If you’ve ever played a strategy game, there comes a point where you realize you have no idea what you’re doing. Sure, you’ve got the zerglings, yeah, you’re going to destroy a supply depot, but then what? Even winning the battle can be to your detriment, because getting involved at all hurt your economy so much that all you can defend yourself with is a single, lone Mutalisk with its work cut out for it.
The games industry is in the middle of this right now. With years of prioritizing shareholders over games, we could be witnessing the death of triple-A development at large. Does that mean triple-A is gone for good? Of course not, because capital will simply grab a mid-scale studio and have triple-A thrust upon them.
We Had The Best Years Of Gaming, And So We Must Be Punished
This past week has proven that anything about “meritocracy” in the games industry is an abject lie- Capital demands profitable games, not good ones. And the worst bit is it doesn’t really care about how it does this- it’s why C-Suite executives can imagine little less than just keep shutting down any studio not already making a billion dollars, even after lobbying for years for the chance to buy them.
From a sheer quality standpoint, we’ve been absolutely blessed- Roll7 simultaneously released two excellent games in OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome in the same year while Tango Gameworks’ shadow dropped an exclusive for Xbox so good it reignited the debate on the ethics of exclusives.
Yet to Capital, none of these games were considered good. Rollerdrome winning a BAFTA means squat because it couldn’t be pawned off for money, and Arkane Austin being crowned kings of the immersive sim genre with Prey had all the sincerity of “I’ll totally call you tomorrow”.
It’s hard to tell what exactly Shareholders want- it clearly isn’t to make good games, otherwise you wouldn’t have so many people learning about Rollerdrome from the cremated remains of Roll7. If they wanted the games industry to pivot in a particular direction it would have done so- just look at single-player titans Arkane suddenly working on a live service game like Redfall.
The truth of the matter is that the games industry never mattered. It’s all just another poker chip, in a completely separate conflict, one where absurdly rich people see how much money they can make for as little research possible. Then, when the bet doesn’t pay off, they ruin people’s lives- not for survival, but for self-satisfaction.
What we’re witnessing isn’t the impending hard times of a global recession- this isn’t because there’s no money to go around and hard decisions have to be made. Instead, what we’re seeing is delusion. It’s a delusion that says any game studio can be a billion-dollar earner, they’re just too lazy to do it. After all, look at how many good games came out in 2023, right?
Showing That You Can Make Good Games Was The Worst Thing That Ever Happened To The Games Industry
The delays brought on by COVID and the semiconductor shortage gave us amazing games- proof that time, polish and consideration makes for better products. From Baldur’s Gate 3 to Resident Evil 4 to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, so many massive games came out to critical acclaim, and you can bet a lot of them were saved by decisions to not launch during a turbulent time.
Unfortunately it made Capital writhe and seethe, because quality doesn’t fit in a spreadsheet. Creativity is only valuable when it’s profitable, and it would rather have a burning car with a faulty accelerator release by Q1 than a lawsuit-free Fiscal Year.
Capital doesn’t know what to do with the games industry. It could listen to the people who actually work in it, but those people don’t care about shareholders. Jerks. They’re the guy showing up to your Warhammer game with an all-Titan army, not realizing that without anything that can hold an objective they’re doomed to fail. But if Embracer Group has taught us anything it’s that even their failures are somehow the fault of the creative- and that’s where the problem lies.
Protect The People Making Your Favorite Games
Is there a solution going forward? None that can be publicly endorsed. But we are going through one of the darkest hours of the games industry- one where the parasite of Capital is eager to make sure all of the people who got in on passion and legacy skills leave and never come back, simply because if they do their jobs too well, this might all happen again.
You can argue all you want about this being “just how business works” but at the end of the day, business failures fall on the shoulders of business people. Blaming artists and developers for business decisions is akin to me blaming my gardener when I’m writhing in pain on the floor from having dairy when I know better.
Like my lone Mutalisk, the state of today’s game industry is dire. Real people’s jobs are affected, and those who got to keep their jobs will probably be feeling pretty terrible knowing that there’s no way they can make themselves layoff-proof. I suppose we could all close our eyes and pray for angel managers to appear, somehow having a pull on what little souls corporate execs have while also having their average artists’ bets interest at heart.
Alternatively we could have the same kind of legislation that makes people think Satoru Iwata was some kind of martyr- one that specifically makes laying people off as much of a pain in the ass as possible that you’d have to be a grade-A hater to do it to as many people have been laid off this year.
One thing’s for certain though, for the sake of a game industry we absolutely need to do something about this. Countries touting themselves as future game development hubs need tighter legislation to protect their workers. You think your favorite console has too few exclusives now? Wait till you see the lineup when the studios look more like a scale model of the backrooms.
