howdy all! i've been seeing, for years now, a huge backlash against 'asset flips' in video games that show up on major storefronts. the first one of these cases was StarForge, but also whatever random games that Sterling person likes to rag on for the past few years. relatively major discourse is leveled at the idea that game developers are really lazy and despicable for simply putting a bunch of ill-fitting assets together in a garbage shell and then releasing it for money. sure! developers who don't try to create something from their passion and then fish for maximum revenue before abandoning projects intentionally suck!
but then that same attitude began to extend out to developers re-using their own assets - FromSoft re-using animations and models between games, Total War Warhammer's models being 'barely updated' for the new lighting engines with each progressive release, Bungie re-using models from Destiny 1, shit like that. and this kind of thing has really stemmed from this entitled idea that game developers are simply there to crack out novel perfection or be spit upon!
the fact of the matter is that not only is game development extremely difficult, it's extremely time-consuming! from experience with EXTREMELY low-tech creations, you're constantly iterating and constantly testing and constantly making tiny tiny tiny changes and then half the time you include something new everything cracks and you gotta spend half the time figuring out what went wrong. why the fuck wouldn't you re-use a rock pile asset or an animation that you KNOW works, is thematically appropriate - or, hell, why WOULDN'T you buy an asset for something you or your coworkers technically can't make yourself?
preaching to the choir and shit sure but i think the incredible success stories of independent developers single-handedly creating masterpieces (TUNIC, Iji, Undertale [to a smaller extent], etc) has really damaged the concept of what game development should and could be. instead of a truly ad-hoc, weird, and liberating experience, a lot of 'above-board' game development now expects people to be multidisciplinary savants instead of a bunch of weirdos throwing shit at a wall and making pocket change from it.
i just think that's really sad.
everything anyone creates is built on the shoulders of what came prior. all the original ideas were thought of, and all we are doing is iterating on skeletons of giants, in whatever creative field we find ourselves in. our novella, SLIME TIME, was really just a grungy scumwad queer version of Steel Beach, a 1992 novel by John Varley, filtered through the distilled writing style of Kurt Vonnegut when you break it down to our influences.
so never feel guilty about your influences, and never feel guilty about calling back to others, flipping assets, taking shortcuts, or straight up cheating in your pursuit of your passion and your vision. people legit just don't understand the creative process, and i think we could all do with being a bit slimier and lazier in the pursuit of what is really meaningful to us in this late stage capitalist nightmare world.
just some thoughts i had this morning.