The Gaming Industry Is Eating Itself
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Bungie's layoffs are the tip of the iceberg.
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Remember last year when it was revealed bungie executives openly admitted to employees that they would never take a pay cut/stop a salary raise/withhold executive bonuses rather than laying people off to save money? Those exotic cars arent gonna pay for themselves, even if the company falls short of revenue goals by almost 50%
Planes. They buy small planes and private jets too
Look at my millions of dollars worth of beautiful cars! you're fired.
Defending Bungie devs is wild.
That's what happens when executives view their companies as personal cash cows instead of businesses that should put out worthy products.
@@somedogsarecops2354It isn't the devs, it's the executives. The devs are forced to do what upper management says or face termination, which it seems will happen regardless of if you do or don't do what your told. You want to be angry at someone, be angry at the executives.
Turns out making every game a live service hero shooter wasn't exactly the way to go
Obviously
Paying billions for destiny while it was on its decilne was crazy
And yet they are Doubling down on them. Make it make sense
@@CyrusIsnt Except it wasn't on decline. The problem was that they tried to fund like 4 different AAA games all off the back of the destiny 2, it was not sustainable.
@@BlackWingGenesis Destiny 2 came out 2017. Sony bought it 5 years after that... but it wasnt on the decline?
The executives are eating the gaming industry. Nothing new here. As usual the rich are eating the poor.
That is a bland conclusion to say is the rich and poor are fcked when Indie devs are still putting bangers, the problem is mediocrity from the company and the conformism from the consumer. We are responsable on what we are buying and supporting what we don’t like for videogames whether is predatory microtransactions, DEI and political ideologies or more creativity and effort.
Probably you have heard this but vote with you wallet, so for example the next AC game is aboit to be a huge copy paste game really tedious and boring with a seasonpass on a single player game and on top of that is trying to push a political agenda on an industry oblivious to that topic, then you know how to just save your money so in that way you and everyone else is giving a clear signal of what we like.
@@zombiejesus7445 lmao, it's obvious you're still in school and have only had experience in group projects where you're in charge of yourselves.
It has far less to do with executives and much more to do with shareholders, higher production costs and shorter production times.
It may be a simple conclusion, but Bungie said it themselves, that management got over ambitious being flush with Sony cash and spread themselves too thin on expensive projects.
Management were given a sizeable war chest to "retain" staff, that they instead used to fund projects they couldn't afford to maintain due to low revenue. It was fundamentally stupid.
It's not the executives losing their job for bad decisions, it was the staff they were expressly told by Sony to "retain".
It's not just gaming. Look around and see what these Investment Groups are doing... It's damn near impossible to buy a home if you don't come from some serious family money. Business isn't all sectors are being bought up stripped push parts and sold for scrap.
I largely blame players too. There a huge group that pays $70 to preorder a half made game missing promised features. They complain but then do it again 6 months later. They reward bad behavior.
You are not wrong. The market is what the buyers have made of it.
Definitely. Vote with your wallet has worked forever. In fact it's usually the only way these companies ever "listen". The publishers have no incentive to change because people still buy their crap.
I've been saying this forever. I've been mocked for having that opinion.
Finally someone who is actually smart. Take away their 'precious little money' and you have leeway. These clowns who pay £70 or $80 for games are the reason why peices of garbage like cod and fifa keep being made
@@iwatchyoutube7479You forgot the 130 premium
Like Stephanie Sterling has been saying for years, "Corporations don't want to make just money, they want to make all the money." It was just a matter of time for that mentality to become unsustainable and everyone to suffer for it.
If investors had "record profits" one year, what's the point of wanting and promising even more the next year? It just doesn't make logical sense. At one point it becomes unatainable and just wishful thinking.
Thank God for her.
@@shd_samurai9676 Stephanie*
Lol is Jim post-op yet?
they want infinite growth with finite resources.
This is why you don't sell your soul to AAA companies. They don't want you; they want what you've created. You're just in the way.
If only. They don't want creation, they want content.
You can have the best idea, the skills to make it and make it for cheap and they would still put you to work on a battle season 39 or a new dlc.
Just look at HiFi Rush. A commercial and critical success from a team that's creative and eager. They were offering Microsoft their creation on a silver platter and they got laid off because they don't care. New, interesting and creative is not quantifiable. It's risk. They want whatever is popular with a different coat of paint and as a subscription.
Its more like your PAVING the way, and as soon as your done you get thrown away
"AAA Gaming is eating itself" - is what he title should have read.
Feels like most AAA gaming is being made by Indy devs just starting out, outsourced to useless staff in India or something, and the best games are being released by actual Indy devs.
It would be less accurate if so. For various reasons, AAA gaming is also eating the spaces below it like AA and Indie gaming.
@Dynasty1818 most of the indie devs are the good devs that left the giant companies that push soulless games. I'm loving it.
This isn't me being an elderly 30 year old, I literally feel bad for young gamers. When I was a kid even the big companies took risks and let devs make weird creative games that worked as a buffer between their big releases. Now it's big, unoriginal, unfinished releases that take 8 years to make and then they fire the team because it didn't make 8 billion dollars.
My kids will often play 10+ year old games or things like Minecraft and Roblox. There's no reason to play new games anymore as their graphics aren't significantly better. Not like the major upgrades from SNES to PS1 to PS2 to PS3.
When studios come out with statements like Ubisoft saying “players don’t own the games” the saying they are coming up with ways to wheeze even more money from players. Is there any surprise the big studios are imploding like that are
If y'all wonder why large game companies went down into the gutter, you need to understand that most of the AAA game developers and publishers are on stock markets, and if you are on a stock market, you are legally obliged to go in favour of the shareholders, and this 99% of the time means maximizing profits (AKA squueze every penny out of you with microtransactions). They don't care about you, the player, because they are not forced legally to serve your interests.
Players and their money are the product, investors are the customers.
Shareholder primacy is not law, but honestly that makes it worse. Corporate leadership feeds into shareholder greed and their own greed despite it not being a legal mandate
That's a huge deliberate misunderstanding of what a public company is. They aren't required to go on favor of shareholders, that's just a convenient implied statement a lot of people use. They're just required to be reasonable. A company that builds a loyal base and is viable long term and pays it dividends periodically is just as basis as a company that grows over 3 months due to acquisitions and layoffs. Running a car company like Tesla is just as legal as Ford.
Game companies have been publicly traded corporations for decades. Even during the time when gaming was awesome. So you can't blame that for gaming's decline.
What's changed is that players are now more than willing to shell out millions for pay-to-win microtransactions, pre-order games sight unseen, and buy an unfinished "early access" games. If players behaved themselves, gaming companies couldn't take advantage of them.
Bungie has over 1000 employees before these cuts. Digital Extremes, a studio with a rival IP, has just over 300 around three locations worldwide. Arrowhead studios has a bit over 100 devs and 50+ other positions.
You wrap your head around these numbers and you realize just how mismanaged it is.
This time last year they had 1400 employees before the first layoffs, and after these cuts and people moving to other studios it's 850, they have lost a shade less than 40% of their staff in 12 months, admittedly they will have dead weight but those numbers mean they'll be losing people who are very good at what they do. You're right it is mismanagement, and when you look at those numbers it's mismanagement on a almost criminal scale.
@@gs8494exactly they fired the guy who made halo theme lmao wtf come on
So I downloaded NBA2k20 again as I wanted to relive some 2020 nostalgia and progress through career mode again, only to find out to my complete shock and horror that you cannot play MyCareer in NBA2k20 anymore, as the servers are shut down and you need to be connected to the servers to play the career mode. What a load of shite. I hate gaming now.
Two year game rental is what it is now. Imagine spending $500 on a game after two years you lose everything and 2k saves even more money on server maintenance.
@@joelhernandez2171 it’s sad really. No point in even starting career mode if it’s all gone after a few years.
1) Too many staff cycling and rotating doors
2) Online only gaming is a bane. It seems OK til you realize nothing is guarentee'd with connections.
3) Games designed to make money, instead of games designed to be worth money.
4) Constant licensing wars and groups like Embracer that have either paralyzed or buried quality IP's.
2/3 have a further problem, DLC making many games never have a full release(formerly GotY) and MTX burning so much cash up front the initial product release is garbage because they will patch it later.
-Even single player games they want you to connect to the internet.
-Poor optimization: the new minimum for Ubisoft Star wars game is RTX 3060 to play at 720p.
"Games designed to make money instead of games designed to be _worth_ money"
*_THIS!!_*
Businessman cannot make a game
I believe that bigger companies are the problem and the future is indie games
Until greed gets to indie too
Which in turn will become studios and then big companies and then will fall again. It's a circle.
Future is both Indie Games and Japan Games too.
Square Enix would have something to say about that second point @@LOrca77
@@lolidasterner414 As long as they stay off the stock market they won't fail.
Here’s a solution. Replace the out of touch executives who know nothing about the industry and genre, and have people who actually have gaming experience by taking lessons be the ones in charge.
The CEO are just the tip of the icerberg. Gaming industry need to stop selling to investors and stock market. They need to gain control over their own IP's and companies.
The stock marker is ruining the industry and CEO are just the other part of it. The CEO are just the hand who gladly execute what the Stock marker ask them to. Both side of the coin.
@@RomnysGonzalez Bingo.
As long as these western devs keep being proxies for corporate america and its politics, this is going to keep happening.
Even other regions aren't immune, the NA cancer in Square is infecting the Japanese side too.
There has to be a combination. There are plenty of examples of companies (in gaming and outside of gaming) run by enthusiasts or experts who were devastatingly terrible at actually managing and sustaining a company.
But then they won’t undeservedly make millions in profit. Won’t someone please stan for millionaires and billionaires?
@@jaeusa160Unfortunately it's not Just a "Western" thing. You might want to follow the news rather than Patrioting it.
If they'd stop trying to push DEI and then get mad when people dont like it people would likely buy their games.
Indies are doing fine. The AAA market has brain rot.
Meanwhile, the Fallout London team just made a whole Fallout game with more tactical RPG elements than most AAA games that ape the style, in about 5 years, supported by Patreon. DIY passion generates the inspiration the big corpos try to strangle in the crib for fast cash shops and battlepasses.
Never heard of it but I'm not surprised.
@@jaeusa160fallout London is a pc mod for fallout 4 the size of an average game. Huge map. Loads of content basically created my a group of modders and to the best of my knowledge it's free.
@@D_2_da_K87it’s insanity
But the good type of insanity
Modders did the same thing with Ubisoft’s watch dogs with the living city mod but it’s not an entirely new game but it feels like a new game with all the stuff they added in.
Good. Crashes are needed to clean house and reset persepctives.
My house looks like a video game museum. Over the years, I've purchased literally thousands of video games across every major platform (and a handful of minor).
I kinda don't like gaming, anymore. With a few exceptions, when I play a game, it's usually 7th Gen or earlier.
Hope they can right this ship.
How did Spider-Man 2 (ps5) have a 300 million dollar budget and Deadpool and Wolverine had a 200 million dollar budget? Like Sony had most of the assets from miles morales game already. So where is the money going too?
Games are always more $$$, Devs cost more than actors.
@@michaellane5381 there was only 300 devs working on the game. They were making 60k a year. Thats only barely 100 million in labor. So that means they spent around 220 million on what? Keep in mInd the game is only 6.5-8 hours long. So cutscenes don’t make it add up to 315 million either.
Was $300 million the total budget for the game? If so did that include marketing as if it does then you can safely assume half of that was used for development.
@@TincowMarketing is not a part of the budget
@@Thedog9 the rest is typically split between the bankers involved so DLC can work, advertising, market research they often ignore and server/materials.
I'm not shocked about any of this.
For 4 years, I saw the warning signs while all the journalists and a lot of gamers were cheering for studio acquisitions and live service games. Some people were so deep in an imaginary console war so people overlooked it.
I'm annoyed because I think this could have been avoided. The gaming industry has been obsessed with fast and constant growth that seemed so obviously shortsighted.
This is objectively a good thing. They made terrible decisions. Now they are going out of business. Indie companies that do not make terrible decisions will grow in size and replace them. Every company that chased the money instead of making good games deserves to go under. Every employee that didn't put their foot down and say no deserves to be unemployed.
How does FromSoft do it? It turns out when you don't fire your talent, and you allow them to grow their potential. They put out incredibly well-made games.
Then there's A.I right around the corner to take even more jobs.
One thing that's pushing me out of some games is the lenght. I don't have as much time to play as I did when younger, when I could play everyday for hours. Now it's like a couple of hours every few days. In order to play different things on a 'regular' basis, I've been picking up mostly up to 20h games, because it will last enough for me to enjoy without too much time compromise and won't be tired of it, at least for the most part. Sometimes I get to play something for about 50h, but getting to 100h or so, that's too much for me now. Just for the record, I've played Yakuza 0 a few years ago and it took me 6 months to finish. Loved the game, did almost everything I could and spent 117 hours on it, but it was too long.
In resume, shorter games are on my radar nowadays and I'll keep it this way until I have more time to spare, which might not happen so soon. Anyways
Concord and Flintlock had extra issues to it which was hiring the wrong people who hurled insults left and right towards gamers who are the customers so no one bought Flintlock and next to no one took part in the Concord beta. If these companies want to get some wins then they need treat both the Devs and Gamers right which the leadership has completely forgotten that
Honestly, this problem doesn't just fall on the scumbag shareholders and CEOs. It falls on us too for continuing to give them money for shitty behaviors. They chase the demand that we give.
What the industry needs is to go back to basics. Make games that are FUN not fancy. Maybe not chase that 4k, hire that professional actor, go live service. Maybe just settle for 1080p solid 60 fps cell shaded style or do something creative that's low budget ect ect.
Imagine all the games would could have had or companies that would still be creating games if corporate greed was never a factor.
Correction: the western gaming industry is eating its self.
Maybe they should focus more on making the games fun and less time on DEI
This is the real issue.
DEI is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Never thought my 30 year backlog would be a positive but im set for quality titles for a long while
One of the many discussions that fall under the much broader topic of truth: Capitalism is eating itself. Practically every industry that's experienced layoffs in the last 8-10 years is struggling because of the need to make continuously increasing profits (as profit in and of itself alone isn't good enough anymore), absolutely out of control executive salaries, and decisions based on greed more than logic. People are even voting now based on who they think will increase their net worth the most rather than any other logical reason. If Capitalism were a bubble, we're seeing it begin to burst.
Gamers in the states slowly realizing corporate capitalism isn't your friend.
Sony really needs to work on their account security to me, I recently just lost access to my PSN account for good by hackers and even though I had every security measure enabled and have evidence that it's my account. Sony just told me after they escalated the problem, that they can't help me and there's nothing else to do, and I have had this account since around 2010, so my ps5 and game library is just burnt to ashes.
FYI I believe its the Indian call center side that is doing the hacking since they are just changing the PSN sign in ID and not even hitting the passkey/ 2fa/ authenticator etc...
The proverbial serpent eating its own tail.
Ceos arent accountable to staff or customers only to shareholders. This the same in every industry. The gaming industry and other creative industries are going through the same wild west levels of cuts that manufacturing and retail had in the 90s.
I believe the future and only saving grace are indie devs like myself who actually play videogames and care about the industry not just the money that comes out of it.
Coming from an American here, our companies are extremely greedy and union busting..... this is the norm, unfortunately
No new ideas everything is just a sequel to a existing franchise
Ceos and management I feel are the issue...chasing trends, and Time= money and there are so many examples of games having say 6 years + development but only half that being productive. For me with Destiny 2 it was the sunsetting content that really put me off as i had bought the game and expansions before the changes and i was fuming. I can only imagine for new players how the story comes across
Executives have Always been the Issue with any Capitalist System...They believe they are worth more than they truly are and literally rig the system to reflect THEIR Beliefs vs Reality.
I've noticed a lot of these consulting firms are getting people fired
And the consultants get paid first, regardless of whether or not the game they consulted on succeeds.
Greed is killing this industry things that you used to just play a game and get now cost $20 a pop it’s outrageous. I know I sound like a boomer but why am I gonna give you $20 to change the color of a shirt makes no sense
Glad to know Sony wastes money worse than I do
The oddest thing is Activision Blizzard cut Bungie loose... the company that milks every franchise they have dry, couldn't see Bungie having a future.
I’m sure in the fine print somewhere on the contract, it said if certain conditions weren’t met Sony would get control of bungee.
I wouldn't be surprised if the AAA industry implodes onto itself.
I firmly believe a big part of this is that we is gamers do not hold them accountable in the corporate world when you have terrible performances you are no longer at the company in the gaming world. They say sorry guys just give us another 60 bucks and will fix it next time…..
Become a shareholder and you may have some input. If you’re just a consumer, your power to affect change is limited.
Questions: How is Microsoft's monolithic acquisition of Activision/Blizzard as well as Bethesda resulting the actually CLOSING studios is in any way related to Bungie being acquired by PlayStation? With that comparison, you are insinuating that Bungie's current situation is Sony's fault? It's obvious that the shitty leadership at Bungie is the reason as to why Bungie is in its current state.
The major reasons are residuals of over hiring from the pandemic and mainly Bungie severely overreaching with investments during that time. You guys claimed to have read Pete Parson's press release where he clearly states how HE (and others at the top) screwed up. And if you read the Twitter posts from (now) former employees who clearly state the leadership at Bungie needs to change.
We all know what has caused gaming to become shallow, lifeless and corrupt. It's a sad truth, but we need to let capitalism take its course and participate- don't buy into these AAA games unless you 100% believe in it. Let reviewers play the games before you buy. Crash the large corporations to show we don't care about live service so smaller studios can blossom. Free the programmers from the AAA developers and let these people make art again and flourish. Whales will be whales but enough of us can make a big difference
Its simple math. If youre running the company, and you have shareholders, you have a LEGAL OBLIGATION to make them as much money as possible, or you wont just lose your job, you can be SUED. You arent allowed to worry about things like the community, or your employees, or the state of the industry, except for how they affect that obligation to make as much as possible for the shareholders.
Never sell to a public corporation kids.
Most of these CEOs don't give a damn about the essences of great games and design...all they see is green. These reputable struggles and sales declines are self-inflicted.
The Bible speaks of a wicked person who lays traps that they themselves stumble into 🤷🏿♂️
Companies don’t make games for players they make them for shareholders
The companies don't exist without shareholders, just like every other private company. They demand returns for enabling the companies to exist, same way you demand returns on your money with the banks via savings. I'm confident these companies WANT the best for the industry, but can't, because a quality game made over 5 years doesn't hit targets to ensure shareholder returns every year. Which is why it's only the smaller studios are making quality games, as they don't have as many shareholders to appeal to. If shareholders demand 100k a year in returns like you agreed to, but you're only making 400k over 5 years between game releases, you're 100k short and have to cut back. It's not rocket science.
The situation just got worse. It was revealed Bungie had to focus back on Destiny 2 to save the sinking ship with their last expansion, reducing the development on Marathon. And the rumored Destiny 3/Project Payback was cancelled a while ago because it was just too much to work on these project at once, so there will be no Destiny 3 or rebrand for Destiny 2 in the hopes of getting new players.
Bungie is panic mode right now, and rightfully so.
At a point, we'll have to admit that maybe bungie itself is the issue. You can only have so many partners and relationships fail before you're the only common factor between all failures.
This 100% this, Microsoft had Halo from Bungie, a generational defining game and franchise and they let them go, Activision, who are a horrible entity, know how to make money and they let them go, now Sony are holding the bag and guess what, that bag is not full of money, not even close. The problem is the same one it' has always been, Bungie itself, or specifically the people running the show.
Bungee we need to drive engagement. I got it will create a class item that the majority of the community cannot get….shipped….Oh wait I thought you said can get; not cannot get. That’s a terrible idea….. too late.😂😂😂😂
Bingo.
And I’ve seen this comment so much in video comments on the forums etc
They pushed solo players out. Wow, now game is hemorrhaging players.
Who could have seen this coming. Lol
The layoffs continue & they’re gonna keep on coming unfortunately, the industry is too bloated, too many people are making games, too many games are being made & the bubble has burst.
Not to mention people just can’t afford it these days and fed up with the monetisation methods
It’s not even that too many games are being made. Too many of certain games are being made. Mostly live service and other bandwagon bullshit. Then games that do have diehard communities get screwed over by barely half baked games being released quicker and just abandoned at full price.
@@ichigokageyeah because there too many games smart one .
@@donottouch2392it isn't about the number of games, just the amount of time to consume them, live services are at least 3 months to consume, we have time to play perhaps 3 of them at once, large solo RPG are generally a month to a year to consume, we can play maybe 12 at once, we can easily play a few hundred smaller games a year at 2-100hours, so when they chain us to a live service we burnout and stop buying other games, suffocating the market, and when the live-service fail they do so spectacularly and burn money on bankers and devs left trying to make updates that are cancelled before release. The industry is burning on both ends.
Damn i wish the Marathon reboot was a campaign game.
I’m just so irate that good developers and other staff have to pay the price for shortsighted and idiotic executives. Those pricks will never face any consequences. Screw them and the investors.
Why are people so surprised? I really can't understand why people are surprised, they along with others expanded their studio's based on the pandemic inflating sales and engagement, they knew the bubble would burst but they did it anyway because they all thought they could find away to navigate the financial downturn that everybody and his fucking dog knew was going to hit after the pandemic, not only that but they knew that they would have to cut jobs there was no way that was never not going to happen.
Nobody was caught out here, nothing has happened that they didn't see happening, they went all in to maximize profits knowing they would have to make cuts a year or two down the line. Ray Charles saw this coming and he's blind, and long dead.
Why are you guys saying the destiny dlc was good? 30k refunds doesn’t sound good
Can we unionize the gaming industry like with the film industry?
@@LtJackStone if the industry had wall to wall unions across all major publishers it would definitely help. They could fight for things like ending the practice of crunch. Find some form a guarantee for works to not get sacked immediately after a game launches, PAY INCREASES ACROSS THE BOARD, Demand that art directors or some one who represent the workers are part of the decision making process for when to launch games and lower the demand that every game makes a billion dollars day 1.
There is a lot that could be accomplished
Because the film industry isn't full of the same cancer. :3
Unions don't solve any of these issues and can just make them worse, just look at American Car Corporations, they were fully unionized and went through similar acquisitions and compression in the 1970s and 80s until only a few were left and even those corporations ended up outsourcing their jobs outside the country. Further, Unions would actually end up helping to kill off the AA and "Big Indy" scene at the behest of the Megacorp developers by requiring that AA and Indies end up having contracts identical in value to AAA developers. The Megacorps will then proceed to jack up rates and compensation for their studios and the Unions will insist that the AA and Big Indy companies offer equal compensation that the smaller corporations won't be able to afford and still make ends meet while the Megacorps will operate their game sections at a loss and use profitable sectors of their corporations to prop it up and once the competitors are killed off they'll do things to soak as much money from their customers as possible to make up for the loss long term.
Unions are of limited use to counter bad behavior by corporations, and in actual history have ended up often doing more harm to their associated industries than good, at least in America. The German Union model may have some weight to it, but the US cannot import that model at this point without first completely destroying the present Union model which is deeply entrenched.
@@peregry Yeah, unions are typically part of the bigger problem.
The problems we have have now stem from corporate america tunnelling into ALL fields. Media, gaming, medicine, law, entertainment, politics, sports, news, education... there's no quick or easy fix for that, and they can buy their way out of it the same way their grandparents and great-grandparents did in Russia, Germany, the Soviet bloc countries, etc.
So Bungie stopped Last Of Us but greenlighted Concord?
Sony was both genius and stupid in their plan to buy Bungie. I'm sure they thought that with Bungies help, Sony would make 5x what they paid for Bungie through their upcoming live service games. That was stupid and cocky. The genius part was predicting Bungie's future failures and putting in the acquisition claus. Destiny 2 was already bleeding players when Sony came on board, Bungie was spending insane amounts of money, and their next IP was many years off. It would not shock me at all if Sony's accountants saw Bungie's future which led to Sony assuming they'd be able to take control of the company a few years after the deal was signed. Sony is likely wanting to take full control before Marathon releases because if that game is successful enough, it may keep Bungie out of Sony's hands.
Thank Jim Ryan for that. And wocord, of course. And there are many other bad decisions he made. He definitely is the worst boss at SIE they ever had. Which is really hard if you keep in mind that he took over at PS's peak after Layden was forced to leave. He came to bring PS to a new future. And he definitely did! 😂
"Casual" Is just the biggest market now.
We hate to admit it in the sphere but being dedicated to one IP or the "Hardcore gamer" just doesn't make the money they want it to. Appealing to the casual is where they need to be to make money. I'm happy to have a casuals market if it means we get the odd solid dedicated game throughout the year.
The issue is the need to monopolise time. Games these days are huge and run on microtransaction and fear of missing out where if you don't play for one day then you might miss that big season pass unlock. Which is fine if you're in to that, but the average gamer gets bored and moves onto the next game within 2-3 months (Example: Look at Helldivers steam player count).
Release a wide array of games, on your platform, big, small, medium, indie, whatever, keep them coming from these studios that have pedigree, cast a wide net and you will get more revenue out of a subscription service. If we get one dedicated shooter, one racer, one RTS etc every couple of years which is funded by the revenue brought in by the smaller stuff then I think its a more sustainable model. Things as they are now; not sustainable.
Also a fix to stop closing studios that you purchase: license the studio to make an IP, stop just buying them, releasing one game and then shutting them. Its gross.
I hate layoffs and feel bad for the employees but Bungie has been heading in this direction for a good bit of time. Their due just finally came up. The heads of that place didnt deserve autonomy after how theyve been screwing up for years.
You know gaming industry is getting bad when me, a STAUNCH jrpg hater, is now thinking "huh... maybe I should start playing some jrpgs like final fantasy, legend of mana etc..."
I feel like everyone that knew about business tried to warn gamers that acquisition were going to lead to this bi matter what companies said. But fans didn't want to believe it.
Stephanie Sterling has been saying it for years. Even reporting on it because mass layoffs are horrifically commonplace.
Fans knew it but we couldn't tell developers how to make a buck.
Bungie burns a lot of money. Microsoft said this a while back.
I'm really annoyed that a lot of journalists didn't do enough to report about the downsides to major studio acquisitions. Fans were so annoying and shortsighted. As long as their console "won," they didn't care.
Fromsoftware has had it figured out for what 20 years?
Do what they do.
From telling us we're an asset to the company to telling us we're an @$$.
When in October 2023 they laid off decades old veterans like Michael Salvatori, the writing was plainly on the wall: no one was safe, the ship was full of holes, floundering and the top decks were also on fire. Folks should've quit right then and there even if they had to resort to flip burgers for a living.
Well the Bungie guy fucked up, not Sony, so at least there's that
Most changes start from the bottom up. That means we the fans have to stop buying these same feeling releases. The top brass only wants to innovate when their cash cows start to fail, then notice they're forced to put in actual effort or their profits go under.
Fans aren't where the money comes from anymore, addicts and whales are, until the day regulators lock a games MTX at the original cost per year all it takes is some kid with mommies debit card putting 1k into a $60 game and the studio just made enough to justify all 5 of those outfits he bought and pulling the plug on the next 5 iterations of the game and next 15 Indy titles.
People really seem to like the same feeling Fromsoft games. Plus, new IPs like Immortals of Aveum and Flintlock have a hard time breaking through.
I am reminded of that joke,
Last year I worked really hard and I was able to buy this Ferrari.
Next year if you work really hard I can buy a second.
The industry is lasting longer than expected. I'm surprised it didn't collapse a generation or two ago.
It sucks that passionate devs suffer because of corporate entities. The executives should be the ones laid off. This is crazy.
Honestly maybe this can be a good thing. I mean I feel like we’ve been vocal to these greedy executives for years now and they still just don’t get it… or really care.
I disagree on the poijt of wanting to see what Naighty Dog wouldve done. The first try was boring and barely had support why would the second try be better when their second try at the narrative blew up in theor face too
It was mentioned in passing that it’s harder for “smaller” games to be made. I’d actually be curious about the average length of games throughout the years has been-at least for top and mid selling 3d games.
Like, I think I’ve heard 10 hour be called “short,” but I remember watching my friend play the first Gears of War, from start to finish, in a single day. Maybe that is short, maybe it was short then, it was clearly more than enough… I wanna say the first Halo also wasn’t that long-you don’t need to 100 hours to tell (or at least start) an epic.
Eat the Rich
As a former Destiny addict, we've been saying that Bungie needs to listen to us for years. This is just what happens when devs don't listen. I'm not celebrating this at all and it's very sad. I would have rather had a fantastic Destiny 2 than have Bungie fall apart.
This is actually a return to form back in the 90s game studios would close or get gobbled up left and right.
The AAA industry is destroying it while indies/AAs are saving it lol
These layoffs are so fucked up
Scott: "Spend your money however you want"
Nah....at this point we need to stop having reservations about giving these multi million dollar/multi billion dollar executives an excuse to continue to fuel their insatiable desire for self gratification at the expense of the people on the bottom of the chain who are actually doing all the footwork.
The First Descendant > Destiny
W to Nexon 😂😂
Pete Parsons (Bungie CEO) fired Bungie developers to retain independence. It wasn’t Sony that made those promises to the developers.
Growing up in the 90's It felt the future of gaming was going to be amazing. Gaming didn't let corporate greed destroy itself. Gaming should be focused on satisfying physics effects, fun movement, rag doll effects, games utilizing creative art styles, games had a range of different gameplay modes to play. In my opinion creative and fun gameplay mechanics is so much more important to make a good game, compared to this modern obsession with "Realism" Honest opinion here, I don't care about 4k resolution or Ray traced reflections or 120fps, COMPARED to having satisfying damage effects, interactive environments, breakable objects, the ability to climb or play using a stealth approach. These are just random examples. It's important a game has good enemy CPU behavior so you can have fun in single player modes, or have CPU bots in offline modes. Current video games have focused way too much on nitpicking the least important aspects and forgot what parts ACTUALLY make a good game GOOD. It seems they have forgotten how much players enjoy just being able to jump in and start having fun playing a game. It seems like a bunch of game genres have been completely forgotten about.. As well as certain Art styles & certain subject matters. Old school PS1 & N64 style graphics can work, if a creative design is used. I seriously don't know why gaming had to fall into this rut that we are in..?
Also:
{We have seen that even if companies delay games, it isn't improving the quality of games being released. Which is a sign there is a MUCH DEEPER issue going on with modern games. No excuses, devs used to make great games with much less and they would have given anything to have certain capabilities to utilize that are available today. It just takes actual passion, focus & talent to make great games. Sidenote: It's so crazy how many people are still supporting super mega rich companies putting out unacceptable products.. i don't understand certain people. I don't understand how certain companies can be messing up so badly. It's frustrating that other passionate people are not allowed to make a version of a type of game that we used to have but no longer get anymore.. Yet these huge companies get full control over if an unused game IP gets made & they do everything they can so no other versions of a game idea will ever come out. Even if there's a huge fan base around certain ideas and there's a ton of passionate devs out there dying to make a version of a certain video game idea.. that frustrates me beyond belief}
Lately I've wished Game Dev's would leave big companies & group together to make their own passion projects. These big companies need their devs yet they take them for granted, they restrict their creativity. I'd like to see these higher ups make games without game devs and only big wig higher ups. Good luck
Corporate will always vouch for cannibalism rather than creativity and hard work lol
short sales = DEI
I feel like you all are implying that this is a secret formula. You have to make x amount of dollars if you don’t hit that number the studio will no longer be there. It is truly that simple.
Why cant i listen to the podcast on CZcams music? Its not updated um 3 year? 😔
Worst thing is the Execs will likely pay themselves rather handsomely before leaving everything to collapse
Console gaming is. PC is doing fine. Also, Nintendo is doing fine. Sony and Xbox are fucking up. Sony needs thing to stay the same, Xbox is trying to change the stale industry
"We kept the right people."
*6 months later*
"Actually...."
People are conditioned to accept misery and oppression by being forced to live in a fractured and confusing world of smoke and mirrors.
Been a while since my algorithm showed me a whatculture video. I missed you guys
Flintlock deserves to crash tho. But Sweet Baby and DEI into a game, and it absolutely deserves to crash and burn
Someone needs to do a survey about it, but I think people are starting to sit back and wait until the Internet stops crying about new releases;movies, tv, and games, because they want to go into a game/story without manufactured preconceptions from the talking heads(sorry y'all). Part of it, for games at least, is how a game comes out, gets reviewed, and the two months later gets loaded up with the monetization bloat that ruins the game. You wait a year, that has already happened, and it is easier to avoid.
as a gamer its a good thing in my opinion. maybe it will reinvent itself a bit and become actually good again. sad for all the hard workers getting kicked out and losing their jobs tho.