Consultant and experienced developer Rami Ismail has shared his thoughts on the state of the games industry, while expressing some fears and concerns. He tried to outline the issues of the existing system where funding decides what gets made.
I can’t agree with this article because Itch.io exists and is thriving. The indie scene in the last decade has exploded with titles that easily rival the fun of a triple A game. People do tend to centralize, but why would that stop all the indie devs who make these great games with a passion? Like Rain World, Heroes of Hammerwatch, Crab Champions, Caves of Qud, Castle Crashers, and many other unmentioned titles would actually stop because a Triple A studio made a game. Turn-based RPGs have been releasing long before BG3 and they’ll be releasing long after Larian has been ship-of-thesues’d into a different studio.
I think the point is not that Itch.io doesn’t exist. The thesis is that the people with money who decide where budgets go and which games receive marketing investment are now less likely to give funding or commercial attention to alternative ventures that don’t meet the BG3 bar. See the point about asking developers to be poor martyrs for the love of the craft. That’s not how professional development works, and he is right, that people need to eat, pay for families, rent. And the fuckers with the money won’t invest on anything that doesn’t make billions of dollars. All those games you mention are creative masterpieces and receive critical acclaims and prizes. But their sales are eclipsed by the horrible MTX riddled unethical money grabs. The truth of the matter is that patient gamers, indie lovers, etc. We are a minority. The gross share of the video game audience cares not. The money goes there, mobile realized this ages ago, the average idiot will rather splurge into a microtransactions, broken unfinished releases, battle passes, dubious premium exclusive versions, day one DLC, etc. The truth of the matter is that integrity and ethics are categorically not what brings profit in this industry.
This, it’s upsetting true. Too much money goes to dead end microtransaction hell. Frankly don’t know the solution since the people paying for these shit practices aren’t us.
Typed out a whole thing because I didn’t really agree with you that it’s not just the people up top, but also this perpetual growth, zero sum game most C-suite level people seem to think the world operates on.
Most of my points ended up agreeing with you, but I do want to add that profit seeking isn’t a bad thing, but that the constant desire for more profit, ‘growth’ is where the real evil lies.
You seem to think that they are different problems but infinite growth and profit above all, are both faces of the same problem. A company that tries to make profit through creative endeavors is fine. After all, people do need to eat and have a roof over their heads. They should make money in exchange for the intense and hard effort that art demands. Specially video games as one of the most expensive and complex forms of art ever devised by humans. But the top AAA companies are not in it for the art, some developers who work for them still believe in the art, and executives exploit that passion because they know it makes workers willing to crunch and work too many hours for too low payment. When profit is the only reason and the art gets lost, then there’s only one way to move forward, you have to grow indefinitely. For growth quarter after quarters means that profit gets bigger and bigger every time, for maximization of profit is above all. In the end it is the same mindset.
I can’t agree with this article because Itch.io exists and is thriving. The indie scene in the last decade has exploded with titles that easily rival the fun of a triple A game. People do tend to centralize, but why would that stop all the indie devs who make these great games with a passion? Like Rain World, Heroes of Hammerwatch, Crab Champions, Caves of Qud, Castle Crashers, and many other unmentioned titles would actually stop because a Triple A studio made a game. Turn-based RPGs have been releasing long before BG3 and they’ll be releasing long after Larian has been ship-of-thesues’d into a different studio.
I think the point is not that Itch.io doesn’t exist. The thesis is that the people with money who decide where budgets go and which games receive marketing investment are now less likely to give funding or commercial attention to alternative ventures that don’t meet the BG3 bar. See the point about asking developers to be poor martyrs for the love of the craft. That’s not how professional development works, and he is right, that people need to eat, pay for families, rent. And the fuckers with the money won’t invest on anything that doesn’t make billions of dollars. All those games you mention are creative masterpieces and receive critical acclaims and prizes. But their sales are eclipsed by the horrible MTX riddled unethical money grabs. The truth of the matter is that patient gamers, indie lovers, etc. We are a minority. The gross share of the video game audience cares not. The money goes there, mobile realized this ages ago, the average idiot will rather splurge into a microtransactions, broken unfinished releases, battle passes, dubious premium exclusive versions, day one DLC, etc. The truth of the matter is that integrity and ethics are categorically not what brings profit in this industry.
This, it’s upsetting true. Too much money goes to dead end microtransaction hell. Frankly don’t know the solution since the people paying for these shit practices aren’t us.
The solution is to not buy or play those games. It’s so easy too. I don’t play bad games all the time.
FOMO is literally a cancer in the gaming community.
Typed out a whole thing because I didn’t really agree with you that it’s not just the people up top, but also this perpetual growth, zero sum game most C-suite level people seem to think the world operates on.
Most of my points ended up agreeing with you, but I do want to add that profit seeking isn’t a bad thing, but that the constant desire for more profit, ‘growth’ is where the real evil lies.
You seem to think that they are different problems but infinite growth and profit above all, are both faces of the same problem. A company that tries to make profit through creative endeavors is fine. After all, people do need to eat and have a roof over their heads. They should make money in exchange for the intense and hard effort that art demands. Specially video games as one of the most expensive and complex forms of art ever devised by humans. But the top AAA companies are not in it for the art, some developers who work for them still believe in the art, and executives exploit that passion because they know it makes workers willing to crunch and work too many hours for too low payment. When profit is the only reason and the art gets lost, then there’s only one way to move forward, you have to grow indefinitely. For growth quarter after quarters means that profit gets bigger and bigger every time, for maximization of profit is above all. In the end it is the same mindset.