r/gaming • u/Asianboiforwhitedad • 10h ago

Kingdom Come Deliverance studio co-founder says a lot of RPGs are 'still games for teenagers,' and that he's 'tired of all the RPGs where you are this chosen one'

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/kingdom-come-deliverance-studio-co-founder-says-a-lot-of-rpgs-are-still-games-for-teenagers-and-that-hes-tired-of-all-the-rpgs-where-you-are-this-chosen-one/
8.7k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

989

u/emanuele0933 10h ago

They are in fact aimed to teenagers

There are some adult like RPGs out there but they sell way less. People like teen story and grand scale plots where you need to defeat a bunch of gods to save your universe from cancellation

498

u/Tragedy_Boner 10h ago edited 9h ago

Is there a rpg where you are a game dev fighting CEOs to stop your game from cancellation?

227

u/From_Deep_Space 9h ago

Postal 2

36

u/nomedable 9h ago

I thought that was about getting people to sign your petition?

33

u/An_Ugly_Bastard 8h ago

I thought that was about on peeing people in the face

14

u/-Shoebill- 8h ago

Games are bad, they make you mad!

7

u/ShuffKorbik 7h ago

I thought it was a Gary Coleman murder simulator.

4

u/IrksomFlotsom 7h ago

Murder??? I played that game and never killed anyone!! How could you?!?

3

u/Killerderp 8h ago

Only when you have gonorrhea

64

u/Boysandberries0 9h ago

Its real life for any studio Microsoft buys up

12

u/WhatsPaulPlaying 9h ago

EA checking in

5

u/drewster23 9h ago

The ones that were actually producing games that is.

14

u/platoprime 9h ago

Star Ocean Till the End of Time comes kinda close.

27

u/AN-94_Handholder 9h ago

I swear this was the plot of a Star Ocean game

33

u/Consistent_Soil_5794 9h ago

Yes, till the end of time. You have to stop 4th dimensional game Ceo Lucifer from shutting down the Universe MMO.

5

u/Chat2Text 9h ago

that game annoyed the hell out of me, guides would tell me that I need to patent Orichalcum so I don't have to pay out the wooza, but the lady that you need to hire to do exactly that seems to always instant patents it the moment you're able to hire her

6

u/GoldenGouf 9h ago

Should really spoiler that. It's a massive one.

11

u/axazajjj 8h ago

It came out more than 20 years ago. Do we need to put a spoiler tag on Super Mario Brothers so nobody accidentally finds out Mario rescues the princess at the end?

-4

u/GoldenGouf 8h ago

What harm is there in putting a spoiler tag? It's called being considerate, especially of a heavily story based game.

5

u/axazajjj 8h ago

No harm, but IMO after a certain amount of time has passed there should be no expectation for it. And 20 years is way more than long enough.

-3

u/GoldenGouf 8h ago

If that's what you believe, I guess.

2

u/drewster23 9h ago

Shit now I'm not playing it

9

u/Robbie_dobbie 9h ago

"Going under" is a game close to this

17

u/FloridaMan1423 9h ago

Literally the plot of Split Fiction lol (minus the rpg). Good couch co-game to play

10

u/Swordofsatan666 9h ago

Yes, but also No its not the plot.

You arent playing as Game Devs, youre just 2 Writers. You arent stopping Cancellation, youre instead trying to get your big break into the writing scene. And youre invited by a publishing company to test out a device that will turn your stories into simulations you can actually experience.

The CEO of the company is using the simulation to steal the writers ideas, even the ones that are not part of the simulations and are just in the writers minds.

Its not about Video Game Companies or even Video Games at all, its about Writers protecting their Stories from CEO’s who want to steal their ideas

3

u/we_are_sex_bobomb 9h ago

It was cancelled

3

u/sofa_king_awesome 9h ago

Not really the same but there’s that manga that’s about a manga artist who ends up being in a zombie apocalypse which they turned into a movie. It’s great.

3

u/Altavious 9h ago

The beginners guide is probably the closest thing to a game dev experience I’ve come across. I’ve done the other thing irl and I’m not sure it would make a great game experience - if you win the reward is that you get to keep putting up with their bullshit for longer. Then if the game does well they pocket the money and lay off a chunk of your team.

1

u/db_admin 8h ago

This was the worst part of Assassin’s Creed games

1

u/mynameizmyname 8h ago

Destiny's storyline is a metaphor for this.  The Witness is actually just Peter Parsons in a Temu Megamind costume.

1

u/Cam3739 8h ago

You, sir...you rock

1

u/Cam3739 8h ago

And keep rocking

1

u/Shabolt_ 5h ago

Going Under is a Roguelite where you play an intern fighting techbro CEOs to keep your job and branch alive if that’s at all close?

1

u/stuntgear313 4h ago

In Nier Automata you fight the CEO in a DLC

1

u/MeekAndUninteresting 3h ago

In Darkest Dungeon you play as the CEO laying off all but your best workers after each new product launch and hire a new bunch of fresh graduates to work to burnout through crunch.

JK, it's just 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons.

1

u/Wolfdude91 2h ago

In the sequel we get to beat up the shareholders

1

u/emanuele0933 9h ago

There's at least one, but it's one of those fake retro style RPGs that looks ugly on purpose

0

u/redundead 37m ago

Yeah, the expansion is dealing with unemployment after your game is a huge success

80

u/Deto 9h ago

Definitely a lot of games where you play as a teen or kid. But I don't know if I'd agree that all "hero's journey" games are aimed at teens though. I mean that's a super common literary trope, is it not?

62

u/Quint0ni0 9h ago

yeah i dont know where this idea came from of the basic heroes journey only being a story template that teens enjoy

16

u/Alaira314 7h ago

I'm pretty sure it comes from the tendency people have to use "it's for people younger than me(unspoken: who haven't developed taste yet)" as a way to put things they don't like down while implying they have a more refined taste in art/entertainment. We learn to do this when we're children("um, I don't watch that show, don't you know it's for babies?") and many of us continued doing it not only through our tween and teen years, but well into adulthood. I personally don't think it's productive, but it's easier to tear others down than to build yourself up, so I see the allure.

1

u/Llayanna 1h ago

..because the average video game takes Children and/or Teenager more into account as customers than adults. 

That adults enjoy video games is known since they exist, bit the market is always still aimed at the younger customers first and few companies buckle that trend.

-10

u/Aggravating-Dot132 9h ago

Point is what sell well. Popcorn brings more money and thus the future for the studio. Give audience something mature and you get screwed.

Look at BG 3 and it's success, for example. You have to have marvel writing and gooning to get big results. Or you need to be extremely lucky.

8

u/totalysharky 9h ago

Are you saying that BG3 has marvel writing and gooning or that it was lucky?

-10

u/Aggravating-Dot132 9h ago

Marvel writing and gooning. Luck wasn't the reason, just high budget, sex and marvel writing.

And don't even try to deny it. Writing can be goofy, like in dos2, but bg3 is pure teenager moment. It's a downgrade from dos2, if you ask me.

3

u/Ktulusanders 7h ago

I replayed dos2 after bg3, and bg3 is such an upgrade in almost every single way it's insane. I barely cared about a single one of my companions in dos2

2

u/Deto 8h ago

I don't know - looking at recent successes I'd say that if you're too formulaic you just won't sell well.  Have to do something unique or interesting or nobody cares 

51

u/static_func 9h ago

Some of the best-selling RPGs in the last few years have had heavy adult themes (KCD 1 and 2, Cyberpunk, Clair Obscur). All these games appeal to many teenagers as well, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "aimed at teenagers."

10

u/MaimedJester 8h ago

Yeah one of the best things about Mass Effect is they're all adults. The only teenager kinda is Tali? Maybe the Hispanic Guy from the 3rd one who's so not memorable i can't recall his name and I really only know his character trait as the Hispanic guy.  

At least Jacob the Black guy had the most fucked up loyalty quest every in Mass Effect 2. Ain't no one gonna forget that one. 

-3

u/The_Verto 9h ago

I mean, one could say even GTA is an RPG, tho mostly as online not campaign.

-10

u/emanuele0933 9h ago

Well you need exceptional efforts to sell well, none of the games you mentioned were average or cheap games... With teenager like stories and characters you can make a rpg maker game and cash in pretty well

8

u/static_func 9h ago

Decent profit margins don't mean they sell more. What rpg maker games have sold like any of those 3?

-1

u/emanuele0933 9h ago

None, but they're good with that results, hence why there are a huge number of those games and very few of the others

It's not simple to gain a 20-100 million dollar budget team for a game

3

u/Hanchez 7h ago

E33 was relatively cheap for its scope, KCD 1 was crowd funded

2

u/emanuele0933 7h ago

They're all million dollar investments

Falcom, Nippon Ichi, Idea Factory, Compile Heart and Media Vision rpgs are made with crumbs

79

u/The5Virtues 9h ago

I personally prefer older protagonists and smaller/more personal stakes, but that isn’t. What. Sells.

I get being sick of it, I get wanting to do something else, but at the end of the day you have to consider what’s marketable and will do well enough that you can recoup your financial investment and go on to make another game.

43

u/SSLByron 9h ago

At a higher level, the simple fact is that people don't tell stories about nobodies unless they become somebodies. A story-driven RPG needs a hero whose deeds were worthy of being recorded for posterity.

KCD2 doesn't need that hook because it's a sandbox set against a historical background. The worldbuilding was done for them and the whole point is to write your own narrative.

There's a vanishingly small audience of people who want to be "immersed" in bathroom visits and 9-5 tedium, but that's what niche sandbox games are for.

9

u/TehOwn 9h ago

Yeah, although market saturation is a thing and providing a high quality experience to an underserved niche can still be very profitable.

3

u/dalledeverre 8h ago

This is where the indie scene has to pick up the load, because giant multimillion dollar extravaganzas won't do anything different from what is most likely to make them that much in profits.

Sure, most indie devs do one cool game if they're lucky, run out of money, and vanish. But a few find a niche in demand with a devoted audience that keeps the lights on and the devs doing whatever weird shit earned them that audience.

If the niche audience for older protagonists and lower stakes is there and willing to buy, some indie will feed them and do just fine for themselves. Just gotta stop expecting big studios to bother.

2

u/andbreakfastcereals 7h ago

*hugs Supergiant*

1

u/dalledeverre 6h ago

Only devs where I've enjoyed and completed ALL of their games. May they live long and flourish.

1

u/Chowder110 3h ago

A gotrek and felix game could sell extremely well hear me out

-5

u/ToWriteAMystery 9h ago

Yup. The greatest game sales of this generation are probably going to go to “Horndog Teenager: The Game” (aka GTA6) and it should surprise no one.

19

u/JhoshElite 9h ago

Idk man maybe I'm an exception but even when I was younger I liked games where I wasn't some mythical magical chosen one that comes along once every 12,461 years and happened to show up right when every continent on the planet decided to kill each other at the same time an otherworldly presence made itself known.

That's why I'm so drawn to the Gothic games. Where you're just.. some poor sod trying to make his way through the world he's been cast into. You're not special, and what you do with that is up to you. I think it let's you have more loose story anyway. You can think up your own backstory without adhering to a strict paved one.

3

u/Kennysded 9h ago

Would you recommend the remake? They felt old by the time I discovered them, and I had other games to play. But I do enjoy some classic RPG action with basic mechanics that's just good fun.

3

u/JhoshElite 8h ago

I never played the first gothic originally. But I did play the remake. It's difficult and fun in a way, but it does greatly suffer from the old rpg way of padding out gameplay time by having you run across the map to do a quest just to have the end of that quest make you run back across the map. So.. there's a lot of running.

20

u/FoxTenson 9h ago

Even just having an older character can be an issue in Japan, and with sales. Original Nier release in the west with Dad Nier hits way different and WAY harder with everything that happens. It wasn't a popular design in japan so bishonen brother Nier was chosen instead. The story goes almost the exact same but just having the main character be a dad desperately trying to save his daughter compared to a brother saving his sister changes the entire feel and impact. Can't have that though, gotta have the young attractive MC aimed at teens.

16

u/Harinezumi_1989 9h ago

It's the other way around actually. Brother Nier came first and was changed for Papa Nier for the West. It's kind of obvious when some of Papa's lines are obviously written for a young kid, like Brother Nier pre timeskip.

5

u/Strange-You-9326 7h ago

I wouldn't say it hits harder. The game was clearly written with brother Nier in mind, a lot of stuff just comes off super silly with father Nier if anything

17

u/Tidus4713 9h ago

Exactly why Persona became more popular than Shin Megami Tensei. I'll always prefer SMT but people just really like role playing as kids for some reason.

16

u/civil_politician 9h ago

I would play the same game where it's coworkers doing a 8-5 grind

5

u/AvaryZig 9h ago

A lot of indie horror games have this setup. 70% just working a job, 30% pure dread and suffering.

1

u/3x3Eyes 7h ago

I don't know, for quite a few people the job IS pure dread and suffering, especially if you have shitty management.

2

u/Saitsuofleaves 3h ago

It has less to do with that and moreso that Persona has more rounded stakes. SMT, there's rarely any true middle ground. The world you dropped into IS going to end, all your friends are going to turn on each other, and all you're going to influence is what type of fucked the world is going to end up.

With Persona, it's one of the rare Atlus games where you actually, you know, succeed at saving the world. That makes it much more palatable to a larger audience. Add to that a more contemporary world, and...well let's keep it a buck, a much easier game and it's easy to see why everyone jumped on.

If Persona 6 suddenly decided to have adult characters and sells worse, then I think we can have that proper dialogue.

50

u/keytotheboard 9h ago

Right? People like playing games for escapism and feelings of grandeur? Shocking!

13

u/ThereAndFapAgain2 9h ago

Sure, but I think the point is that escapism doesn't always need to be that. People play farming simulator as an escape from real life and that alone should prove that anything can provide that to the player so long as it is done right.

Relating to this post I think a lot of people have found that in KCD1 and 2. Smaller stakes don't always mean the game is less interesting and if there were more games that took this kind of approach I think a lot of people would find themselves enjoying it even more than the high stakes stuff.

1

u/keytotheboard 9h ago

Absolutely, I agree.

18

u/DanTheDrywall 9h ago

But Klima says in the article that there is nothing wrong with that, just that it becomes repititive when all, or most games, are like that. I agree with him. KCD is so refreshing in that aspect. Don't know if you played it, but you are super limited even towards the end of the game and that grounds you somehow.

11

u/JJJBLKRose 9h ago

Do you think they read the article?

-2

u/keytotheboard 9h ago

Yes, but nobody said anything contradictory to that so I don’t see what issue ya’ll are having. The other types are very popular for the stated reason. I agree that there’s room for more and personally encourage variety.

27

u/mrfroggyman 9h ago

I mean, is Baldur's gate 3 a teenager game?

43

u/Big-Resort-4930 9h ago

Almost everything is. Teenagers aren't kids, I don't even know what I would consider a real adult game

30

u/TehOwn 9h ago

Doing Your Taxes Simulator

2

u/Ballsofpoo 4h ago

Not Doing Your Taxes Simulator is crazy difficult. But, technically also for kids

9

u/Rushiee 8h ago

Disco Elysium

1

u/cammcken 9h ago

There's plenty of non-rpg examples...

1

u/gamegeek1995 7h ago

Baldur's Gate 2, too much reading for the teens. I've even seen people complain about the amount in Pillars of Eternity. We lost a lot when we stopped teaching phonics.

1

u/Few_Confusion_1871 3h ago

People play games to relax and have fun, most people do not read books as a form of relaxation or fun, yes it is a hobby some adults do, but not the majority of people and def not people that are trying to play a video game and not read a novel.

-6

u/mrfroggyman 9h ago

It's a little too simplistic but I would say a game being pegi 18 is generally a rather accurate indicator

6

u/Dick-Fu 8h ago

That just describes the content and what age people might generally find it appropriate for. That's separate from if the game's narrative/design is actually made for a mature audience. Plenty of PEGI 18 don't feature mature stories or gameplay

13

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 9h ago

Very much so

15

u/mrfroggyman 9h ago

I'm gonna need you to explain how so

5

u/AssCommander42 6h ago

Well, the writing is like something you'd see in a YA novel, which are aimed at like 14-19 y/os (not saying it's bad - there are good YA novels)

4

u/Thehelloman0 3h ago

The writing and characters are not deep at all. It's cool how you can do things in many different ways and I like it a lot but it is not a mature game imo

8

u/Aggravating-Dot132 9h ago

Yes, lol.

20

u/mrfroggyman 9h ago

What even is a teenager game and how is bg3 one

1

u/reformedMedas 7h ago

I'm just going by Wyll being the least liked companion while also being the most mature companion you have. If I'd have to choose someone out of our band of loveable freaks to chill with irl it'd be him.

2

u/Falsus 9h ago

A lot of witty humour, long ass game and a bit of edgy (but not overly so) sides?

Yeah it is definitely a teen game that also appeals to adults.

11

u/GreenApocalypse 9h ago

And many adults don't have the time to put 200 hours into an RPG in their spare time

2

u/jules_omline 4h ago

900 hivemind upvotes and not 1 person asked where these stats are coming from bc to me it looks like poster's ass. the most sold, talked about, cult etc games are mature, dark games. witcher 3, stalker, half-lifes, metro series, red dead redemptions, the last of uses, elden ring etc... and there are many examples from recent years proving exactly your opinion wrong. previously dark and mature franchises trying to cater to younger audience flop the fucking belly up. last dragon age game, last mass effect game etc.

1

u/crxsso_dssreer 56m ago

now you understand why idiots like Trump can get elected. Within a given community, an argument doesn't have to be true to be widely popular.

4

u/Falsus 9h ago

The thing is that a game aimed at a teenager will still be fun for older people, whereas a game aimed at older people will probably not be as fun for younger people.

It doesn't help that a lot of games aimed at adults is a lot simpler and more of "come home turn your brain off" kind of games rather than engaging kind of games.

1

u/emanuele0933 9h ago

You know what's funny? That I've said the exact same thing on the Dreamworks subreddit and I got a 3-days ban for hate speech saying that the reason of the flop of their last movie was the fact that that kind of plot can only attract teenage girls and not a general public. I hate moderators

1

u/Falsus 9h ago

I don't think it is a bad thing that it is aimed at only teenage girls. Not any more than things aimed at only adult men is. Or adult women.

I think most of the best stories and entertainments we can get is those that has a niche, know it has that niche and goes hard on that niche. Like it is the opposite of a generic, bland game like Wolverine. Niches are amazing.

1

u/emanuele0933 8h ago

Niches are not a bad thing, but a niche is a niche and a niche usually doesn't generate big profits

2

u/edapblix 10h ago

Do you know of such rpgs?

8

u/GameOver_UserWins 9h ago

Haven't played it personally because apparently it's a massive time sink, but Kenshi apparently. Also I'd say Disco Elysium is a good cRPG where you're not a power fantasy god slayer.

3

u/Teuchterinexile 9h ago

Kenshi has almost no story and it is nearly entirely free form, there isn't a single quest in the entire game. You can also be an almost unkillable god, it will take you a while though.

It is a very good, if janky, game but I wouldn't really call it an RPG in the usual sense.

1

u/jtlannister 9h ago

But now

You

are all alone.

1

u/Aggravating-Dot132 9h ago

Gameplay wise you are, but I guess the casuals will suffer anyway.

14

u/herbiehancocksfoot 9h ago edited 9h ago

I'd say that Pillars of Eternity would fall under that umbrella. While they are grandoise, the way they approach their themes, such as colonialism, the place of religion in our cultures, etc, is very, very nuanced and mature. Both are absolutely worth going through, they are fantastic.

ETA: Also, I'd risk saying that Cyberpunk 2077 would count? You're nobody special, just a wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. While "becoming a legend" is one of its core aspects (which kinda falls into Pondsmith's philosphy of "style over substance" for the world), I feel like the themes of terminal illness and corporate exploitation were done in an interesting and also nuanced way.

7

u/MyN3rdyAlt 9h ago

Disco Elysium

11

u/LateStageBBQ 9h ago

Yup, but it’s also a legitimate outlier. DE shows that there’s a market for games with an adult reading level. It also shows the limits of that market.

4

u/unoriginalcat 9h ago

What limits? DE was massively successful for being the first game of a new studio, made by people who’d never made a video game before. It was also quite small in scope and was only intended as an intro into the world of Elysium.

If things didn’t go the way they did, with ZA/UM’s hostile takeover and all that, we’d probably already have DE2 blasting past any “limits” of that market.

Alas. True love is only possible in the next world – for new people. It is too late for us. Wreak havoc on the middle class.

0

u/LateStageBBQ 9h ago

Hell yes! I LOVE Disco Elysium! It has tremendous respect for its audience and was indeed massively successful. It’s also very niche, at least as of now. I want to be clear - I’d love to live in a world where the hero structure was less dominant and games had more faith in their audience to engage with complex philosophy. It certainly exists - Planescape, DE, Pyre, even Expedition33. But those games are rare gems.

10

u/lluerdna 9h ago

The Like a Dragon games are adult like RPGs.

3

u/Pleasant-Result988 7h ago

The characters are adults but the dialogue and the way they actually handle the themes is not mature at all. All of those games feel like they were written by/for teenagers

4

u/dragonflamehotness 9h ago

Not the directors cut of Yakuza 0 tho

1

u/Falsus 9h ago

Yeah cause rubber bullets is very adult.

1

u/F_Kyo777 9h ago

I think duality of a man strikes here hard.

On one hand, everybody would like to play a person that is not THE ONE, on the other, who would love to roleplay as an accountant lets say, that is just doing his job, while you could technically "do it" irl in any other day (not saying that accountant job is easy to do and everyone one could, but its definetely within some sort of reach vs being the hero that saves the world/ land/ other).

1

u/emanuele0933 9h ago

I think that as everything in this world, we need both solutions: some games made in a certain way and some games in another. It's up to the player to alternate the two experiences, we have plenty of games that apply the two formulas. Artis Impact for the NOT CHOSEN style and Fire emblem fortune's weave for the CHOSEN style have been released in the same week

1

u/thetantalus 6h ago

If a lot of people like those “teen stories” then they aren’t just for teens.

1

u/SuperSaiyanInkling 4h ago

And then we have Yakuza Like a Dragon and Infinite Wealth where we play as bunch of middle aged guys that ends up having to deal with a bunch of politicians and mafia bullshit.

1

u/Chowder110 3h ago

I mean. The biggest rpgs are witcher and cyberpunk and stuff like that right? And i know gta 6 is not an rpg but it will be the most selling game od the decade

1

u/crxsso_dssreer 1h ago

it's like claiming smut literature is aimed at teenage girls, when it's mostly 40 yo women who read that trash.

-1

u/reference404 9h ago

The only one that really comes to mind from recent RPGs fitting the teenage messiah mould is Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West - that I know of anyway. What other recent titles are there? Just curious so I can avoid

0

u/AnisSeras 9h ago

I mean, superhero movies are all over the top grossing lists every year. Most adults also want teenager style stories and nothing else.

0

u/imakeshituplmao 9h ago

This is why isekai animes and shonen animes r so popular. Power fantasy mostly catering to teens and YAs