The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

I’m sorry, but gamers are so entitled.

We’re flooded with an incredible back catalog and a sea of gems, yet the sentiment is “small devs are fine” is totally ignorant of how, literally the vast majority of the time per the article, these small devs barely make ends meet on their genuinely good passion project.

Or they generalize that all games are junk because they haven’t even made a bare minimum attempt to shop around the sea of excellently organized stores and review sites/databases the industry has, like they expect absolute perfection in a personal TikTok/YouTube feed directed at them, then turn around and complain about paying a few bucks for an indie after dropping $600 on a GPU.

…There really are too many games because it’s so many passion projects now, and that’s… fine. It’s a lot better than the cinema situation now, for example, where indie makers are getting squeezed so hard.

But I still don’t like the entitled culture that hurts the discoverability of these smaller games and feeds the AAA slop conveyer belts.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 26 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

The market for new video games isn’t just oversaturated — it’s nearly impenetrable. Teams of hundreds of people are spending years of their lives developing games that are destined to get lost in the sea of new releases.

Yeah, let's take one that didn't get lost. Dragon Age 4. A game that I personally had been watching and waiting for a release for 7 years since it was first teased, 11 years since the last installment. According to "traditional" ways to make games it had everything going for it. A ton of development time, marketing galore, a major studio behind it, releasing on all major platforms - aaaand it flopped. Why did it flop? According to businessmen who pretend to know gamers it should have been a wonderful success!

Except they obviously killed every creative idea that could have gone into that game. We got the most boring, bland experience out of any of the Dragon Age franchise. We got flat characters with no personality, we got no choices in the game, no real consequences to our actions, and what things they did stick the stake in the ground they browbeat you with zero nuance at all. Every line of dialogue was obviously decided by corporate committee and spoke like what I would expect to hear in an all-hands meeting instead of from someone who was supposedly my companion.

The games that did do well in the franchise? They were risque. They had choices. You could fuck up the entire world if you made bad choices. You'd have characters in your own group leave because they didn't like what you were doing. Entire groups of people could be in peril because you made a bad choice. Saying yes to one group would undoubtedly piss off another group. Those installments didn't care if they offended someone because "What if someone goes down this path and chooses this then gets a bad ending" - they did it because it'd make a great game.

Maybe the suits at the top need to finally realize that businesses don't make great games - creative people do, and just get the fuck out of their way and let them make games.

Thank you for letting me vent, this came out much longer than I expected, you can tell I'm really done with suits making games and acting all shocked that they aren't doing well

[–] DoGeeseSeeGod@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Omg yes. I love dragon age games and honestly if the corpo fuckwits didn't fuck up the game veilguad would have been a smash fucking hit. All that it is missing is the writing/stoy.

The combat is so great! Each class is fun and unique with multiple viable builds. Reset skill points whenever. It is very different from the other DA games but it is great in its own right. More action and doges, less tactics.

Oh you like the way that armor looks but the stats suck? Veilguard you can change the appearance of any armour so you get the cool looks and the good stats. Same with weapons.

Spend forever on the way your character looks during character creation? Now you want to start another play through with the same "character", but you don't want spend forever in character creation again? Veilguard let's you copy the appearance of other saves!!

Wanna pause during a cutsence? You can do that.

Veilguard has so many great game choices and quality of life improvements. Truly the only downside is the dogshit story.

These MBAs had the devs start over multiple times. The devs had some ideas, then the MBAs come in and say make an mmo. Devs are like this is stupid but you the boss. MBAs realize it's trash. Devs start over. MBAs decide to fire writers that had been there since the first game and second games. Right away veilgaurd shits on so much of the lore and world state of the previous games.

All the game needs is a half way decent story, then it would have been a huge hit I swear

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 17 hours ago

I feel every word of this, friend. Everything would have been great if they had just let the writers wrote the damn story. Too busy trying not to offend anyone that instead we got the most boring bland vanilla game out there.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 47 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

No, the video games industry has too many businessmen.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 16 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I don't know a single gamer who would say "Yup, too much, I am not looking forward to any sequel or new game on the horizon". It's that they keep releasing corporate committee-approved boring drivel that doesn't even function on release, then getting pissy that no one likes purchasing their 1000 subscriptions and addons.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 13 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Correct, to put things into precise terms, the corporate too-big-to-fail gaming industry is unable to make a profit in the gaming industry if there is any functional competition at all, even competition from indie game companies with much smaller budgets.

Just because large corporations with no desire to just let artists make art cannot make a sufficient profit unless boosted with the artificial advantage of having the rest of the industry destroyed... doesn't mean that there are too many video games out there to make money from making another one it means large corporations suck at making good video games and are unable to keep systems of upper management from undermining everything redeeming about them.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 21 hours ago

It makes total sense to me, having being a corporate drone for over a decade now. It should be obvious to them but they're too far up their own asses to see it. Any good idea is going to have some middle manager squash it because they don't like it. You can have the most interesting feature or idea ever, and even if you push it for months - make presentations, evangelize it, get people on your side, you will still have some jerkass too many levels above you that you've maybe sat in one meeting with before say "Nah, I don't think we have the capacity for that". So yeah, I don't see how corporations can think they can make meaningful games.

In a small company, or even a garage you know how things get "approved"? They say "Hey maybe we should do this" and the other person says "Oh holy shit that's an amazing idea, yes do that!".

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I can't think of any games I'm looking forward to at this point, since Subnautica 2 died. I have no planned video game purchases at this point.

I'm not really looking forward to anything at all, if I'm honest. Nothing. I can't hope for the future anymore, every future I've ever met has been fuckgarbage because that's what futures are. Putrid fuckgarbage.

[–] FoolHen@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

I'm really looking forward to a game for the first in years, Arc raiders, probably because it's a new studio and hasn't been enshittified yet. Damn I've missed that feeling, but might be because of growing up and not having time to play much, and because the number of new games. Hard to keep up with upcoming releases

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I'm looking forward to whatever supergiant does next. Also haunted chocolatier

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 3 points 14 hours ago

What I've been told Haunted Chocolatier is going to be...is not for me. In fact, Stardew Valley has evolved into something that is not for me. I've played Stardew Valley, enjoyed my time with it, put it away, did other things, had some SV content come up in my Youtube feed, watched a couple videos, they're talking about stuff that wasn't in the game when I stopped playing, casually mentioning locations and items I don't recognize, and I find I'm not curious enough to learn what those are. Eric Barone is a creative powerhouse the likes of which I will never be, I see Stardew Valley as nothing short of a masterpiece of solo game development, but I just might be done with his work.

If I hear the phrase "Lucas Pope's new game" I'd probably get and play that.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 16 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

Are we back in 1983?

The industry crashed back then largely because there were too many shitty games and no real industry-focused journalism to report on the quality of anything.

I think having too many shitty games is real, but we have plenty of insight to know that a lot of the shittiest games are the ones made by the industry giants.

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago

FTA

Most of last year’s Steam games went undiscovered and unplayed by the majority of users. But a surprising number were received quite well. Of the 1,431 games released last year that garnered more than 500 reviews — an indication that they were played by at least a few thousand people — more than 260 were rated positively by 90% or more of the players. More than 800 scored 80% or better. In other words, this isn’t like the 1980s, when the US gaming market crashed due to a flood of poorly made products. Today, there are too many video games, and many of them are great. Today’s titles are also competing not just with the new games released every year but with countless old “service” games designed to keep people playing forever. The three most-played games on Steam are almost always Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds, all multiplayer games that have been around for years. Some of the other biggest games in the world, such as League of Legends and the top titles on Roblox, would be alongside them if they were on Steam.

[–] wcSyndrome@lemmy.zip 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Did you read the article? It directly addresses your question

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

My rhetorical question of being back in time...? 🤨

[–] wcSyndrome@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Mea culpa, haven't had coffee yet.

I agree that there have been some absolute stinkers from the big companies. That's definitely a conversation worth having but I can relate to the main conceit of the article that there's just a growing mountain of games on my wishlist and backlog that I'm sure I would enjoy but can't imagine how I would play all of them without ignoring every one of my responsibilities for weeks if not months while also ignoring every new one that releases

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 10 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Except this line of reasoning is empty and it will only ever be wielded by games journalism and large gaming companies to convince you to adopt the streaming model of gaming where you don't ever buy any games. They will make you feel like you are being so much less wasteful, because oooooooh think of the horrorable backlog of unplayed games you would have owned otherwise!?!?!!

The thing is, who cares if you never play all the video games you buy? Video games are art for fucks sake, it is ok to buy them because you love artists even if it doesn't materially change your life, you can still be happy about having collected the work of art, ESPECIALLY when it is in digital form.

I am so tired of this "my backlog is too big crap", nobody cares, great you have a big backlog stop going along with the narrative that we need to "spotify" gaming to solve this "problem".

[–] wcSyndrome@lemmy.zip 3 points 21 hours ago

That's not my point at all, I actually agree with most of your comment. I buy games to enjoy them and I wish I had the time to enjoy them. Of course I won't be able to play every game or any other media for that matter but can I not lament that? I want to experience the hard work and creativity that people have poured hours of their lives into but there isn't enough time of day. I think the point of the article and my comments are that there are artists making amazing games but because there's so much of it they are not getting recognized

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 22 hours ago

Totally understandable. But apply the same thought to books, TV, movies, art, etc.

There's no way to indulge in everything. It's only a problem from the business side, as it takes more and more effort to stand out and sell something. It's not really a problem for the consumer.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I wish there were too many good games. There aren't, but there is certainly too much slop. Maybe stop making slop with hundred-man teams? Nah, it's the market that's the problem.

Schreier still proving he's a moron who hates games and gamers.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world -1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I hate to be rude, but there are literally thousands of great games cheaply accessible to you.

They aren’t gonna be spoon fed to your eyeballs; you have to shop and dig.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I didn't say there aren't any good games. I said I wish there were too many

Are there too many quirky games like Jumping Flash and Katamari. Nope

Are there too many games like Gran Tourismo that aren't pay to win slop. Nope, and that sadly includes Gran Tourismo. As a matter of fact there are hardly any quality racing games at all

Are there too many games like Dead or Alive/Soulcalibur? Big ol nope

Are there too many games like the OG Jak and Daxter? Nope

Are there too many games like Metal Gear Solid? Hard no

Are there too many games like Advance Wars? Nope

Are there too many games like MDK? No no and no

Are there too many games like Fallout 3? No

Are there too many games like Portal? No

Are there too many games like Mass Effect? Nope

Are there too many games like Wow? Nope, just a tiny selection of clones

Are there too many games like Final Fantasy with turn-based combat? Nope, not even Final Fantasy, and the majority of good turn-based JRPGs are remakes

I could easily go on. However, the point is made.

So, as I was saying, I wish there were too many good games. Sadly, the majority is middle-of-the-road indies recycling and combining played-out genres, and AAA horseshit. And that's why they aren't selling or gaining traction; people don't want them. That isn't a problem of too many games; it's an industry problem of pushing out too much junk. If they wanna make more sales, they should get back to making good games that aren't a pale imitation of better games from decades past.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

You literally named a bunch of old games that absolutely have modern alternatives. From indie 'retro' RTS games to Mass Effect (or more dramatic MGS) feeling RPGs/shooters that flew under the radar to great and original puzzle games in the vein of Portal. Have you ever played the Talos Principle or Antichamber, for instance?

Discoverability is a huge issue, because there are so many games. AAAs do skew towards generic MTX junk, but the other side of that is their marketing sucks up finite attention.

[–] Corelli_III@midwest.social 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Cool Michael Bloomberg thinks too many games are getting released. I wonder why. Could it be that AAA/ Investor friendly buy-out shells aren't doing well.

Anyway play Kitsune Tails

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1325260/Kitsune_Tails/

[–] misk@piefed.social 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This isn’t some neoliberal conspiracy. Jason Schreier is a respected journalist and given his track record so far there’s no reason for this kind of silly accusations.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Track record, lol. You mean like sitting on a bunch of abuse stories, allowing more people to get abused by Blizzard's higher-ups so he could publish and push his book? Or do you mean his support of grifter Sweet Baby Inc? Or do you mean his blatant racism, shaming a small dev team for having the same skin color? Or do you mean his soyboy aversion to titties as he shat all over the masterpiece Dragon's Crown? Or do you mean his participation in the private Gamejournopros mailing list, where he and his colleagues colluded and schemed against gamers?

The dude is a joke, straight up, a known liar and utter piece of shit fearmongering for clicks.

[–] misk@piefed.social -1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Go culture war somewhere else please.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Lol, telling you can't refute any of that, huh. Respected journalist indeed. Funny how you immediately jump to silly accusations when someone says something you don't like. Pot meet kettle, try taking your own advice bucko :)

[–] misk@piefed.social 0 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

You’re not able to refute that you eat poop for breakfast. Goodbye.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago

You fizzled out there fast, kiddo. Better luck next time

[–] Corelli_III@midwest.social 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

That's the funniest thing about people like you, the dude literally put his name on the newspaper and it still doesn't matter

[–] misk@piefed.social 1 points 6 hours ago

I’ve said it many times before, Bloomberg, FT and WSJ might be owned by neoliberal vampires, but by $deity, work ethic of their journalists is on another level to everyone else, probably because they have so much money. Admittedly, their souls are probably being sucked out in the process, but unless you have something against the article itself it seems like we’re wasting time debating integrity of Jason Schreier.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Are there too many musicians? Are there too many painters? Yes, it hurts discoverability, but honestly, if your game is good, it'll be played, I'm pretty sure. Metal doesn't appeal to the masses.. same for games.. not everything will appeal to the average gamer. But if you release the gaming equivalent of Master of puppets, people will buy it, I'm sure.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Not really.

It may be “feel good nice” if you make a few bucks to a few hundred good reviews on a passion project, but it’s not enough to help you eat and pay rent.

And making a game is a pretty massive time sink. Not to belittle other artists, but the bare minimum time/financial investment for one game is higher than, say, a digital art portfolio or an album.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works -1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

In a sense yes there are too many. When the question is around the industrial level and making a living off the work. There 110% are too many.

No industry can support an infinite number of creators. There is a finite number of customers to serve after all.

There's not a single genre at this point that I can think of that isn't saturated by slop.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

Slop, sure. There's always people that wanna try making easy money. But I think oversaturation is when there's too much of the good stuff or when the good stuff doesn't get seen because of too much slop. Is that the case? Because, again, I'd argue that it's more about the appeal and the quality of the games than a discoverability/oversaturation issue.

If you like every kind of game out there, sure, you'll never have enough time for every single one of them. But for those that only like driving games? Or only strategy games? Or only RPGs? I'd argue that there aren't enough high quality games out there. Way too many times I felt the need to play a specific kind of game only to look and not find anything new or to only find low quality games.

[–] misk@piefed.social 2 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

There are hundreds of Masters of Puppets daily probably but it’s hard to tell because so much stuff is coming out, which is an issue when we want artists to be able to afford food. At this point I think civilised countries should be exploring how to fund video games like we fund other forms of art.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

What do you mean hundreds daily? We barely get 1 a month and even that is a stretch. I actually do listen to new metal releases almost every day and I can promise you, most of them are a 6-7/10 at best. I'm not some snob or picky listener either, so it's not a me problem.

So yeah, music might have a discoverability issue due to sheer number of stuff coming out, but I don't think gaming is quite there yet.

As for the funding, I agree. But that's a society issue, not a gaming specific one. There's starving artists in every art form. If anything, game devs have it easier than most others. I remember watching a video from some game conference by a solo dev that was specialized in making solitaire games (I think? I can't find the vid anymore, unfortunately). He was basically showing how you can make a living as a dev without ever having a hit or anything of the sort.

[–] misk@piefed.social 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

You might try to keep track of every new release but you’ll never be able to listen to everything coming from local bands that haven’t managed to make a bigger splash even if they objectively deserve it.

I’m hyperbolising of course with the numbers. It’s a problem in loads of forms of media these days and if you happen to consume couple of different kinds of media / genres then trying to do that means you’ll get swept by never ending tides and discoverability is just part of the problem. We no longer have bandwidth to consume everything that’s worth consuming.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

Of course. But the good stuff will rise to the top. Especially in games. When it comes to bands, unfortunately not always the case, that's true. But that's a society issue. Universal basic income would help.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 3 points 18 hours ago

Civilised countries already do. There's government grants available for games dev in Australia and Canada that I'm aware of, at least. Not sure about the USA, but I don't really classify that as a civilised country any more, and they do everything government related in the stupidest way possible anyway.

[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

But you still have to discover someone putting out the equivalent of Master of puppets. The issue isn't that too many games get released, the issue is that too many good games get released. When every year 15 master of puppets comes are you going to buy all 15? Are you even going to be aware of all 15 of them?

People will buy what they're aware of and the issue is that so much good stuff is coming out it's almost impossible to be aware of all the good stuff coming out. That's the issue here, great games falling through the cracks because other great games release around it.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Well, not everything has mass appeal. That's why I gave a metal album as an example. Despite it being a masterpiece, not everyone will listen to it because it's not for everyone. Same with games. Not every game will sell as much as it deserves, but I believe it's more because of it not being appealing enough and not because there's a discoverability issue

The closest I could find about games that are masterpieces that flopped are either old games, which is a different issue or stuff like prey (2017) or Titanfall 2. So pretty big games, just not huge.

[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

But great things have mass appeal outside their niche. Metallica is an excellent example of that because it's not only metalheads who listen to Metallica. Same thing with games.

I think we can agree that soulslikes are not for everyone. Lies of p and Lords of the fallen give a rough estimate what the core audience for soulslike is, which is pretty small. But it didn't stop Elden Ring from being the biggest release of that year, because Elden Ring transcends the genre it's in. Great games will pull people from outside their niche the same way great songs, shows, movies, books and paintings can reach well outside the box people have put them in.

In gaming we've seen the same thing happen with Silksong. Same thing happened with Clair Obscur and the JRPG genre. Same thing happen with BL4 and the looter shooter genre. Hades 2 will most likely pull people outside the roguelite genre. Silent hill f will most likely pull people outside the horror genre. When you have so many great games pulling players from outside their niche and hogging all the limelight, how are you going to discover those other great games that don't get any of the limelight? You won't, which is why this is a discoverability issue.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

But which are these undiscovered gems? Feels like we're talking hypotheticals because googling hasn't produced any examples. I feel like it's also very subjective because it's quite easy to really like a game and feel like it's a 10/10 for you even tho for most other people it's just a 6/10 or maybe worse.

I enjoy stuff like caves of qud or whatever but I understand why it's not more popular. It's not for everyone.

[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Of course you're going to have a hard time finding anything on Google because any game that fails to be a success also drops from search results. But to give an example, Arco. It's got positive reviews from pretty much everyone giving it a review and yet it didn't even get more than 200 concurrent players on Steam. I'm not saying it's some unbelievable gaming experience, but it is a good game. If there's nothing wrong with the game why was it a failure? Am I supposed to believe they made a game for nobody?

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Dunno how accurate this is but it says they sold 46k units. Not quite for nobody, is it? Even if everyone got it at 50% off, that's still 322k after steam's cut.

[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 5 hours ago

Now factor publishers cut and the cost of development. At 50% they probably didn't even recoup their costs.