Yeah, way too many games are releasing for anyone to keep up, play or buy. Which is an issue that meeting customers where they are (mostly mobile) can do nothing but help.
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It will take me at least half…maybe most…of next year just to play what is coming out in October, let alone the rest of this year or next.
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I’m buying 5 games a week, day one or on sale, and I’m able to play half of them…
There’s just too many good games releasing every week that it’s impossible to keep up. Every game is also extremly engaging, some with online aspects and transformative updates, that it’s hard to get back a few months later. But I keep buying games because we have so many innovative and creative games right now in so many genres, that’s it’s just so good to find another gem to play every week.
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This is where Game Pass comes in handy.
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Or it adds up to the pile… 
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Don’t agree that you can have too many games. Take issue with how long most games go on for It is getting silly in games like Metaphor
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Metaphor is actually shorter than Persona imo, as it took me about twice as much time to beat Persona 5 Royal(160 hrs) as it did Metaphor.
That’s without achivement completion for both, as it’s rare for me to want to do that.
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It’s definitely a thing, but I rather have that than the alternative.
That’s for damn sure.
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I guess the true victim of this case is the publisher themselves. It’s like who will be the TitanFall 2 if you know what I mean.
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It’s preferable, but it keeps on increasing the discoverability issue. Game Pass alone just isn’t enough on Xbox, much less on PC to get all those games in front of people to play(mostly because it doesn’t have a bigger sub count/audience).
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I think the problem is much more complicated than that, games like Dead Space and Alan Wake 2 for example both got great reviews (with metascores lower than what they deserved IMO though) both were marketed well enough and in the case of AW2 it even got the spotlight as one of the GOTY nominees at the TGA and still both games didn’t do well enough even if their budgets were smaller than your typical AAA big title. You could argue that the 80 euro price for Dead Space was a bad decision that impacted the sales but in the case of AW2 the game was 60e and still didn’t sell as well as it should have…
So yeah the 80e/$70, newer generations not caring about the 99.9% of videogames out there because they only play the big black hole GAAS games, the fucked up global economy and to a certain degree the discoverability issue are all big parts of the struggle/difficulties that a lot of publishers/developers are facing nowadays even though the overall quality of software is relatively high.
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Unfortunately there is whole lot of people that even if they heard of Alan Wake 2, they would forget about it as soon as they would fail to find it on Steam.
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To add to this particular issue, is the greed that some, not all, studios and publishers are showcasing in the price increases towards there own titles or hardware. Its annoyaing to say the least.
Meanwhile, indie games are thriving more revenue than even some big AAA titles nowadays.
Also in the case of black hole GAAS, something tells me we are going to see a decrease in GAAS in the future although that is just an instict at the moment and i have no solid prove in this regard.
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Software and hardware getting more expensive are definitely big problems and they may affect negatively the industry even more going forward. Totally agree on the AA/indie thing too, this year I’ve bought way more AA/indie titles than AAA and the lower prices paired with high quality too are definitely a big part of that, cheaper games definitely have a good chance to shine even more with the very high price points of AAA. Thankfully Xbox has Game Pass and we can play all the big releases without paying 80e for every game.
Sadly I am not that optimistic that we’ll see a decline in the GAAS space in the future, they definitely steal all the oxygen (time/money) in the room (industry).
As a console gamer I don’t understand the whole store loyalty in the PC space but you are right that being an Epic exclusive affected the sales of the game, that being said the game was funded by Epic so the excuse of not supporting Sweeny’s moneyhats shouldn’t apply in AW2’s case.
Agreed. Between August 12th and November 14th, I had/have the following -
- 08/12 - Echoes of the End
- 08/29 - Lost Soul Aside
- 09/02 - Metal Eden
- 09/04 - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants (expansion)
- 09/12 - Borderlands 4
- 09/19 - Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji (expansion)
- 09/19 - Dying Light: The Beast
- 10/02 - Ghost of Yotei
- 10/10 - Battlefield 6 (campaign)
- 10/21 - Ninja Gaiden 4
- 10/28 - The Outer Worlds 2
- 10/31 - Arc Raiders
- 11/14 - Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
11 games and 2 expansions. It’s freaking nuts!!!
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Not an immediate issue for consumers, but oversaturation is a real problem for the overall industry. When this many games release at once (especially high quality expensive games) AND we’re in the era of forever games, then discoverability takes a big hit. Even then consumers just can’t buy all these games. It becomes harder for games to succeed in the market and what we’re seeing is publishers and developers choosing to address this issue by making more expensive games or overpromising or cutting corners to release faster. And if these games fail then that’s a big blow to the entire studio. Part of the issue can really be seen in the console market where there’s not many new consumers, so it falls on existing consumers to buy, pay, and spend more to keep things afloat.
It’s an interesting issue: As a consumer I agree that it’s not a problem, because from my perspective we’ve been getting some of the best games ever. It might even be a result of increased competition, and we’re also seeing a more inclusive approach to game releases because of the need to reach more audiences. That’s all great. But as a pragmatic person I just have to wonder how sustainable things are if we keep doing this.
I find it just too long… Happy with 20 to 40 hours worth of a game
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Yeah I’m really curious where this will all eventually lead. It seems evident that at least as far as “traditional” AAA big budget games go, the supply outweighs the demand right now and that will have to get back in balance somehow.
Whether that means less games, games with smaller budgets, or different kinds of games, is hard to guess.
It seems like in some ways the console video game industry has been predicated on the idea that the audience will keep growing infinitely. Scope, budgets, the price of consoles, the number of studios, developers, and games could just keep getting bigger every year. If all of those things reach an upper limit of sustainability, then what?
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I’d rather have too much than too little
The biggest concern people should have is the cost of hardware increasing. They’ll price the casual audience out eventually. Which will result in even fewer sales and then the price of games will increase
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