What’s Happening in the Game Industry?

[rss334]

Here's my take broken down to simple form.  Bigger game studios are under pressure whether from shareholder or capital investors to turn a quick profit.  What starts out as a great studio ends up switching focus on great games to complete focus of turning a profit.  The managers are forced to meet unreasonable deadlines and deliver X product(s) per quarter to get the cash register ringing. 

As a result the quality of these games from the studios continues to decline.  Gamers are waking up to this, how many sequels now like Kerbal Space 2 and Skylines 2 have all negative ratings, these are not the only ones.  These studio begin to lose money and the first thing they do is cut more staff only adding to their problems. I'll take Paradox as an example, look at the content they are now pumping out almost monthly for EU4, CK3, Stellaris - I'm guessing they are losing money on everything else they are releasing.   I fully expect to them fold in the next year.

All because they lost focus on creating great games with good content and instead are chasing the dollar.

So the root of the problem is simply GREED.  Its no different than other industry, the companies get bigger and stop caring about their employees and customers, quality suffers, layoffs ensue .... all to make that might DOLLAR any way they can!

[ArizonaTank]

While all of this seems gloomy, I think there is a counter-trend, also driven by technology. Game engines and development aids are getting easier and easier for the average person to use with only basic levels of training. AI is only making this more true. Add in the relatively open nature of distribution platforms like Steam, and the game market is being somewhat democratized.

For strategy and wargames, the sector we care about the most, the past couple of years has seen a small handful of great games, produced by single, or small team indie devs.

Sure this means you get the occasional junk game, or abandon-ware. But in strategy and wargames, the big studios have definitely been given a run for their money.

Still, it is a hard business for these indie devs, and based on extrapolated Steam sales figures, it does not seem that many of them make a living wage.

https://www.grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=27380.0

The main, pop-culture games (where the real money is) are a different story of course.

[Gusington]

More bad news:

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/microsoft-announces-4-studio-closuresincluding-arkane-austin-and-tango-gameworks-creators-of-prey-and-hi-fi-rush-respectively/?utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=MANUAL

Arkane: Austin developed Dishonoured :/

[rss334]

More bad news:

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/microsoft-announces-4-studio-closuresincluding-arkane-austin-and-tango-gameworks-creators-of-prey-and-hi-fi-rush-respectively/?utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=MANUAL

Arkane: Austin developed Dishonoured :/

GREED and Profit look no further

[al_infierno]

Bungie is the latest, despite the success of the recent Destiny DLC.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/31/24210476/bungie-to-layoff-220-employees-new-project

I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but I can't help wondering about the fabulously compensated CEO. Either he deserved the massive paycheck for his leadership, and then failed miserably at leading the company to profitability despite the wins, or perhaps he didn't deserve it in the first place. Either way he should have been fired too.

In any case, I expect this trend of "firing the devs who made our successful game" to continue until the AAA industry implodes.

https://x.com/TheCartelDel/status/1818707325777330319?t=FlZEI_IzGTCmuNpObe5Scg&s=19

[ArizonaTank]

In any case, I expect this trend of "firing the devs who made our successful game" to continue until the AAA industry implodes.

I wonder how much of this is due to the entrance of private equity funds into gaming.

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/private-equitys-record-year-in-gaming

[al_infierno]

New article casts some more light on the Bungie situation.  Sounds like the execs were engaged in shady business even leading into the Playstation acquisition.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2024/08/02/bungie-misled-sony-financial-position-acquisition-report/

[FarAway Sooner]

I'm not anti-capitalism myself.  But I do think certain systemic factors have been leading to increasingly inflated executive compensation for going on 40 years now.  I also think that whatever informal social contract existed between employers and employees has been steadily eroding for that same length of time.

I also think that certain measures of economic health that we use (e.g., GDP growth rate or productivity) are pretty divorced from quality-of-life or quality-of-work today.

[ArizonaTank]

I'm not anti-capitalism myself.  But I do think certain systemic factors have been leading to increasingly inflated executive compensation for going on 40 years now.  I also think that whatever informal social contract existed between employers and employees has been steadily eroding for that same length of time.

I also think that certain measures of economic health that we use (e.g., GDP growth rate or productivity) are pretty divorced from quality-of-life or quality-of-work today.

Agree, C-suite compensation, in the US particularly, has gone too far. Also the entry of private equity funds into a broad swath of industries, including gaming, is dragging down innovation, keeping prices high, and focusing companies on short-term profits.

For the game industry in particular however, the only counter-balance I see is the "democratization" of development and distribution technologies. These allow smaller game publishers, who have good ideas and a burning need to make great games, to thrive...so far.   

[Pete Dero]

Rocksteady hit by layoffs after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League underperforms

https://www.eurogamer.net/rocksteady-hit-by-layoffs-after-suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-underperforms

The company's QA department has seen its size almost cut in half over the past month, Eurogamer understands, from 33 team members to 15, with poor sales of Suicide Squad directly cited as a reason for its "restructuring".

The job losses extend outside of QA, too. One staff member posting publicly on social media over the weekend revealed they had been told they were being made redundant in the middle of their paternity leave.

[al_infierno]

The Overwatch-style game Concord is being pulled within weeks of launch, surely to result in layoffs.

https://variety.com/2024/gaming/news/playstation-shuts-down-concord-refund-players-1236128208/

https://x.com/TheCartelDel/status/1831025765342969918?t=V4LZUW23NvHBQsVMsYHs6w&s=19

[Jarhead0331]

^Wow. That's wild.

I think it had very underwhelming press and marketing. That couldn't have helped, regardless of whether the game is good or bad.

[al_infierno]

Not sure if the tweet loaded in properly, but someone pointed out how when this game was first conceived six years ago, Overwatch was GOTY and PUBG was the top-selling PC game, and Fortnite was just picking up serious steam.  Just goes to show how risky long-term big-budget AAA game development is.

[mbar]

I think the required Playstation account puts many off. Not a big deal for those who already have Playstation accounts but many countries are not allowing them for whatever reason. Sony must look at the balance between wanting to collect and sell personal data or selling games they have already invested money into.

[al_infierno]

I think the required Playstation account puts many off. Not a big deal for those who already have Playstation accounts but many countries are not allowing them for whatever reason. Sony must look at the balance between wanting to collect and sell personal data or selling games they have already invested money into.

Helldivers 2 caught some flak for trying to implement a Playstation account requirement, but they smartly thought better of that.