No, the video games industry has too many businessmen.
I don't know a single gamer who would say "Yup, too much, I am not looking forward to any sequel or new game on the horizon". It's that they keep releasing corporate committee-approved boring drivel that doesn't even function on release, then getting pissy that no one likes purchasing their 1000 subscriptions and addons.
Correct, to put things into precise terms, the corporate too-big-to-fail gaming industry is unable to make a profit in the gaming industry if there is any functional competition at all, even competition from indie game companies with much smaller budgets.
Just because large corporations with no desire to actually let artists make art cannot make a sufficient profit unless boosted with the artificial advantage of having the rest of the industry destroyed... doesn't mean that there are too many video games out there to make money from making another one it means large corporations suck at making good video games and are unable to keep systems of upper management from undermining everything redeeming about them.
It makes total sense to me, having being a corporate drone for over a decade now. It should be obvious to them but they're too far up their own asses to see it. Any good idea is going to have some middle manager squash it because they don't like it. You can have the most interesting feature or idea ever, and even if you push it for months - make presentations, evangelize it, get people on your side, you will still have some jerkass too many levels above you that you've maybe sat in one meeting with before say "Nah, I don't think we have the capacity for that". So yeah, I don't see how corporations can think they can make meaningful games.
In a small company, or even a garage you know how things get "approved"? They say "Hey maybe we should do this" and the other person says "Oh holy shit that's an amazing idea, yes do that!".
I can't think of any games I'm looking forward to at this point, since Subnautica 2 died. I have no planned video game purchases at this point.
I'm not really looking forward to anything at all, if I'm honest. Nothing. I can't hope for the future anymore, every future I've ever met has been fuckgarbage because that's what futures are. Putrid fuckgarbage.
I'm looking forward to whatever supergiant does next. Also haunted chocolatier
What I've been told Haunted Chocolatier is going to be...is not for me. In fact, Stardew Valley has evolved into something that is not for me. I've played Stardew Valley, enjoyed my time with it, put it away, did other things, had some SV content come up in my Youtube feed, watched a couple videos, they're talking about stuff that wasn't in the game when I stopped playing, casually mentioning locations and items I don't recognize, and I find I'm not curious enough to learn what those are. Eric Barone is a creative powerhouse the likes of which I will never be, I see Stardew Valley as nothing short of a masterpiece of solo game development, but I just might be done with his work.
If I hear the phrase "Lucas Pope's new game" I'd probably get and play that.
The market for new video games isn’t just oversaturated — it’s nearly impenetrable. Teams of hundreds of people are spending years of their lives developing games that are destined to get lost in the sea of new releases.
Yeah, let's take one that didn't get lost. Dragon Age 4. A game that I personally had been watching and waiting for a release for 7 years since it was first teased, 11 years since the last installment. According to "traditional" ways to make games it had everything going for it. A ton of development time, marketing galore, a major studio behind it, releasing on all major platforms - aaaand it flopped. Why did it flop? According to businessmen who pretend to know gamers it should have been a wonderful success!
Except they obviously killed every creative idea that could have gone into that game. We got the most boring, bland experience out of any of the Dragon Age franchise. We got flat characters with no personality, we got no choices in the game, no real consequences to our actions, and what things they did stick the stake in the ground they browbeat you with zero nuance at all. Every line of dialogue was obviously decided by corporate committee and spoke like what I would expect to hear in an all-hands meeting instead of from someone who was supposedly my companion.
The games that did do well in the franchise? They were risque. They had choices. You could fuck up the entire world if you made bad choices. You'd have characters in your own group leave because they didn't like what you were doing. Entire groups of people could be in peril because you made a bad choice. Saying yes to one group would undoubtedly piss off another group. Those installments didn't care if they offended someone because "What if someone goes down this path and chooses this then gets a bad ending" - they did it because it'd make a great game.
Maybe the suits at the top need to finally realize that businesses don't make great games - creative people do, and just get the fuck out of their way and let them make games.
Thank you for letting me vent, this came out much longer than I expected, you can tell I'm really done with suits making games and acting all shocked that they aren't doing well
Omg yes. I love dragon age games and honestly if the corpo fuckwits didn't fuck up the game veilguad would have been a smash fucking hit. All that it is missing is the writing/stoy.
The combat is so great! Each class is fun and unique with multiple viable builds. Reset skill points whenever. It is very different from the other DA games but it is great in its own right. More action and doges, less tactics.
Oh you like the way that armor looks but the stats suck? Veilguard you can change the appearance of any armour so you get the cool looks and the good stats. Same with weapons.
Spend forever on the way your character looks during character creation? Now you want to start another play through with the same "character", but you don't want spend forever in character creation again? Veilguard let's you copy the appearance of other saves!!
Wanna pause during a cutsence? You can do that.
Veilguard has so many great game choices and quality of life improvements. Truly the only downside is the dogshit story.
These MBAs had the devs start over multiple times. The devs had some ideas, then the MBAs come in and say make an mmo. Devs are like this is stupid but you the boss. MBAs realize it's trash. Devs start over. MBAs decide to fire writers that had been there since the first game and second games. Right away veilgaurd shits on so much of the lore and world state of the previous games.
All the game needs is a half way decent story, then it would have been a huge hit I swear
I feel every word of this, friend. Everything would have been great if they had just let the writers wrote the damn story. Too busy trying not to offend anyone that instead we got the most boring bland vanilla game out there.
Are we back in 1983?
The industry crashed back then largely because there were too many shitty games and no real industry-focused journalism to report on the quality of anything.
I think having too many shitty games is real, but we have plenty of insight to know that a lot of the shittiest games are the ones made by the industry giants.
Did you read the article? It directly addresses your question
My rhetorical question of being back in time...? 🤨
Mea culpa, haven't had coffee yet.
I agree that there have been some absolute stinkers from the big companies. That's definitely a conversation worth having but I can relate to the main conceit of the article that there's just a growing mountain of games on my wishlist and backlog that I'm sure I would enjoy but can't imagine how I would play all of them without ignoring every one of my responsibilities for weeks if not months while also ignoring every new one that releases
Except this line of reasoning is empty and it will only ever be wielded by games journalism and large gaming companies to convince you to adopt the streaming model of gaming where you don't ever buy any games. They will make you feel like you are being so much less wasteful, because oooooooh think of the horrorable backlog of unplayed games you would have owned otherwise!?!?!!
The thing is, who cares if you never play all the video games you buy? Video games are art for fucks sake, it is ok to buy them because you love artists even if it doesn't materially change your life, you can still be happy about having collected the work of art, ESPECIALLY when it is in digital form.
I am so tired of this "my backlog is too big crap", nobody cares, great you have a big backlog stop going along with the narrative that we need to "spotify" gaming to solve this "problem".
That's not my point at all, I actually agree with most of your comment. I buy games to enjoy them and I wish I had the time to enjoy them. Of course I won't be able to play every game or any other media for that matter but can I not lament that? I want to experience the hard work and creativity that people have poured hours of their lives into but there isn't enough time of day. I think the point of the article and my comments are that there are artists making amazing games but because there's so much of it they are not getting recognized
Totally understandable. But apply the same thought to books, TV, movies, art, etc.
There's no way to indulge in everything. It's only a problem from the business side, as it takes more and more effort to stand out and sell something. It's not really a problem for the consumer.
Are there too many musicians? Are there too many painters? Yes, it hurts discoverability, but honestly, if your game is good, it'll be played, I'm pretty sure. Metal doesn't appeal to the masses.. same for games.. not everything will appeal to the average gamer. But if you release the gaming equivalent of Master of puppets, people will buy it, I'm sure.
There are hundreds of Masters of Puppets daily probably but it’s hard to tell because so much stuff is coming out, which is an issue when we want artists to be able to afford food. At this point I think civilised countries should be exploring how to fund video games like we fund other forms of art.
Civilised countries already do. There's government grants available for games dev in Australia and Canada that I'm aware of, at least. Not sure about the USA, but I don't really classify that as a civilised country any more, and they do everything government related in the stupidest way possible anyway.
What do you mean hundreds daily? We barely get 1 a month and even that is a stretch. I actually do listen to new metal releases almost every day and I can promise you, most of them are a 6-7/10 at best. I'm not some snob or picky listener either, so it's not a me problem.
So yeah, music might have a discoverability issue due to sheer number of stuff coming out, but I don't think gaming is quite there yet.
As for the funding, I agree. But that's a society issue, not a gaming specific one. There's starving artists in every art form. If anything, game devs have it easier than most others. I remember watching a video from some game conference by a solo dev that was specialized in making solitaire games (I think? I can't find the vid anymore, unfortunately). He was basically showing how you can make a living as a dev without ever having a hit or anything of the sort.
But you still have to discover someone putting out the equivalent of Master of puppets. The issue isn't that too many games get released, the issue is that too many good games get released. When every year 15 master of puppets comes are you going to buy all 15? Are you even going to be aware of all 15 of them?
People will buy what they're aware of and the issue is that so much good stuff is coming out it's almost impossible to be aware of all the good stuff coming out. That's the issue here, great games falling through the cracks because other great games release around it.
Well, not everything has mass appeal. That's why I gave a metal album as an example. Despite it being a masterpiece, not everyone will listen to it because it's not for everyone. Same with games. Not every game will sell as much as it deserves, but I believe it's more because of it not being appealing enough and not because there's a discoverability issue
The closest I could find about games that are masterpieces that flopped are either old games, which is a different issue or stuff like prey (2017) or Titanfall 2. So pretty big games, just not huge.
In a sense yes there are too many. When the question is around the industrial level and making a living off the work. There 110% are too many.
No industry can support an infinite number of creators. There is a finite number of customers to serve after all.
There's not a single genre at this point that I can think of that isn't saturated by slop.
Cool Michael Bloomberg thinks too many games are getting released. I wonder why. Could it be that AAA/ Investor friendly buy-out shells aren't doing well.
Anyway play Kitsune Tails
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