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[Zacfoldor]

As some mentioned Rebirth kinda had a little comeback on PC. I think it recovered and doesn't belong on the bomb list now.

It really bolstered the list so without that game it kinda makes sense why the other ones failed.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I like you're style Men_in_Boxes - you don't take no shit.

You got it wrong about that under 21 gen though. It's like politics. There is no hard and fast rule but you change as you get older. The kids, they gonna change too. You start to get insular. Here's a little factoid. The older each of us get the LESS time we spend with others each day all the way up until when we die.

Not exactly. I think you're right that our preferences change with age but we don't know how much when it comes to gaming. GAAS took over the industry when the vast majority of gamers under the age of 21 were conditioned to play traditionally priced games. So there may be a cooling effect post as you get older but that cooling effect is likely not enough to keep the temperature of the pool down overall. The temp keeps rising as younger gamers greatly prefer GAAS.

Your assumption would be 100% in a perfect world, but we are in a world that is currently moving from ignorance to enlightenment. We've never been in a position to track this data before so we don't know if this is unique to gen y OR instead if this is a pattern that repeats each generation. I contend that we are seeing a pattern where young gamers prefer the company of others and as they get older they will replace us as the hateful SP gamer. Consider it my man!

Again, you could be right. I don't think you are though because social interaction has been baked into our DNA. Older people enjoy the company of others if you look at world history. Very few hermits exist over the 7 continents.

 

[SHA]

No, we are just living in a cold period and it's hard to take sales figures seriously, this gen is just a handicap, it doesn't count.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

I've never seen so many of these "is X in trouble?" posts before. The fuck is happening here?

Gaf is in trouble. It's concerning.

 

[RickMasters]

To this day, I still don’t understand why people are so adamantly against DEI when it actually benefits the majority more than the minority. My company even has a whole department dedicated to it, yet when I look at leadership, it’s overwhelmingly white, white men, white women, white veterans, white folks in wheelchairs, and even white LGBTQ+ individuals. Meanwhile, the actual racial diversity? Practically nonexistent.

I mean I don't have an issue with that, I'm certain they are all qualified for their positions and it's not any of my business, but there is this strange myth that only black people benefit from it. Sure, my argument is purely anecdotal, but I don’t see more than 1% representation of people who look like me in leadership with DEI being in place for well over a decade now. Yet, the way some people complain about DEI, you’d think American jobs were structured like NBA teams, where you might spot a white person with a job here and there across the entire country.

Fully agree. Furthermore. Most black people are not interested in getting into game development so I don’t see the big deal ( most assume it’s a white and Asian environment so they would not feel all that welcome anyway…. Which is why most black people stay away from tech)


I said what I said as a black man. As much as love games, And I know others, it’s an industry we would touch and none of want. DEI hand out. Man want to be in jobs because they earned their spot against competition.

 

[Tajaz2426]

I’m a Toys”R”Us kid, so I want any company that has a storefront to burn to the ground and let me earn all the cool stuff in game. I’m wishing for a crash of epic proportions, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria here, folks.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You think BG3 or Elden Ring were just flukes that randomly exploded overnight?

 

[Klayzer]

I’m 100% convinced his doing it on purpose for some kind of Internet personality that some YouTubers do.

No doubt it's done purposely for some kind of internet points. No sane person could actually believe the shit he spews.

 

[WoJ]

Still breaks my heart that Guardians of the Galaxy did so poorly.

What a fun ride that game was. I'd love for more games like that.

 

[Platinumstorm]

-GAAS are expensive and the market for it is highly competitive.
-SP doesn't have to be expensive and the market is generally open to new ones.

There's your difference. If you invest high amounts of money in SP slop no one wants, yeah, it'll fail. If you're more careful with your market evaluation and budget, theres a great chance you'll find success.

Same can't be said for GAAS. You can make an excellent game, with innovative ideas, lots of player feedback, and then no one wants to play it because the public you're targeting is busy getting their dailies on fortnite and doesn't even want to try anything else.

To put in another manner:
-SP players are generally more willing to play different things and try new stuff. Natural considering SP games are mostly made to end so they have to constantly look for more.
-GAAS players create comfort zones in their selected games and rarely try anything else. Also natural considering GAAS is designed to have that effect on people, to keep them playing that and only that.

I really agree with this, and it's a bit bizarre because GAAS is cannibalizing the industry.

At least, from my perspective, I am shifting away from GAAS because I've been involved with it for decades with WoW and FFXIV, and I'm trying to move more into the single player and indie realm because I am tired of dealing with it, and it's hurting games that should otherwise be cool.

I do think, however, that there are too many games for the population to handle.

I think for a single player game to succeed, there needs to be good use of time. As a huge Final Fantasy fan, I loved FFXVI, but at the culmination of the story, when there are 8 different optional quests that pop up while the world is facing peril, it is immersion and game flow breaking.

As a working adult, it took me 3 months to finish FF Rebirth, and it's not because the game is jam-packed of content and story. It's because it's drowning in mini games.

 

[Felessan]

You got it wrong about that under 21 gen though. It's like politics. There is no hard and fast rule but you change as you get older. The kids, they gonna change too. You start to get insular. Here's a little factoid. The older each of us get the LESS time we spend with others each day all the way up until when we die.

Your assumption would be 100% in a perfect world, but we are in a world that is currently moving from ignorance to enlightenment. We've never been in a position to track this data before so we don't know if this is unique to gen y OR instead if this is a pattern that repeats each generation. I contend that we are seeing a pattern where young gamers prefer the company of others and as they get older they will replace us as the hateful SP gamer. Consider it my man!

We already have this data, you know. Because it's a second iteration, not the first.
Live service games where niche in 90', minority market since mid'00 (WoW, LoL, CS etc) and dominant since late 10'. And we can judge from how live service market stake from 00' behave to extrapolate how current young sitting in live service will behave.
And it's not that great, all those games from 00' still has crazy numbers and people actually migrating to similar games. Even though these players might get SP games as side activity, the focus to live service remains. And it's understandable, because live service games have different style of gaming and once you used, especially in young age, this style is what "normal" for them. And lack of certain elements like live community is a distracting factor, even if you play once a week and not daily.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Men_in_Boxes

The First Descendant publisher warns game is officially performing “below expectations”

The First Descendant publisher has warned the game is performing "below expectations" due to a noticeable decline in TFD player count.

www.videogamer.com

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Men_in_Boxes

The First Descendant publisher warns game is officially performing “below expectations”

The First Descendant publisher has warned the game is performing "below expectations" due to a noticeable decline in TFD player count.

www.videogamer.com

I have been immortalized on Twitter. A man becomes God...

I was wrong on The First Descendant. So that means 2024 had 9 successful GAAS launches rather than 10.

Even Billy Beane drafted some duds. That said, let's see how the next few updates perform.

 

[samoilaaa]

Blaming "wokeness" for the decline of Western AAA gaming ignores the real issues: corporate greed, live-service bloat, rushed development cycles, and a prioritization of monetization over creativity

The problem isn't inclusivity or diversity; it's studios chasing trends and profits at the cost of passion and artistry.

the chase for DEI is what caused all the things you mentioned

 

[Team Andromeda]

There have been countless threads, articles, conversations about the "oversaturated GAAS market". The topic almost universally stems from "Hey, these GAAS games just got their servers shut off. That must mean the market is saturated."

AAA Single Player (SP) games have always been viewed as the relatively safe bet. If you make a bigger budget single player game with some combination of well known IP, open world, critical acclaim...you were almost certain to perform well financially.

The last few years may have put that idea in question...

Avowed
Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd
Indiana Jones
Hellblade II
Star War Outlaws
Immortals of Aveum
Alan Wake 2
Final Fantasy Rebirth
Final Fantasy XVI
Marvel Midnight Suns
Avatar The Frontiers of Pandora
Dead Space

That list of games reads like "good bet" titles when they were greenlit and all performed worse than expected. Obviously, there are still a bunch of successful titles in this space. Kingdom Come Deliverance II is already in the red and just sold over 2 million copies. Black Myth Wukong did crazy numbers. Baldurs Gate 3 etc....This is not to suggest we're on a bubble, but I think it's time we start looking at this part of the industry. Does it feel less stable to you?

What are you 10 years old or something? Overlooking Avowed and Indiana Jones have or are doing well. Plenty of big AAA games failed in the glory days of gaming not just Shenmue.

To be serious for a second. I do feel people are getting a bit bored of massive open world games that take 100 hours to finish

 

[Vroadstar]

Dang, that reason stings....

 

[HRK69]

the chase for DEI is what caused all the things you mentioned

Blaming diversity for bad business decisions ignores the greed and mismanagement that actually killed most of Western AAA creativity

Baldur’s Gate 3 thrived by focusing on quality gameplay and respecting the player experience. If DEI were the real problem, successful games wouldn’t exist at all.

Great games have featured diverse characters for years, and nobody complained

 

[RetroGamingUK]

What are you 10 years old or something? Overlooking Avowed and Indiana Jones have or are doing well. Plenty of big AAA games failed in the glory days of gaming not just Shenmue.

To be serious for a second. I do feel people are getting a bit bored of massive open world games that take 100 hours to finish

One of the main reasons Shenmue flopped was timing

Only a couple of months after the game’s western release Sega announced the Dreamcast’s discontinuation game sales just dried up.

Look at the best selling games, even Sonic Adventure 2 struggled to sell relative to the prequel.

 

[Team Andromeda]

One of the main reasons Shenmue flopped was timing

Only a couple of months after the game’s western release Sega announced the Dreamcast’s discontinuation game sales just dried up.

Look at the best selling games, even Sonic Adventure 2 struggled to sell relative to the prequel.

Shenmue didn't flop it sold over a million units early in at full price . The main issue was it didn't really sell the DC and more so the sequel flopped.

There were plenty of other big budget games in the golden days that never sold 'that' well like Vagrant Story, The Legend Of Dragoon, Brute Force, Lair, Beyond Good And Evil, Okami and loads more

 

[FewRope]

Wokeness happened to AAA and it destroyed the Western AAA industry like a cancer growing unchecked for years

Schizo posting with so many likes smh

 

[Sophist]

Single player games are anti social; seeing them disappear in favor of multiplayer games is a good thing and should be welcomed.

 

[Madflavor]

It takes 3x longer to make AAA games, budgets are overflated, much of the real talent has been replaced by interns, DEI hires, and activists, and companies are beholden to the demands of shareholders and out of touch execs, instead of experimenting creatively.

Yea the AAA industry is in trouble. It is in deep fucking trouble. Particularly the Western industry. This ride isn’t going to last forever.

 

[Roman Empire]

Nah, AAA-SP are just fine. Bad games fail and good games sell. It's simple as that.

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

Nope it's still good and I'll say it's coming back

Space Marine 2
FFVII Rebirth
Resident Evil games
GTA VI
FFIX Remake
More Resident Evil games
Tides of Annihilition
Whenever the next FFVII Part comes
Elder Scrolls VI
Doom Dark Ages

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Looks like my intuition may have just been given some credibility. Matt Piscattella (NPD Group / Circana) basically agrees with the OP here. The markets are shifting.

 

[Durin]

The AAA single-player market is fun to watch, because you're seeing huge failures next to major successes, and many of those successes are new IP or existing IP that used to be smaller.

GAAS high budget model can only support so many games on the market sucking up continous player time, while single-player experiences you can hop from one to the other.

Budgets I think will start to creep down or stagnate, because it's becoming unsustainable, and enough of the big AAA single-player successes haven't been the mega budget games like Elden Ring or Metaphor. Companies will also need to adapt more to what customers want, or become another lay-off location to be culled.

 

[kikkis]

I think if you have the talent to make 95mc sp game you have made equally good gaas title and it would have grossed more even if it didnt become fortnite