From the global RAM shortage driving up console prices to job loss in the industry, gaming is shaping up to be one of the AI boom's biggest casualties.
If this results in the AAA games industry dying and having a full reset in a couple years when this all blows over, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I don’t think indie games are going anywhere, so it’s not like we won’t have anything new to play, and AAA studios have just become so generally awful that there wouldn’t be any great loss there.
I mean, if the whole industry came to a stop tomorrow we still have hundreds of great (I’m talking about 8-10/10 games, not just good ones) games. And that is without resorting to emulation or replaying games.
I have played and enjoyed a lot of AAA games over the years. God of War, The Last of Us 1 & 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, the new DOOM games, Battlefield 6, and pretty much any other popular AAA game you can think of over the last five years. You know what my top games are in terms of playtime? Stardew Valley, Factorio, and Rimworld. And it’s not even close.
Sucks that a job in gaming is not a viable career anymore though. Only option left is you slave away as an indie dev and most likely make under 500 bucks in the end.
That’s kind of unsustainable as a form of income.
All the fun jobs are going away :( time to learn plumbing I guess.
They will be able to survive it far better than indies. They already wish they could push users to subscription and cloud gaming models, and I suspect this will drive the most predatory of the lot (EA) into acquiring their own PC rental programs. It will be an opportunity for them to sell you a packaged experience at a monthly subscription price. The indies that will survive will be those whose games don’t really have high hardware requirements, but the fan base isn’t the same.
Indie games can generally run on a potato, so they aren’t really affected by the hardware shortage.
And indie game devs aren’t being pressured to push out AI slop or be “made redundant” by someone more willing to sacrifice quality for speed.
90%+ of my gaming time is indie games in recent years. Very many of them are doing great. The coming market crash and recession from AI over-investment is going to affect all non-necessary spending, of course. But, even then, it’s a lot easier to justify a $5-20 game purchase when money is tight than $80+ for AAA games (not even counting hardware to run it!)
I literally don’t understand how you could possibly see how indie devs are losing out here. Nobody needs to buy the slop big studios are putting out. If EA is pushing out shit, then just skip eating the shit sandwich, maybe?
Did I miss your point? Or do you not know that indie games are making up an increasing share of gaming revenue?
Indie games can generally run on a potato, so they aren’t really affected by the hardware shortage.
So …
The indies that will survive will be those whose games don’t really have high hardware requirements, but the fan base isn’t the same.
Did I miss your point?
Yes.
Yes, largely because you can’t or don’t want to acknowledge the sort of fanbases they have. AAA have at 8x the market share that indies have, and their bases are more loyal predictable whales. They will be more willing to throw away money. People like you are more demanding with their money, are more likely to be more selective, demanding, and might even choose to save it over other things you have to worry about. Proportionally, the indie market might be growing, but the amount it actually grew is still less than what the AAA market did, and again, not the same type of gamer.
There’s also this part, “Nobody needs to buy the slop big studios are putting out. If EA is pushing out shit, then just skip eating the shit sandwich, maybe?”, where you seem to be arguing against the strawman you are trying to superimpose onto my argument. Just because I don’t like does not mean I have to act like it isn’t so.
It’s also just measuring sales from the games itself, not the predatory game shop sales.
You also cite the article and ignore that Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld require decent PCs, both cited performers in it.
on PC.
And thanks for bringing that up, consoles are also going to snipe at the market because they share the same components, and are another way AAAs farm whales.
If this results in the AAA games industry dying and having a full reset in a couple years when this all blows over, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I don’t think indie games are going anywhere, so it’s not like we won’t have anything new to play, and AAA studios have just become so generally awful that there wouldn’t be any great loss there.
I mean, if the whole industry came to a stop tomorrow we still have hundreds of great (I’m talking about 8-10/10 games, not just good ones) games. And that is without resorting to emulation or replaying games.
“I have nothing to play”
Wife angrily points at my 1,000+ title library
“hey now! there’s no need to get personal …”
I have played and enjoyed a lot of AAA games over the years. God of War, The Last of Us 1 & 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, the new DOOM games, Battlefield 6, and pretty much any other popular AAA game you can think of over the last five years. You know what my top games are in terms of playtime? Stardew Valley, Factorio, and Rimworld. And it’s not even close.
Sucks that a job in gaming is not a viable career anymore though. Only option left is you slave away as an indie dev and most likely make under 500 bucks in the end. That’s kind of unsustainable as a form of income.
All the fun jobs are going away :( time to learn plumbing I guess.
They will be able to survive it far better than indies. They already wish they could push users to subscription and cloud gaming models, and I suspect this will drive the most predatory of the lot (EA) into acquiring their own PC rental programs. It will be an opportunity for them to sell you a packaged experience at a monthly subscription price. The indies that will survive will be those whose games don’t really have high hardware requirements, but the fan base isn’t the same.
What?
Indie games can generally run on a potato, so they aren’t really affected by the hardware shortage.
And indie game devs aren’t being pressured to push out AI slop or be “made redundant” by someone more willing to sacrifice quality for speed.
90%+ of my gaming time is indie games in recent years. Very many of them are doing great. The coming market crash and recession from AI over-investment is going to affect all non-necessary spending, of course. But, even then, it’s a lot easier to justify a $5-20 game purchase when money is tight than $80+ for AAA games (not even counting hardware to run it!)
I literally don’t understand how you could possibly see how indie devs are losing out here. Nobody needs to buy the slop big studios are putting out. If EA is pushing out shit, then just skip eating the shit sandwich, maybe?
Did I miss your point? Or do you not know that indie games are making up an increasing share of gaming revenue?
So …
Yes.
Yes, largely because you can’t or don’t want to acknowledge the sort of fanbases they have. AAA have at 8x the market share that indies have, and their bases are more loyal predictable whales. They will be more willing to throw away money. People like you are more demanding with their money, are more likely to be more selective, demanding, and might even choose to save it over other things you have to worry about. Proportionally, the indie market might be growing, but the amount it actually grew is still less than what the AAA market did, and again, not the same type of gamer.
There’s also this part, “Nobody needs to buy the slop big studios are putting out. If EA is pushing out shit, then just skip eating the shit sandwich, maybe?”, where you seem to be arguing against the strawman you are trying to superimpose onto my argument. Just because I don’t like does not mean I have to act like it isn’t so.
Right, but that’s incorrect in the PC space:
Indie games are eating AAA’s lunch on PC.
It’s also just measuring sales from the games itself, not the predatory game shop sales.
You also cite the article and ignore that Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld require decent PCs, both cited performers in it.
And thanks for bringing that up, consoles are also going to snipe at the market because they share the same components, and are another way AAAs farm whales.