The game industry is in terrible shape! The game industry is in great shape!
Both sentences are true at the same time. If you look at the classic big publishers, they struggle. The project get too expensive and take too long and then are greeted with lukewarm response. If you look outside these classic publishers you see big successes, as mentioned before Palworld, Wukong and so on do pretty well. I think the big publishers are caught in a trap of their own design. As gaming revenues increased, especially during the pandemic, they invested big too grow, but also wanted to streamline the process and create more benefits. So they chased the already successful dragons: Fortnite, Overwatch and so on. But in the process they alienated the creatives. They moved away and left the industry or opened their own studios. Now the big publishers meet the after-pandemic lull with very big and very expensive games that are streamlined in many board meetings and thus devoid of any creativity or uniqueness. And now the publishers look in horror as the public response is lukewarm at best and don't understand what is going wrong. While the creatives outside of the big publishers show them off with creative games. So, the industry is in terrible shape for big publishers. The industry is full of promise and has a bright future for creatives that stand outside the big companies. And yes, overtime the now creative indies will grow into the slow and uncreative corporate mess the big publishers are today. They once were creative indies themself.
BTW, I think GTA VI will be a defining moment. A lot rides on it's promise and I don't think it will become a financial failure, simply because so many are hyped for it. But that especially can lead to big problems if all the overhyped gamers find that the game itself might be big but not special. Because nothing indicates to me, that they evolve much from the formula they created with Vice City and San Andreas. Many will enjoy the game for what it is, but compared to the hype they will feel unfulfilled, because the game in the end can only be more of the same not something revelatory. At least I doubt it. So reception of GTA VI could be very mixed, which would be a problem for the big publishers going forward. Or they really pull it off and people are excited and the industry will chug along a few more years.
