Limiting the amount of content that needs to be created so they can focus on hitting that AAA graphics quality and do so in a way that lets them actually pull it off in a reasonable amount of time. One way would be to make a game that occurs only in a single small town for example. If someone (an individual or 2 to 3 person Indie team) wants to (and is capable) of achieving modern AAA presentation quality they need to design the game in such a way that supports that ambition while at the same time not delivering an empty experience. And all of these things considered from the beginning. What I am always trying to get across (and probably doing a terrible job at) is there needs to be balance. I've ranted often about focusing so much on raw graphics quality and I'm really not against a game having excellent graphics. Same for the world size and game scope in general. So yes, exactly as you said they need to choose an art style they can pull off and (more importantly) pull off for the duration of the game project.
By not obsessing over things I'm talking about striving for the perfect graphics, the scale of AAA open world games basically just setting expectations so high they make it impossible to actually achieve. Click to expand.I think basically we're saying the same thing just we're different people so get our points across in a different way.
