4 ms·

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised. As many large tech companies have found out the hard way (see also Alphabet, Amazon, arguably even Meta and Microsoft), the ga

by CM30 2y ago

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised. As many large tech companies have found out the hard way (see also Alphabet, Amazon, arguably even Meta and Microsoft), the games industry is not like the tech industry as a whole when it comes to success. Making games is difficult, and they don't lend themselves well to the same development strategies as websites or apps do. Add this to how unpredictable success is for the most part (even established teams with dozens of years of experience have struggled to create hits on a regular basis), how deeply competitive the industry is and how hard it is to even recognise a hit if you're not already involved, and well, it's a bad fit for the average non gaming company in general.

Dban1 2y ago
heck even ex-giants like ubisoft are collapsing.. but that's prob a different issue
- wsc981 2y ago
  Yeah, most of the gamers don't seem to be interested in woke messaging and just want a fun game. Asian companies that have not been under Western influence seem to do better in this regard.
root_axis 2y ago
Well, they never actually released a game, so we can't really blame the product market fit for the shuttering. Seems more likely that this just follows netflix's strategy of aggressively canceling productions.
em500 2y ago
Asking as an ignorant outsider, are the economics of much different from that other the movie and TV industry? At least that's where Netflix is a lot more experienced than Google, Meta and Microsoft. (Whether they're good at it is another question.)
- sofixa 2y ago
  _Somewhat_, but with film and TV you have the further releases on streaming, different countries, and keep receiving royalties for all of that, potentially years in the future. All of this without ongoing work on the project itself. Meanwhile if a game flops for whatever reason, you have to continue investing in it, adding new features, stories, fixing bugs, etc. for it to have the chance of making any new money.
  - oersted 2y ago
    Indeed, they pushed hard for a few years trying to figure out recurring revenue with Live-Service models. A few early entrants did well, like Fortnite, Destiny, Division... Although they also struggled for years before hitting their stride, and most later attempts have crashed hard as soon as they landed (Suicide Squad, Concord...).
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Additionally many games are tied to a specific platform, it is not like music and films that keep being ported from medium to medium, without having to touch the original content. Sure we can discuss about emulators, which are a gray field, and in any case, contrary to film and TV, studios earn nothing with emulators, versus reselling the VHS content in DVD.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  The consumers are far more quality-sensitive for games than they are for movies or streaming shows. With a few big-name exceptions, a crappy game won't sell. The exceptions exist because the first few games with the same name were great, but the studio process got their hands on it and pushed to churn out the next one. Money grabs with DLC everything and loot-box-of-the-week have become bad enough that some governments have begun to regulate them. Very few games can legitimately sustain a subscription model, which companies like NetFlix are accustomed to.
oersted 2y ago
I wholeheartedly agree, just to add that currently even the most competent industry leaders have been seriously struggling in the last few years. - Bethesda's Starfield and RedFall flops. - The tumultuous Cyberpunk 2077 story from the darling CD Projekt Red. - Many masters of their craft have lost their luster after serious flops or stagnation: BioWare, Dice, Arkane, Crytek, Blizzard, Rocksteady... - The long-term slow death of Ubisoft and its recent big-budget failures with Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar, underwhelming Far Cry 6, also AC Shadows is looking grim. - EA has all but disappeared from the big picture, it was hated before, but now it's just ignored. They failed to properly take advantage of their Star Wars monopoly. - Microsoft is volatile, with aggressive acquisitions and aggressive studio closures, seriously struggling to make Xbox competitive, and a Game Pass that will have difficulties in transitioning from a loss-leader to a real business. - Sony's Concord crash, and generally confused strategy of exclusives vs PC ports/remasters. - The whole failure of Embracer Group trying to gobble up most of AA. Only Rockstar seems unscathed, but mainly because they haven't released anything major since Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) and GTA 5 remains insanely profitable. It would be the first time, but I wouldn't be surprised if GTA 6 was a disaster looking at what has happened to other highly reputable studios like Bethesda, Arkane, Bioware or CDPR. AAA games are just getting too expensive to make now. They can still be highly profitable when they hit the right notes, but it's so much riskier now, you can end up loosing hundreds of millions unexpectedly. Because of the risk, everyone is forced to make more and more anaemic games, which make the situation worse. There seems to be an industry-wide difficulty in leveraging properly creative and talented writers and game designers, even if they don't cost much. It would be nice if it was just AAA, but it's not. There have been some recent success stories on AA with Baldur's Gate 3, Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2... But just as many failures too (you don't hear as much about them). Also, there's been a wave of acquisitions and investments from aggressive VC-like money, and even moderate successes are studio-closing failures for them (Hi-Fi Rush, an example of many). And as usual, there are always a few fantastic success stories for Indie games, but big-picture the market is more saturated than ever and the vast majority of indie developers end up making less than minimum wage. Tough times.
- rpd9803 2y ago
  I mean, I think there is a signifigant portion of video game players that could have told you Starfield and RedFall would underwhelm.. Bethesda players clearly want, nay are begging for more Elder Scrolls and Fallout main line games. I know Bethesda wanted a new IP, but literally their audience was begging them to make the stuff they want to play faster and it seems like they ignored it, at their peril. Agree on everything else, just salty at Bethesda for dropping the ball. I'd also add Valve to the list somewhere as another weird example because they make far too much money distributing games to have as strong an appetite for making them despite a pretty good track record (The hardware... maybe another story)
madeofpalk 2y ago
Making games is very different from making software, but what about movies/tv shows? Netflix overall seems to have a good idea of how to do that? I suspect it's a lot more expensive to find out if you have a good idea with games vs tv/movies.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  There are definite similarities. There is the mercurial creative team making the art, and the technical team that gets that art onto a screen. But TV/film relies on the "star system", a network of families and agents that generate the recognizable actors that in turn drive sales. Gaming doesn't have such a system. Sure, there are recognizable people in gaming, but while the average movie watcher can recognize maybe a hundred actors, the average gamer cannot name more than one developer. Netflix is integrated into the star system and so can consistently generated profitable content. They never found an equivalent hook into gaming, because there isn't one. Game development likely cannot be made consistently profitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking)
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    UbiSofts attempt to scientifically generate consistent games following the formula also come to mind. The whole standardize the production attempts are super-toxic in gamedesign, as the alure is there (use the same engine everywhere) etc. and the result is always bland shovelware.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- fidotron 2y ago
  > Making games is very different from making software, but what about movies/tv shows? Ridiculously different. Movie people really rely on the fact they control the camera, and when a movie is done it replays the same every time. That allows a lot of corner cutting which you cannot do in games.
gonzo41 2y ago
I wouldn't say that the games industry has unpredictable success. Games that are fun with a great story make money. Many games studios' don't make fun games. or don't try to evaluate why a success became a flop. I'll give an example. Ghost Recon wildlands was fun, had a great story and was a delight. It's squeal Break-point sucked because it was a different style of gameplay with nothing but micro-transations. It was a signal from the developers to the users that they didn't really care, they just wanted to extract money. If you focus on fun and story you'll succeed. Many games studios try to paper over the lack of these things with shiny graphics and cool features. But people play games to have fun.
fidotron 2y ago
> As many large tech companies have found out the hard way (see also Alphabet, Amazon, arguably even Meta and Microsoft), the games industry is not like the tech industry as a whole when it comes to success. I think two points are missing here, firstly these companies have hired a lot of proven talent from the games industry, and secondly it is arguable these companies have not been succeeding at executing in any domains for years. The culture of the tech industry has been completely destroyed, largely by the adtech money hose. Compound that with the difficulties of the games market today and it is not surprising there are problems.
akimbostrawman 2y ago
the industry is long overdue for a well deserved crash!

by CM30 2y ago

Dban1 2y ago

heck even ex-giants like ubisoft are collapsing.. but that's prob a different issue

wsc981 2y ago
Yeah, most of the gamers don't seem to be interested in woke messaging and just want a fun game. Asian companies that have not been under Western influence seem to do better in this regard.

root_axis 2y ago

Well, they never actually released a game, so we can't really blame the product market fit for the shuttering. Seems more likely that this just follows netflix's strategy of aggressively canceling productions.

em500 2y ago

Asking as an ignorant outsider, are the economics of much different from that other the movie and TV industry? At least that's where Netflix is a lot more experienced than Google, Meta and Microsoft. (Whether they're good at it is another question.)

sofixa 2y ago
_Somewhat_, but with film and TV you have the further releases on streaming, different countries, and keep receiving royalties for all of that, potentially years in the future. All of this without ongoing work on the project itself. Meanwhile if a game flops for whatever reason, you have to continue investing in it, adding new features, stories, fixing bugs, etc. for it to have the chance of making any new money.
- oersted 2y ago
  Indeed, they pushed hard for a few years trying to figure out recurring revenue with Live-Service models. A few early entrants did well, like Fortnite, Destiny, Division... Although they also struggled for years before hitting their stride, and most later attempts have crashed hard as soon as they landed (Suicide Squad, Concord...).
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Additionally many games are tied to a specific platform, it is not like music and films that keep being ported from medium to medium, without having to touch the original content. Sure we can discuss about emulators, which are a gray field, and in any case, contrary to film and TV, studios earn nothing with emulators, versus reselling the VHS content in DVD.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
slowmovintarget 2y ago
The consumers are far more quality-sensitive for games than they are for movies or streaming shows. With a few big-name exceptions, a crappy game won't sell. The exceptions exist because the first few games with the same name were great, but the studio process got their hands on it and pushed to churn out the next one. Money grabs with DLC everything and loot-box-of-the-week have become bad enough that some governments have begun to regulate them. Very few games can legitimately sustain a subscription model, which companies like NetFlix are accustomed to.

oersted 2y ago

I wholeheartedly agree, just to add that currently even the most competent industry leaders have been seriously struggling in the last few years. - Bethesda's Starfield and RedFall flops. - The tumultuous Cyberpunk 2077 story from the darling CD Projekt Red. - Many masters of their craft have lost their luster after serious flops or stagnation: BioWare, Dice, Arkane, Crytek, Blizzard, Rocksteady... - The long-term slow death of Ubisoft and its recent big-budget failures with Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar, underwhelming Far Cry 6, also AC Shadows is looking grim. - EA has all but disappeared from the big picture, it was hated before, but now it's just ignored. They failed to properly take advantage of their Star Wars monopoly. - Microsoft is volatile, with aggressive acquisitions and aggressive studio closures, seriously struggling to make Xbox competitive, and a Game Pass that will have difficulties in transitioning from a loss-leader to a real business. - Sony's Concord crash, and generally confused strategy of exclusives vs PC ports/remasters. - The whole failure of Embracer Group trying to gobble up most of AA. Only Rockstar seems unscathed, but mainly because they haven't released anything major since Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) and GTA 5 remains insanely profitable. It would be the first time, but I wouldn't be surprised if GTA 6 was a disaster looking at what has happened to other highly reputable studios like Bethesda, Arkane, Bioware or CDPR. AAA games are just getting too expensive to make now. They can still be highly profitable when they hit the right notes, but it's so much riskier now, you can end up loosing hundreds of millions unexpectedly. Because of the risk, everyone is forced to make more and more anaemic games, which make the situation worse. There seems to be an industry-wide difficulty in leveraging properly creative and talented writers and game designers, even if they don't cost much. It would be nice if it was just AAA, but it's not. There have been some recent success stories on AA with Baldur's Gate 3, Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2... But just as many failures too (you don't hear as much about them). Also, there's been a wave of acquisitions and investments from aggressive VC-like money, and even moderate successes are studio-closing failures for them (Hi-Fi Rush, an example of many). And as usual, there are always a few fantastic success stories for Indie games, but big-picture the market is more saturated than ever and the vast majority of indie developers end up making less than minimum wage. Tough times.

rpd9803 2y ago
I mean, I think there is a signifigant portion of video game players that could have told you Starfield and RedFall would underwhelm.. Bethesda players clearly want, nay are begging for more Elder Scrolls and Fallout main line games. I know Bethesda wanted a new IP, but literally their audience was begging them to make the stuff they want to play faster and it seems like they ignored it, at their peril. Agree on everything else, just salty at Bethesda for dropping the ball. I'd also add Valve to the list somewhere as another weird example because they make far too much money distributing games to have as strong an appetite for making them despite a pretty good track record (The hardware... maybe another story)

madeofpalk 2y ago

Making games is very different from making software, but what about movies/tv shows? Netflix overall seems to have a good idea of how to do that? I suspect it's a lot more expensive to find out if you have a good idea with games vs tv/movies.

sandworm101 2y ago
There are definite similarities. There is the mercurial creative team making the art, and the technical team that gets that art onto a screen. But TV/film relies on the "star system", a network of families and agents that generate the recognizable actors that in turn drive sales. Gaming doesn't have such a system. Sure, there are recognizable people in gaming, but while the average movie watcher can recognize maybe a hundred actors, the average gamer cannot name more than one developer. Netflix is integrated into the star system and so can consistently generated profitable content. They never found an equivalent hook into gaming, because there isn't one. Game development likely cannot be made consistently profitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking)
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  UbiSofts attempt to scientifically generate consistent games following the formula also come to mind. The whole standardize the production attempts are super-toxic in gamedesign, as the alure is there (use the same engine everywhere) etc. and the result is always bland shovelware.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
fidotron 2y ago
> Making games is very different from making software, but what about movies/tv shows? Ridiculously different. Movie people really rely on the fact they control the camera, and when a movie is done it replays the same every time. That allows a lot of corner cutting which you cannot do in games.

gonzo41 2y ago

I wouldn't say that the games industry has unpredictable success. Games that are fun with a great story make money. Many games studios' don't make fun games. or don't try to evaluate why a success became a flop. I'll give an example. Ghost Recon wildlands was fun, had a great story and was a delight. It's squeal Break-point sucked because it was a different style of gameplay with nothing but micro-transations. It was a signal from the developers to the users that they didn't really care, they just wanted to extract money. If you focus on fun and story you'll succeed. Many games studios try to paper over the lack of these things with shiny graphics and cool features. But people play games to have fun.

fidotron 2y ago

> As many large tech companies have found out the hard way (see also Alphabet, Amazon, arguably even Meta and Microsoft), the games industry is not like the tech industry as a whole when it comes to success. I think two points are missing here, firstly these companies have hired a lot of proven talent from the games industry, and secondly it is arguable these companies have not been succeeding at executing in any domains for years. The culture of the tech industry has been completely destroyed, largely by the adtech money hose. Compound that with the difficulties of the games market today and it is not surprising there are problems.

akimbostrawman 2y ago

the industry is long overdue for a well deserved crash!