Why Game Companies Stopped Making Games - How Money Works 

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Save you 14 minutes: Games as a service are vastly more profitable than the initial revenue from games.

The reason triple AAA games are becoming so expensive and some are totally failing is just because they focus on tech and not on design. They're treating what were supposed to be enjoyable games as engine demos and not giving enough time to release them properly. You can't just create another GTA V every single year, that shit takes A LOT of time.

Another issue is that whenever you sink that much money into a single project, the designers have to give up a significant amount of creative control. Business just won't allow that much money to be spent on an experiment. Everything ends up being the old tried and true so you end up with very samey, uncreative, bland games that look really nice.

The problem is that gaming companies have gotten too big to take risks anymore. They make copycat games with subscription-based services and that's safe for them. It's corporate business, investors that don't care about the product itself, only the bottom line. They want guarantees and they don't want the companies they've invested in making risky moves with their money. The companies don't want to make risky moves and risk losing their investors.

I've been telling my friends this for the past couple years. We are going to see fewer AAA games because games not only have to compete with other new releases but all of the pre-existing games as well. There is just so much competition in this industry.

When some people say "games from older generations were better" I must agree.. As a kid I imagined how insane the games would look like with so much more options to buy and play with even better graphics and physics. But sadly nowadays most titles are just cash grabs and the fun part is ignored, its hard to find triple A titles with good and fun gameplay without only pay2win features. Thats why I'm revisiting emulation, indie games and a few AAA titles which are worth the money and also the playtime.

This feels a bit out of touch... AAA games that bomb do so because they were rushed out of the door and burned trust, not because consumers were over-saturated with other games to play, gamers are always thirsting for the next big thing. In the competitive matchmaking space yes their is usually one giant dominating a space and others vying for that position like League of Legends, WoW, Fortnite etc but that's not true for traditional story based titles

Fair to say the golden age of gaming is truly gone..sad really..but glad i grew up gaming in the 90s and early 2000s..sad a lotta kids wont experience the magic we did

Here is my issue with this. AAA game companies are trying too hard to make the 'biggest game'. Big being, best graphics, biggest worlds, widest variety be in customization, weapons, vehicles etc. Which will need lots of people and technology naturally. Which i could excuse that for big game companies withholding new projects. Except when you have games like Undertale, Minecraft (before Microsofts purchase) Goosegame, Goat Simulator, powerwash simulator, etc. Getting loads and loads of sales when they're developed by small teams. These games are very basic graphically, have a very short play time (minecraft an exception), no big budget, no fancy effects, no extraordinary acting. But just simple fun Heck, id be willing to consider Undertale a masterpiece, and it's a very short game. Players dont want 'big' they want good. Yes the newer games look pretty, but i promise best graphics isn't necessarily what gamers are aftee. Best graphics should be icing on the cake. Not the whole cake

Great video overall but you forgot to mention that the reason for big game launches are flopping is due to the fact that they are utterly complete unfinished products that play exactly like their competition. This trains the customers to not expect much but pay more for detreating quality, which is what the current landscape is, a feedback loop of sad.

Some of the best games I played are single-player, without micro-transaction, and amazing in-game content - OG Halo, Insomniac's Spider-man, Horizon Zero: Dawn, Tomb Raider, Sub-nautica, Mirror's Edge, San Andreas, Unyarn, Haides (and so many great indies which I'm forgetting the names of). Thanks to these heroes on our side. And more power to them

It’s awful sad to see how stuff goes to thrash when the general public gets access. Look at RU-vid itself, with its mandatory “ad friendly content”, social media taking over everything, lack of variety due to companies milking “winning formulas” dry; Game companies noticing that the casual player is not demanding quality at all… it sucks.

Games companies have a marketing problem. They don't know what consumers want. They seek to satisfy investors before consumers, which is the goal of business, but it is actually against the investors' interests. That's because investors have trouble understanding the long term and understanding marketing and satisfying consumer demand, so they shoot themselves in the foot. The marketing department needs more power if these companies want to do better. Nintendo has better marketing than the rest, which is why their customers display loyalty; Nintendo knows how to make the games which are in demand. BotW, Odyssey, etc.

I feel like the analysis on AAA games near the beginning of the video is a bit off the mark. The problem with many of these "stinkers" is not that the company is investing huge amounts of money only to have their title bomb as if it's just customers not caring. The bigger issue is oversight by the companies themselves. They get so wrapped up in making as much money as possible, that they stop making a game and start making a product. For these stinkers, the idea is "make money first, make a game later." It's cynical and stupid, because naturally their games are going to fail, because they're trying to cobble a game together with paper clips and superglue and then sell it as a luxury product, which naturally results in people seeing through the façade and being mad at the result upon the game's release. There are tons of hugely expensive AAA titles that returned huge dividends. The way they do this is by making a good game first. Nobody would be happy if they bought something that was advertised under the Ferari brand, only to learn upon buying it that the brakes don't work, it has a hole in the fuel tank, or you need to pay a subscription for heated seats. Similarly, gamers are very aware that if a game is marketed as the best thing since sliced bread, it actually better be well made. If it's not well made (either intentionally or through raw incompetence), that's on the company, not on the consumer.

This is mostly a problem with AAA games. It's also been an issue since like EverQuest 2: developers and marketers (especially for publicly traded companies) are far too in love with graphical and cinematic achievements over game play. OooOooOOO look how pretty it is - but game play is buggy and less than engaging. Then some small team of independent developers or some little passion project department of a larger developer comes out with a gem out of no where with graphics from 5-10 years ago, and people eat it up. Just like big companies have trouble innovating and taking risk, big developers have trouble doing anything other than crunching the numbers for the highest projected ROI.

If the indie game industry says anything, it’s that games should have compelling gameplay not just be a series of cinematic trailers

This is yy no man sky's developers have my utmost respect,,despite the bad launch they pulled up their pants and fixed the game and added soooo much to it *FOR FREE*

Now go watch Nintendo make a great AAA title again and again with no microtransactions, no selling off technology, and relatively simple games. That's because they know the recipe and they know what a game should be at the end of the day. Good visual art (not graphics mind you), good music and rewarding gameplay with a cohesive story makes you hooked. They cater more to the end consumer and less to investors.

There is a big gaping hole in your analysis, and is the same thing that many AAA developers keep missing: new features are NOT the only thing that can "justify" a new game (using your words), and new features alone are usually not enough to make a good game (unless is something ground-breaking, and even then you have to be careful). A good story is often enough to carry a game on its own, if you don't botch the rest, and a stellar writing will make a classic of videogame out of a buggy mess (see the RPGs of old, for example). Books, films and TV series have had the same "features" for decades, but people keep enjoying them; the same applies for videogames.

Video games took all the issues in the film industry and was like “how do I make this worse?”

I also find it interesting that with the very few AAA releases that are supposed to make money as-is companies usually want home runs instead of singles, return has to be exponential, and if it isn't sequels and teams get cut.

The best games are still the ones where you have the feeling that the developers really want to play it themselves.

Loved watching you cover some gaming content. I’d definitely watch more like this. Thanks for the hard work!

6:15 - I think this is a really important point worth mentioning, that as time progresses the core game engine actually becomes much easier to use (bug fixes, security patches, better documentation, etc). That's how most mods come about, anyway. Plus, it's easier to write new code when your already have an existing framework to build off of.

It's confusing when you're talking about Rockstar and showing only GTA V footage saying how they released the last game 4 years ago. You should've also used some clips from their latest game which is Red Dead Redemption 2

I was starting to notice this the past few years since it was starting to feel like not as many good games were coming out each year. Might just be that I’m getting older and can’t find them, but I remember playing a ton of new and fun games just a few years ago

Excellent content as usual! Thanks for fixing the volume level of the background music, it is much better now that we can hear you talk 😀

Missed pretty hard on this one ngl. Games used to be measured based on how enjoyable and well made they were not purely on how profitable. It was always about trying to innovate and break new ground in order to deliver something the player has never experienced before. Even if that just meant perfecting an existing concept. Now its clearly driven by bottom line thinking, chasing trends, optimizing play time with shady mechanics and so on . (note there are a few exceptions to this in recent years etc PUBG ) Devs make fewer games becuase it far more risky to dev a bunch of new content on the hopes that it will generate an audience than to churn out some lifeless corpse of a game which ticks all the coporate boxes. Games used to be works of art. Now they are primarily treated as a product to push. Makes sense why it has turned out this way but that doesnt make it any less sad.

The problem with Success is that it's hard to beat the things you accomplished in the past. For a GTA6 to be created, it would need to be better than GTA5 and rdr2. Like a decade advanced then them. It's hard but not impossible. And the fact that GTA5 is still bringing millions of dollars even after 9 years makes it hard for rockstar to release GTA-6 etc.

In any software, there’s a sweet spot for number of engineers. Go under that sweet spot and it takes longer to build, but go over and the software becomes buggy and loses its most valuable asset; it’s soul.

another excellent video. I start thinking I can predict the video and by the end you always blow my mind and teach me 10+ things

I think we're seeing a lot more competition in the gaming industry. Digital distribution and crowdfunding models have dramatically lowered barriers to entry. There are far more games now for niche audiences made on smaller budgets, but there's enough money sloshing around that even a small studio can produce something that only a AAA studio would have been able to manage 10-15 years ago. So now these AAA games have to compete for customers who now have a lot more choice in what they play. It's like buying food at a supermarket, back then you'd only have a few varieties of each product, mostly by big name brands. Now you have dozens more by smaller producers, and you have more new products catering for niche tastes. The existing products are going to lose market share.

That’s a very interesting take on this! It indeed makes sense that as things become more complex, the maintenance cost skyrockets. CD Projekt learned that lesson the hard way. So I guess the current business model will be a thing until some innovation comes along that allows companies to profit without having to assume these huge projects.

the 1500 dollar per year for epic games is for non-game project that want in depth support and help from the Epic staff, if you just wanna make a game and ship it, it's just the 5% royalties you pay.

Another phenomenal video. You put out gem after gem

Love the video, the DJ Khaled reference at the end killed me, I used to play that song on repeat and did not expect to see it clipped here

You got a lot of points right about the trend towards live service games, but that's definitely not the whole picture. There are definitely more games getting released now than ever, and many AAA developers still rely on box sales for money. Notably, EA Sports and the CoD franchise use both new releases and microtransactions, contrary to your point in the video about GTA. Also, the meteoric rise of indie games has transformed the bottom half of the industry and has pushed AAA devs towards a higher-end niche.

AAA game companies need to realize that fancy expensive technology does not always equal fun

One of your best. Well done.

Always interesting, thank you.

Okay you make a few good points. But they way you phrase certain things make it seem like your putting blame on the consumer when a game fails for not working. That’s not on the consumer. If a company can’t make a game that works on day one then that game deserves to fail. Regardless of the potential it has. That’s on the company not the consumer. Cp77 anthem fallout 76 etc where complete unplayable messes from day one and months afterwards. Games are not risky these days. They have always been a risk. But why would a big company take that risk when they already have a cash cow out there. I’ll use gta as an example,.. but my point is. As long * as your game works as advertised and is made with love and passion it will be well received. I’ll use stray as an example for that. Your reason for why developers don’t make games is overly complicated and you actually mentioned the reason at the start of the video. It’s micro transactions. No matter what argument you bring to the table it will always be micro transactions. Because why actively create something when you can passively generate money from a game your current developers didn’t even work on originally. Again I’ll use gta as an example

It's almost like....we don't need a 300 million dollar game...we just need something fun XD

I think the issue with many companies is mindset. Games should be a medium to tell a story similar to a book or movie, instead they focus to much on research & development as they believe cutting edge technology is what the consumers want. We dont want cutting edge for the most part, we just want well built, give your software engineers time to finish the project well, don't market the game as near complete if it's not then be pressured to release an unfinished product. Why invest all that time & money just to push it put 10% sooner then end up with a flop & bad publicity, just put in the extra time to make sure the game is good. Also optimize your stuff, you don't need 100 GB games, all of Oblivion was about 4-5 GB, all that content, quests, heck even the hours of voice recordings were all able to to fit in such a small package. This is why goal oriented task are better for development workplaces, lots of people think more code is better when it's the complete opposite. I want the least amount of code possible without making it ugly so that another programmer can just look at it & understand what its suppose to do without notes, the goal isn't to fit it on a boot sector lol. But making an efficient program is hard, it takes time & mental energy because there are SO many ways to accomplish the same task when dealing with more abstract goals. Okay it's not hard, but it's more work yet despite its immense value, adding features & content is always at the front of the list even though optimizing the existing game can provide fat more value to many players with less powerful hardware & broaden your target customers.

Many game studios don't make money on the sales of the game, they make money on building a game for a publisher. It's like a housing contractor, they just build the house, the owner sells it.

Games have always been an industry driven by greed. Once a new format or mechanic is found profitable it is repackaged with different stories and copied by others until it’s oversaturated and done to death. Every decade is defined by one big thing. Micro transactions are just another version of DLC that has been a staple in the industry since the 1990s. Also, we just lived through two long years of being stuck at home, so it’s no wonder these big companies made insane money in their online games. Not sure there needs to be a black and white take on this. These companies are big enough to invest in both their online games and self contained adjacent games as I’m not sure the audiences are even the same.

It's crazy that games like where on the N64 could be made so dang easily now but nobody really does it. Honestly they can keep their hyper realism 1000+ hour games. Just give me a bunch of games with low poly graphics that are fun and I can actually have a hope of finishing in a reasonable amount of time.

Did you get an editor? Because the improvement shows

Call of duty: “hold my beer”…

I have a copy of the original Halo that all lives in a single executable. I can play it on my PC without installing it. It works so well and is such a blast to play.

Improvment tip: equalize the volume of the sound. In some parts at the beginning sound volume is lower and in some it is higher

This is kinda misrepresenting a lot. AAA releases of big IP are slowing down significantly, but many of the studios mentioned, R* CDPR, Bethesda, Bungie/343 industries have actually been releasing pretty consistently throughout the last 10 years. AAA games take 3-5 years to make these days, and those studios have multiple IPs and tend to only have a single major project on the go at any one time. R* put aside GTA for a bit and made RDR 1 & 2, now GTA 6 is in development, Bethesda have largely shifted to publishing, but still made fallout 4 and are working on project starfield, Bungie made a couple of Halos and destiny's, then decided they didn't want to make games any more and torpedoed their reputation with anthem, CDPR made the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk, and are already working on their next project. Developers didn't stop developing games in the 2010s just because GTA V and Skyrim proved single titles could have very long shelf lives, they just diversified and slowed down releases of IP popular enough to sustain that kind of longevity. What we saw instead was a handful of significant developers bench their best IP and bring out new stuff. And really, we're utterly glossing over the mainstay periodic releases here, CoD, Battlefield, Fifa, Ubisoft jiminy cockthroat, have all had pretty frequent releases in the last little bit. Those guys saw no need whatsoever to stop releasing the annual update, they just shoehorned in some extra mtx and kept going.

Honestly, all the crap Sims 4 is displaying just made me go start playing the Sims 2 for the first time ever. No regrets. So....congrats to them. No more money from me, ever. And that wouldn't be a big loss, but I know I'm not the only one.

Back then, Quality Content was essential to advertise when making Video Games, companies had more variety when getting talented developers on board providing aesthetic and substance to master their craft, but with the change of both management and monetary value, it doesn't have personal touches like they normally used to. 😔

When mobile gaming entered the market everything started to escalate quickly. I mean, we were already headed towards the SERVICES direction but the mobile industry accelerated the process. And I am sure this applies to pretty much everything nowadays (BMW subscription model to have your seats heated pops to mind) Not just Video Games.

All the examples you provided of triple A games flopping weren't due to them launching with a bunch of features that didnt work, they flopped because they were rushed out the door once they reached a minimum viable product. I would argue the success of games like Elden Ring prove there is a profitable market for artistically driven and well crafted games, but these companies are satisfied with profitable, they want all of our money and they want it all the time.

here is the main problem nobody seems to be brings up. the insane production costs are mainly due to the top 10 highest payed people in the company earn over 80 percent of the entire company's payroll. add in the public stock market trading and the company having to turn a profit every single quarter that is unsustainable. then the problem of nepotism where people who are not gamers making the final decisions on feature that gamers might want. when a indie developer can make a playable and enjoyable game with a few grand and less than 10 people succeeds and battlefield 2042 when released would often crash on launch fails. it's everyone in the company that doesn't actually program the game that's the problem.

I usually like this channel alot but I feel like this one wasn't very well researched and almost disgustingly apologetic for the companies that make these big releases. Almost every named example provided are infamous in their own way. Cyberpunk was rushed out the door when it clearly wasn't ready, and gameplay was actively held back for previous gen consoles so people wouldn't know what they were buying. Reportedly some of the glitch problems can be attributed to the QR testing company they used being mostly new and having a really crappy quota system. None of those factors are the buyers fault. Battlefield 2042 was also rushed out to meet the other 2 FPS big shots Halo and COD at the same time, before they even showed us gameplay. It's rightfully burning, meanwhile Battlefield 5 and even 1 are being played more. Halo Infinite is only now getting features (co op campaign being an example) that were shipped with the games back in the day. And what's worse is that they know people aren't playing Infinite, so now they're throwing microtransactions into the MC Collection so they can make their money back. The older COD community has been trying for years to shake the yearly release schedule, as the games are not even that functional upon release and take months to get to where they should be at launch. But we know that these games are always pushed to make that fall/Christmas quarter look good for the company and investors. Up until now COD has stuck to that yearly release schedule because they know they can make more money by using the games as a service method, without regard for their employees or their customers I'm not even going to bring up the vast array of scandals over at Activision Blizzard. I also loved how Gta was mentioned but not the "definitive version" of the older games released recently that was a laughing stock nor was it brought up how Red Dead Online was left out to die despite the main game being fantastic because GTA online makes so much money. Putting huge amounts of money into games is only a "risk" (to use the video's own word) if they don't follow through on truly making a solid, functioning, and enjoyable game. Fact remains is that nearly every example noted are terrible examples because each one had clearly visible flaws during development and are pushed out to make that quick buck and to milk consumers for what they're worth. To me, monetary input doesn't always make great games, but well designed, tested, and products made from passion do. If the big companies want to dump x amount of cash into a project only to mess it up themselves, why should we be to blame? That's on them. And as companies, they should be able to reflect back on a project and realize what they did wrong. But they don't because they want that money and will blindly think they're on the right track. A company lives or dies by its product or service. If it's not quality, then people won't spend or there will at least be a tipping point when it comes to sales. Of course these points have little to do with the smaller companies and your points on them, but most of this video seemed to miss the point on why these products hadn't hit the mark. Doesn't matter how much is spent: it matters if the product is quality or not. And no consumer should feel bad for not making these crappy companies more money. Ghost of Tushima and Elden Ring did fantastic, and are now celebrated. Idk how much money went into them but as i said it shouldn't matter. They are widely believed to be great games and the market/consumers acted accordingly. Videogames should be treated as any other product. I'm sorry but this particular video made me so mad I just had to point this out.

You just gotta dig deeper. Move away from the AAA game studios and try games made by smaller developers. Yes, those games might not be graphically hyper realistic or carry a big name franchise, but usually they're not burdened with over-hyped marketing, sky-high expectation. Ditch the big name franchises if they've stopped being interesting, support smaller game developers with unique ideas.

Love the little skit at the end with the plain bagle shout out

The few triple AAA games that I am excited for include Stalker 2, Maybe GTA 6, and Resident Evil VIII. A far cry from the days gone when every game would have little punk me visiting the nearest gaming cyber cafe.

DLC rakes in the cash. It’s frustrating. I liked the old way 😞

It's funny hearing the same people complain that GTA6 hasn't been released yet, or that there is no single player DLC for GTA5 or RDR2, but they still keep paying to play GTA online.

Great content great good job really appreciated it .. only thing i could add was as a kids of the 90s first person shooters went from Doom to Bond007 golden eye then to Halo again only leaving a comment in the hope it helps your channel

Very informative

This is why I only play single player offline games, no matter how old they are. Safe from being milked by the company, and saves me the headache of keeping up with the latest titles. Plus, I got tons of games to go through and have the chance to really enjoy each game.

So you weren’t going to mention the fact that all of the games you used in your examples are unfinished pieces of shit?

I really like your videos. But you should really think changing the music in the background; it's annoying and loud. Other than that, great content 👌

dude that project management app actually looks good lol. gna try it out at work

I work with major studios on very large projects yet I somehow keep playing old retro games from things such as RetroPie or from Chinese knock off mini platforms like pandora box. The attraction is simplicity and the fact that there is no need to keep sinking money into the game. I played MMOG for a while but when I saw that more and more you had to buy your way into beating your opponents, I tuned out.

Cyberpunk 2077 was actually a financial hit. It sold 18 million copies in 2020 and 2021 alone. I think you were only thinking of the 2020 sales which would equate to about 250 million like you said. Just a minor error

Hey mate, please make sure to bring down the bg music next time, and consider normalising volume on the clips (some of the interviews et al are too quiet)

14:03 Unfortunately? It just sounds like we're going back to the PS2 era where mid size games are made to be sold through their innovation rather than brand name.

well if they made quality products eventually the sales will catch up, so its up to them, they chose to not make good games

4:06 That is not true in a slightest. Cyberpunk was released in 2020 and only on pre-orders they made around 8 million sales. Considering the initial price of $60, it would add up to almost $500 million gross, even before sales started.

As a matter of fact, all of the entertainment industry went into decline, not just gaming. Each year movies and songs deteriorated. Many of them are low quality. And far from satisfying viewers and listeners.

Great video!

I didn't do the research but I do feel that AAA games publishers that implement microtransaction tend to not develop new games to replace the current one, except FIFA and 2K I guess. It is true the risk of a new AAA game is way too high, but releasing no games are mostly due to secondary revenue overtaking the sales of games, be it DLC or services. What makes games considered AAA are pretty subjective too. Animal Crossing, Pokemon, DQ, CK3, Civ probably fit the definition of triple A, but they don't necessarily appeal to most gamers, or perceives as triple A, or appeal to the general public like CoD. Maybe we could include that into the data set to get a better idea.

14:00 - "big budget games are going to become less and less common" THANK GOD. I'm so exhausted from all these AAA+ studios and their publishers pushing mediocre "product" just because they have to hit some earnings forecasts. Getting the investor class out of the gaming industry as much as possible is the only way to move forward with new good games made by folks who actually care about trying new systems, new mechanics, new stories and new settings. Pressure from investors + capital ultimately corrupts and stunts artists from doing great, profitable work .... because they're always being pushed to maximize profit in as short a time frame as possible vs making great products that happen to be profitable as a byproduct of being GOOD WORK. I've been primarily buying indie games for almost 2y now bc the majority of the work product being pushed through Big Game these days is clearly rushed and lacking any soul/passion.

I'm really happy you put Sonic Adventure on the thumbnail.

Why do you do the analysis if there are reliable Cross Staking platforms such as Cross Staking?

I wrote a complete plot to “Half Life 3” in my head while taking a one hour walk every day since Covid began

Another big problem with 'competing with old games' is that often the entire original team that made a franchise is gone and the approach is not "design and create a new, amazing thing", it's "bring back halo" when the team doesn't even seem to prioritize understanding why halo was good or how it was made good. There's a handful of franchise reboots where the studio brags "we got people to write this who HATE this franchise" as if it's a guarantee of innovation when it in fact means you end up with something only related to an original, beloved product by name. Halo: Infinite did not 'need' 100 voice actors. Voice actors are incredibly important, of course, but it doesn't take 100 voice actors to successfully make something like Halo. These days, when a game goes over a certain budget, it just feels like an indicator that the main character's skin is going to have realistically rendered pores, that the game will cost 70 dollars, and that there's going to be an option to buy $15 worth of some extra currency or "great value" skin pack the second you start playing. In general, blockbuster game titles have not innovated on the behalf of the consumer in a decade.

I can see why game companies stop making alot of games anymore and great video man :]

One way AAA games can jusity their relevance apart from features and graphics is story. Last of Us 1 & 2 had minor feature differences but people play them mostly because of their love for the story. This is specifically for story driven games.

And on today's episode of "Why retro gaming is on the rise"

great video!

I remember watching my friends play resident evil on the ps1 we would turn the lights off n play and it was such an experience that was in 1999 playing super Mario 64 , golden eye , tekken

not hmw´s best work to say the least

Making video games was all about a passion for being able to control your imagination in real life. Making money was the least of your problems because you know if you made something with passion and love, the money would follow.

Growing up as a kid in the early 2000's I would always get excited about new games every year but when the next gen Xbox one in early 2010's came out games never were the same and always felt rushed. Assassin's creed Black Flag is probably the last best game I have ever played and almost everything after that felt boring. Stories felt short and multiplayer felt empty. All multiplayer is now a few missions here and there and some side objectives. I remember when you could play every aspect of story campaign games with your friends, and it was an amazing experience to share. Also, DLC's need to be free and in game purchases need to disappear. Fortnite is the worst about this and there really isn't a way to earn the characters you have to pay for and yes you are having to pay and then grind to unlock the characters you paid for in battle pass.

I don't really the freemium model or microtransactions, but devs doing things like running stores and allowing people to license their engine is GREAT for the community

Gaming Industry Problem = Greed & the pitfalls of Capitalism, how much is enough etc. Thankfully, there's still gamers like me who would love a creatively made Indie game like Subnautica. On my Rig (RTX 3060Ti), I am playing Avernum 3 now (which requires a Pentium 2 400MHz) & I feel great how immersive it is.

nintendo barely ever makes buggy messes the companies just need to be ok whith delaying projects that is normally the problem

There's also the fact that no major technology upgrades have happened as of late (thought it might change with Unreal Engine 5).

Hey my guy, do a FROMsoft vs. western game companies profit and how that game beat out all its prior games with sales!

The gaming industry has many factors today that ails it. One of the biggest is the predatory acquisitions big and medium-sized studios make, like Activision, EA, or even 343 Industries. This studios are profit-driven, and they acquire smaller studios that are more passion-driven, more creative and riskier. And while most of these small studios' games never get to the big leagues, some stars arise, like The Sims, Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, Minecraft, PUBG, GTA saga, Fortnite, Halo, Rocket League, etc. Most of these games are quite simple at the beginning, don't overwork everything and don't toss tons of millions before launch, in fact, they get the basics done and slowly build the game's complexity over time once launched, they don't anticipate too much, they just grow naturally over time, either with updates or new releases. This helps keep the expectation factor and the game alive. On the hands of bigger profit-driven studios, incompetent C-level executives will look for ways to satisfy investors in the short term, and consumers will be squeezed as much as possible without losing them. This kills creativity and true innovation. Similar strategy to Apple's. Another problem I see is that competition is growing at a very fast rate. Lots of games, lots of consoles, a lot of supply, and what about the demand? The consumers only have a limited time to play every week, and as the generations grow, if a developer takes so long to launch a game, their target audience might be out of range, maybe they entered college, they now have a job, or even kids. New generations come, of course, but we all have different taste and background. The passion of the community is another factor that launches games to the sky. Remember the rise of RU-vid gaming by the 2009-2012? There was a lot of people truly passionate about the new games. Call of Duty, GTA V, Destiny, Minecraft, Fortnite, LoL, where some of the games that left a mark on the community. RU-vid policies and strategy has changed a lot and you can see the impact in the gaming community. RU-vid, again, is profit-driven, and will promote videos that give them more money. It doesn't matter if it's a clickbait, or a 10 minute video with 75% trash, if it makes money, it goes. RU-vid is a very competitive platform internally and externally. Users only have a limited amount of time a week to watch videos, and that time is shared with other platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Lots of supply, what about the demand? The good old days are gone. However, there are still some good games that we can enjoy with our friends without falling into the microtransaction trap or buying the trend big studios create on the games. It will, of course, eventually end. But remember that when an order falls, a new order arises. And when all this studios fail and start dying, a new generation of gaming content will arise. The equilibrium between consumers and developers will be recovered. And this new generation will be far more exciting than this one.

There was a saying around early 2016ish that is even more true today: "Companies used to make games, now they make money"

Play old games or games for previous years I'm sure there are plenty of overlooked games from past years I got like over 100 games on stream , epic , u play and origin that I haven't played

It's even worse because big companies are buying out small companies preventing them from making games as well.