The state of the industry does not look good, especially in the AAA world.
Gearbox started firing people as soon as it was bought by Embracer
Nintendo restructures it's testing department
Skull and Bones is slashed by $25 after three weeks on sail
Relic entertainment sold by SEGA
_B: EA Losses
EA drops star wars games and fires 650
EA is looking away from licensed games
_B: Saber Sold
Embracer sells Saber interactive along with other companies. This includes Metro series and new Warhammer 40k Space marine game
Space Marine is still being made
It's being delayed though
They don't seem to care either.
Valve created an orb for video making using steam decks they had lying around. Half Life 3 is still not released.
Activision QA has a large union now
_B: Warner Bros keeps on losing path
Warner Bros Gaming would rather commit suicide squad than make another successful Harry Potter game.
They really want that Fortnite style money
This has made them lean into the DEI money like Sweet Baby Inc
How Sweet Baby Inc ruined a game called Flintlock
Interview with women who work at Mojang. Buzzfeed article says diversity will help us all.
It also means companies leaning into milking the existing player base Instead of trying to grow it.
A lawsuit is coming for game makers that accuses them of making addictive practices to make more money. The response has been, “you can't sue us for making good games”.
Why I stopped being a framerate snob… advert for Steam deck
A business model designed to milk small amounts of players, rather than selling well overall. Comparison to the Cable channel model.
This has meant the Game Developer Conference has some awkwardness.
_GDC: AAA and Creativity
It costs too much to be creative in the AAA field.
Maybe AAA deserves to die. Corporations are greedy! Become an indie!
_GDC: Scream
A group go together to start
Screaming in a park
Meanwhile Monopoly Go has a huge publicity budget.
Monopoly Go had a nearly half a billion promotional budget.
And Toys for Bob is finally making their own game
Toys for Bob is making their own game. They usually make them by assignment, and have been very successful at it. The NFC toy games were started by them, and they created Tony Hawk Downhill Jam.
Also, Capcom has raised the pay of their employees.
Capcom raises salaries in tough times
So there is a silver lining.
I'm not saying they don't deserve this, I am saying we should be scared. Videogames are entertainment and technology, which is a great predictor for the rest of the world a few years later. We can see Gamergate and the responses to it, and the ultimate destruction caused by the attempt to stay in power. Now imagine that world wide.
An entire contraction of every culture and trade. The last time this happened was about 600 years ago. Almost every culture broke down and stopped trading until a new group dominated them. We are demanding a contraction because we think it works in our favor. If trade contracts, so does everything else.
I say we be like the European explorers who saw the contraction and tried to open things up on their own. Those same explorers dealt with people demanding contraction all the time. It was just as internal as it was external. It also meant dealing with crooks and pirates who would help at a price. Sorry, brain went into history mode, I won't write another paragraph.
I will say that those who seek blessings bring rain to both them and their evil neighbors. We shouldn't wish drought on one and rain on us. Lots wife was like that, and she got pretty salty about it.
At this point, gaming can't be killed. Not like it has in past crashes. Even if Steam collapsed, indie games would still be made because people want to play games. It will just be done through different funding and distribution channels.
Arcades and others were the other methods back in the day. Nintendo arrived while the crash was happening through arcades. So it's a cycle.
The Atari crash was real, but the state of PCs and development tool availability have made that impossible. Everyone has a gaming machine in their home and anybody can make games if they want to.
They can... just until the infrastructure collapses.
That's how the computer revolution really started. I still want a good BASIC to teach my kids.
Tbf past crashes couldn't kill gaming either. Only the regional availability of products for normie consumers. Europe was basically unaffected by Atari crash.
The Famicom came out as the crash happened.
It's nothing to be scared about. Recessions only kill weak firms. The woke will be the first ones tossed out of the lifeboats.
What we should be scared of is companies doing hard 180s and trying to pander after calling us all pieces of shit for the last decade. Don't let them off easy, don't save them because they throw you a token bone.
Only god forgives.