There’s just so much insane bloat in the industry. It feels like every game made by a AAA studio has a hundreds of millions of dollar budget, and hundreds of people working on it. A lot of people are just completely unfazed by the novelty of high production value anymore. Not a majority, but the number of people checking of AAA seems to grow constantly a little bit over time.
There’s obviously an audience for these massively produced games, but I just don’t understand how every AAA game is expected to be successful like this.
Meanwhile digital publishing, with Steam Early Access being the default example, has lowered the bar to entry in the market to basically nothing. Indie and “AA” games are on the front page of the storefront next to multimillion dollar AAA games.
Sure the vast majority of Early Access games never get finished enough to grab attention, but given the sheer volume, even a tiny fraction of those games releasing and getting traction dilutes the hold of AAA games.
People spending time playing Zomboid or Kenshi aren’t spending that time playing AAA next big thing.
I’m not deluded enough to think anything like a majority of gamers are playing mostly indie games, but a noticeable enough amount might be to reduce the needed profit margin of a bloated production.
jellyfishhunter@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That feels like the ugly norm for way more than 15 years. I’m surprised it’s called a crisis just now.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 days ago
The crisis is that the triple-A industry is starting to feel consumers loss of interest in them as indie devs continue to outshine them with every release
Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org 2 days ago
lots of growth during covid that could not be sustained => many, many layoffs to prop up earning statistics in the following years.
ripcord@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Also even if it was only 15 years I’m struggling to understand the “crisis now” part.
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 hours ago
The “crisis now” part is the economic downturn. People aren’t spending as much on games as they were, especially after all these companies bet big on the idea that people would continue to spend money on games like they did during COVID forever. So now it affects the C Suite, and things only matter when they affect them personally.