastic, the kids that might be interested are playing free games on their phones or wherever else. Their parents are fine with this.

 

[TheMango55]

This whole thread is just people moving the goalposts constantly.

If overwatch isn't cartoony then most animated movies aren't either, so what are we even discussing?

I mean we've got people asking why there's not a huge budget game that looks like Persepolis, but if a game looked like Persopolis why would it need a huge budget? Cuphead looks incredible and is more cartoony than any animated movie released in decades but it was done on a mid sized budget.

 

[Crossing Eden]

They bought Ratchet at least.. 5 million of them. Hopefully that means we get the strongly rumored AAA ratchet this year which would fit OP's criteria

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Oh true.

 

[Darkstar0155]

Actually if Pikmin's story was really fleshed out and presented in a more cinematic way it could fit ops criteria.

 

[sora87]

The ratchet and clank 2016 game was amazing i thought, hope sony greenlight another one of them in the same style

 

[Shadoken]

I actually don't get what OP means by saying "Cartoony" movies are huge. In which aspect exactly ?

Even if we don't count MP games and strictly count only SP Story driven games. ( Which is kinda unfair because of the differences on what counts as "Mainstream" in each industry )

Budget - The "realistic" looking movies have much bigger budgets nearly 2x-3x ( Like Avengers for example ). The gaming industry is pretty similar to this.

Revenue - 90% of the top grossing movies are Realistic. That number is probably even bigger if you take out Hollywood and start adding Movies around the world. Since Disney does all the heavy lifting.

Talent - This part is subjective , Imo most of these AA devs are just as talented as ND or Rockstar.

 

[ThatPersonGuy]

This whole argument feels like a weird strawman. Yeah there's a lot of realistic video games, but you have to ignore anything not coming out of America and Europe, and also several of the biggest western AAA titles of the generation, to seriously say that there aren't "cartoony AAA video games". I guess you could argue why there aren't more games aimed at that T for Teen audience, and I guess that's kind of just because there's this idea that people in that audience will just buy edgy M rated games anyways. I do think there should be more games aimed at a family audience, but that's different from wanting "cartoony" games.

 

[Ravidrath]

I'm not really sure what I think of this thread, but I'll add an observation of my own.

Looking at portfolios of Gnomon students and talking to them, just about everyone is learning to do photorealistic stuff in art school, and mostly for movies.

When we were looking for an environmental generalist, there was ONE guy in the entire Gnomon class who wasn't doing photorealistic, was hand-painting textures, etc. And we hired him!

So at least in the US, it seems like the movie industry's needs are kind of leading what kind of art is getting made, what kind of visions are being created.

My sincere hope is that the success of Into the Spiderverse inspires more students and teachers to experiment with style. Because style is really lacking in Hollywood CG right now, and until there's more demand for visual risk-taking, I think that's going to lead to a lot of the sameiness you're seeing in games.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

I'm not really sure what I think of this thread, but I'll add an observation of my own.

Looking at portfolios of Gnomon students and talking to them, just about everyone is learning to do photorealistic stuff in art school, and mostly for movies.

When we were looking for an environmental generalist, there was ONE guy in the entire Gnomon class who wasn't doing photorealistic, was hand-painting textures, etc. And we hired him!

So at least in the US, it seems like the movie industry's needs are kind of leading what kind of art is getting made, what kind of visions are being created.

My sincere hope is that the success of Into the Spiderverse inspires more students and teachers to experiment with style. Because style is really lacking in Hollywood CG right now, and until there's more demand for visual risk-taking, I think that's going to lead to a lot of the sameiness you're seeing in games.

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That's a real bummer to hear. (Big fan of Indivisible and that team btw) Because everytime I find stylized art that isn't exaggerated lewd stuff I get super excited and hope for games to embrace that art style at some point in the future.

It was interesting playing Tales of Vesperia recently after playing Xenoblade 2 and the like because even though they use a stylized art direction for characters, the environments were pretty realistically shaded. Tales of Vesperia is definitely a much older game but it made me realize why I clinged to Xenoblade 2 so much despite some of its shortcomings.

Stylized games of that caliber/budget are so rare these days, and even games like Tales of Berseria and YS 8 while great in their own right, don't have the team sizes or funding to reach that scope consistently.

 

[Ravidrath]

(Big fan of Indivisible and that team btw)

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Thanks!

I think I'll also note that it seems like that the handful of good people not doing photorealistic work get instantly snapped up by Blizzard or Riot.

But that in itself is limiting, because Blizzard has kind of defined the art style for most Western games for some time now.

Believe it or not, there was a time when aping Joe Madureira's style was considered risky! And now that's basically the default "cartoony" game style for western developers.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

Thanks!

I think I'll also note that it seems like that the handful of good people not doing photorealistic work get instantly snapped up by Blizzard or Riot.

But that in itself is limiting, because Blizzard has kind of defined the art style for most Western games for some time now.

Believe it or not, there was a time when aping Joe Madureira's style was considered risky! And now that's basically the default "cartoony" game style for western developers.

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Fair enough!

I don't know if I'd want to go into either of those teams with a stylized art portfolio myself but I understand WHY they have the rep they do and attract artists. I have a friend who I helped move a few years ago to Blizzard for a job from here in Texas, and they helped pay for relocation and a lot of other things. When stylized art jobs are already few and far between, I imagine someone offering to pay your way is enticing, even if it's to go to Cali :P

It's been nice that indie games have picked up the slack in that department, because things like Battle Chasers and the like show that you can take that art style and update it pretty well. A game called Blubber Busters was at PAX South that I've been following for a long time that also really inspires me (and games like Ori are great too).

I'm going to keep praising and speaking with my wallet for the games that do have the art style at least, haha.

Keep doing what you do and good luck/much love to your team and others who pursue this art.

 

[Unknownlight]

Serious question cause I've never played it.. is splatoon very story driven? I always got thr impression it's mostly a arena shooter with a twist. It doesn't seem to fit what the OP is asking for but I could be wrong and there are a lot more cut scenes and a more start to end narrative then I knew.

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Splatoon has a story, but it's more in the style of Metroid Prime or Dark Souls where you can miss most of it if you don't dig deep into the in-game logs and such.

The only part of the series so far that I'd consider to be properly "cinematic" is the ending of the Octo Expansion.

 

[Yan]

They bought Ratchet at least.. 5 million of them. Hopefully that means we get the strongly rumored AAA ratchet this year which would fit OP's criteria

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Yes. I love R&C because it's one of the only games that do this kind of concept. Higly stylised visuals with story driven focus and AAA production.
Seriously, how many games fitting this criteria are being made, R&C and.....?
Since no one else seem to make them it's suprising to me that Insomniac themselves haven't developed another IP like this, while still being different of course.

 

[tazmin]

Nintendo? Fortnite?

 

[Datajoy]

People want photorealism.

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you can't "/thead" your own post..

 

[optimiss]

This is exactly why I play mostly Nintendo games. I have no interest in realistic violence/war. It is soooooo boring.

 

[MilkBeard]

Ummm.... Nintendo? lol

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.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

It's a really good point.

As a medium we're still in our adolescence, as such trying to find ways to create really mature and rich content. A big part of that is fetishizing realistic graphics and the "traditional" cinematic modes which come with that.

I think once graphics have hit like total/near perfect realism, we're going to see more and more "family friendly" and cartoony/stylised high end/AAA games come out.

Just like how yl there seem to be so few classic family/cartoon movies from the 60s and 70s, but then after cinema went through its golden age and realised it's potential then the craft opened up and from the 80-10s you see more and more family oriented/cartoony works than ever

 

[AppleKid]

well written story

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Pixar/Disney, Dreamworks

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Only one of these three animation studios matches your description these days, and even then they have not been consistent since the release of Cars 2. Ratchet and Clank Remake's story actually resembles a lot of what I dislike about modern animated movies; though from what I've seen of the original I would not apply this same criticism there.

Anyway, to your main point, I would agree. People can say what they want about the pick up and play nature of many cartoony Nintendo games, but a compelling and well-implemented story has never detracted from my experience with a game. The beginning part of Sunshine is actually one of my favorite parts of any Mario game thanks to the mystery of Shadow Mario (too bad it's kind of ruined 10 shine sprites in lol).

For now at least you can enjoy the plenty of indie games that go for that style and have excellent story/characters like Wandersong, Night in the Woods, and Owlboy

 

[Pyro]

I think as graphics start to plateau we'll see more of them.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Thats one of the huge flaws of the industry, so far only Nintendo really explores truly cartoon games in the AAA space, the main players seem to primarily concentrate on the 30+ crowd that also tends to hook the teens