Why the video game industry feels smaller than ever

In 2023, the state of the video game market is, “big and getting bigger.” So why, from a player perspective, does it feel like the industry is… shrinking? Consolidation, game delays and increasingly powerful console hardware have created a sense of stagnancy in the industry, and it’s stemming from the AAA space.

[christill]

Sadly I think that’s a very accurate analysis of gaming right now.

[javiej]

Regarding AAA gaming on PC this segment is just dormant, not dead. And the reason why it is dormant is because big companies like NVIDIA, Intel, Asus etc forgot that for us gamers this is not a "business" but a "hobby". As we don't need it for work we only upgrade when we want, our way. And they are simply not offering the products that we want to upgrade to:

- First you have Nvidia: The 4090 is magnificent, but the cost is out of reach for most of us, (specially being this a "hobby", remember?). And the gap from the top model 4090 to the 4080 and lower modules is just ridiculous, several times bigger than ever. Note that gamers also follow Moore's law in our own way, basically we upgrade when we can get double performance at similar cost as the previous time (each one has a different budget, but the concept is the same). And to make it worst, Nvidia destroys the SFFPC segment with unnecessarily giant GPUs obligatory for no technical reason (just to protect their Pro segment).

- Then you have Intel, AMD, etc bringing nothing special to the table, again this is not a business but a hobby, and as a difference to business users no gamer will upgrade for just 20% or 30% extra performance. Instead they give us useless features that nobody asked for, like "efficient cores" (wtf), more RGB lighting (we are not lamp collectionists!), . Rather than desirable things that we demand like thunderbolt 5 (true eGPU capable), extra PCIe slots (instead they are stealing them from us or concentrating them is stupid ways. We want 40 lanes gen4, but instead they gives 20 lanes gen5. Same bandwidth, but in useless form factor).
- Then you have companies like Asus, Alienware and other big players launching aberrations like propietary GPU power connectors, non standard sizes, case monitors only compatible with their own motherboards for no good reason, modular PSUs with non standarized connectors and the Jurassic 24pin connector in the other side, new "high end" gaming monitors that are not even 4k and have weird pixel patterns that we can't use for work (most of us don't have space for both) ...
They forgot that the essence of the enthusiast PC hobby is the opposite: To be able to repair and upgrade at our own, based on open standards at open market prices.
But we are not dead, when they give us that we want then we will come back strong, because the hobby itself is very alive.

[sowsow]

The industry feels like it's evolving slower. All the good companies are falling off and now it is becoming a pay-to-win type of thing

[skateboard_sandwich]

There's more focus on the industry than video games. More focus on promotional pushes and updates and trying to fix problems and billion dollar acquisitions and less excitement about the games themselves. The feeling from playing games back in the 80s and 90s has been replaced by marketing. Not that games aren't fun these days, but there's just more focus on business.

[djpookie]

I 100% agree with your assessment. The AAA industry doesn't know what to do with the current hardware. Photo realistic graphics are shallow and need innovative gameplay to back it up.

[headerahelix]

Fair analysis. Better than most, in fact.

[logicallydashing]

This was a great breakdown, and it certainly holds true 4 months later after the ABK acquisition by Microsoft went through. AAA gaming has been stagnant for a good while, but it has lately become blatantly more clear how this side of the industry is driven more by the whims of shareholders than the game developers. Indie studios are where you will find the best that gaming has to provide IMHO.

[TonyTyga]

The biggest issue with Video Game Industry is popular media only believes the industry are Microsoft and Sony. 2 companies whose sole focus is not video games. Sounds like another Atari bubble and we know who rebooted the industry after that.

[pizzaplanetalien]

Honestly this is a glass half empty point of view. There’s still pros in this games era. I loved the past but I wouldn’t want to go back

[kaiserrino]

This video is absolutely on point. Good job.

[speakez]

corp greed. what makes the games we love so mememerable is the memories they create. Does not need to be AAA. just need to provide something immersive and creative. That is not what be been getting. Big corp is just focused on what can sale over and over again at asking price. And then how can we make more on the asking price. Im a hardcore xbox fan, but im kinda against them buying any more studios because there is nothing to show for it. Playstaion continues to make hits when the studio is focued on one platform, and now they are focusing away from that. Sad future of bloated worlds, yet pretty, all we can do is run and shoot.

[therealist]

There’s barely any new games coming out anymore

[TheRCvie]

It would be nice to know about games we can own that won't be shut down if the numbers look bad or licensees to ip expire.

[ropro]

Sounds like the gaming industry has become Hollywood: rampant consolidation and rehashed, crappy output.

[aelaan]

Wow, you really hit the right spots. There is no creativity to drive competition. It started with Assassin's Creed - now it is nothing more than the same old in a different era. God of War, same deal. The Hogwarts game was the last one I finished. I have not finished games much lately, it is all the same old and boring. I miss the joy, the joy of going to shows, to go to gatherings or midnight launches. My last time going to a midnight launch was with the PS4 and that is many moons ago. I used to stand in line to get the latest games and enjoyed interacting. Today: I order my games online, they show up instantly and I miss the smell of opening boxes and the excitement to find codes that would give me lootz. My PS5 I bought when everyone was crying foul and I must have gotten extremely lucky or someone had mercy on me and I received mine on launch day from the delivery person at my front door, wearing masks and washing hands. This pandemic has destroyed more than we will understand. That is where it all started, 2020.... D4 is fabulous, TotK is awesome but the games are buggy. Prices are ever increasing, in Canada I pay now 113 Canadian dollars for an AAA game, I remember it was 49 bucks (PS3 times). I can only afford 1 game every three months, self inflicted limitations.

[nena_DP]

Gaming is just too effin expensive. You're not getting the casuals on board when you're doing 600 euro consoles + 70 euro games. They're just gonna look at their 8 euro Netflix/HBO sub and say "nah".

And if your remove the big games like FIFA and COD what are they even playing? Those days of casuals picking up games like Guitar Hero, Wipeout and Katamari feels long gone. Nintendo, I guess. But they're down to releasing 2-3 big games per console generations also, and almost always from very safe franchises there too. The rest feels like remakes or way smaller in scope compared to something like Odyssey.

So yeah, gaming needs to reinvent itself, fast, or it's literally gonna be all GAAS games 10 years from now. Because saying its all gonna be fine is coping hard imo.

[zephaniahgreenwell]

It is the mergers that are leading to less games being released. Why would a company release a game that will directly compete with itself? It is the same thing that happened with the studio mergers in the movie industry.

[matthewhardwick]

Microsoft is pushing for subscription because the more subscribers they get the more money they will earn to invest in studios and bigger projects.

[zephaniahgreenwell]

You shouldn't ignore King as an important motivator in the Activion/Blizzard/King acquisition by Microsoft. Corporate investors are likely to take that Candy Crush money and forget about all the other IPs, even popular and profitable ones.

[pdropm]

People forget about Hi-Fi Rush. An excellent game released this year by Bethesda, same publisher of RedFall. I think this should be mentioned.