Ex Playstation Bend studio dev explains the downfall of gaming industry
- Thread starter Buggy Loop
- Start date
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
And what proportion of that came from its domestic market ?
We know sales were certainly heavily skewed towards PC, because at the time when its 20million sales were being trumpeted about it was only available on PC and PS5. Yes, Wukong was #1 on Playstation in August when it launched, but a month later is was #5, and by October it was out of the top 10.
This isn't the sales trajectory of COD or other massive franchise.
It kinda bugs me the way people cherry-pick metrics when they support their argument, but don't even do a superficial analysis of what that metric is actually indicating.
Fixed that for you.
It chases those models because most of the consumers do. It chases those models because that's where the players are spending their money. Complaining about the latest AAA single player release and how they're not like "the good ol days" while playing some handful of tentpole GaaS/f2p games and spending on mtx. It is what it is.
Felessan
Member
That's revenue
And these games running cost is huge (don't believe 20m, those numbers are bullshit), Fortnite for example costs around half a billion per year to run and GTA, given it's size, probably at least 200m a year. Live service games are no joke both in profits AND in costs.
It's clearly visible in financial report where T2 is in red most of the time, hardly possible if GTAO would be highly profitable. And remember, GTA6 cost to development is expenses but not a loss, so T2 can't get profitable even with running GTA5 sales and GTAO revenue when GTA6 expenses temporarily put aside.
Angry_Megalodon
Gold Member
Give something unique to people and they will buy it. See Expedition 33. See Silksong, one of the most anticipated games of the decade. See Bloodborne (remake, 2, or whatever). People aren't wishing for the next Fornite wannabe. Fortnite was also unique, back in the day.
Blaming people for poor creative decisions is all levels of wrong. Precisely, the success of Mihoyo was bringing something NEW to the table, a truly AAA F2P game, something unheard of till that date. Those were the trend-setters, not trend-chasers. Quite the opposite.
In short, that dude is wrong. It's a creative problem, nothing more.
PlayStaytion
Member
Imagine all these people know how to make good games.
poodaddy
Gold Member
Felessan
Member
Yeah, sure
In that logic Japanese gamers just stopped playing altogether
Because not only Playstation sales are low, even games are greatly reduced, game sales are like 1/3 of what they were 10 years ago, especially for non-Nintendo games. And many AA franchises left the business altogether. PC are also had outflux of players.
But market by money spent didn't really contracted all this years, so maybe a reason lies elsewhere?
digimaster7
Member
the keyword is to at least have a chance. You don't have a chance in the first place with characters like concord.
No one's sane with a working brain for face recognition is gonna buy a figurine of emari or the fat medic (forgot the name)
Tobimacoss
Member
He joined Bend 2022 so after Days gone actually, when he got in it was the opposite of what he wanted to do as a game developer, the studio was chasing GAAS, he most likely was on Bend's cancelled live-service open world new IP game that was building on days gone's open-world systems.
(Acelora also makes amazing programming videos, that's where I found him initially)
Its a long one, sorry about that, but imo really passed fast and he makes a journey from early 2000's, DLCs, mobile, gacha, etc, to modern GAAS and what led to why every goddamn corporate executives wanted a piece of it.
The slot machine comparison is exactly why publishers chased it.
On the left the modern AAA single player machine
On the right the GAAS jackpot
Problem is they try their luck at pulling the right machine multiple times due to low costs and short lead times in the hope of having a single jackpot. That single jackpot would offset all your failures.
Anyone playing with their money at the casino would also pick the right one. That's clearly what Sony bet on big time this gen.
Those numbers don't make any sense. Any Live service multiplayer only games is still going to be 3-4 years work and $100 million. And it isn't possible to hit $10 billion, even for the most successful live service.
So if it costs $100 million, and makes one billion, that would be 10 times the revenue.
Didn't Concord cost $400 million? Marathon isn't cheap either. Investing into Live Service isn't the issue, Sony invested into the wrong kind of Live Service games.
Instead of Factions 2, or even Days Gone, they went with Concord, and a God of War live service....
HellDivers 2 is the only one they have handled properly but they almost screwed that up to his the Steam controversy. But the Xbox collaboration is good start to course correct.
PurePlatinum
Member
Markets cater to what customers want.
The problem is that what most players want (ever expanding scope and fidelity with no increase in price) is unsustainable. It's as simple as that.
The problem is that what most players want (ever expanding scope and fidelity with no increase in price) is unsustainable. It's as simple as that.
If you didn't like my post you shouldn't have read it.
That's not how this works brah
Angry_Megalodon
Gold Member
People never asked for this and Nintendo is the best proof of it. Companies cornered themselves into creating an artificial need, because it's easier to market technical improvements than game design innovations, which take actual creativity.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Gaming seems to have skewed hard to more shooters and GAAS games.
But downfall of gaming?
Depends which side of fence someone is on. Maybe some gamers love F2P, some like Fortnite and FIFA, some devs like making shooters, some like smartphone gaming, and any company that is successful likes it as it rakes in the cash. Someone who fits any of these probably loves gaming.
Of course a Bend studio guy would hate it. Bend has historically made SP games and whatever they got in works has been delayed or cancelled since DG released in 2019. So they got to start over in hopes what they are doing is fine enough so the studio doesnt get canned by the execs.
But downfall of gaming?
Depends which side of fence someone is on. Maybe some gamers love F2P, some like Fortnite and FIFA, some devs like making shooters, some like smartphone gaming, and any company that is successful likes it as it rakes in the cash. Someone who fits any of these probably loves gaming.
Of course a Bend studio guy would hate it. Bend has historically made SP games and whatever they got in works has been delayed or cancelled since DG released in 2019. So they got to start over in hopes what they are doing is fine enough so the studio doesnt get canned by the execs.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Also when there's some fad going on, you got 50 companies all trying to make the same thing. By the time they all release, it looks like a shotgunned concentration of the millionth similar game coming out. Like all the Souls-like games that have come out the past bunch of years.
Edgelord79
Gold Member
Bend employees or former employees seem to complain a lot or at least it seems like it.
As for the actual message, well it's kind of redundant at this point. GasS are going to be needed to fund larger open world single player games as they get more complicated unfortunately. The Bobby Kotick's of the world are not interested in games without a long term revenue models and monetization. This means triple AAA studios will have to largely transition to GaaS and/or annualized franchises to survive in the future with much smaller teams focusing on the "creative" and single player games they want to make. I hate this.
Want your single player fix? Outside of select developers, it's going to be largely AA or indie I think.
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
In what world does GTA online continue to have high costs when its stagnated and with shark cards that have been established for nearly a decade? They aren't making Fortnite season passes
Revenue, yes, they are rolling in dough because there's no development for GTA online to speak of.
Hello GTA 6 development costs
How is GTA 6 costs of development not a loss? Makes no sense. They are >$1B in dev costs. Sure there's money coming in T2 and Rockstar from other assets, but until GTA 6 is sold, this is a drain on all metrics of a financial report.
Of course they are under a huge development debt until they can sell the game. They know of course they make the money back in like a month of sales, but right now its red.
Humdinger
Gold Member
Yeah, I think that's the way it'll go. Mostly.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
He joined Bend 2022 so after Days gone actually, when he got in it was the opposite of what he wanted to do as a game developer, the studio was chasing GAAS, he most likely was on Bend's cancelled live-service open world new IP game that was building on days gone's open-world systems.
(Acelora also makes amazing programming videos, that's where I found him initially)
Its a long one, sorry about that, but imo really passed fast and he makes a journey from early 2000's, DLCs, mobile, gacha, etc, to modern GAAS and what led to why every goddamn corporate executives wanted a piece of it.
The slot machine comparison is exactly why publishers chased it.
On the left the modern AAA single player machine
On the right the GAAS jackpot
Problem is they try their luck at pulling the right machine multiple times due to low costs and short lead times in the hope of having a single jackpot. That single jackpot would offset all your failures.
Anyone playing with their money at the casino would also pick the right one. That's clearly what Sony bet on big time this gen.
But the one on the right it harder to hit the jackpot on. Plus........why must all AAA games take 8 years and $200 million? Can't some be 4 years and $80 Million?
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Peoples are hung up on the slot machine image and I shouldn't have posted it, because in the video he goes over all of it. I can pretty much spot everyone in the thread who have not gone through the video just by the replies.
"some might think this is a ridiculous thought exercise, but this is basically what you show to shareholders to make them happy. So it makes sense why many games have evolved into some sort of live service monster. For the cost of one The Last of us 2 you could instead make like 10 overwatches and from the 10 overwatches you could make 80 more overwatches. Ultimately, this is just that, a thought exercise and does not translate to reality, but game dev executives would try anyways "
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Oh thanks LOL! Because the second I saw that image, I couldn't read or watch anything. It's so insane, that I blacked out and just responded to the image in the OP.
The fact that this through exercise even attempt to use this way of thinking as a pitch to shareholders makes me sad. I pray that the Chinese and Japanese devs CRUSH the devs in the West for the next 5 years if things keep going in this direction.
kungfuian
Member
A few obvious things-
One- The difference in the 2 types of slot machines is not as big as is depicted. As a thought experiment maybe yes, but in reality the cost of playing the GAAS machine is higher than presented (not so cheep to make and support this type of game), and the chance of winning will become increasingly lower than 1 in 10 as that market further solidifies around Genre Kings and the space becomes even more saturated. Having a breakout hit will become increasingly harder and those 1 in 10 odds go way down. The gold rush won't last indefinitely.
Two- getting people to stick with your game, even if an early success in the GAAS space, is really hard, and the result of people falling off your GAAS game significantly reduces the potential pay out of the GAAS machine.
Three- existing single player teams attempting to transition to this type of game are unlikely to be successful. The expertise required to make GAAS is unique and single player game makers are unlikely to have the skill sets to transition well. Publishers attempting to push single player devs to make GAAS games are unlikely to succeed. They will have to build bespoke teams for these types of projects.
Four- There is still a strong appetite from consumers for single player style games. Especially from devs who have a history of making them and customers expect them from. If the big publishers want to chase GAAS then their audiences will likely move on and someone else will come in and eat that single player market. Either way, good single player games will still be getting made, just not from those who traditionally made them for us.
Lastly; Especially for platform holders like Sony, their entire platform has it's identity and much of it's value deeply rooted in strong single player games. They can of course diversify their offerings and broaden the appeal of their platform with GAAS, but if they try to do this too quickly or at the expense of single player, their customers will look elsewhere and the platform itself will likely loose mind share and value.
One- The difference in the 2 types of slot machines is not as big as is depicted. As a thought experiment maybe yes, but in reality the cost of playing the GAAS machine is higher than presented (not so cheep to make and support this type of game), and the chance of winning will become increasingly lower than 1 in 10 as that market further solidifies around Genre Kings and the space becomes even more saturated. Having a breakout hit will become increasingly harder and those 1 in 10 odds go way down. The gold rush won't last indefinitely.
Two- getting people to stick with your game, even if an early success in the GAAS space, is really hard, and the result of people falling off your GAAS game significantly reduces the potential pay out of the GAAS machine.
Three- existing single player teams attempting to transition to this type of game are unlikely to be successful. The expertise required to make GAAS is unique and single player game makers are unlikely to have the skill sets to transition well. Publishers attempting to push single player devs to make GAAS games are unlikely to succeed. They will have to build bespoke teams for these types of projects.
Four- There is still a strong appetite from consumers for single player style games. Especially from devs who have a history of making them and customers expect them from. If the big publishers want to chase GAAS then their audiences will likely move on and someone else will come in and eat that single player market. Either way, good single player games will still be getting made, just not from those who traditionally made them for us.
Lastly; Especially for platform holders like Sony, their entire platform has it's identity and much of it's value deeply rooted in strong single player games. They can of course diversify their offerings and broaden the appeal of their platform with GAAS, but if they try to do this too quickly or at the expense of single player, their customers will look elsewhere and the platform itself will likely loose mind share and value.
Last edited:
Radical_3d
Member
Man in boxes is nowhere to be found but his legacy lives on, I see…
You think European studios are immune to layoffs and poorly received games?
People Can Fly has been grappling with layoffs.
CD Projekt laid off 9% of their workforce
Supermassive and Virtuos studios? Embracer?
Ubisoft is French. You forgot?
a huge chunk of the gacha and MTX heavy mobile games are made in China, Korea and Japan.
Why is 'huge success' relevant here? As a consumer, you should be more interested in the quality of the games.
Didn't say immune, but you don't see them parading doom and gloom. I was mainly raising the fact that the potential death of creativity in the US does not correlate that much to other parts of the world.
MacReady13
Member
If you have a Switch 2, I HIGHLY recommend Donkey Kong Banaza. Possible game of the year and also Metroid Prime 4 coming soon as well!
Felessan
Member
Infrastructure itself costs fortune to maintain. Servers ain't free as well as their maintenance and infrastructure team. Also some development always in place - there are bug fixes and even some new content in GTAO delivered.
Last edited:
The artful mincer
Member
If I owned a Switch 2 that game would definitely be on my shortlist! I honestly feel I have enough games to play on the PS5 with plenty of games I've yet to play including Baldur's gate 3.
I love gaming but I feel owning a second console would be irresponsible. I've done it once before but won't again.
IAmRei
Member
You forgot mario wonder, with smaller budget, 14M+ sales, imagine the margin of profits
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Maintain servers and the lowest effort annual content of all the GAAS sphere are your $500M melting in a yearly basis argument?
I'm sorry, I don't think you have the economic sense of a yearly $500M revenue. Servers are millions, yes, that's just a fucking dent on $500M. ~100M revenue yearly sustains a thousand employees team, how we know? CIG and Star Citizen. GTA online does not require that kind of team.
They make a shitload of cash with GTA Online. This is widely known and reported throughout over a decade. Never seen a single article that they scrape by for 12 years with that game.
Do you even follow monthly salespeople? GTA 5 staying in the top 20 lists month after month, years after years? This ain't little Timmy buying GTA5 12 years later, it's GTA online players buying micro transactions.
You're probably the only one on the internet arguing that rockstar scrapes by with GTA online, congrats!
Last edited:
The artful mincer
Member
No
Bend employees or former employees seem to complain a lot or at least it seems like it.
As for the actual message, well it's kind of redundant at this point. GasS are going to be needed to fund larger open world single player games as they get more complicated unfortunately. The Bobby Kotick's of the world are not interested in games without a long term revenue models and monetization. This means triple AAA studios will have to largely transition to GaaS and/or annualized franchises to survive in the future with much smaller teams focusing on the "creative" and single player games they want to make. I hate this.
Want your single player fix? Outside of select developers, it's going to be largely AA or indie I think.
Triple AAA single player games will continue to exist if they can be relied upon to sell millions of units.
If legacy single player studios pivot to GAAS that leaves the door open for other studios to fill the void.
It just takes one hit for an AA studio to transform into AAA studio if it desires. I.e. Clair Obscur and Black Myth Wukong or Witcher 3
LavitzSlambert
Member
I don't think this is modest for GAF at all, especially considering many of us here have a backlog. Thing is, a lot of these GaaS suck up a lot of time so it actually exacerbates the issues we are seeing with limited time and money for other games. It's all about the "attention economy" or whatever stupid term they are using now where studios are competing not only against other games, but Twitch streams, Netflix, etc. in an increasingly time-limited and world.
Really what we are seeing is a complete divergence in AAA (chasing these live service games) and smaller/indie devs that are just churning out content as business continuity. We as gamers don't need hundreds or thousands of shitty me-too soulslikes, and we don't need an onslaught of releases that oversaturate the industry. We don't have enough time or money for them. The studios do need it, because that is how they make money.
Unfortunately or fortunately for us, depending on how you look at it, new single player games have a lot more competition. You can play old classics for just a few bucks, last year's release for half price, and that means new expensive games are competing against backlogs and history. Live service games have a much smaller set of competitors overall (although the most successful ones are even more formidable years later, like Fornite) - a new release is likely not competing against WoW.
The artful mincer
Member
I think long term this is where mega bucks can be made with Single Player Games
Capcom one of the best if not the best performing videogame stock of the last decade or so have recognised this and other companies are starting to follow.
The majority of there revenue has come from catalogue sales over the last few years and it continues to get bigger every year.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Nobody leaves a safe, warm house in a thunderstorm.
Legacy single player studios are pivoting to GAAS because they feel the house they're in is on fire.
The artful mincer
Member
Lol he's back!
I have to say I didn't agree with your ban but whatever.
On topic I would say Capcoms profit margins say otherwise!
DownLikeBCPowder
Member
So blatant and unapologetic about it.. wild watch.
Hell is Us probably is going to be profitable with 2M sales. You are obsessed with sales.