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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Even in animation, there are teams of people involved. Each team specializing in different aspects. This single person hollywood replacement dream is something to be really afraid of, at least as far as the quality of the content. I couldn't imagine watching something that only one person has ever worked on with no input from other people with suggestions/tweaks/edits to improve the product. We've already seen things like True Detective Season 2 that was produced and it had people involved that did not push back.

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I played Stardew Valley, a game made entirely by one person, and by all accounts it is one of the highest rated games of all time. Can anyone make shit? Sure, that is true in any medium. But individuals or even small groups of people can do amazing things, if they have the tools. It is not "something to be really afraid of," which I find to be an extremely hyperbolic view.

Have you seen The Room? Anytime I see the same person's name in the credits for all the roles, I immediately start to get nervous.

Also, small teams is not a single person

> * Have you seen The Room? Anytime I see the same person's name in the credits for all the roles, I immediately start to get nervous.*

Sounds like that's more of a personal problem than one about this sort of video generation in general.

> Also, small teams is not a single person

Yes, which is why I likened this to what was in my original comment: "just like people make video games all by themselves or with a small group of people"

>Yes, which is why I likened this to what was in my original comment: "just like people make video games all by themselves or with a small group of people"

You're reading that out of context. I intentionally separated that comment. The original post I replied discussed all of the work being done by a single person. That what this is about. You introduced a small team. A small team is not one person. A small team still has the potential of having discussion on edits, creative, etc vs just the ideas of one person.

You replied to my original post, did you not [0]? The post where I, as stated above, also included the words, "all by themselves or with a small group of people," no? The post where I explicitly did not "[discuss] all of the work being done by a single person" that denies work also being done by groups. You were the one who omitted the "with a small group of people" part and started talking only about a "single person hollywood replacement dream."

I think you're just arguing semantics at this point, as to me, it doesn't really matter if it's a single person or a small team making stuff, my greater point was that it will be a lot cheaper than a full-blown Hollywood production and will usher in a new sort of industry like YouTubers today, as ubiquitous phone cameras have, only now these creators will also make photorealistic productions rather than just filming themselves doing things.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37310759

theres also movies like Primer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

which shows what can be create with minimal budget and crew. I heard a lot of the cast also doubled as backstage workers during the shoot.

It's also a kind of cult classic and there's strong evidence to suggest he knew what he was doing by making a horrible movie.

Stardew Valley is great. But note that the author took a classic approach to solo assets and devlopment: pixel art on a 2d canvas. This is a great game in a well established medium, and the concept itself is part homage to Harvest Moon, originally a 2d title released in 1996.

Contrast this with the fact that Steam is now averaging about 1000 new games per month. [1] There are undoubtedly some excellent games in there that haven't survived the onslaught of choices. Sadly, finding them without either significant marketing by the dev or the right conditions makes it nearly impossible to sift out the gems from the asset flips.

[1] https://steamdb.info/stats/releases/

And yet Steam is a shining example of curation compared to, say, the App Store or Google Play.

Excellent curation will be critical to gen AI. The window for such curation to be established feels extremely small, otherwise "app stores" will take hold and we will end up with a sea of unnavigable spam.

Hard to argue against that. There's clearly a higher bar in Steam. Hopefully that will continue.

There are 1000 new games per month and 90% of them are crud, sure. But the end result is that we have more original and innovative games than ever before (and cheaper, too). I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the days of big publisher gatekeeping. Would you?

My original point was meant to nod towards survivorship bias. I won't argue that choices are great now, with tons of niche offerings that are a delight for many. But using Stardew Valley as an example doesn't hold up well for creator success; many (if not the majority) fail in the Steam store despite their efforts and quality.

I think this is generally true for much of the gaming industry in general. There are indeed so many titles that several very big releases years in the making can drop off the scene shockingly quick, if only because new ones show up so often now.

> I won't argue that choices are great now, with tons of niche offerings that are a delight for many. But using Stardew Valley as an example doesn't hold up well for creator success; many (if not the majority) fail in the Steam store despite their efforts and quality.

The argument was "This single person hollywood replacement dream is something to be really afraid of, at least as far as the quality of the content", and the likes of Stardew Valley (provided it's not a unique case, and I don't think it is), prove that wrong.

Making games is probably an even worse way to make a living than it was prior to the indie-dev explosion, sure (not that it was ever a great way to make a living). But top quality content is still being made, and I see no reason to think that won't continue.

Even assuming it's impossible for a single person to produce something as good as a large team, why would this be "something to be really afraid of"? There will still be demand for high-quality films -- why wouldn't that demand continue to be met? It's been the status quo for at least a decade that one "normal person" can make and publish a "movie" (e.g. filming something on their phone and posting it on YouTube), and yet Hollywood somehow hasn't been upended.

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