The MBA theory is a limited take. The broader take is that these companies have become bloated with mediocre talent in the era of highly leveraged investment in

The MBA theory is a limited take. The broader take is that these companies have become bloated with mediocre talent in the era of highly leveraged investment in the games industry, when "money was cheap". It made good business sense (MBA or otherwise) to churn out safe mediocre games that have modest returns, like 250mil game would return 400mil. Although arguably the same game could have been made for 50mil in a smaller team with more exceptional talent, like in the 2000s where ROI on games was much higher on average. But the low ROI method was low-risk and repeatable. That is why around 2010, after the financial crisis when the world was showered in low interest rates, the games industry largely stopped innovating. The "brute force" method for making games with very large teams where managing them has become almost impossible (most people in the AAA companies know what I'm talking about) is no longer sustainable now that money is no longer cheap. What is worse, executives in game companies have leaned into this model over the years, laying off expensive, very experienced talented staff and replacing each with 3-5 graduates. The 3-5 graduates can pump out more content for a mediocre game, the 1 experienced developer with decades of institutional knowledge could make a game that would perform exceptionally well, but not as reliably (this industry used to be called "hit-driven"). Layoffs did target the most expensive staff in many companies, by the way. This will come to light eventually. So what can a game company that's all bought into this model do now? Many managers weren't even around in the 00s when the previous model worked. They don't know what to do. So they're panicking in various ways. Doing more layoffs, rushing games, upping the game prices, cutting support for old titles even if supporting them didn't cost that much. But the industry has been over this once or twice. Notably in the 80s there was a shovelware games crash, then a lot of new small companies like Activision sprung up with small veteran teams and made great games in the 90s. This became the norm in the 00s, which saw the inception of many of the game titles we play today. The 10s paralleled the 80s, and we are heading towards a sort of crash or a soft crash now where the industry makes a lot of rushed shovelware. And those in games already know that many of their veteran colleagues are starting their own studios and working on very ambitious new projects that break the mould. None of this is new. Some of it is just new for people who haven't been around long enough. But all in all, the MBA stuff is not seeing the forest for the trees. In the bigger picture, it's just a cycle. You can see it in all sorts of graphs, like ones that show average game quality over the last decades, and how the indie game sector is suddenly growing. Exactly like during and after the 80s crash.