ring is a wake up call Elden ring is a wakeup call and no I'm not talking about the players this isn't a video about difficulty that does actually come up at some point in time in the video but Elden ring does something incredibly unique something very special something that the rest of the upper echelon of the video game industry just can't seem to replicate and that's come out with a holistic highquality title that delivers on the players expectations for under $70 not once but twice Elden ring isn't just a great game it's a case study on what games should be or should strive to be and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today Elden Rings Shadow of the Ury hit a peak concurrent player count of over 780,000 Players I Want to point out just how absurd it is that this is a DLC expansion it's widely a single player game that not only hit that high of a concurrent player count but that's over 80 % retention from The Game's peak of its initial release which was 950,000 players now to add to this the official Elden ring Twitter account posted an image announcing over 5 million tarnished have entered into the realm of Shadows we aren't even mentioning that according to steam at the time of this recording only 40% of players have defeated Moog to be even able to gain entrance into the DLC with now both Elden ring and its DLC claiming top spots in steam's top sellers and likely the same for each platform the game is now available on it's safe to say that Elden ring is a massive achievement one that's not only worth appreciation but study however it is a my firm belief that the games industry leaders have no intention of paying attention because emulating the success of fromsoft and Miyazaki require humility talent and vision all things seemingly bankrupt from many of today's modern games some something that I think is really well represented when we start to look back at the most influential games over the past couple of years Elden ring and balers Gate 3 where when we compare these two they become similar you see a direct thread of unaccountable developers distancing themselves from products that they know that they can't make themselves if you don't remember AAA developers from both Ubisoft and Gorilla Games dogged on Elden ring for getting a 97 on Metacritic and how it means that reviewers don't care about games UI alen ring thr 97 is a proof that reviewers don't give a flaming F out game uix [Music] window another developer unimpressed with the graphic stability and performance and ring [Music] another one while from Horizon talking about bad Quest design bad Quest design now in the case of balers Gate 3 we had developers take a different approach they use their imagination realizing that they can't make players believe that well something they enjoy is actually bad bad they preemptively tried to distance themselves before the release of balers Gate 3 painting the game as an incredibly unique set of circumstances unable to be repeated and an unfair standard for future games to be compared to calling the game rockar level for scope saying Baseline comparisons are a damaging thing to use and my personal favorite from the Diablo 4 senior designer Chris Baler saying but people too often look at the fruits of Labor and not the labor itself same as it [Music] ever was I guess same deal with people wondering why so few artists painting like Renaissance Masters yes Chris we are wondering where the Renaissance Masters were when you released Diablo 4 a 20-year-old franchise at this point that remained in turmoil for the better part of a year please tell me more about how much time and experience matter when it comes to developing great games by this measure ubisoft's open world game should be Untouchable masterpieces by now with how many games that they've been making the controversies surrounding both games prove a lack of vision and accountability jealous developers wishing that people talked about g r [Music] their games the way that they've been talking about Elden ring in balers Gate 3 but the biggest value that we received as players from this conversation was the transparent realization that these Studios and developers genuinely do not understand the wants and needs of players the same as our Newfound Kings in fromsoft and laran you know it's crazy when you start to look back at some of these older conversations you realize why the games industry is in the position it's in today and you look at all these developers that are caught in the Trap of thinking about things like High Fidelity graphics and huge scope and over-bloated uis when all of those things are serving to do is increase their budget and bleed their profits no wonder these guys have low expectations for future projections of the industry huh I wonder where that's coming from the funny thing is is that none of those things have anything to do with the reason why balers Gate 3 or Elden ring were successful games 5 Seconds of scrolling social media is going to show you why players like those games and it's pretty simple they're just good games they're enjoyable in balers gate 3's case it was just the ability to genuinely have real choice in a video game game in Elden ring it's just a damn good game and these opinions that these guys throw out there just go to show that they're not playing these games and they're not playing these games with the eye of a player they're playing it with the eye of somebody that's making their own game and you need to change that perspective you want to know how to make a game as successful and is as incredible as Elden ring well you have unyielding Vision on what you believe players want to what you yourself want to play and Miyazaki reveals that to us now in a recent newsletter from the guardian Miyazaki gives his thoughts on game design and the current state of the video game industry the guardian writes the famously challenging Dark Fantasy epic Elden ring was the world's second best-selling game in 2022 and the release of its expansion shadow of the earth tree last Friday once again has everyone arguing about whether it's too difficult every single fromsoft developed game since 2009's Dark Souls has inspired this discourse and I'm not going to get into it because it's neither interesting nor particularly consequential these games are what they are and you can either get on board or quite justifiably walk away the vision is passed down from the game's director Haka Miyazaki also president of from off since 2014 having made his and the developer name with dark souls in 2011 it's harsh sure but there's also an element of faith and encouragement in this approach to game design Elden ring and his other games trust that if you just persevere and call on other players for help you'll Triumph eventually and it'll feel all the sweeter Miyazaki is an interesting character and one of the most influential artists in games and indeed entertainment he made Time magazine's 100 most influential people last year I interviewed him in 2010 shortly before the release of demon souls in Europe and following his career has been Z is the sh top influ one of the highlights of mine I interviewed him again in Los Angeles recently and it might Comfort some to know that playing his games is is sometimes torturous for him too leading up to the release of a game I'll be very Hands-On playing it and getting as much time on it as possible he said but after the release I tend not to want to touch it because I know that I'm either going to find things I left on the table or issues that will bug me and once I become a player I am powerless to do anything significant to change it so once a game is out in the wild I tend not to play [Music] but in preparation for shadow of the UR Trey I played through the main story of Elden ring I want to preface this by saying I absolutely suck at video games so my Approach or play style is to use everything at my disposal all the assistance every scrap of Aid that the game offers and also all the knowledge I have as the architect of the game the freedom and open world nature of Elden ring perhaps lowers the barrier of Entry p [Laughter] and I might be the one who's benefiting the most from that as a player more than anyone else man I love this interview and I think it highlights something seemingly lost in games today how many times have you asked yourself or thought to yourself whether or not the developers actually play the games that they make from soft makes challenging games however Miyazaki wouldn't put the player through something if he hadn't experienced it firsthand himself to make sure that it's enjoyable engaging or not too impossible imagine Miyazaki being the worst Souls player while being the architect and Visionary Behind these games Elden ring is one of the very few games that I can point out and say the devs have played this a lot and there are two things that I believe proves this respawn Stakes of America and the lack of microtransactions respawning at Stakes of America saved the long runbacks to optional L encounters or wherever you last died if it's that far away from your last side of Grace it's a subtle quality of life Improvement but it's necessary in a game like Elden ring why do you think it exists [Music] it's likely because Miaki got tired of running back to where he died over and over again it's something that would have only been realized through experience thought why does roft not have microtransactions their game because no self-respecting player and developer would sit and play a game and think you know what's missing here a way to be able to rip off the players rather than reward them for actually enjoying the game I'm sure they'd love that sure they could earn this set of armor by buing this unique NPC after a hidden quest line but I think they'd rather buy it you know I would actually bet good money that the vast majority of some of the best quality of life features that we've seen in games likely came from developers playing their game Brute Force Through The Eyes of a player extensively exhaustingly even now I realize that quality of life isn't necessarily the flashiest of video game design philosophies but at the end of the day it has an immeasurable effect on a player's experience while playing a game seriously it's immeasurable the vast players aren't even going to notice when a quality of life feature isn't in place sometimes they'll call it out they'll see another game that has something and point to the game they're playing and say hey why isn't that here but more times than not they're just going to have this general feeling of unease and frustration because the game isn't providing them with conveniences that it should best example of this I can give is playing a survival game the first Survival game that I played that allowed me to be able to craft out of my storage rather than just only out of my personal inventory felt like a lifechanging experience whoever was the one that designed the magic storage mod for Terraria you're a saint look it should be a requirement to play your own games and I think the vast majority of developers that are out there do actually play their games but I don't think that they're playing their games from the eyes or from the perspective of a player they don't have that same level of empathy that's necessary to be able to understand what players are going to do think about how players are actually going to experience something more times than not they're probably hopping in there just to test what they put in they're working after all they clocked in they're working so they're just there to test what they're doing make sure it works and then move on and it takes a really high level of leadership and wisdom to be able to hand down the idea of trying to play the game as a player rather than just constantly be testing it and that leadership is something that's it's just not in this industry right now the interview continues I was greatly amused by the image of Miyazaki controller in hand tormented by the very world he wrought and all its imperfections which only he would notice that's true commitment to his game design philosophy of for [Music] Improvement through failure a Creed that seems to permeate his whole life Miyazaki is a Hands-On director and all his games bear a unmistakable imprint of his influence but he has also been attempting to pass down his knowledge and artistic approach to others at from software in the 10 years that he's been its president ensuring that they too have the room to fail budgets scale scope everything has grown to the point where room for failure isn't tolerated as much as I think it was in the the past he told me fromsoft has its own way of hedging risk so to speak in that most of our projects have a partner who's financing the project from a business management perspective we're not betting everything on one single project at the same time you have to find the right project to allow for failure whether it's smaller in scope or scale or a small module of something bigger there has to be room for that I think that's where a lot of young game developers will be challenged and will be able to learn from it making sure you understand and identify where those pockets of failure can be allowed is how we try to grow our talent Miaki views Elden ring as a turning point for from software before and after Elden ring there is going to be a clear difference you could see that in 2023 is Mech game armored Core 6 I would say he hopes that we will soon be seeing from other game directors at the company not just himself where fromsoft is right now in terms of scale I would say Elden ring is really the limit we've tapped every resource and and talent we have access to scaling it even bigger I have my concerns perhaps having multiple projects is the next stage where some of the other young Talent can have the opportunity to manage and direct game design for a smaller project man what I love about miyazaki's perspective here is that it goes corly against the plans perspective of most of the triaa industries leaders if we take time to look around the industry and look at different games that are being developed right now we can easily point out ones and say so what happens if that game fails Dragon Age and EA as an example a game that's been in development for 10 years now going through multiple iterations redesigns and identity changes something that isn't a Surefire hit anymore as they've chose to AG reimagine what a Dragon Age game is vaulting strategic combat and the darker themes the games used to have trying to eye a more modern audience obviously a dangerous Gamble to say the least when the games that were last released by this studio where Mass Effect Andromeda and anthem when the games industry seeks to scale itself infinitely no wonder you have industry layoffs in Mass PlayStation Spider-Man 2 as another example $300 million to make tripling the budget of Spider-Man 2018 only to sell the game to the same amount of players the game's profits are now getting closer to the black than in the green with all of the this infinite scaling for Fidelity scope and design these bobblehead CEOs scale their projects and their projections yeah the same the game and it's just not realistic knowing your limit before you reach it is is an incredible Act of humility on the part of fromsoft in Miyazaki EA Activision Ubisoft you know for a fact that if they had a game that was as successful as Elden ring they would be rushing to make the next version of it make it bigger spend more and expect better results you know but that's just not how games work and I think it's something that's rarely recognized in games today if we look around the industry and we see all the different iterations on a lot of these titles the first the fourth the fifth or the 50th when it comes to Call of Duty it's a crapshoot whether or not you're going to be able to retain the audience that you've already had find more find a new audience or even retain most of the players that you had previously and you can't keep pouring money into something thinking that you're going to get the same or better results that's a major gamble that's what's really beautiful about the words of Miyazaki is that he says we don't bet everything on one single game one single project nor should you and I think a lot of Studios that are out there do and that's one of the reasons why so many people have been losing their jobs and what's really incredible about of Elden ring in balers Gate 3 is that players are going to be coming back to buy these games not because they're looking for balers gate 4 not because they're looking for Elden Ring 2 but because they want to play a from soft game because they want to play a laran Studios game that's something that's been lost there are Studios that players are still doing that with today but that used to be a lot of these industry leaders I remember the days where I used to look up oh man it's an Activision game I know that's going to be a banger oh it's going to be an EA game that's going to be a solid game but we don't think that way anymore because these Studios and these leadership of these companies has gotten so far away from the play that they don't even recognize what we look like anymore now closing out the interview Miyazaki mentioned something that's rather interesting saying that this is the end of Elden ring for now but also that he wouldn't mind seeing what someone else could do with the lands between in a different medium I don't see any reason to deny another interpretation or adaptation of Elden a movie for example he told me but I don't think myself or from software have the knowledge or ability to produce something in a different medium so that's where a very strong partner would have to come into play we have to build a lot of trust and agreement on whatever it is we're trying to achieve but there's interest for sure now while I love the idea of an Elden ring TV show or movie I think the only one that's capable of doing it justice would be Peter Jackson I mean basically you're going to need something Elden ring level to be able to compete with Elden ring my real takeaway is Miyazaki saying we are done and fromsoft deserves to say that near the beginning of this video I brought up how it requires unyielding Vision to make a game as great as Elden ring and that Relentless vision and identity of who and what from software is as a studio and what games they aim to make is the real wake-up call for this industry I want you to keep in mind that players and reviewers lamented about the game's difficulty at launch and even now again with the DLC just recently Bandy Namco responded to the players telling them to just go level up their skadut Tre blessings well sure there's going to be some day one balancing or performance issues fromsoft doesn't run around trying to save face they just continue to work and give the game time to breathe players love the feel of playing a fromsoft game because they don't resort to the now standardized practices of hand holding that much of the industry relies on they are going to lead you through the game by your nose from soft's expectations is that you as a player will play the game and they trust that you are going to have the ability to find solutions to challenges and use the tools provided on your own there's something to be said about having faith in the players I've said this in the past or in previous videos but leadership is really what's lacking in most of the games industry when I look at a game like Elden ring when I play a game like Elden ring I can feel it's respect for the audience I can feel like I'm playing a game that's made for me and that's a rare feeling outside of a few select releases and indie games today why is it so rare because the vast majority of the industry doesn't have the presidents and CEOs of their companies being people that worked as directors or developers of their games there is less vertical promotions and more outside hiring as the video game industry begins to fuse with the entertainment and tech industry placing all these different marketing minds and career CEOs into these positions of leadership there is a unique Insight that's lost that only comes while working in the trenches that customers aren't just customers they're players you're not selling a product you're selling an experience experiences have identities they can't be made for everyone and you have to be okay with serving a target audience and not trying to grow your audience infinitely more games today are released with a lack of identity more leadership is questioning how to make more money and they're only response is to appeal to a wider audience however the broader that audience the more diluted that experience and the less likely you are to make a game that leaves a lasting impact on players you have to be okay with leaving some of them behind We crave impact We crave game studios and games that have an identity a unique experience that we know that we can only get from that one Studio the more watered down your games become the less recognizable they are players know when they're playing a fromsoft game because only from soft makes games like theirs that's why they have the ability to release armored Core 6 selling almost 3 million copies in a month and a half after its release whereas armored Core 5 only sold 400,000 copies fromsoft has a reputation fromsoft has Integrity fromsoft knows their players you know still to this day I vividly remember the first time that I played Demon Souls right when it first came out played it on PS3 and I remember sitting there thinking this is the first time I've played a game where it felt like my imagination just spilled out onto the screen whether it was some of the older anime that I had watched or berserk or whatever it might be it was my imagination realized it was the first game that I felt was the closest to Perfection that any game had ever been before and the reason why and this is something that took years to be able to kind of figure out is that even after all the different Souls games uh bloodborne Elden ring there's a certain level of sincerity in their game design they know what they're trying to make they know who they're making it for and they know themselves what kind of games they like and some of that does come down to knowing that you're going to end up turning off a wider audience and you have to be okay with that you have to be able to prepare for yourself and be able to PR prepare your company for those kind of things and that's one of the things that he brings up where he's talking about how they you know prepare themselves for failure because they don't know if things are going to work but they know who they're trying to make that game for and that's the most important thing L divers 2 CEO had said it best before a game for everyone is a game for no one and I think that Elden ring proves that there is a wide audience a massive audience for games that have a strong identity know what they are but can still be able to make themselves a little bit more accessible [Music] sure it may not be as hard or as difficult as some other Souls games that are out there but it's a game that proves that if you have an idea of the audience that you're trying to make a game for sometimes it can reach even higher than that that game has to be sincere that game has to be it has to have an identity and Elden ring does from software does and I feel like that's probably the biggest wakeup call of all is that the vast majority of the industry just doesn't seem to have much of an identity anymore I don't know who they're making games for they're making games for everybody but not everybody's going to play these games hell not everybody even plays games to begin with anyway hope you guys enjoyed the video thank you guys for watching this long you guys did watch the video think about liking subscribing sharing the video to everybody else I'm