The Video Game Crash of 2024...

Hello guys and gals, it's me Mutahar again! This time we take a look at what appears to be constant layoffs after layoffs in an industry we're all passionate about. Is the market about to crash like it did during the 80s? Let's find out! Thanks for watching!
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[@SomeOrdinaryGamers]

Check out the newest podcast episode: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b5bcgnlsoMegb7M

[@ididnt.didyou]

Ok

[@ClareHehe]

haiii ^^

[@3amorogamer246]

First

[@mrelast9765]

We are at the point where there is no need for a "next gen" Becuase developers can't even handel curent gen

[@user-jb3kw7vd7n]

True!!!

[@andreibaciu7518]

AAA gaming in 2030 >online only >costs $75 >bajillion decorative items that are AI slop >200 Gb size >100 Gb zero day patch >20 DLCs that cost $50 each, but are that kind of DLC that you still have to download, and paying only activates it for you >Servers shut down 2 years (at most) after release >Graphics look mid despite requiring high end GPUs >Bugs that are never patched Gaming isn't dying, the AAA Industry is,

[@Maximilian1990]

How is it dying when people keep preordering and buying? Even an obvious scam like the day before managed to literally top the steam preorder chart

[@fnutek3720]

​@@Maximilian1990Yeah sadly theres too many idiots buying new games

[@LeadRakFPS]

Yep, and it starts from the top down. CEO’s and executives have too much input on a games development. Let the gamers, devs, and artists make the games. The execs need to sit in the truck and do what they can to keep good workers and keep them working.

[@Jadty]

Cool it with the antisemitic remarks.

[@VoitenZrage]

​@@Jadty wtf are you talking about?

[@nobodycares7201]

Releasing unfinished games for $70 doesnt help. Too many live service games and to much trying to milk customers for everything they got aka loot boxes, microtransactions, battle passes, pay to win, and releasing broken games

[@koutsioj4762]

I guess people buy all of these. If they didn't, this business model would have stopped by now because it wouldn't be profitable

[@om58499]

$70 games shouldn’t be a thing at all

[@SL4PSH0CK]

AAA w/ love service business models ain’t released yearly but their long stay affects the gaming space with the gradual increase in player base. we still keep on thriving and winning based on gauging the titles nominated in Game Awardees.

[@riosiscold9865]

Yet people will buy a $40 DLC for Elden Ring because Fromsoft is a good company

[@damintten]

Ya capitalist Ganna capital... Cut to get more profits charge more for games to get more profits then make games that nvr end to... Ya guises it get more profits. This year will be the biggest revenues the business has ever seen and one of the weakest years for good games, capitalist Ganna capital;)

[@ozthebeeman]

It's not dying in the way that it's going away, It's dying in the sense that it'll lose everything that made it special and will become a husk of its former self

[@staringcorgi6475]

We are gone from the days of gta San Andreas which was 20 years ago

[@anaguma90]

As far as AAA goes, that is a desirable outcome

[@umrayquazashinyapareceu1672]

Could not have said it better myself

[@B34RProductions]

That’s a good thing though, finally gamers are voting with their wallets and are buying games that deserve all the success/getting our monies worth.

[@ozthebeeman]

@@B34RProductions I've always been doing that. The problem is, it's the casual market that is keeping shit like this alive, and that is not going to change.

[@maxmaidment96]

Gaming is bigger than ever. The reason megacorps are trying to exit the market is because we expect more from games these days and they aren't prepared to fund passion projects that we gamers enjoy. It only makes business sense for them to make games if they have a cookie cutter model that earns them free money. Over the last 5 years or so we have collectively rejected that model.

[@balancedgaming2103]

Yeah that's about when I needed to start taking rejection meds to stay vigilant against the big game companies. Last COD i bought was MW(2019) for christmas at half price, assassins creed was Odyssey (i enjoy the larger AC RPGs, just wish it had more variety), and never one for sports games. I'm a gamer not an athlete damnit lol

[@SquidCena]

Can't they fund big games without paying a ton for it to be good/fun? GTA 6 is a very expensively made game, yet it will be good. You have other great looking games rhat dont cost that much and are fun, but yet we have other expensive triple A games that are still horrid.

[@balancedgaming2103]

@@SquidCena You just contradicted yourself. Firstly, you have NO CLUE what the state of GTA 6 is. You're assuming that since it's taken Rockstar 12 years to release a new game that it'll be good. Second; "yet we have other expensive triple A games that are still horrid"- I think you proved my point here. Third; *Most* games that look good aren't made by AAA devs. Yes they have the potential to release the next big thing, but no incentive is there.

[@doremysheep7864]

It kind of sounds like we might be hitting a new era of game dev.

[@chrismdb5686]

​@@SquidCenaGTA VI is going to be a dumpster fire based on the fact their writers shouldn't be employed alone.

[@doclouis4236]

It's less of a "crash" and more like a recession for the triple A gaming industry.

[@uberzer0]

BECAUSE WE ARE MOVING UP TO QUADRUPLE A WITH THE GAMING BABY YEEEEEEEEHAW -ubisoft, probably

[@thedarkroom6416]

W

[@user-nn1fx1nc7e]

Facts. More people are understanding indie games and pirating is the way to go until triple AAA games get their shit together.

[@alexcobert]

i was gonna say helldivers 2 kinda disproves this also games like deep rock survivor etc, people just dont want trash woke games and shit from mega corporations that have no soul in them and are scared to even say shit anymore.

[@cloudburstrc1633]

its a recession full stop not just gaming

[@Shizzmoney74]

I hate how "sunsetting" has replaced "cancelled" which used to be "killed" or "eliminated" when it comes to describing discontinued corporate project failures

[@AliHamza-sv4ni]

George Carlin

[@KWPZ21]

​@@AliHamza-sv4niFor me it's simple. Just don't play games that needs online connection.

[@mkv2718]

@@AliHamza-sv4nithat soft language bit really has stood the test of time huh? not so much his bits about “corporate republicans,” since almost all the the biggest corporations are run by democrats now, including all these video game companies, (elon musk being the only outlier) but that language bit keeps on kicking 😂

[@lumpofmeatsack2013]

​@@AliHamza-sv4ni "who are you people and where is my horse?"

[@bierymolina4379]

@@mkv2718do I hear a Jaden Williams skit idea

[@FrenchToast_28]

As an engineer in the tech world, tech companies expanded WAY too fast it wasn’t sustainable this is affecting far more than just video games. Also there’s going to be a global economic crash at some point this is basically preparations for that

[@dawsondemott1837]

I commented something similar. Absolutely agree, all of tech thought there was this huge need. There wasn’t, that viral video of the Twitter employee’s “day in a life”, where she just bullshit all day is my favorite

[@grackleboi2523]

Agreed. I see layoffs every single day on LinkedIn. Cisco recently layed off 4200 employees, and people are so whipped that they'll post how grateful they were to work at companies that throw them away like trash. I also saw a guy posting the other day that he was on the verge of homelessness and he was begging for referrals. We're heading towards a second great depression. The gaming industry will be the least of our concerns.

[@lotus_flower2001]

Time to sell..

[@jamesfort3]

Exactly I get so tired of the doom and gloom videos during Covid and before too many companies expanded took funding etc now they realized they all need to scale back. It’s so tiresome to hear gaming is ending from dudes who play literally the same copy and paste garbage every year literally 2023 was one of the best years in gaming we got Zelda, Mario, Hogwarts, Armored Core, Final Fantasy, Starfield, and so much more. But gaming is dying? No the emphasis on COD and NBA is dying cause those franchises are redundant mediocre garbage

[@dawsondemott1837]

@@jamesfort3 yeah gaming Is doing great. Alan wake 2? Bg3? People just don’t want to leave their comfort zone

[@gunbladelad7772]

So many people forget that the videogames crash back in the 1980s was very much localised to the USA - most of the rest of the world quite happily kept on gaming without any problems - but of course, Europe in particular was keener on home computers at the time than games consoles. In fact, that's why so many game development companies spung up in Europe - courtesy of the sheer amount of bedroom coders in the 1980s.

[@leewhite2195]

Yeah,the pre NES generation to me wasn't Atari or Intellivision but C64/ZX Spectrum.Those crappy console versions of Pac Man and Space Invaders couldn't beat the likes of Manic Miner and Dizzy.

[@Kevin-mx4vm]

Video games existed in 1980s???

[@fallencyano9015]

​@@Kevin-mx4vmthey even existed in the 60's (although extremely barebones), video games only started gaining in popularity in the 70s though

[@lilac841]

I'm a concept artist, and I was laid off just 2 weeks after getting hired at a major studio. Luckily I still have a part time job as an art professor so things aren't completely dire. Many of my friends were also laid off, and we decided this would be the time to work on the indie game we have been talking about for years. We are only a team of 6 right now and working on a volunteer basis, but we have a dozen other talented people who want to join. I know projects like ours are a long shot but with a group of very skilled artists, writers, and game designers with lot's of professional experience behind our belts.

[@retrocatalog]

I wish you the best of luck...

[@wiseass2149]

Good luck

[@nsgames24]

Heck yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing what you and your team release. I actually started indie game dev, last year and while its a solo project that's probably going to take a good while for me to make, I'm making of the best of it and learning some new things on this journey is a pretty cool experience, personally.

[@sinusoidalKant]

Good Luck!

[@lilac841]

@@nsgames24 congratulations! I hope it continues to go well!

[@samboujaiteh3331]

Usually this is a cycle: 1. Layoffs -> 2. Lots of free agents making their own productions -> 3. Productions are modest but successful -> 4. Big Video Game, hurting for prestige, acquires modest production studio -> 5. Cycle comes around again 5 or 10 years later.

[@ComputerChickProductions]

Truth there !

[@PostUberClarity2.0]

True fax

[@dbunik44]

If this industry is around in five or 10 years, this industry is eating itself

[@randoir1863]

the cycle being referred to is called : BOOM , BUST and ECHO and happens in all industries of the economy .

[@lupolinar]

I guess most of the lay offs were in administration and other paper jobs. Not much of in the way of creative power..

[@kurimc.mystic5341]

The wildest thing about how big gaming is I legit knew a grandfather in his 60s who played team fortress 2 until he died

[@notsobigbelow7819]

Man, I used to run BO1 zombies with a dude that was in his 60s.

[@SCHMALLZZZ]

Why did he die so young?

[@PseudoDak]

@@SCHMALLZZZTf2 is 17 years old. He didn’t say the guy died at 60, he said he was in his 60’s playing until he died. Can’t be sure, but it could mean he died anywhere from 60-77 years old

[@ThePopo543]

Lol I'm playing pso2ngs right now with a guy in his 60s!

[@hollowsid9623]

RIP to your grandfather. He was a true one

[@jubei7259]

Yup, 54 year old 'gamer grandad' here. Been playing games since Space Invaders in the late 70's & still play them pretty much every day lol

[@kickstand2407]

Unsold copies of Forespoken, Suicide Squad: KtJL, and PlayStation Portals buried in a dump in a New Mexico dump when?

[@turkey_sandwhich]

LMAOOOO

[@dark_winter8238]

The portal is actually selling well somehow

[@user-nj3xc8xp7j]

@dark_winter8238 H-how?

[@Majinhero]

​@@dark_winter8238that may be because they did not make a lot

[@kickstand2407]

@@dark_winter8238homebrew community already got to run a PSP emulator

[@EdinMike]

Honestly, I’ve enjoyed the Indie market far more for the last 10 years probably at this point.

[@toyvania]

True. The only AAA game experiences I buy are from Sega, Nintendo, and From Software. Aside from those, I only play indie and retro games.

[@sigisig3941]

yeah same. they got fresh and nice ideas.

[@lingus1382]

Especially recently with games like palworld and lethal company it feels like indie games are the only ones worth playing nowadays lol

[@MiguelDebruyne]

Me to but that's probably mostly because I've had a shitty pc for 15 years.

[@howdoichangemyprofilepictu9839]

​@@toyvaniatake a detour for helldivers, but you should be good, can't wait for the elder ring dlc, and I'm desperate for more armored core.

[@darkking4748]

The issue is that super high graphics take way too long to make for the pay off. Most games should focus on gameplay, mechanics and lower fidelity graphics. So they can make more games and focus on good gameplay rather than making 3d models and making sure the engine can render them in time.

[@nsgames24]

This is why I'll never understand why there's many folks, out there who focus on visuals and resolution more than anything in a game. It's just one part of the experience. Games can look pretty, but that's never been a selling point to me personally. There have been games that released in the past and present that have up-to-date visuals, but was severely lacking in the gameplay department.

[@gameragodzilla]

Robocop Rogue City was made on a AA budget and while the character models and facial animations show the budgetary constraints, the actual environments look great. And gameplay was also great and very much in line with Robocop. I think games like that are the future. Still bigger than indie to have greater scale but smaller than AAA to still minimize risk and retain some freedom. A game like Robocop was a huge success for publisher Nacon despite obviously not selling AAA numbers, because it doesn’t need to sell AAA numbers and fill the game with microtransactions or battle passes to turn a tidy profit.

[@ajhill6655]

I"m 73 and my favorite games currently are Elden Rings, Bloodborne, Demon Souls, and Destiny.... game on!

[@kaj7135]

Based Yharnam grandpa.

[@DrRAZI99]

You had me till u said destiny...

[@HorrificallyTerrific]

Root beer 🍺

[@darkrealm9136]

Bloodborne and Elden ring are just too good

[@geistreichtube]

Helldivers 2!

[@NotSuperSerious]

if only they focused on making games instead of milking machines, then they could probably budget more accurately, and avoid flop after flop that costs hundreds of millions to make

[@archimedesbird3439]

*milking machines*

[@kamisama9421]

milking machines

[@j100j]

Wallet milking machines*

[@greysunited7317]

Pumps... 😏

[@martialarborist7918]

B-b-but won't someone think about the shareholders? They need those extra yachts and private jets, and a modest, reasonable return on investment just won't do. They need to milk consumers for every last penny, won't you have a heart?

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

It's not just gaming. There's a giant recession looming. I'm an embedded engineer and I got recently laid off. Finding work is more difficult than ever. In a country that has been screaming about engineer shortages for decades. And suddenly there's just no work. We're in for another once in your lifetime economic crash

[@JP-pq9xi]

I had 3 engineers on my team but we laid them off because we can use AI to do their jobs.

[@lordxeno8270]

@@JP-pq9xiAs an engineering major, well done that’s just what I wanted to hear

[@erreyakendo8290]

They need a Engineer that accept in been paid in banana or peanuts. They don't wanted to pay a wage where cover all the necessity.

[@JP-pq9xi]

@@lordxeno8270 i wouldn't worry actually. One thing I am just starting to realize is how much new technology we can create. This is going to accelerate progress which will require even more people. Right now, in the short term, it sucks. But I actually think we can focus on solutions to problems far exceeding our current expectations from humanity that you will be more than gainfully employed. Do not think your degree is useless. It is not.

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

​@@JP-pq9xiNone of the AI I've seen can do the job without an engineer being very hands-on. But at this point, the AI is also out of a job. There are no projects to work on.

[@skvdi]

So kinda like the FaZe clan situation, they wanted to grow bigger so they hired some professionals in business and eventually lost their own company to the people they brought in. The business professionals saw a money opportunity, and the FaZe members saw a community and a shared passion within it.

[@befeather]

The Glock casually laying behind Muta 🧐🧐

[@ManyDog]

He strapped

[@PopcornMax179]

ABP Always Be Packin'

[@TimeBomb014X]

​@@ManyDogaint he in Canada, thought Lil Fidel was against Canadians owning guns

[@tetrisgonzo37]

​@@TimeBomb014Xnah he moved to the states

[@TimeBomb014X]

@@tetrisgonzo37 good for him, hopefully he went to one of the saner states

[@wantsome-zs5sq]

I lived the crash in the 80's. People were still playing video games. A bunch of my friends had Atari's. The hobby was flooded with so many games people didn't know what to buy. I remember seeing massive bargain bins at toy stores full of games. All we had to go by was word of mouth on what was good. I had a buddy that was mowing lawns to buy all the games he could. Games were less then $5 at the time. We were starving for something new. Thats why when the NES game out it was such a hit. We used to walk to the local electronic store and they had a NES on display with a couch. We would sit there and play Super Mario until they kicked us out. Atari crashed because there was no new generation until the NES came out.

[@heatherharrison264]

I also lived through it. It it the console market hard. The Atari 2600 was the market leader, but there were many competitors, and by the time of the crash, the technology of the Atari 2600 was becoming out of date. There was a lot of shovelware, both from AAA studios and indie developers. I remember the $5 bargain bins too. By the time the crash happened, I had shifted to the Atari 800 computer, and I stayed with that for a while until I finally jumped onto MS-DOS. I left console gaming after the Atari 2600 and have never returned to it. At the time, the genres I liked (CRPGs, text adventures, and the like) were primarily PC games, while the consoles got more of the arcade-style games that are not compatible with my poor reflexes. Aside from the colossal flop of E.T. and the bargain bins full of obscure games, I didn't initially notice the crash, but in the intervening years, there was a wave of mergers and bankruptcies which affected the entire market, not just the console market. The video game market on the 8-bit computers was a niche, but it remained viable through the 1980s. Atari was hurt, of course, by the collapse of the console market, but Commodore and Apple weren't players in the console market, and they came through the crash in better shape. However, the video game market on the 8-bit computers was stunted by piracy, which was rampant back then (and I'm sad to say that I was part of that problem).

[@jjay350]

Too much stagnation combined with an over-abundance of low-effort games. Sounds a lot like today's mobile inspired market.

[@fireraid9173]

People comparing the crash in that year when there were a handful of companies making games to nowdays where indie games are flowing and even big games are still hitting like bg3 is just silly and out of touch. There is going to be a crash though, but it's gonna be the entire american economy itself at this rate.

[@WaldoIsMissing]

The crash of the 80s happened because Atari was doing great so they just allowed absolute garbage to keep pouring out because they thought their fans were loyal and they had the market cornered. Little did they know, people wouldn’t take it and just stopped buying games because it wasn’t worth the money for the garbage they were spewing forth. Completely different than today where the game companies are doing the same thing they were back in the 80s with the added stick in the eye of monetization, but gamers these days just keep consuming it. Worse yet, they blame the company and not themselves. You know how to tell it’s your fault and not the company’s? BECAUSE WE’VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH THIS ONCE! We crashed gaming in the 80s because companies just stopped caring. What did we get? A gaming explosion for the next two decades where gaming was actually innovative and awesome. Now we just blame the companies while handing them fists fulls of money. There’s no crash coming. Gamers are too busy blaming everything else while making it worse. I hate to say it, but gamers are far too unintelligent to crash gaming again. Which is also blamed on the companies because they use psychology now. It’s still no excuse and nothing will get better unless people wisen up and stop funding the ruination of their own hobbies. Review bombing doesn’t do anything to stem the tide when you’re still giving them enough money to profit. Gamers are completely oblivious to how it works. Complaining without action is akin to doing nothing at all. As the saying goes “All bark and no bite.”

[@Mike-qz4by]

Same here. 2600 and 5200's for 20 to 50 bucks

[@Nocturne989]

Did folks just forget that this isnt just in the gaming industry, its basically every industry dipping back down to normal levels after they went on hiring sprees during lockdown?

[@vismattress5760]

Exactly lol I don’t think it’s a huge “crash” necessarily

[@nerdjournal]

Don't worry, you can just go with the Asmon area and say it's the downfall of woke game companies. When they literally seem to think a game with a girl who doesn't have huge tits is woke. The point people don't care about rational and logical reasoning, the internet has fostered in the age of ragebait and everything is always the nuclear option instead of just the natural course. People are talking about video game collapse, right? Forgetting just HOW GOOD gaming was last year and the genuinely AMAZING titles we saw?

[@brogoyle]

To be completely fair, it's coincided with a GIANT surge of games that are failures critically and financially.

[@goodguybrian9764]

​@@nerdjournal I watch asmon and he has never complained about any weird anti woke stuff, he covers the stories of ppl freaking out but rarely is on there side or says they are aloud to think that even if you disagree

[@yamnbam4346]

@@nerdjournalthis. Gaming is fine rn. Some stinkers got released, but it’s not like indie games don’t exist. Plenty of shit to play if you look around or leave your comfort zone

[@TechMage299]

Greed is the worst sin to exist in this world

[@kaj7135]

That’s the most overlooked fact in human history. At least 80% of all the horrible things that happen in this world is because greedy powerful people ruin something for everybody else.

[@GrugGaming]

End times baby, only getting worse and worse everyday

[@GapedCeiling]

I love how they call it "sun setting" and and "vaulting" when its really just "canceling" and "removing" lmao.... And we as a gaming community just go OHH OKAYY.....

[@famimame]

sun setting has been a common term in the gaming industry for a long time.

[@Maximilian1990]

Well you're other options would be to buy out the sunsetted ips, or to cry about it online

[@babyeaterwhoeatsbabies361]

​@@Maximilian1990"Well your only other options would be to buy out the sun setted IP's or cry about it online" ☝️🤓

[@TyshaggyGaming]

Cmon big guy, suns getting real low

[@TheCrazyCanuck420]

This is what happens with publically traded companies, when revenue dips the heads roll. It's such a short sighted way to operate and I wish more of the game industry didn't have to answer to public shareholders.

[@staringcorgi6475]

What the shareholders should want is good games since it would increase profit margins as long it’s advertised well

[@chimpana]

​@@staringcorgi6475the problem is that share prices react disproportionately to short term factors, and of course there is also a quarterly and annual reporting cycle that increases the pressure to show returns.

[@Maximilian1990]

It's how things work in any publicly traded company unfortunately. Bad revenue means shareholder pressure; the easiest way to lower said pressure is to increase the revenue share by slashing costs. And the easiest way to slash costs is to fire people.

[@calibula95]

​​@@staringcorgi6475the problem is, shareholders only pursue short term profits. The moment the devs stop growing, some will panic sell and the rest will follow them (like the good sheep they are) and then the devs will be ruined.

[@balancedgaming2103]

Stop buying AAA games. It might suck to not buy the new COD or Assassins Creed or FIFA. Boycott them and only give your money to indie titles. Side rant: I still love Nintendo. They could probably put out whatever slop they want and I would still begrudgingly buy it. I literally have both Scarlet AND Violet and they're both just as broken as launch day. The last Call of Duty I have bought was modern warfare 2019. Kinda disappointed in that purchase but I had fun playing with friends. About the only reason I got it that year. Assassin's Creed was Odyssey. I personally like the large, open world Assassin's Creed games. Just wish there was more variety and purpose behind it. Valhalla took it too far. Never been a big sports person and they usually drop from (now a RIDICULOUS $70) at launch, to being worth $5 a year later. Become a smarter consumer. Now I'm not saying skip a AAA title you're genuinely excited for, like a new FromSoft game or Pokemon or FF remaster/remake or whatever. Just stop supporting the machine. Earn the microtransactions yourself. Challenge yourself to do so. And if it's so ridiculously long to earn it, well there's something fishy up with that. Microtransactions are probably the worst part of the industry hand in hand with loot boxes.

[@Zarathushtra-qm1kf]

The crash in 1983 had the largest impact in the United States. It rippled through all sectors of the global video game market worldwide, though sales of video games still remained strong in Japan, Europe, and Canada from the beleaguered American companies.

[@thedrewster0408]

Namely for Japan, that was at a time during the bubble economy era where many Japanese gaming companies were at their golden age in terms of income, with Nintendo and Sega dominating the console industry. While places like Europe or Canada had a huge PC market that nearly dominated the industry at that time.

[@OfficialDJSoru]

​@@thedrewster0408definitely on that last part. I'm pretty sure back then most people in Europe playing games if asked about the NES would say "What's that?" while playing on a C64 or ZX Spectrum.

[@thedrewster0408]

@@OfficialDJSoru What’s really interesting is that in Brazil, the Sega Master System was so popular that it was the only territory in the world where a Sega console outsold the NES by a large margin. The Brazilian video game distributor for Sega, TecToy, still develops iterations of the Master System to this day.

[@jessyfretz5800]

Comparing video games in 1983 vs 2024 is like comparing porn between then and now. It's not even close enough to think it's the same industry and product.

[@itsumayo]

I personally think triple A games and studios aren’t going to crash with a bang, but rather rot and crumble with a whimper. And it’s most likely gonna be indie devs that prevail

[@cola98765]

I truly hope so. There are better games made by individuals or small to medium teams than those made by big corporations.

[@DomaldVale]

GTA 6!!!!!

[@lotarion]

It's probably going to go through a route similar to mobile games, where most of the casual market is gonna be flooded with garbage, with some inner circles of gaming connoisseurs sharing around the few good games that come out

[@thorscape3879]

Then they'll become the megacorps and in another 40 years rot for nee independent studios to repeat the cycle.

[@ImNotFine44]

It started with indies and they are damn well gonna be there till the very end.

[@elvastan]

I actually read an article about tech industry layoffs in general, here's why they're happening, and it's really simple: Every time a mass layoff is announced, the stock goes up. Therefore, investors and the higher-ups make money every time they lay off staff. Notably, the only workers who haven't been subject to layoffs are unionized ones, where the executives have to give a 6 month notice. Gaming isn't dying, it just needs to Unionize

[@cola98765]

Layoffs causing stock to go up is such counterintuitive thing for me. Yes the operational costs will drop... so will productivity. Imagine if a car company were to fire ALL of the staff responsible for making new cars. If it's indeed how you say it is the stock would go up... for a year, and then as company can only make and sell old models the sales start to drop.

[@southparkfirefly]

To be fair...EVERYONE is laying off people. Supermarkets, gaming companies ect. It's not just a Video game crash it's an everything crash. Recession sucks.

[@zahirjunejo7490]

Exactly, dont know why everybody is looking at the game industry at this recession i mean heck there are tech layoffs in non game dev jobs as well.

[@victornoel36]

I'm an animation student. I've seen Disney and Warner laying off a lot of people too, which means I'll struggle a lot more to find a job when I graduate

[@Giratina871]

​@@zahirjunejo7490 from what I can gather from Muta's video, its not the layoffs itself that is the main problem, but that those on the higher positions are raking the money for themselves, and moreso by kicking out the actual people who work. This results into having less passionate people working on the games, which in turn makes the games worse, which allows the execs to make an "excuse" that they aren't doing well, hence they're kicking more people out of the company to "streamline". This is particularly the case with AAA and AAAA companies, though if they'd actually focus on game quality, they wouldn't have this problem; layoffs would've been quite unneeded.

[@tristanlyman]

discord is laying off people too

[@CygnusOrb]

But the government says everything is peachy-keen.

[@Vash.Baldeus]

The result of big corpo companies thinking they can get away with releasing unfinished games where they let the product sit on the market until they break even before they start fixing it if at all. Then comes the Small studio that releases a game that racks in a lot of positivity combines with multi millions in revenue outclassing AAA games because the product is GOOD and ready for release (even if it's Early Access where it's front and center said that it is Early Access along with a $30 or so price tag)

[@ATTENTIONseekinggaming]

joe rogans right video games are a waste of time

[@Vash.Baldeus]

@@ATTENTIONseekinggaming depends, sitting down watching Soccer/Football/NBA or any other sport is also a waste of time, watching a movie is a waste of time, same applies to tv shows too. Yet people call in sick or take days off to watch superbowl etc. If we follow your logic, everything is a waste of time.

[@Maximilian1990]

But corpos haven't changed their practice nor will they, they just laid off the covid bloat to appease shareholders (another typical corpo move).

[@Saxxy_Mann]

Ultrakill moment

[@wuldkrii789]

@@ATTENTIONseekinggaming time enjoyed is not time wasted

[@DrGameboyPHD]

Having generative AI make something for a company to release a product for $15 is being really....optimistic. They're gonna charge us full cash 💸 for anything from these big companies, regardless of their own costs.

[@lotarion]

Or they could drop it a bit and rake in a lot more cash by boosting sales

[@umporeon0132]

It's incredibly optimistic. Especially considering how expensive it is to get the equipment and permissions to use the AI.

[@Faithfulhound]

I believe we're all seeing another shift in gaming habits. Where the large companies have lost the trust from the community for a while now and small indie projects/companies are starting to take the stage. Especially when the giants fixate on revenue (which for the business model isn't wrong) but in the process ignore valid criticism or future ideas from the consumer base. Many have seen shifts like this happen before, and if enough people respond by boycotting a purchase, surprisingly, over time, does it impact the company. It sucks that many of these companies rely heavily on updates instead of having a finished product from the get-go like we all saw when it was the norm to buy a physical copy of a game. Great video, as always, Muta, and I really appreciate the community here voicing themselves on this issue. 🔥

[@DarkepyonX]

No 😂😂😂 They lost trust of a tiny af portion . Diablo Immortal during it's negative hype hit 30 million players before asia server opened which is currently 60% of its players and revenue, so clearly 50-70 million jumped on board and game is doing well even with all the bad press . People like Muta and these comments only represent 5% of gamers at best . Casuals enjoy the games and keep buying them at increased rates year over year . Your post is nonsense as even if you got everyone who thinks that way to boycott or complain there are far far far more people happily plugging away on games . This is the reality and people need to grow up and accept it because it's not changing anytime in next decade or so .

[@Faithfulhound]

​@DarkepyonX let's break that down. Yes, this is a smaller margin of thinking when it comes to video games. Yet, truly bad products like Cyberpunk 2077, Anthem, and similar caught legit negative heat from them being bad. When you mention Diablo immortal, people have been hungry for a continuation and were going to purchase it. I personally didn't think it was bad dispute what was put out. Referring to your boycotting response, that's what's called growing up. Knowing which purchases are worth your money and investment of time. Casual players are the same people who rush out to buy a console to only sell it a few months later. If they or whoever want to do that, by all means. So I fail to see how that's not the reality of it all when more than ever people are faced with a choice. Either to Ignore any risk and mindlessly buying or don't and vet/accept that risk on a smaller scale.

[@umporeon0132]

@@Faithfulhound Yep! It's people who decide to dive headfirst without thinking, who end up stuck with their head in a hole they can't get out of. If they waited and thought about it, they could have walked around it.

[@richardstrikesback8798]

Fun fact: while AAA is firing everyone, who can do anything related to video games, Larian plans to hire tons of specialists. They encouraged people to send their resumes, even if there's no open role fitting right now.

[@gregorysheridan2015]

Ok lets cut the bs. I love larian and I love baldurs gate but larian was NOTORIOUS for being a bad video game company to work for because they constantly laid people off due to never being profitable until the success divinity.

[@koli4213]

@@gregorysheridan2015now that they're making a shit ton of money that shouldn't be a problem right? Larian doesn't seem like the type to lay off people if they're doing good financially, but you never know

[@gregorysheridan2015]

@@koli4213 yeaaaaaaah.... I dont know if you were born yesterday but everyone has said the same thing about every other successful game company barring like... from software and even they shit the bed with dark souls 1 remastered. Everyone thought blizzard, bethesda, cd projekt red and plenty other companies could do no wrong at one point.

[@Ciberstreak19]

​@@gregorysheridan2015 at least Fromsoftware is still releasing good games

[@TheCheeseMovesSideways]

@@gregorysheridan2015 we'll see. Im not putting much hope on any developers but there's no doubt that Larian have potential, we just gotta wait and see

[@ShinjiIkari007]

What happened to all the 15-30 hours experiences we used to have back in the PS1, PS2, PS3 era? Like most of the good games we have played growing up have been shorter but fulfilling experiences. The Greek GOWs, Hitman games, old GTA games, Prince of Persia trilogy, MGS games,Half life, DMC games, Dark souls series, Bloodborne, Max Payne, Mass effect series, Resident evil series, Dead Space, COD single player campaigns, DOOM, Old Assasins Creed games, Portal, Silent Hill, Outlast, Shadow of Colossus, SOCOM, Gravity Rush, even recent AAA linear games like Sekiro, Uncharted Series, DOOM Eternal... Like the list goes on. Older games used be shorter but more focused & fun. And we didn't have to wait 5 years for the next game. But now we have AAA games that are just bloated with cutscenes & repetitive side missions. They have no reason to be 70-80 hours long & no reason to cost 300-400 million dollars. Just make 15-30 hours games & get them out quickly no one has time to wait for half a decade.

[@LukiGames0]

Final Fantasy 16 its great example. It should be linear movie like experience.

[@erreyakendo8290]

The reason? In PS2, gaming industry start to show more promising revenue and profit, so every greed investors start to search and injecting money, then this start become more and more common and investors want one thing: Earn more money. So to make this more "sustainable" start to move to more DLCs, Microtransaction, Physiological Behavior, this become more clear when Iphone start to become a thing and Mobile Games start to show a big new market open. In resume, Money, that it's happen. Before that, create a game was a really difficult to convince someone to inject some money in a absolute risky thing.

[@Adam-wt5id]

While I completely agree, i say all the time “aint nobody got time to play all that,” i have to point out some of the examples you used are quite large experiences. MGS series games are long even on the ps2, and mass effect is 20 hours at it’s shortest while skipping virtually half its content. I really want to go back to the days when arkham city felt HUGE. When games were DENSE and had a bunch of quality content in them. I think it’s important to give good examples of what we want to see instead of just listing the good games from the past. 05-09 was the greatest run in gaming history

[@LukiGames0]

@@Adam-wt5id Personally i am getting burned out if game has more than 35 hours. I rather take short condensed experience than for example another AC Valhalla.

[@zacharyessey5904]

I like long games, but I do agree. Wild Arms and Gensou Suikoden II could be beaten in under 50 hours with the latter being beatable in under 40 hours and it is one of my favourite stories.

[@shirtstillithurts2814]

I checked out of the AAA gaming space years ago. There's so many terrific indie titles that they've basically re-carved out the AA niche of the early 2000's I, and many others once thought extinct.

[@Delmworks]

Kinda wish I had enough of a nest egg to start my own company. With so many experienced people fired and looking for work, it seems like one of the best time to be hiring…

[@12inch_monster]

gee with the economy inflating, game production skyrocketing, gamers shunning predatory in-game monetization that publishers are enforcing, and new games releasing unfinished every other day, what could go wrong. the industry badly needs a reset. and im glad. i have a backlog of great games that can hold me over for months until they figure it out

[@mresab1997]

Well said on the backlog. Ditto.

[@DarkepyonX]

Inflation is down and costs are going down , remaining high prices are corporate greed now .

[@jase276]

months? you think it'll take months? try years, if even

[@NetBattler]

It will take over a decade for that

[@Rob7274]

My backlog will last me years.

[@grumpydave7329]

"We figure between unpaid interns and AI... We don't really need to pay anybody to do anything now, so..."

[@samf.s.7731]

You nailed it

[@kevinhixson1586]

-Bethesda probably.

[@anonisnoone6125]

That's not it. These companies have too many employees that don't need to be there.

[@KGBSpyGeorgeCostanza]

Capitalism baby

[@Dontstopbelievingman]

​@@kevinhixson1586Bethesda, training AI that thinks clipping is mandatory.

[@elaias4955]

An interesting thing is how most of these layoffs couldve not happened: A decade ago when the Wii U flopped Nintendo didnt lay off anyone, but Iwata halved his salary (due to Japan’s laws). Even now Nintendo’s CEO’s salary is like 1/5 of Activision’s or EA’s CEOs, but theyre too damn greedy to lose a couple millions.

[@nikkiofthevalley]

Yeah. Honestly a lot of the problems with companies come from shareholders and the higher-up's greed, eventually. Shareholders force the company to constantly grow, which is just not sustainable. And the greed makes it even worse. Even this situation is because of that, the AAA studios constantly pump out complete garbage as fast as possible for as much money as possible, which obviously is going to make people go to indie studios instead. I just wish that could happen with a lot of other stuff.

[@CoronaMage]

Gaming isn't dying, it's being murdered by corporate

[@WaddyMuters]

The worst thing is. So few people in comparison to other industries work on these games and the profits are so astronomic, but somehow all that profit doesn’t make it to like this extremely small staff.

[@Sweg177]

i think there is another factor at work here, some of the recent games that obliterated AAA studios in sales are from small companies with minimal backing. And now these big companies realizing they dont need a large work force to make a compelling game .

[@davethescrub858]

They need dedicated workers who love the projects they're working on - something those companies lost along the way in sight of goals and milestones.

[@CesarinPillinGaming]

@@davethescrub858unfortunately, the leadership will incorrectly assume the wrong thing about indies and small teams and will again shot themselves in the foot.

[@Semmarv]

The lesson learned: you can make games with small teams. The lesson they will refuse to hear: The CEO cannot stand behind the engineers and ask "are we there yet?" Nor can he insist on a billion extra microtransaction revenue streams to find his personal $375 million severance package. Bobby Kotic and similar suits add negative value when the cost to pay them is enough to develop palworld 50 times over but you better bet the suits aren't gonna learn that.

[@BoredPodcaster]

They don't, and these big companies have the resources to make great games. The difference is they lack any creative sense whatsoever, and push aside innovation in favor of cookie-cutter crap. They've done it for so long, they've become incapable of doing anything else, creatively. The small companies are winning the market because they do what it takes to make a great product; they HAVE to, because if they fail, they probably go out of business. They are the new Nintendo when NES was new: They have to prove the quality of their games, and if the games aren't good, they can't fund the next one. That's how it should be, but these big corporate gaming companies have the funds to keep shoveling out garbage, and the brand names to get people to buy on name alone.

[@lotarion]

​@@Semmarv case in point: Arrowhead CEO's response to some random being annoyed with the servers "Would it be better if I stood behind the backs of the devs asking them "Are we there yet?", or should I let the professionals do their goddamn jobs in peace?"

[@davidmaglioli7048]

A lot of it has to do with companies over hiring post COVID. Many companies were desperate for employees for awhile and hired a ton of people. Now, that COVID is over and people have returned to work you have a lot of companies cutting the fat and trimming down their work force because they don't need that many employees anymore. I think that's what is happening here.

[@kaj7135]

Don’t forget DEI and other dumb shit like that ruining companies.

[@kenji214245]

Overhiring to do worker farming has been a thing in the tech industry to help boost the stocks. Hiring=success pretty much But to keep the rising profits in the fancy green when recession hits is to do a savings package by firing "redundant" roles from this method

[@juantony]

I’m kind of proud of the gaming community seeing through this mess. The more you keep releasing the same genre, boring flop games, the more of the people catching up of the issue. But remember, don’t always assume the worst of things, there’s a silver lining to the end. Let us all hope they clean up their act towards the end of the year.

[@Maximilian1990]

Did you even watch the video? He literally said that the "crash" is a result of a post-pandemic cooldown and he also said that the number of "casual" gamers who are buying identical triple A junk will likely keep rising. Not to mention the fact that AI is about to run rampant through the entire gaming industry. Which part of that made you optimistic

[@ATTENTIONseekinggaming]

you didn’t watch the full vid 🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♂️

[@noaht2005]

it's worth noting the 80s crash was only a big deal in the states. Europe and japan were barely affected

[@TheStolenBattenberg]

Always hated this being propagated as a global thing. Even in the UK where I went to college for game design, they tried to teach that the NES saved everything, yet my parents were happy playing ZX Spectrum games and game development was flourishing during the supposed global crash.

[@cbtillery135]

@@TheStolenBattenberg well that's because the Euro market was bigger on computers for gaming than consoles in the 80s, the NES saved the console market because the console market was an American thing.

[@TheStolenBattenberg]

@@cbtillery135 I think that’s part of what the parent comment and my own were saying. A problem with this topic is that rarely will anyone ever make a distinction between computer and console gaming though, sure.

[@vuthara8725]

I feel like the reason Japan gets thrown in arbitrarily is due to the real estate crisis that would start not only three years later.

[@ruffles886]

Shoutout to Grandpa Gaming! 71 year old retired veteran and one of my favorite streamers. Since you said grandparents are also gaming.

[@RealCoachMustafa]

I've been in the AAA gaming industry and there's a lot of fluff when it comes to corporate spending. Not only do they have a lot of employees who are over paid for doing nothing, but the companies spend so much money on stupid expenses just to build "company culture." We would get catered dinners during crunch year, catered lunches, pizza parties/happy hour when we launch anything even an update. One company I was with spent so much money on renovating the office, which we ended up not using for over a year due to lock downs, and when they finally opened it up, it was basically a big daycare for adults but that company had to have a big layoff every year. During all-hands meetings, we're able to submit questions to the CEO and I submit a question asking why are we spending so much money on catered lunches and other things when all we want is just to get paid more and spend more time with our families, and his reply is that it's essential for us to build a fun company culture.

[@chimpana]

whilst i get your point, thank god people with your perspective aren't in charge of all office facilities. There is such a thing as culture, and there are ways of promoting good culture through investment in environment etc. Clearly that can be overdone, but the idea that all employees care about is salary and their hours really isn't supported by research.

[@hex1233]

Reminds me of Sony building super cutting edge offices for their support studios a few years back just to announce 900 layoffs this year 💀

[@theslx7911]

@@chimpana"Shame on you for knowing what you want! I'll tell YOU what you want!" But seriously, you're wrong. I worked for a company that has 15 offices globally, a customer service call center that handled inbound and outbound for a rather large, well-known bank for one of their credit cards, I worked as a Fraud supervisor for about a year. This company spent heaps of money on catered meals, paint jobs to each of the office spaces, and lots of "special activity fun-days" around the office. All of this money and effort was spent to promote a company culture that is literally a lie. 90% of our workforce cared nothing about these activities, most people didn't participate. Most days, most of the employees I worked with walked through the building like zombies, hardly talking to or engaging with one another at all, due to the rules and regulations of the place. Saying the wrong thing once could you get disciplined or fired, and they have a lot of "woke" policies. You could see it daily on the faces of the whole staff, it didnt' matter how much money is spent on promoting a "culture", at the end of the day, people just want to make more money and spent more time with our families. These "company culture" building efforts don't work because we're all just people here to make money, being forced to work with strangers. The last place we want to be is work, and the time we ARE forced to be there, we'd like to maximize the amount we take home, not have it being redistributed to make the office "fun" for the bored management who don't want to be there either.

[@chimpana]

@@theslx7911 dude I've worked across numerous sectors and sizes of orgs for a good while now. Whilst I understand not everyone cares as much as others, there are plenty that do. Honestly the idea that all work is about is money is so outdated that I don't know what to say to you... plenty of people at a certain level will choose purpose and culture over money every time. I genuinely hope you get to work for a decent employer in a decent environment, as it sounds like where you were sucked.

[@chimpana]

@@theslx7911 for some reason my reply got lost. Long story short, the irony here is really that you are trying to say that all anyone cares about is cash and hours, and I'm saying whilst that's true for some, it's far from true for many. I've worked across a variety of different businesses, of different scales, sectors etc. and trust me I'll take a sense of purpose and good culture over short hours and pure cash every time (and have done in my career).

[@troller9838]

This wave of developers being laid off does have a positive side, some of them will form their own indie studios which is a win for gamers since indie games tend to be better put together then a lot of the AAA games due to the fact they don't have some out of touch suits telling them what to do.

[@staringcorgi6475]

I don’t think so bc the majority of the game dev have no experience in business or don’t have the cash to start an indie dev studio

[@gary7867]

@@staringcorgi6475 indieslop will be norm my bros.

[@CesarinPillinGaming]

Indie studios still require money. You can't just say "lol let's all go indie".

[@GeometricPidgeon]

where does the venture capital come from? how do i get paid if i work indie? also; if you think that being laid off or just working in a generally toxic AAA industry would push devs and artists to indie.. that's a naive assumption; you dont even want to know how many talented people were bullied out of the industry. why work in a sector that doesnt value you anywhere, squeezes all your energy during crunch cycles without OT compensation.. give a good reason to keep working in that sector.

[@roach3554]

And the fact that 99% of indies are complete trash, I wonder why nobody talks about something like "sex and the furry titty"

[@MoneyBuysDrug]

Muta sitting there thinking we wouldn’t the Glock on the desk behind him

[@piewackete]

i was wondering if anyone else noticed that lol, i just bought a couple glocks last week and i saw that by the game cases and im lke s that a real glock or airsoft? i know hes in canada but im pretty sure he said he has real firearms

[@zero131056]

LMAO i legit thought there wouldn't be a comment about this.

[@SL4PSH0CK]

muta's glocky

[@thomashart3473]

SomeOrdinaryGlocker

[@FleshWizard69420]

In comes Futahar with the big black glock

[@Miss_All_Sundays]

We've been complaining about the low quality, soulless content and high prices of AAA games for how long...? This comes as no surprise, they keep pumping out generic trash and it gets more and more expensive with time. Except for the games in the Yakuza and Persona series, which are my favorites and I kind of gravitate to them no matter what, it's been forever since I last saw an AAA that I though looked interesting. I've been feeding off indie titles for almost a decade and I am well fed and satisfied.

[@Joestar96]

It's just corporate greed and companies wanting to receive a 200-300% profit rate

[@runarvollan]

6 kids created the original Tomb Raider from 1994 to 96 as the first ever 3rd person 3D action adventure. Still a classic like Chess. As opposed to Michael Bay's Pentagon budgeted Transformers movies.

[@cristiancervantes3088]

Whoa whoa whoa We not allowing Bays transformers movies Yes they are basic But still fun

[@NetBattler]

Wait fr?

[@Chlocean]

What in the apples-to-oranges-to-mangoes is this comment

[@dobrevalentin194]

I started to work remotely at the start of 2021 for a manual QA role for a local company and lately the amount of work and the pressure due to layoffs is real. Especially taking into account that the job market for people outside of US is so much more limited, hopefully everyone affected by the recent layoffs will find a new job soon.

[@SaltyPeanutz]

I'm 35. Compared to when I was 14. The quality has definitely gone down. There's no way around it, that's just the truth. Hopefully in 5 or 10 years it will be refreshed.

[@arcuson5468]

muta's hair lookin so good in this video ngl i wasnt listening half the time just staring at those luscious locks

[@brycejohansen7114]

There's also a problem with the limited time frame of the consumer, a lot of these massive games take so much time to complete as a consumer. There's a point where you look at your library and know that you don't really need to buy another game, that the backlog is just that big enough.

[@TylerjWebb]

An interesting thing about retro games is the hardware costs that are wild to imagine today.

[@balancedgaming2103]

Like in the case of cartridges? Absolutely. Thankfully (if) you're american or have legal access to coming here, we have a fairly robust retro game market. Not so much at places like Gamestop, but at your local game stores and at game conventions. The conventions happen all the time. Also, Pawn shops, Used book stores, thrift stores, yard sales, all have stuff for a steal usually. Or at least inconsistent prices - meaning you'll usually find a couple things for a steal and a few things super overpriced.

[@TylerjWebb]

@balancedgaming2103 I mean more the production costs. Disks and digital cost companies nothing to produce compared to cartridges. Back in the day, games cost nothing to program and a fortune to manufacture. Now, they cost a fortune to program and nothing or almost nothing to manufacture.

[@phecdaDia]

It's sadly the inevitable result of chasing perpetually increasing shareholder profits over stability. They'll end up missing the projected goal, need to lay off people, end up hitting the goal by saving people's wages, but then the next quarter they'll want more, but now still miss the employees. So they'll miss the projected goal even further, need to lay off more, and repeat this until the system breaks down.

[@Spubbily01]

Gaming is not dying, AAA gaming is.

[@fajaradi1223]

Please stop buying yearly released sports games.

[@groboggan9535]

Haha

[@baresize]

i agree, but the people who buy them are usually casual players. There’s nothing wrong with being a casual player, but they usually arent interested in the state of the industry.

[@ShinigamiRa]

So real, my elder brother and I had to stop buying NBA 2k a couple years ago because we realized that we were allowing ourselves to be robbed year after year.

[@gamingxmachina6718]

especially from 2k, who say f u to pc and wont give pc next gen features

[@SuperColtsrock11]

I only buy mlb which is the most consumer friendly of the sports games

[@beatle7809]

I welcome it. AAA gaming has been very anti-consumer for the past 7 years now. I only play indie games now. I’ll never give EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft money ever again.

[@gaminggarbage22]

Gaming Industry has ballooned since the Lockdowns. -- 2019 Total Revenue : $120B -- 2023 Total Revenue : $600B * That a 500% increase in 5yrs. Pretty amazing.

[@RingoYote]

Well, when you lock down economies and force people to stay home..........

[@TyshaggyGaming]

Yeah but how much is from mainstream devs compared to the indie scene? I mean we literally witness a roblox furry create a game that outsold call of duty. I don’t think theres a grander statement to the gaming industry than that

[@gaminggarbage22]

That's a different argument and while I do agree of the difference is greatly scewed I'm simply stating monitary numbers of the growth of the industry as a whole and that it's too fast. With the pull-back in stimulus the bubble's bursting. -- I keep up with news every week 🙃. I wouldn't mind the sub.

[@sirhamalot110]

i’ve been saying it for years now but game studios are trying to reach covid levels of sales and player numbers which is what’s killing the industry. there just simply aren’t that many people playing that much anymore.

[@RMDragon3]

I think the problem with triple A games is that they are getting too expensive to make, to the point they will never make enough money back. To try to sell, companies make the games as generic as possible, following trends that are years old by the time the game releases. But that doesn't work because most people get bored of such generic games. Games don't need to be as expensive to make, it would probably work better if they made a "smaller" game and sold them cheaper, like many double A games do. Especially if smaller means less boring grinding that's only there to pad out the play time.

[@benwhitehair5291]

There was a weird turning point for how games "felt" that, going back and playing, seems to have occurred around the ps3/360 era around 2008-2009. After this point a lot of games were safe sequels and there didnt seem to be as many passionately made games any more.

[@babyeaterwhoeatsbabies361]

It happened when we were leaving thay era, tbh. I remember the PS3/360 having amazimg variety, there were only a handful of IP's already going cookie-cutter but even then MW2, Black Ops 1 & 2 and the likes still obviously had passion from the development team. AAA industry sucks, but you can find that charm and passion with smaller games.

[@gameragodzilla]

Things like microtransactions in video games started appearing at the tail end of the PS3/360 era into the PS4/Xbone era. Dead Space 3 had microtransactions for the resources in game. Thankfully the game was balanced in a way that you never needed them, but it still rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Portal 2 also had cosmetic microtransactions. Man, it is sad seeing how bad things gotten. I still remember when we complained map packs were greedy for being overpriced DLC, yet that kind of stuff is light years more fair and less bullshit than loot boxes, battle passes or microtransactions. At least I’m buying a product (in this case, a few maps) for a certain price, and it doesn’t turn me into a whale spending thousands of dollars if I want everything. Buy product, give money, everyone’s happy. None of this “games as a service” nonsense.

[@amematoi]

I’ve been waiting for this to happen for YEARS…

[@cola98765]

It's a shortsightedness of a public company. > Shareholders want profits. > Management reduses the cost by cutting the workforce. > Yearly balance is saved. > Company experiences massive drop in productivity. > go to step 1

[@SapienAnamoly]

Billion dollar companies laying off employees is super gross. Give the suits a small pay cut for their products lackluster performance and keep the small guy. If they just took surveys (i see them not respecting comment threads) b4 they launched some games they wouldnt have so many flops. Who didnt see suicide squad sucking?

[@honor2996]

It’s ok, triple A games have sucked for a good bit now. But the double A and indie industries have been popping off so I’m not too worried

[@PropCrash]

I have a term for this. I call it scooping. They scoop out the middle supervision and let the associates supervise themselves. They're thinking senior supervision will pick up the slack or that graduates are taught everything about how their company works in school and they will be fine. Instead everything becomes a disaster because the associates didn't get nearly enough OJT before booting said supervisors. It doubles the development cost/time and in response they double down on their dumb decision.

[@FudderBudder]

Less of a crash, more of a correction overall I think. Interesting video my dude :D But there will be certain studios that get hit way harder than others.

[@M64bros]

While there are already tons of crappy moments in the gaming industry, I highly doubt we're going to get another video game crash anytime soon, some of the complainers that complained about this don't even know how business decisions go or even how reality stuff works. We're already getting a ton of promising games later this year, Especially with Final fantasy and a bunch of other surprises. Sure, there's going to be some bad apples but I don't think the gaming industry is going to crash anytime soon.

[@Dakumun640]

I'm personally excited for dragons dogma 2 in 10 days.

[@jjayala]

I'm not old enough to remember pong but i deff had a sega game gear. Got into gaming seriously later than most as it helped me get sober a few years back and now its my thing. It's kind of a blessing that happened because i haven't gotten tired of it all yet. I do however understand how frustrating sweating in todays live service lobbies are compared to halo 3 lobbies i remember back in the day. Corporate greed yes but i also think we are at a stage in the world where people are out of ideas and want to cling to old formulas. Not saying there are not very creative individual free thinking people and developers out there but people at a whole are kind of in a meh phase. I feel that's why coming home after a crap day of work or school a game like fortnite is so appealing. Not too much thought simple fun, I've never paid a dime for it but if you want you can spend all kinds of $$ and get all the skins or whatever your heart desires. You just can't keep hoping you're going to recreate that and then be surprised when people don't like what you as a company are doing. Maybe this is what the industry needs tho as games arent going anywhere

[@oXoToCo]

The layoffs are also happening in other industries. Insurance, retail, and a ton others. GEICO recently laid off 4k people.

[@cantin8697]

I'm actually kinda optimistic about gaming as a whole though. We're seeing that indie developers are great at making games, while the huge companies are focusing too much on their games being "big" (but really containing nothing and being way too expensive). I think we're simply going to be slowly moving away from these huge corporations, and more towards indie studios and even individuals creating their games which are shorter, cheaper and more interesting. I prefer lots of smaller and cheaper games to one huge, expensive one, personally. I easily get bored of the same game, even before I've reached half-way.

[@TyshaggyGaming]

Its funny too, “big” games tend to have WAY bigger worlds but barely even the same amount content as games from 10 to 20 years ago

[@TheTobaccoman]

I think it’s more of a correction than a crash. You can only pump out crap and keep making it more expensive for so long before a boomerang effect happens. It’s not hard to see this would happen. Also was a boon during covid , not so much anymore and people are ya know , going back outside again. This was sure to happen no matter what.

[@petesaguy1707]

Very few people ever mention the real problem that leads to these layoffs - budget. It doesn't matter if your game sells 10 million copies if your game cost half a billion dollars to make, and millions more to market. Games are too expensive to make, and the price increase for consumers doesn't help sell more copies either. Games getting woke is a major problem that shouldn't be downplayed, but the true culprit is gaming companies not knowing how to budget properly.

[@sonicthomasgamer]

But if they make $10,000,000. I don’t have that much money. That’s a lot They’re a billion dollar company, they cant go broke How much the game cost to make : $10,000,000,000

[@r3ckl3ssofficial]

Yuzu and citra have permanently shut down and settled for a 2 mil law suit. :(

[@schluckauff]

Yuzu is dead

[@Dionysos_____Alters]

Was passiert?

[@Bonavire]

​@@Dionysos_____Alters ich weiß nicht :/

[@jesusbarrera6916]

Reminder that the videogame "crash" only affected north america, japan and Eutope barely even felt it

[@Krusti159]

There have been so many bangers in february, idk where to get the time to play all of this jeezus

[@NewNormalWorldOrder]

Video games are for people who hate their lives. And it’s completely understandable. The real world is so awful and video games are just more fun than this hellscape we live in.

[@bingonoid]

I freaking love being alive and playing video games

[@dreadpirates_]

This was inevitable. People are speaking with their wallets now rather than just bitching and its overall good. Maybe we will get some offline modes, less microtranactions, and ACTUALLY FINISHED GAMES NOW!!!!

[@Maximilian1990]

Actually people are being forced back into the real world and have less time to waste on gaming. Their wallets technically are going more silent, but not because the gamers had an epiphany about the state of gaming and decided to stick it to the corporations 🤷‍♂️

[@kima0009]

cod really has gone downhill. banning players just for being good at the game is a crazy industry move

[@FrahdChikun]

It's so satisfying as a huge fan of indie games to see the AAA industry crumble. People are now starting to realize what makes smaller studios so special: they're full of passionate people who want to make a game they'd play with their audience, not a bunch of corporate shills who are just trying to please investors.

[@BananaConnoisseur]

When video game slop from billion dollar game companies are outcompeted by small studio devs who make better games for way cheaper, then they deserve to fail.

[@Bread-nx9fo]

The fact that its been TWO bounty hunter games cancelled so far is so obnoxious.

[@dunkinzsoda]

Great gaming market news report. Thanks boss

[@BetweenTheLyons]

My favorite publisher right now is Devolver, and that says a lot about the industry because it used to be Ubisoft a long time ago.

[@AngryAtlantean]

I think if we want to compare and contrast between now and a crash in gaming history, it'd be more apt to conpare now to around the late 2000s, when that recession started occurring when things went on a bit of a downward slide.

[@Treevors30]

The way I think about it if the gaming consoles or if gaming is dying it's because what they're releasing. Some of it seems like unfinished games and with the microtransactions being as bad as they are they're doing it to themselves. Now the people that are actually passionate about video games that just want to make a video game for making a video game gaming will never die because of those passionate people that care

[@CidVeldoril]

I do get not wanting to work in the office, especially if the job offer was advertised with remote work as part of the deal. Many of those companies have their offices in very expensive areas where cost of living is high and standard of living is meh. Working from home means you can sit out in the sticks, don't care about most of that shit, don't have to pay high prices for lunch and do the same work you would do if you actually were in the office.

[@Katpasniss]

I've been theorizing for a few years about a gaming crash, initially expected it to happen around 2028 or something... but it is seemingly coming quicker then I expected

[@GoldNugget]

Laying off employees is a trend among the IT industry companies at the moment, because as they have realized, they don't need that many employees to keep the job done, let them leave who are actually doing some work and are good at it and everything will be good if not better, because the management also becomes easier. What does that mean to IT industry? Junior developers will have hard time finding a good job in an established company, more "startups"/self-sponsored projects and freelancers, I would also suggest that the quality of new projects from the big companies will improve. I'm working in the IT industry for a couple of years, so all of this isn't based on nothing.

[@VioletskyBri7272]

This is why I’ve been playing more retro games that I still own physical copies of since I was a kid. Also some newer games I get a physical copy of too, I just wait a few months for the price to drop or I find them used at a local game store.

[@noDice-_-]

I feel like the world is just finally getting back to normal like you said and the industry is restructuring and ditching all of the tactics they’ve been doing since their being outsold by smaller studios with less people. BG3 is I think where the industry started to hint there was changes incoming where it’s more consumer focused and more player oriented vs monetization.

[@JMaher393]

I appreciate all the games out, but personally Im burnt out of gaming. I turn on my PS5, look at the home screen, and turn it off. But I am excited to play my childhood games soon (Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection)

[@jakuth99]

Tbh I think it’s an issue with big budget entertainment in general. Studios spending so much on a games development/ film’s production that it has to reach insane numbers to make a profit all while it’s competing with equally expensive and brand-driven movies