Bloomberg/Schreier: The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games

ProtoByte said:
He's right, but people like him are at fault.

The games media spent the early 2010s aggressively brigading for storefronts to open themselves up to indie games, particularly on console. It even fed into the console wars. The first wave was good, but that's because there was still massive curation and a barrier to entry.

Post brigade, the curation is nonexistent. Mixed with a booming game industry and cheap investment loaning, too many cats got into the dev scene and too much talent was dispersed around teams and projects that ultimately will go or have gone nowhere fast. Compare "indies" of 2011-2015 to what we've been getting since at least 2020. It's embarrassing.

That's just one of the ills the games journalist/punditry class has inflicted on the medium.
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Media didn't do that.

Gamers did.
 
I dont understand what the point of this is? Is this a cry to action to make less games?

Yeah I guess it's harder for your game to get noticed due to the sheer volume of games releasing but to use Steam releases as a stat when (a vast majority) of them are just slop/hentai/AI generated says more about how easy it is to make and release a game now than it was years ago.
 
Minari said:
there arent enough GREAT games.

Im not paying full price for mid or at all
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But you never had more choice than now, everything is great, tomorrow you'll have twice that amount and they'll be even greater, the day after you'll have ten times that etc.

It's not going to stop.
 
"The movie industry has a problem... too many movies, studios and producers"
"The car industry has a problem... too many cars"
"The food industry has a problem... too much food"

And this guy lands a job on Bloomberg after quitting Kotaku :D
 
It is bit crazy at the moment and 2026 is gonna be just as crazy.

Jan to March is stacked just off the top of my head

Saros
Crimson Desert
First Light 007
Resdent Evil 9
Nioh 3
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined
 
LectureMaster said:
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Schreier does have a point. But that's an issue for publishers and devs, not gamers. So I'm not sure who he thinks his audience is.
 
Am I the only one who escaped this childish 'I want to play everything' phase? Ever since I sifted through my backlog a couple years back and saw which games I actually like the play I find myself wishing for new games. Luckily usually 1 game I somewhat dig will release each month but to say that there are too many games… nah. Perhaps if you really want to play EVERYTHING…
 
"Just invest in marketing."

That doesn't always work.
Alan Wake 2 is a great example, praised by EVERYONE and barely sold 2 million copies.
 
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Well in the last 10 years indie developers could release their games on Steam, Switch, Xbox One, XSX, PS4, PS5 and Switch 2 (among others). More platforms for these indie developers to release their small/medium size games at affordable prices........rather than only $70-$80 AAA games.

Good problem to have.
 
Abysse said:
"Just invest in marketing."

That doesn't always work. Sometimes
Alan Wake 2 is a great example, praised by EVERYONE and barely sold 2 million copies.
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It's strange to still see scarcity-era obnoxious attitudes persist in certain industry circles, like these fools don't understand what's happening around them, how much things are changing in almost real time.

Think by around next year this time the message will be received loud and clear.
 
This is certainly a problem on steam. Check out the upcoming games. Sort by date. There are literally dozens and dozens of slop games coming out every single day. It's only gotten worse with the advent of AI. Many of these games are entirely coded with AI and their art generated by AI.

Now anyone that's seen my posts on the topic knows I'm a proponent for AI, as long as it's used the right way; to enhance creativity, or streamline the more monotonous tasks to facilitate quicker development of a high quality product.

I'd really like to see all of these various storefronts more strictly curated.

Is this a compelling product? Does it offer a unique idea or take on an idea? Is this game likely to sell more than a hundred units? If not, turn it away. Make the developers further DEVELOP their product until it CAN achieve one of the aforementioned criteria. So many of these storefronts are just inundated with slop, it really drags everything else down.

I can't imagine it could be too hard for a small handful of people to have a full time job of reviewing these submissions.
 
ProtoByte said:
He's right, but people like him are at fault.

The games media spent the early 2010s aggressively brigading for storefronts to open themselves up to indie games, particularly on console. It even fed into the console wars. The first wave was good, but that's because there was still massive curation and a barrier to entry.

Post brigade, the curation is nonexistent. Mixed with a booming game industry and cheap investment loaning, too many cats got into the dev scene and too much talent was dispersed around teams and projects that ultimately will go or have gone nowhere fast. Compare "indies" of 2011-2015 to what we've been getting since at least 2020. It's embarrassing.

That's just one of the ills the games journalist/punditry class has inflicted on the medium.
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You're trying to place blame on an inevitability.

It was inevitable that the gaming industry was going to leave the toy industry.

It was inevitable that technology would make independent development easier (same with movies and music).

It was inevitable that independent devs would make something vastly different and unique than the big budget guys.

It was inevitable that the gaming industry would eventually have libraries as large as the book, music, and movie industries.

The only thing I personally couldn't have predicted were the amount of older gamers who have entered the 2020s claiming that 'everything new is bad' painting with a wide brush of 'this is all slop' and desperately clinging to old guard AAA publishers, instead of pinpointing an actual big issue that we are now facing with modern releases: curation.

Reviewers can't keep up, algorithms are broken, and gamers are barely keeping up. We have slowly slid back into what it was like during the wild west of the 90s, when you'd grab a random import of a PS1 Japanese game that looked interesting but had zero US/EU reviews and hoped that the game was fun.

What should be happening right now is that people should be leaning into this wild west effect and actually share good games they have played (like we all used to do during the 90s and 2000s), but due to current cultural issues people would rather argue and find the worst games to discuss instead.
 
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Comandr said:
This is certainly a problem on steam. Check out the upcoming games. Sort by date. There are literally dozens and dozens of slop games coming out every single day. It's only gotten worse with the advent of AI. Many of these games are entirely coded with AI and their art generated by AI.

Now anyone that's seen my posts on the topic knows I'm a proponent for AI, as long as it's used the right way; to enhance creativity, or streamline the more monotonous tasks to facilitate quicker development of a high quality product.

I'd really like to see all of these various storefronts more strictly curated.

Is this a compelling product? Does it offer a unique idea or take on an idea? Is this game likely to sell more than a hundred units? If not, turn it away. Make the developers further DEVELOP their product until it CAN achieve one of the aforementioned criteria. So many of these storefronts are just inundated with slop, it really drags everything else down.

I can't imagine it could be too hard for a small handful of people to have a full time job of reviewing these submissions.
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The incoming problem is what happens when AI is mastered by too many? What happens when there are twenty Silk Songs and Hades 2 tier cheapies dropping every 6 months? Who will AAA compete with then? The industry titans? GTA VI? Fortnite? They won't have anywhere to go but down.
 
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Evil Calvin said:
No physical copy upon release. Didn't get physical release until a year later for consoles. Screw them!
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Okay. Let's move on to another example.

FF Rebirth, a game from a renowned franchise with over 30 years of history, even more highly praised, barely reached 3 million copies sold.
 
bighugeguns said:
It's strange to still see scarcity-era obnoxious attitudes persist in certain industry circles, like these fools don't understand what's happening around them, how much things are changing in almost real time.

Think by around next year this time the message will be received loud and clear.
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What do you mean by this?
 
mckmas8808 said:
What do you mean by this?
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I think AI moves much quicker than people realise and in the right hands, even in small devs, it will totally fuck up everything resembling the status quo.

They're doing shit with AI now that I thought would be 10 years out, the pace is insane. Everything will happen at once instead of slow steady tech creep we're used to, and I think it's going to be soon, there's just too much potential money on the line.
 
bighugeguns said:
when AI is mastered by too many? What happens when there are twenty Silk Songs and Hades 2 tier cheapies dropping every 6 months?
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If you give a typing machine to every monkey in the world, they won't write one single good book.

For making something like Silksong you need insane amount of TALENT and people who "create" using AI are talentless by definition.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
If you give a typing machine to every monkey in the world, they won't write one single good book.

For making something like Silksong you need insane amount of TALENT and people who "create" using AI are talentless by definition.
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Would you be willing to bet everything on that assumption? Sounds pretty high risk if you ask me.
 
I feel this. I can't keep up with buying all the games I'm interested in let alone having time for playing them all. I gave up on "clearing the backlog". Im going to collect games from companies and IP that matter to me. Some of the games I collect I will complete, but I know I won't complete all of them. I'm going to reduce following newer franchises/companies I'm not already following unless they make something I feel a drive to get behind and support.

I like gaming but it's exhausting trying to keep up with it all and I have other hobbies too.
 
He isn't wrong but I also don't see the point in complaining about this without offering a solution (which he admits he doesn't have).
"There are too many games"....ok so what? We just tell random devs to close shop and fire everyone? Schreier is one of the first to complain when there are layoffs

In a way I also see this as a doubled edged sword. Yeah some good games get lost in the mix but it also force devs/publishers to try new approaches and ideas to stand out.
Make your big open world RPG set in a real medieval setting instead of the 900th generic medieval fantasy world, make a weird french turn based JRPG with a unique art style and launch it for $45 instead of $70, make your indie soulslike about a cartoony Crab on a humor infused adventure instead of the 600th "We have Fromsoft at home" Dark Fantasy, etc
 
Topher said:
I'm struggling to see the "problem", but let's just say "too many games" is a real problem for a second.....what's the solution?
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State enforcement of yearly release limits of creative products. Limited only to approved publishers. You pay a quota license fee and agree to state audit and oversight per title.

Unauthorised release of commercial creative output is met with severe fines or prison.
 
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What's the problem, the market decides who floats and who sinks, as with every other business. Just because people put time and effort into something dosen't mean it deserves either attention or monetary gain. Sure some of our personal bangers might underperform and studios we think deserves better go under, but what's the alternative?

  • A comittee of chosen people deciding which games are deserving to be released and get the spotlight/best dates?
  • Mandate that every publisher must join a "guild" so that they can hold hands and sing kumbaya while they draw straws and cooperate about who releases what, where and when?
  • No one gets to release a game unless it meets some arbitrary goals about content, values and equality?
For a progressive cunt, Schreier gets so lost in his own self importance that he actually seems to imply that the industry needs to go back to gatekeeping. Full circle.

It's either that or it's just a "captain obvious" article without any value. Yeah many games are coming out thanks for breaking the news ...I guess. 🤷‍♂️
 
bighugeguns said:
I think AI moves much quicker than people realise and in the right hands, even in small devs, it will totally fuck up everything resembling the status quo.

They're doing shit with AI now that I thought would be 10 years out, the pace is insane. Everything will happen at once instead of slow steady tech creep we're used to, and I think it's going to be soon, there's just too much potential money on the line.
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Interesting. So, what do you think this will lead to?
 
Topher said:
I'm struggling to see the "problem", but let's just say "too many games" is a real problem for a second.....what's the solution?
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There is no problem. You wouldn't know that reading GAF for the last 5 years though crying about devaluing.

The solution is games failing and the successful ones finding an audience.
 
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Punished Miku said:
There is no problem. You wouldn't know that reading GAF for the last 5 years though crying about devaluing.

The solution is games failing and the successful ones finding an audience.
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And publishers and devs are still trying to figure out how to make games profitable in this new "too many games" environment.
 
bighugeguns said:
Would you be willing to bet everything on that assumption? Sounds pretty high risk if you ask me.
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Absolutely. This is the same misconception as the possibility of living in Mars. There's a false sense of "closeness" to that goal due to how advanced our tech is, but people really don't understand the massive leap that would take to actually get us there. In the creative part, you need a sentient being to make something unique, "with soul". A machine won't be able to write or create anything decent until it becomes fully self-aware. Sure, they can create Ubislops or Souls clones, but that's not it.


SomeNorseGuy said:
What's the problem, the market decides who floats and who sinks, as with every other business. Just because people put time and effort into something dosen't mean it deserves either attention or monetary gain. Sure some of our personal bangers might underperform and studios we think deserves better go under, but what's the alternative?

  • A comittee of chosen people deciding which games are deserving to be released and get the spotlight/best dates?
  • Mandate that every publisher must join a "guild" so that they can hold hands and sing kumbaya while they draw straws and cooperate about who releases what, where and when?
  • No one gets to release a game unless it meets some arbitrary goals about content, values and equality?
For a progressive cunt, Schreier gets so lost in his own self importance that he actually seems to imply that the industry needs to go back to gatekeeping. Full circle.

It's either that or it's just a "captain obvious" article without any value. Yeah many games are coming out thanks for breaking the news ...I guess. 🤷‍♂️
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BINGO!

Someone that understood the real message behind the weasel's article.
 
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Hari Seldon said:
Between AI and China's rapidly developing game industry this problem is only going to get worse. I would suggest indies try some under-served genres.
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China game dev didn't come from nowhere. They were mostly studios who were acting as cheap outsourcing studios for the big publishers who worked out they could make more money catering to their domestic market.

I do think indies get some really bad advice about what sort of games to make, with their own time and money, and see that mirrored in "indie" publisher money only being interesting if they are working on something exactly the same as the last hit indie game.
 
Minari said:
there arent enough GREAT games.

Im not paying full price for mid or at all
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This doesn't get more press.

There are lots of good games out. Perfectly competent, boardroom safe, good games.

But gawddam, they are boring me to tears nowadays. I was just about ready to say "I must be too old for games, everything is boring and none of this is doing it for me". Then i played Expedition 33. It reminded me just how awesome video games can be. How captivating they can be with their weirdness, passion, and art coming all together to something greater than the sum of their parts.
 
Punished Miku said:
There is no problem. You wouldn't know that reading GAF for the last 5 years though crying about devaluing.

The solution is games failing and the successful ones finding an audience.
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Right. Just like any other consumer based industry in the world today. I agree. There is no problem.
 
I think Rockstar has the right idea in this currently oversaturated industry: consolidate the devs and budget that could create four AAA games to make ONE $2bn game. It's risky, but it means they're not competing against their own games and giving consumers something with unprecedented production value.

Other devs/pubs make multiple games hoping one of them hits big, and end up contributing to the problem.
 
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