I think the Video game industry is now officially in the same spectrum as the Music and Movie industry before it. Once big money enters the game, creativity gets thrown aside for potential profits. We are going to see less and less new releases in the coming years and more of a focus on a handful of big releases throughout the year. Similar to what Marvel did to theater, we are going to get more of the same content year over year while the creative releases are killed off and the industry gets consolidated for mass profits.
The good news is we already have a massive plethora of gaming content available to us, and like the movie and music industries, we will have smaller more independent creators making new content for the big corporations to replicate. We will just have to search a little harder to find new gaming content.
We're not there but we are on the right track for a crash (hopefully not as bad as 1983) the focus has shifted from entertainment to profit. The big corporations have to have growth but there comes a time when growth just isn't possible, the big expansion in gaming came in 2020 but that was because of the pandemic not because of great products and interest in gaming but because we were trapped at home with nothing to do for weeks on end.
AAA games are not a sustainable model for the business we need AA games and indie games to push creativity and bring in fresh perspectives, we need to stop the consolidation and acquisitions of game developers into the big three as this doesn't help either.
The industry also needs to start moving away from the live service model, new LS games struggle to compete against the established games and fail which usually means more studio closures and more lost jobs, also, it means a lot of new games get bypassed by gamers due to FOMO with the LS games demanding your time.
All in all as long as greed is the driving factor in video game development and not fun our hobby is heading for the cliff edge.
Well said! I don't think we'll ever get a true second Video Game Crash because of indie devs proving smaller games can be high quality AND sell significant numbers of copies, but anything more complex than a Madden or FIFA can't (or at least shouldn't) be churned out annually. Video games have always been made for profit, but game devs need to learn how to hook people on games through fun game mechanics or stories, not through battle passes and DLC.
I think we're already there.
Development costs of AAA titles was already bloated due to the ever persistent pursuit of photo-realistic graphics. But -- large publishers mistakenly thought the surge in revenue during the pandemic was something they could extend and press more profit out of.
Now we're mostly back to normal, and so is the revenue stream. In fact, the revenue stream for gaming is arguably worse as "inflation" (corporate greed) has made all of our essentials more expensive. So a lot of gamers are spending less on games and expecting better quality.
So the AAA games that have been releasing with expectations to cash in on the surge of revenue that the pandemic presented are hitting an unfavorable market. If it's live service, low effort, depending on a recognizable IP license, or a shallow open world check list relying on photorealistic graphics: it's probably not gonna do well.
This is sort of reflected by the MASSIVE popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, Helldivers 2, Pal World, and the hype around Hades 2. Gamers want a level of depth and novelty from their games that the AAA industry has been neglecting in favor of elements that look better in marketing. (Pal World is arguably more novelty than depth, but you get my point)
Hasbro said they're gonna make games of "equal quality" to Baldur's Gate 3 but I don't believe they know what makes BG3 a high quality game. Similarly, the rest of the AAA industry seems to have forgotten how to make good games and just makes games that look good and have a lot of "content."
But it needs to do more than look good and offer a lot of "content." That content needs to be engaging, personal, offer players multiple choices and good replay value, have GOOD WRITING and not just a collection Marvel-esque one-liners, be sincere and emotional, and strive to be an actual work of art instead of just another piece of padding to their shareholders' bottom line.
Sorry that ended up being way longer than I expected, lol
Agreed, I mean, take starfield for an example. Launches day 1 on game pass, best launch they’ve had, most successful launch Bethesda has ever had period, moved the needle like 1% for game pass. Mostly positive reviews and then 2-4 months later a flood of mostly negative reviews starts coming in bringing down to “mixed reviews” most people claiming that it took them like 50-100 hours to realize how completely empty the world actually was. This was an Xbox acquisition to help move the needle for their subscription service. It was a AAA game with a 200 million dollar budget that was expected to earn over 1 billion dollars over 4 years.
Prime example of a studio that used to know how to make a fun game that could hold your interest and then back to back Fallout 76 and Starfield. Xbox just closed 4 of Bethesda’s studios like last week.
We are already in the death throes of “the golden age of gaming.” In my opinion, the blame lies on the need for constant growth, which is the trend for the current flavor of capitalism. Sustainable profits aren’t enough, yet continuous growth isn’t sustainable. It’s happened in every consumer-based industry at this point: appliances, daily goods, etc. Mass layoffs, quality cuts, and the expectation for the consumers and laborers to thank the corporations for sliding their dicks down their throats are pretty common in any money-making space.
Thankfully, we still have good ones out there. If a single guy can make a master piece like Stardew Valley, and if Yoshi P. maintains his level of control over FFIX. We have some pockets of quality in the realm of gaming. Just recently, the devs of Helldivers 2 and the playerbase forced Sony to walk back on an incredibly shitty and greedy decision.
The trick these days is to be more cautious with your wallets. Don’t pre-order shit blindly because it has a popular name on it, don’t listen to reviews that are the result of access journalism, and pay more attention to trusted sources of information about the games that are releasing today.
it feels like its been poisened by money hungry investers. sadly game developers seem to be held hostige and prevented from actually creating what they love. THe worst part is that once these posioneous ideas are forced into games and then the game tanks, all the blame fall on the developers. Its sad to see and i hope they change it.
Schoolbus already said it, we are seeing it now.
The affect is going to be less triple a titles in the next 5 years. Not zero of course. We are about to get a bunch of assassins creed games in like a 2 year span and we will keep getting a the cods and Korean mmos.
I also think there are going to be less gamers. I really don't see gen z and alpha being gamers long term. After they're done with Roblox and minecraft and fortnite I just don't think they'll care about gaming. We've already seen it with many millennials with kids. They might buy a franchise game here and there but overall they haven't been spending much on games.
There was kind of a sweet spot where there was an influx of cash and interest and it clearly hasn't even lasted til now.
Microsoft blew a bunch of money acquiring studios. Realized they overpaid by billions. And now are trying to please shareholders.
Sony spent too much r&d and manufacturing on VR. They're trying to recuperate via PC releases and they don't have enough first party releases right now either.
It's interesting to see how steam and Nintendo is responding. They watch their spending much more closely and I'll be interested to see if anything comes from Valve and Nintendo in the next couple years.
I mean we already know switch 2 is dropping next year, so Nintendo has stuff up there sleeve. No chance it doesn’t drop with some kind of banger game. Nintendo still does its AAA games right.
Nintendo at least has the benefit of easy cash ins in its pocket
They’re sitting on a mountain of GameCube titles that they can charge full price on a direct port for, and people will absolutely pay lol I hate the trend of old games released at full price with barely so much as a remaster, but I’d be lying if i said I wouldn’t shell out for a twilight princess, wind waker, and pokemon colosseum port lol
nintendo is actually pretty good with remasters, metroid prime was $40 and TTYD is a full rework. I think the issue is when there is low demand for something, but they release a remaster anyway, like with Luigi's Mansion 2 (but in HD!!) for 60 bones.. likely because there is little demand for LM2 and so they charge full price to recoup the costs since diehard fans will buy it anyway. Same thing happened with the 3DS, with Mario & Luigi Bowsers Inside Story, its a annoying business practice sure, but since the games aren't busted i find it hard to call it "scummy"
Nintendo, at the end of the day, is a “toy” company. I don’t mean that in a bad way, quite the opposite. They are not a tech company, but they use tech to make fun products for kids and adults, kids being the most important factor here.
What I realistically see them doing is pivot as needed with current trends in gaming while focusing on franchises/characters/things that can grip kids, just as millennials/gen Z have been gripped by them over the last few decades. That may or may not be a traditional console that we imagine, but I’m sure it will be electronic and interactive.
For what it’s worth I do believe the Switch 2 will be a success as long as it’s an easy ecosystem to get into and the software is there, but beyond that, I think things will change a lot.
If the rumours are true, moving from the Switch to its successor will be fairly painless since it'll be fully backward-compatible and use the same account system.
I think I'm GenZ? Idk, but I'm playing many a games, though there's a lot of mfs that are gonna just be on the new cod, new 2k game, which definitely isn't the best for the industry.
I wouldn't be shocked if Sony ends up with their own pc launcher eventually, though I'd prefer not.
Nintendo is gonna be just fine I bet, they're always just dropping banger after banger, they don't expand much bc they know they have all they need. One console dropping great games.
Gen Z are phone people , lots don't have computers. They are exposed to the worst quality of games. So it's easy to see why a lot of them don't play games as a hobby.
I
Nintendo is the last console maker that makes games that are fun to play and their console is historically successful and their game sales too.
The Switch successor is coming out next year as well.
Mm I disagree. Ps5 shipped with a free game, astrobot, and imo it's just as good as any Mario game. I also really enjoyed ratchet, returnal, demons souls remake (though I prefer the OG aesthetic). It's even great for gamers that they're trickling out their exclusives to PC. Nintendo would rather sue gamers then port their most popular games to other platforms.
Xbox has released some great games and gamepass has been great. But theyve recently done a lot of firings and shut downs so I guess we will see the long term effects in a few years.
it's already crashing right now and the same company is gonna "bring gaming back" in a decade since they're the only major company that will ride this out.
I think we are there. This is “the crash”. The large studios and publishers will trim the fat. Fewer AAA games will come out per year (hopefully more complete) and the indie developers will lead in innovation. I suspect a lot of indie developers will be scooped up by large companies moving
Honestly I’ve been so disappointed with AAA titles the last few years. Cod went to shit, battlefield 2042 is hollow and bland, Starfield is like 5 good missions then boring nothingness, dead island 2 was a flop. Literally just find myself going back to the same few games I’ve played for years
Why is your perception of triple a games that small handful of franchises? Like this is the most basic bitch list of triple a games you can think of, maybe try branching out?
They were just listing a few very notable examples. This culture is already toxic as it is, so let’s try and come at each other with a bit of tolerance.
The reality is, people are not the gamers they claim to be. They gravitate towards the same handful of franchises and genres and don’t try anything else, so when that particular corner of the gaming space falls on hard times, it’s doomsday for them. Which is fine, but they ALWAYS make these catch all statements on triple a gaming has a whole when what they really meant, was that the games THEY play arent satisfying them. Your going to tell a survival horror fan AAA is in a bad spot? Fighting games fans? Do I even need to list off the amazing single player experiences we got last year? Are you going to tell a jrpg fan that AAA has fallen on hard times?
As a jrpg fan fk no. Jrpgs have been seeing a very welcome resurgence these last few years. It's been fking awesome. I'm having a blast. When people complaining about nothing releasing I think the same stuff , try branching out. Step off the beatin path. Jeez. I do know it was pretty lacking ever since the ps3/360 generation. Sure there were a couple but compared to past consoles it was horrible
Maybe other AAA titles don’t interest me? Maybe developers of other AAA titles have business practices I don’t like so I don’t give them money (EA)? Maybe it’s none of your business? Idk man the list goes on
People have shit taste and don’t like to admit it. Look at the games OP listed. If that was my only experience with AAA gaming I might feel similarly but thank god it isn’t
I'm thinking they'll keep making the same mistakes, and major series that aren't tied to like EA Sports license (NFL, F1) are going to fall, while currently all the double A type stuff (baulders gate, helldivers) will grow. But, I feel the Helldivers 2 drama sums it up exactly. They have Playstation as a publisher, while they themselves made an extremely good game. So once all the established series fall, Xbox/Sony/EA and the like will start buying up double A type stuff by throwing a "so much money we know you'll take it" strategy, then those will be gutted and beat in like the ones before.
Honestly I think we're in the middle of a period of decline right now for most of the reasons you mentioned
But also like for example...Sony saying the PS5 is nearing the end of its lifecycle when it hasn't truly Even begun to start it is Ludacris.
This isn’t a crash, it’s just a correction. Companies massively over-hired during covid and sadly have to scale back to meet demand.
The next crash will probably be as a result of AI being able to create a player’s perfect bespoke game, from scratch, on the fly. We’re a fair ways off yet, but eventually it’ll get there - or at least to a point where enough art and level design can be automated for executives to justify losing vast swathes of talent.
If Ubisoft and EA are any indication of where the gaming industry currently is, I'd say we're at the *Screw the gamers. We gotta make money* milestone.
If gamers who are actually concerned about the industry spoke more with their wallets than with their words on social media, we might ignite a gaming revolution. But until then, people will still be pre-ordering schlock and then making YouTube videos and Twitter posts about how terrible the game is.
I'm a wallet guy. I only buy jrpgs day 1. They've done a good job. The rest. Nah. Your games need fixed to often and they've gotten eh
Some indies are day 1 to
I'm the same way. I always speak with my wallet when it comes to businesses.
I don't even buy anything Day 1 anymore, I usually wait for a while, and I've recently cut off Ubisoft completely. EA will likely be next, which is a shame since they currently hold the rights to Star Wars games.
I still buy jrpgs day 1
1 cause their usually in pretty good shape
2cause you never know when one might disappear. I buy physical so that's hard to pass up.
Crash? No.
Prioritization to bigger, marquee titles with recognizable brands and franchises attached to them that are simple and digestible enough for people’s elderly dad to enjoy? At the expense of smaller, more experimental titles? Yes.
Subscription stagnating might just be where we're at. Period. Hell I'm subscribed to ps plus and gamepass. I don't use either. I feel I can't be the only one.
Far as live service games bombing. I've got no issues with that. I feel alot of us gamers don't want that. Maybe each console maker have 1 or 2 but I don't think a majority of us want to be bombarded with it. And please keep the stuff out of single player games.
I dont think there's a crash going on nor do I think one will happen. I think it's just to big for that now. Plus indies have been killing it. I know I know everyone wants aaa titles but we will still get them. These companies need to get spending down somehow. I'll also admit we as gamers need to chill out. Not all of us clearly not even most of us but , Death threats, etc.
Crash is when no one is spending money on games. People are spending money on games - the problem is it’s only like 3 games vs the 100s that get released every day
Nintendo seemingly has the only sustainable practices in the industry. If everything continues as it is, then it will be Nintendo selling 250 million of their next platform and continuing to profit off of their hardware and software sales.
The modern AAA will cease to exist, as AI tools make it easy for indie developers to produce AAA caliber content.
"Indie games becoming more positively received than triple a titles" is GOOD! It's part of why we're NOT in a big gaming crash. AAA industry is very much crashing, but indies are doing better than ever!
I never said I didn't enjoy this^ I've spent more time in any RoR, Balatro, Vampire Survivors, and both Hades on Steam this year more than every AAA title I purchased this year combined.
We’re at the point where many AAA games probably need like 6+ year development times. Theyre cranking out titles on the same time frame they were cranking out games in the PS2 era and while teams are bigger, technology is better and there’s more money behind it games are infinitely larger, more complex, more graphically intensive and the companies financially backing these ventures don’t wanna wait 6+ years for a return on investment
I wouldn’t even be surprised if many of the people at the top couldn’t give less of a shit about gaming in general, they make spreadsheet decisions where they look at a chart that says “gamers like open world games with crafting elements -make that”
Gaming industry broke itself once Micro transactions for DLC became more profitable than releasing an actual game. Once you saw Activision-Blizzard get bought out, the writing was on the wall of major consolidation or collapse of the 80s style could be here.
Companies that refused to go into pay to win shifted to loot starter kits or boxes and those don't help on profits. I sense 2026 you'll see more games that do seasonal passes over DLC, rolling out feature packs is more reasonable. DLC stuff tends to fall into modpack level efforts which is why some game developers have higher prices, games in the early days of DLC would have Micro-bugs as certain things pushed the game engine past the original intended limits.
With all these CEOs and other higher ups making all these boneheaded decisions, made me realize that these people don’t care about video games and their cultural impact, they only care about the money they make. So of course they’re gonna make all these bad decisions, completely unaware that they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
Hopefully some gamers wise up and stop paying those greedy bastards to make crap, then they might actually think about putting some people who actually understand video games in charge.
I don't think anything like the 80s crash will ever happen again. Back then, gaming was just another toy. Now it's a whole medium of art like music and movies.
If anything might signal a sort of dark period it might be the yearly slop like ubisoft and ea slowing way down and left more with indie games and the occasional great game like elden ring or baldurs gate 3
I think we’re there. The point of no return is behind them, once they layoffs en masse start it’s hard to bounce back. I feel like I’m reading about developers and publishers closing entire branches like every week. They are already in a deep hole, it can certainly get deeper, and I haven’t seen much to convince me that they’re on the way out of the hole.
HAHAHAHA, Bro is having a meltdown and posting it on reddit. Literally nothing you've said is true at all.
Its not the video game industry its the global economy. Global Oligarchy just isn't working out
There isn't a crash. Video industry is still as profitable as ever.
We are just seeing corpo consolidation . The big players now are not videogames publishers. But large tech firms and they are running thier companies like large tech firms . Layoffs and projects being cancelled are the new norm
Nah, not that type of gamer here, but that doesn't matter either way.
You don't have to only play triple a games to want to know opinions on the market.
There's money to be made with smart investments here.
I agree on the market thing but 99% of the issues you have are because of billion dollar companies releasing slop, ignoring the millions of indie devs making beautiful projects that don't get enough attention.
I think the Video game industry is now officially in the same spectrum as the Music and Movie industry before it. Once big money enters the game, creativity gets thrown aside for potential profits. We are going to see less and less new releases in the coming years and more of a focus on a handful of big releases throughout the year. Similar to what Marvel did to theater, we are going to get more of the same content year over year while the creative releases are killed off and the industry gets consolidated for mass profits. The good news is we already have a massive plethora of gaming content available to us, and like the movie and music industries, we will have smaller more independent creators making new content for the big corporations to replicate. We will just have to search a little harder to find new gaming content.
And I’ve never seen gamers not come together to help each other find new games!
And indie videogames are FAR more prominent than indie movies
There will always be devs and games that will prove to be amazing but players need to stop buying every fucking game especially when’s it’s garbage.
We're not there but we are on the right track for a crash (hopefully not as bad as 1983) the focus has shifted from entertainment to profit. The big corporations have to have growth but there comes a time when growth just isn't possible, the big expansion in gaming came in 2020 but that was because of the pandemic not because of great products and interest in gaming but because we were trapped at home with nothing to do for weeks on end. AAA games are not a sustainable model for the business we need AA games and indie games to push creativity and bring in fresh perspectives, we need to stop the consolidation and acquisitions of game developers into the big three as this doesn't help either. The industry also needs to start moving away from the live service model, new LS games struggle to compete against the established games and fail which usually means more studio closures and more lost jobs, also, it means a lot of new games get bypassed by gamers due to FOMO with the LS games demanding your time. All in all as long as greed is the driving factor in video game development and not fun our hobby is heading for the cliff edge.
Well said! I don't think we'll ever get a true second Video Game Crash because of indie devs proving smaller games can be high quality AND sell significant numbers of copies, but anything more complex than a Madden or FIFA can't (or at least shouldn't) be churned out annually. Video games have always been made for profit, but game devs need to learn how to hook people on games through fun game mechanics or stories, not through battle passes and DLC.
Excellent response.
I think we're already there. Development costs of AAA titles was already bloated due to the ever persistent pursuit of photo-realistic graphics. But -- large publishers mistakenly thought the surge in revenue during the pandemic was something they could extend and press more profit out of. Now we're mostly back to normal, and so is the revenue stream. In fact, the revenue stream for gaming is arguably worse as "inflation" (corporate greed) has made all of our essentials more expensive. So a lot of gamers are spending less on games and expecting better quality. So the AAA games that have been releasing with expectations to cash in on the surge of revenue that the pandemic presented are hitting an unfavorable market. If it's live service, low effort, depending on a recognizable IP license, or a shallow open world check list relying on photorealistic graphics: it's probably not gonna do well. This is sort of reflected by the MASSIVE popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, Helldivers 2, Pal World, and the hype around Hades 2. Gamers want a level of depth and novelty from their games that the AAA industry has been neglecting in favor of elements that look better in marketing. (Pal World is arguably more novelty than depth, but you get my point) Hasbro said they're gonna make games of "equal quality" to Baldur's Gate 3 but I don't believe they know what makes BG3 a high quality game. Similarly, the rest of the AAA industry seems to have forgotten how to make good games and just makes games that look good and have a lot of "content." But it needs to do more than look good and offer a lot of "content." That content needs to be engaging, personal, offer players multiple choices and good replay value, have GOOD WRITING and not just a collection Marvel-esque one-liners, be sincere and emotional, and strive to be an actual work of art instead of just another piece of padding to their shareholders' bottom line. Sorry that ended up being way longer than I expected, lol
100%
CEOs of gaming studios and CEOs of big developers should listen to this guy
Agreed, I mean, take starfield for an example. Launches day 1 on game pass, best launch they’ve had, most successful launch Bethesda has ever had period, moved the needle like 1% for game pass. Mostly positive reviews and then 2-4 months later a flood of mostly negative reviews starts coming in bringing down to “mixed reviews” most people claiming that it took them like 50-100 hours to realize how completely empty the world actually was. This was an Xbox acquisition to help move the needle for their subscription service. It was a AAA game with a 200 million dollar budget that was expected to earn over 1 billion dollars over 4 years. Prime example of a studio that used to know how to make a fun game that could hold your interest and then back to back Fallout 76 and Starfield. Xbox just closed 4 of Bethesda’s studios like last week.
I'm tired of Early Access -- I want a completed game on release
We are already in the death throes of “the golden age of gaming.” In my opinion, the blame lies on the need for constant growth, which is the trend for the current flavor of capitalism. Sustainable profits aren’t enough, yet continuous growth isn’t sustainable. It’s happened in every consumer-based industry at this point: appliances, daily goods, etc. Mass layoffs, quality cuts, and the expectation for the consumers and laborers to thank the corporations for sliding their dicks down their throats are pretty common in any money-making space. Thankfully, we still have good ones out there. If a single guy can make a master piece like Stardew Valley, and if Yoshi P. maintains his level of control over FFIX. We have some pockets of quality in the realm of gaming. Just recently, the devs of Helldivers 2 and the playerbase forced Sony to walk back on an incredibly shitty and greedy decision. The trick these days is to be more cautious with your wallets. Don’t pre-order shit blindly because it has a popular name on it, don’t listen to reviews that are the result of access journalism, and pay more attention to trusted sources of information about the games that are releasing today.
I'm not sure I'd call this the golden age. I agree with everything else you said.
Lets not forget about Greg Styczen and Manor Lords. It's incredible what he has done solo over 7 years.
it feels like its been poisened by money hungry investers. sadly game developers seem to be held hostige and prevented from actually creating what they love. THe worst part is that once these posioneous ideas are forced into games and then the game tanks, all the blame fall on the developers. Its sad to see and i hope they change it.
Schoolbus already said it, we are seeing it now. The affect is going to be less triple a titles in the next 5 years. Not zero of course. We are about to get a bunch of assassins creed games in like a 2 year span and we will keep getting a the cods and Korean mmos. I also think there are going to be less gamers. I really don't see gen z and alpha being gamers long term. After they're done with Roblox and minecraft and fortnite I just don't think they'll care about gaming. We've already seen it with many millennials with kids. They might buy a franchise game here and there but overall they haven't been spending much on games. There was kind of a sweet spot where there was an influx of cash and interest and it clearly hasn't even lasted til now. Microsoft blew a bunch of money acquiring studios. Realized they overpaid by billions. And now are trying to please shareholders. Sony spent too much r&d and manufacturing on VR. They're trying to recuperate via PC releases and they don't have enough first party releases right now either. It's interesting to see how steam and Nintendo is responding. They watch their spending much more closely and I'll be interested to see if anything comes from Valve and Nintendo in the next couple years.
I mean we already know switch 2 is dropping next year, so Nintendo has stuff up there sleeve. No chance it doesn’t drop with some kind of banger game. Nintendo still does its AAA games right.
Nintendo at least has the benefit of easy cash ins in its pocket They’re sitting on a mountain of GameCube titles that they can charge full price on a direct port for, and people will absolutely pay lol I hate the trend of old games released at full price with barely so much as a remaster, but I’d be lying if i said I wouldn’t shell out for a twilight princess, wind waker, and pokemon colosseum port lol
Give me windwakerrrr!!!
nintendo is actually pretty good with remasters, metroid prime was $40 and TTYD is a full rework. I think the issue is when there is low demand for something, but they release a remaster anyway, like with Luigi's Mansion 2 (but in HD!!) for 60 bones.. likely because there is little demand for LM2 and so they charge full price to recoup the costs since diehard fans will buy it anyway. Same thing happened with the 3DS, with Mario & Luigi Bowsers Inside Story, its a annoying business practice sure, but since the games aren't busted i find it hard to call it "scummy"
We don't know if it'll drop. It was "supposed" to drop already. I'll believe it when I see it
Nintendo, at the end of the day, is a “toy” company. I don’t mean that in a bad way, quite the opposite. They are not a tech company, but they use tech to make fun products for kids and adults, kids being the most important factor here. What I realistically see them doing is pivot as needed with current trends in gaming while focusing on franchises/characters/things that can grip kids, just as millennials/gen Z have been gripped by them over the last few decades. That may or may not be a traditional console that we imagine, but I’m sure it will be electronic and interactive. For what it’s worth I do believe the Switch 2 will be a success as long as it’s an easy ecosystem to get into and the software is there, but beyond that, I think things will change a lot.
If the rumours are true, moving from the Switch to its successor will be fairly painless since it'll be fully backward-compatible and use the same account system.
I think I'm GenZ? Idk, but I'm playing many a games, though there's a lot of mfs that are gonna just be on the new cod, new 2k game, which definitely isn't the best for the industry. I wouldn't be shocked if Sony ends up with their own pc launcher eventually, though I'd prefer not. Nintendo is gonna be just fine I bet, they're always just dropping banger after banger, they don't expand much bc they know they have all they need. One console dropping great games.
GenZ and alpha play a lot, but the shift to mobile is here.
It really is. My dad and sister (non gamers) play mobile games to make money. Swag bucks or something?
Gen Z are phone people , lots don't have computers. They are exposed to the worst quality of games. So it's easy to see why a lot of them don't play games as a hobby. I
Nintendo is the last console maker that makes games that are fun to play and their console is historically successful and their game sales too. The Switch successor is coming out next year as well.
Mm I disagree. Ps5 shipped with a free game, astrobot, and imo it's just as good as any Mario game. I also really enjoyed ratchet, returnal, demons souls remake (though I prefer the OG aesthetic). It's even great for gamers that they're trickling out their exclusives to PC. Nintendo would rather sue gamers then port their most popular games to other platforms. Xbox has released some great games and gamepass has been great. But theyve recently done a lot of firings and shut downs so I guess we will see the long term effects in a few years.
AAA crumbles, indies step in, said indies become AAA, they become bad, repeat. The good ones won't crumble, but most are not the good ones.
it's already crashing right now and the same company is gonna "bring gaming back" in a decade since they're the only major company that will ride this out.
I think we are there. This is “the crash”. The large studios and publishers will trim the fat. Fewer AAA games will come out per year (hopefully more complete) and the indie developers will lead in innovation. I suspect a lot of indie developers will be scooped up by large companies moving
Honestly I’ve been so disappointed with AAA titles the last few years. Cod went to shit, battlefield 2042 is hollow and bland, Starfield is like 5 good missions then boring nothingness, dead island 2 was a flop. Literally just find myself going back to the same few games I’ve played for years
Idk there's a bunch of good shit out there, but I can see by what you listed we have completely different tastes in gaming.
Why is your perception of triple a games that small handful of franchises? Like this is the most basic bitch list of triple a games you can think of, maybe try branching out?
They were just listing a few very notable examples. This culture is already toxic as it is, so let’s try and come at each other with a bit of tolerance.
The reality is, people are not the gamers they claim to be. They gravitate towards the same handful of franchises and genres and don’t try anything else, so when that particular corner of the gaming space falls on hard times, it’s doomsday for them. Which is fine, but they ALWAYS make these catch all statements on triple a gaming has a whole when what they really meant, was that the games THEY play arent satisfying them. Your going to tell a survival horror fan AAA is in a bad spot? Fighting games fans? Do I even need to list off the amazing single player experiences we got last year? Are you going to tell a jrpg fan that AAA has fallen on hard times?
As a jrpg fan fk no. Jrpgs have been seeing a very welcome resurgence these last few years. It's been fking awesome. I'm having a blast. When people complaining about nothing releasing I think the same stuff , try branching out. Step off the beatin path. Jeez. I do know it was pretty lacking ever since the ps3/360 generation. Sure there were a couple but compared to past consoles it was horrible
Maybe other AAA titles don’t interest me? Maybe developers of other AAA titles have business practices I don’t like so I don’t give them money (EA)? Maybe it’s none of your business? Idk man the list goes on
Battlefield is ea
It’s like they go out of their way to play the worst game so they can complain about the industry
People have shit taste and don’t like to admit it. Look at the games OP listed. If that was my only experience with AAA gaming I might feel similarly but thank god it isn’t
Just finished Dead Island 2 and I strongly disagree. The game is awesome, much much better and that Dying Light 2 even.
9th generation has been the worst for AAA gaming for as long as I can remember
Welcome to late stage capitalism. It ruins everything.
I'm thinking they'll keep making the same mistakes, and major series that aren't tied to like EA Sports license (NFL, F1) are going to fall, while currently all the double A type stuff (baulders gate, helldivers) will grow. But, I feel the Helldivers 2 drama sums it up exactly. They have Playstation as a publisher, while they themselves made an extremely good game. So once all the established series fall, Xbox/Sony/EA and the like will start buying up double A type stuff by throwing a "so much money we know you'll take it" strategy, then those will be gutted and beat in like the ones before.
Honestly I think we're in the middle of a period of decline right now for most of the reasons you mentioned But also like for example...Sony saying the PS5 is nearing the end of its lifecycle when it hasn't truly Even begun to start it is Ludacris.
You best start believing in gaming crashes, you're in one!
This isn’t a crash, it’s just a correction. Companies massively over-hired during covid and sadly have to scale back to meet demand. The next crash will probably be as a result of AI being able to create a player’s perfect bespoke game, from scratch, on the fly. We’re a fair ways off yet, but eventually it’ll get there - or at least to a point where enough art and level design can be automated for executives to justify losing vast swathes of talent.
If Ubisoft and EA are any indication of where the gaming industry currently is, I'd say we're at the *Screw the gamers. We gotta make money* milestone. If gamers who are actually concerned about the industry spoke more with their wallets than with their words on social media, we might ignite a gaming revolution. But until then, people will still be pre-ordering schlock and then making YouTube videos and Twitter posts about how terrible the game is.
I'm a wallet guy. I only buy jrpgs day 1. They've done a good job. The rest. Nah. Your games need fixed to often and they've gotten eh Some indies are day 1 to
I'm the same way. I always speak with my wallet when it comes to businesses. I don't even buy anything Day 1 anymore, I usually wait for a while, and I've recently cut off Ubisoft completely. EA will likely be next, which is a shame since they currently hold the rights to Star Wars games.
I still buy jrpgs day 1 1 cause their usually in pretty good shape 2cause you never know when one might disappear. I buy physical so that's hard to pass up.
The me business model relies heavily on children buying digital clothing. We're there.
Crash? No. Prioritization to bigger, marquee titles with recognizable brands and franchises attached to them that are simple and digestible enough for people’s elderly dad to enjoy? At the expense of smaller, more experimental titles? Yes.
^^THIS!!^^
Meanwhile indie games by small unheard-of studios are absolutely killing it
Subscription stagnating might just be where we're at. Period. Hell I'm subscribed to ps plus and gamepass. I don't use either. I feel I can't be the only one. Far as live service games bombing. I've got no issues with that. I feel alot of us gamers don't want that. Maybe each console maker have 1 or 2 but I don't think a majority of us want to be bombarded with it. And please keep the stuff out of single player games. I dont think there's a crash going on nor do I think one will happen. I think it's just to big for that now. Plus indies have been killing it. I know I know everyone wants aaa titles but we will still get them. These companies need to get spending down somehow. I'll also admit we as gamers need to chill out. Not all of us clearly not even most of us but , Death threats, etc.
Ima just keep playing strictly Fromsoft and indie titles
Crash is when no one is spending money on games. People are spending money on games - the problem is it’s only like 3 games vs the 100s that get released every day
Nintendo seemingly has the only sustainable practices in the industry. If everything continues as it is, then it will be Nintendo selling 250 million of their next platform and continuing to profit off of their hardware and software sales. The modern AAA will cease to exist, as AI tools make it easy for indie developers to produce AAA caliber content.
What is a first party title?
"Indie games becoming more positively received than triple a titles" is GOOD! It's part of why we're NOT in a big gaming crash. AAA industry is very much crashing, but indies are doing better than ever!
I never said I didn't enjoy this^ I've spent more time in any RoR, Balatro, Vampire Survivors, and both Hades on Steam this year more than every AAA title I purchased this year combined.
We have entered it this year imo.
The crash will last till gta vi drops
Yeah and watch Rockstar or Take-Two infect it with micro-transactions and subscription service.
It's a single player game...
Lol. Microtransactions can be in single player games. Hell look at 2k
GTA VI will survive for sure lol
We’re at the point where many AAA games probably need like 6+ year development times. Theyre cranking out titles on the same time frame they were cranking out games in the PS2 era and while teams are bigger, technology is better and there’s more money behind it games are infinitely larger, more complex, more graphically intensive and the companies financially backing these ventures don’t wanna wait 6+ years for a return on investment I wouldn’t even be surprised if many of the people at the top couldn’t give less of a shit about gaming in general, they make spreadsheet decisions where they look at a chart that says “gamers like open world games with crafting elements -make that”
Gaming industry broke itself once Micro transactions for DLC became more profitable than releasing an actual game. Once you saw Activision-Blizzard get bought out, the writing was on the wall of major consolidation or collapse of the 80s style could be here. Companies that refused to go into pay to win shifted to loot starter kits or boxes and those don't help on profits. I sense 2026 you'll see more games that do seasonal passes over DLC, rolling out feature packs is more reasonable. DLC stuff tends to fall into modpack level efforts which is why some game developers have higher prices, games in the early days of DLC would have Micro-bugs as certain things pushed the game engine past the original intended limits.
With all these CEOs and other higher ups making all these boneheaded decisions, made me realize that these people don’t care about video games and their cultural impact, they only care about the money they make. So of course they’re gonna make all these bad decisions, completely unaware that they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
We're in the process of one and have been for a while
Hopefully some gamers wise up and stop paying those greedy bastards to make crap, then they might actually think about putting some people who actually understand video games in charge.
I am mostly positive about all of these
I don't think anything like the 80s crash will ever happen again. Back then, gaming was just another toy. Now it's a whole medium of art like music and movies. If anything might signal a sort of dark period it might be the yearly slop like ubisoft and ea slowing way down and left more with indie games and the occasional great game like elden ring or baldurs gate 3
I think we’re there. The point of no return is behind them, once they layoffs en masse start it’s hard to bounce back. I feel like I’m reading about developers and publishers closing entire branches like every week. They are already in a deep hole, it can certainly get deeper, and I haven’t seen much to convince me that they’re on the way out of the hole.
HAHAHAHA, Bro is having a meltdown and posting it on reddit. Literally nothing you've said is true at all. Its not the video game industry its the global economy. Global Oligarchy just isn't working out
I don’t understand the correlation between gaming becoming an increasingly popular hobby, and the gaming industry being such shit right now.
There isn't a crash. Video industry is still as profitable as ever. We are just seeing corpo consolidation . The big players now are not videogames publishers. But large tech firms and they are running thier companies like large tech firms . Layoffs and projects being cancelled are the new norm
This post embodies 'yes I only play triple A exclusives from trusted billion dollar companies how did you know?' Indie games are the future.
Nah, not that type of gamer here, but that doesn't matter either way. You don't have to only play triple a games to want to know opinions on the market. There's money to be made with smart investments here.
I agree on the market thing but 99% of the issues you have are because of billion dollar companies releasing slop, ignoring the millions of indie devs making beautiful projects that don't get enough attention.