@101,
I have a question for you.  Wouldn't the resource gap apply to Yukio as well?  Wouldn't the, "lack of easy-to-use tools" apply to him ass well?  I would think that those concepts would apply even more to solo devs who don't have the finances to buy tools, libraries, etc.  Especially if that developer is a child.  That to me makes it even more difficult.  So what makes him able to do it, and we can't?  I'm sure he suffered from a lot of the major argument points in this thread...not a lot of money, no easy-to-use tools, no team to help him...add to that the fact that he was a child, and still in school...And yet he came out with two of the best games this community has ever seen.
My second question is this.  If most of the arguments in this thread that point to lack of money, resources, and a team are really valid and are truly the issue, then why don't the top devs who can really code in this community work together, pool their resources, and make something really awesome?  All of the really good coders team up together.  I believe four or five were cited as being the top pleasing ones.  So if they all collaborated on something together, wouldn't that help the so-called resource/teamwork issue?  Why is that never done?

what i honestly think is this. i think a lot of it is a western problem. we are too focused on money, returns and making a name for ourselves. rather than focusing on how well something can be produced. the patients required to do it. people just don't want to put the time in to anything these days. whether it be watching a movie, how many people complained that LOTR was too long a movie for example? why were doctor who stories shortened compared to what they used to be? nobody wants to spend the time to appreciate a good story. it's no real difference to that of development. how many things are just slapped together these days and put out and oops crap look at that bug. how many software products are put out with seriously glaring bugs? how many physical products are poorly designed because of lack of time taken to propperly research and develop them? there's way too much enphesis on targets and stats and not enough put on the actual work getting it done and doing it to a high standard.

well patience at the end of the day comes down to mentality. if you're someone who thrives on shortcuts for everything then that's what you're going to expect constantly. however if you're prepared for the long haul as it were then again you'll go that route and you'll see the difference between the 2 mantalities

In the last 10 years? Twitter. Youtube.

I can see the argument about focus in the west being too much based on targets, money, stats, recognition and a lack of patience. I feel that western culture can sometimes have a big emphasis on conformity and not enough on finding your true self. But then again I felt as though I was never understood as a child, so I am pretty biased. Still, I believe children aren't encouraged to come up with their own solutions to problems, instead they are asked to take exams which prove they can answer questions in a way the curriculum says is correct. We've been taught to do this since we were toddlers, so when we're older and asked to be creative, it doesn't feel natural a lot of the time. Now I'm sure other cultures suffer from a level of conformity that some people would find excessive, we can't all just be running around doing whatever we want and expecting our societies to run themselves . But I have to wonder how the creativity of people like Ukio works as opposed to that of other developers. Of course, most things on this subject are going to be shrouded in speculation and personal bias, but I do get the culture argument. But as CaeJones says, I don't think culture is really all of it, and I can see what he's trying to say I think. He'll of course have to tell me if I am correct. Let me use an example that isn't related to audio games but that does involve an art, and game development is an art after all.

I used to think I could be a full time composer. When I started taking my composition dreams seriously and felt I was good enough to begin experimenting, I was in very high spirits. I wrote things that satisfied me. I spent hours, sometimes days on one song, because I wanted to get it right. But because of my slow speed and my need for perfection, I had a hard time getting things done quickly. A lot of that was because I was still learning how to do the things I wanted, and experimenting with different sounds, styles etc.

As I practiced more, I should've become more efficient, right? Well not quite. I always seeked to outdo myself because at the time I believed outdoing myself would be the natural thing to do and I would find it a very subconscious part of the process. So with me at least, the more I wrote, the more I wanted to experiment with new found ideas and inspirations. But at some point I got to a point where I would start writing something and couldn't really specify what I was going for, without citing a hundred different ideas. And I started caring about the final outcome more, and seeking greater perfection. So it sort of backfired: the more ideas I had and the more I practiced, the faster I could find some inspiration but the longer it would take me to actually settle on something I could feel personally invested in. Spending 45 minutes having a million ideas but no vision on what I wanted to create isn't very encouraging. I haven't yet found a remedy for these blocks. So I've come to the conclusion that I feel better imitating and transcribing. As CaeJones said, I don't feel this is a personal choice I make to leave my composition ideas unfinished. If I could think of ideas to bring them to good closure, I would be implementing them. But I haven't yet. The only way I've found to actually get things done is to lower my standards, and it pains me to do that because I have seen glimpses of what could've been if I could get it right.

another thing to consider: when I started writing music I wanted to believe that I could write in every style equally well. I didn't want to have a specific sound that was instantly recognizable as my sound. I'm not completely sure why. Maybe it was because all of my friends were so instantly recognizable by their styles and I wanted to separate myself from that stigma. Maybe it was because I wanted to show off how good I was at everything lol. Or maybe it came from my desire to explore all the avenues that interested me. I am a fan of a large variety of musical styles, so I like to think that last one is it. But now I have begun to realize that when I do write, I sound like a lot of the artists I like, and my friends have come to notice. Now every time they hear something new I made, they seem to recognize it as something I would have done. I'm trying to decide if I want to take this as a good thing, a bad thing, or just be indifferent to it. It's honestly hard for me to decide how I feel about it and I still don't know why.

So going back to audio game development. Some people are good creators, others are good imitators. Some people can make a well-made side-scroller, but not a very original one. Some can design a game that looks good on paper but can't code the thing and are afraid to leave the coding to someone else who may create a game that isn't to their liking. It is rare to find one person who can truly create something original that is so appealing that it makes a permanent mark in the entire history of something.

It's not easy to truly master different styles of music or different instruments. similarly, it's not easy writing a story and plot line that fits the game design, mechanics, sounds, music etc. all on your own. And it's not a chain of one fitting into another; they all have to fit together cohesively. Depending on the game, if you are more adept at one than the other, it can make itself painfully evident. So maybe that explains why many games made today focus more on one aspect than another. Devs are doing what they can within their personal reserves of creativity to make well-rounded products, but in the end they're only capable of so much. After all, if designing an epic game like BK3  was some sort of common milestone, then everyone who had some good ideas on paper would've made massive games like BK3 by now. But they haven't. Some have tried though, And many who have tried and actually produced a game have been at least a little successful. Some have been very successful. But not everyone can do it, and even among those who can do it, there's still room for a lot of improvements.

I'd love to see what would happen if audio game devs got together and focused their strengths, and made a truly epic game akin to the giants of the mainstream world. And yeah I know that Indie devs are capable of a hell of a lot, but like I said previously, one person can't do it all, and those who can are the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, I am not any closer than anyone else to knowing exactly what is needed to make our games better. Whether my above cultural tangent has anything to do with it, I cannot say.

Well, I should've clarified my idea a bit more. The reason I said that we are more conforming is that every time someone shows me something that is a Japanese product eg. an anime, musical piece, performance etc. It just seems over the top for me. I'm interested in it, but it sounds completely different, and in many cases more in depth, more busy/complex, than what I've heard from a lot of, but obviously not all of, the western world. Some of that could be because it's just a different culture so yeah it's going to be unfamiliar. But I always assumed that this over-the-top-ness which I've heard a couple of my friends talk about comes from the drive to push the bar higher and not do what everyone else is doing.

With that said, I don't want to pretend I know what I'm talking about. I am only relying on hearsay from my friends and the few things I have heard and looked up. I didn't want to say that in my last post for fear of not being taken seriously but there you go.

@114, Oh, I see the advantages. One thing I think makes that problematic is that we may not reach a consensus on who's a "top Dev", or what idea we'd want to engineer. For instance, those who haven't really developed for this community (i.e. myself) may not be considered a "top developer" purely because I haven't developed anything particularly targeted at this community on my own. So not only would that idea be extremely problematic, it would be ultimately exclusive. Who qualifies as a 'top developer'. How would we assess someone to determine if they are a 'top developer'?

AHC was made by a team, fwiw.
If someone wants to make a studio and have a bunch of devs in one place, that might help a bucket. But then we come back to money.

@Ethin, I don't think he was referring to the game being free or paid, but rather it costing money to have devs in the same location.  ut there's no need at all for that nowadays, @Cae.  You don't need to have a physical place for devs to be in one place simply to work on a project.  There are a plethora of ways to share files amongst a group for collaboration projects...Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, Sendspace, GitHub, just to name a few.  Which just adds another point to my argument that it is possible.  With all of the collaboration tools out there for file sharing, devs could work together from totally different countries, so there's no limitation on location.  I still have yet to hear a reason why this doesn't occur.  I'd think that it would occur more in a small community like this.  I'd think we'd want to work together to come up with good things.  I just don't get it.

But that doesn't really answer the question.  What specifically makes it so difficult?  Why would it be so hard for several developers to work together on a project?  Wouldn't it make it easier to come out with quality games if a group could put their resources together and share the work?  Then it's not all on one person.  And it's not like there aren't enough ways to communicate...email, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, forum posts...and plenty of ways to share files, tools, libraries, code books...Dropbox, Google Drive, Sendspace, GitHub, etc.  I would think that nowadays collaboration would be even easier, given all of these things, Hell, location isn't an issue anymore at all.  Five devs could work together even if the group lived in 5 different states, or 5 different countries.  So what exactly makes it so difficult for five or six people to work together on something like this?  What tends to be the hugest factor that impedes collaboration like that?  If no one can answer the question with actual specific reasons, which is what I'm asking, then let's ask it like this...if this has ever been tried in the past, What caused it not to work out?  It just seems that with all of the avenues that are available for communication and sharing of information, this should not be that difficult.

at post 122 but that's a universal problem the world over yet groups of people do work together to form something greater. they find ways around things. i'm not saying that what you have said isn't the case however what i am saying is that people still find ways to work together and get round these issues.