Current Events > The western gaming industry is collapsing

(+) Yeah! (+)

Punished_Blinx posted...

https://kotaku.com/game-industry-layoffs-how-many-2024-unity-twitch-1851155818

Layoff count;

Architect - Unknown
Bossa Studios - 19
Unity - 1,800
Twitch - 500
Playtika - 300-400
Discord - 170
Lost Boys Interactive - 125
Funselektor - 3
PTW- 45
Thunderful - 100
Pixelberry - 120
Netspeak - 25
Wimo Games - 35
Behaviour Interactive - 45
CI Games - 15-20
31st Union - Under 10
Com2Us - Two digit amount of people
MetaVerse World - 70
NCSoft - 70
Riot - 530
One Player Mission - 15
People Can Fly - 30+
Black Forest Games - 50+
Xbox Games Studios/Activision/ Bethesda- 1,900
Reikon Games - 60
Little Red Dog Games - 27
Eidos Montreal - 97
Chief Rebel - 21
Sega of America - 61
Nimble Giant - 30
Artificer - 28
Airship Syndicate - 12
Threaks - 25
Crop Circle Games - 50
Threshold Games - 11
91Act - 60
Visual Concepts - 9
Hidden Path Entertainment - 44
Daybreak - Unknown
Scopely - 15
ZA/UM - 24
Build a Rocket Boy - Unknown
Disruptive Games - Unknown
Game Loft - Under 38
EA - 670
Supermassive - 90
Die Gute Fabrik - 10
PlayStation Studio - 900
Deck Nine - 30
Total - At least 8,177 people

There will be more next week and in March to time with financial results and forecasts.

Com2us is a mobile gaming company. They haven't made anything worth talking about since they stopped making the Inotia games. Even then they were always pushing for MTX. I'll admit I enjoyed the Inotia series. A shame

Ofc sad for everyone loosing their job, but it seems like it simply had to shrunk down again.

Just look at how many people worked at Baldur's Gate 3, and we yet call this a "small indy studio".

The scale of everything just grew immensily, and not always with the results justifying it.

Number090684 posted...

Good let it collapse and let us back to the old days back in the 80s and 90s but still have superior tech.

Corporate was just as bad in those days, you just didnt know about it.

Dakimakura posted...

Sony firings took place in the UK

And the rest of the world...

Zwijn posted...

Corporate was just as bad in those days, you just didnt know about it.

And the avenues through which they screwed you were different. The capacity they have nowadays with always-online services, etc. is unrivalled.

I was told that Spiderman 2 failed to turn a profit despite selling millions, since Sony had to pay $75 million for the license while Disney takes a 25-50% royalty cut for every copy sold, ballooning the budget to $300 million+.

ProfOaksAide posted...

LOL what was the last hit Sony had in Japan? The Walkman?

the PS5...

I'm surprised no one mentioned Epic Games. They laid off a ton of people recently too.

But thankfully, CEO Tim Sweeney is still a billionaire /s

CrimsonGear80 posted...

the PS5...

Which explains why it's outselling the Switch. Oh wait

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/famitsu-sales-2-12-24-2-18-24

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Why else would they be laid off? People had enough and the anime titties back

It's retracting and adjusting back to normal levels, not collapsing.

The Capitalist perpetual growth model means any industry that sees huge growth naturally with so little regulation is likely to become a financial bubble.

So we're seeing a minor bubble bursting right now, and as always it's the workers that suffer as the top execs escape to the next industry they will ruin with bonuses of millions in pay.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Right wingers see everything, literally everything now as a cultural war against the adopted "values" their fascist media figures brainwash them into suddenly caring about.

Torgo posted...

It's retracting and adjusting back to normal levels, not collapsing.

The Capitalist perpetual growth model means any industry that sees huge growth naturally with so little regulation is likely to become a financial bubble.

So we're seeing a minor bubble bursting right now, and as always it's the workers that suffer as the top execs escape to the next industry they will ruin with bonuses of millions in pay.

This, it's more of a course correction than the whole gaming industry collapsing. It's not just the video game industry, but also many tech and business related industries are facing massive lay offs. Pandemic time, they over hired and now people aren't spending that much money on games, because of this hyper inflation. We're just seeing the aftermath of it, so my heart goes out to those who got laid off because it's always the little guys getting fucked over.

Prestoff posted...

Pandemic time, they over hired and now people aren't spending that much money on games, because of this hyper inflation.

Even the inflation at the consumer level has balanced out. It's also that with everyone getting back to work, people are just spending less time and money on indoor, online experiences in general.

I also think people in younger generations are getting fed up with how "AAA" devs are handling games. They also seem more inclined to look past less "ultra-realistic 4K" graphics to play more indie games with unique visual style and different experiences.

It's not collapsing, im sure they're seeing how much they can squeeze out of AI. Also, the average consumer has less and less money to spend on microtransactions, which is probably causing a revenue dip.

The cycle of aquire beloved studio, force beloved studio to churn out live service mtx dogshit, lay off/dissolve studio when players don't want to play dogshit is taking a heavy toll as well.

Zwijn posted...

Corporate was just as bad in those days, you just didnt know about it.

To a chud the act of being able to forget anything that doesn't fit their world view is a source of pride.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


what exactly are you looking for??

Fenriswolf posted...

Which explains why it's outselling the Switch. Oh wait

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/famitsu-sales-2-12-24-2-18-24

that doesn't change the fact that the PS5 is selling faster there than the PS4 did in the same timeframe. Nevermind that switch had a three year head start.

it's a hit console. get over it.

Punished_Blinx posted...

In saying that unless these companies find something new that continues to drive up spending or users they were going to hit this point eventually. We're kinda at the point where no one has a great answer.

Almost.

The way to make a profit is to earn more than you spent on development and marketing.

If you're not making (enough) profit, you have three options.
(1) Make more money from each person (you can't)
(2) Sell copies to more people (unlikely)
(3) SPEND LESS (this one is entirely under their control).

Like, I didn't ask them to spend $300 million on a game. All they gotta do is have an accurate estimate of how many copies they will sell. Then multiply that number by $60. That's it. That's how much you can spend. Not a dollar more.

Torgo posted...

as always it's the workers that suffer

Stop getting upset about that. You're not supposed to care. You're a customer. Your role is to choose whether to buy something or not. If a company doesn't make the sort of game you want, then simply don't buy it. Bad businesses fail - they always have and they always will. It's idiotic to feel remorse.

Meanwhile, good guy Larian:

https://shorturl.at/eFSYZ

Industry's loss is their gain!

Those numbers are small for the size of the companies involved. Gaming is not collapsing, this is industry correction after taking advantage of COVID grants because they're scum.

DarkDoc posted...

Almost.

The way to make a profit is to earn more than you spent on development and marketing.

If you're not making (enough) profit, you have three options.
(1) Make more money from each person (you can't)
(2) Sell copies to more people (unlikely)
(3) SPEND LESS (this one is entirely under their control).

Like, I didn't ask them to spend $300 million on a game. All they gotta do is have an accurate estimate of how many copies they will sell. Then multiply that number by $60. That's it. That's how much you can spend. Not a dollar more.

Stop getting upset about that. You're not supposed to care. You're a customer. Your role is to choose whether to buy something or not. If a company doesn't make the sort of game you want, then simply don't buy it. Bad businesses fail - they always have and they always will. It's idiotic to feel remorse.

This issue isn't specific to AAA games. It's industry wide.

Investors have significantly slowed down investing in video games because there's no growth.

For a lot of developers if there's no investment money there's no game at all.

If anything the AAA games with established franchises and equity are in a better spot than most. They can shave off the 5-10% of employees and cancel some low margin stuff with not much consequence.

Most of these companies are making money just fine. The problem is they're not able to prove how they're going to make more in the future. Capitalism baby.

again, what are you looking for??

did you READ the actual post from Sony? Did you read that 900 people were being laid off? did you READ that it includes ALL their studios WORLDWIDE, including in Japan?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

• We envision reducing our headcount by about 900 people, or about 8% of our current workforce
• There will be impact for employees across all SIE regions Americas, EMEA, Japan, and APAC

what do you think these two bullet points mean?

The Japanese employees weren't laid off because they don't really do that there.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/38d52d24.png

They're being placed in a 'next career support program'

Of course that could mean sending them off to a closet with shitty pay until they leave. There's always a way.

a lot of companies do this

fire people who make a lot of money and hire people who just graduated.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


now you are just being willfully ignorant...

Why do you believe this single parameter means the companies are collapsing?

Tc learns about layoff season lol

There won't be a video game collapse like 1983 unless the whole economy tanks like the Great Depression. Video games are too ingrained in culture nowadays. You will likely see less games with insane budgets, but there will still be a ton of games coming out.

Sony has multiple headquarters. Their Japanese headquarters is still the main HQ for the whole company. The California HQ is for their North American operations. that doesn't make them an American company it makes them a Japanese company with a powerful American branch.

Nintendo also has an American HQ in Washington. That doesn't make it an American company.

Good.

Don't get me wrong, ALL the regions ruined gaming in one way or another. It wasn't West that came up with Gatcha. They did make Loot Boxes though. Which are kinda worse since they usually come with a game that is already paid for (supposedly). I mean, you can generally avoid most gachas by avoiding free mobile crap. They are still horrible, but...

Basically most of the good western games these last few years are all, well, random indie games. Not saying that there hasn't been a decline in the East either. There has been. Also exceptions everywhere of course. That Star Wars starfighter game from a year or so ago was fun. Not up to Freespace 2 standards by any stretch, but good.

Oh, and yes, BG3 was one of those exceptions too (Diablo 4 was very much not though).

Also, some of this is personal opinion as, well, I kinda just don't dig most FPS games. Or survival craft games. Or Fortnite. You get the point. Most of the good games are either Indie gems, Eastern whatsit, and at least over half of whatever Nintendo comes up with somehow.

It doesnt help that AAA developers focus test the hell out of everything. Usually a genre will have the popular game, and then everyone else tries to copy it.

Take EAs legendary hate boner with Call of Duty. Theyll cook up something that resembles it, get a focus group full of CoD fans, theyll like it and when they get home, theyre back to playing CoD. Because they already have CoD.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


you can't just SAY things that aren't true like they are....

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


now you are just insulting me to distract from the fact that i proved you wrong and you have no clue what you are talking about. typical behavior from posters like you.

If that's the direction you are going, we are done here. you can continue to be wrong on your own time.

Punished_Blinx posted...

This issue isn't specific to AAA games. It's industry wide.

This fact applies to all levels in the industry. Indeed, to every industry in the world.

If you spend less money, your profit is higher. Literally all you have to do is know in advance how many copies you will sell, and you'll never lose money. And in this era of big data and AI, every company should know exactly how many copies they're gonna sell.

Punished_Blinx posted...

Investors have significantly slowed down investing in video games because there's no growth.

For a lot of developers if there's no investment money there's no game at all.

And that's fine. There's no place in the industry for companies like that.

Again, stop being upset. You wouldn't have a problem with this if you didn't care about these companies.

Do you start campaigns for the people who empty your trash? For the people who made the bottle your beer comes in? For the guy who designed your couch?

Why the obsession with Sony? Do you own shares in the company? Maybe you do? I own Tencent, so that's the only reason I care about their success.

I don't know what gives you the impression that I'm upset or that my posts resemble a campaign.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


yeah you have no clue what you are talking about. You understand that is not what that is, right? Japanese employees are STILL layed-off.

Oh no 1 billion dollars instead of 2.