There’s a lot of siloed misinformation here.
- it’s not because of a slowdown in the industry
- It’s not because of poor game releases/sales.
- It’s not because companies grew too much/quickly.
FURTHERMORE…
- It’s not just gaming.
- It’s not just IT as a whole.
- It’s everywhere.
This has nothing to do with performance or the economy, and everything to do with late stage capitalism. Companies have a round of layoffs just to bump up their year end statements. Worse yet, they then proceed to hire people back for less money.
It’s money-grubbing evil, no more and no less.
While what I think you’re trying to say is true, in that this isn’t a accidental misfortune of one industry and instead is a commonly used feature of the current system I do think it’s worth noting that you aren’t correct on a detail.
Right now layoffs are happening in tech, media, and finance but many other industries adding jobs. There’s a net positive of jobs added vs these layoffs right now.
None of those jobs would hesitate to lay those people off for a dollar I’m sure. So saying it’s everywhere is true in a sense but misleading in another.
On top of that, do games become worse or am I getting old? Is it a combination of both? Is it nostalgia? Do I hate change? 🤔
I would say yes and no.
Games definitely have become way better technically especially the graphics. And there are plenty of great games coming out regularly. Plus when looking at the past there might be some survivorship bias, as we might just remember the good ones and forget about all the crap that also existed.
What has however changed and influences new releases massively is monetization. Especially when paired with the ever increasing budgets that we see in the AAA releases. That leads to decision making not based on what makes a game actually good, but how can we squeeze as much money out as possible.
I want to push back on the survival bias, games today are a lot more homogeneous and similar than ever before.
In terms of innovation, big studios rarely try actually new things, and so games are far more similar now than ever.
Open world games are a clearly established genre with the same mechanics (side quests, big compass up top, rescue the villagers/destroyer enemy camps to free an area). Shooters are an established genre with virtually the same mechanics. XYZ Simulator. Sports franchises. Driving games. Top down rogue likes. They’re all very similar within their own genre.
The games that have been hits lately either rewrite a genre (like Souls games did) or execute it very well (like Bauldur’s Gate 3), or they’re nostalgia bombs like Animal crossing or Hogwarts legacy that are able to pull in a broader audience.
It’s hard to pitch that EA spend millions/billions on a cool new untested idea when they know they’ll make the same money releasing Call of Duty or FIFA with a fresh coat of paint, risk free.
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Gameplay has gotten worse. For a good time I go back and play Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
Too many mediocre or outright terrible games being released. On average graphics have gotten much better but gameplay has gotten worse with busy HUDs and lootboxes and live service.
That’s every year, though. There’s nothing special about now, in terms of the distribution of quality.
What is different are the interest rates, and the returns investors can get from less risky investments.
My take is that there was too much competition for a limited resource - our attention span, that studios collectively spent billions trying to capitalize on but failing.
There were the smash hit successes this past year, Lethal Company, Palworld, Helldivers 2, Armour 6, Baldur’s Gate 3 to name some.
The space of games that failed were trying to be like Fortnite: get a generation of kids’ whole lives hooked so that Epic would be flush with “recurring revenue” enough to put random IPs into the game.
Big budgets promising a big payoff because of live-service participation didn’t ultimately payout enough to survive the high-interest rate environment.
I spent a lot of time and money on games this year and I haven’t played any of those, haven’t even heard of some of them. I doubt that interests anyone to hear but I said it anyway.
Isn’t this happening to all tech?
I think it’s better to look at it as ‘it’ll never be this good again’ instead. Might dull the pain a bit and help brace for the future!
Ok this might be the best article on the topic I’ve read (specific to the games industry). Much better journalism than I’d expect, especially from IGN, so credit where credit is due. Thanks for sharing.
