You don't have to be a professional analyst to see that something is wrong with the gaming world today. Massive online titles with budgets that could have funded several lavish single-player games are being cancelled almost the moment they launch; projects well into development are being scrapped even before release; ultra-expensive games that have taken entire generations to develop are all too often receiving lukewarm reviews; gamers seem dissatisfied with AAA projects, and people are getting laid off left and right while iconic studios are shutting down.
Just the other day, we reported on Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who revealed that the budget for a AAA title today is at least $300 million, meaning that sales of six million units aren't even enough to turn a profit.
Now another veteran duo is weighing in on the gaming world, arguing that the situation today is actually worse than during the legendary Video Game Crash of 1983 (which even has its own Wikipedia page), during which the industry was on its knees for two years. More specifically, it's John and Brenda Romero who, in an interview with GamesIndustry, had Brenda saying:
"I feel like the industry's in a really horrible place. I mean, we were there in the 80s for the crash, and this is definitely crashier. There are so few people that have not been affected, or their partner's affected, or they're worried about being affected. It's a really difficult time right now."
John agrees with her and says that the situation right now is so unstable that it's hard to know where the gaming world is headed, pointing to a specific example of a bizarre development in the industry recently. He mentions that EA raked in a fortune on Battlefield 6, which sold "really, really well", but that didn't benefit the developers, since the reward for that success was a wave of layoffs. John sums it up:
"I don't understand what that's all about."
Nevertheless, both are convinced that people will continue to play games, but seem to believe that the major publishers are completely out of sync with their audience, citing the AI discussions as proof of this:
"This is really one of those times where I don't know. And you hear behind the scenes, there's tremendous push toward teams using generative AI, there's tremendous pushback from teams and from gamers about using generative AI..."
What's your take on this? Are the Romeros exaggerating, or is there a real crisis in the gaming world right now?