Are We In A Video Game Crash? | Asmongold Reacts 

*2003:* _I go into a store to find a game._ *2023:* _I go into a game to find a store._

Yeah the triple A scene is a fucking joke. They've been making the same shit with better graphics for what feels like the last 10 years.

The problem is the total lack of respect shown by publishers towards consumers. the majority of AAAs these days are full of microtransactions, while their prices are constantly on the rise. Just look at the latest invention from these clowns 110€ for a 3 days pre-release ...

We are in the middle of a AAA entertainment crash. It's not just Videogames. It's TV series and Movies as well.

Indy developers, now is your time.

Three things anyone can do to stop the downfall of quality: 1) Do not buy poorly made products. Do your research first. 2) NEVER pre-order products 3) Regularly audit your reoccurring subscriptions and purge unused items or things you are unhappy with By the way, these strategies can be applied to almost any product: video games, movies, cars, tools, etc..

Same with movies, people don’t want generic trash, they want creative products not cash grabs or pandering to the widest audience possible

They are losing money because they spend hundreds of millions on a game then just go on to bash and insult their main player base inside and outside of the game.

Valve understood the "dog fooding" decades ago. They play their games and get feedback from the company company's employees before releasing a game. If the employees think the game sucks. They scrap it or change things in it. Half-Life the game that started the company. Went through several versions before the public(we) got it!

3A games need to crash to resurrect. Gameplay is the king not the MESSAGE!

I've developed a new game buying strategy. First, i wait for it to come to PC. Then, i wait for the community to fix it. Then, i wait for it to go on sale. Then, i'll consider playing it.

Groceries alone are a huge hit. They've almost doubled the last couple years. Takeout has gotten much more. Chinese used to be the "expenisve" take-out that you rarely got. Chinese is now cheaper than Wendys, McDs, etc.

We are in video game hell, the dawn of dlcs and microtransactions ruined modern gaming. Theres a reason why people play games 15+ years old.

We had a video game industry crash back in 1983 before my time and it culled a lot of companies putting out shovelware and bad products. It needs to happen again to get rid of greedy studios repeating history.

Yup, it really is as simple as "games are just f*cking bad." From a gamer's perspective it's so damn obvious what would make a good game, but devs and publishers are either completely ignorant or straight up don't care. And when they do happen to strike gold, they'll suck out all the fun with microtransactions incentivized by an insufferable grind and limited base game features.

We are in a humanity crash. Look around, it’s not just gaming.

Not only will people bring up helldivers in 10 years.... People STILL bring up the mass effect 3 ending

I'm working in the industry for like 15 years now and yeah I often met people that don't even play games and are in director or lead positions or producers etc. and focus on the wrong things Another thing is they are also on copium man. Like one of the games (was a somewhat bigger title in development) the game was just not fun in internal playtests, shit was constantly broken and unplayable, focus on absolutely stupid ideas/gimmicks and in meetings the leads where like "we have a really good thing here guys just keep it up, it will be great" and me and my buddy were just looking at each other in disbelief and were wondering if they even played the game, the core was not fun or even there.

If it means “AAA” studios stop cranking out live service bullshit full of MTX and small Indy devs get a chance to shine then Im all for it.

MOVIES, GAMES, MUSIC, FASHION used to be ESCAPISM o.o Where the common folk could escape into fantasies they were the MC. Now, even here they are NPCs of Black Rock.

>Google: Steam Library Filters >Store tab >Sort by: user reviews, over 5k reviews, paid games only, search by year. Bam, you can find tons of great games

Thank you so much for adding to the conversation! x

When the shareholders come first instead of the customer that’s when you get enshittification

The biggest problem in gaming is now. Devs are focused on die and graphics instead of the smile factor. Always want the same experience smile and get excited to play the game.. It doesn't matter what type of games I play but I want that experience. If it cannot catch that then those devs don't understand the terms of game.

Pretty funny how the normie hivemind revolves around like 1-2 AAA games per month while 99% of all games are not that.

"Ive been in lockdown for 33 years" Asmongold quotes That hit home 🤣

As someone in the UK, it baffles me that so many people in the UK and Europe mention the video games crash of the early 80s, as it didn't affect the UK or Europe at all.

14:32 "They're not concerned about creating value." You hit the nail on the head that is the main culprit of enshitification from corporations in the world today. They don't care about creating value, they care about extracting every bit of money they can from their customers in the shortest amount of time possible. They never think long term.

Industry crashes are a healthy and natural phenomenon

I remember when all of this bullshit started circa 2010-2011. Call of Duty forcing yearly releases, EA starting to do "premium edition" (game+all DLCs current and upcoming) and "online pass" (to prevent used game sales), microtransactions coming from mobile games into full-scale console and PC games. It has been exactly how we envisioned it, sadly it took an economic crisis for people to stop giving money to shitty companies selling garbage games that are essentially abandonware after the first year. Game companies went from primarily making games they need to sell to selling games they have to make. It's why these damn releases are so overhyped and ALWAYS underdeliver anymore. Quality has been in the shitter for almost a decade or more at this point with only a handful of GREAT games in the last 15 years. Elder Scrolls V, GTA V, Witcher 3, RDR2, Baulder's Gate 3, DS2/3, Elden Ring and a few bangers like Battlefield 3/4, a couple of decent Call of Duty games, PUBG, CSGO, Dota 2, LoL. Many of these games can be enjoyed, played and finished within a couple of weeks. Within 1 year you could experience all of them and most of them, at this point have been played to death over the last 10 years. The rest of the games we've all been playing have been indie titles, made by small teams that while they are GOOD games, they just don't have the content because of the development team size is far too small to be too ambitious BUT they do tide you over between another fun new release - large or small. Large game companies have truly lost their way when it comes to making games. Their sole and primary focus is making money and they monetize these games in as many ways as possible after release. Some games even sell you their game, plus expansions, plus bonus content, plus shortcuts, etc, all for $100+ and then have the nerve to keep demanding more money like sub fees, new DLCs/"season pass" for that year's DLC, etc. It's just gotten to be laughable. I buy cheap/shitty indie games I can enjoy and play older games to pass the time anymore. I refuse to spend $60 on new AAA games simply because they are too damn expensive for what they are. Most you can barely play for 10 hours before being bored or completing all of the content, whereas games like Palworld, Battlebit, etc, are all games that have impressively good longevity, (over 100 hours, typically) and are

Video game companies should not be publicly traded.

Before: Our customer are the players Now: Our customer are the shareholders...

Game dev here. it's not that devs dont play games. Its that people at the top of the food chain (creative directors, art directors, directors in general) are generally 45-50+ years old. Which means they are disconnected with the trends and games that the young/mid aged people (25-30) are playing. I have close to 7 years of experience and trust me, its a recurring problem everywhere, the devs want to make something fun, but its not up to them whether or not it happens.

Calling modern AAA gaming good is like calling Yasuke a samurai.

Black Rock tryin to make you kiss a man in gaymes o.o And then you have to pay $300. MADNESS.

Can anyone explain where the big fucking victory with Helldivers is? They pulled a quick bait and switch, everything celebrated, they switched back and people quickly forgot and ignored it. Whether or not gamers had risen up, the outcome was always the same. Nothing changed.

in a AAA video game crash would be more accurate. A consequence of an accumulation of different problems all linked (uncontrolable costs, overpricing, useless DEI, shareholder interference, creativity banruptcy, mismanagement of ressources, lack of understanding of the customer need)

Nah I hate all live service games, because the game is dead whenever they decide, because In 99% of cases it can't be modded, because I have to rely on their server stability, because I can't play when I go out of city. Fuck every live service game. I want to buy a game and own the exe file with everything necessary attached.

It's funny how storage, networking, computing, and every other component of serving games is cheaper and better performing for less money, complex game dev kits are mostly free, and there are global social networks for advertising, but now they need loot boxes for the game to stay up.

I've been saying there's a crash coming. I was a kid in 1983 and remember that crash. Atari was pumping games out as quickly as possible, and quality went down. It's why the ET game is considered the worst game ever made. They wanted it out before Christmas. So they released a crap game. The same thing is happening right now. It's only a matter of time.

They’re spending a lot of money DEI, HR and consulting companies. Spending money on people who contribute nothing has drawbacks.

There is so many old games that people can play, they don't even need to care about new games

reminder that the video game crash of 83 was purely localized in the US market, the market was completely fine in the rest of the world

I am at a point where I am only supporting private companies / Indy studios. Publicly traded studios treat their customers like ATMs. Their leadership is abandoning their responsibilities to gamers, and caving to downward pressures from board of directors to implement predatory monitization to satisfy the share holders. Private studios can keep at least one hand on the wheel and don't have to feed the insatiable hunger of share holders.

"Covid didn't change my life at all" Dude you don't leave your house lol

During my game design courses in school, I spoke to one of the lead devs in the oncoming Civilization game and she told me to "window shop outside the industry for 3-4 years while it recovers from what is currently happening". We are in a legit Game Depression lol

There's also a disconnect between the hundreds of people working on said games. Think of it like putting together a puzzle. Let's say it's a 1000 pieces and you bring in four people. Each of them gets a quarter of the image to work on and at the end you just combine the 4 pieces. Now imagine you got a hundred people to work on the same puzzle. Once everyone's done putting their sections together, you still have a 100 different sections you gotta somehow combine. That's what I'm seeing in a lot of these AAA games. A lot of individual pieces that never clicked together as a whole.

In the small town where i work, a house used to cost around $80-100 000 for a fixer upper. Post pandemic, you need to save that much just for a down payment.

If you pirate the single player games, you own them

Something like Suicide Squad happens not because the devs aren't gamers. It is a factor in some cases, but the problem is that the CEO, the analysts, finance department aren't gamers and they make decision on what games are being made. The devs still have some freedom on how to do it, but not on what to do.

The problem with video games is the same as every other major American company, Shareholder > everyone else and lobby government for bailout when they inevitably fail due to bad business practices.

There are many factors besides Covid. DEI/ESG has also damaged it, where Ideology has become far more important than Art. If gamers have an issue with the game, they risk being called -phobes, -ists, and so on. This results in the consumer base in being alienated from buying games or even saying what's wrong with it. However, we do live in the Golden Age of Indies. They're cheaper, give more freedom for developers to develop what they want, cost far less to produce than some AAA game, and are fun to play. There's a fantastic variety to choose from to fit the consumers' tastes.

"I'm not laughing at the horrible suffering" Well, that makes 1 of us.

Kinda agree. We have reached a peak and are on the way down with the idea that in order to manage a company you do not really have any affinity with the product. The generic manager troubleshooter. If you can do it for a company selling razor blades, then you can also do it for Mattel's girl's dolls division. That was the idea anyhow. That being said, throwing terms around like 'value proposition' like Asmond is doing is the hallmark of poor managers. My cousin is all about 'fast moving consumer goods'. Does he even know what he is talking about?

Almost everything mainstream is now toned down, safe, and controlled, created for the shareholders and the uninformed consumers who don't know any better, and not for the gamers who are passionate about the hobby. While games have technically improved and we have newer game engines that are able to simulate graphics and physics more accurately and realistically, unfortunately what we have come to witness is the fact that this does not correlate into making good games. Not even better looking games. Some games that came 8 to 10 years ago costed way less to make and still hold up graphically or are even better looking, what we get today. Studios have become too big forming whole different departments, which means more resources and money have to be put into managing the whole shit show. This all adds up to the cost of video games, which in turn mean, less risk taking and less development time and resources directed on creating the actual content and functionality to the game, and seeing more unfinished $70 broken games with missing functionality, with micro transactions. Wokeness is another elephant in the room. Developers get to experience the wrath of gaming journalists, and angry crowd on twitter mob, who live by destroying your reputation, if they deem your game not to appeal to their "ethical standards", which are btw debatable, and not objective truths. This have led to bigger companies hiring sensibility readers forming ethics departments, whose purpose is to remove stuff from your games.Their job is literally to say "fuck you" to artists and developer, and they get paid for it. So what basically is happening, is following: companies spending money on hiring people who sabotage their product by remove stuff from games, while at the same time adding unnecessary costs. I used to get hyped up for the new release of games. But now I am avoiding 90% of all Triple A titles because I can see that what they are selling is the old shit repackaged in new coat of paint or inferior products with micro transactions, american sensationalist woke politics and "live service" fuckery. The problem is that, people who used to play video games, are not the target audience of bigger game studios anymore. The uninformed masses are. I still play games that are made and published by independent or smaller studios, because they are the ones who are currently pushing the boundaries of the medium, by focusing on good game design, original storytelling and art, but the the same time, I'm saddened by the fact that newer generations do not get to experience the sheer amount of creativity that was around early 2000s to 2015(ish). I cannot pinpoint a certain year when things started to get down hill, but I can say that everything mainstream started to gradually turn into shit, when monetization of video games, and sensational american politics became the main cornerstones of game design and storytelling. I'd say gaming has a whole peaked around 2011 when Skyrim got released, but you could see the signs of gaming as an art form, passionate hobby die when trends such as "early access", and micro-transaction, and "feminism" started to pop up in the gaming landscape. Games as a industry and a business are not dead yet, but if this is what it has to offer, I wish it was. Hopefully the industry crash will come soon, and burns everything what modern gaming has become to the ground.

No, we are not in a video game crash. When games start going on sale for 90% off across the board and major industry names are filing for bankruptcy, then we will be in a crash

I think there are a couple things going on that are effecting not just the games/entertainment industry but in general 1) DEI ESG initiatives backed by tons of capitol changed the emphasis of entertainment/games from being fun to telling a message. After time, people learn to spot patterns and get tired of having certain themes forced into their entertainment. 2) People were locked down during Covid, meaning they had more time to play games, and also more money to spend. This was also right when a ton of cash infusions came in, and the effects of rampant annual inflation hasn't quite hit yet. A lot of companies (not just entertainment) had record years of revenue 3) Inflation hits after 2020, and continues throughout 2024. People have less income to spend on entertainment and products that aren't bare necessities like gas, rent, food, etc. 4) Theres just too much saturation of content now. Netflix, gamepass, tons of games coming out, RU-vid, TikTok. Theres only so much time in a day to spend 5) a lot of entertainment/games caters to nostalgia (older audiences) because new idea are risky, and development costs are expensive. Older people have less free time to spend on entertainment when they have to work, raise kids, etc. Younger people have less attachment to IPs that are 20+ years old

It's really simple. These huge companies are making decisions assuming that shareholders are the only party that matters, taking gamers for granted as a guaranteed participator without any need to consider their experience. They also base themselves in places with broken economies where people make many times the national average, sinking vast amounts into paying inflated salaries, followed by throwing all the talent in the trash after rushing the game out way too soon since now they assume they can just finish it later if they don't abandon it for being a flop.

1. Greed is at an all time high. It's taking people too damn long to spot how hard they're getting fucked, but they're waking up. 2. People who put agenda over creative efforts and talent have been put in charge and the quality has suffered greatly for it. 3. EVERYONE is feeling the financial strain. People are just becoming more careful with their spending out of necessity.

It's crashing because you all have bought half made games for full price and allowed them to sell you the other half of that same game in small chunks, again, as a full priced game.. I never took part in this practice and never will. Thank you current gamers for fkn my life up

We need to stop putting blame for the state of the AAA industry on the devs. Most of them are wage slaves and the ones making the decisions are those that were promoted from the financial and marketing departments. Blame them instead. The suits and managers don't know what games are supposed to be like because the ones in power are rarely the devs who did a good job. Those guys just get a pat on the back. it's like blaming writers for a shit show when it's their bosses giving them strict deadlines an guidelines. Most of them are also just wage slaves.

Elden ring is the shining example of customer first, I thought I was coming to the end of my play through when I got to the mountain tops and I still had another 40 hours before I finished the game I got to the end and felt satisfied. No micro transactions a few reused assets that were forgivable, a full story that I wanted more of and I will happily pay for the DLC without question. I got more than my moneys worth by todays standard and I know I will with what fromsoft have in store for me next.

I think many execs use business and management expertise to analyse games as businesses. The Fortnite example is perfect. So many companies trying to copy the business model and they have no idea why the game, the social network underlying it or the culture side of Fortnite works.

Are we in a video game crash??? for Triple studios, ya, hell ya, of course, for Indie developers, they have almost never had a better time to shine, let me present, pal world, helldivers 2, Hollow knight, buckshot roulette, these are just some that I can name of the top of my head, it is looking up for Indie game studios and that is bad for AAA studios

Restaurants that give you free dessert when they fuck up your experience are restaurants that you return to, imo. They show that they are serious and take your experience seriously, they will even take a punch to prove it to you. It's the same with game developers. The ones who hold your experience in the highest regard are the ones you want to keep in business, even if they don't make the prettiest games or whatever.

Gaming crash of 84 was caused by lack of clear information on game quality. Everyone could create a game in a weekend, pitch it to Atari and get it published with next to no oversight over quality. Hence, nobody knew what to buy, hence people stop buying. Today we have access to instant reviews to know what's good and what's another EA/Activision/Ubisoft slop. So, entire industry will be fine, but if big companies couldn't pull their shit together, they'll fail naturally.

The boss fight for Titan and Bahamut in FF16 put together was longer than Hellblade 2.

a non gamer edited that video

Clown upper management honestly. Companies chase infinite growth instead of stability.

The era of zero interest rates ending has led to tech/media needing to actually make profit in a way thats leading to a lot of layoffs, cuts, and business failures because a decade+ of having a significant cushion at the bank is now over.

A lot of tech companies were collecting IT staff like Pokémon during the Pandemic. Once the Pandemic ended just about tech company out there had too many IT members and not enough work for them to do. I remember reading about teams for programmers and analysts at different companies with nothing to do for months! They were collecting paychecks and have nothing to work on.

I worked in AAA for about 4 years but lost my job last year and it's been a struggle to find a new one with all the studios closing... sad times

It is the interest rates. Video game industry crashed in 1983 because interest rates went up to 11.5 % in no time, and so investments dried up. The same happens now unless you have an AI startup. There's just not enough cash for new games. We had a similar problem in the mid-2000s when interest rates slowly went up.

I think streaming has kind of hurt gaming as well. The mystery is gone watching someone play a game (arguably better than you because they do it for a living) and you can live vicariously through your favorite twitch streamers play through. For a good game this is a good thing because it does make you want to play. For bad games, it makes it impossible to hide. I’m honestly shocked these companies haven’t tried to ban streaming with some weird DCMA claim. Then there’s Elden Ring… I’ll be honest, I watched so many Elden Ring live streams, it actually helped me decide not to buy. Because I don’t feel like getting trounced by the same boss for 9 hours straight, and that’s ok.

I guess when you are blinded by greed everything you do turns to shit.

Dude I live in Kentucky and 2019 going into 2020 my wife and I could afford a $400K house… now that we are fully ready to get one…. We can only afford a $270K house now. And we make more than what we did in 2019…. It is messed up.

Knowing someone in the industry I can tell you, major issue is people working in the video game industry have 0 respect for regular players. They see us as whinny babies that dont know what we are talking about. They sorth of forget, if we dont buy your games, you dont make money.😅

Christ the industry seriously couldnt even last another 50 years since its last crash. Proof that history repeats itself n that we fail to learn from our mistakes

"i think the real problem has nothing to do with games are pay to win or full of microtransactions" describes games that are barebones with just names attached and more or less just a shell cause they are fixated on money. But that is it exactly. They create platforms to generate money (pay to win microtransactions). They do not create games nor want to create games and then add the other stuff. Those games are built around microtransactions they are bad because they are built around those concepts. Once mincrotransactions enter usually the gameplay will be made worse so that people are forced to invest money to progress. There are some few good excemptions but majority is "bleed the players dry"

The biggest factor for a gaming crash is surely that the cost of living crisis is driving more people to go and take 2nd and sometimes even 3rd jobs to work 15+ hours a day 7 days a week just to be able to pay bills and eat. Its often framed that more billionaires = economy doing well when actually it signifies that theres been a massive transfer of wealth. The rich have gotten richer while the middle class is eroded and the working class struggles even harder grinding for low income work. So the people that billionaires and games companies are making money off eventually have so much less time to spend on leisure activities as they're trying to earn money to make ends meet. As a result gaming is one of those industries to take a hard downturn. Another big factor is that the games industry itself is draining talent away from high quality games to try and create these continuous profit micro transaction laden games that are pure time sink garbage rather than providing a fulfilling gaming experience. Theres only so many good animators, coders, artists etc and if they're being used to push these shitty games then there is of course going to be lower quality of legit non micro transaction games as the talent pool is spread too thin.

Vampire survivors. Path of exile. That is all

It's an Indy developers world, now.

"The problem is a lot of these players don't dog food their own games, so the games turn out to be dog shit instead." - Asmongold Well said.

Some devs who used to work at gaming companies now went Indie cuz of this horse shit.

14:00 No Jedi in Star Wars can be very cool. The original Dark Forces was fucking great. The portion of Jedi Knight, the sequel to Dark Forces *before* you get force powers, was really good. I had a lot of fun with Shadows of the Empire on N64, if I recall you never get force powers? I think that game was fairly beloved.

I think the crunch with games that is coming is probably going to be healthy. The rate new and really big games comes out is too frequent for the community to really try/appreciate each, or even most. The over saturation is going to obviously lead to more and more very expensive flops. A trimmed down game industry will likely either make flops easier to recover from by making cheaper games, or the rate of publication going down will allow those games a greater chance to find an audience

Triple A has crashed. Not a single problem in the independent sector.

Indy developers, RISE UP

No, we are in an entertainment crash. Hollywood is struggling (for good reason), comics are in a downward spiral, AAA video games are a joke, the list keeps going. This is what happens when companies lose touch with their customers and what they actually want.

I really, really dont care about AAAA anymore. There are so many great Indie games that maybe dont look realistic but have so much better gameplay. The only AAA game I care about atm is FFxiv and it makes enough money to sustain itself.

“1:33 I been locked down for 30 years” I laughed out loud IRL

During the covid i did the opposite.....i was outside all the time. The streets were empty and that was great,like real time game avoiding the police :)

Trying to finish my Adam Sandler RPG

5:20 The games industry that we loved was born from highly-motivated & autistic social rejects who put their passion and dedication into an industry that was tiny, and paid way worse then equivalent jobs in IT or other fields where their skills were highly valued. That is why games from the past era were so good. Game development in the modern world is just an extension of IT with an artistic aesthetic -- A bureaucratic nightmare where nothing gets proposed without filtering through 5 layers of bullshit, and the people who act on those proposals are corporate-trained useful idiots who got their college degree 5 seconds ago and don't know they're getting the piss taken out of them. I stopped having sympathy for developers a while ago for this reason. Despite the lay-offs, I'm sure all these studios are getting more resumes now then ever before. They continue to apply and feed into the same few studios who churn them out after two years with no remorse and no connections.

AAA has achieved peak. Now, as Asmongold says, corporate sustainability with AAA is the issue. Gaming is not in a crash.

Video games are crashing so hard, I can hear the buzzing and/or see the desktop.

Indie developers and fromsoft are carrying gaming HARD

The renaissance only appears to be over. Once we drive them silly Tudors away and rebuild our Round Theaters to our liking, and not theirs, then it will all smooth itself over soon enough.

The rising cost of game development? It’s almost 100% labor with the rise of digital. They have saved billions in packaging, production, shipping and printing costs and stuck that shit in their pockets only to hold out their money grubbing claw for more money in the form of micro transactions and live services.

Miyazaki doesn't play his own games. He's just good because he's done the necessary research and is locked in. Aldo WB Games has a great library under their belt. Problem is It's owned by WB which has had huge structural changes. A lot if the guys who were there during the Arkham trilogy, and Shadow of Mordor are probably replaced by economists who make decisions like "going all in on live service games". To summarize that story. Their games department used to be better than the movies department at one point in time.