Topic: The State of the Industry

@wittedbugle
"It seems like they are winning, since they are dominant on a certain market, which is console gaming, but most don't realize that it is a shrinking segment."

If i had a dollar for every time I heard that console gaming was "shrinking", "dying" or "gonna be dead", I'd be able to buy Sony myself. Console gaming is alive, well and not going anywhere anytime soon.

"Not only it, but their single player experiences barely bring actual profit, to the point of stimulating actual company growth. It is also highly dependent on how many Playstations they sell, which is a liability."

I agree their exclusives don't make enough profit as they should, but that's the loss they are willing to take by pumping out quality AAA games you can't get anywhere else. Nintendo has good exclusives for their fans and their taste, but their drop rate on exclusives per gen is terrible. Yet they have survived 40yrs now. The exclusives is what draws people to buy PlayStation and makes it worth still making a profit on games from the likes of ND, Guerilla, Sucker Punch etc but not expecting gang busters type profit, because games of that quality are expensive and take loads of time. But it all works out in the end. Naughty dog hasn't even released a game yet for ps5, is still prob a year and a half out, maybe two with intergalactic and yet ps5 just surpassed ps3 in lifetime sales only 5 yrs into ps5's life cycle.

Gaming has overtaken the entertainment industry as a whole. Everyone and their brother games. Its kinda like the iphone. Lots of people DO NOT NEED a new iphone with every new iteration. Its crazy, its just a phone. But most of them buy it anyways when they really shouldn't do it financially. People do the same with gaming and consoles. They will put new consoles and games on their credit cards when they really shouldn't, just to be getting their game fix and/or not to feel left behind when a new console releases because they are gaming enthusiasts.

The ps5pro was nothing but rage bait for people crying "why do we need this" laughing at how expensive it is, saying it will not sell. Lol funny cause its selling on par with ps4pro which did very well as the first mid gen refresh Sony ever tried. Proved the naysayers wrong, because again, people would go hungry before they give up gaming. Esp that shiny new console in their fave ecosystem.

Now you add the sinking ship which is Xbox into the equation, who is deciding to put their games on Playstation now, add GTA6 in November and I guarantee, regardless of how long it takes ND to release their first game this gen (intergalactic) or how many studios Sony closes that cause an uproar (bluepoint) the ps5 is gonna continue selling like gang busters, esp this holiday with GTA6 and everything else coming to ps5.

Console gaming is perfectly healthy. Nintendo is proof. Their consoles and games are very niche, yet they've been striving perfectly fine since the NES, for 40yrs now. And gaming as a whole back then was not the juggernaut hat its is today.

Sony is healthy, will remain healthy. I just think that when they do these things that piss people off like close studios, or lose a tons of $$$ on live service gambles, people think that they will tank themselves out of the game. That is not true. As dumb as alot of their decisions have been, they are still very smart business people. Do you honestly think that these people who work at Sony, would take a gamble on live service and take into account how much $$$ they could possibly lose if it doesn't work out? They would have never taken these gambles if they weren't 100% sure that the company could eat the $$$$ if it doesn't work out. Big corporations do not do stupid things like this. It takes years of planning, some of their decisions. Sadly it did not work out, but it will not impact Sony one bit. Its just sad to see people lose their jobs as game devs over this. But people will not stop buying PS consoles over a total stranger losing their job over a studio closure, that I can assure you

@wittedbugle Xbox is drowning and MS is perfectly fine not because "they secured a plan for the future", its because MS has more $$$$ than God. If there's any company on earth that could have a failing games business, its MS. They could have 5 failing businesses under the MS umbrella and wouldn't even bat an eyelash at the losses, because again they have more $$$$ then God.

And btw, your initial post and the last one, you made some very good points. I agree with you for the most part. Just the couple of things I pointed out, we didn't agree. But I want you to know, I respect you and this is constructive conversation. I like to be civil on here. I don't want you to think I'm being contradictory on purpose to be a jerk. That happens alot in gaming chats, ya know?

I came on here to really rant and fume about Bluepoint, but I see that @graymamba has done a stellar job already. As has @Ravix and so I have little to add at this point. Basically ditto to both of your condemnation blasts on Sony and the industry. This closure (Bluepoint that is) has rattled me. They made one of my favorite PS5 games and one of my favorite PS4 games, and are extremely talented. And I don’t remember exactly, but Sony bought them pretty recently. What has it been… like 4 years ago? If even that?

And here’s where I’ll respectfully give a slightly different opinion from @wittedbugle and I’ll preface this by saying I don’t have a business degree and have never been a corporate executive, but… I think to say that the suits at Sony and PlayStation know what they’re doing is giving them too much credit. I suppose they’re making money but good grief they’re burning money too. And seemingly at an extravagant rate. I don’t think Bluepoint was an expensive studio and is “only 70 people” who are affected by poor corporate decisions, but they’ve decimated hundreds of working folks lives over the last few years. Actually thousands I would guess. I’ve long since lost count.

But even taking the humans out of the picture they are making poor money decisions left and right. Buying Bungie was unquestionably one of the biggest errors by any metric in the history of the company. What was it, $3.6 billion? Not to beat a dead horse but buying Firewalk also and spending whatever godawful amount on Concord ($400 million?) and actually I could list another half dozen mistakes but then to realize each of those cost real people like you and me jobs and livelihood because of corporate mistakes.

And I realize corporations are not charities and the workers are these companies are never guaranteed anything, but I honestly think Joe Gamer on his couch could have known some of these decisions were not going to work.

I don’t expect perfect omniscient prognosticating skills from the executives, but the pattern is just too much. I’ve seen it in other industries an in the government especially about how fast as loose they make decisions in their own secluded bubble, while the masses out in the public who are actually in the trenches often know good and well what works and what doesn’t work. The blasted politicians and bureaucrats actually are average unremarkable people like who you’d see at Wal-Mart, and as I’ve met and talked with some executives and I am surprised at how pedestrian sometimes they are, and aren’t any smarter than you or me. Sure there’s brilliant and talented people in the board rooms, but there’s equal measure of people who got there through connections, fortunate circumstances, and sometimes nefarious means, and can be just as idiotic and fallible as the rest of us. I use to look up to government officials, public figures, big wig corporate CEO’s, celebrities, and the like, but now I realize the people I know out working in our normal lives are often more capable. They certainly have better common sense usually.

Edit: and I suppose I should consider the statement “And actually, I don't think any of their decisions are necessarily dumb because, as I've said prior, I don't think we have the data…” which is both true, but also not a reason for blind faith either. There are factors that don’t get reported, there are metrics that definitely factor in and could make more sense as to what prompts a corporation to buy a studio and then immediately close it. But I’ve seen waaay too may times the data can be manipulated, misinterpreted, mishandled, and just flat wrong. One of my teachers used to say “garbage in, garbage out” when he was teaching us about crunching data. In other words the result of a study or analysis is only as good as the numbers you collect and know. Clearly Sony has had some bad analytics to keep closing studios and laying off employees and cancelling games.

Sod off Sony.

I don't get closing a studio like that. They made a huge loss, but there's no reason in my mind why Bluepoint couldn't at least be downsized and make remasters some of PS's many classic games. It wouldn't be that hard to turn a small profit while keeping fans like us happy...

I feel they've become so fixated on chasing that golden goose, that they've lost sight of why a large percentage of their customers choose to purchase a PlayStation in the first place.

@Th3solution you’ve only gone and beat my rant you know 😁

@Ravix Today is really making me wish i'd took the plunge and tried to understand PC ownership and maintainance, as I was put off going all in on a high-end rig by thinking i'd just mess it up and end up not using it much, essentially 😭 and now assembling a top end gaming rig is probably the price of an apartment in London Town 😂 but at least it might be the only place any half decent games that want to push the medium foreard will end up as no one can put out a new console anyway 😂

What a hobby 🤦‍♂️

• I have no idea, someone else assembled my rig and when it needs upgrades someone else does that too. I wouldn't trust myself to take apart a large electrical machine like that, I'd some how manage to create a tear within the space time continuum. Either way but there are benefits to PC gaming. I just don't do it all that often, if you like choice there's oodles of that on Steam but a lot of nonsense too. It always looks more appealing if you play mostly console games and often can be but there are far more technical and performance issues that don't always go away when you throw money at them.

I couldn't get Cities Skylines 2 to run properly at all, hardware didn't matter, they released the game in an unplayable mess and I don't skate through hoops to find fixes when it's up to the developers to do it properly. I find it easier and easier to avoid Triple A now, I've said before that Indies have heart. I didn't think I'd see a favorite hobby monetized so heavily, I know things are bad when I hear certain companies mentioned offline and those people aren't gamers. Not by a mile, they are something else.

When my ears go up I tune fully into a conversation, investments are investments but still I don't like it, at times it clouds my enjoyment of the hobby. It's hard to word, just that if you see something from one angle and understand the nomenclature, it's hard for it not to affect the other. Developers don't run anything, I thought creative vision and the spark were the driving force of some of my favorite games. They aren't, someone else decides how to steer that ship and someone above them decides what way the wind will blow. I'd seen that side in the film industry and it killed my love of the art for well over a year, years perhaps, that driving force was money and now I'm seeing it in the games industry too.

It's made worse by job losses, I understand profiteering. It's a natural reaction to Control and structure, no one says no to remunerative ventures. People don't need to lose their livelihoods on-top of that. If it weren't for Indies and for a handful of you guys I'd have given it up. I was going to when I took those three months off, I'd gotten rid of some of my games. That's why Snake in a Jar went to Oxfam, lots of other things did too. Everything retro remains for preservation. I want to support the hobby, other than Indies I don't know how. I don't know if you remember when Codemasters let go of those people. I knew it was coming, I'd heard something relating to a certain investment fund and put two and two together. Three days later I saw the article on here and those people had lost their jobs. It was related to a shift in renewable energy, when focus is shifted like that sectors get trimmed, but they trimmed people too.

I don't want to sound cynical and this will, but I just don't fall for the bells and whistles when I see the Wizard behind the curtain so to speak. I can't pipe up and say 'oh by the way I'm a gamer', that would look bad, not because gaming is bad, it's complicated. Few know I spend my time gaming not even my Family want me to do it but I need that something sometimes and it comes from few other places. They think I'll run into crazy exploitive people again, I can't my contacts were nuked. Either way I tell no one.

For those three months without a controller that was entirely down to the 'state of the industry', and I didn't like the unique perspective I'd been given. People already think we set the world on fire, to think it's lead to job losses and studio closures and who knows what else. All I see from my perspective are carefully woven industries, organizations and conglomerates, everything is interconnected. Previously gaming was to me insular, now it's just one more sustained investment for the portfolio. I didn't learn about Embracer through here, I learned about them elsewhere. The same for many of those companies pulling the strings. The only hobby that in my mind remains sacred is reading. Everything else is entirely exploitable, one big perpetual precipice of compulsory liquidation, but only after efficient drive optimization leads to that inevitable wringing dry of the asset, then it's onto the next venture. This is just one of many industries that has experienced such a strategic adjustment, nor will it be the last.

Figured I’d throw another 2 cents into the pile. Firstly, I’d like to make my position clear that I’m extremely disappointed in Sony’s decision to close Bluepoint. It feels like the culmination of a series of questionable and outright poor business decisions and yet another example of a company seemingly floundering in creative bankruptcy.

All that said, the bigger issue for me is how much gaming itself has changed. The market skews heavily toward live service, monetization, remakes and sequels to established I.P. It’s become completely risk averse, from both the consumer side and thus the development side. A quick peek at any given time at the “Top Games” widget on the store tells the tale, let alone the average comment section, even around these parts. The market is only reinforcing Sony’s behaviour.

The unfortunate reality is that Sony is actually reading the room very well. Just look at the most recent example of them doing something out of the box: a shadow drop of a passion project with a returning cast member from the beloved Greek era. This was a nice treat. Instead, it turned into a complete ***** storm, whereby the predominant argument seems to be, “If it’s not completely blowing my mind with an expensive, cutting edge AAA experience, then it’s not worth it.” Worst of all, indifference isn’t enough. It must actually be blasted into oblivion in a flurry of outrage. It’s a land of extremes these days, and Sony’s merely following suit.

I don’t love this direction but it’s understandable. Sony is a corporation that is increasingly focused on massive short term profits and the multimedia franchising of their safest I.P., all the while the market reinforces this type of decision making. The data is there.

Meanwhile (and I’m fully aware that I’m preaching to the choir in this particular corner of the internet), I’ll continue to challenge myself to spend my money on the hobby in a way that’s meaningful to me; in a way that I believe contributes to a sustainable and creatively vibrant gaming ecosystem. For every major studio closure, there are independent outfits rising from the ashes that appreciate folks like us who are willing to show up. Can’t control everything, but I can do my part. Forward motion! 😄

I wonder if Sony is taking cues from Konami and is considering licensing more of its IPs to third-party studios, hence not having a need for more in-house studios. Actually, I remember reading an article about this on Push Square.

Found it: https://www.pushsquare.com/features/reaction-sonys-licensing-...

Wow, only 9 percent voted for Sony should be taking advantage of their IPs internally. Wonder what the allocation would look like if the poll was made today.

@LieutenantFatman An overwhelmingly large percentage of playstation users are your every day casuals or people that just play call of duty, NBA 2k/Madden, and Fortnite or some other live service. $ony can see statistics and numbers that we can’t see, but using indications like social media and people i know, most people that have consoles or playstation aren’t the kind of gamers that we are.

@wittedbugle @nomither6 @LtSarge @Metonymy @GirlVersusGame

I loved bluepoint, this sucks indeed. Let me get that out of the way 1st.

But what I find hilarious in all this (or any live service debacle, or gaming fumble made by sony this gen) is everyone goes into this uproar online. Even saying extreme things like "sony can go F itself now, i'm done" or "maybe I'll morph into a PC gamer all of a sudden and leave all this console crap behind"
lmao PLEASE!!!!

We all know tomorrow the sun will still rise. The newspaper will still get delivered at 6am. Bob the neighbor will still wash his car every Sunday. And most importantly, to my point, our gaming lives WILL NOT CHANGE ONE FREAKIN' BIT over this!!! Everyone planning on buying RE:req next week will still be buying it, playing it and loving it. Everyone will still highly anticipate Intergalactic, whatever Sucker punch does next, all the GOW games coming, Wolverine and esp GTA6.

And you sure as sh** better believe when ps6 is eventually released to the masses, us and everyone else will be there on day one with our shiny new playstation consoles.

My condolences to Bluepoint for sure. But lets face it, we do not have stock in Sony. This doesn't directly affect our lives. Let's stop pretending it does. THIS CHANGES NOTHING!!!! LIFE GOES ON!!!!

@nomither6 @LieutenantFatman I believe there’s a difference between the “large percentage of their users” and the “large percentage of their revenue generators”

Does Sony make more revenue from the Push Square elite, who buy dozens of games a year, buy every first-party game day 1, subscribe to PS+ Premium, own a Portal and 4 controllers, own a PS5 and a PS5 Pro, watch all the first-party based TV and movies, and then buy them also on Blu Ray, and watch every one of their State of Play live streams with baited breath? Or do they make more from little Timmy who spends $400 a year on V-bucks?

Honestly I don’t know the answer to that question. The Push Square user spends more at their store and in their ecosystem and drives more traffic to them and their advertising partners. But 30% of every dollar that little Timmy spends is pure profit for which they invested virtually nothing and are merely skimming off the top.

We know from data that the company makes more money from the few top games’ MTX than from sales of most of their AAA games. But that’s because of the grand scale of those users, like nomither says. But per capita, I think the Push Square user is more valuable as a person to keep happy because he pumps more into the ecosystem pound for pound than the person who buys their PS5 for 2 or 3 games only.

@LtSarge This is 100% what I feel. Look at Virtuous' Oblivion and MGS3 Delta. Cheaper and faster than Bluepoints work. Sure you won't get a 90+ on meta but a 84-88 is strong enough. I disagree with it but it was clear.

2XKO laid off it's staff but Riot China has announced job openings. It's why I believe HM is safe.

@Metonymy A very well balanced and insightful post, as always sir.

I’ve been upset and I’m trying to calm myself with some semblance of their logic here; trying to understand the strategy of Sony’s execs. If they didn’t want a remake/single player studio why did they buy them in the first place a few years ago. What’s the wisdom in that? Either shutting the studio was a poor decision, or buying the studio was a poor decision. Either way, they are screwing up. Help me get my faith restored in management.

Or do you feel like gaming changed that much in the last 4-5 years?

This is mostly true, but as I’m watching some of my mates be laid off in other industries due to corporate mismanagement (not in the games industry) and a world economy crumble due the poor decisions of a select few people in charge, I can’t help but see the parallels and I’m beginning to lose what little faith I had in management and upper leadership in general (not just within Sony)

@Th3solution That's how the world goes around though. There's no getting around it. Especially the world of big businesses. Things open, things close. Things strive; things fail. People get promoted; people get canned. There's no denying it and never any stopping it. All one can do is accept it.

@StitchJones Wholeheartedly agree with that. When I first read about this, I was definitely disappointed. But it's not like there's a shortage of great games to play right now and are coming out in the future.

@cainhurst94 Indeed, not to mention Sony's focus now on smaller titles in between all the larger ones (such as Sons of Sparta). By doing this, Sony will be delegating the costs, and therefore the risk, to the third-party studios, which means more creative projects will arise from this approach.

@StitchJones Well, yeah of course. I think we’re on the proverbial Hedonic treadmill of human nature. I mean there’s coping mechanisms psychologically to hard times whereby acceptance comes about and people cope in different ways, in healthy ways and unhealthy ways. It’s how people survive things much worse than layoffs and economic hardships. Humans can subsist through war, totalitarian regimes, slavery, abuse, and so forth.

Depending, repeated adversity can lead to something called ‘learned helplessness’ and can look like coping, but makes our brains normalize adversity, like such treatment is simply part of what is supposed to happen. It can help people survive and have perceived happiness, but it can also backfire. It’s what makes people stay in cults and abusive relationships. An extension of this, less melodramatic and more apropos to what’s been on my mind lately, is what’s been referred to as the ‘Stockholm Syndrome of Everyday Life’, and why people defend systems which treat them unfairly, such as the company they work for or the government they live in.

Anyway, I find the discussion interesting but I’ll not dampen the mood further. In fact I need to jump back into the Forbidden West and inject a little of my own copium. 😄

@Th3solution I do think gaming has changed a lot over the last number years. Free to play, live service, mobile, yearly sports titles…largely dominate the charts. Management has the fiduciary duty to essentially follow the money, so while I may not like how that looks sometimes, it just funnels more wind under my wings to put my money where my mouth is. In a world driven by greed, and increasingly directed by mob rule, I think the small wins are that much more meaningful.

Mighty Keef’s take on it, on the nose as always.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kwLq-9V1gVQ