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SkillUp: The year in videogames (2024)

cormack12

Gold Member


Indie games break out in success
2024 saw indie games achieving significant commercial success, with smaller teams competing effectively against large studios. Titles such as Pal World gained massive traction, significantly outpacing traditional games in sales.

Layoffs and studio closures
The year was marred by widespread layoffs, with over 72,000 gaming industry workers losing their jobs in early 2024 alone. This downward trend raised concerns about the industry's long-term health and the future quality of game development.

Xbox's strategic shift
Xbox appeared to abandon its console-first approach, moving towards a multiplatform model, which was met with mixed reactions from its community. This change was part of a broader industry reevaluation of business models in face of disappointing sales and reception.

Live service games struggle
The year was marked by the failure of several live service games, including Suicide Squad and Concord, viewed as some of the largest flops in gaming. This has led to a reevaluation of the live service model across the industry.

Future of gaming and trends
2024 highlighted an uncertain future, with major publishers like Ubisoft and EA needing to rethink their strategies amid disappointing releases and revenue losses. The rise of gacha-style monetization is poised to replace the live service model as companies seek out more reliable profit avenues.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
pal world is not exactly indie. They even got a publisher... wow a breakout success for indie games...
layoffs layoffs layoffs... just make good games. We had more good games releasing on 360/ps3 in a month than in last 2 years combined proably.
Games don't have to be these long behemoths. 8-20 hours is perfectly fine.

Xbox is not a strategic shift. Xbox is a failure and they are using infinite microsoft money to do something else. TOO SOFT ON THEM.
Shill up shills as always.

We had stellar blade this year showing how it's done.
 
More games like Stellar Blade, Space Marine 2, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Wukong, and Rebirth and less game like Wokeguard, Crapcord, Unknown Shit 9, Starwars UglyLaw, Insaneborn, and Suicide Squad: Fuck the Justice League.
 

Zuzu

Member
It was a good year. We got a nice amount of pretty good to great games like FF7 Rebirth, Stellar Blade, Black Myth Wukong, Shadow of the Erdtree, Black Ops 6 campaign, Astrobot, Silent Hill 2 and the Tomb Raider Remastered Trilogy.

Gamepass provided some good value for me as well.

It also provided some great laughs with stuff like the Concord disaster lol
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
That thumbnail.

Stick Around Bob Ross GIF by Originals
 

Fbh

Member
Had this running in the background as I was doing some work. Pretty good summary overall.
IDK for me it was a solid year. Some cool sequels like Rebirth, Infinite Wealth, Helldivers 2, Astrobot and Space Marine 2 combined with some cool new Ip like Stellar Blade, Black Myth, Metaphor, Unicorn Overlord, Balatro, Nine Sols and more.



pal world is not exactly indie. They even got a publisher... wow a breakout success for indie games...

Who is the publishers? On steam they appear as both the publishers and developers of the game.
All their previous games are other small low budget titles and most google results say they have around 50 employees.

I mean sure they aren't Balatro tier indie, but I don't see how they aren't an indie studio
 

CSJ

Member
The year when we got several “Modern Audiences” pieces of shit and they all flopped.

Meanwhile Japanese games and western games that appealed to their actual audience (e.g. Space Marine 2, Path of Exile 2, Marvel Rivals) did just fine.

So many in one year is probably a good thing in the long run rather than spread out too; hopefully shows execs that they should stick to what they made before.
 

Saber

Member
The flops and losses were all unimportants and necessary ones, so nothing of value was really lost on 2024.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Had this running in the background as I was doing some work. Pretty good summary overall.
IDK for me it was a solid year. Some cool sequels like Rebirth, Infinite Wealth, Helldivers 2, Astrobot and Space Marine 2 combined with some cool new Ip like Stellar Blade, Black Myth, Metaphor, Unicorn Overlord, Balatro, Nine Sols and more.





Who is the publishers? On steam they appear as both the publishers and developers of the game.
All their previous games are other small low budget titles and most google results say they have around 50 employees.

I mean sure they aren't Balatro tier indie, but I don't see how they aren't an indie studio
hmmm you might be right. It's indeed the same name for dev and publisher.
So it might be indie? 50 people is a bit much but I guess there is no limit for indie ?
 
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Zacfoldor

Member
For me it was a good year. Unicorn Overlord, Metaphor, Wukong, Silent Hill 2, Erdtree, PS5 Pro, even Indiana Jones hit, and there are way more, too many to list.

Nintendo probably had their worst year on memory for me, but honestly it was due. They are saving up big releases for next year and even doing that it was not a terrible year.

There was and still is a steady stream of awesome new releases and remakes/remasters.

Cheers Applause GIF
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
For me it was a good year. Unicorn Overlord, Metaphor, Wukong, Silent Hill 2 and there are way too many to list.
I said before if you are fan of asian games this year has been fantastic, Silent Hill 2 was the only western game I played and enjoyed this year.
 
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