So, there’s this thing that’s been bugging me lately. Actually, not bugging me, more like… refreshing me. I keep seeing all these massive AAA games coming out, you know the ones, with the hundred-million-dollar budgets and the marketing blitz that makes it feel like the game is being force-fed to you through every algorithm on earth. And yeah, some of them are good. Some are even great. But more and more, I find myself gravitating toward the smaller stuff. The “studio” games, as people call them. The indie darlings, the AA titles, whatever you wanna label them. And honestly? I think they’re just… better. More often than not. 
Let me try to explain why I feel this way, because it’s not just about pixel art vs photorealistic graphics or whatever. It’s something deeper.
First off, there’s the obvious one: risk. Big budgets are terrified of risk. When you’re spending $200 million on a game, you can’t afford to try something weird. The shareholders, the publishers, the marketing departments… they’re all looking at the bottom line. They need a guaranteed hit. So they look at what sold well last year and they make that again. That’s why we get endless sequels to the same four or five franchises, with the same mechanics, the same open-world towers to climb, the same crafting systems… it’s all so derivative. It’s safe. Boringly, depressingly safe.
Studio games, though? They don’t have that pressure. A team of fifteen or twenty people can take a chance on a weird mechanic, a strange story, an art style that looks like a watercolor painting come to life. They can afford to be weird. And weird is interesting!
I remember playing Outer Wilds for the first time. I won’t spoil it because everyone should experience that blind, but you’re in a tiny solar system that loops in a twenty-two minute cycle. That’s it. That’s the whole game. No combat, no leveling up, no gear score. Just curiosity and knowledge. There is no way that game gets made by a giant studio. The pitch would have been laughed out of the room. “So you loop time and you have to learn the physics of a quantum moon?” Yeah, good luck with that. But that game is a masterpiece, honestly, one of the best I’ve ever played. It’s a testament to what happens when you let creativity lead, not a focus group.
Its also about scope, right? Big games are so bloated now. They’re these massive, sprawling epics that take 80 hours to finish. And sure, that sounds like value for money, but half that time is spent walking from point A to point B, collecting useless junk, or doing the same repetitive side mission for the tenth time. It feels like… work. A checklist. The developers are so afraid you’ll run out of content that they fill it with filler.
Studio games are usually tighter. They’re maybe 10-20 hours long and every single minute counts. There’s no filler. Every scene, every line of dialogue, every gameplay mechanic is there for a reason. It’s like the difference between a carefully crafted short story and a sprawling, meandering novel. Both can be great, but the short story often respects your time more. It knows you have a life.
Oh man, btw, I need to mention the bugs. Haha. People love to complain about AAA game bugs, and yeah, they can be bad. But it’s the kind of bug that’s different. A AAA game with a day-one patch is basically declaring it wasn’t finished. The studio games, though, they often have these charming little janky bits. Now, I’m not saying bugs are good, but sometimes the imperfections of a smaller game add character. It feels handmade. Like you’re playing something crafted by humans who had to solve problems in clever ways because they didn’t have a team of 400 people. The physics engine might do something weird and you’ll laugh about it instead of getting annoyed. It feels more… personal.
And that leads me to the people. When I play a major studio release, I feel like I’m playing a product manufactured by a faceless corporation. When I play something like Stardew Valley, I’m constantly aware that this entire world was basically built by one guy, ConcernedApe. You can feel his passion in every pixel. He loved this game, and that love translates into the experience. It’s not a product, it’s a piece of art. A monument to his dedication. That’s cool if you ask me.
I remember chatting with a friend about this. He plays only FIFA and Call of Duty. And I was like, “Man, you should try Hades or Baldur’s Gate 3.” He was like, “Nah, I don’t have time for games, they’re all too grindy.” And I get it, but I pointed out that Hades is a game you can play in 30-minute bursts, that every run is different, that dying actually progresses the story. And he gave it a shot. Now he’s a fan. It’s not about the “casual vs. hardcore” thing, it’s just about creating something that respects the player’s time and intelligence.
But wait, I don’t want to sound like I think every small game is a genius masterpiece. Because they’re not. The indie scene has its own problems. There’s a ton of garbage on Steam, glitchy unfinished messes that are worse than any AAA product. But the average quality, the median, is so much higher. And the ceiling is way, way higher.
Also, let’s talk about the industry trends… you know, those “live service” things. Big games are increasingly designed to be online, to be a “service” you keep paying for, with battle passes and cosmetic shops. The whole game is built around the monetization. It feels gross. The soul gets sucked out so the game can sell you a new skin for your gun.
Studio games are rarely like that. They’re usually a one-time purchase. You own it. It’s yours. The game isn’t trying to squeeze an extra dime from you every month. That feels honest. It’s a straightforward transaction: you give me money, I give you a complete, fulfilling experience. No strings attached. That’s such a refreshing feeling these days, you know?
I’m not 100% sure if the big labels will ever fully grasp this. I think they see the sales numbers for games like Elden Ring (which is, like, 30% indie spirit tbh, I mean the open world isn’t dotted with icons!) or Baldur’s Gate 3 and they think “We need to make our games bigger, more complex!” When actually, what they need to do is make them more considered. More focused.
It’s like the difference between listening to a multi-platinum pop album that’s been engineered by a team of 20 songwriters to be inoffensive to the broadest possible audience, versus listening to a band in a tiny club who are just playing what they want, for the love of the music. The pop album is technically “better” but the club gig… that’s where the magic is. That’s the real soul of it all.
So yeah, I’ll keep buying the triple-A stuff when it looks interesting. I’m not a snob. I had a good time with God of War Ragnarök, for example. But those games are the exceptions for me now, not the rule. My wishlist is almost entirely studio games now. Hollow Knight: Silksong whenever that comes out (seriously, the anticipation is real), whatever Supergiant is cooking up next, the latest Annapurna Interactive title… those are the games I’m truly excited about. Those are the games that are gonna make me feel something.
Give me a game made with heart over a game made with money any day of the week. No brainer, honestly.