They are asking the impossible. If they refuse to take any risks on new titles they will not have breakout hits like they are wanting. They have enough studios that you can have some stinker releases that get offset by the surprise hits.
The ceo makes $96.5 million a year. Where’s the “accountability margins” when that was decided? These companies and their decisions really show how stupid the stock market really is. At least that’s the way I see it being uneducated from the outside
Cap executive pay at 12x the lowest paid employee in the company. You can’t make more in one month than the drones make in a year. If you want a raise make sure everyone else gets one too.
I can’t wait to see the exemption for “part time workers” and suddenly everyone making less than a triple digit salary has exactly 32 hours a week, or whatever is legally permissible to pass as “part time work” in your country.
You’ve provided a fantastic common-sense solution designed off the simple premise that no one needs 12x of a living wage, and I can’t agree enough, but I know the capitalists would fuck it up at every stage possible, while simultaneously arguing that they’re justified in doing so because the method of economy that they worships has given them moral purchase to look down on the poors.
I disagree. The PC gaming market is about $76.67B. That’s ~$4M for each of the 18,626 games, most of which are asset flip crap. Many of the remainder are by indie devs (generally <30 people). The article mentions about ~10% of those games receive 500 or more Steam reviews, so we’re probably looking at $40M on average person game w/ 500+ reviews (i.e. probably not asset flip crap).
There are only about 20-30 AAA games released every year. The indie game market size is about $5B, and that’s across platforms. Even if that was only for PC games, that’s still 85% going to AAA studios, as in those 20-30 games that get media attention.
We don’t have too many games, we have a problem where too few people buy indie games. The average successful indie studio isn’t making $40M per game, it’s likely much less than that.
But how on earth do you get people who only buy and play 4 or fewer games per year to look at those indie games instead of one of the same big games that all of their friends are playing? That demographic is why Grand Theft Auto, EA FC, Assassin’s Creed, etc. is so big, because they capture the people who don’t play many games. There is technically enough money to support the entire industry, but that’s not really how consumer patterns have ever worked; most of it always goes to a select few.
You’re not going to convince the Madden/FIFA/etc group because community is more important than the game itself. The same is true for the big competitive games, since again, community is more important than the game itself.
The rest of the market is massive though, and even the people who only play a handful of games still pick up the occasional game to play on their own.
The solution here, IMO, is a high profile reviewer that focuses on indie games. In fact, we don’t really need reviewers going over AAA games because their marketing departments are already handling it. I want professional reviewers who try hundreds of indie games every year and promote the top 10-20 or so. Indie games are some of my favorite, but finding them is incredibly time consuming.
Agree to disagree, I suppose, but for the person whose only game every year is Assassin’s Creed, I don’t think you’re going to convince them that they should play Silksong or Expedition 33 and that they’d prefer them if only they knew about them. Even if the games aren’t multiplayer, it’s often a common touchstone for a group of friends to talk about and bond over. You or I might rail about handholding in one game that the mass market plays, but that handholding is a large part of why those games are mass market. The indie stuff we find more appealing are often answering a need, for a much smaller base of potentially interested people, who are sick of the mass market stuff, because we play more games in general.
As for a solution for your personal problem finding indie games, I know it’s one that Second Wind has been putting effort into addressing. This may sound odd, but in multiple cases, I’ve found niche games to scratch a certain itch I’ve had just by going to the Steam search and filtering by tags, and at least that cut down the research time dramatically. I understand the frustration though, because I’m having a similar hard time finding out if a game is built to last with things like offline multiplayer, and it’s something that reviewers often don’t care enough to mention at all.
How did they settle on AC? Is that the only game that would ever appeal to them, or did one of their friends introduce them and they got hooked? How many of them played Balatro or Among Us and other “viral” games?
The way to market to these people is to get that one person in a friend group to try something new and sell their friends on it. I used to only play a handful of games too, and back then it was mostly StarCraft and Halo. Then a friend introduced me to FTL, Factorio, and Minecraft (back when the last two launched, not what they are today), and I fell in love with indie games. All it takes sometimes is a single experience to show people what they’re missing.
Second Wind
I took a quick look, and it seems to be a mixed bag of content, from first time experiences with games to meta discussions on what makes parts of games great and interesting. Looking at last dozen or so videos, it’s mostly bigger games like Borderlands, Hollow Knight, and Subnautica. If you play any indie games, you’ll hear about those (and Borderlands isn’t even indie).
I think what I’m looking for is something that goes over the top new games from the last month or something, with deeper dives between those videos.
I’ve found niche games to scratch a certain itch I’ve had just by going to the Steam search and filtering by tags
I’ve done the same, and it’s way more miss than hit. When I finally find a hit, it’s usually a few years old, and is going for a fraction of the launch price.
For any given game, I can usually find a decent review by some random fan on YouTube, but going the other direction is a lot harder.
How did you lose interest in Assassin’s Creed? Maybe you didn’t, but I did. Call of Duty, too. Part of the reason why is why those people still come back to it, like sanding off rough edges that were maybe desirable to us. The top dog franchises will change from time to time, but I don’t think you’ll be able to will that change into existence with a recommendation. The Game Awards do have a tangible effect on sales and can make that change, but only up to a few games per year, at most.
I think what I’m looking for is something that goes over the top new games from the last month or something, with deeper dives between those videos.
Indie games are overrated, it’s still mostly crap. I don’t blame people for waiting for absurd popularity to bring actually good titles to the surface. It’s still the same general problem, I have a the time for maybe 5 games per year, and that has to compete with my existing backlog, favorites and new titles. I’m not risking that time on Indie or AAA titles without some good evidence it’s worth it.
Sure. My point is that AAA studios have massive marketing budgets so it’s more likely you’ll consider them than an indie that you night like more. We need a better way for good indies to get noticed.
This isn’t a problem. For the first time in a very long time, I actually have a queue of games I want to play and din’t just mindlessly scroll steam store or wait for big releases. In fact, I no longer follow game releases, there is something at any given time I can find to play
Reviewers rave about a game, I pick it up and play it, and they’re raving about a new one before I’ve finished that last one.
That’s why i only wishlist games that i’m interested in. by the time i get around to them, there’s usually a sale and/or price drop. Some games have been on my wishlist for years, while I’m working through my backlog, waiting for their price to drop even further.
It does make sense, because “choice paralysis” is a thing that exists. So instead of choosing the game you want and playing it, you might spend more time looking for games to play than actually playing them.
Bullshit propaganda, sorry not sorry. The problem isn’t too many games, its reviewers overhyping too few games. Gta6, marathon, whatever the heck else, seriously do some basic research and you’ll find great games at a great pace. There is, in fact, room for all games in the market.
There have been ‘too many games to play all the ones that seem interesting to me’ since the late 90s, at least.
There has always been absurd levels of competiton in video game releases.
What this person is describing has been the broad state of the overall industry as long as I have been alive.
It is not a problem.
It is totally fine that decent games are moderately popular and quite good games are quite popular and occassionally something seemingly simple is actually novel in a fun way, or hits just the right combo of gameplay / art style / narrative elements at the right time and is a breakout hit.
It is totally fine that giant evil megapublishers who exploit their employees and then slave drive and mismanage them into producing shiny, but buggy and lackluster garbage… are not making back their marketing budgets.
It is in fact very very good that they are failing.
The only thing different now is that video gaming is massively mainstream nowadays and normies struggle with choice paralysis more publically these days.
A real dedicated nerd is capable of seeing through marketing and doing their own research, thats… kinda the whole thing that makes one into a nerd, a seemingly odd obsession and inordinate amount of time spent trying to understand their hobby.
If you are just a consumer who is overwhelmed by choice and marketing, pff i dunno, get gud scrub, capitalism be doin what it do, figure it out, develop your own actual personality and sense of taste and discernment, or keep crying I guess?
Video game development democratizing via lower barrier to entry is a great thing.
Players are more likely to find and get something they want for a reasonable price, megacorps are more and more likely to spend way too much money on things they don’t understand anywhere near as well as they think they do.
Whats not to love?
If their form of video gaming as a business model is unsustainable, well that sucks for them I guess?
This is my point exactly. Art should be accessible for both the artist and those that enjoy the art. In the current landscape too many artists is a terrible thing for most besides the ones who are already wealthy, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I see so many extremely talented and creative people who can’t afford to make art and are forced to waste their talents because they can’t survive as an artist. Good art takes a lot of time to create and only wealthy people have free time.
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