Ryuu96 said:
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The expectation of the gamers he is talking about - that was nurtured by the gaming industry itself. An easy way to separate the products of big companies (AAA quality) from the peasants. That now comes back to bite them. And yes, the salaries of employees isn't the problem, the problem is the number of employees and the time needed for just one project. The projects are simply too big.
To the other stuff: yes, also indies losing funding, as in difficult times investors are fickle. But an indie with restrained budget has a much easier time to break even, as the big AAA game. So while indies in general don't have it easy, they aren't in the same trap as the AAA industry, so there is some hope.
The big problem here is the 'black hole games' (nice term Piscatella, I am borrowing this). Despite many AAA games failing (like Suicide Squad) there are a few service games that are exceptional successful. They are sucking all the air out of the market, both in terms of player time and customer money. If I play Fortnite, I cannot play anything else (the reason I stopped playing it, after realising I don't play anything else anymore). These are a big problem and a difference to Hollywood, as even successful movies will end sometime and only few people watch the same movie over and over. But you can play service games endlessly. That may become a problem, as around them the area dries up, as these games take the interested players. For smaller single player games it may actually be more lucrative to focus on niches that are not taken by a big service game.
And then the devs hit out to foreign game makers. That is bad behaviour. For struggling japanese companies: this fits first and foremost the big AAA companies with global reach. They adopted a similar culture to american game makers. Other than that I read regularly that you can't compare non-american game devs to american, because of lesser payment. I actually don't know if that even is true, but I would argue even if it is, you have to consider that most developed countries that are not the US have proper health insurance and working social security system, both in unemployment payments and some safety from layoffs. This may result in higher taxes and lower payment, but I think that overall the employees are better off.
And then we have the decade old thing about overworking in Japan. But assuming nothing has changed in these decades is just racist bullshit. The karoshi phenomenon was a thing of the 80s - four decades ago! Japanese government has done a lot since then and working culture has changed as generations changed. And while not all is rainbows and sunshine, bringing up overtime in japanese companies at this point may be not more than racist stereotype, especially given that crunch time is a strong phenomenon over in the west now.
So yeah, bringing up indies and japanese/non-american game devs as alternatives to the unsustainable AAA model is still valid, even though you have to take it (as everything basically) with some considerations and asterisks. That's why I am happy to see Xbox is still supporting smaller games like Pentiment/Grounded/HiFi-Rush in difference to Sony who have given up on them. As this will be much more sustainable going forward. That's why I am happy to see breakout hits on small budget like Palworld. This is how gaming survives the AAA crash that is happening right now. There will not be a time without games, just a time with no bigger games.
