Game Industry Overlook

Here we are once again. For gamers the month of June is always an interesting time. Although we’ve lost the big, super hyped event of E3, companies still take this time to bring forward their future slate. Already Sony has a State of Play (on 5/30/2024) and Nintendo has confirmed they will hold a June Direct presentation. Other game companies also have their own events in the coming weeks. Summer Game Fest continues to try and hijack the hype by promoting the presentations as its own thing. Personally I’ve soured on anything Keighley related after the debacle that was The Game Awards 2023. In that event developers were constantly given the cold shoulder, rushed out of their acceptance speeches to give way to a slew of promos. Mind you, we all love to see the shiny new trailers of anticipated games or some such, but it should not have come at the cost of almost literally pushing developers aside. That said, the videogames industry has been in a rather tumultuous state in recent months. Studio closings and employees being fired have shown how unstable the industry really is. Even having critical acclaim has not stopped a studio from being closed, case in point Tango Gameworks being shuttered. Microsoft has been in hot water recently. After their acquisition of Activision Blizzard they proceeded to lay off a large number of employees as well.

Despite the problems mentioned before the amount of games in the market seems staggering. Which, in turn means that there is far more competition for player’s time. Live service games in particular want, or rather, need this high time investment to retain players. The more players spend within these the more likely they are to invest some money into the game.

In other matters, Sony has mentioned that its PS5 is in its last legs. Meanwhile the Nintendo Switch has blazed its own path, despite being seven years old and considered aged by the time it launched. As the complexity of game development continues to grow, so does the amount of time that is required to make them. Games that focus on realism, open worlds and vast complex systems will take longer and longer to make. This will also affect the investment needed and will probably be the excuse executives need to justify a price increase for base games. Then again, game pricing is now muddled because of DLC, in-game purchases and the like. The cost of games is already high for “Triple-A” games. The third big name in the Industry, Microsoft, has been investing its way trying to gain a market share by using well established development studios as a springboard. They want to particularly add more to their game pass subscription. On the other hand, independent developers have the right idea providing smaller, more manageable experiences that are often less costly. The big companies’ drive for profit will either end up in more layoffs or in failure. The continued push for increased game complexity is also a worrying trend, though not one that all studios can manage.

There is still quite a bit to look forward to. Hopefully the industry can stabilize, though the problems listed here are a symptom of a wider economic problem. On the horizon we have a new system that has already been mentioned by Nintendo. Sony will most likely continue their own trend, maybe a PS5 pro or, dare I say, PS6. Meanwhile Microsoft currently feels like a bit of an underdog. The existence of the PC market eats away at Xbox’s market share more so than from the others. Exclusives will continue to drive people to Sony and Nintendo. Whatever reveals we see in the coming weeks will be interesting. They will give a glimpse of what’s next for the remainder of the year.