this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Wtf, this is the 3rd game studio shutting down this month.
Yep, it's been a trend all year. My studio got canned back at the end of January. Publisher called us into a studio-wide meeting scheduled during lunch with 1 hour of notice, only to say "The game you spent 6 years on is canceled and all 150 of you are fired. The media will know in 30 minutes, don't say anything until then if you want to keep a severance package." (I have since landed on my feet elsewhere.)
These studios are owned by big publishers and generally work for years at a loss. With the costs to borrow increasing, we're seeing cuts on long-term investments that might not make their money back (like movies and games).
Volition was owned by Embracer, which is now struggling with funding. So anything that isn't a sure bet is effectively canned - and in turn you see these studios shut down left and right, plus big layoffs from studios that are still open.
There's your problem. Hiring an entire team for 6+ years and then cancelling the project. That's hundreds of thousands, if not millions, down the drain.
The current AA / AAA gamedev industry isn't sustainable
That's all game development.
Baldur's Gate took 6 years to make. Starfield has been in development since 2015 - that's 8 years. As gamers demand more, games have grown in scope. The ones that stayed behind have gotten punished.
If a AAA game doesn't have at least 8 hours of story and realistic graphics in the modern era, it gets panned by reviewers. People's expectations have been raised - and are continuing to be raised - and in turn, that inflates how long it takes to make a game. People will say "Why should I spend $60 on this game when I can spend $60 on this game that gives me more stuff?" (See: Immortals of Aveum, which itself has been in development for 4-5 years.)
The games that don't take that long are the stale yearly franchises - the FIFAs and CODs of the world. Even COD alternates between studios, with each installment taking 1-3 years. Some franchises (like Pokemon) have multiple teams within a studio that operate independently of one another; Arceus was made by the Let's Go team, while Scarlet/Violet was made by the Sword/Shield team.
If studios stop betting on long-term projects, you're going to wind up with stale yearly iterations - or half-baked games rushed out the door to meet a deadline. If it's true that you say AAA (and even AA!) dev isn't sustainable, then that's effectively calling for stale franchises pushing out cheap content for quick cash grabs (see also: Hollywood movies over the last decade).
It's also not just games this is happening to. Disney recently canned a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea show that was ready to go. There's the Scooby-Doo stuff that Max recently pulled before release as well. That stuff isn't my industry; I don't know how long it takes to make those things... but I know it costs about as much to make as a AAA game does.
There's probably a reckoning to be had for both industries, but I don't think the correction should be that drastic - and I think it will be bad for people who consume that content.
I wish studios like Bethesda would adopt a more stylistic art style and games that were smaller in scope. I don’t need to explore 10 000 planets with realistic graphics. I just want a tight RPG with good world building.
I think this is the crux of the issue. There's been a trend for AAA to push for bigger and more ambitious games, which leads to long, expensive development cycles. But pretty much everyone who is passionate about gaming can point to a game that stuck with them not because it was huge and ambitious, but because it did one thing really well. Games don't have to be huge to be amazing.
With TV/movies that are made for streaming this seems to be some classic Hollywood accounting. They are taking the write-offs in the cancelled content, while keeping subscribers strung along with the promise of new projects. The question is how long until consumers stop buying it.