2024 may not be kind for game developers.

[iroboto]

I found a job but it's unrelated to the gaming industry now. 3D is now reserved for various side projects.
Are you also in the gaming industry?

No. I left that a long time ago. Released an indie for ps@home and made an attempt to get into Ubisoft, but instead of getting the role I was interested in, they asked me to go into tools. And decided perhaps it wasn’t for me.

Left for a data science role as it was the closest thing to graphics programming. Now I’m in sales engineering for an AI product.

Not sure if I will return later in my life for giggles, likely not, would rather just make another indie.

 

[pharma]

February 8, 2024

D&D Open World RPG from Hidden Path Is Officially Paused as Developer Lays Off 44 Employees

The D&D open world RPG in development at Hidden Path Entertainment is officially halted. The studio laid off 44 employees.

wccftech.com

Hidden Path Founder and Creative Director Michael Austin shared the unfortunate news over LinkedIn, revealing that the studio had tried to find funding for over half a year but did not succeed. As a result, it had to lay off 44 of its employees (only the latest round in a massive amount of layoffs happened since 2024 began).

 

[Frenetic Pony]

February 8, 2024

D&D Open World RPG from Hidden Path Is Officially Paused as Developer Lays Off 44 Employees

The D&D open world RPG in development at Hidden Path Entertainment is officially halted. The studio laid off 44 employees.

wccftech.com

Greeeeat, I was looking forward to that too. Why is it cancelled? Well I dunno everyone else on Wallstreet is making cutbacks and firing people so that's just "the thing to do", and you don't want to stand out from the crowd do you? It'd be awkward when you're all getting drinks and you're the only one that hasn't been responsible for a mass firing this month.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Why is it cancelled?

Lack of funds. You can't keep employees if you can't pay them. Unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to get investors to invest money into game development due to the rapidly increasing cost of game development combined with limited expansion of the gaming market.

It's why so many game developers are trying to get acquired by someone ... anyone.

Even tabletop game developers are laying off people and closing studios due to slowing sales combined with lack of external investment.

Regards,
SB

 

[pharma]

EA flop Immortals of Aveum reportedly cost around $125 million, former dev says "a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

"No one bought it"

www.gamesradar.com

A new report sheds some light on just how much EA invested in its single-player FPS Immortals of Aveum, which received mixed reviews and was deemed a financial flop.

Ascendant Studios' self-styled "Call of Duty with magic" experiment was compelling enough, and I personally think it deserved more attention, but it ultimately missed EA's expectations by enough of a margin that about 45% of the studio's workforce was laid off shortly after release.
...
"At a high level, Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio's debut project," the former employee said. "The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution. Sure, there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to make a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea, especially since it was a new IP that was also trying to leverage Unreal Engine 5. What ended up launching was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long."

Whatever the reason Immortals of Aveum didn't succeed, it sucks that its failure will only further discourage major studios from investing in the sort of big budget single-player, no-nonsense action games we're seeing less and less of these days, and redundancies affecting passionate developers suck even worse

 

[Nesh]

It is really hard to make a good game even if the skills and talent are top.

 

[Seanspeed]

EA flop Immortals of Aveum reportedly cost around $125 million, former dev says "a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

"No one bought it"

www.gamesradar.com

Nothing especially stupid about a AAA single player FPS these days.

But spending that insane amount on an unproven studio with an entirely new IP being published by EA who gamers just dont trust these days was also an incredibly risky proposition. And in a way, I actually commend EA for trying it.

I still dont quite get how game development costs have ballooned so drastically over the past like 3-5 years, though. Immortals of Aveum feels like a game that not too long ago would have only cost like $30m to make at most, and that would have been considered a healthy budget. $100m+ was basically elite-tier AAAA level budget. Not some middling, kinda short FPS campaign sort of game.

Another example is Spiderman 1($100m) to Spiderman 2($300m). At what point are studios simply being poorly managed in terms of budget, rather than it being some inherent cost issue? Or perhaps marketing budgets ballooning out of control well beyond a point of diminishing returns? I'm not claiming to have the answer to these questions, but I think they are questions that should probably be asked nonetheless, cuz this is just crazy.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yes. Very good questions Seanspeed. Remember when peoples heads exploded that Shenmue cost $30 million to make 25 years ago? It would be 10x that now. Regular inflation was about 2x over the same period of time. What's going on?

 

[arandomguy]

Inflation itself I find is tricky and people tend to oversimplify it by associating it with CPI. For example asset prices have inflated well beyond CPI. Why is something like that important? Well IP is more akin to assets, and with the Spider-Man example for instance how much of the cost increase was due to the increase in the underlying licensed IP (and not just the Spider-Man IP).

The scope and expectations of AAA is also different now. Take for instance voice acting, all AAA games now will at minimum all feature directed and professional voice acting, with expectation that all notable characters are well known game voice actors if not well known actors in general. In this case cost inflation needs to take into account that the caliber of voice work has increased, it isn't just the same caliber of voice work costing more.

 

[troyan]

Still, how can you spent $125 millions on something like Immortals of Aveum when Alan Wake 2 cost half of it? And Remedy is using their own engine which means they had to develop and maintain it. Maybe these high quality cut scenes are a huge money burner but the gameplay and assets arent looking better than what you can find in Alan Wake 2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes. Very good questions Seanspeed. Remember when peoples heads exploded that Shenmue cost $30 million to make 25 years ago? It would be 10x that now. Regular inflation was about 2x over the same period of time. What's going on?

Game development costs have always been way, way, way above inflation. More tech means more work to use it, and diminishing returns applies for investment as well as results. 2x the hardware power requires 2x the cost to use it to get a 10% improvement in what you see, sort of thing.


Something like 10x the cost over 15 years. Perhaps 3x the cost every 5 years. So a $100M Spiderman in 2018 is comfortably a $300M 5 years later just following the trends of the console industry going back to its beginnings. There's been no change in recent years and cost increase isn't obviously accelerating.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This one hasn't led to layoffs, at least not yet or not publicly announced, but it still worries me.

Bandai Namco Reveals it Canceled at Least Five In-Development Games

Tekken 8 is performing well, at least.

me.ign.com

Bandai explained that is now has stricter rules on which games get to proceed in development, as games have become more expensive and costly to make.

Rising costs of game development cost as Shifty noted before isn't necessarily new, but combined with lack of significant growth in the games industry (WRT consumer spending on games) combined with stagnant consumer game pricing (basically games are cheaper now than they ever have been in the past) means that it is getting increasingly difficult for publishers and developers to remain profitable. In this specific case Bandai Namco's profits fell 96% YoY due to increased development costs combined with disappointing sales (Tekken 8 is a bright spot for them).

I hope by restructuring how they determine whether a game can be released or even what games enter the production pipeline doesn't mean they'll be taking less risks on new IP as Japanese publishers have thus far been one of the remaining groups of AAA publishers that still take significant chances on launching new IP while simultaneously pushing out games in existing IP.

I first heard about this when I saw a recent article talking about how Bandai Namco sold the rights of the Elden Ring IP to From Software in 2023. You know things are bad if you are willing to sell your most profitable new IP. Thankfully, at least it went to the developers of the title. And even with that sale, profits still tanked hard for Bandai Namco. Perhaps without the sale of that IP, we might be hearing about Bandai Namco looking for a way out of video game development.

Regards,
SB

 

[Johnny Awesome]

This is why I laugh at the forum warriors complaining about $60 games going to $70 as some sort of corporate greed while drinking their $10 Starbucks super grande latte of the day. It's ridiculous. We're lucky games aren't $100 by now.

 

[Nesh]

This is why I laugh at the forum warriors complaining about $60 games going to $70 as some sort of corporate greed while drinking their $10 Starbuck super grande latte of the day. It's ridiculous. We're lucky games aren't $100 by now.

Why laugh? We are being overcharged in many places, hence why $75 on a game is experienced as very expensive. Also you don't know the consumption habits of everyone.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why laugh? We are being overcharged in many places, hence why $75 on a game is experienced as very expensive. Also you don't know the consumption habits of everyone.

Yeah, but generally people have accepted way higher relative prices elsewhere. $75 games is reasonable looking at inflation and costs, whereas the margins on other goods are through the roof without people complaining. $75 on a game isn't very expensive relative to many, many other goods and activities - it's actually good to great value.

 

[Nesh]

Yeah, but generally people have accepted way higher relative prices elsewhere. $75 games is reasonable looking at inflation and costs, whereas the margins on other goods are through the roof without people complaining. $75 on a game isn't very expensive relative to many, many other goods and activities - it's actually good to great value.

How do you know people aren't complaining? I meet people complaining about prices on things other than games too. Surely we can find examples where people may complain about the price of one or a group of things and not another. But nobody is in a position to extrapolate a generic statement about all the people. For example, not everyone is buying overpriced smartphones or drink Starbucks but may still be gamers who, based on their personal financial struggles, may find it pricey to spend €75-€80 for a game and prefer to wait for discounts.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How do you know people aren't complaining?

Because they keep going into Starbucks and buying coffee!

For example, not everyone is buying overpriced smartphones or drink Starbucks but may still be gamers who, based on their personal financial struggles, may find it pricey to spend €75-€80 for a game and prefer to wait for discounts.

Which they can do. It's not really about whether individual people are struggling to afford or not, but where gaming fits on the value spectrum for everyone and whether gamers are being ripped off or not. If you lack disposable income, $70 for a game is a lot, but then everything costs a lot if you are struggling. At the same time, what else can you spend money on that represents as good value as a game? $75 can net you tens of hours of play, sometimes hundreds. Plus you can buy at a discount.

If the argument is "games should be cheaper for those on low income", that's again true of everything, but that might also result in unsustainable economics. If every $70 game was $30, they'd be a lot more affordable...but a lot more companies making them would probably go bust.

I suppose your point is more Jonny's saying all complainers are $10 coffee drinkers, where no, there'll be plenty of people complaining about the increase of game prices who aren't wasting money on other luxuries. My point OTOH is just about the economy and value of games.

 

[Nesh]

Because they keep going into Starbucks and buying coffee!

Did you do a statistics that shows all gamers complaining are casual starbucks customers?

This is very anecdotal

Which they can do. It's not really about whether individual people are struggling to afford or not, but where gaming fits on the value spectrum for everyone and whether gamers are being ripped off or not. If you lack disposable income, $70 for a game is a lot, but then everything costs a lot if you are struggling. At the same time, what else can you spend money on that represents as good value as a game? $75 can net you tens of hours of play, sometimes hundreds. Plus you can buy at a discount.

If the argument is "games should be cheaper for those on low income", that's again true of everything, but that might also result in unsustainable economics. If every $70 game was $30, they'd be a lot more affordable...but a lot more companies making them would probably go bust.

I suppose your point is more Jonny's saying all complainers are $10 coffee drinkers, where no, there'll be plenty of people complaining about the increase of game prices who aren't wasting money on other luxuries. My point OTOH is just about the economy and value of games.

You can't compare completely different experiences or products or services with each other to conclude what consists objectively identical value for everyone for a certain product.

People can very well be very justified for how they feel about the price and value of games vs their myriads of different needs, priorities and income, regardless of the price of games makes sense economically.

Just as you and I find it wasteful to pay $10 for fake coffee on Starbucks, there are people who find it completely wasteful to sacrifice $75 and lose tenths or hundreds of life hours on frivolous entertainment, when that money can be spend on an outdoor healthy activity with family. For them $75 for a game is expensive considering their priorities and what consists value.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Did you do a statistics that shows all gamers complaining are casual starbucks customers?

Did you read my full post?

I suppose your point is more Jonny's saying all complainers are $10 coffee drinkers, where no, there'll be plenty of people complaining about the increase of game prices who aren't wasting money on other luxuries. My point OTOH is just about the economy and value of games.

 

[pharma]

The Quarry and Dark Pictures Dev Supermassive Games Lays Off Nearly a Third of its Staff

The Quarry and Until Dawn creators Supermassive Games is reportedly slashing their workforce by nearly a third.

wccftech.com