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[LectureMaster]

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?

Too many competitors for devs? No worries, papa Phil will buy you out.

Too many choices for gamers? Rest assured, papa Phil makes them all free for you on most premium most profitable sub service.

 

[Player Respawn]

Too many indie games, I miss the time of too many aa or aaa games.

 

[touchfuzzy]

Based on what I see on the storefronts, most of that enormous increase since 2020 is literally shovelware and AI slop.

 

[StereoVsn]

I'd bet most of these games are slop. I saw a video on YouTube where they literally had the same problem in the 80's on Atari, I think. Too many games being released to the point where they would just send the cartridges straight to the trash. It's a problem but it'll fix itself with a bunch of companies going bankrupt.

That's the interesting thing here. A ton of games that are destined to be buried are actually pretty decent to great.

The issue isn't just slop (ton of that as well), the issue is the sheer number of good games that are being released in conjunction of huge amount of games from the past for cheap.

There is too much content as teams across the world have access to global audience. And there isn't enough time for customers to play all that.

Couple the above with other time commitment like streaming, TikTok, YouTube, social media and so on…

 

[Killer8]

People should be feeling the squeeze and realizing that their time on this Earth is finite. The idea of not being able to "keep up" assumes that you are going to have the time to play everything. You don't. You will never get through your 400 game backlog. New releases are always coming out and adding to it. You simply need to be selective and only play what really matters to you. It's like when you were a kid and you didn't have money to play everything. Well, now as an adult you don't have time.

 

[bitbydeath]

Alternate title:

The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: It is doing too good

 

[DreamcastSkies]

People should be feeling the squeeze and realizing that their time on this Earth is finite.

Wise words. I'm in my 30s and I LOVE these things (these franchises, these games) but I can't buy all of them or play through all of them. I just can't. Time is needed for other things that need to get done, other things that are fun, and self-development.

 

[Hypereides]

I just perceive it as a positive change in the future of game development. There's a plethora of tools available and accessible than ever. Anyone whose willing or wants to get started on gamedev can get on it. Does it mean an increased output stream of games? Sure.

Personally, I think we're seeing a return to bedroom programming which is how game development began and we'll see the emergence of very small teams, and possibly "rockstars", again make new break away hits independently.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Queue the FOMO music.

 

[Loomy]

I'm not sure there's any solution to this problem.

....because it's....not a problem.

"Oh no! We have too many good things to choose from! Someone please start releasing some shitty games"

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

This happened in the '80s, too. It preceded an industry crash. I'm not cheering it on, but I'd be okay with that at this point, honestly. If there's a videogame apocalypse, my backlog is basically a Vaul-Tec bunker.

 

[Minsc]

I feel like this is a much bigger issue for literature than gaming.

There's way, way, way too many books.

Also music. Way too many songs.

 

[StereoVsn]

I feel like this is a much bigger issue for literature than gaming.

There's way, way, way too many books.

Also music. Way too many songs.

And TV shows as well. For books though AI is a huge problem. So much slop is being produced, it's crazy.

Specifically for games, where this is leading is that publishers are increasingly unlikely willing to take risk. It's too easy even for bigger games to get lost in the large stream of new releases.

 

[Skeptical]

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

Well, Bloomberg is a business-oriented news organization. Maybe it's a warning that gaming isn't a good investment right now?

This wouldn't be in issue for developers if games weren't overpriced.

Doesn't matter the price. It's a problem for $10 indies just as much as your $100 Special Edition AAA game.

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.

There's lots of people saying this is all just AI Slop or impossible to curate or not wanting to wade through 8000 asset flip games or whatever. Sure, there's some legitimacy to that. But did you miss the part where there are 260 games released so far on Steam this year with >500 reviews and >90% positive? Or check out Metacritic. 204 games so far this year with a score of 75 or better and a minimum of 7 reviews. Yes, not every good game can get reviewed. But there's still plenty of games that are reviewed out there that are still struggling.

Besides, literally every game has at least a 1 minute trailer that you can get some judgement on it. And the AI slop and asset flips are easy to spot. So this isn't as bad as the good ole days of judging a game by one screenshot in a magazine.

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?

That's the neat part. There isn't one. Don't expect things to get better for a while.

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.

No, it is a problem. Yes, the free market will correct, and companies will fail and other people will have success. The issue though is that AA and AAA games require significant investment and the potential return is spotty now. Easy enough for a 3 man team to take a gamble and find massive success like Hollow Knight. Maybe a 30 man team can do it every now and then. But 300 man team? If you can no longer rely on consistent sales for your products, how can you keep a consistent 30 man team?

And even if a 3 man team finds success, what then? Sure, Silksong was a huge success. But how many indie games out there had a reasonable amount of success in their first game, spent 4 years coming up with a sequel that they thought was an improvement, only to discover the population had moved on? If there's no consistency in the market and everything is so fickle, you can't properly assess your risk and can't make safe investments. So unless you have a mega success you can coast on, you end up always one failure away from closing down.

It's extremely hard to turn an AA game into a surprise massive success, because once you get beyond $20 people start demanding "polish" that eats up a lot of cost, and then devalue games that don't look like massive AAA games. So trying to build success on lots of new AA games means you end up failing (Square had a phase where they were throwing out all sorts of new ideas. Other than HD-2D, they all bombed and now they are scaling back on that). And massive AAA games take 6 years to make and thus a company needs to stay chained to them to maintain success (hence why Capcom is basically a Monster Hunter/Resident Evil company and barely anything else). Neither are positive for the industry.

And even trying to bond together to spread the risk around doesn't help in the indie world. Thunderful had serious pedigree, with a Steamworld franchise that was well regarded and had met with commercial success. They tried publishing, curating games that ended up critically acclaimed. They went bankrupt.


I think Schrier missed two issues here that compound the problem. The first is that there hasn't been any major new innovations in a while. You had screenscrolling in the 80s, 3D in the 90s, the push for ultrarealistic cinematics in the 00s (+online), and the indie boom in the 10s. What has there been since? With the industry space growing, investors could at least look at a game and say "That's new, that's going to get people's attention!" Now it's yet another Rogue Isometric Action with RPG elements and blah blah blah. Novelty catches people's attention. See Balatro or Vampire Hunters. But with the technology stagnant, novelty is hard to find.

It used to be that you put out a big budget game and it would automatically wow you. But does Starfield do anything new? Does Ubisoft's Star Wars game do anything new? It's no wonder those games bombed!

The second is the digitization and backward compatibility of gaming, which is also related to technology being stagnant. You are no longer competing against games released in the last couple years. You are competing against games released over the last 10+ years. When Axiom Verge and Hollow Knight first came out, Metroidvanias on modern consoles/PC were few and far between. Now there are 100s. And when a company released Action Game 4: Action Harder, people bought it because they didn't want to keep pulling out their old consoles to buy Action Game 3: Electric Boogaloo. But now why buy Action Game 5 when you can still play Action Game 4 easily? This is especially true for games not heavily reliant on plot or level design. Sure, you can point to poor implementation or bad decisions for why the latest Civilization game failed. But you can also ask why does anyone need to bother updating anyway?

There's also a third that is solely in multiplayer, and that's the death of couch/arcade gaming and the exclusive use of online. If you just want to hang out with your friends on the couch and beat each other up with a fighting game, as long as the game was fun then it didn't matter which one you got. Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, Bloody Roar, just depended on your preferences and what kind of characters you liked. But now everything must be played online with ranked matchups and blah blah blah. So your game not only becomes un-fun, but nearly unplayable if there is no userbase. So new games are extremely risky. So why bother trying a new fighting game, even if it looks cool? Better stick with Tekken or Street Fighter. This one isn't new, but it's still causing bombs that take their publishers by surprise somehow. Didn't the latest Guilty Gear struggle?

 

[March Climber]

There's lots of people saying this is all just AI Slop or impossible to curate or not wanting to wade through 8000 asset flip games or whatever. Sure, there's some legitimacy to that. But did you miss the part where there are 260 games released so far on Steam this year with >500 reviews and >90% positive? Or check out Metacritic. 204 games so far this year with a score of 75 or better and a minimum of 7 reviews. Yes, not every good game can get reviewed. But there's still plenty of games that are reviewed out there that are still struggling.

My point was that I myself am not missing this, but tons of other people, including many here and elsewhere, are.

When the average person is seeing a random mediocre or bad AA, F2P, or indie game when they open up gaming storefronts or interact with their algorithms, then they are turned off or turned away from those experiences due to this, that is directly a curation issue.

Music, books, and movies are facing the exact same issue, which is why quite a few people have turned backwards, sticking to their favorite franchises and artists for far too long, barely checking out anything new due to being overwhelmed by the amount of choice and also the risk of being let down.

 

[Js562]

No such thing

 

[Minsc]

And TV shows as well. For books though AI is a huge problem. So much slop is being produced, it's crazy.

Specifically for games, where this is leading is that publishers are increasingly unlikely willing to take risk. It's too easy even for bigger games to get lost in the large stream of new releases.

Yes AI has made its terrible mark on more than just gaming, good point. Books written by AI. Fan fics of non-canon ships. So forth.

I did miss the biggest "too many" culprit though, it's not books, movies, music or games. It's people. There are simply too many people.

Think of any civilization game, how fun they are when it's beginning and manageable, then think how annoying they get when you have 40+ towns, hundreds of units moving around, and so much money, resources and power, but more problems than ever. The more you have, the more you ignore what you have.

If you had way less people, you'd have less games, less shows, and less books. Cut the population down by 1/1000th of what it is now, and other than all the AI slop, you'd have no excess. # Thanos was right?

Or more seriously maybe it is just technology. You can do far more, with far less human resources, on average, now than before.

 

[GHound]

• A comittee of chosen people deciding which games are deserving to be released and get the spotlight/best dates?

I think what's more amazing is how many retards would agree with him if he came out championing exactly this. Right up until it meant that a game they want was canceled because the committee in question is made up of people that hate their guts.

Can you imagine? "Sorry. Fuck off. We don't want your game to be released because it doesn't check some DIPSHIT DICKHEAD box we randomly decided on today. Go put it in cold storage and maybe it'll be trendy in a decade."
I mean hell there's kind of people already advocating for exactly that.

 

[Abysse]

I think Schrier missed two issues here that compound the problem. The first is that there hasn't been any major new innovations in a while. You had screenscrolling in the 80s, 3D in the 90s, the push for ultrarealistic cinematics in the 00s (+online), and the indie boom in the 10s. What has there been since? With the industry space growing, investors could at least look at a game and say "That's new, that's going to get people's attention!" Now it's yet another Rogue Isometric Action with RPG elements and blah blah blah. Novelty catches people's attention. See Balatro or Vampire Hunters. But with the technology stagnant, novelty is hard to find.

Players are allergic (especially casual players) to innovation or change, and they make up the majority of sales for any game. If a game changes the way it is played, they will complain.
"Why didn't they make it the same as other games?"

 

[Smasher89]

Publishers rushes devs to put out their games asap even when its clearly not finished/polished enough, many more copies and does the same thing with rushed releases so there is alot more games releasing over time, some sticks a while and patches some does a one and done patch, put that on repeat for 1000s of companies and this is what you get right ? Back to iterating to release more polished games like Silksong recently and the "too many games" problem solves itself.

Kinda joking of course but its not totally wrong, that said, its great to have options as gamers, makes making smarter purchases technicly and easier to wait even though Im usually and i know many others still usually sticking to day 1-
That said I'vs seen many solid games just release, get like 20 ish users even if they look polished and then go away, that i bet is so scary for smaller companies and what happens alot more often than it seems (unless steamcharts miss alot of purchases).

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Players are allergic (especially casual players) to innovation or change, and they make up the majority of sales for any game. If a game changes the way it is played, they will complain.
"Why didn't they make it the same as other games?"

I don't think casuals complain though.

It's the hardcore players that go on social media and complain about changes.

 

[calico]

If only there was some way for the market to self-correct.

 

[Abysse]

I don't think casuals complain though.

It's the hardcore players that go on social media and complain about changes.

We'll see.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

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.

I'm not going to bother even reading his argument when the premise is retarded at best, insidious and Machiavellian at worst.

If we take the industry at large, from mobile games and asset-flip ad-driven games, to obscure niche indie/AA titles, to prestigious games, to industry-driving juggernauts (from a budget point of view), we see one consistent aspect:

if your game has quality (in the sense of delivering something the market is receptive to), the odds of succeeding are substantially higher (still very hard, though) but definitely better than with low-effort slop.

if he is somehow trying to justify or explain recent flops like DA The Vailguard, Concord, Avowed etc.. to the argument of there is to many games... well, we know what kind of narrative this dude is trying to push.

 

[VGA-Games]

Yhe Nintedno Switch 2 wishes it had that problem

I really can't complain as a owner of a Nintendo Switch 2

Mario Kart World
Donkey Kong Bananza
Hades II
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Kirby Air Riders
Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Final Fantasy Tactics
Mortal Kombat Kollection
Cyberpunk 2077
Star Wars: Outlaws
Fortnite - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

I think it's great for the first 6 Months of the Nintendo Switch 2

 

[Crayon]

I agree it's a problem. But it is the kind that will fix itself.

 

[Syphon Filter]

There aren't too many good games though.

 

[ADiTAR]

People should be feeling the squeeze and realizing that their time on this Earth is finite. The idea of not being able to "keep up" assumes that you are going to have the time to play everything. You don't. You will never get through your 400 game backlog. New releases are always coming out and adding to it. You simply need to be selective and only play what really matters to you. It's like when you were a kid and you didn't have money to play everything. Well, now as an adult you don't have time.

Once the robot and AI take over, you'll have the time, no worries.

 

[Edgelord79]

"It's the main reason that games such as Wildgate and Sunderfolk, both developed by Dreamhaven and released this year to positive receptions, struggled to make a dent. The list goes on and on."

Eh… not sure I agree with this. Just because game gets good Metacritic scores doesn't mean it will do well in sales. I do agree that there are more games than is healthy for the industry and this hurts discoverability. The industry will need to correct itself somehow.

 

[Edgelord79]

There aren't too many good games though.

1000's of good games on Steam. Not sure if you are serious or not.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

"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.

It was day 1 Gamepass on Xbox and only on Epic Games Store on PC at launch

So yeah it sold like shit because nobody actually bought it lol. It was free on Xbox and unavailable for 99% of PC gamers

So that's just stupid business decisions hurting sales

 

[ReBurn]

It was day 1 Gamepass on Xbox and only on Epic Games Store on PC at launch

So yeah it sold like shit because nobody actually bought it lol. It was free on Xbox and unavailable for 99% of PC gamers

So that's just stupid business decisions hurting sales

How was it unavailable to 99% of PC gamers?

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I've been saying this for the longest. There are way too many games and that's how so many games get lost in the shuffle and neglected. Yeah, too many games is better than too little, but imo it can be vastly overwhelming especially since games are getting so expensive and lengthy as well with DLC, Season passes, etc.

I feel like I can't thoroughly enjoy certain game experiences to the fullest anymore. I often have to rush through games to finish them so I can immediately jump to the next one to try to complete my massive backlog. Then again, I guess I don't have to buy every single little thing that interests me, right?

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Too many games and worst Playstation generation ever.

 

[Boy bawang]

Interesting. So, what do you think this will lead to?

I think that in a few years, we could start seeing games created "on demand". First, it will be simple stuff. But down the line, it could become fully tailored experiences generated through an AI.

Games being hand crafted will become a rare luxury in a decade or two, I guess.

 

[lh032]

too many games for me because i play all kinds of games, unlike certain group of people "where are the exclusive games on ps5", you know....the same people who buy exclusive games only and nothing else and think their have somekind of purchase power on the PS ecosystem lmao

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I really can't complain as a owner of a Nintendo Switch 2

Mario Kart World
Donkey Kong Bananza
Hades II
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Kirby Air Riders
Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Final Fantasy Tactics
Mortal Kombat Kollection
Cyberpunk 2077
Star Wars: Outlaws
Fortnite - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

I think it's great for the first 6 Months of the Nintendo Switch 2

I can't criticize someone enjoying their hard earned purchase. Enjoy it. I'm looking for more and maybe it'll get there for me at some point.

 

[KungFucius]

I've got over 400 free ones sitting in my Epic Store library.
Dozens of Netflix games on my cellphone.
Hundreds of Gamepass games
Lots of games I bought on Steam and GoG.
As well as all the VR stuff on my Quest 3.

All that and still there is nothing to play.

Same thing with TV. Tons of shit to watch, but nothing I am watching.

 

[StereoVsn]

How was it unavailable to 99% of PC gamers?

Because the vast majority of PC gamers don't use MS Store (GamePass) or Epic.

If they wanted to sell, they would have published on Steam. Is it was, essentially Epic and MS paid for the game and the studio didn't really care about actual sales.

They also didn't have a physical copy either at release from what I remember.

 

[ReBurn]

Because the vast majority of PC gamers don't use MS Store (GamePass) or Epic.

If they wanted to sell, they would have published on Steam. Is it was, essentially Epic and MS paid for the game and the studio didn't really care about actual sales.

They also didn't have a physical copy either at release from what I remember.

I get that it wasn't on Steam, but that doesn't mean it was unavailable to PC players. I personally think it's kind of silly to not buy a game I really want to play simply because it isn't on the storefront I prefer. I understand that people have their reasons for sticking with only Steam, but I'll buy from EGS or GOG if that's where I can get the thing I want when I want it.

 

[StereoVsn]

I get that it wasn't on Steam, but that doesn't mean it was unavailable to PC players. I personally think it's kind of silly to not buy a game I really want to play simply because it isn't on the storefront I prefer. I understand that people have their reasons for sticking with only Steam, but I'll buy from EGS or GOG if that's where I can get the thing I want when I want it.

What you personally would do is really immaterial though. It's just a fact that most folks don't purchase games through MS store or Epic so if a publisher decided to go with those options, they knew what they are getting into.

 

[clarky]

There's only too many games if you insist on buying everything day one, which has always been the case.

 

[Danjin44]

There's only too many games if you insist on buying everything day one, which has always been the case.

The issue for me is too many games I like comes out very close to each like this Sep.

Cronos - Sep 5
Trails of the Sky 1st Chapter - Sep 19
Silent Hill f - Sep 25
Final Fantasy Tactics - Sep 30

 

[PeteBull]

U can see very well with that stupid take of shreieir's he is on a payroll of big corpo, his entire worldview changed so much he looks at plethora of game options as something bad, coz from corpo's pov its bad- it leaves players(their customers) free will to not buy shitty/mediocre product they shit out.

Ideal scenario for corpos and their sellout journos would be very limited choice of games, so u could either go with concord, cod, fifa or like 5 others, all bad or really bad non innovative dung of a games, u would have to buy/play it coz there would be nothing else, no competition- and corpos hate competition coz its good for consumers, it makes corpos fight for player's money/attention instead of just rising profits

 

[clarky]

The issue for me is too many games I like comes out very close to each like this Sep.

Cronos - Sep 5
Trails of the Sky 1st Chapter - Sep 19
Silent Hill f - Sep 25
Final Fantasy Tactics - Sep 30

Yeah stacked but just buy one or two. The rest ain't going anywhere and will likely be better after a few patches.

 

[OuterLimits]

100% accurate. It is a major problem for them, but a huge windfall for us.

Even if you managed to spend a fortune to buy all these games, you wouldn't be able to physically play them. Many of these games are destined to fail, and that's completely fine. They should fail if they can't attract an audience. Many of these infinite amounts of devs will have to find somewhere else to work, either in large teams, small teams, or another industry entirely. Again, this is fine.

There simply aren't enough hours in the day to support every person in the world that wants to be a game developer. Feel free to keep trying though. Been a golden age of gaming for me this gen. I have enough to play until I'm dead already.

By the way, what he's describing is the actual devaluing that is the boogeyman on GAF. The actual devaluing is what the industry did to itself. Gamepass is just providing an option for people to play stuff at a correct rental price. The people crying about Gamepass are trying to enforce price controls because games have lost their value all on their own, while their costs are going up.

This is more true when it comes to movies and books as wel!, but occasionally an indie author will become huge on Kindle.

 

[Danjin44]

Yeah stacked but just buy one or two. The rest ain't going anywhere and will likely be better after a few patches.

You are asking the impossible.....

 

[clarky]

You are asking the impossible.....

I found over the years that buying almost everything I fancy often results in some games slipping into backlog unplayed. I buy better these days but still have some recent games will less than an hour on the clock.