Ryuu96 said:
Mnementh said:
Well, there are multiple angles here. For one: people are spending more than ever for gaming. But on the other hand a lot of companies and VC money pushed into gaming business and the growth in spending doesn't match the expectations of investors. So some gaming companies have to die to get to a healthy status. Also creatively there are problems. Especially in the US I feel like creativity is lacking. Luckily the rest of the world is chimig in: Japan (Elden Ring, Palworld, Monster Hunter, Nintendo in general), China (Black Myth Wukong, Genshin Impact), even France (Expedition 33). I think the american video game industry will crash, while the rest of the world has a chance to establish themself. |
Thoroughly Recommend Watching Alanah's Video Backed by Mat Piscatella |
Alanah mostly refers to the VC stuff I talk about here, and in much more detail. Yes, VC money is scared right now, and a lot of studio closures and layoffs are the result of that. Interesting part here: at least in the US (as Alanah mostly refers to the US, talks to people in the US and cites data from the US) it seems less invested people found other avenues of entertainment (TikTok, Netflix, social media or whatever). That might be a more permanent loss for the gaming industy.
As I said she also says, that spending is not really down. It just isn't growing as expected. Which makes investors scared. She also points out that investors also have other ways to invest now, namely AI. I haven't thought about that, but yes from the investors point of view AI might seem now the more interesting investment than games.
That is all true and as I said one of the angles. But there is more here. The thing about the crazy investment growth was, that this was always unstable as VC money always is. As a game company you cannot rely on that, only take it but build other pillars. Let's point to Expedition 33 here for a moment. This is not a classic indie, they developed for four years with a 30 people team. They surely have secured *some* investment, this isn't paid by the devs themself. But they navigated it obviously in a way, that their investment didn't impact their creative vision.
While a lot of the investment side Alanah mentions for the US is working worldwide (because of globalization), there are differences. That is especially true for east asia, I mentioned China and Japan, but South Korea also has started to invest more in games. Maybe the less risk taking culture there paid off, maybe it was something else, I don't know. But in east asia currently you have a much more stable situation (not completely unaffected, but much less) than in the US. This maybe lead to them not grow the gaming industry as much in the past years as the US did, but it now means they are less hit with problems. And therefore have teams growing more and more competent and creative and tackling bigger projects, while in the US the teams are shattered and the know how and creative vision currently gets lost, if the laid off people don't go indie (which is not viable for most of them).
Alanah herself mentions east asia and also that companies not dependent on VC money that much (she says not publicly traded, but I think the point here is the high risk and fast moving money) do much better.
The lesson here should be: the market itself can sustain studios, people are spending for games. But the industry needs stable investments to grow their teams and keep them. It is kind of telling, that the core Sandfall Interactive people worked at Ubisoft, but Ubi wasn't the ground for a game like Expedition 33. So maybe VC money now looking into AI is a blessing. Sure, it leads to the downfall of studios that relied on that, but there is enough substance that the studios remaining learn and use more stable ways for investments.
Also, I mentioned creativity and Alanah is going purely after the investment angle. I still see a problem. Maybe it is connected. If investors put a lot of money on your game, they may try to influence the game to check their boxes they think with their business degree brain are important - hence live service, micro transaction and so on. That can be stifling to creativity. This might also be a natural cycle.
Hollywood has shown such cycles as well. Movies like the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde and the 1969 movie Easy Rider sparked the change called New Hollywood. Let me cite here a key point I think:
"In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role."
In other words: while studios had taken control before and had churned out movies that matched previously successful ones and thus creating an environment that stifled creativity, New Hollywood broke out by demonstrating that creative movies can be successful and gave creativity (represented by the director) an important role. Video games (at least in the US) are in the situation that execs and investors are mostly in control and need a similar step to put more focus on creativity.
Side note: Alanah mentions Stadia and claims the tech wasn't ready. I used Stadia, the tech definitely was there and impressive. What wasn't there was a business model, Google just didn't had a clue how they wanted to make money. And then were too jumpy and basically killed it as fast as they released it. I think Stadia would've had a lot of potential, if Google found a way to make money differently than just selling the game at the same price as before - but you don't own it really as it is part of the service. The Netflix model (for movies) would've worked much better here and Microsoft is IMHO on the right path with Gamepass.
Another side note: it is kinda distracting that Alanah sits in a fake background, but around her hair and with her moving, the algorithm fails and shows the real background around her hair. Very distracting.
