The games industry is undergoing a 'generational change,' says Epic CEO Tim: 'A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling’

vaibhavpisal said:
Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2 etc

All AA titles outselling big budget SP titles.

I dont see how GAAS is not the future.
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2 things will end the GaaS trend

- publishers investing money getting burned by flops

- players investing time getting burned by flops

As with all genres there's a limit to market size

Live service games won't go away, but the growth period is ending
 
They maybe high budget. But are they high quality?
 
Generic said:
This game only sold 1 million in 3 months. It did really poorly. Not a good example of "what consumers want".
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Hahaha, i like how you tried to undermine what Stellar Blade achieved

New IP, first time console developer, exclusive to ONE system, sold MORE THAN ONE MILLION in TWO months

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Five of the best games so far this year are:

- a poker based roguelike made by 1 person
- a somewhat metroidvania exploration game made by 1 person
- a cutesy 3D platformer made by 60 people
- a collection of 50 retro games made by 6 people
- the 1.0 release of an addictive factory builder made by... dunno, not many people

And it's beautiful.
 
Not wrong, but not my interpretation.

1. Social media is now the dominant thing, not gaming. It seems like "playing with friends" is the killer feature because the people coming to games are coming from social media, because that is their first stop, not "gaming media".

2. There is a crunch on household spending. Games are just not as essential as food and heating.

3. With many of these games, the care and innovation levels in gameplay are lower than previous gens or non-existent. Everything is put into the "content" which is not impressive enough.
 
Older gamers probably are getting tired of lengthy games. They probably have other things going on outside of consuming entertainment.

Younger gamers are more fickle as well as Tiktok to contend with. Other hobbies as well, but Tiktok is undeniable. Kids would rather watch tiktok than play a videogame with friends even in a physical social setting. Very sad.

Money is also a big factor, which I think Sony is suddenly losing sight of.

And appeal. Genshin, GTA, Pokemon all have an appealing look and feel. Some games are rare exceptions, but to think an unappealing game like Concord or Avengers was gonna fly is absurd. Avengers should've been a shoe-in if not for the Btech Bootleg designs.

There are many things to look at inwardly and externally. A big one is stop chasing trends, devs are almost always too late on it.
 
Lambogenie said:
There are many things to look at inwardly and externally. A big one is stop chasing trends, devs are almost always too late on it.
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It's the companies that stick to what they're best at while steadily improving who have the long term success.

Nintendo - cutesy platformers
Sony - cinematic narrative
From - Soulsborns
Capcom - Survival horror and Street Fighter
SquareEnix- JRPGs
Rockstar - open world adventure
EA - sports
 
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RetroGamingUK said:
2 things will end the GaaS trend

- publishers investing money getting burned by flops

- players investing time getting burned by flops

As with all genres there's a limit to market size

Live service games won't go away, but the growth period is ending
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Numbers are on Sweeny's side.

He wouldn't come out and claim victory otherwise.
 
PauloRoberto said:
And ignoring some successes like Stellar Blade, Black Myth: Wukong and Astro Bot (and comparing FF 16 with Suicide Squad) is simply bad faith.
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Didn't these successful games have much smaller budgets than all these flops though? I mean I haven't looked it up but I was pretty sure Wukong and Blade cost a lot lot less than Outlaws and Concord. Wouldn't surprise me if the most expensive one was Harry Potter.

Of course these titles make his claim that people are just motivated by online stuff dubious. It appears that people want single player games, but high budgets have become a poor predictor of success. Possibly because the larger the budget, the more risk-averse its gameplay and designed-by-committee its packaging has to be.

Once upon a time money was spent to license a big game and the industry crashed. ET wasn't proof that people were moving on from traditional gaming, just that a bad product that cost a lot of money was delivered. A complete no-name called Mario entered and fixed everything.
 
Wildebeest said:
He funded Alan Wake 2, which apparently underperformed. I don't see how he is on the warpath to prove that GaaS is the only way forward.
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It didn't perform well.

Recently some big SP games are coming up which could underperform.

On the other hand, stuff like Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2 etc is blowing up.

Its anecdotal but he also chose to come out and say this now. Could be coincidence, dunno.
 
vaibhavpisal said:
It didn't perform well.

Recently some big SP games are coming up which could underperform.

On the other hand, stuff like Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2 etc is blowing up.

Its anecdotal but he also chose to come out and say this now. Could be coincidence, dunno.
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Alan Wake 2 fails very badly on my three points. A game laser targetted at traditional gaming media, game writer nerds who are nostalgic for a certain game. Expensive new release without too much replayability that requires expensive high-end hardware to play. Gameplay moronically dumbed down or non-existent, walk around and look for a hotspot that will tell you to press a button to do the next thing.
 
PauloRoberto said:
And ignoring some successes like Stellar Blade, Black Myth: Wukong and Astro Bot (and comparing FF 16 with Suicide Squad) is simply bad faith.
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Why would you include Astro Bot in a discussion around expensive games?

Otherwise, great point. Sweeney doesn't also cover failures of expensive live service games
 
AV said:
Five of the best games so far this year are:

- a poker based roguelike made by 1 person
- a somewhat metroidvania exploration game made by 1 person
- a cutesy 3D platformer made by 60 people
- a collection of 50 retro games made by 6 people
- the 1.0 release of an addictive factory builder made by... dunno, not many people

And it's beautiful.
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- a collection of classic 2D fighters, one of which especially the community has been begging to return
 
OccamsLightsaber said:
Video games are losing in the attention economy more (young) people than ever are watching streamers and browsing Tiktok and being sucked into other forms of social media. Conventional high-budget video games requiring expensive specialized hardware and software will never be able to compete with the phones in everyone's pocket. People get their dopamine hits in other cheaper ways these days, simple as that.
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Girls perhaps.

I have sons aged 8 and 10, none of their friends have Tiktok, and all of them are playing Fortnite, Minecraft & Roblox. Mostly Fortnite. They are mostly playing on consoles, i.e all of them have consoles and some of them have PCs.

My kids also enjoy single player campaigns of all the games I have, which is mostly FPS stuff.
 
mckmas8808 said:
He decided to do a one-shot camera
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Not sure why anyone would think thats hard at all or how it changes the experience at all in videogames of all things. Where you can jump to pause screens and respawn after you die and teleport to upgrade menus. Shit makes zero sense...even as gimmick. 1917 this isnt.
 
A lot of money spent in the worst ways
Financing projects led in terrible ways (Ubisoft)
Accepting billions of $ loss trying to kill your competitor (Microsoft)
Free games, sales, Playstation Plus and Gamepass have distorted the vision of game value to gamers that now think that everything must be almost free (except for powerful PCs)

Many people have to think about their behaviour
 
vaibhavpisal said:
Numbers are on Sweeny's side.

He wouldn't come out and claim victory otherwise.
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He is right up to a certain point.
But consider that Epic only has one game bringing in the cash. It's Fortnite that is financing the whole company, including the development of Unreal Engine.
All it takes is for Fortnite to fall, and the whole company crumbles. Not even UE licences are enough to maintain it's current development.
This is why no other studio can afford to develop so many features and improvements as Epic for it's UE5.
 
Creator of the biggest GaaS game says GaaS games are the future, yeh, I dont know why he would say that

(he is correct to a point, but there are also many very high budget games that do sell well, what it boils down to is... shit games don't sell well)
 
winjer said:
He is right up to a certain point.
But consider that Epic only has one game bringing in the cash. It's Fortnite that is financing the whole company, including the development of Unreal Engine.
All it takes is for Fortnite to fall, and the whole company crumbles. Not even UE licences are enough to maintain it's current development.
This is why no other studio can afford to develop so many features and improvements as Epic for it's UE5.
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Its not about Fortnite.

Its about other smaller titles in AA range. Those could be upgraded to AAA status.

Helldivers 2 or Space Marine 2 would've done even better if they had a roadmap of more ambitious content. Games like these can be turned into juggernaut of the future.
 
Once again "dei" "woke" cry cry cry... Neither has to do with why some of these games are bad. They were always gonna be bad regardless of love interests, gender or their stories.

The problem with gaming today (console/PC) is that there's just too many games to choose and not enough gamers in those markets to justify the cost of the games plus they are released basically in beta.

The mobile game market has billions of potential customers and even though the market is flooded with shovelware some of that shovelware actually plays better than most AAA console/PC games. They hold people's interests longer & generate more value.
 
Definitely woke agendas and broken games contribute but also indie / AA games have seen a resurgence in quality and value. I would much prefer to play a banger indie than a AAAA poor performing, woke filled, shit fest. The money is still there it's just being spent elsewhere on games that deserve it.
 
DrDryRub said:
Once again "dei" "woke" cry cry cry... Neither has to do with why some of these games are bad. They were always gonna be bad regardless of love interests, gender or their stories.

The problem with gaming today (console/PC) is that there's just too many games to choose and not enough gamers in those markets to justify the cost of the games plus they are released basically in beta.

The mobile game market has billions of potential customers and even though the market is flooded with shovelware some of that shovelware actually plays better than most AAA console/PC games. They hold people's interests longer & generate more value.
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Seems like mobile is declining relative to console though…

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Too many games chasing that shrinking market for $70 games, and your competition in that space is a 10-year old Rockstar game, Call of Duty and other well-established IP which requires half a billion to make.

GAF is full of boomers that can't accept that a increasingly large share of the gaming market is perfectly content just playing Fortnite et al. and don't give a shit the FotM AAA SP game.
 
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Bernardougf said:
Shitty games made in the DEI development era without respect for the main target audience are not selling well.. news at eleven
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It's taken longer for the gaming industry to get there - but we're seeing exactly what happened to the Marvel movies, or Star Wars. You can't swap out the good stuff with the message and agenda-driven garbage and expect the same audience to be there. And then raise prices at the same time. Games have suddenly gotten very expensive - particularly outside the US. That's a really bad combination.
 
Xyphie said:
Screenshot_2023_05_23_at_5.28.54_PM.png


Too many games chasing that shrinking market for $70 games, and your competition in that space is a 10-year old Rockstar game, Call of Duty and other well-established IP which requires half a billion to make.

GAF is full of boomers that can't accept that a increasingly large share of the gaming market is perfectly content just playing Fortnite et al. and don't give a shit the FotM AAA SP game.
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As long as the likes of Capcom can keep churning out bangers and make record profits I don't care.
 
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RPCGamer said:
Can't keep up with all the drama, what's he done?
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Not a lot to be honest, but people will complain (and some think he still works for Sony)
www.neogaf.com

Game Dev - Shanw Layden (Former PlayStation CEO) on Ghost of Yotei protagonist being a female: "Don't like it? Don't buy it"

Source Earlier this week during Sony's State of Play, the company announced Ghost of Yotei, the first sequel to the acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima. But instead of continuing the story of Jin Sakai, Ghost of Yotei jumps ahead a few centuries and introduces a new female ronin named Atsu, who has...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
 
Capcom already figured out how to to prosper in today's market: Don't give in into DEI Bullshit and only spend ridiculous ammounts of money in game development after doing research surveys with your players.
 
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You guys do realise that Tim Sweeney is shilling live service games right?
Like what he's saying has nothing to do with "woke" or whatever the fuck other boogeyman ya'll are coping about.

He's seeing the industry consolidate towards a few giant monoliths of live service games, who hold most of the $ value of the industry due to the overwhelming number of people who play them.
 
Xyphie said:
Screenshot_2023_05_23_at_5.28.54_PM.png


Too many games chasing that shrinking market for $70 games, and your competition in that space is a 10-year old Rockstar game, Call of Duty and other well-established IP which requires half a billion to make.

GAF is full of boomers that can't accept that a increasingly large share of the gaming market is perfectly content just playing Fortnite et al. and don't give a shit the FotM AAA SP game.
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Sony have actually increased the budget for traditional games while giving a large budget to Live Service also (I can see them actually trimming that back a little with what happened to Concord). I don't see an issue with that so long as they do continue with traditional games also (I personally couldnt really give a damn about many GaaS games, although I do like the ones with a major single player component to them like Destiny)
 
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captainnapalm said:
It's taken longer for the gaming industry to get there - but we're seeing exactly what happened to the Marvel movies, or Star Wars. You can't swap out the good stuff with the message and agenda-driven garbage and expect the same audience to be there. And then raise prices at the same time. Games have suddenly gotten very expensive - particularly outside the US. That's a really bad combination.
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Games take 4-6 years to make now.. thats why trend chasing is fucking stupid when in 6 years it may be gone... and thats exactly what's happening, they went into the development bunker thinking the world will only get more woke and got out in rising woke rejection by the mainstream... be woke or gaas ... both trends are fcking stupid
 
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RetroGamingUK said:
Seems like mobile is declining relative to console though…

1RWm1Re.png
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There's always gonna be down/upticks in all Industries. My point was. Basically because mobile games don't cost as much, are "simpler" and have a better turnaround time for additional content (even if it's paid content) they generally have longer legs.
 
BattleScar said:
You guys do realise that Tim Sweeney is shilling live service games right?
Like what he's saying has nothing to do with "woke" or whatever the fuck other boogeyman ya'll are coping about.

He's seeing the industry consolidate towards a few giant monoliths of live service games, who hold most of the $ value of the industry due to the overwhelming number of people who play them.
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They will never notice, they think everything its the DEI demon
 
DrDryRub said:
There's always gonna be down/upticks in all Industries. My point was. Basically because mobile games don't cost as much, are "simpler" and have a better turnaround time for additional content (even if it's paid content) they generally have longer legs.
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And then comes Genshin which costs fuckton to make and sets a precedent for quality people expect now from mobile.
 
Xyphie said:
Screenshot_2023_05_23_at_5.28.54_PM.png


Too many games chasing that shrinking market for $70 games, and your competition in that space is a 10-year old Rockstar game, Call of Duty and other well-established IP which requires half a billion to make.

GAF is full of boomers that can't accept that a increasingly large share of the gaming market is perfectly content just playing Fortnite et al. and don't give a shit the FotM AAA SP game.
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There's a lot of factors here that this doesn't cover. The standard game has gone up to 70$ and these GaaS are basically free to play. If you're a poor kid, you don't really have a choice.
 
AAA games these days are just not good enough. Sadly, even first party PS games have been completely disappointing.
 
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Sweeny is just mad that nobody cares about his launcher/store. In an alternative reality Alan Wake 2 sold enough to break even because it released physical in consoles and on Steam for PC. Too bad, Timmy! In this reality a single player traditional game with the best graphics of last year didn't found success for reasons still unknown…
 
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