Bad Foundations

Shortsightedness is a plague to just about every industry, social, and political structure known to man and the gaming industry is no different. Whether it be Congress enacting spotty laws to find a quick solution to a complex issue, a student waiting till the last minute to start studying for exams, or a game company deciding it needs another revenue stream so more microtransactions are added. The source of the shortsightedness varies through industry, but a similar thought process is clear throughout these situations “If it’s working right now why should I stop?”. “it’s not sustainable” is the answer and that’s something that is a really hard process especially when it’s working so well and making you so much money and getting you awards for how successful it is. The fact of the matter is that games will never die even if the industry crumbles. The games industry right now is growing yes, the big-budget titles are being reviewed well and selling well yes, but none of that is indefinite, not with shaky foundations and brittle pillars made from shortsightedness. Building upon such foundations leads to an inevitable fall no matter how well the industry and its supporters think it’s doing, it will be slow and dreadful, but it will fall, nonetheless. Pillars will crumble and foundations will shift under the weight of the need for industry to reach for bigger and better things and it will be over.

On October 20^th, 2023, Spider-man 2 by Insomniac Games was released for the PlayStation Five the latest console by Sony Games and broke the record for the fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive title with its previous holder being the Last of Us Part 2. According to Stephen Tolio of Gaming “ The development and marketing budget for Spider-Man 2 isn’t public, but if its first 2.5 million copies sold for at least $70 each, that’d be a $175 million first-day haul.”. It certainly is an impressive number in a vacuum, and it broke a record on its first day and has no doubt made much more since its release. This should prove that gaming isn’t in trouble but that’s not the case. Since we don’t know how much it took to make the game, we can only make an estimate based on a range of fifty to a hundred fifty million dollars as provided by the CMA (competition and markets authority), this is the general range of a cost of a triple a title made in the past five years so we can use this a basis to make an educated guess with the information that the fist spider-man from insomniac costing a hundred million dollars we can say that spider-man 2 cost was in the upper elechon of triple a game cost but why does this matter?  

While games are growing their cost is growing faster according to Ray Ampoloqiuo from  x.fire.com which uses an anonymous tip to show how much a game would cost this year “ An unnamed large studio reported to the CMA that major franchises can cost 660 million to develop and around 550 million to market.” While games are growing that doesn’t automatically mean that growth is going to be enough to make up the cost and with these titles taking years to make it’s a gamble for investors to put so much into something they must wait so long to hopefully see the results they’re hoping for and what happens if they do not? They stop investing and look for a surer thing to put their money into and because investor money is now intertwined with the industry companies need to make sure their games make bank. In a perfect world, the relationship between the games industry, employees, and customer base should be a harmonious one where everyone is benefiting from each other’s growth but in the cold reality that’s not the case. Game companies care more about making the bottom line than they do their employees and customer base because it should make sense and a successful game should be enough to continue development, but it isn’t. Microtransactions, battle passes, and DLC (downloadable content) are a symptom of this need to be successful in the eyes of the investors.

Oliva Lowden at BBC research  claims that the increased improvement of technology and the arrival of a newer-more technology-connected generation will help gaming to continue to grow in the future. “Over the next few years, video gaming hardware will experience major updates, allowing for more creative game design, more immersive graphics, and an enhanced overall experience. As technology improves, gamers will continue to invest in new games and consoles – and new gamers will also enter the mixer.” While I do agree that the arrival of new and improved hardware will allow for more unique innovation and better graphics to tantalize players it will only perpetuate the same problems the games industry has been facing. Crunch destroys people and careers and it is not exactly a secret that the games industry is host to some of the worst crunch out of any industry in an article by the Washington post it is said that over 40 percent of full-time game developers and 63 percent of freelancers crunch on top of their normal work schedule and the most egregious crunch stories come from triple a developers who would have access to the improved technology first.  In continues order to implement those innovations and fine-tune the graphics it takes a great amount of manpower, manpower these companies are bleeding dry either because of layoffs or crunch. As the demand for bigger and better continues so too does the budget and the pressure on employees to deliver on those bigger better things the industry cannibalizes itself finally falling from the tower they’ve built on the bad foundations of its shortsighted decisions.

                                                              References  

Ampoloquio, R. (2023, October 23). AAA games can reportedly cost over a billion to make in 2023. Xfire. https://www.xfire.com/aaa-games-cost-over-billion/

Lowden, O. (2023, November 15). The video games industry is still growing – but why? https://blog.bccresearch.com/video-games-industry-is-still-growing-but-why

Totillo , S. (2023). Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is Sony’s “Fastest-selling” PlayStation game – axios. Axios Gaming . https://www.axios.com/2023/10/23/marvels-spiderman-2-playstation-sales

WP Company. (2021, March 24). Why is the games industry so burdened with crunch? it starts with labor laws. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/03/24/crunch-laws/