Is The Gaming Industry Dying?

Is Gaming dying?

Let me start this by saying, I love video games. They are, by far, my main entertainment. Every now and then I’ll log on and play Call of Duty - and then proceed to have my rear-end handed to me by a bunch of teenagers who have just discovered swearing, but I laugh it off and keep going. I will scream as the same Boss or tough enemy has killed me for the millionth time on, Elden Ring. And now that I finally have a PlayStation 5 I am in awe of the beauty of Demon’s souls. Yes, I played it when it came out but the evolution has me mesmerized! Between you and I, I called in sick so I could continue playing Spider-Man 2. I recently discovered that I have sunk 600 hours into Wareframe, I have been enchanted by games like, Cathrine and Hollow Knight.

I am a Gamer.

And yet while we are seeing beautiful and visually striking games a plenty, I fear for the gaming industry.

While I have named a few wonderful games, there are unfortunately and a lot more I can name that are… crushing.

While games like Anthem have a great premise is interesting and its gameplay should be a solid win, it was unfortunately sent out to die. It is rare that a game that clearly is not ready at lunch date is able to come back. No Man’s sky, the Daddy of Space Exploration Games, and Cyberpunk 2077, were games that were not ready and did a lot of damage to the game studios that released them - yet they did manage to claw their way.

Why were they able to do so and not games like Anthem - and I suspect the newest game failure, ‘Suicide Squad, killed the Justice League?’

Passion!

Passion started gaming and it is found throughout gaming. The people who actually make video games have a true passion for what they are doing. You simply can’t put in all the hours that the industry demands unless you have a true passion for gaming. This might be shown in your artwork, maybe you have this idea for fantastic gameplay and you know you can make it a reality. Maybe you want to tell a story and this is the best medium for your story, and when you get a team who share the same passion, this is how you get the most amazing games.

Now I know I am setting an odd tone here, but stay with me.

You don’t have to search too hard before you find damning after damning story highlighting the horrors that happen in the gaming industry - just search for, Bobby Kotick and you’ll get a glimpse of the type of evil that lurks in the industry.

The sad reality is, the people at the top of the game industry don’t have a passion for video games and in a lot of cases, a lot of them show ignorance with videos games or their predatory nature of, ‘we should be able to charge people for reloading a gun during a game’ - this was said in all seriousness by one of the higher-ups in one of the most prominent gaming studios.

The gaming industry is being destroyed not by the developers or the storytellers, but by those who only see money. The same group that kept screaming N.F.T.’s were the future but couldn’t explain what benefit it gives to us.

Looking at the Saint’s Row reboot - a game that should have just been stupid fun for the same of over-the-top stupid fun was destroyed not by game-play; although that did suffer as game studies force crunch hours and working conditions became deplorable as the studio wanted that return as quick as possible, but it failed due to the story. In a game franchise where a storyline was, I need to stop a missile there for I am not president - and oh yeah, aliens attacked so now we are in the Matrix and have superpowers!

The reboot ditched this silly charm and instead tried to put the focus of ‘friendship’ and ‘relationships.’ So what’s the problem with that? Well nothing at all, providing it’s not hollow and told as a way to just jump on a trend. When something is made with a passion, it shows, so too when something is made for nothing more than money - insert any yearly sports game.

We were able to tell that the story of Saint’s Row was the same as when big companies say for one month of the year that they celebrate the LGBT+ community.

Of course, they want all communities to buy from them and June sadly is not about support anymore, but just about marketing.

It is important to note that there are a number of smaller studios popping up. Those primarily responsible for the somewhat iconic Batman Arkham series have left the studio that produced the games - Rocksteady, are starting their own studio. The man behind the Metal Gear games famously - or rather infamously left the studio he had helped build up due to differences that couldn’t be resolved. Looking at what that studio has done since… yeah we can get a very strong indication as to what was going on behind the scenes.

Perhaps these smaller companies are able to save the industry that I have grown to love more than any other industry. We are at a time where games are seemingly uninhibited by our levels of technology- but hindered simply by the greed of those who don’t make the games, but own the names on the game box.

It’s easy to sum this up as, ‘Capitalism is bad,’ but that’s really not my point. People who have a passion and create amazing games should make money. They deserve it. No one is going to argue that Bob Dylan shouldn’t make money on his paintings, and in that respect, yes gaming companies should make money on the games they make. But we are seeing a lot of hollow games being pumped out with little more than, ‘Yeah they will buy this.’

The game industry is an industry built on dreams and passion. Remove just one of these and there is a real problem.

I fear for this industry, but I hope I am wrong.