The information age is a wild thing, ain't it? Where the vast divide between the classes from the before times no longer maintains is an aura of mystery and exclusivity which has allowed the idea to germinate that the tops of our industry are manned by some sort of intellectually superior being that sees the world far more complete than us mere plebs do. Nowadays we can see what these executives are doing, what they are saying, observe the same information they have to make their wild decisions and marvel at the fact that these would be the kind of people who would get arrested trying to siphon gas with their mouths at a petrol station if they lived in the real world. I'm taking true misfortunes of evolution, doomed for the compost heap if they were not lucky enough to land a good spawn in life. And it's these people that guide out industries.
We saw a glimpse of how this plays out in the Gaming Industry whereupon following the GDC, several articles discussing the dour mood of the heads of the industry have bobbled around detailing the doom-and-gloom attitude of the modern day. As layoffs are reaching a fever pitch and the industry forecasts are developing a stagnation in growth and publishers are getting more and more desperate to squeeze out some mild illusion of growth in a market that- facts be facts- is not currently growing. Suddenly it's the end times for these people- they're seizing up their loyal teams built up over the course of years and imagining raw legs of roast, waiting less than half a day without food to start breaking down society. The way you see people acting these days you'd have thought the unified world government just banned all video games by December- instead we're seeing a bunch of games industry 'professionals' experiencing a hump in growth and freaking out.
Now of course, there is the very real fact that all industry is built on the backs of Shareholders that put in their money and want it to grow for them in the background. When a company is in straits about how to proceed, they are typically legally liable to look back on the best interests of their investors and making whatever decisions best benefits their money. That is the extremely narrow lens through which we can view some of the actions of the recent gaming world with some vague aura of understanding. Although, you know, anyone mature enough to genuinely understand the term 'economic realities', instead of just parroting out something vaguely intelligent sounding as some form of pretentious get-out-of-responsibility free card like Xbox's management recently did, perhaps matters are not so black and white. (But we'll get there eventually- have patience.)
Per Bloomberg, Executives who made the, honestly considering all the enemies they've been making destroying livelihoods all last year, genuinely dangerous journey out to the Game Developers Conference spent a lot of their time bemoaning the state of modern game design. Rising development costs, stunting growth projects and a mountain of expectations to deliver world shattering hits has led the industry into a holding pattern of 'playing it safe'. "It's harder to take risks" said a Tencent Vice President- which blew me away for a second because I can't remember Tencent ever achieving anything innovative, or even attempting to. (Maybe he has history working at a real developer in his back log.) Budgets are starting to skyrocket and as the film industry mirrors- bigger money means bigger risk, means less chances taken.
Every company is consolidating, cancellations are being made to multimillion dollar projects, hundreds of workers are losing their jobs and being forced out of an industry that isn't hiring anymore. These people will also insist that it's the audience pushing these extremes out of them. The high demand for greater and greater graphics requires exponential growth on time and effort spent on building ever more assets for these massive games, they also want games to feel fun to play which is... well, that's less of a scaling problem and more of a conceptual design one- although don't tell these publishers that or they'll throw a fit. And then there's the Service-style games which are growing in popularity although demand so much time and effort for continued production. Wait, what was that last point?
Uh, yeah- apparently the growth of Live Service games are largely responsible for compounding costs... except... that's mostly publisher driven, isn't it? I mean you could call it meeting demand... you'd be wrong, but you could call it that. Destiny 2 and The Division 2 remain the sole examples of Live Service games that have seen consistent successes. All others have either struggled, died or are actually MMOs that are for some reason calling themselves Live Services- TESO. (I get that the content development models are similar if you put a bag over your head, but they present largely different payment models, attract a different audience and seek a different relationship out of it's consumers and how they interact with the product. But other than those fundamental aspects of design- sure, throw every currently living MMO on the list of working Live Services.)
All this of course means that the Games Industry is going to have to sit on it's hands and go safe! You know what that means? No more creative leaps of faith, no more expanding on your team in order to pursue the development of new mediums and the next hot thing, no more being artistic in this art-based industry. Games are becoming too expensive to develop. And it has nothing to do with the fact that most major companies are salivating over a genre type that is notoriously expensive and failure prone, to which they commit so moronically that when one such game launched with a successful first few weeks- Helldivers- hair-brained executives started puffing out their chests and declaring that title as evidence to why the Live Service train will never stop. Don't look at the multi-million dollar disaster product which released earlier that same month! Nor the several over the past few years! Nor every Live Service fresh from the last five years! Just look at the one success! 0.01% success rate? Those sound like winning, safe, odds to me!
But here's the wicked irony to it all- this pivot is what is going to start nosediving the industry. As it was coined itself during the conference by a mysteriously self aware producer, nobody says "that was a fun, safe, game I just played." As the industry becomes more and more concerned about not taking risks because of the ludicrous costs they enforce upon themselves and then blame gamers for, the more versatile AA games will shoot out making original ideas and become the 'Helldivers' for that quarter, or the Baldur's Gate 3. The irony is that being a submissive shrew, kowtowing to the whims of shareholders without any pushback, you are worsening their investment prospects and worsening the chances that they will be happy. With a little bit of leadership, these studios would know that investing in the studio, keeping a great team of creatives on board and maintaining a reputation as a place that true artists can go to have a career- that is the path to success in an art-driven medium. One year of growth stagnation will only compound if you make that prophecy come true- how's that for 'economic realities'?
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