- Use my link piavpn.com/YongYea to download Private Internet Access and get 83% OFF + 4 Free Months of VPN protection and features! - You know there is something seriously fucked about the games industry when not even Marvel's Spider-Man 2, PlayStation's fastest selling game at launch that has sold 10 million copies in 5 months, is enough to stave off layoffs at Insomniac. We are at roughly 8,000 games industry layoffs for 2024 and it's only the beginning of March. 2023 had 10,500 layoffs total and that was a bad year. We are almost there 2 months into this year. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea TOP PATRONS [BIG BOSS] - Devon B - gergely oggolder - Jonathan Ball [BOSS] - Charlie Galvin - Gerardo Andrade - Marketing aag - Michael Redmond [LEGENDARY] - azalea - dirt
Yep, a big bonus for "cutting costs" this quarter. And they can resign with that nice bonus(es) before the consequences of gutting the company catch up to them in some future quarter. But by then, the loss isn't in _their_ "hands". Disgusting
@@SeriousDragonify And lose the Witcher IP in the process? (Witcher 3 has won over 240 GOTY awards, BTW) Calm down... Cyberpunk is FANTASTIC now. Get over it. It's a mistake you can bet they'll never make again.
The AAA industry is like hollywood right now. Hundreds of millions for 1 product that's expected to make back exorbitant amounts of money, and both cases yield the same result.
Yep. I was afraid something like this might start happening since games budgets skyrocketed to hundreds of millions and big publishers started chasing dreams of golden goose. It's "all or nothing" business model seems unstable and largely unsustainable. And who's paying for bad decisions? As always people who had nothing to do with them.
Hollywood is a god awful place to work in now. Somewhere around 2008 to 2012, the freakish activists took over and it's not been the same since. Say what you want about Harvey Weinstein, sick bastard of a man but they guy knew media and had the stones to deliver. I've had to take the DEI "tests". It's like stepping on a land mine and the moment you step away, boom. Asinine.
It is all the stock markets fault really. All companies want to be on it, and then they want 200% growth every year, even when they only release a product every 5 years.
I don't know really. The most played games are Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Valorant, COD, FIFA etc. They're all microtransaction games and battle pass games. The big companies like Valve, EA, Epic, Activision/Blizzard, make it impossible for small developers to thrive as they should, because a large percentage of money is flowing to the same decade old franchises full of addicted gamers spending money on microtransactions instead of innovation.
We must also support games from smaller studios, such as Fuga: Melodies Of Steel and Unicorn Overlord. They're made with actual passion instead of just trying to ransack gamers' wallets with loot boxes, microtransactions and $20 skins.
This after price increases, $70 glorified DLC, and live service game bundles that charge $120+ for games that don't even launch with all of their content available to players.
"Thanks for spending $100+ on your copy of the game, would you like to buy our season pass? And don't forget our limited time battle passes, they'll be gone before you know it so you better buy them while they last."
@@grimbostink7607 i feel like GTA VI Will open the Pandora box for the 80 dolars price tag, i mean, on Europe, there's a lot of triple A videogames that are already 80 euros soo i think that Will hapenn sonner than later, still not a huge issue if the product is something great like elden ring, baldur's gate 3, the witcher III etc, but most triple A companies would do just as bad if not worse The quadruple A thing is just a meme because of stupid gredy Mr krabs guillemont, though, again, GTA VI might also open Up that box if the rumors that the game's budget is 1 billion dolars are true, and no, i'm not a big GTA fan even if It looks like i'm gloryfing It, and i don't trust rockstar at all after all these years with that trash 3D GTA classics remaster and the port of RDR for 50 bucks, as well as macrotransations on GTA online ( asmongold might have a lot of bad takes, but using the term macrotransations for in game purchases is not one of then )
I've called this out for years. These giant companies buying up a ton of talented studios will destroy the industry because their goal is meeting their bottom line. The moment there's the slightest dip in their market share, they cut half the studios they bought regardless of their performance. Enron introduced this practice
Neo-liberalism, which includes Neo-conservatism under it sick philosophy, is always pushing for corporate consolidation, monopoly, eventual fascism and the eventual creation of new feudal system with corporations in place of royal families.
So a big part of the issue is not just corporations being awful, its actually with the games industry being way overinflated. Due to how much success there was mixed with how fast it was growing, a lot of companies over hired, which is always unsustainable, and it just got worse with covid. These layoffs were going to happen at some point, it was inevitable because the success they were seeing was never gonna last forever. The whole esports scene is a very good example of these same issues, and was one of the first parts to start collapsing.
What baffles me is that they're never satisfied. 35% ROI is still insanely good money, but since the game before was 122% the game after should have been 122% or more, then the game after that even more, and more, and more. This is nothing but greed we're talking about, these companies are never satisfied. Whatever they gain, they expect more, more, more, always more. Do you think investors and Sony were gona starve on that 35% extra? no, they weren't, they just wanted 122% or more out of greed, not out of need.
Well said. That's exactly it.....keeping these massive profit margins and wanting them to just go higher and higher. I work in a grocery store, and the profit margins in THAT business can be LESS than 35%.
The problem is the shareholders. They want more and more profits, the more profits the more valuable the shares become. This is why this industry just doesn't go hand in hand with shares. It works for Apple cause they make hardware, the software is just secondary, as long as it functions it's fine. It's the applications people use on their devices which make their experience with the devices good or bad. They can cut some corners here and there, as long as the products work. You can't do that with games, if you cut corners you produce slop.
the issue isn't the figure on its own. 35% ROI looks decent on its own, but the opportunity cost of investing that money elsewhere could have given them far better ROI, at least that's what Sony believes. Sure, at the end of the day it boils down to greed but that's because they have options, if other sources of revenue couldn't give better ROIs' then 35% in comparison would still be worth it. It's a business after all, Sony doesn't need to invest in gaming if it can't earn as much money as some other source of revenue.
Not even cancer can grow as fast as these CEOs expect their cash cows to grow. And then when they don't become more grotesquely rich than they did last year, they cut their losses and look for another cash cow.
They've deluded themselves into believing the money they made during covid is sustainable and set the bar to that. Worse, they think they should be making _more_ than what was made during that time on a regular basis. It's greed and corporate ignorance.
@John-PaulHunt-wy7lfyou sound 12 this is why there are so many starving artists. You guys haven’t grown up yet so you say insane things like “art isn’t about making money.” If it’s not, then you better be doing something that actually makes money lol
Shoutout to Toys For Bob this week for escaping Activision and Microsoft and going Indie. They can do whatever they want now and not be at risk of whatever stupid shit these giant publishers and corporations do.
I wonder when governments are finally going to say "enough" when Sony and Microsoft keep buying up developers. The amount of money they throw around to stiffle competition and lock games into their ecosystem is digusting.
Toys for Bob would need to get a license, as i doubt microsoft is just going to let a ip such as Crash or Spyro go loose, i mean maybe but i doubt it. That is not bad i mean Baldur Gate was license out to Larian and look how that turned out. I am sure given the history of Toys for Bob it wont be hard to get said license.
I think there's 3 components to this. 1. General leadership incompetence. These CEOs are habitually making the wrong decisions and others are paying the price for it. Including shareholders. 2. Herd mentality related to emerging AI technology. The industry is making ballpark assumptions of how much AI can replace employees. It's about staying competitive in an AI future and it becomes a race to the bottom. 3. Poor rights and work security for employees. It's simply too easy to lay off people without any consequence.
1. This will only get worse, if you take a look at courses and content that students have to go through when getting "taught how to lead" which is kinda insane. 2. Kinda sad to see how many people and companies don't even try to understand the concept of AI. It is still in early development amd depending on it should be way too risky. But I guess it is safer to lay off people who have talent and could be used right away. Or at the very least try to search for a way to let them still work for you. I bet that all these companies and studios are hiring right now as well. 3. Depends on the country. The US is one of the worst when it comes to employee rights, but it is still very dependent where you work.
@@pseudoscientist8010 There are a LOT of people out there who buy games who are very against AI being used instead of developers. Once they find out it was made by AI the sales will tank.
Things like that are natural when the CEO started on the shop floor. It's like how in Japan it's a legal requirement for you to be a doctor before you're a hospital director.
The fact that all these people are being laid off at the same time means that they're all basically being pitted against each other for whatever available jobs are out there. What a fucking nightmare.
@@big_sis_moonWith all of the layoffs happening, I don’t mean to be that guy but you’ll never break into the industry for a number of years unless you start your own company
@@Slayerlord13 They do spend the majority of that budget on the games. The problem is that they have way too many developers working on it. They have 15-20 people working for two weeks on a feature that could take one good developer only a few hours to make. Most of the devs working at these companies are terrible at it too. They are all university graduates who lack the ability to do anything but follow instructions. They can't think creatively. Without someone to teach them, they can't learn. They are the types that took a "game design" class in university because they like video games but they never once attempted to learn programming before then, despite all of the free resources available on the internet even back in the 90s and early 2000s. They have no business working in this industry.
But at the same time@@NuchiAsaki , that is the norm and will continue to be the norm as we move through generations. I mean, if you feel that they lack thinking creatively, wait till generation Alpha start working in the industry LOL.
This is happening in the movie industry as well. They're spending half a billion dollars on cookie-cutter, superhero nonsense and they don't turn a profit unless it breaks a billion dollars. This needs to stop. Scale the budgets back and make content with imagination instead of just endless stream of money. I'm not alone in saying I'm fine with a 50 million dollar movie or game.
The issue isn't about superhero nonsense but how ignorant of them to ignore what fans want. Look at the recent movies, they aren't doing fan service like Deadpool. They are insisting to put their agenda message into movie.
@j.ctuber3666 You're completely missing the point. If you were right, Barbi wouldn't be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. The people who REALLY make the money watching those movies aren't right-wing fools who cry like snowflakes about women superheroes and non-straight characters existing. What I'm saying is. The hardcore fans don't make them money. They make money from casual watchers. Those casual watchers (like me) are completely burned out on these expensive movies. Action scenes constructed in computers aren't interesting to me anymore. Give me Mad Max Fury Road over 30 Marvel movies any day! I did love the first Iron Man, though.
@@ejkk9513 Speaking mad Max, oh yeah, best movie so far. Watched it a dozen times and it still doesn't get boring. It is how the movie was made. Understand your point about casual goers.
in the ps3 era a game that sold 400.000 copies got a platinum (budget) re-release, because it was already successful enough...nowadays a game that sells millions of copies is getting your studio shut down...smh
@@jackstraw4222 and this generation of consoles still has great games, that never re-released on modern platforms like, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Anarchy Reigns/ Max Anarchy, Wet, Lolipop Chainsaw, Unreal Tournament 3 (which has mouse and keyboard support on PS3), Twisted Metal 2012 just to name a few
The issue is not the revenues all these sales make but how much money they make after the cost of developing and producing has been deducted. Sony's issue that caused these layoffs, or some of it at least, has been that their studios are spending more and more to make games and they're not making as much. Example would be in the past Sony studios (PS2/PS3 era) would make $1.60 cents for every dollar spent creating a game. for the PS4/PS5 era this has shrunk where maybe now in this gen for every $1 spent on create a game they only get $1.10 back. Revenues is make for great news bait, but its the profit margin that makes the finance people of every company big or small that raise uncomfortable debates around the company table of how to proceed. Gaming is now a mature business industry and not the hobby, niche business it was before and that maturing of the industry brings without both advantages (more people willing to invest) but also disadvantages in that its treated like any industry in that profits is in the driver seat.
@@Tullaryx If that is the case, why not just cut the advertising budget?! We seen those stupid no gameplay allowed adverts in the build-up to, during and after the PS5 launch! PS5, a console were they allegedly made 5 million and sold the very same quantity during pre-orders! Yet, every time you put any TV channel on, a console that you could not buy because it had already sold out and you were not at that time allowed to visit retail to see if it had came back in stock had a huge over abundance of unnecessary advertising! Also, one studio might have a loss, but as an entirety all studios should be managed to work for each other, so everybody stays employed! If the videogame industry really is growing 4% year on year, then not everybody is making a loss regardless of inflation! It is simple maths, pride of work, strategy, passion and leadership! All qualities that Mr. We Believe in Third-Party Partners does not have when he is on the golf course rather than doing his job. PS5 is a generation I will never buy into or be interested in and if people care for the principles of our favourite developers and intellectual property being retained, then people should not be interested in the PS5 either.
Lethal company, Helldivers, and Palworld have literally pimpslapped the AAA game space. Games under $60 that have significantly more value than games valued at $120 or more.
Who asked them to spend 300 million making a single game. I don't believe that all that money went to development of the game. So many other games can reach the same scale with less investment. This is extremely saddening.
Some of these games don't even need any real advertising budget because of word of mouth alone. Just produce 1 or 2 trailers, slap the banner on the Playstation home/store and that's more than enough if the game is highly anticipated.
Well, spending 315 million on Spider-Man 2 has to be put on Insomniac's shoulders. They're the one who are updating the executives above them what cash flow they need to finish the title on time and as polished as possible. I think there's enough blame to go around that the gaming industry needs to re-evaluate what the industry needs to become moving forward. Is it to consistently chase better and photo-realistic graphics to bigger and more expansive games? Or does it need to remember that gaming was built less on AAA gaming but more AA and lesser titles in-between bigger event titles. Gamers also have to temper their expectations when it comes to all games. Not every game will be cinematic or photorealistic yet how often do we see gamers put down a game because it doesn't match the graphics fidelity and/or award-winning narrative of what they believe all games should be. I agree that executives and boardrooms of these big publishers should shoulder the bulk of the blame for chasing the trends in the industry instead of actually trying to just create games that are fun, but the industry as a whole from the publishers, developers and consumers should all share in the blame for how unsustainable each group's expectations on what the gaming industry should be.
They choose to operate inefficiently and stupidly and wonder why they can’t continue to put it on the consumer. The industry was more than successful enough through Covid for them to do well, they knew this was coming from a mile away, we need a new group of leaders in these companies that aren’t going to shoot themselves in the foot over dumb practices
@@Tullaryx "Not every game will be cinematic or photorealistic yet how often do we see gamers put down a game because it doesn't match the graphics fidelity and/or award-winning narrative of what they believe all games should be." This may be a chicken egg problem. If a game costs 70+€, then I demand photorealistic graphics and a good story, because otherwise the price isn't justified.
@@ninochaosdrache3189 True and photorealism doesn't come cheap. I mean we're now at a point that people don't want to play at 30fps and that every game should be at 60fps. Yet, they don't ask if capping at 30fps was a decision to help cut cost. The technical versus cost is something that people like Digital Foundry really need to look into. We're told that so and so tech engine is the best out there, or that system has better machine learning tools, etc...but no one ever explains what the costs are to have those things and should publisher pass on those costs to the consumer or eat it and hope the title sell way beyond expectations. I think Sony is in a mindset that all their 1st party titles should sell 10 million or more when those titles are, for the most part, outliers to the whole of titles they release year in and year out. Not every game will sell like GTA yet every publisher uses that as the standard to shoot for instead of tempering expectations. So, when that bar they set for themselves is not reach because its too high they panic and the ground floor employees suffer for it.
I feel like our society is close to breaking a breaking point. Not just the games industry. Everywhere you look people are being overworked and underpaid. Only a small amount of people can afford basic living on their own. Much less support a family...
I have heard "we have to make the difficult decision but we have to lay off people" so many times that I don't believe it is a difficult decision. It is just a reaction to their questionable decisions.
First they increased the price of games to $70, then they increased the price of subscription online services like PlayStation plus, now they are laying off thousands of hard working emoloyees. This is a very dark time for the gaming industry, especially for the hardworking people who work night and day to deliver a good project.
To be fair, due to inflation, if they don't increase their prices then they don't make as much money. Employees can't afford bills, food, and other necessities if they don't get pay increases, and large companies can't keep up with demand without highly skilled (and expensive) employees, and they can't pay them if they don't make more and more money every year. Ultimately it sucks for a lot of people, and I'm sure a lot of that money doesn't get to the actual people making the games, though I think there's a lot more to it than just corporate greed. Things are only going to continue to get more expensive. Where I am in Canada, I remember going to the store with $30 as a kid to pick out a new game, now it's over $100 for a standard edition.
@@Xiox321 I don't know where you were shopping or how old you are but older games cost more relative money on average compared to more recently. Plenty of new N64 games were anywhere from $50-$80 USD when they released in the 90s. Adjusting for inflation that would be as if a new game with no DLC/extra MTX included dropped for upwards of $150. I'm not even scratching the surface of the luxury niche consoles like the Neo Geo that had single games that cost upwards of $500 or more adjusted for inflation because they were effectively arcade boards you were buying.
@@Xiox321 I would trust more in this reason if the CEOs and people has high salary first to cutoff bonus and reduce wage to help mitigate de damage and show that they can survive even if need to cut luxary like a new yatch or travel other country with family once a year. People doesn't asking to live under a bridge as a homeless, but keep pressing and eventually living under the bridge will be the best outcome.
@Xiox321 dude, no offense but 30 seconds in a civil class teaches us that the 'inflation' right now is very very very artificial. They're not struggling, they're making more money than they ever have been, look at how no matter how successful the studio was they just hacked away at them no matter what. Capitalism is a beast that subsists on its own flesh to survive until it inevitably collapses
@@Xiox321 That extra money goes just to the board - you think worker wages have increased in ANY way? My company had 2% raises this year. 2%! What the F is anyone supposed to do with 2%?
A strike won't help much when the company is to a point that they view layoffs as being the next option. Yes, a strike could possibly help negotiate better work environment and other benefits, but if a company needs to layoff employees they need to layoff employees.
@@faustsin9366 depends on if the bonus is actual money or stock awards. If the bonus is mostly, or all, stock awards, then it doesn't really do much if it has a vest period. I can only touch on my experience, but all of my bonuses are in stock, so taking away my stock doesn't help with anything since it isn't liquid money.
Honestly I would pay $80 if we went back to the 2007 standard of quality writing, full releases without major issues, proper DLC, and the complete removal of microtransactions - but they won’t do that. Investing through private equity firms is ruining a lot of industries right now because private equity believes in short-term cashing out rather than investing in the infrastructure that builds a company. It’s why there’s always a short term boost and then cancer that plagues a company every time there’s an IPO for public trading. Public investing and ‘market makers’ are just poison pills to companies because of the way that private equity firms have lobbied to impact American politics.
@@nicholasbreecher9315 For real, Gears of war 2 alone has more content than any "AAA" modern game I can think of in recent memory. And it was THE NORM! A fully playable split screen co op campaign that was the perfect length, 50 wave horde mode on every multiplayer map with bosses again all playable co op split screen, and a bomb ass multiplayer. All working perfectly fine, shipped day 1 with the game purchase. I played that game for freaking YEARS and didnt get sick of the content. I miss 2005-2010 gaming.
Lol this reminds me of that one SpongeBob episode where Plankton successfully tricked everyone into thinking Krabby Patties sucked, and to try and get them back, Mr. Krabs suggested tripling the prices. And when SpongeBob suggested the opposite, he only did so by one cent.
I can remember being in high school 25 years ago and wanting to work as a concept artist in the video game industry, and over that time I saw just how badly video game companies treated their workforce, ran them into the ground, and trapped them in a continuous cycle of project-based layoffs, with people constantly jumping from company to company with *zero* job security. I have associates who are artists in the video game industry, some of which have worked in the field for decades, and for as talented and skilled as they are, with the resumes they have, they're always thinking about where their next check is going to come from - it's ridiculous. I've found meaningful employment as an artist in other fields, but that brutal, degrading, insecure work environment across the industry as a whole has killed all desire I might've had to work in the gaming industry. Unionization is desperately needed, because devs have no recourse when this happens. They're simply stuck in an increasingly tenuous gig industry, where instead they should be able to enjoy the job security that should come with their full-time career in an industry that dominates the market. This current situation and mentality speaks only for the greed and ineptitude of the corporate side of the industry. Only by banding together as an organization unto themselves can they control that by denying the publishers of the talent they need in order to make the billions they covet above all else.
Big game studios are basically the MCU now, where every movie is like $250-$300 million to make and need to surpass $1 billion to be considered financially successful; so it’s an environment where new ideas are hard to pitch because people need a hit and rely on popular franchises. My guess is that there is a lot of bloat and unnecessary spending that goes on not only developing the game but at the game studios overall. It’ll be a great time for small studios and indies that can make a game on a budget and not need to sell 5 million plus copies to be successful.
Give me one time where you saw one of those rich lizards and said to yourself "yeah...this dude plays video games for sure" Problem number one, we're hiring out of touch boomers for top positions just because they held a high position at another company in a completely unrelated field, but hey let's hire him, he totally won't run our shit into the ground like he did at the last place he worked.
Stardew Valley is in the top 10 on Steam right now ahead of the expansion launch in a couple weeks. This is SEVEN years since its initial release. This is definitive proof that there's a huge market for small indie groups and even individual developers if they make great games.
This is 100% the greedy corporations fault. Their micro transaction model of less for more money and trying to milk more out of a poorly designed game concept is coming to an end. I knew this would eventually bottom out for these companies. They need to get back to focusing on quality for their larger game base demographic.
Hey, at least our generation tried to get rich quickly with crypto market (our generation stock market) My mom still yells at me for playing video games at 35 yet if I told her guys like ninja made more money than a human will need in three life times playing video games she wouldn't believe me, or that girls willingly put naked pictures of themselves on the internet for a small fee but make more money in a month than her unionized steel worker son makes in a year... She even said it herself to her boyfriend, "I actually have no idea what people do for money anymore." Well its definitely not slaving away at a single company like you and dad dis for 30 years, and our generations don't want to do that just for a company to tank, and we lose our pensions because greedy company owners, ceo's run them into the ground.
I admit it sucks that whole branch has to close down but it is understandable that London Sony closes down because they were unable to develop something out which can brings profit to the company. If an employee can see that the company dept isn't doing well, your job security is at risk.
Then you don't know corporate America. They'd thank you for a gold watch present then tell you that you got fired so they can put in a more appropriate employee for their benefit can take your place.
You would think but with reports being generated stating global gaming revenues are set to exceed $320 billion by 2026, there are a lot of people wanting a slice of that pie. Sadly the greed won’t be going anywhere 😔 What we need are more companies that put gaming as an art /entertainment form first, a well developed game will be successful, just look at the games that have flopped this year and those that have succeeded.
These layoffs are probably BECAUSE of the investors. We are talking about groups of people who are prone to speculation and reactionary investments. People who are expecting never ending increases in profit, despite the environment with very finite resources. People who panic at the first sight of a profit line flattening. That is why we have seen the ever increasing number of predatory, anti-consumer practices. And once these started making diminishing returns, internal staff became the next target. How do you make more money on paper? By crunch - so you get more work done per hour, and by laying people off, so you have to pay fewer people.
It's reached the point where shareholders are the only customers and upper management are the only staff. The rest of us, both gamers and devs, are the PRODUCT.
Utter and complete nonsense, many of you here just don't get the dangers of capital flight. There are other more business friendly places to go other than the us if disastrous policies like this are ever in place. These businesses are private property, the services they provide can be done elsewhere. Unions drove out manufacturing jobs, biggest example. These countries with large populations can't have minimum wages. If China had something like that it'd go to India or Africa and they'd starve.
@@freedomfighter-1776absolute corporate cope, there’s already countries with less employee and consumer protections in place and capital hasn’t flown to them, because they are terrible places to do business for a variety of reasons. Sony isn’t gonna move to Namibia or wherever, no matter how little they can pay the employees.
So this is my take I work in the medical manufacturing industry and we are losing people like crazy, companies keep cutting people and they also release letters on there websites saying we work for our shareholders. Then the same thing is happening in the automotive industry where job cuts are crazy. Now it’s happening in the video game industry for the same reason shareholders and corporate profits and it’s disgusting these are people’s lives they are ruining and it just shows how bad corporate America is.
Problem is, the temptation to repeat what their corporate overlords did will eventually take hold. It takes a rare sort of person to resist that kind of corruption and greed.
@@Blackemperess Exactly and it's not just publicly-traded companies with shareholders who fall for this but even independent studios. Larian Studios boasted that they being independent means never having to answer to shareholders and the market, but all it takes is for their next game to tank or underwhelm in its sales for the studio to suddenly have to think how to cut expenses to stay open. Gaming is a business and sometimes business will slap gamers and its workers in the face with cold reality that without funding (either through shares or outside investors) then their dreams to make games doesn't happen.
I’m sorry but you’re just wrong. These problem is these developers never should have hired these people in the first place. They hired them with the idea that more games = more profit and to make more games you need more developers. Well turns out just because a ‘AAA’ studio makes a game, doesn’t mean the game is actually AAA nor does it mean it will sell like one either.
I think the old saying: "Less is more" goes very well for the industry today. Whenever a big AAA release happens, I play it and beat it, then go back to GOG and play Thief or System Shock or some other old-time game. It's that palpable "passion" in a game that feels lost today because of the pursuit of the dollar. Put big teams on smaller projects (that the devs *want* to develop) and I'm sure we would be blown away by what they release.
This is going to go on for a while. AAA studios have became extremely topheavy in the last decade with dev times spanning over 6+ years for a title. There is too much publisher interference, over too long timeframes. The worst thing is, with the 'games as service' model they stopped properly developing the core concept of games. Consequently, nowadays there are top managers and designers who couldn't recognise a good idea if it slapped them in the face. We have 100 mil budget games with nonexistent cores that are then developed for ages and finally, when released, they underperform - and the large studios can't comprehend why.
Too many people and no one is willing to make a choice and move forward. Just endless meetins of everyone trying to make everyone feel included. Ideas driven on copying what popular Money making game is out. All of which is to just sell the idea to investors and thats about it. The amount of money Wasted buying studios just to shut them down. Why? Use those billions and let devs make whatever game they want without interference. Pop out multiple dozen titles and see what works. Move devs from one project to another within the company and keep the games coming. Its not that fucking hard.
The AAA gaming space right now feels a lot like FOX Media Corps version of X-Men... trying to hard to put something out for money, that happens to be uninspired, cringe, and uncompleted. The other nasty thing in the gaming industry, is the Live Service gaming models. Not enough effort put into a game worth a single player wanting to play, let alone with other people. Monotonous missions, with asanine micro transactions, finally shutting down service at some point.... And that "Embracer Group" ... wow ... these are just hedgefund babies and silver spoon fed clowns not realizing the damage they are causing until it comes back to haunt them.
I personally think the publicly traded corporation is the worst type of company to make games. It’s hard to make games when your corporate structure demands by law that you make money for shareholders with no understanding or regard for game development.
Everyone needs to watch Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. It covers the collapse of the film industry in the 60s. The exact same thing we are seeing in games now. Inflated budgets, bad stories and lack of consumer interest. The game industry is the same age now as the film industry was then. From the ashes we got Spielberg, De Palma, Hopper, and Scorsese and the 70s gritty arthouse films. Gamers and the industry should be looking for the new renegades. I think we are entering a new exciting age where games are about to get real good and real weird.
I agree with this assessment. I think there's a perfect storm of: 1) unsustainable business practices at the top echelons of the industry 2) a situation in which standardization and acessibility of gamedev tools is widespread, resulting in a huge pool of talent available at the bottom. The fact that three of the best-selling, most well-received games in recent times have been indie-ish organic hits (Palworld, Baldur's Gate 3 and Helldivers 2) speaks volumes to me.
@@sodvar5047 these hits come as no surprise to me. It's just the beginning of small, agile studios putting out massive hits. 5-10 people, experts and risk takers. I'm excited.
Just like the movies industry, games companies have cultivated bloated studios for years. They absolutely deserve the blowback for letting it get to this point.
I remember a video a few years ago by Extra Credits - just hear me out. The video was about how the "middle shelf" games (the ones costing US$20-40 and not made to be big blockbusters, basically) have all but disappeared, resulting in this weird gulf between the low-price indie games and the high-priced AAA games. Basically, AAA companies generally had gone all in on the big blockbuster games and neglected the middle-tier stuff because it wasn't as profitable, resulting in them putting all their eggs in one basket, and counting on big budget releases to bring in the money. While the consumer market did suffer, so did the big companies, because now it's all-or-nothing on big games, nothing to buoy along the company with niche markets and steady income from smaller games. And now companies are basically seeing that video games are not an infinite growth market, the studios are suffering for it.
As someone who is studying game design in college & is set to graduate this year, it's a damn shame for what's happening now but I won't let that get to me
I wanted to go to game design as a kid but something in the back of my head told me not to. Glad I changed my mind otherwise I'd probably be suffering right now.
The difference is if you want to do what you love and if you want to do it for a big brand. There's countless, albeit less stable, venues for the former, while there's plenty of crunch and disappointment for the latter. Make your dream a reality on YOUR terms, not subservient to some fat cat who doesn't even give a damn about the things you're passionate about.
"Game design" is a bullshit scam of a class. In my experience, the worst developers are the ones with those degrees. They tend to be great at following instructions but struggle when they need to think creatively to solve a problem. Hopefully you took some real programming classes or self-taught as a supplement. If you have a passion for game development, go indie. You'll have much more freedom there. It will be hard at first and you'll have to work a "real" job for a while but it will be worth it in the end. Don't get discouraged and never give up.
It’s just a bunch of game dev studios and publishers realizing that they are too big to succeed. I’m not trying to take the blame away when I say that they never should have ballooned their staff this large in the first place. They keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and the lessons they learn from these mistakes are the polar opposite of what they should be learning. They essentially doubled down on failure multiple times and their answer was always to go bigger. More staff, bigger scope, bigger marketing, more aggressive and pernicious business model. Larian did it right, From software did it right, nearly everyone else did it wrong.
the main problem with corporations based in the US. is they are bound by law to only concern themselves with shareholder profits, nothing else. corporations only exist to produce profits for shareholders, at the expense of everything else. they have no legal responsibility to customers, employees, or society as a whole. that's why corporate charters absolutely be re-written to make them responsible for more than simply producing ever increasing profit margins for shareholders.
All that came about from Ford putting extra profit into his workers and was taken to court over it. One paid off judge got precedent for this entire clown-show.
Important thing to understand about Spider-Man 2: they had to move o a new engine to accommodate for faster movement, which means everything had to be started from scratch. Combat, traversal, even the entire map itself had to be remade from scratch. This is why the cost is so bloated since they effectively reshot it halfway through development. Miles Morales on the other hand just had to add a few new factions, redesign the map to be Christmas themed, and give Miles a gameplay loop. They still used the old engine at the time, so Insomniac didn't need to bloat their budget.
yea also ,if they cut out the hollywood actors,3d scanning and motion capture machines then that alone would reduce development cost...most ps2 and early ps3 never used this and they were fine without it...the motion capture machines are very costly from what iv read ...esp when the use the same ones that hollywood uses...
@@jackstraw4222 All those cinematics were needed to make a game fun to play? I still don't understand that part of why people argue why all these cinematics that require a lot of money to capture, program, render, etc...when it doesn't really add to the fun side of what is suppose to be a game. I'm all for the narrative-driven cinematic style of games but not to the point that it's hurting the industry. The industry is spending more and more for aspects of game development that's seeing diminishing returns.
@@Tullaryx Yes, games that feel like a movie are fun to me, I also like games like Mario or zelda. The cost of game development is gonna continue to rise as long as we have game developers lol, pray they don't get replaced by AI.
@@friday4557 don’t be surprised if it’s already started. The coding part of development most likely will be replaced by AI while the more creative side of development and rendering will remain people.
yea also no need for the motion capture either,that costs huge amount and so does the 3d scanning machine..most ps2 games never used it and they came out fine..
I don’t think these higher ups truly see how much they’re destroying their own industry. It’s not just on the consumer front but they’re actively incentivizing people to not work in the game industry at all and this will lead to a huge shortage. After all why would you spend literal years getting degrees and experience if you can just be fired on the spot even when you’ve made hugely successful games with huge returns on investment anyway? This was the exact reason why I chose not to into what I thought was my dream job and instead go into IT services, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.
If the companies are doing the layoffs as a way to cut their headcount because they realized they've grown too much and are spending too much on game development which is decreasing in profit with each release, then we're going to possibly have less jobs in the games industry going forward (unless of course new studios pop up to backfill). Yes, the concern of employees and job security I'd expect may impact people wanting to get into this industry, but the people who got deterred from this industry could be good if we do see less jobs in this industry (if new studios don't pop up and backfill).
The problem isn't the game industry, it's the way business is done. Layoffs increase stock prices in short term, and since it's bad for salary growth to stay in one place too long, execs don't care about long term problems. As long as business stays as it is, execs will continue to fail upwards while screwing over the rest of us.
It isn’t just the gaming industry. Companies worldwide are eating themselves up because the shareholders only care about mximising profit. They had record revenues yet they still keep firing staff and keep cancelling games because they want to earn even more money.
Yeah, just because a company had record revenue doesn't mean it is good enough for the stakeholders. We'd also need to know how much money have these stakeholders invested into the company, what the contract was (if it exists), etc... A company could have made record revenue, but that doesn't mean they made back enough money to pay back all the money given to them from stakeholders (investors). Note: Just because a company is making profits doesn't mean the company doesn't have debt or has paid off all of its debt
I miss Satorou Iwata, he is the person who understand what innovation and creativity means. Also, he views employees as a family. That is why Nintendo is thriving.
This is the next video game crash. It's not a myth, it's not happening later, it's happening now! Just like last time the market was flooded with too many terrible quality games and it's happening again. Only this time instead of ET it's Suicide Squad, it's Skull & Bones, it's all these awful live services that nobody asked for and they cost 70 freaking dollars which equals no players and developers get laid off. All the major publishers right now are making a move to cash out, the CEO's are gutting everyone under them so they can take whatevers left. The only difference between this video game crash and the last one is that it will only affect the AAA. Anyone will still be free to make games and upload them to Steam, but say goodbye to all the major devs.
it was pretty obvious it was going to happen, as far back as 2010 i could see it because of game franchises like cod,battlefield,watchdogs,assassins creed ..being major hits ..it meant more sequels...zero innovation..that was the start of this downfall..
True, at least now, the tools available to make games is more accessible. Unlike before, where dozens of consoles that had bad games and exclusive hardware. And even if no new content is made. We have a ton of backlog games we might have not even tried to open and play lol.
I don't know about other people but for me the most important aspect of games are that they are fun to play. I've had just as much fun recently playing old ps2 games as I have with today's mega funded blockbuster games. In my opinion they should go back to making much smaller games on the same scale and scope of previous generations but using modern technology. They could make far more games far more frequently and they wouldn't be risking massive financial flops if they make one unsuccessful game.
It’s a continuing cycle of pushing games that aren’t popular, or no one asked for. Microtransactions, and the push to monetize beloved franchises are proving to be mistakes after mistakes. Large companies like EA that acquire developers to transform them into shareholder puppets are causing this.
Not to mention ignoring the best selling platform (switch) But yeah the industry would be way more healthy if these companies stopped these dumb trends.
Yeah, it's the AAA industry that is really doing most of the mass layoffs. Also, it's ironic that they are worried about saving money, yet they don't cut their bonuses and salaries down, or even fire the idiots that made these boneheaded mistakes in the first place. One thing I wonder is why didn't Spiderman 2 just use graphics and assets from the first Spiderman and Miles Morales. It's pretty much diminishing returns at this point trying to make graphics in games even better.
It depends on where their compensation is coming from. If the higher ups compensation is mostly stock then that's different compared to paying an employee an actual salary. If I'm paying an employee say $60k per year then I'd need to have that actual money and pay it out weekly, monthly (or however the pay schedule is). If I'm paying someone say $60k in stock then that isn't physical money. I don't actually have physically $60k in stock. That's instead just $60k worth of stock and the stock price can & will change. That $60k in stock could go down to $40k or up to $100k, who knows for sure what it'll be by the time the stock vests. Added onto this, depending on the amount of stock given and company, the stock can have a vest plan. The stock grant could have a 6 month or 1+ year vest plan; which during the vest time the stock price could've decreased or increased. Also, depending on the stock grant there could be a clause saying that if you leave the company prior to your stock award vesting then you won't get it. Example If I was offered $50k in stock with a 1yr vest, if I leave the company 1 day before my stock vests (or anytime prior), then I won't be given the $50k. So, I basically worked for free up to then lol. However, if this was a salary and if I left anytime prior to the 1yr mark, I'd still have gotten x part of that $50k offered for a year.
I've been gaming since the late 70s and this is without a doubt the worst state the games industry has ever been in. As far back as 2016 I said that this was where the industry would eventually end up and the amount of backlash I got was unbelievable. "You're just an old guy living in the past, the games industry is fine, you're just a hater, you're not a real gamer." And they were the most polite comments I got. Well, I hate to say I told you so but...
Despite all the terrible layoffs, I hope this means that these talented people start making some incredible indie games. Fueling the indie game industry even more
as a long time gamer that watches videogame reviews and news regularly...i cant name one indie game on the spot,let alone any that has changed the industry in any way....
Did they hit their employees with the whole “we made record sales this year/quarter” before laying them off? 🥴 that seems to be the go to speech companies give to staff before mass cuts/walkouts 🤦🏽♂️
Unlikely. AAA and AAAA game sales are going down. That's a major reason for why there have been so many big layoffs lately. That combined with over-hiring and budget bloat created a very sick industry. Indie and AA games are the medicine that the industry needs. Buy Palworld and Helldivers 2.
This should also be a wake up call to studios and devs not to sell their studio to greedy publishers who's only interest is shareholder profit. Completely agree it is high time the tech industry unionizes.
Some people don't care. The money offered to them to sell can still be better than keeping the studio. Also, some companies whole purpose is to create a successful product that they can sell to a bigger company for a large amount of money.
It's truly unfortunate what's happening right now. I left everything I ever known to chase this dream to work in the games industry, only to be laid off or have my contract cut short. Last year I was laid off from 343, and haven't been able to get another game industry job since. What's happened to me has also happened to most of my friends in the industry. Maybe one day, things will change, and studios will focus on smaller titles with lower budgets, but change takes time. Hopefully, things will turn around but I fear it won't be any time soon.
there is literally no reason to buy $70+ AAA games that will continue to nickel and dime you when fully complete indie games under $30 exist, and old games that are built and priced more like indies can still be played
I'm so sick of these corporate idiots who don't understand the developers are the ones busting their ass to line their pockets with all this money and instead act like they're the ones who deserve all the credit and profit. It's absolutely getting ridiculous how many developers and other lower employees get sacrificed "for profit" and the "future of the company." I'm convinced they don't realize the future of the company is dying when they get rid of such talented workers, because who's going to keep wanting to work for you or make your games if you keep discarding anyone if things go right? I really hope this stops sooner than later.
If you're running a company and have stakeholders, investors, etc... then you need to also care about the profit of your products. Where does the company come from to fund these companies/studios? The money comes from the investors who gave the company/studio money. Without the investors you wouldn't even have a company/studio, or at least not one at the same scale. And if you aren't making a profit then other investors aren't going to want to give invest in you (give you money). Yes, layoffs can impact employees confidence and impact your ability to get talent to create these products, but generating profit for investors also matters if you rely on them to fund your company.
@@ninochaosdrache3189Just because Larian is run x way doesn't mean that's how everyone else will (or should) run their company. What Larian studios did isn't anything special/new, from the aspect of funding and not answering to outside stakeholders. You forget that companies take external funding because they don't have the money in the first place. If they had the money then they wouldn't have taken external funding; in most cases. So, it isn't feasible for most studios to do what Larian did because they don't have the money to fund the project at the scope that they're trying to achieve. Note: External funding is good because it makes it more accessible for more companies to be created.
It's crazy that the blame is always on the employees, not on the people in charge. If there were justice in the world, the suits would be fired, then re-hired just to get fired again to show how bit they screwed up.
It’s just a sign of the times, this isn’t unique to the games industry. As the economy continues to circle the drain, companies are going to lay off more and more employees. Despite what Wall Street says we are in a recession and have been for a little over a year, it’s only going to get worse for all employment sectors, not just gaming.
Considering how last year was a great success for indies *and* AAA games, this doesn't boil down to some saying, "AAA sucks, which is why we are seeing so many layoffs. The whole tech industry is going through the same as well. When you look at the bigger picture, overhiring and throwing out money freely during lockdown without regard for the future, *was* a form of corporate greed. There was no long term plan for how companies would even move forward financially, post-covid. That was mismanagement. And now, people are paying the price. This is the reckoning of the entire tech industry.
It's been extremely clear for a while now that AAA companies don't care about games and don't know how to actually make good games, and also that the people at these companies that might actually be able to contribute to this have absolutely no power at the company to affect anything. The executives making the decisions clearly do not play the games or respect anyone who enjoys videogames, which leads to a lot of baffling choices whereby decisions are made that completely undercut the enjoyment of a game - its core feature - in the name of theoretically increasing revenue, while other elements are all in on massively increasing the overall cost and development time of a product (because 4k visual fidelity is about the only thing gaming executives can understand, so OF COURSE every game needs to spend $200M recreating in perfect detail an enormous open world zone). Meanwhile the Pokemon With Guns game and the Basically Starship Troopers game and the Path of Exile clone - games clearly made by someone who at least vaguely understands the concept of fun, and how it applies to a videogame that a real person might actually enjoy - destroy the fuck out of branded live-service cash grabs where all the effort has gone into grabbing the cash and very little into the 'service' (some of which don't even have their servers enabled, which is kind of a hint that *everyone* at the AAA studios is a minimum-wage game developer, not just the writers and designers). And it's just weird! Because these studios do not exist as some kind of protected monopoly that can overcharge customers at will for inferior products! This is one of the most internationally competitive markets in the entire world. But the AAA 'we're a real corporation with real corporate hi-jinks' business model in 2024 absolutely cannot deal with the need to provide things that customers actually want, like FUN. Or even a sense of respect and responsibility - they've clearly completely cut the link now between the consumer's generosity and the rewards the actual team who makes the game receive. Insomniac getting hit due to Sony's bad bet on live-services - a thing that *everybody* was calling out as a bad idea half a decade ago - is a gross injustice and, to be frank, a serious hint to game developers that there are no good publishers at all, anywhere. =/
I don't reallyunderstand the layoffs but I'll shed no tears for any DEI departments that get dismantled. Really sucks for the actual developers though.
Hyper productions of $200 million will never be sustainable, this happened already in cinemas. They need to step down with the budgets, step down on the amount of projects (staring directly at you Ubisoft) and really let the studios work, and try to explain to the shareholders that great media can't be mass produced and that they will need to wait for these great games to be put out when they are ready because if not they are going to lose money again. But unfortunately, they are not going to understand it. Shareholders will never understand the businesses they invest their money into.
It's because of the loans. Too many businesses have been abusing the low/no interest loans that were available the last several years, and now that the interest rates are higher again investors are clamoring for their money. We are on the edge of a bubble burst even worse than 83.
Sweet baby Inc consulting firm helped with these lay offs. The game industry needs to start making fun playable games but all these CEO lack and creativity or spine. I imagine if this keeps going we may only have a few publishers left that will probably set on IPs for a long time. But how is even possible to have a game cost $300 million to make? Insane.
Soooo disappointed with the management of these AAA studios. They're literally destroying themselves and the livelihood of the ones who work under them.
So what if the layoffs are happening? We have no voice in the matter. All we can hope for is that more development studios get founded from all of those that suddenly have time in their hands. Also, we must hope that those new development studios become competitive enough to breathe a new change in the industry. This is a crisis, but also an opportunity.
Legit feels like I got shafted so damn hard, finished college last may, had 2 years online due to covid, the whole thing sucked until the final year and now that I'm a graduate, I can't find work. Heck, 90% of my classmates can't find work either. This is bullshit.
Welcome to the adult world, where you find out all your hard work is for nothing, and most people will lie to your face with a smile just to get you to do more, for the same pay or less.
I heard that Japan has legislation and laws that make it illegal to shed positions w/o legitimate and valid reasons to do so. Aside from that, unionization seem like the only plausible options but I'm not sure about the plausibility of either happening in the US.
This is embarrassing. Game budgets grow year on year, profits soar, but these moronic CEOs can't see past the numbers. As you said, if this keeps up the big industry names will die out.
If the games budget is growing year over year, but the profit is decreasing then this isn't good. Eventually they'll reach a point where the budget has grown and they aren't making any profit after the games release. Added onto this, if you're a company who generates income from outside sources such as investors, stakeholders, etc.... this isn't acceptable. People who invest in the games development would not want to invest in a company and game that is decreasing profit year over year. And if the investor money decreases then this will impact the company/game studio they rely on the investors money to fund the games development
@@ninochaosdrache3189 If you're cutting the games budget then that may will impact the scope of the game and what you can include in it. You'd have to do your research and review if you can cut the budget and scope of the game but still hit your target goals for revenue.
The thing that annoys the shit out of me with modern gaming is one why do business buy a studio if your just going to do nothing with it and /or shut it down. Like what is the financial benefit of this. The second is how do companies expect to make so much money while also not supporting the people who actually care about making games. Screw shareholders most probably give half a shit about actually gaming and instead think about Trends to earn money quickly instead of letting those who care about gaming to make games that are you know fun and interesting that can also make profits. We see indie and small studios make great, fun, entertaining games and make millions of dollars of it
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- You know there is something seriously fucked about the games industry when not even Marvel's Spider-Man 2, PlayStation's fastest selling game at launch that has sold 10 million copies in 5 months, is enough to stave off layoffs at Insomniac. We are at roughly 8,000 games industry layoffs for 2024 and it's only the beginning of March. 2023 had 10,500 layoffs total and that was a bad year. We are almost there 2 months into this year.
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Gaming industry: Come on! We need money to develope AIs 😂
bro the layoffs are covid chill, idk why its such a freak out . isnt cutting bloat good?
I think you should put your sources, it’s important.
I'm going to call it. The CEOs of some of these companies will give themselves big bonuses and raises.
100% and they'll let us know they did that too
And the stock will boom only to crash in a few years when the games are garbage due to employees fearing for their jobs and the top talent leaving
They’ve already been doing that. Except for Nintendo.
Yep, a big bonus for "cutting costs" this quarter. And they can resign with that nice bonus(es) before the consequences of gutting the company catch up to them in some future quarter. But by then, the loss isn't in _their_ "hands".
Disgusting
@@TechSY730 Exactly. The economy will then crash...but these people will be unaffected since they'll have their billions.
Games are making more money than ever and yet it's never been a worse time to be in the industry. What a paradox
It's only the worst time if you are the working class on the bottom, but that is literally everywhere
its almost as if money always corrupts the integrity of art...
Unregulated Unchecked Capitalism 🇺🇸
Money goes to upper management and Shareholders before the crumbs are trickled down to making the game
Only because the higher ups are taking all the money and paying their workers shit.
The AAA games industry is imploding. Thank the gods for quality indies.
Hopefully they completely replace the coming "AAAA" gaming industry corporations are trying to promote.
AAA studios don’t even make anything good anymore.
Hopefully CDPR will fall as well.
We know how they delivered their two uncompleted games on day one and took them months and even years to fix them.
Hades II babyyyyy
@@SeriousDragonify And lose the Witcher IP in the process? (Witcher 3 has won over 240 GOTY awards, BTW) Calm down... Cyberpunk is FANTASTIC now. Get over it. It's a mistake you can bet they'll never make again.
Don't worry guys. The CEOs will still get their $20m bonuses
Thank god
Get your own motion
When can we eat them?
@@TheNapster153 Eat your boss first and tell us how it goes
The AAA industry is like hollywood right now. Hundreds of millions for 1 product that's expected to make back exorbitant amounts of money, and both cases yield the same result.
Yep. I was afraid something like this might start happening since games budgets skyrocketed to hundreds of millions and big publishers started chasing dreams of golden goose. It's "all or nothing" business model seems unstable and largely unsustainable. And who's paying for bad decisions? As always people who had nothing to do with them.
@@kosmosyche its been corrupted by the same degenerate pedophilic satanists that wanna push indoctrination down their customers throats.
Hollywood is a god awful place to work in now. Somewhere around 2008 to 2012, the freakish activists took over and it's not been the same since.
Say what you want about Harvey Weinstein, sick bastard of a man but they guy knew media and had the stones to deliver.
I've had to take the DEI "tests". It's like stepping on a land mine and the moment you step away, boom. Asinine.
It is all the stock markets fault really. All companies want to be on it, and then they want 200% growth every year, even when they only release a product every 5 years.
100% correct.
AAA studios are being shit on by smaller indie studios and its great to see
Nothing’s wrong sticking more to indies
At this point, we'll have to look to indies for gems (not to say that's bad, just wish that we could find gems in every part of the industry)
AAA studio can't even fight the Indieflation, LOL
I don't know really. The most played games are Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Valorant, COD, FIFA etc. They're all microtransaction games and battle pass games. The big companies like Valve, EA, Epic, Activision/Blizzard, make it impossible for small developers to thrive as they should, because a large percentage of money is flowing to the same decade old franchises full of addicted gamers spending money on microtransactions instead of innovation.
We must also support games from smaller studios, such as Fuga: Melodies Of Steel and Unicorn Overlord. They're made with actual passion instead of just trying to ransack gamers' wallets with loot boxes, microtransactions and $20 skins.
This after price increases, $70 glorified DLC, and live service game bundles that charge $120+ for games that don't even launch with all of their content available to players.
"Thanks for spending $100+ on your copy of the game, would you like to buy our season pass? And don't forget our limited time battle passes, they'll be gone before you know it so you better buy them while they last."
Don't forget the push for AAAA games and the rumored $80 price increase
Marvel’s Spiderman 2 in my opinion was also a glorified expansion
Until that flops so hard they will have no choice but to sell the games at a reasonable price.
@@grimbostink7607 i feel like GTA VI Will open the Pandora box for the 80 dolars price tag, i mean, on Europe, there's a lot of triple A videogames that are already 80 euros soo i think that Will hapenn sonner than later, still not a huge issue if the product is something great like elden ring, baldur's gate 3, the witcher III etc, but most triple A companies would do just as bad if not worse
The quadruple A thing is just a meme because of stupid gredy Mr krabs guillemont, though, again, GTA VI might also open Up that box if the rumors that the game's budget is 1 billion dolars are true, and no, i'm not a big GTA fan even if It looks like i'm gloryfing It, and i don't trust rockstar at all after all these years with that trash 3D GTA classics remaster and the port of RDR for 50 bucks, as well as macrotransations on GTA online ( asmongold might have a lot of bad takes, but using the term macrotransations for in game purchases is not one of then )
I've called this out for years. These giant companies buying up a ton of talented studios will destroy the industry because their goal is meeting their bottom line. The moment there's the slightest dip in their market share, they cut half the studios they bought regardless of their performance. Enron introduced this practice
conglomerates should be considered a monopoly
Neo-liberalism, which includes Neo-conservatism under it sick philosophy, is always pushing for corporate consolidation, monopoly, eventual fascism and the eventual creation of new feudal system with corporations in place of royal families.
It's the nature of unrestricted capatalism
It's almost as if these companies see the video game industry as a conveyor belt factory...
So a big part of the issue is not just corporations being awful, its actually with the games industry being way overinflated. Due to how much success there was mixed with how fast it was growing, a lot of companies over hired, which is always unsustainable, and it just got worse with covid. These layoffs were going to happen at some point, it was inevitable because the success they were seeing was never gonna last forever. The whole esports scene is a very good example of these same issues, and was one of the first parts to start collapsing.
What baffles me is that they're never satisfied. 35% ROI is still insanely good money, but since the game before was 122% the game after should have been 122% or more, then the game after that even more, and more, and more. This is nothing but greed we're talking about, these companies are never satisfied. Whatever they gain, they expect more, more, more, always more. Do you think investors and Sony were gona starve on that 35% extra? no, they weren't, they just wanted 122% or more out of greed, not out of need.
Well said. That's exactly it.....keeping these massive profit margins and wanting them to just go higher and higher. I work in a grocery store, and the profit margins in THAT business can be LESS than 35%.
The problem is the shareholders. They want more and more profits, the more profits the more valuable the shares become. This is why this industry just doesn't go hand in hand with shares. It works for Apple cause they make hardware, the software is just secondary, as long as it functions it's fine. It's the applications people use on their devices which make their experience with the devices good or bad. They can cut some corners here and there, as long as the products work. You can't do that with games, if you cut corners you produce slop.
the issue isn't the figure on its own. 35% ROI looks decent on its own, but the opportunity cost of investing that money elsewhere could have given them far better ROI, at least that's what Sony believes. Sure, at the end of the day it boils down to greed but that's because they have options, if other sources of revenue couldn't give better ROIs' then 35% in comparison would still be worth it. It's a business after all, Sony doesn't need to invest in gaming if it can't earn as much money as some other source of revenue.
Not even cancer can grow as fast as these CEOs expect their cash cows to grow. And then when they don't become more grotesquely rich than they did last year, they cut their losses and look for another cash cow.
They've deluded themselves into believing the money they made during covid is sustainable and set the bar to that. Worse, they think they should be making _more_ than what was made during that time on a regular basis. It's greed and corporate ignorance.
Now watch those leadership salaries not change by a fucking penny.
Lies! They most likely increase their salaries and bonuses.
@John-PaulHunt-wy7lfyou sound 12 this is why there are so many starving artists. You guys haven’t grown up yet so you say insane things like “art isn’t about making money.” If it’s not, then you better be doing something that actually makes money lol
Shoutout to Toys For Bob this week for escaping Activision and Microsoft and going Indie. They can do whatever they want now and not be at risk of whatever stupid shit these giant publishers and corporations do.
heres hoping that crash 5 and spyro 4 can still be made
This is a good news!
I wonder when governments are finally going to say "enough" when Sony and Microsoft keep buying up developers. The amount of money they throw around to stiffle competition and lock games into their ecosystem is digusting.
hopefully crash won't get much more "WOAH" from activ micro shenanigans.
Toys for Bob would need to get a license, as i doubt microsoft is just going to let a ip such as Crash or Spyro go loose, i mean maybe but i doubt it. That is not bad i mean Baldur Gate was license out to Larian and look how that turned out. I am sure given the history of Toys for Bob it wont be hard to get said license.
I think there's 3 components to this.
1. General leadership incompetence. These CEOs are habitually making the wrong decisions and others are paying the price for it. Including shareholders.
2. Herd mentality related to emerging AI technology. The industry is making ballpark assumptions of how much AI can replace employees. It's about staying competitive in an AI future and it becomes a race to the bottom.
3. Poor rights and work security for employees. It's simply too easy to lay off people without any consequence.
AI is the answer, they realize most of those workers will not be needed.
1. This will only get worse, if you take a look at courses and content that students have to go through when getting "taught how to lead" which is kinda insane.
2. Kinda sad to see how many people and companies don't even try to understand the concept of AI. It is still in early development amd depending on it should be way too risky. But I guess it is safer to lay off people who have talent and could be used right away. Or at the very least try to search for a way to let them still work for you. I bet that all these companies and studios are hiring right now as well.
3. Depends on the country. The US is one of the worst when it comes to employee rights, but it is still very dependent where you work.
ESG money dried up.
@pseudoscientist8010 if the only games you want are ubisoft games sure, but I want new games not assasian creed every time
@@pseudoscientist8010 There are a LOT of people out there who buy games who are very against AI being used instead of developers. Once they find out it was made by AI the sales will tank.
Remember when Satoru Iwata took a pay cut when the Wii U did not met expectations? Embracer's CEO could learn a thing or two from that legendary man.
Things like that are natural when the CEO started on the shop floor. It's like how in Japan it's a legal requirement for you to be a doctor before you're a hospital director.
Japan also has labor laws in place where you can’t have mass layoffs unless you’re going bankrupt.
How else will they buy their many yachts
All CEOS could learn something from Saturo Iwata, not just the video games industry.
Satoru
The fact that all these people are being laid off at the same time means that they're all basically being pitted against each other for whatever available jobs are out there. What a fucking nightmare.
Also makes it that much harder for us new devs who are trying to break into the industry
@@big_sis_moonWith all of the layoffs happening, I don’t mean to be that guy but you’ll never break into the industry for a number of years unless you start your own company
@@dawsynasay4841 never say never, but it is definitely an option to consider
Indie devs are holding the gaming industry on their shoulders man
And they will sell to These big corporations and the cycle continues.
They spend 500 million to make "games" that aren't worth 20. It's simple math.
Too many choices America. IT'S NOT HEALTHY...
Saints Row reboot and COD franchise is on that list.
All the same, shortest storyline games.
Maybe it'd help if they spent more of that budget on the game and less on marketing.
@@Slayerlord13 They do spend the majority of that budget on the games. The problem is that they have way too many developers working on it. They have 15-20 people working for two weeks on a feature that could take one good developer only a few hours to make.
Most of the devs working at these companies are terrible at it too. They are all university graduates who lack the ability to do anything but follow instructions. They can't think creatively. Without someone to teach them, they can't learn. They are the types that took a "game design" class in university because they like video games but they never once attempted to learn programming before then, despite all of the free resources available on the internet even back in the 90s and early 2000s. They have no business working in this industry.
But at the same time@@NuchiAsaki , that is the norm and will continue to be the norm as we move through generations. I mean, if you feel that they lack thinking creatively, wait till generation Alpha start working in the industry LOL.
That beginning with the slap is totally warranted😂😂😂😂😂😂
Angry Yongyea is a mood.
Exquisite Intro. Delightful.
Im still so dissapointed at will smith
0:06 for reference
Get your the word “Community” Out of your Fing 🤬 mouth!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
This is happening in the movie industry as well. They're spending half a billion dollars on cookie-cutter, superhero nonsense and they don't turn a profit unless it breaks a billion dollars. This needs to stop. Scale the budgets back and make content with imagination instead of just endless stream of money. I'm not alone in saying I'm fine with a 50 million dollar movie or game.
Hear it's the same for TV as well. Budgets are completely out of control for "blockbuster" products.
The issue isn't about superhero nonsense but how ignorant of them to ignore what fans want. Look at the recent movies, they aren't doing fan service like Deadpool. They are insisting to put their agenda message into movie.
@j.ctuber3666 You're completely missing the point. If you were right, Barbi wouldn't be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. The people who REALLY make the money watching those movies aren't right-wing fools who cry like snowflakes about women superheroes and non-straight characters existing. What I'm saying is. The hardcore fans don't make them money. They make money from casual watchers. Those casual watchers (like me) are completely burned out on these expensive movies. Action scenes constructed in computers aren't interesting to me anymore. Give me Mad Max Fury Road over 30 Marvel movies any day! I did love the first Iron Man, though.
@@ejkk9513 Speaking mad Max, oh yeah, best movie so far. Watched it a dozen times and it still doesn't get boring. It is how the movie was made. Understand your point about casual goers.
Nobody involved has imagination because they can't create. Only appropriate.
in the ps3 era a game that sold 400.000 copies got a platinum (budget) re-release, because it was already successful enough...nowadays a game that sells millions of copies is getting your studio shut down...smh
most mid tier and top end ps3 games hold up well,i was playing some recently and the graphics still hold up well..
@@jackstraw4222 and this generation of consoles still has great games, that never re-released on modern platforms like, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Anarchy Reigns/ Max Anarchy, Wet, Lolipop Chainsaw, Unreal Tournament 3 (which has mouse and keyboard support on PS3), Twisted Metal 2012 just to name a few
Yesterday's price is not todays price.
The issue is not the revenues all these sales make but how much money they make after the cost of developing and producing has been deducted. Sony's issue that caused these layoffs, or some of it at least, has been that their studios are spending more and more to make games and they're not making as much.
Example would be in the past Sony studios (PS2/PS3 era) would make $1.60 cents for every dollar spent creating a game. for the PS4/PS5 era this has shrunk where maybe now in this gen for every $1 spent on create a game they only get $1.10 back.
Revenues is make for great news bait, but its the profit margin that makes the finance people of every company big or small that raise uncomfortable debates around the company table of how to proceed.
Gaming is now a mature business industry and not the hobby, niche business it was before and that maturing of the industry brings without both advantages (more people willing to invest) but also disadvantages in that its treated like any industry in that profits is in the driver seat.
@@Tullaryx If that is the case, why not just cut the advertising budget?! We seen those stupid no gameplay allowed adverts in the build-up to, during and after the PS5 launch! PS5, a console were they allegedly made 5 million and sold the very same quantity during pre-orders! Yet, every time you put any TV channel on, a console that you could not buy because it had already sold out and you were not at that time allowed to visit retail to see if it had came back in stock had a huge over abundance of unnecessary advertising! Also, one studio might have a loss, but as an entirety all studios should be managed to work for each other, so everybody stays employed! If the videogame industry really is growing 4% year on year, then not everybody is making a loss regardless of inflation! It is simple maths, pride of work, strategy, passion and leadership! All qualities that Mr. We Believe in Third-Party Partners does not have when he is on the golf course rather than doing his job. PS5 is a generation I will never buy into or be interested in and if people care for the principles of our favourite developers and intellectual property being retained, then people should not be interested in the PS5 either.
Lethal company, Helldivers, and Palworld have literally pimpslapped the AAA game space. Games under $60 that have significantly more value than games valued at $120 or more.
And Larian. Although they did have the higher price of 60$ IIRC...but worth it.
Want to add another slap to the face?
Take a look at Secrets of Grindia. Not as massive, but just as quality.
Last epoch $35 slapped Diablo 4
Or look at Easy Red 2
Note: The game is still being improved.
@@minhha8981 love that game for the steam deck
Who asked them to spend 300 million making a single game. I don't believe that all that money went to development of the game. So many other games can reach the same scale with less investment. This is extremely saddening.
Some of these games don't even need any real advertising budget because of word of mouth alone. Just produce 1 or 2 trailers, slap the banner on the Playstation home/store and that's more than enough if the game is highly anticipated.
Well, spending 315 million on Spider-Man 2 has to be put on Insomniac's shoulders. They're the one who are updating the executives above them what cash flow they need to finish the title on time and as polished as possible.
I think there's enough blame to go around that the gaming industry needs to re-evaluate what the industry needs to become moving forward. Is it to consistently chase better and photo-realistic graphics to bigger and more expansive games? Or does it need to remember that gaming was built less on AAA gaming but more AA and lesser titles in-between bigger event titles.
Gamers also have to temper their expectations when it comes to all games. Not every game will be cinematic or photorealistic yet how often do we see gamers put down a game because it doesn't match the graphics fidelity and/or award-winning narrative of what they believe all games should be.
I agree that executives and boardrooms of these big publishers should shoulder the bulk of the blame for chasing the trends in the industry instead of actually trying to just create games that are fun, but the industry as a whole from the publishers, developers and consumers should all share in the blame for how unsustainable each group's expectations on what the gaming industry should be.
They choose to operate inefficiently and stupidly and wonder why they can’t continue to put it on the consumer. The industry was more than successful enough through Covid for them to do well, they knew this was coming from a mile away, we need a new group of leaders in these companies that aren’t going to shoot themselves in the foot over dumb practices
@@Tullaryx
"Not every game will be cinematic or photorealistic yet how often do we see gamers put down a game because it doesn't match the graphics fidelity and/or award-winning narrative of what they believe all games should be."
This may be a chicken egg problem. If a game costs 70+€, then I demand photorealistic graphics and a good story, because otherwise the price isn't justified.
@@ninochaosdrache3189 True and photorealism doesn't come cheap.
I mean we're now at a point that people don't want to play at 30fps and that every game should be at 60fps. Yet, they don't ask if capping at 30fps was a decision to help cut cost. The technical versus cost is something that people like Digital Foundry really need to look into. We're told that so and so tech engine is the best out there, or that system has better machine learning tools, etc...but no one ever explains what the costs are to have those things and should publisher pass on those costs to the consumer or eat it and hope the title sell way beyond expectations.
I think Sony is in a mindset that all their 1st party titles should sell 10 million or more when those titles are, for the most part, outliers to the whole of titles they release year in and year out.
Not every game will sell like GTA yet every publisher uses that as the standard to shoot for instead of tempering expectations. So, when that bar they set for themselves is not reach because its too high they panic and the ground floor employees suffer for it.
I feel like our society is close to breaking a breaking point. Not just the games industry. Everywhere you look people are being overworked and underpaid. Only a small amount of people can afford basic living on their own. Much less support a family...
I have heard "we have to make the difficult decision but we have to lay off people" so many times that I don't believe it is a difficult decision. It is just a reaction to their questionable decisions.
Reaction? No. This was their plan from the very beginning, set in stone well before those employees were hired.
First they increased the price of games to $70, then they increased the price of subscription online services like PlayStation plus, now they are laying off thousands of hard working emoloyees. This is a very dark time for the gaming industry, especially for the hardworking people who work night and day to deliver a good project.
To be fair, due to inflation, if they don't increase their prices then they don't make as much money. Employees can't afford bills, food, and other necessities if they don't get pay increases, and large companies can't keep up with demand without highly skilled (and expensive) employees, and they can't pay them if they don't make more and more money every year.
Ultimately it sucks for a lot of people, and I'm sure a lot of that money doesn't get to the actual people making the games, though I think there's a lot more to it than just corporate greed. Things are only going to continue to get more expensive. Where I am in Canada, I remember going to the store with $30 as a kid to pick out a new game, now it's over $100 for a standard edition.
@@Xiox321 I don't know where you were shopping or how old you are but older games cost more relative money on average compared to more recently. Plenty of new N64 games were anywhere from $50-$80 USD when they released in the 90s. Adjusting for inflation that would be as if a new game with no DLC/extra MTX included dropped for upwards of $150. I'm not even scratching the surface of the luxury niche consoles like the Neo Geo that had single games that cost upwards of $500 or more adjusted for inflation because they were effectively arcade boards you were buying.
@@Xiox321 I would trust more in this reason if the CEOs and people has high salary first to cutoff bonus and reduce wage to help mitigate de damage and show that they can survive even if need to cut luxary like a new yatch or travel other country with family once a year. People doesn't asking to live under a bridge as a homeless, but keep pressing and eventually living under the bridge will be the best outcome.
@Xiox321 dude, no offense but 30 seconds in a civil class teaches us that the 'inflation' right now is very very very artificial. They're not struggling, they're making more money than they ever have been, look at how no matter how successful the studio was they just hacked away at them no matter what. Capitalism is a beast that subsists on its own flesh to survive until it inevitably collapses
@@Xiox321 That extra money goes just to the board - you think worker wages have increased in ANY way? My company had 2% raises this year. 2%! What the F is anyone supposed to do with 2%?
To be honest, I feel like a Video Game Developers Strike could matter more than a Writers Strike
A strike won't help much when the company is to a point that they view layoffs as being the next option.
Yes, a strike could possibly help negotiate better work environment and other benefits, but if a company needs to layoff employees they need to layoff employees.
Ya but they don't if you cut CEO and executive bonuses you litterally avoid these layoffs allmost everytime
@@faustsin9366 depends on if the bonus is actual money or stock awards.
If the bonus is mostly, or all, stock awards, then it doesn't really do much if it has a vest period.
I can only touch on my experience, but all of my bonuses are in stock, so taking away my stock doesn't help with anything since it isn't liquid money.
And you know how CEO’s think this is gonna get fixed? Charge 80 bucks for the games.
If you watched Phil Spencers talk going forward a couple of weeks prior, you know AAA gaming is done for.
Honestly I would pay $80 if we went back to the 2007 standard of quality writing, full releases without major issues, proper DLC, and the complete removal of microtransactions - but they won’t do that. Investing through private equity firms is ruining a lot of industries right now because private equity believes in short-term cashing out rather than investing in the infrastructure that builds a company. It’s why there’s always a short term boost and then cancer that plagues a company every time there’s an IPO for public trading. Public investing and ‘market makers’ are just poison pills to companies because of the way that private equity firms have lobbied to impact American politics.
@@nicholasbreecher9315 For real, Gears of war 2 alone has more content than any "AAA" modern game I can think of in recent memory. And it was THE NORM! A fully playable split screen co op campaign that was the perfect length, 50 wave horde mode on every multiplayer map with bosses again all playable co op split screen, and a bomb ass multiplayer. All working perfectly fine, shipped day 1 with the game purchase. I played that game for freaking YEARS and didnt get sick of the content. I miss 2005-2010 gaming.
$80? No, friend, they're sizing up $100 for the unfinished shitshows they plop out for the basic experience.
Lol this reminds me of that one SpongeBob episode where Plankton successfully tricked everyone into thinking Krabby Patties sucked, and to try and get them back, Mr. Krabs suggested tripling the prices. And when SpongeBob suggested the opposite, he only did so by one cent.
I can remember being in high school 25 years ago and wanting to work as a concept artist in the video game industry, and over that time I saw just how badly video game companies treated their workforce, ran them into the ground, and trapped them in a continuous cycle of project-based layoffs, with people constantly jumping from company to company with *zero* job security.
I have associates who are artists in the video game industry, some of which have worked in the field for decades, and for as talented and skilled as they are, with the resumes they have, they're always thinking about where their next check is going to come from - it's ridiculous.
I've found meaningful employment as an artist in other fields, but that brutal, degrading, insecure work environment across the industry as a whole has killed all desire I might've had to work in the gaming industry.
Unionization is desperately needed, because devs have no recourse when this happens.
They're simply stuck in an increasingly tenuous gig industry, where instead they should be able to enjoy the job security that should come with their full-time career in an industry that dominates the market. This current situation and mentality speaks only for the greed and ineptitude of the corporate side of the industry.
Only by banding together as an organization unto themselves can they control that by denying the publishers of the talent they need in order to make the billions they covet above all else.
Too many big gaming companies have too many shareholder obligations with unrealistic growth promises.
thats the nature of having shareholders, they always want infinite growth
Big game studios are basically the MCU now, where every movie is like $250-$300 million to make and need to surpass $1 billion to be considered financially successful; so it’s an environment where new ideas are hard to pitch because people need a hit and rely on popular franchises. My guess is that there is a lot of bloat and unnecessary spending that goes on not only developing the game but at the game studios overall. It’ll be a great time for small studios and indies that can make a game on a budget and not need to sell 5 million plus copies to be successful.
Profits are stolen wages. That simple truth becomes more and more clear everyday
yet the corporate heads who seemingly only good for bad judgment make millions. This BS gotta stop!
The leadership is getting a handle on themselves, they are laying off useless people who have not produced anything and are losing money.
Give me one time where you saw one of those rich lizards and said to yourself "yeah...this dude plays video games for sure"
Problem number one, we're hiring out of touch boomers for top positions just because they held a high position at another company in a completely unrelated field, but hey let's hire him, he totally won't run our shit into the ground like he did at the last place he worked.
Stardew Valley is in the top 10 on Steam right now ahead of the expansion launch in a couple weeks. This is SEVEN years since its initial release. This is definitive proof that there's a huge market for small indie groups and even individual developers if they make great games.
This is of no surprise. Money has become more important than a creative imagination.
1984
This is 100% the greedy corporations fault. Their micro transaction model of less for more money and trying to milk more out of a poorly designed game concept is coming to an end. I knew this would eventually bottom out for these companies. They need to get back to focusing on quality for their larger game base demographic.
im tired of the stock market as a whole. its literally killing people at this point. can barely get groceries anymore
Hey, at least our generation tried to get rich quickly with crypto market (our generation stock market)
My mom still yells at me for playing video games at 35 yet if I told her guys like ninja made more money than a human will need in three life times playing video games she wouldn't believe me, or that girls willingly put naked pictures of themselves on the internet for a small fee but make more money in a month than her unionized steel worker son makes in a year...
She even said it herself to her boyfriend, "I actually have no idea what people do for money anymore." Well its definitely not slaving away at a single company like you and dad dis for 30 years, and our generations don't want to do that just for a company to tank, and we lose our pensions because greedy company owners, ceo's run them into the ground.
It's really baffling for Jim Ryan to call to shut down London Studio after they threw a retiring party for him.
So you think that them throwing him a party would somehow make them immune from being trimmed if they aren't performing and costs need to be reduced?
I admit it sucks that whole branch has to close down but it is understandable that London Sony closes down because they were unable to develop something out which can brings profit to the company.
If an employee can see that the company dept isn't doing well, your job security is at risk.
If you're firing everyone then don't do the party. Lmao imagine being this socially incompetent.
Ah yes the classic : "Call an ambulance, but not for me."
Then you don't know corporate America. They'd thank you for a gold watch present then tell you that you got fired so they can put in a more appropriate employee for their benefit can take your place.
Hopefully this scares investors away so games can go back to being fun again.
You would think but with reports being generated stating global gaming revenues are set to exceed $320 billion by 2026, there are a lot of people wanting a slice of that pie. Sadly the greed won’t be going anywhere 😔 What we need are more companies that put gaming as an art /entertainment form first, a well developed game will be successful, just look at the games that have flopped this year and those that have succeeded.
Here are tons of modern fun games, they're just not the AAA ones.
These layoffs are probably BECAUSE of the investors.
We are talking about groups of people who are prone to speculation and reactionary investments. People who are expecting never ending increases in profit, despite the environment with very finite resources. People who panic at the first sight of a profit line flattening.
That is why we have seen the ever increasing number of predatory, anti-consumer practices. And once these started making diminishing returns, internal staff became the next target.
How do you make more money on paper? By crunch - so you get more work done per hour, and by laying people off, so you have to pay fewer people.
This is a LONG lemmings stampede that's heading for the cliff. It's gonna take a while before investors see the missing land on the horizon.
This
It's reached the point where shareholders are the only customers and upper management are the only staff. The rest of us, both gamers and devs, are the PRODUCT.
Stocks are the product. The games and devs are just the hype they use to bribe investors.
There needs to be a law that if a company lays off staff within the last 12 months ,they are unable to give bonuses to executives.
And you think they wont talk to a lawer to find a loophole?
bold of you to assume they'll allow such a law to even pass
There needs to be a law that says Corporations are doodoo heads!
Utter and complete nonsense, many of you here just don't get the dangers of capital flight. There are other more business friendly places to go other than the us if disastrous policies like this are ever in place. These businesses are private property, the services they provide can be done elsewhere. Unions drove out manufacturing jobs, biggest example. These countries with large populations can't have minimum wages. If China had something like that it'd go to India or Africa and they'd starve.
@@freedomfighter-1776absolute corporate cope, there’s already countries with less employee and consumer protections in place and capital hasn’t flown to them, because they are terrible places to do business for a variety of reasons. Sony isn’t gonna move to Namibia or wherever, no matter how little they can pay the employees.
So this is my take I work in the medical manufacturing industry and we are losing people like crazy, companies keep cutting people and they also release letters on there websites saying we work for our shareholders. Then the same thing is happening in the automotive industry where job cuts are crazy. Now it’s happening in the video game industry for the same reason shareholders and corporate profits and it’s disgusting these are people’s lives they are ruining and it just shows how bad corporate America is.
It's a shame that devs and ground work employees are suffering because of corporate greed.
A game sells 10 million copies and people still are not happy about those numberes we got a problem in gaming
Yeah, cause some asshat financial guy at the company getting paid 100k to have a meeting just to say "yeah guys...it's still not enough profit"
Still waiting for someone to try and defend this generation of modern gaming. AAA gaming is nothing more than a red flag.
These companies should be replacing leadership, not the talented workers. Welcome to corporate life, for those who are surprised
Problem is, the temptation to repeat what their corporate overlords did will eventually take hold. It takes a rare sort of person to resist that kind of corruption and greed.
@@Blackemperess Exactly and it's not just publicly-traded companies with shareholders who fall for this but even independent studios.
Larian Studios boasted that they being independent means never having to answer to shareholders and the market, but all it takes is for their next game to tank or underwhelm in its sales for the studio to suddenly have to think how to cut expenses to stay open.
Gaming is a business and sometimes business will slap gamers and its workers in the face with cold reality that without funding (either through shares or outside investors) then their dreams to make games doesn't happen.
I’m sorry but you’re just wrong. These problem is these developers never should have hired these people in the first place. They hired them with the idea that more games = more profit and to make more games you need more developers. Well turns out just because a ‘AAA’ studio makes a game, doesn’t mean the game is actually AAA nor does it mean it will sell like one either.
I think the old saying: "Less is more" goes very well for the industry today. Whenever a big AAA release happens, I play it and beat it, then go back to GOG and play Thief or System Shock or some other old-time game. It's that palpable "passion" in a game that feels lost today because of the pursuit of the dollar.
Put big teams on smaller projects (that the devs *want* to develop) and I'm sure we would be blown away by what they release.
This is going to go on for a while. AAA studios have became extremely topheavy in the last decade with dev times spanning over 6+ years for a title. There is too much publisher interference, over too long timeframes. The worst thing is, with the 'games as service' model they stopped properly developing the core concept of games. Consequently, nowadays there are top managers and designers who couldn't recognise a good idea if it slapped them in the face. We have 100 mil budget games with nonexistent cores that are then developed for ages and finally, when released, they underperform - and the large studios can't comprehend why.
Too many people and no one is willing to make a choice and move forward. Just endless meetins of everyone trying to make everyone feel included.
Ideas driven on copying what popular Money making game is out. All of which is to just sell the idea to investors and thats about it. The amount of money Wasted buying studios just to shut them down. Why? Use those billions and let devs make whatever game they want without interference. Pop out multiple dozen titles and see what works. Move devs from one project to another within the company and keep the games coming. Its not that fucking hard.
The bigger they are the harder they fall. It is nothing new. Nothing lasts forever.
The AAA gaming space right now feels a lot like FOX Media Corps version of X-Men... trying to hard to put something out for money, that happens to be uninspired, cringe, and uncompleted.
The other nasty thing in the gaming industry, is the Live Service gaming models. Not enough effort put into a game worth a single player wanting to play, let alone with other people. Monotonous missions, with asanine micro transactions, finally shutting down service at some point....
And that "Embracer Group" ... wow ... these are just hedgefund babies and silver spoon fed clowns not realizing the damage they are causing until it comes back to haunt them.
As someone that is aspiring and learning to become a developer, this is both terrifying and just another push for me to go towards the indie route
Imagine if companies and publishers held the customer in the same regard as shareholders…
I personally think the publicly traded corporation is the worst type of company to make games. It’s hard to make games when your corporate structure demands by law that you make money for shareholders with no understanding or regard for game development.
Everyone needs to watch Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. It covers the collapse of the film industry in the 60s. The exact same thing we are seeing in games now. Inflated budgets, bad stories and lack of consumer interest. The game industry is the same age now as the film industry was then.
From the ashes we got Spielberg, De Palma, Hopper, and Scorsese and the 70s gritty arthouse films.
Gamers and the industry should be looking for the new renegades. I think we are entering a new exciting age where games are about to get real good and real weird.
I agree with this assessment. I think there's a perfect storm of: 1) unsustainable business practices at the top echelons of the industry 2) a situation in which standardization and acessibility of gamedev tools is widespread, resulting in a huge pool of talent available at the bottom. The fact that three of the best-selling, most well-received games in recent times have been indie-ish organic hits (Palworld, Baldur's Gate 3 and Helldivers 2) speaks volumes to me.
@@sodvar5047 these hits come as no surprise to me. It's just the beginning of small, agile studios putting out massive hits. 5-10 people, experts and risk takers.
I'm excited.
Just like the movies industry, games companies have cultivated bloated studios for years. They absolutely deserve the blowback for letting it get to this point.
I remember a video a few years ago by Extra Credits - just hear me out.
The video was about how the "middle shelf" games (the ones costing US$20-40 and not made to be big blockbusters, basically) have all but disappeared, resulting in this weird gulf between the low-price indie games and the high-priced AAA games. Basically, AAA companies generally had gone all in on the big blockbuster games and neglected the middle-tier stuff because it wasn't as profitable, resulting in them putting all their eggs in one basket, and counting on big budget releases to bring in the money. While the consumer market did suffer, so did the big companies, because now it's all-or-nothing on big games, nothing to buoy along the company with niche markets and steady income from smaller games. And now companies are basically seeing that video games are not an infinite growth market, the studios are suffering for it.
As someone who is studying game design in college & is set to graduate this year, it's a damn shame for what's happening now but I won't let that get to me
I decided against trying to go gaming as a career. Because of the state of the industry was BADDDD back then already.
I wanted to go to game design as a kid but something in the back of my head told me not to. Glad I changed my mind otherwise I'd probably be suffering right now.
Plenty of studios are doing fine, just not the AAA
The difference is if you want to do what you love and if you want to do it for a big brand. There's countless, albeit less stable, venues for the former, while there's plenty of crunch and disappointment for the latter. Make your dream a reality on YOUR terms, not subservient to some fat cat who doesn't even give a damn about the things you're passionate about.
"Game design" is a bullshit scam of a class. In my experience, the worst developers are the ones with those degrees. They tend to be great at following instructions but struggle when they need to think creatively to solve a problem. Hopefully you took some real programming classes or self-taught as a supplement.
If you have a passion for game development, go indie. You'll have much more freedom there. It will be hard at first and you'll have to work a "real" job for a while but it will be worth it in the end. Don't get discouraged and never give up.
When money is the only thing that matters, money is the ONLY thing that matters.
It’s just a bunch of game dev studios and publishers realizing that they are too big to succeed. I’m not trying to take the blame away when I say that they never should have ballooned their staff this large in the first place. They keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and the lessons they learn from these mistakes are the polar opposite of what they should be learning. They essentially doubled down on failure multiple times and their answer was always to go bigger. More staff, bigger scope, bigger marketing, more aggressive and pernicious business model.
Larian did it right, From software did it right, nearly everyone else did it wrong.
the main problem with corporations based in the US. is they are bound by law to only concern themselves with shareholder profits, nothing else. corporations only exist to produce profits for shareholders, at the expense of everything else. they have no legal responsibility to customers, employees, or society as a whole. that's why corporate charters absolutely be re-written to make them responsible for more than simply producing ever increasing profit margins for shareholders.
All that came about from Ford putting extra profit into his workers and was taken to court over it.
One paid off judge got precedent for this entire clown-show.
Important thing to understand about Spider-Man 2: they had to move o a new engine to accommodate for faster movement, which means everything had to be started from scratch. Combat, traversal, even the entire map itself had to be remade from scratch. This is why the cost is so bloated since they effectively reshot it halfway through development. Miles Morales on the other hand just had to add a few new factions, redesign the map to be Christmas themed, and give Miles a gameplay loop. They still used the old engine at the time, so Insomniac didn't need to bloat their budget.
yea also ,if they cut out the hollywood actors,3d scanning and motion capture machines then that alone would reduce development cost...most ps2 and early ps3 never used this and they were fine without it...the motion capture machines are very costly from what iv read ...esp when the use the same ones that hollywood uses...
@@jackstraw4222 All those cinematics were needed to make a game fun to play? I still don't understand that part of why people argue why all these cinematics that require a lot of money to capture, program, render, etc...when it doesn't really add to the fun side of what is suppose to be a game.
I'm all for the narrative-driven cinematic style of games but not to the point that it's hurting the industry. The industry is spending more and more for aspects of game development that's seeing diminishing returns.
@@Tullaryx Yes, games that feel like a movie are fun to me, I also like games like Mario or zelda. The cost of game development is gonna continue to rise as long as we have game developers lol, pray they don't get replaced by AI.
@@friday4557 don’t be surprised if it’s already started. The coding part of development most likely will be replaced by AI while the more creative side of development and rendering will remain people.
yea also no need for the motion capture either,that costs huge amount and so does the 3d scanning machine..most ps2 games never used it and they came out fine..
Dang youngyea thats the most physical movement ive ever seen you do at the beginning.
Facts
Real Chongyue energy there lmao.
You must have never seen his shitposts then 😂
Price gouging in a recession and nobody wants to say it.
The AAA industry is just too big, too expensive, and too focused on year on year growth. It needs a big shake up.
the entire industry needs re arranged, just as there needs to be an alternative to hollywood...
I don’t think these higher ups truly see how much they’re destroying their own industry. It’s not just on the consumer front but they’re actively incentivizing people to not work in the game industry at all and this will lead to a huge shortage. After all why would you spend literal years getting degrees and experience if you can just be fired on the spot even when you’ve made hugely successful games with huge returns on investment anyway? This was the exact reason why I chose not to into what I thought was my dream job and instead go into IT services, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.
If the companies are doing the layoffs as a way to cut their headcount because they realized they've grown too much and are spending too much on game development which is decreasing in profit with each release, then we're going to possibly have less jobs in the games industry going forward (unless of course new studios pop up to backfill).
Yes, the concern of employees and job security I'd expect may impact people wanting to get into this industry, but the people who got deterred from this industry could be good if we do see less jobs in this industry (if new studios don't pop up and backfill).
The problem isn't the game industry, it's the way business is done. Layoffs increase stock prices in short term, and since it's bad for salary growth to stay in one place too long, execs don't care about long term problems. As long as business stays as it is, execs will continue to fail upwards while screwing over the rest of us.
It isn’t just the gaming industry. Companies worldwide are eating themselves up because the shareholders only care about mximising profit. They had record revenues yet they still keep firing staff and keep cancelling games because they want to earn even more money.
Yeah, just because a company had record revenue doesn't mean it is good enough for the stakeholders.
We'd also need to know how much money have these stakeholders invested into the company, what the contract was (if it exists), etc... A company could have made record revenue, but that doesn't mean they made back enough money to pay back all the money given to them from stakeholders (investors).
Note: Just because a company is making profits doesn't mean the company doesn't have debt or has paid off all of its debt
I miss Satorou Iwata, he is the person who understand what innovation and creativity means.
Also, he views employees as a family. That is why Nintendo is thriving.
This is the next video game crash. It's not a myth, it's not happening later, it's happening now! Just like last time the market was flooded with too many terrible quality games and it's happening again. Only this time instead of ET it's Suicide Squad, it's Skull & Bones, it's all these awful live services that nobody asked for and they cost 70 freaking dollars which equals no players and developers get laid off. All the major publishers right now are making a move to cash out, the CEO's are gutting everyone under them so they can take whatevers left. The only difference between this video game crash and the last one is that it will only affect the AAA. Anyone will still be free to make games and upload them to Steam, but say goodbye to all the major devs.
it was pretty obvious it was going to happen, as far back as 2010 i could see it because of game franchises like cod,battlefield,watchdogs,assassins creed ..being major hits ..it meant more sequels...zero innovation..that was the start of this downfall..
True, at least now, the tools available to make games is more accessible. Unlike before, where dozens of consoles that had bad games and exclusive hardware. And even if no new content is made. We have a ton of backlog games we might have not even tried to open and play lol.
I don't know about other people but for me the most important aspect of games are that they are fun to play. I've had just as much fun recently playing old ps2 games as I have with today's mega funded blockbuster games. In my opinion they should go back to making much smaller games on the same scale and scope of previous generations but using modern technology. They could make far more games far more frequently and they wouldn't be risking massive financial flops if they make one unsuccessful game.
It’s a continuing cycle of pushing games that aren’t popular, or no one asked for. Microtransactions, and the push to monetize beloved franchises are proving to be mistakes after mistakes. Large companies like EA that acquire developers to transform them into shareholder puppets are causing this.
Not to mention ignoring the best selling platform (switch)
But yeah the industry would be way more healthy if these companies stopped these dumb trends.
Yeah, it's the AAA industry that is really doing most of the mass layoffs. Also, it's ironic that they are worried about saving money, yet they don't cut their bonuses and salaries down, or even fire the idiots that made these boneheaded mistakes in the first place.
One thing I wonder is why didn't Spiderman 2 just use graphics and assets from the first Spiderman and Miles Morales. It's pretty much diminishing returns at this point trying to make graphics in games even better.
It depends on where their compensation is coming from. If the higher ups compensation is mostly stock then that's different compared to paying an employee an actual salary.
If I'm paying an employee say $60k per year then I'd need to have that actual money and pay it out weekly, monthly (or however the pay schedule is).
If I'm paying someone say $60k in stock then that isn't physical money. I don't actually have physically $60k in stock. That's instead just $60k worth of stock and the stock price can & will change. That $60k in stock could go down to $40k or up to $100k, who knows for sure what it'll be by the time the stock vests.
Added onto this, depending on the amount of stock given and company, the stock can have a vest plan. The stock grant could have a 6 month or 1+ year vest plan; which during the vest time the stock price could've decreased or increased.
Also, depending on the stock grant there could be a clause saying that if you leave the company prior to your stock award vesting then you won't get it.
Example
If I was offered $50k in stock with a 1yr vest, if I leave the company 1 day before my stock vests (or anytime prior), then I won't be given the $50k. So, I basically worked for free up to then lol.
However, if this was a salary and if I left anytime prior to the 1yr mark, I'd still have gotten x part of that $50k offered for a year.
I've been gaming since the late 70s and this is without a doubt the worst state the games industry has ever been in. As far back as 2016 I said that this was where the industry would eventually end up and the amount of backlash I got was unbelievable. "You're just an old guy living in the past, the games industry is fine, you're just a hater, you're not a real gamer." And they were the most polite comments I got. Well, I hate to say I told you so but...
Even worse than the game crash in the early 80s? I have a strange feeling there's going to be another crash soon
Despite all the terrible layoffs, I hope this means that these talented people start making some incredible indie games. Fueling the indie game industry even more
This is why there's a shift from AAA devs to indie, faster to produce, affordable, passionate, and high quality!
as a long time gamer that watches videogame reviews and news regularly...i cant name one indie game on the spot,let alone any that has changed the industry in any way....
And worse graphics.
Did they hit their employees with the whole “we made record sales this year/quarter” before laying them off? 🥴 that seems to be the go to speech companies give to staff before mass cuts/walkouts 🤦🏽♂️
Unlikely. AAA and AAAA game sales are going down. That's a major reason for why there have been so many big layoffs lately. That combined with over-hiring and budget bloat created a very sick industry. Indie and AA games are the medicine that the industry needs.
Buy Palworld and Helldivers 2.
This should also be a wake up call to studios and devs not to sell their studio to greedy publishers who's only interest is shareholder profit. Completely agree it is high time the tech industry unionizes.
Some people don't care. The money offered to them to sell can still be better than keeping the studio. Also, some companies whole purpose is to create a successful product that they can sell to a bigger company for a large amount of money.
It's truly unfortunate what's happening right now. I left everything I ever known to chase this dream to work in the games industry, only to be laid off or have my contract cut short. Last year I was laid off from 343, and haven't been able to get another game industry job since. What's happened to me has also happened to most of my friends in the industry. Maybe one day, things will change, and studios will focus on smaller titles with lower budgets, but change takes time. Hopefully, things will turn around but I fear it won't be any time soon.
I wish you well. It's tough out there. - A fellow game dev student
There are always redundancies in mergers or acquisitions. That's not just in the gaming industry.
there is literally no reason to buy $70+ AAA games that will continue to nickel and dime you when fully complete indie games under $30 exist, and old games that are built and priced more like indies can still be played
I'm so sick of these corporate idiots who don't understand the developers are the ones busting their ass to line their pockets with all this money and instead act like they're the ones who deserve all the credit and profit. It's absolutely getting ridiculous how many developers and other lower employees get sacrificed "for profit" and the "future of the company." I'm convinced they don't realize the future of the company is dying when they get rid of such talented workers, because who's going to keep wanting to work for you or make your games if you keep discarding anyone if things go right? I really hope this stops sooner than later.
If you're running a company and have stakeholders, investors, etc... then you need to also care about the profit of your products.
Where does the company come from to fund these companies/studios? The money comes from the investors who gave the company/studio money.
Without the investors you wouldn't even have a company/studio, or at least not one at the same scale. And if you aren't making a profit then other investors aren't going to want to give invest in you (give you money).
Yes, layoffs can impact employees confidence and impact your ability to get talent to create these products, but generating profit for investors also matters if you rely on them to fund your company.
@@PhantomGanhdi
But studios like Larian show that you can have games on the same scale without investors or outside people you have to answer to.
@@ninochaosdrache3189Just because Larian is run x way doesn't mean that's how everyone else will (or should) run their company.
What Larian studios did isn't anything special/new, from the aspect of funding and not answering to outside stakeholders.
You forget that companies take external funding because they don't have the money in the first place. If they had the money then they wouldn't have taken external funding; in most cases.
So, it isn't feasible for most studios to do what Larian did because they don't have the money to fund the project at the scope that they're trying to achieve.
Note: External funding is good because it makes it more accessible for more companies to be created.
"Delivering the best experiences for our community"
*me when im lying my ass off*
It's crazy that the blame is always on the employees, not on the people in charge. If there were justice in the world, the suits would be fired, then re-hired just to get fired again to show how bit they screwed up.
It’s just a sign of the times, this isn’t unique to the games industry. As the economy continues to circle the drain, companies are going to lay off more and more employees. Despite what Wall Street says we are in a recession and have been for a little over a year, it’s only going to get worse for all employment sectors, not just gaming.
Considering how last year was a great success for indies *and* AAA games, this doesn't boil down to some saying, "AAA sucks, which is why we are seeing so many layoffs. The whole tech industry is going through the same as well. When you look at the bigger picture, overhiring and throwing out money freely during lockdown without regard for the future, *was* a form of corporate greed. There was no long term plan for how companies would even move forward financially, post-covid. That was mismanagement. And now, people are paying the price. This is the reckoning of the entire tech industry.
It's been extremely clear for a while now that AAA companies don't care about games and don't know how to actually make good games, and also that the people at these companies that might actually be able to contribute to this have absolutely no power at the company to affect anything.
The executives making the decisions clearly do not play the games or respect anyone who enjoys videogames, which leads to a lot of baffling choices whereby decisions are made that completely undercut the enjoyment of a game - its core feature - in the name of theoretically increasing revenue, while other elements are all in on massively increasing the overall cost and development time of a product (because 4k visual fidelity is about the only thing gaming executives can understand, so OF COURSE every game needs to spend $200M recreating in perfect detail an enormous open world zone).
Meanwhile the Pokemon With Guns game and the Basically Starship Troopers game and the Path of Exile clone - games clearly made by someone who at least vaguely understands the concept of fun, and how it applies to a videogame that a real person might actually enjoy - destroy the fuck out of branded live-service cash grabs where all the effort has gone into grabbing the cash and very little into the 'service' (some of which don't even have their servers enabled, which is kind of a hint that *everyone* at the AAA studios is a minimum-wage game developer, not just the writers and designers).
And it's just weird! Because these studios do not exist as some kind of protected monopoly that can overcharge customers at will for inferior products! This is one of the most internationally competitive markets in the entire world. But the AAA 'we're a real corporation with real corporate hi-jinks' business model in 2024 absolutely cannot deal with the need to provide things that customers actually want, like FUN. Or even a sense of respect and responsibility - they've clearly completely cut the link now between the consumer's generosity and the rewards the actual team who makes the game receive. Insomniac getting hit due to Sony's bad bet on live-services - a thing that *everybody* was calling out as a bad idea half a decade ago - is a gross injustice and, to be frank, a serious hint to game developers that there are no good publishers at all, anywhere. =/
I don't reallyunderstand the layoffs but I'll shed no tears for any DEI departments that get dismantled.
Really sucks for the actual developers though.
DEI and sweet baby are major contributors to all this as well.
Some of these people were responsible for a huge part of my childhood.
I love how everyone is talking. Not no one is doing anything 😂😂😂😂😂
Hyper productions of $200 million will never be sustainable, this happened already in cinemas. They need to step down with the budgets, step down on the amount of projects (staring directly at you Ubisoft) and really let the studios work, and try to explain to the shareholders that great media can't be mass produced and that they will need to wait for these great games to be put out when they are ready because if not they are going to lose money again. But unfortunately, they are not going to understand it. Shareholders will never understand the businesses they invest their money into.
shareholders only care about numbers. when things start to dip they sell off and leave the company holding the bag that's rapidly falling apart.
It's because of the loans. Too many businesses have been abusing the low/no interest loans that were available the last several years, and now that the interest rates are higher again investors are clamoring for their money. We are on the edge of a bubble burst even worse than 83.
Sweet baby Inc consulting firm helped with these lay offs. The game industry needs to start making fun playable games but all these CEO lack and creativity or spine. I imagine if this keeps going we may only have a few publishers left that will probably set on IPs for a long time. But how is even possible to have a game cost $300 million to make? Insane.
As much as I despise Sweet Baby Inc., I think the problem here is a little more complicated than that.
Soooo disappointed with the management of these AAA studios. They're literally destroying themselves and the livelihood of the ones who work under them.
So what if the layoffs are happening? We have no voice in the matter. All we can hope for is that more development studios get founded from all of those that suddenly have time in their hands. Also, we must hope that those new development studios become competitive enough to breathe a new change in the industry.
This is a crisis, but also an opportunity.
Legit feels like I got shafted so damn hard, finished college last may, had 2 years online due to covid, the whole thing sucked until the final year and now that I'm a graduate, I can't find work. Heck, 90% of my classmates can't find work either. This is bullshit.
Welcome to the adult world, where you find out all your hard work is for nothing, and most people will lie to your face with a smile just to get you to do more, for the same pay or less.
@@kevinfortschYou guys must be fun at parties.
@@randomguy6679 stopped doing coke and going to the bar years ago...
@@randomguy6679
You will become the same once you start working
@@ninochaosdrache3189 I have been working for about a decade now, and I’m still more optimistic than you depressing pricks.
I heard that Japan has legislation and laws that make it illegal to shed positions w/o legitimate and valid reasons to do so. Aside from that, unionization seem like the only plausible options but I'm not sure about the plausibility of either happening in the US.
This is embarrassing. Game budgets grow year on year, profits soar, but these moronic CEOs can't see past the numbers. As you said, if this keeps up the big industry names will die out.
If the games budget is growing year over year, but the profit is decreasing then this isn't good. Eventually they'll reach a point where the budget has grown and they aren't making any profit after the games release.
Added onto this, if you're a company who generates income from outside sources such as investors, stakeholders, etc.... this isn't acceptable. People who invest in the games development would not want to invest in a company and game that is decreasing profit year over year.
And if the investor money decreases then this will impact the company/game studio they rely on the investors money to fund the games development
@@PhantomGanhdi
So, cut the game budgets and CEO payment. Problem solved.
@@ninochaosdrache3189 If you're cutting the games budget then that may will impact the scope of the game and what you can include in it.
You'd have to do your research and review if you can cut the budget and scope of the game but still hit your target goals for revenue.
Apparently, soon enough the less A's a game have on its budget, the better it'll probably be.
The problem is that big studios only think that they can make big games. Prince of Persia Lost Crown is a rarity nowadays.
The thing that annoys the shit out of me with modern gaming is one why do business buy a studio if your just going to do nothing with it and /or shut it down. Like what is the financial benefit of this. The second is how do companies expect to make so much money while also not supporting the people who actually care about making games. Screw shareholders most probably give half a shit about actually gaming and instead think about Trends to earn money quickly instead of letting those who care about gaming to make games that are you know fun and interesting that can also make profits. We see indie and small studios make great, fun, entertaining games and make millions of dollars of it
@@boumajohn
Only in the US. I don't think such a law exists in Europe.