The State of Gaming in 2021

[Oniya]

This popped up on Firefox's 'Pocket' whosimawhatsit, and the article seemed applicable:

Short version:  Blizzard online gaming has dropped a buttload of users since the Activision news came out.  Not terribly clear if it's all WoW related, but some major names have announced that they will no longer be promoting WoW.

[BlueOrange]

Yesterday, my former business partner signed (at my request) the official paperwork to dissolve the game company we founded together. I’ve worked for a major game studio (in a junior role), and I have a number of game industry friends. The woman who blew the lid off the over-sexualization of professional events at GDC worked for me briefly before going to work for a AAA studio. (She’s awesome, happy, and deserves all of her success.) So those are my credentials.

My tldr assessment is this: there are very serious problems, and there’s good reasons to be optimistic.

For instance, the complaint about oversexy professional events was taken very seriously by the company that received the complaint (which wasn’t Blizzard), and my trusted source assures me that things have improved when it comes to that company.

Consider also the successful campaign (by female staff) to have a female protagonist in Assassin’s Creed.

There are bad companies out there (and Blizzard is bad) out there, but they’re being punished (intermittently, unreliably) in the marketplace. People want good products, and it’s very easy to get affordable distribution in today’s world. If you build a good product and market it well, the money is there.

There’s also an extreme oversupply of independent content, and employment conditions in independent studios are frequently worse than they are in AAA studios (even though I believe all the stories about AAA, I can assure you there’s always an independent who did something worse: don’t forget that Gamergate was sparked by false accusations made by an independent studio head).

Most of the time, good games will sell well enough to keep their creators in business. Truly bad games (the sort most people outside the industry never see) will fail, and games that don’t meet the expectations of the market (which might not be objectively ‘bad’) will also get punished.

Running a studio is terrifying, and if I had a major title that I relied on to pay the bills, I would absolutely be terrified of offending my existing customers. The more money involved in the production, the more reliable it needs to be at bringing in the cash.

But what we already have is an ecosystem analogous to movies and TV. The blockbusters are all the same, and the independent darlings are where the real creativity is. And occasionally, you get a surprise hit that restores people’s faith in the creativity of the artists. (And restores the artist’s faith in the tastes of the marketplace.)

The shape of the industry is unlikely to change from here on out. Some major studios will fall (and Blizzard deserves to be one of them). Others will rise. And some (like Square) will chug steadily along, putting out reliable product for an adoring section of the market.

Consider the TV and movies of the 1980s to what we got in 2020. The same forces are at work on the games industry, and I’d be stunned if they didn’t produce similar results.

[Tolvo]

Regarding indie studios doing harm, the example I often think of is the developers of Read Only Memories, MidBoss, with Matt Con at the head and Toni Rocca who were two people I met through twitter and one even took advantage of me. Who had all sorts of allegations come out and be proven, such as that Matt actually absconded with all of the money and paid none of the actual developers after convincing them to join as it was a new indie queer and trans studio led by queer and trans people, thus taking advantage of the queer and trans people they hired and screwing them over. As well as all the abuse Matt and Toni carried out on their employees and others. The current MidBoss basically tries to completely avoid ever mentioning this past or the former people in charge of the company. Matt now works on the new Earthworm Jim promoting it and has gone so far as to sneaking into cons to do interviews and promote the game because he is banned from many of them for being a sexual predator, which him sneaking in is known because they're on camera interviews. It should be mentioned they were also the founders of GaymerX.

[BlueOrange]

I wish I had some slight hesitation in believing that :( I’m sad you got screwed over :(

[Tolvo]

I didn't work for them, I was instead taken advantage of as a fan.