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[Men_in_Boxes]

Great Twitter thread by Jacob Navok, ex business director at Square Enix. Here he explains the videogame industries transformation from a unique perspective.



















https://x.com/JNavok/status/1942666464630133182

https://x.com/JNavok/status/1942666471458628094

(Not sure why final two tweets aren't showing up)

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

He also talks about a lot of the above here. After playing Spectre Divide and Wildgate, two generally "good" games that failed, my position on GAAS has shifted somewhat. The network effect is much stronger than I originally believed. Fortnite and Roblox are much more similar to X and Facebook than they are to Halo and Zelda.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Additionally, if you think that $400m for Battlefield is too high, or $2.5bn for GTA6 is insane, by definition you are saying those people working on it should not have had jobs.

No, fuckface, it's just that most likely it could have been half the budget, half the scope and still sell the same. There is no equation X hours of gameplay = Y revenue, its feature and scope creep that makes it so. Fucking learn how to manage your projects.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

He also talks about a lot of the above here. After playing Spectre Divide and Wildgate, two generally "good" games that failed, my position on GAAS has shifted somewhat. The network effect is much stronger than I originally believed. Fortnite and Roblox are much more similar to X and Facebook than they are to Halo and Zelda.

You could have figured this the same way Wildstar and countless other WoW-killers figured it out 10 years ago.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

AI summarize?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You could have figured this the same way Wildstar and countless other WoW-killers figured it out 10 years ago.

Not exactly. If creatives had this mentality, there wouldn't be a Fortnite, Warzone, Apex, or Naraka Bladepoint because no one wanted to be another failed "PUBG killer".

There still seems to be a "fog of war" when it comes to this stuff. What's the difference between WoW saturation (one massive MMO) and Battle Royale saturation (5 massive BRs)?

 

[IAmRei]

Game Development, especially Graphic hungry games, was not cheap, if the game fails, then the budget will burnt for nothing.
not knowing about how market wants also easy way to kill the product before hit the shelves (digitally or physically)
The said games above are failed, also because the publisher/studios, forced something people hate even before game released.
Also, gamedevs are not cheap for AAA works now, the place where they work, also not cheap.

using AI won't solve it, because the fault is in the decision, not the tools...

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The WESTERN industry is being killed by a mix bag of incompetent fools, corrupt media and consultants and greedy execs. Fuck all of them.

Give people good games and you will thrive. Give them slop and you will die.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

AI summarize?

"I started by translating annual statements from Japanese to English at a company that is infamous for setting unreal sales expectations and mismanaging projects so let me tell you about managing projects".

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Also, gamedevs are not cheap for AAA works now, the place where they work, also not cheap.

Make it a 20 hour game and not 60 hour game?
Don't open a studio in the middle of SF?
Rely on established franchises before pouring $200 million into a new IP?
Have a clear delivery milestones you can use to evaluate if the project is on track without resorting to crunch?

 

[kruis]

The ultimate ticking time bomb is Roblox and UEFN as the generations that grow up with it continue to stay. I return to the Grow a Garden growth.

This is not coincidence. Gamers who are happy with Roblox and UEFN will stay with it, just as the YouTube generation of kids continues to watch YouTube. This platform effect, Metcalfe's law, is the future of games, and will continue to grow.

Death Stranding 2 sales, meanwhile, barely passed Clair Obscur in its first three days, and that's if you generously discount the fact that Clair was free on Gamepass on D1 and grew massively faster shortly after due to good word of mouth (hitting 3.3M copies in its first month, whereas it would normally taper.)

A dollar spent on Death Stranding 2 in this industry is better spent on trying to make a Fortnite (see Phil's dilemma above), which is why Sony will keep trying to make something out of its Bungie acquisition. Marathon will release, but won't solve the problem.

Roblox and Epic already have forever platforms. Sony needs its own, or it will still be in the Content business in a Network business era.

Nintendo may be happy to stay forever as a content business, but I suspect Sony isn't able to say the same.

-----------

This idea that's it's better to bet big on a GAAS that could potentially make the CEO a billionaire instead of making 10 games that only make a healthy profit is what's killing gaming. That chase for the golden goose is destroying the studios who have to make that crap, it's destroying the financials of the companies that fail and it's driving away gamers.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Great Twitter thread and while I mostly don't object to what he's laying out as far as perception, I don't agree with all of it. What an awful, limited, enclosed future that is.

I also disagree that the only way forward is to just spend hundreds of millions over and over - why does he say this with concern for "keeping people employed" (one of his main insinuated goals), if this actually means the vast majority of studios will close with no one to vacuum up that talent.

The concept that money is "better spent" on attempting to create a Roblox also further assumes these studios even have the capacity to weather such a loss.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

This idea that's it's better to bet big on a GAAS that could potentially make the CEO a billionaire instead of making 10 games that only make a healthy profit is what's killing gaming.

I don't think that's really the equation.

Death Stranding 2 is by all accounts a better game than DS1 and it was more expensive game to make as well. It's probably not going to sell as well as DS1.

Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Outlaws, Dragon Age Veilgard were all considered "safe bets" at a certain point.

Most titles are not Death Stranding 2. Most are not GotY nominee type games with PlayStation publishing behind them. This idea that you can grow by making 10, "healthy profit" type single player games doesn't really exist today like it did 10 - 15 years ago.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Death Stranding 2 sales, meanwhile, barely passed Clair Obscur in its first three days, and that's if you generously discount the fact that Clair was free on Gamepass on D1 and grew massively faster shortly after due to good word of mouth (hitting 3.3M copies in its first month, whereas it would normally taper.)

Games like Death Stranding 2 happen when an industry veteran cashes in his goodwill and connections to get something that won't move the needle made anyway. It happens in the movie industry too with films like Megaopolis.

Having a traditional software business on top of a network effect game is good for stable business operation; look how much Square, Sony, and Ubisoft have struggled while chasing the Fortnite dragon.

 

[Woopah]

Such a fascinating time for the industry. An insightful read.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I don't think that's really the equation.

Most titles are not Death Stranding 2. Most are not GotY nominee type games with PlayStation publishing behind them. This idea that you can grow by making 10, "healthy profit" type single player games doesn't really exist today like it did 10 - 15 years ago.

While it may be a more fierce competitive environment, it is certainly still viable to create finished products and grow. There are companies doing it this very moment - most of them, however, are smaller companies or small enough to lack the capability of blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on a Concord and thus do not fall into that trap. Whether they continue to function that way as they grow or become enticed into chasing the evergreen is another question.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

I don't think that's really the equation.

Death Stranding 2 is by all accounts a better game than DS1 and it was more expensive game to make as well. It's probably not going to sell as well as DS1.

Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Outlaws, Dragon Age Veilgard were all considered "safe bets" at a certain point.

Most titles are not Death Stranding 2. Most are not GotY nominee type games with PlayStation publishing behind them. This idea that you can grow by making 10, "healthy profit" type single player games doesn't really exist today like it did 10 - 15 years ago.

The big problem with those games is they cost too much to make for the adressible audience they were targeting. You can't throw more bodies at a big game and expect it to be good enough that millions of people buy it to offset the insane cost.

Nintendo knows this, which is why they make mid- and low-budget games with a gameplay "hook" that intices people to keep playing. Even Fortnite has a hook that brought people in to play at the beginning. These companies are trying to speedrun success without a compelling gameplay loop, and that's why they keep failing.

 

[Paltheos]

This idea that's it's better to bet big on a GAAS that could potentially make the CEO a billionaire instead of making 10 games that only make a healthy profit is what's killing gaming. That chase for the golden goose is destroying the studios who have to make that crap, it's destroying the financials of the companies that fail and it's driving away gamers.

The author doesn't opine on the reasons gamers are being 'driven away' or even that they are. He claims simply that younger generations are seeking experiences in single ecosystems (i.e. Roblox, Fortnite) and that executives are responding to the successes of those platforms by trying to create their own (he describes these as 'networks' as opposed to 'content', going by terminology he translated for Squeenix's AFRs). Executives view the creation of a successful network as essential because they believe, based off data trends, that the traditional content system is and will become increasingly unprofitable as older generations who prefer that content leave the market.

 

[Wildebeest]

Can't he just upload all that to medium or something? Is he dumb?

 

[ungalo]

The big problem with those games is they cost too much to make for the adressible audience they were targeting. You can't throw more bodies at a big game and expect it to be good enough that millions of people buy it to offset the insane cost.

Nintendo knows this, which is why they make mid- and low-budget games with a gameplay "hook" that intices people to keep playing. Even Fortnite has a hook that brought people in to play at the beginning. These companies are trying to speedrun success without a compelling gameplay loop, and that's why they keep failing.

it's just the power of the IP nothing more, how many games have great gameplay and failed ?

 

[Utamaru1706]

Roblox and Epic already have forever platforms. Sony needs its own, or it will still be in the Content business in a Network business era.

Nintendo may be happy to stay forever as a content business, but I suspect Sony isn't able to say the same.

I think the problem here is that Sony's position is clearly different compared to Roblox and Epic, where Sony is also a console manufacturer, in which their games can only lasts one console generation, especially their GaaS, since they also need to entice their consumers with the next new console, instead of sticking to the old one.

Roblox and Epic doesn't have this kind of problem, where they didn't stuck in committing on a single exclusive platform like Sony, so they can just keep running the game as long as they wanted to (Roblox is going to be 2 decades old next year, which basically 3 console generations).

So yeah, Sony is very likely not chasing for another UGC stuffs that lasts for a very long time like Roblox, Minecraft, or UEFN, but instead they wanted to make a more traditional GaaS with online games that lasts for less time.

 

[Loomy]

Can't he just upload all that to medium or something? Is he dumb?

Tweets get more views/engagement than medium articles.

 

[DreamcastSkies]

Is the industry crashing with something new being born from the rubble?

 

[Jinzo Prime]

it's just the power of the IP nothing more, how many games have great gameplay and failed ?

If IP was all that mattered, Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd, Star Wars Outlaws, Assassian's Creed Shadows, Avatar Pandora, and Halo Infinite would have been smash hits.

 

[bender]

AI summarize?

Humans aren't needed anymore as Robots are better and sexier.

 

[Loomy]

AI summarize?

Beep Boop Beep Boop

tl;dr. Publishers long ago realized that the way people play has changed. i.e young people are spending a lot more time on "platforms" like Roblox and Fortnite where they can have a variety of experiences, instead of buying individual games, So they're all in a rush to try and compete for whatever time is left.

Additionally, games are just expensive to make these days (he estimates $2.5bn for GTA6). The same thing that happened to movies is happening to games now. The middle is just gone. Mid budget movies are pretty much dead, and AA games are in the same boat. Just a world of indies and AAA (he considers Expedition 33 indie).