The layoffs across the games industry over the last two years have been widely framed as a cost correction.
They are. Maybe you were fortunate enough for your 1200-person company to sustain itself on one big hit, but an economic downturn shrinks your audience considerably and makes it tougher for you to break even, and that’s assuming the quality of your game and marketing are just as good as your last hit.
I saw this firsthand while leading the external production team during the development of Immortals of Aveum. The project makes a useful case study precisely because it was ambitious and structurally complex: one of the first major titles built on Unreal Engine 5, with multiple external teams contributing across characters, creatures, weapons, and first-person gameplay assets in a multi-vendor AAA environment.
Maybe the problem was that a brand new team made something so ambitious on their first go?
The question is no longer whether external development is essential. It’s whether the industry is willing to treat production continuity as infrastructure — or continue optimizing for short-term cost while the capability that made AAA possible quietly fragments.
Maybe we ought to question whether AAA as the author knows it is really necessary. We can get excellent production value out of small teams that reduces the risk of not breaking even, and Unreal 5 is pretty damn good at enabling that. There’s an enormous success like Clair Obscur, but then there’s also a more modest success like The Alters or The Thaumaturge. I find it interesting that, despite their name and some pretty undeniable successes, a US studio like Supergiant Games can still measure their workforce in the dozens, not hundreds. I’ll bet they’re pretty good at retaining that talent.
I think we’ve more or less found the ceiling of how successful a game can be with things like Fortnite, and all this industry tumult is the result of C-suites trying to break that ceiling by overextending with tons of money.
Battlefield 6 wanted 100 million players, which is insane. They wanted that because they threw 500 million dollars at the project which is also insane.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
They are. Maybe you were fortunate enough for your 1200-person company to sustain itself on one big hit, but an economic downturn shrinks your audience considerably and makes it tougher for you to break even, and that’s assuming the quality of your game and marketing are just as good as your last hit.
Maybe the problem was that a brand new team made something so ambitious on their first go?
Maybe we ought to question whether AAA as the author knows it is really necessary. We can get excellent production value out of small teams that reduces the risk of not breaking even, and Unreal 5 is pretty damn good at enabling that. There’s an enormous success like Clair Obscur, but then there’s also a more modest success like The Alters or The Thaumaturge. I find it interesting that, despite their name and some pretty undeniable successes, a US studio like Supergiant Games can still measure their workforce in the dozens, not hundreds. I’ll bet they’re pretty good at retaining that talent.
I think we’ve more or less found the ceiling of how successful a game can be with things like Fortnite, and all this industry tumult is the result of C-suites trying to break that ceiling by overextending with tons of money.
Battlefield 6 wanted 100 million players, which is insane. They wanted that because they threw 500 million dollars at the project which is also insane.
I want to strike the execs who see a halfway interesting project and want the team to get 8,000 more members so they can release by Christmas.
I’d smack them with their secretary as a bludgeon, genuinely tell them to cut funding in half, and point out “CHRISTMAS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR”.