EPTThe Games Industry And ATVI - Page 72
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ElliotKing
1 Post
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17442 Posts
https://www.wired.com/story/2024-was-the-year-the-bottom-fell-out-of-the-games-industry/ Is Asmongold paying Wired to make articles like this? LOL. its probably been farmed by at least 10 youtubers with 100K+ subscribers. the fascinating parallels between 1983 and today only pique the interest of real industry historians. The industry is fine... there is no "bottom fell out" in 2024. The industry continues to make more money than ever. | ||
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Yurie
12082 Posts
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hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
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Yurie
12082 Posts
On December 28 2024 19:33 hexhaven wrote: With all the big layoffs in 2024, the industry does not seem to be fine. I will agree with you that companies and employees do struggle. Just that as a consumer they still produce the goods that are expected and thus are fine on the output side. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17442 Posts
Ubisoft is more focused on guaranteed government money than collecting money from these unreliable, belligerent, demanding real life video game consumers. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/ubisoft-closes-another-studio-announces-layoffs-at-3-more-as-part-of-ongoing-efforts-to-prioritize-projects-and-reduce-costs/ On December 28 2024 19:33 hexhaven wrote: With all the big layoffs in 2024, the industry does not seem to be fine. Revenue levels are phenomenal. It was $190B in 2023 whereas it was only $120B in 2019. Software projects are no different than any other projects like construction projects. After the building is completely built the plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and civil engineers have zero work to do. Their jobs are over. I guess these construction workers deserve 10,000 stupid articles crying about how they've been shockingly "laid off". Construction project are no different from software projects. The moron "video game journalists" talk about these "video game layoffs" like they are an unforeseen calamity. After the game is released the jobs are over. Last year more than 1,000 construction workers were killed on the job in the USA. Some lazy tech workers in video games whine and cry like they are suffering more than the messiah in the new testament. Mature, adult, self aware tech workers realize that upper management and recruiters are always lying to them when they are promised a permanent job at a disorganized software maker rushing and crunching to get a product out the door on a deadline. These self aware tech workers adjust the price for their work accordingly. The best pay in the software tech sector comes from rescuing projects that have already failed multiple times. When a software project repeatedly fails and the c-suite bonuses are on the line they discover a vault of cash. All of a sudden they have to pay the tech specialist rescuers who will save their image and their bonuses. It is hilarious getting calls from these c-suiters two years later with another project to rescue. | ||
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hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17442 Posts
On January 28 2025 23:14 hexhaven wrote: You're essentially just reinforcing my point. jobs ending are standard practice on project based work. the best paid undergrads in Canada and the USA are software engineers and the jobs are easy. 21,000 people working at Ubisoft? LOL. WTF are these people doing? They are prolly hanging out on reddit and twitter all day. | ||
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hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26556 Posts
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Sermokala
United States14104 Posts
On January 29 2025 01:48 WombaT wrote: How dare folks not enjoy getting laid off, the outrage! If they didn't want to get laid off they shouldn't have gotten a job. | ||
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Yurie
12082 Posts
Then you hit a stage where you work on your tools and the game. Your team likely expands as tasks are available. Until you start finishing tasks and wonder what to do with people until you can start the next project. Thinking of most positions in game development being project employments for that specific game makes a lot of sense. It is even normalized by a lot of companies hiring out for QA testing, translation or other specific tasks they don't want to hire for. There are of course people that stay on for multiple titles, those would be permanent employees until a studio switches direction or is shut down. | ||
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Yurie
12082 Posts
Watched this video. And I agree with the history and the final section. (Middle three explorations of reasons can be skipped.) Basically that the growth of the industry has plateaued. Improvements have slowed down as technology and experiences have matured, meaning titles stick around longer. A larger and larger slice is taken up by old games, meaning there is less and less player time for new games to generate profit from. Live service squeezing out single player, great 3 year old single player games squeezing out good new ones. Oh and the price to buy a game has in generally trended downward over time. Making it harder to compete with an old game since the profit per sale is lowering. Meaning you need a better product with less profit per sale, a larger audience required to break even in AAA. While in indie the amount of steam releases per day is most likely what they would prefer per quarter to have a healthy profit margin. I have yet to play Elden Ring. So any new game that comes out has to compete with that game if it is in the same genre. It is unlikely to be a favorable comparison for most new titles for the next 6-7 years. So I cannot be part of their target audience, decreasing potential sales. If I was a studio based in a high cost country I would consider how I can outsource more or automate. Studios will fold and consolidate. So as a consumer the issues will hit in 10 years when you have 3 large companies remaining and they start pushing prices up due to lack of competition. | ||
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hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
On February 15 2025 07:27 Yurie wrote: Oh and the price to buy a game has in generally trended downward over time. Making it harder to compete with an old game since the profit per sale is lowering. Meaning you need a better product with less profit per sale, a larger audience required to break even in AAA. While in indie the amount of steam releases per day is most likely what they would prefer per quarter to have a healthy profit margin. Interestingly, I remember some old games launching at 50-60€ a long time ago, and yet it seems like I can get a big new title for roughly the same price even now. Gears of War Tactics launched at 60-70€ and that seemed way overpriced at the time. Of course, by now it's more common to see even some of the not-big titles at roughly the same price range. Compared to big titles in the past, individual game prices haven't actually gone up by that much. Of course, now you have a whole bunch of microtransactions which you didn't really have before in the same way. It's like gas prices. When you always put 50€ into the tank, can't really see the price change. On February 15 2025 07:27 Yurie wrote:If I was a studio based in a high cost country I would consider how I can outsource more or automate. Studios will fold and consolidate. So as a consumer the issues will hit in 10 years when you have 3 large companies remaining and they start pushing prices up due to lack of competition. I think it was Space Marine 2 whose development was spread to a whole bunch of different countries to save money. I'd assume other big titles have similar stories, but can't recall specifics off the top of my head. | ||
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Yurie
12082 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4749 Posts
So I kind of agree, since there is no new technological breakthrough, old games are still competing with new ones. The industry is maturing, like movies and books, where new books have to compete not only with other new books but also the best of the past. | ||
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fb88vnblue
1 Post
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Ryzel
United States547 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26556 Posts
On February 15 2025 23:21 Ryzel wrote: Yeah agreed. I have like +100 unplayed games in my library that are all supposedly genre-defining classics, but I’m still content just playing C&C / AoE franchise remasters, SC/SC2/WC3 custom campaigns, Tabletop Simulator games, and online games like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (shoutout to anyone playing, super fun!). There’s like a 0% chance I’ll finish my unplayed classics, so it would have to be something particularly special to make me spend money on games ever again. Yeah, I think I’d need to be unemployed for an extended period to just clear my backlog. I also have Game Pass which is pretty insane value, but even that is as much for kiddo as me as I just don’t have the time and bandwidth to even clear my Steam library unplayeds, never mind adding to it. It’s a decent time to be a gamer if one steps back and considers this kinda stuff. It’ll vary, for me graphics became basically good enough and rare is the game that stands out from the pack in like the mid 2010s. | ||
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hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
On February 15 2025 18:48 Yurie wrote: Micro transaction is mostly for live service games. Not only but mostly. Take a big single player hit like Elden Ring or BG3. What micro transactions are they monetizing on? There are of course potential, but they wouldn't be big hits if they went after that money. Oh, for sure, and BG3 has managed to put out an impressive amount of updates after launch. Very old school. | ||
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