It is is the "realistic grass and hair" mentality. The massive resources required to have "cutting edge" modern graphics means you are stuck with at best trivial, cosmetic, or numeric gameplay changes after the initial dev run. Oh you think your game would work better with 10 meter wide hallways instead of 6 meter hallways? Too bad, we would have to re-do the entire level tileset and spend 900 man hours re-building every stage.
Except for nintendo, which is closer to AA++, gameplay for AAA stalled in the ps2 era.
As AI tools get better at replicating the efforts of artists I think we will see more small-team content edging into what was formerly the AAA space. And that will allow for more gameplay innovation as the art assets will become one night of compiler time like any other module instead of months of studio work.
It is is the "realistic grass and hair" mentality. The massive resources required to have "cutting edge" modern graphics means you are stuck with at best trivial, cosmetic, or numeric gameplay changes after the initial dev run. Oh you think your game would work better with 10 meter wide hallways instead of 6 meter hallways? Too bad, we would have to re-do the entire level tileset and spend 900 man hours re-building every stage.
Except for nintendo, which is closer to AA++, gameplay for AAA stalled in the ps2 era.
As AI tools get better at replicating the efforts of artists I think we will see more small-team content edging into what was formerly the AAA space. And that will allow for more gameplay innovation as the art assets will become one night of compiler time like any other module instead of months of studio work.