It’s true. Reviewers rave about a game, I pick it up and play it, and they’re raving about a new one before I’ve finished that last one. I’ve got a list of 20+ games that came out this year that I still haven’t gotten around to. I might get through 5 of them before the new year. And you know, if wouldn’t hurt my ability to play more games if more of them were shorter.
EDIT: I provided this anecdote as a reason contributing to the problems that the industry is experiencing. The article is about the trouble the industry is experiencing as a result of too many competing games being released in a given year. It is not about how I feel about trying to play through many of the ones I found interesting. Apparently Schreier had the same problem on BlueSky with people answering what they think the headline says rather than what the article is about.
XD
This is a good thing for everyone besides the capitalists who seek to profit from their game.
We need a UBI so these artists can just make the games they want, and so “too many games to play together” is no longer a financial issue.
Again, wealth redistribution fixes a problem phrased by news as a consumer problem.
This is my point exactly. Art should be accessible for both the artist and those that enjoy the art. In the current landscape too many artists is a terrible thing for most besides the ones who are already wealthy, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I see so many extremely talented and creative people who can’t afford to make art and are forced to waste their talents because they can’t survive as an artist. Good art takes a lot of time to create and only wealthy people have free time.
Bullshit propaganda, sorry not sorry. The problem isn’t too many games, its reviewers overhyping too few games. Gta6, marathon, whatever the heck else, seriously do some basic research and you’ll find great games at a great pace. There is, in fact, room for all games in the market.
Those dastardly reviewers, always reviewing games and stuff!
Have you read some of these reviews? Outright waste of time way too often.
I disagree. The PC gaming market is about $76.67B. That’s ~$4M for each of the 18,626 games, most of which are asset flip crap. Many of the remainder are by indie devs (generally <30 people). The article mentions about ~10% of those games receive 500 or more Steam reviews, so we’re probably looking at $40M on average person game w/ 500+ reviews (i.e. probably not asset flip crap).
There are only about 20-30 AAA games released every year. The indie game market size is about $5B, and that’s across platforms. Even if that was only for PC games, that’s still 85% going to AAA studios, as in those 20-30 games that get media attention.
We don’t have too many games, we have a problem where too few people buy indie games. The average successful indie studio isn’t making $40M per game, it’s likely much less than that.
Indie games are overrated, it’s still mostly crap. I don’t blame people for waiting for absurd popularity to bring actually good titles to the surface. It’s still the same general problem, I have a the time for maybe 5 games per year, and that has to compete with my existing backlog, favorites and new titles. I’m not risking that time on Indie or AAA titles without some good evidence it’s worth it.
Sure. My point is that AAA studios have massive marketing budgets so it’s more likely you’ll consider them than an indie that you night like more. We need a better way for good indies to get noticed.
But how on earth do you get people who only buy and play 4 or fewer games per year to look at those indie games instead of one of the same big games that all of their friends are playing? That demographic is why Grand Theft Auto, EA FC, Assassin’s Creed, etc. is so big, because they capture the people who don’t play many games. There is technically enough money to support the entire industry, but that’s not really how consumer patterns have ever worked; most of it always goes to a select few.
You’re not going to convince the Madden/FIFA/etc group because community is more important than the game itself. The same is true for the big competitive games, since again, community is more important than the game itself.
The rest of the market is massive though, and even the people who only play a handful of games still pick up the occasional game to play on their own.
The solution here, IMO, is a high profile reviewer that focuses on indie games. In fact, we don’t really need reviewers going over AAA games because their marketing departments are already handling it. I want professional reviewers who try hundreds of indie games every year and promote the top 10-20 or so. Indie games are some of my favorite, but finding them is incredibly time consuming.
Agree to disagree, I suppose, but for the person whose only game every year is Assassin’s Creed, I don’t think you’re going to convince them that they should play Silksong or Expedition 33 and that they’d prefer them if only they knew about them. Even if the games aren’t multiplayer, it’s often a common touchstone for a group of friends to talk about and bond over. You or I might rail about handholding in one game that the mass market plays, but that handholding is a large part of why those games are mass market. The indie stuff we find more appealing are often answering a need, for a much smaller base of potentially interested people, who are sick of the mass market stuff, because we play more games in general.
As for a solution for your personal problem finding indie games, I know it’s one that Second Wind has been putting effort into addressing. This may sound odd, but in multiple cases, I’ve found niche games to scratch a certain itch I’ve had just by going to the Steam search and filtering by tags, and at least that cut down the research time dramatically. I understand the frustration though, because I’m having a similar hard time finding out if a game is built to last with things like offline multiplayer, and it’s something that reviewers often don’t care enough to mention at all.
only game every year is Assassin’s Creed,
How did they settle on AC? Is that the only game that would ever appeal to them, or did one of their friends introduce them and they got hooked? How many of them played Balatro or Among Us and other “viral” games?
The way to market to these people is to get that one person in a friend group to try something new and sell their friends on it. I used to only play a handful of games too, and back then it was mostly StarCraft and Halo. Then a friend introduced me to FTL, Factorio, and Minecraft (back when the last two launched, not what they are today), and I fell in love with indie games. All it takes sometimes is a single experience to show people what they’re missing.
Second Wind
I took a quick look, and it seems to be a mixed bag of content, from first time experiences with games to meta discussions on what makes parts of games great and interesting. Looking at last dozen or so videos, it’s mostly bigger games like Borderlands, Hollow Knight, and Subnautica. If you play any indie games, you’ll hear about those (and Borderlands isn’t even indie).
I think what I’m looking for is something that goes over the top new games from the last month or something, with deeper dives between those videos.
I’ve found niche games to scratch a certain itch I’ve had just by going to the Steam search and filtering by tags
I’ve done the same, and it’s way more miss than hit. When I finally find a hit, it’s usually a few years old, and is going for a fraction of the launch price.
For any given game, I can usually find a decent review by some random fan on YouTube, but going the other direction is a lot harder.
How did they settle on AC?
How did you lose interest in Assassin’s Creed? Maybe you didn’t, but I did. Call of Duty, too. Part of the reason why is why those people still come back to it, like sanding off rough edges that were maybe desirable to us. The top dog franchises will change from time to time, but I don’t think you’ll be able to will that change into existence with a recommendation. The Game Awards do have a tangible effect on sales and can make that change, but only up to a few games per year, at most.
I think what I’m looking for is something that goes over the top new games from the last month or something, with deeper dives between those videos.
It’s a fairly recent effort from Second Wind, with similar gripes as to what you mentioned, which is why I brought it up. This is specifically the show that they do that I was thinking of, seemingly twice per month, and there’s also Yahtzee Tries.
How did you lose interest in Assassin’s Creed?
The story went nowhere.
Wishlist
That format looks like exactly what I’m looking for! Thanks!
I didn’t like Yahtzee tries as much, probably because it was like a Let’s Play with banter instead of an actual review.
scale down then. or make better games.
capitalist crises of production are dumb.
There have been ‘too many games to play all the ones that seem interesting to me’ since the late 90s, at least.
There has always been absurd levels of competiton in video game releases.
What this person is describing has been the broad state of the overall industry as long as I have been alive.
It is not a problem.
It is totally fine that decent games are moderately popular and quite good games are quite popular and occassionally something seemingly simple is actually novel in a fun way, or hits just the right combo of gameplay / art style / narrative elements at the right time and is a breakout hit.
It is totally fine that giant evil megapublishers who exploit their employees and then slave drive and mismanage them into producing shiny, but buggy and lackluster garbage… are not making back their marketing budgets.
It is in fact very very good that they are failing.
The only thing different now is that video gaming is massively mainstream nowadays and normies struggle with choice paralysis more publically these days.
A real dedicated nerd is capable of seeing through marketing and doing their own research, thats… kinda the whole thing that makes one into a nerd, a seemingly odd obsession and inordinate amount of time spent trying to understand their hobby.
If you are just a consumer who is overwhelmed by choice and marketing, pff i dunno, get gud scrub, capitalism be doin what it do, figure it out, develop your own actual personality and sense of taste and discernment, or keep crying I guess?
Video game development democratizing via lower barrier to entry is a great thing.
Players are more likely to find and get something they want for a reasonable price, megacorps are more and more likely to spend way too much money on things they don’t understand anywhere near as well as they think they do.
Whats not to love?
If their form of video gaming as a business model is unsustainable, well that sucks for them I guess?
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“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.”
Problem - You can’t trust Steam reviews. Steam users will give top ratings to “Click the Duck”.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3110500/The_Best_Duck_Clicker/
You can’t trust the reviews, it’s true. But also, it’s very much a buyers market with games in general right now. The headline issue is only a problem if you take the side of AAA studios who have to compete with passion-driven indie projects that aren’t just out to make a buck.
I’m going to spend how much to play a game with an obligatory launcher after I already opened steam? And it’s badly optimised? 100gb you say? And I have to see ads for skins? And that’s competing with a game less than half the price that’s amazing, 3gb, no ads, and it can run on a decade old computer?
This is a big-budget problem. They made their omelette, and now they’ve got to sleep in it.
It’s not only big budget. A number of indie games that I thought were superb didn’t go on to make enough money for that team to make another. Mimimi games made excellent games within their niche, but it wasn’t enough to keep finding funding, and they closed. A game like The Thaumaturge from last year has a similar scope, budget, and genre to Expedition 33, but I don’t know that they made enough to keep the studio going. Sword of the Sea this year released to excellent reviews but subpar sales. There are a lot of examples, but this is a snapshot.
Even if you make an excellent game that makes money you can STILL be on the chopping block. See Hi Fi Rush. 😟
Reviewers rave about a game, I pick it up and play it, and they’re raving about a new one before I’ve finished that last one.
That’s why i only wishlist games that i’m interested in. by the time i get around to them, there’s usually a sale and/or price drop. Some games have been on my wishlist for years, while I’m working through my backlog, waiting for their price to drop even further.
No one is forcing you to buy more games than you can play. Take some responsibility.
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You dont have to buy every game a reviewer hypes.
I literally can’t. The article is speaking from the industry perspective of sustaining its jobs though.
And it’s a problem that will hit the smaller dev studios harder.
As they are the ones fighting for attention. Especially on the monopolised PC marketplace.
And then i play some city builder that cost $20 for 300 hrs
OpenTTD is free
Or in my case, old driving games
The article seems primarily focused on new games. And the article still makes some great points, but when you factor in older games the problem gets bigger.
I am not going to say that old games were better or that “they just don’t make them like they used to”. What I will say is that a lot of older games that are super cheap on Steam or out of print entirely are still great. There are occasionally new great games being released of course (I haven’t played Hades 2 yet but I expect it to be great, for example). But there’s a lot of new games being released where I think… “Why would I spend $70 or $80 on this when I already have this backlog of older games? Why would I spend my time playing 7/10 games when I have dozens of 9/10’s sitting in my library waiting for me?”
Yeah. When they announced the new Silent Hill I was somewhat interested - although I felt the peak was back then with SH2. But having read about the remaster of SH2 and some reviews that said, it’d return to the roots? Nice!
Then I saw a streamer play it early, watched a bit and it looked promising. So I went to wishlist it. Then the release day comes and steam lists it for 70 bucks (available in two days) or 90 bucks now. Well, no. Let’s see how long the price will be that high, but WTF? I don’t wanna know what’s the price on console for it - usually it’s 10-20 bucks more?!?
Very true. And sometimes there’s an answer to those questions, even if we discount the games designed to disappear after a few years. You might be sensitive to spoilers, it might be the perfect game for you in the moment (like the right game for a handheld system just before a trip), your friends might want to play it with you or talk with you about it when you’re done, etc. But that competition with back catalogs absolutely exists.
Yup.
The overabundance of games is killing great games.
Can’t tell you how many fantastic multiplayer games I’ve bought only to find out they’re ghost towns or become ghost towns soon after purchasing. And it’s because players are so spread out over so many games. 20 years ago these games would have been major successes with a huge player base for years, but they’re dead on arrival or within a few months. It’s a real bummer.
That being said, I’m going to plug Mycopunk. Just got it and it’s great. Like Deep Rock Galactic and Risk of Rain 2 had a baby. We need more players though. Came out in July. Currently on sale. But base price is cheap.
Will give mycopunk a shot.
It’s great. It’s early access, so it needs some polishing, but it’s already pretty solid. It can be a little overwhelming at first, so make sure you’re doing one of the easier difficulties. Get your weapons and character leveled up and it starts becoming more engaging. Try out different weapons too. I was struggling until I started branching out. And keep in mind that the enemies are made up of various parts and you can blow those parts off and then other enemies can pick those parts up and use them. So learning how to take off limbs and then make sure the limbs are destroyed so they can’t be re-used is important.
Oh, and it allows gifs in the in-game chat. Something I’ve never seen in a game before. Type “/gif” followed by any keyword and it tosses an appropriate gif into the chat. It’s a lot of fun to mess around with.
Love it so far. My only complaint is that I’ve accidentals melted several mods I wanted to keep because I forget which key does what. Wish there was an unlock button and trash you could drag to instead of just two keys. Other than that its great.
Multiplayer games 20 years ago were also built to be more scalable to different numbers of players, and they mostly had bots and such, too. I might push back on how long they sustained huge player bases though. Those games were often sequeled very quickly, and most of the players would move to the next one, leaving behind a small percentage. At least the old game was always still playable for those who bought it, though.
I like having a lot of choices. You don’t need to play all the games!
The problem they describe will self-correct; the “market” will drive that. But it might not be pretty. The things below are already happening, but will be further instigated:
New AAA non-franchise titles will be less common because return is less likely amongst the sea of new games coming out. Investors will continue to gamble on them, but they’ll be fewer and further between.
Mid-budget AA games not in a niche will disappear. You’ll still have your city builders, your milsim squad shooters, your competitive RTS games, but you won’t be seeing many new AA action platformers, multiplayer CoD style shooters, block puzzlers, adventure RPGs, etc. They’ll either be bare budget / indie or mega budget.
You’ll see dev cost continue to be driven down to mitigate this risk, making quality suffer. Asset flips, AI, and outsourcing will increase for most studios that don’t get recurring revenue from live service games.
Indies will continue to be random breakout hits, but their studios will die fast because followups to their breakouts often drown in the sea too.
Being an employee in the industry will probably mean jumping from company to company where you might only stick around for 1 - 2 titles before a major layoff. Contracting will get more common.
Dear video game developers,
There are too many video games nowadays. Please eliminate three.
