This seems like a natural evolution of the market: a period of expansion followed by saturation and contraction. And there can be no doubt that we have hit a saturation point. There has been an absolute explosion in the number of games available, largely because platforms like Steam have simplified the logistics of distribution tremendously.
On the positive side for small developers, if you look at which games are rated “overwhelmingly positive” on Steam, the vast majority are not high-end graphic-intensive AAA games. There is a huge market for lighter, innovative games that can run on a cheap laptop. For every massive Cyberpunk type games in my collection, I have three Stardew Valley, Caves of Qud, and Undertale type games.
As I get older I find I just don’t even have the time for AAA games. Other than Elden Ring, I haven’t played a AAA game in goodness knows how long. 80-100 hours of playtime is basically a year-long commitment.
I love that there are so many indie games that offer a more compact experience and seem easier to put down and pick back up. Much more my speed these days.
I agree though that we’re at a point of oversaturation. Steam is full of shovelware and barely discernable clones of crafting-survival games. But I hope the studios doing interesting work are able to survive this period so we can continue to benefit from their creativity.
I want to take all the fun out of making games.
I mean, personally it just feels like there’s too many games. And consequently too many game studios.
On top of that, the cleft between the production value of a triple-A game and anything not that is gotten so big that the moment you aren’t some Call of Duty or Dragon Age or something, you might as well be a 1-person hobby project that as a result has no need to keep making money as it can trivially just go at whatever pace it wants. Add that it’s not uncommon to make the vast majority of your money via an unfinished game that you can then leave unfinished so you can reduce costs while making most of the money, and you got a recipe for disaster for any A or AA development studios wanting to scrape by.
You basically got to have your own little reliable niche, while also being lean enough so you can make games with extremely little cost per game. Hence everyone turning to mobile, where exactly that MO has become established.
It helps to make games people actually want. I know that seems obvious, but so many game studios just make games that are fine, but are not exactly inspired.
This applies for computer games as well.
Just saying “just make a game that people actually want” doesn’t really help.
What I mean is don’t make 48 Assassin Creed games. They’re fine of course but when was the last time you were actually excited by one?
Even if they did, those inspired games can get lost and fail to find their audience in the sea of games that are fine.
I don’t have numbers on this, but I’ll bet the percentages on mobile studios struggling financially are even worse.
Plus, there may be too many games, but I’ll put an asterisk on there that there are too many long games. When so much of it is designed to keep you coming back to this one particular game over and over again, there’s less room in your life for other games that you otherwise would have been willing to buy. I’ve got a list of 14 games that came out this year or have release dates this year that I’m interested in getting around to still, on top of the 8 games that I’ve already started or finished, plus another 8 that are expected to come out this year but don’t have release dates yet…and I’m still going to spend a few hundred hours across three different fighting games that I’ve been playing for years.
I mean when trash like Stray and Dave the Diver gets acclaimed as “indie” games, it’s no surprise actual indie devs are straggling.
Dave the diver is great, why didn’t you like it?
It’s a game about diving that halfway through adds a bunch of minigames that make you not need to dive.
But the diving portion of it had you do minigames to capture fish also?
Did you not like that part too?
That’s the best part! Which is why it’s weird the game is bloated with other systems and minigames that pull you away from what shoulb be the core of it: diving.
Damn I hate having options
