SIE is laying off 900 people, London Studio closing down entirely

[Dakota Joestar]

yeah, which is ironic because voice actors are already losing jobs to AI voices

The Finals uses AI text-to-speech because it can produce lines 'in just a matter of hours rather than months', baffles actual voice actors

"Why the f**k do AI voice people act like hiring voice actors is some kind of arcane ritual."

www.pcgamer.com

Video Game Voice Actors Criticize SAG-AFTRA Over Agreement With AI Company

The actors’ union said the deal will allow game developers to use a “digital replica” of an actor’s voice with the performer’s consent.

www.forbes.com

I still can't believe SAG-AFTRA still reached that agreement even after what they gain at the end of their strike in Hollywood right beforehand.

 

[fiendcode]

Nintendo being a great company to work for doesn't really override that it's not the primary reason why layoffs are rare there.

I don't really disagree, but I think people have a tendency to valorize Iwata for that decision rather than ignore the myriad of reasons why it happened that way. There's more to the story than "good guy Nintendo" is all.

We know the story, they literally told investors why and it wasn't "good guy Nintendo".

Iwata:
Regarding why we have not reduced the number of the personnel, it is true that our business has its ups and downs every few years, and of course, our ideal situation is to make a profit even in the low periods, return these profits to investors and maintain a high share price. I believe we should continue working toward this ideal. If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, however, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world. I believe we can become profitable with the current business structure in consideration of exchange rate trends and popularization of our platforms in the future. We should of course cut unnecessary costs and pursue efficient business operations. I also know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo’s business in the long run. Our current policy is to achieve favorable results by continuously cutting unnecessary expenses and increasing business efficiency. Thank you for listening.

The 73rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders Q & A

www.nintendo.co.jp

Also, Japanese labor laws didn't seem to keep Sony from laying off the majority of Japan Studio staff. Where there's a will, there's a way...

 

[MysticGon]

That was not London Studio and their output this year is looking to be particularly good. These news are much more than that, and it just sounds like you want to start a pointless argument bringing on Nintendo.

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

They should still be over ~100 people.

Tom Warren seems to think it was London Studio.



Jim Ryan gets to do a victory and everyone else the walk of shame.

Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall. He released a GQ article saying times aren't always going to be good.

Hope the severance package is generous enough for a few months out of work.

Inflation's a bitch but so is SIE's business model. Every year Switch is on sale sees a windfall big enough to eat off of for years at Nintendo, and a lot of it is squirreled away into their warchest.

I can see why they aren't in a rush to rush a potential loss leader onto the market in these times with exchange rates in the toilet.

This top down trickle down philosophy needs to stop but I'm also not convinced unions are the silver bullet as you are seeing in Hollywood.

Just make more affordable games and keep hardware viable for longer. 8 years gens should be a minimum and no budget needs to be approaching anything near $300M outside of GTA and COD. It's madness. Companies need to be reasonable.

 

[Tokuiten]

Costs are rising exponentially for Japanese game designers also,

Every game is going to have to increase in price or sell more copies not just the Spider-Man. Game prices are just not keeping up with inflation and all the new associated development costs

I don't buy it, not from Harada. Since I recently finished, let me ask this: What made Tales of Arise an expensive AAA-game when Xenoblade 3 wasn't? Nothing about ToA explains why it'd be a more expensive game. Cutscenes, animations, voice-acting, world scope, gameplay complexity, enemy variety, sidequests, etc. - everything is better in XB3 and you'd think it would be the more expensive title. Yet Harada refused to put it on Switch saying ToA is an expensive premium experience for the nextgen-consoles. And now this tweet of his you're posting. It makes no sense anyway. Higher resolution doesn't cost more, developers created high resolution-assets for decades at this point, they're usually down-scaled depending on the target system.

Just to be clear: There are problems with development in this industry and something needs to change. But Harada is not someone who's part of that issue, imo.

 

[Tokuiten]

I honestly don't see an outcome that doesn't screw over workers somewhat. Reducing scope and budget of AAA would just kill jobs as well. Like one of my ideas to help reduce costs, being utilizing voice acting less like we see in most Japanese games, will end up resulting in less work for voice actors overall.

That's the thing, though. The industry has become bloated with people. That is the responsibility of big companies and why they deserve all the criticism. This is why people are pointing towards Nintendo as a positive example. Nintendo adds new employees at a slower rate, but when they do, they really want them to stay with the company. Other companies in recent years just added ANYONE, not caring about the longterm, and now they realie "oh, we actually don't need that many people". It's hyper capitalism at play.

As for AI, I truly don't th ink publishers want to open that box of pandora. The big irony here is that AI will quickly mature to the point where, after text-to-text, text-to-image and currently text-to-video, text-to-game will be a reality. Using AI to reduce the workforce right now might be beneficial for the company as of this moment; in 5 years, the company will be dead, because people don't need these companies anymore to play their AI-games. AI is the biggest danger for publishers, hopefully they realize that.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

I don't buy it, not from Harada. Since I recently finished, let me ask this: What made Tales of Arise an expensive AAA-game when Xenoblade 3 wasn't? Nothing about ToA explains why it'd be a more expensive game. Cutscenes, animations, voice-acting, world scope, gameplay complexity, enemy variety, sidequests, etc. - everything is better in XB3 and you'd think it would be the more expensive title. Yet Harada refused to put it on Switch saying ToA is an expensive premium experience for the nextgen-consoles. And now this tweet of his you're posting. It makes no sense anyway. Higher resolution doesn't cost more, developers created high resolution-assets for decades at this point, they're usually down-scaled depending on the target system.

Just to be clear: There are problems with development in this industry and something needs to change. But Harada is not someone who's part of that issue, imo.

I love Xenoblade, I’ve put 500+ hours into that series, but I don’t see how you could look at something like animations and think they’re better than an action game, the attacks don’t even hit enemies, they just go through the attack animation and if you’re within 5 feet of the enemy it registers as a hit. Tales is an action game that has to painstakingly make those attack animations hit enemies just right, make them feel impactful, not clip or get stuck on the enemy or cause a million other problems that having two character models interacting like that can cause.

Monolith Soft is really good at knowing what is worth sacrificing and what’s worth focusing on, but the sacrifices are absolutely there.

 

[Drblitzk]

I love Xenoblade, I’ve put 500+ hours into that series, but I don’t see how you could look at something like animations and think they’re better than an action game, the attacks don’t even hit enemies, they just go through the attack animation and if you’re within 5 feet of the enemy it registers as a hit. Tales is an action game that has to painstakingly make those attack animations hit enemies just right, make them feel impactful, not clip or get stuck on the enemy or cause a million other problems that having two character models interacting like that can cause.

Monolith Soft is really good at knowing what is worth sacrificing and what’s worth focusing on, but the sacrifices are absolutely there.

Eh, I agree on the Xenoblade part but I wouldn't use something like Arise as an example of great feeling of interaction, while yes, your attacks have to actually make contact with the enemy most enemies tumble or stagger a little bit with certain attacks, most of the time the enemies just stand there taking damage while continue their actions as if you weren't touching them, they are just different battle systems.

 

[Tokuiten]

I love Xenoblade, I’ve put 500+ hours into that series, but I don’t see how you could look at something like animations and think they’re better than an action game, the attacks don’t even hit enemies, they just go through the attack animation and if you’re within 5 feet of the enemy it registers as a hit. Tales is an action game that has to painstakingly make those attack animations hit enemies just right, make them feel impactful, not clip or get stuck on the enemy or cause a million other problems that having two character models interacting like that can cause.

Monolith Soft is really good at knowing what is worth sacrificing and what’s worth focusing on, but the sacrifices are absolutely there.

I was talking about animation during cutscenes. In ToA, characters mostly stand in a circle talking. In XB3, characters actually move and behave like real people. Animations during battle are onpar, I'm not sure why you'd praise ToA here. Either way, the point was that nothing about ToA feels like it's an AAA premium experience when XB3, commonly concluded, is not. That's why I find it ill-advised to listen to Harada who WANTS to be part of the AAA-industry, but ... isn't.

 

[Djehuty]

AA developers around the world have been struggling immensely, so I don't know if "just do AA" games is the holy grail everyone is looking for.

no it isn’t.

But it’s a start.

Costs are rising exponentially for Japanese game designers also,

Every game is going to have to increase in price or sell more copies not just the Spider-Man. Game prices are just not keeping up with inflation and all the new associated development costs

The difference is that’s tekken 8, then namco turns around and makes a taiko no tatsujin game or a pac man game or a fishing game for japan game and it sells well.

They have a variety in what people want. A variety of budgets For their successful games

Over at sie they trained thier audience to not buy AA games. Just the mega block busters. They carry ginormous budgets.

 

[Cocodor]

Everyone is struggling, but as said above, "training" your audience to focus on a very specific kind of games will always come back to bite you in the back.
Whether it's costs where people keep expecting bigger and better, or being in a niche and being too complacent to be able to counter a new competitor that steals your audience away.

Variety of genres and costs is always safer for everyone (if possible for the publisher of course, which was Sony's motto years ago too).

That was not London Studio and their output this year is looking to be particularly good. These news are much more than that, and it just sounds like you want to start a pointless argument bringing on Nintendo.

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

Tom Warren seems to think it was London Studio.

Doesn't matter much whether this party was at Liverpool or London Studio itself (which apparently was the latter), the people in the picture are from London Studio.
It's still awful to act like everything was rosy, same thing to the London Studio bosses that likely were there too. It's not something decided in a few days.

 

[chroeser]

The difference is that’s tekken 8, then namco turns around and makes a taiko no tatsujin game or a pac man game or a fishing game for japan game and it sells well.

They have a variety in what people want. A variety of budgets For their successful games

Over at sie they trained thier audience to not buy AA games. Just the mega block busters. They carry ginormous budgets.

I believe the problem is less AA or AAA and more that the audiences of PS, XBOX and high end PC are expecting a certain level of polish and presentation. Stray, SIFU or Kena are no AAA games, but AA games. They were successful because of a good core gameplay and very nice presentation. What should be reduced is needless bloat. Sometimes less is more.
As long as people get a good 20-30 hours of gameplay out of a game the full-price sales will be good. It doesn’t need to be filled with too much cutscenes or endless side activities of which most are ignored anyway.

 

[Kye]

Another thing I'm seeing a lot of is "Just make more AA games".

You also can't do that without layoffs. Smaller projects mean smaller teams, and the amount of employees in a bloated firm aren't always going to be neatly divisible by the viable projects you can budget.

 

[woodhead]

Another thing I'm seeing a lot of is "Just make more AA games".

You also can't do that without layoffs. Smaller projects mean smaller teams, and the amount of employees in a bloated firm aren't always going to be neatly divisible by the viable projects you can budget.

Why not just make multiple AA games simultaneously if you have a big workforce?

 

[Tokuiten]

Another thing I'm seeing a lot of is "Just make more AA games".

You also can't do that without layoffs. Smaller projects mean smaller teams, and the amount of employees in a bloated firm aren't always going to be neatly divisible by the viable projects you can budget.

For one, yes, a big change in development management might require a one time-cut that is harsh. That is the irresponsible staff bloat that people have been talking about.

For two, however, why would AA-games necessarily require smaller teams? The price of a game won't go down, so you can still pay people. The big advantage of going AA would be that dev times could go down to, say, 2 years instead of 4-5 years and more projects could be done. This would make singular games bombing less risky, because the next project to hopefully make a profit would be along the corner already.

I keep going back to this though that the quality of games like Mass Effect 2 was perfectly fine. If developers just made games of that quality (plus the free modern effects of Unreal Engine 5), they could just focus on content creation, gameplay and story and deliver fantastic games that take like 2 years to make. This whole "gamers demand highend AAA-graphics" never made sense to me, considering how people keep praising 4K-rendered emulation of Switch-games, which is literally a click or two. If people are happy with that, they'd be happy with Mass Effect 2 in 4K, too. Or any 360-era title.

This whole graphics race is one of the most mislead things ever, but somehow influential people managed to get everyone to ridicule Nintendo for taking it slower, rather than stepping back a bit and think about what it means to always demand the highest end stuff. Gimme a Mass Effect 2 every two years instead of Mass Effect 4 in 2028 (hence why I thought about Mass Effect :/ ).

 

[Aostia82]

I sincerely think that the Xenoblade VS Tales of Arise topic COULD be very interesting within nowadays AAA (possible) development struggles/industry struggles

maybe we can take it to THIS thread?

(hint: there is a reason why the "banner" chosen for that thread has PS and Xbox logos, not the Nintendo one)

 

[Godzilla]

Why not just make multiple AA games simultaneously if you have a big workforce?

Releasing AA games in 2024 and onwards is the right idea, for once, you can get the real market leader in your product pipeline while reducing budget quite a bit.

That could totally work IF all companies were on the same path, but that's not the case and would just probably hurt your "reputation" to release sub-par (comparatively) graphical games when the other companies are doing grandiose things.

It's not an easy situation to be in.

 

[Kye]

Why not just make multiple AA games simultaneously if you have a big workforce?

My statement responds to this directly. It's all about what you can budget. Cost is more than just developing a game.

For one, yes, a big change in development management might require a one time-cut that is harsh. That is the irresponsible staff bloat that people have been talking about.

For two, however, why would AA-games necessarily require smaller teams? The price of a game won't go down, so you can still pay people. The big advantage of going AA would be that dev times could go down to, say, 2 years instead of 4-5 years and more projects could be done. This would make singular games bombing less risky, because the next project to hopefully make a profit would be along the corner already.

I don't think it necessarily follows that having more people on a smaller project means the game gets done quicker. I imagine it is more often the opposite. Having 10 people working on textures when you only need half of that can cause problems. Having 5 people making GUI buttons when you only need 2 can cause problems.

Too many cooks in the kitchen.

I keep going back to this though that the quality of games like Mass Effect 2 was perfectly fine. If developers just made games of that quality (plus the free modern effects of Unreal Engine 5), they could just focus on content creation, gameplay and story and deliver fantastic games that take like 2 years to make. This whole "gamers demand highend AAA-graphics" never made sense to me, considering how people keep praising 4K-rendered emulation of Switch-games, which is literally a click or two. If people are happy with that, they'd be happy with Mass Effect 2 in 4K, too. Or any 360-era title.

This whole graphics race is one of the most mislead things ever, but somehow influential people managed to get everyone to ridicule Nintendo for taking it slower, rather than stepping back a bit and think about what it means to always demand the highest end stuff. Gimme a Mass Effect 2 every two years instead of Mass Effect 4 in 2028 (hence why I thought about Mass Effect :/ ).

Thing is: I don't think we necessarily need to sacrifice bleeding edge graphics in smaller games. It's the cinematic aspects that modern games have adopted that have increased the scope of projects beyond comprehension - celebrity voice actors and mocap actors, cinematic directors, set pieces, etc. etc.

A mechanics-focused game can look awesome, and I believe, sell, but the modern industry doesn't know how to market that, it seems.

Also, there needs to be better production pipelines, which, again, can actually be helped by reducing staff, I imagine.

———
Sorry for the double, but another thing that comes to mind about the "Increase the AA production" thing is, as I stated in my first post: the entertainment industry at large is super-bloated right now.

There is more quality entertainment available across every medium than any one person can possibly consume. Throwing more games onto the pile isn't going to help that. Look at the indie spaces.

If you took away video games, movies, television, audiobooks, books, podcasts, twitter, instagram, tiktok - I'd still be okay, because I can get 90%+ of entertainment needs satisfied by youtube alone.

The entertainment industry at large could use less releases for some time.

 

[MysticGon]

Sorry for the double, but another thing that comes to mind about the "Increase the AA production" thing is, as I stated in my first post: the entertainment industry at large is super-bloated right now.

There is more quality entertainment available across every medium than any one person can possibly consume. Throwing more games onto the pile isn't going to help that. Look at the indie spaces.

If you took away video games, movies, television, audiobooks, books, podcasts, twitter, instagram, tiktok - I'd still be okay, because I can get 90%+ of entertainment needs satisfied by youtube alone.

The entertainment industry at large could use less releases for some time.

I usually leave people to their opinions but this ain't it.

We are definitely not seeing a glut of quality content.

Time is a resource every entertainment product and service competes for yes but variety is the spice of life, which is why they are broken down into segments. Companies really only care about competing in their own segment unless you are a big corporation that wants their fingers in every pie and throws around terms like synergy.

Broken down into segments you can be fooled by looking at streaming or online storefronts for games and think "yeah that's a lot to choose from". But as anyone browsing Steam of the eShop or PS Store or Netflix or Prime Video and especially Disney+ can tell you there is a lot of stuff that is straight up raw ass. Release just to meet quotas, retain rights or just downright trick someone out of their well-earned cash.

The bottom line, while one can look at a ever increasing backlog and say "yeah I'll be good for an age" but there are also a lot of fans of underserved genres that would disagree with that assessment. The industry has room for a lot of good content and as 4 million-seller JRPGs in 3 months show the industry can support a stacked schedule and people would still show up and therefore companies can sustain themselves if they set their expectations reasonably.

 

[Kye]

I usually leave people to their opinions but this ain't it.

We are definitely not seeing a glut of quality content.

We definitely are. This isn't an opinion it's a fact. There are more video games, television shows and movies being released than ever.

This is a fact.

With more product available, that is going to naturally raise the statistical likelihood any particular product is going to be good, bad, or something inbetween.

It's just numbers.

Top video games and more from a tumultuous year

It's been a record year for video games and their cultural reach. But it's also been a dire one for the workers who make them.

www.wbur.org

"According to Axios analysis of the review aggregator site Metacritic, 2023 had more titles with a 90/100 rating or above than any year in the past two decades."


There's always more bad than good stuff. Statistically, that hasn't changed, and I never said it did. But by sheer volume, there is more quality stuff to consume than there ever has been. This is what I mean. Not that the overall quality of entertainment content has been raised.

In that sense, you can more easily make the argument that it has been lowered. But that's not the argument I'm making.

Time is a resource every entertainment product and service competes for yes but variety is the spice of life, which is why they are broken down into segments. Companies really only care about competing in their own segment unless you are a big corporation that wants their fingers in every pie and throws around terms like synergy.

This isn't binary. You don't employ the ostrich effect as a responsible firm and you don't overreach, either. No competent organization operates in a vacuum. All of these sectors play a role in the larger economy which firms have to pay heed to.

 

[Pooroomoo]

Releasing AA games in 2024 and onwards is the right idea, for once, you can get the real market leader in your product pipeline while reducing budget quite a bit.

That could totally work IF all companies were on the same path, but that's not the case and would just probably hurt your "reputation" to release sub-par (comparatively) graphical games when the other companies are doing grandiose things.

It's not an easy situation to be in.

The problem is not so much what other companies are doing, it's much more a matter of what you conditioned your target audience to expect. If you have conditioned your main audience to only expect more and more grandiose games and to look down on mostly anything else, it might take years to change that conditioning.

 

[Tokuiten]

The problem is not so much what other companies are doing, it's much more a matter of what you conditioned your target audience to expect. If you have conditioned your main audience to only expect more and more grandiose games and to look down on mostly anything else, it might take years to change that conditioning.

But I'd argue that people already are used to playing graphically "subpar" games. What are the most popular games? Minecraft, Fortnite, CoD, now Helldivers. None of these are graphical showcases. The industry wouldn't go kaput if hyper-focus on graphics like The Last of Us 2 stopped.

 

[randomreader22]

In Japan, when a company reduces its employees, it encourages employees to voluntarily resign.
In recent years, Fujitsu and Omron have restructured thousands of employees in this way.
According to a Japanese article, SIE Japan is using the same method.

ソニーのゲーム子会社、世界で900人削減　日本は希望退職募集 | 毎日新聞

　ソニーグループ傘下で、家庭用ゲーム機「プレイステーション（PS）5」を手がけるソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメント（SIE）は27日、世界で約900人の人員を削減すると発表した。経営合理化の一環で、人件費を削減し収益の改善を目指す。日本での削減人数は決まっておらず、希望退職者を募る。

mainichi.jp

The company I was at would have the buchou have a small risutora talk with the employee. I have seen some even used scare tactics such as "if that case got exposed blah blah" to scare the poor employee into taking the unfair taishokukin. Japanese companies arent just roses.

 

[Vikadozs]

The ocean is too red, there is no growth of players and everything is more expensive to make, this interview was 20 years and this issue was already brooding.

"Cutting-edge technologies and multiple functions do not necessarily lead to more fun. The excessively hardware-oriented way of thinking is totally wrong, but manufacturers are just throwing money at developing higher-performance hardware."

Interview: Hiroshi Yamauchi - IGN

If DS is unsuccessful, Nintendo will be crushed, says former NCL president.

www.ign.com

 

[MysticGon]

We definitely are. This isn't an opinion it's a fact. There are more video games, television shows and movies being released than ever.

This is a fact.

With more product available, that is going to naturally raise the statistical likelihood any particular product is going to be good, bad, or something inbetween.

It's just numbers.

Top video games and more from a tumultuous year

It's been a record year for video games and their cultural reach. But it's also been a dire one for the workers who make them.

www.wbur.org

"According to Axios analysis of the review aggregator site Metacritic, 2023 had more titles with a 90/100 rating or above than any year in the past two decades."


There's always more bad than good stuff. Statistically, that hasn't changed, and I never said it did. But by sheer volume, there is more quality stuff to consume than there ever has been. This is what I mean. Not that the overall quality of entertainment content has been raised.

In that sense, you can more easily make the argument that it has been lowered. But that's not the argument I'm making.

This isn't binary. You don't employ the ostrich effect as a responsible firm and you don't overreach, either. No competent organization operates in a vacuum. All of these sectors play a role in the larger economy which firms have to pay heed to.

Rotten Tomatoes Under Fire After PR Firm's Scheme to Pay Critics for Positive Reviews Uncovered - IGN

A new report details how a PR firm paid off critics to post positive reviews of 2018 drama Ophelia on Rotten Tomatoes, prompting scrutiny over the reviews aggregator.

www.ign.com

IIRC Sony leaks showed they really cares about Metacritic scores because they can influence sales.

But if we are going off of the article your link is referencing.

Be smart: Review scores aren't the only or even the best arbiter of quality, and even many 2023 games rated in the 80s were plenty impressive.

Not only am I inclined to agree but I would also say a lot of those games finding an audience points not to a glut but a hungry customer base that can support much more which again can support more developers.

Not counting PC, when you go from 5 platforms 2004-2016 to 3 platforms today and you compare the budgets and the projects being greenlit...

Are there more Kingdom Hearts games being released this generation compared to last gen? What about Atlus games? Tales of?

Output for most studios have taken a hit. 1 good year in the eyes of game reviewers won't change that.

 

[Kye]

You're moving goalposts and essentially engaging in conspiratorial thinking. I can't engage with that. If you're not going to have the conversation in good faith and not engage with data because it doesn't fit your narrative then good luck with that.

 

[Koni]

You're moving goalposts and essentially engaging in conspiratorial thinking. I can't engage with that. If you're not going to have the conversation in good faith and not engage with data because it doesn't fit your narrative then good luck with that.

I personally don’t see what’s conspiratorial or bad faith about his argument…? He provided an article and then cited an excerpt from an article you brought up to support his point.

 

[Jin+Jang]

Sad to see this. Not surprised for London Studio. Their last game was in 2019 for a PSVR1, Blood and Truth. A good one. But looks like Sony pumped a money into them and looks like they were slow at development or didn't moved from the dead point or something. Well, shut down was inevitable. Same as for Pixel Opus

 

[Kye]

I personally don’t see what’s conspiratorial or bad faith about his argument…? He provided an article and then cited an excerpt from an article you brought up to support his point.

It's conspiratorial because there isn't proof that Sony is doing this, as likely it may seem to some. That article doesn't support their premise because it's about RottenTomatoes, which is about movies and Sony is nowhere to be mentioned in that article. So it's a baseless premise. If you're using a baseless premise to refute a datapoint, you're engaging in bad faith/conspiratorial thinking, or you're just bad at reasoning/making good arguments.

Furthermore, even if this were true, it's ignoring my overall point - more games being released overall means more good games (and more bad games). This is unassailable understanding of basic numeracy and statistics. If you want to refute my argument, you need to refute that (or show me how I'm misunderstanding or misapplying it) not tell me I'm wrong because "Some of my favorite studios are releasing one game a generation".

Citing the lack of Kingdom Hearts and Atlus game releases, as if any particular studio or publisher were relevant to this argument, is tangential ranting at best.

*edit*
And his citation proves my point: there's so many more games released today, that there's way more games in the 80s range released (undeniably good games) because there's just more games. If you want to make the argument that "All those 80s are a conspiracy" you can have that conversation with someone else.

Absolutely nothing they're saying from that citation is relevant to my point.

 

[Koni]

It's conspiratorial because there isn't proof that Sony is doing this, as likely it may seem to some. That article doesn't support their premise because it's about RottenTomatoes, which is about movies and Sony is nowhere to be mentioned in that article. So it's a baseless premise. If you're using a baseless premise to refute a datapoint, you're engaging in bad faith, or you're just bad at reasoning/making good arguments.

Furthermore, even if this were true, it's ignoring my overall point - more games being released overall means more good games (and more bad games). This is unassailable understanding of basic numeracy and statistics. If you want to refute my argument, you need to refute that (or show me how I'm misunderstanding or misapplying it) not tell me I'm wrong because "Some of my favorite studios are releasing one game a generation".

Citing the lack of Kingdom Hearts and Atlus game releases, as if any particular studio or publisher were relevant to this argument, is tangential ranting at best.

I see.

Personally it would’ve been better to explain that first then, rather than immediately jumping to conclusions like that. You guys only just started the debate, so I was a bit taken aback is all.

I will also say that if more games in general meant more good games, then the industry would not have crashed in North America in 1983. Prior to the crash, the industry was saturated with poor quality games made by inexperienced developers backed by venture capitalists trying to get in on the craze. Of course that’s not the only reason the industry crashed, but it played a major role. The amount of bad was simply too much and people lost interest.

 

[Kye]

I see.

Personally it would’ve been better to explain that first then, rather than immediately jumping to conclusions like that. You guys only just started the debate, so I was a bit taken aback is all.

I'm not sure what I should have explained before I was prompted to by the discussion itself.

I will also say that if more games in general meant more good games, then the industry would not have crashed in North America in 1983. Prior to the crash, the industry was saturated with poor quality games made by inexperienced developers backed by venture capitalists trying to get in on the craze. Of course that’s not the only reason the industry crashed, but it played a major role. The amount of bad was simply too much and people lost interest.

Again, this is consistent with what I'm saying. There are still more bad games than good games. That never changed and I never claimed it did.

It's unlikely we're heading for a crash but who's to say we aren't, and that too many games won't be the reason? No one can say.

 

[MysticGon]

"There are more games being released overall ergo there are more good games" is a logical fallacy.

Each link let's you see credited games on each platform by year.

List of all Nintendo Switch games - MobyGames

10,912 video games were released on Nintendo Switch from 2017 through 2024. They were developed by 59,414 people from 8,043 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all PlayStation 4 games - MobyGames

10,511 video games were released on PlayStation 4 from 2013 through 2026. They were developed by 169,298 people from 7,875 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all PlayStation 5 games - MobyGames

2,371 video games were released on PlayStation 5 from 2020 through 2024. They were developed by 86,862 people from 3,573 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all Xbox One games - MobyGames

7,768 video games were released on Xbox One from 2011 through 2024. They were developed by 61,183 people from 6,717 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all Xbox Series games - MobyGames

2,983 video games were released on Xbox Series from 2016 through 2024. They were developed by 39,670 people from 4,420 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

It's also a poor basis to argue...

The entertainment industry at large could use less releases for some time.

I want pushback on 2 of your points.

1. There are more games overall.

2. There are more good games as a result.

Pushing back based on the fact that a lot of self-published asset flips on Steam inflate the numbers.

There is the data. If you can find a correlation that proves your point that number of games released = number of high rated games on Metacritic I'll concede.

For an added bonus if you can find a correlation for each platform that would help you case even more.

Perhaps do it in this format so that it's easy to understand.

 

[Mekanos]

The ocean is too red, there is no growth of players and everything is more expensive to make, this interview was 20 years and this issue was already brooding.

Interview: Hiroshi Yamauchi - IGN

If DS is unsuccessful, Nintendo will be crushed, says former NCL president.

www.ign.com

I think also Nintendo has to plan more defensively and longterm because video games are their primary revenue source (although the fact that they are recently pivoting towards things like theme parks and movies also shows Nintendo understand the need to branch out to keep cash flow growing). Microsoft and Sony can eat the loss on console hardware in comparison since they are big tech companies outside of video games.

 

[Astrogamer]

You should probably measure by 80 on Metacritic. 90 is too strict to define as a good game. That would qualify as a great game and a wider margin would flatten out disruptions in the games media.

Also, for the 80s comparison, the game crash only happened in the United States and is similar to the dot com bubble. It happened because publishers overestimated the demand and produced far too many copies which caused the retailers too much loss. The retailers then withdraw support for game consoles and thus no more games can be sold. That can't be replicated in modern times unless one of the big three completely withdraws from gaming. A different crash isn't too plausible as games have flexible staff sizes.

 

[MysticGon]

You should probably measure by 80 on Metacritic. 90 is too strict to define as a good game. That would qualify as a great game and a wider margin would flatten out disruptions in the games media.

Also, for the 80s comparison, the game crash only happened in the United States and is similar to the dot com bubble. It happened because publishers overestimated the demand and produced far too many copies which caused the retailers too much loss. The retailers then withdraw support for game consoles and thus no more games can be sold. That can't be replicated in modern times unless one of the big three completely withdraws from gaming. A different crash isn't too plausible as games have flexible staff sizes.

That would be moving goalposts... Sorry I don't make the rules.

 

[Tokuiten]

Maybe we need a general thread for these layoff news?

 

[Kye]

"There are more games being released overall ergo there are more good games" is a logical fallacy.

Do you know what a logical fallacy is?

Which logical fallacy? I'm curious as to which specific one I'm committing with that statement.

Each link let's you see credited games on each platform by year.

List of all Nintendo Switch games - MobyGames

10,912 video games were released on Nintendo Switch from 2017 through 2024. They were developed by 59,414 people from 8,043 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all PlayStation 4 games - MobyGames

10,511 video games were released on PlayStation 4 from 2013 through 2026. They were developed by 169,298 people from 7,875 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all PlayStation 5 games - MobyGames

2,371 video games were released on PlayStation 5 from 2020 through 2024. They were developed by 86,862 people from 3,573 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all Xbox One games - MobyGames

7,768 video games were released on Xbox One from 2011 through 2024. They were developed by 61,183 people from 6,717 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

List of all Xbox Series games - MobyGames

2,983 video games were released on Xbox Series from 2016 through 2024. They were developed by 39,670 people from 4,420 publishers and developers.

www.mobygames.com

It's also a poor basis to argue...

I want pushback on 2 of your points.

1. There are more games overall.

Using the sources you just provided, there is a clear spike in game releases on every one of those platforms between 2021 - 2023.

With the exception of Steam, which you curiously picked a graph leading up 2020, when 2020 and the following years are most relevant to this discussion.

Around mid-2023 is when we started getting these stories of layoffs and course correction.

2. There are more good games as a result.

For the current gen consoles, there are more 80 + games during those aforementioned release peaks than any other time during the life of those systems.

For Playstation 4, there are more 80+ games during periods prior to that current gen peak, when PS4 was most relevant and as a console and was getting more releases.

Did you even look at these?

And I'm going to stop you while you seem to think you're ahead: you're the only one here that only qualifies 90+ above as "good" games. No one else has agreed with you your stringent qualification on those merits. So garbage like this:

That would be moving goalposts... Sorry I don't make the rules.

can get tossed.

 

[Remember_spinal]

Maybe we need a general thread for these layoff news?

Does this mean they aren’t making those marvel and Star Wars games?

 

[Astrogamer]

Maybe we need a general thread for these layoff news?

For reference, this is about 100 less than last year's layoffs which were around the end of March which I think included the Battlefield and Apex Legends mobile teams.
Reading the article, it's all of EA's layoffs from the past fiscal year as it's an adjustment of headcount from last March. Likely means it includes Bioware's from last August, the Codemasters layoffs from last fall and the Glu Mobile layoffs from last week when it sunset F1 Mobile and MLB Tap Sports.

 

[MysticGon]

Do you know what a logical fallacy is?

Which logical fallacy? I'm curious as to which one I'm wielding here.



Using the sources you just provided, there is a clear spike in game releases on every one of those platforms between 2021 - 2023.

With the exception of Steam, which you curiously picked a graph leading up 2020, when 2020 and the following years are most relevant to this discussion.

Around mid-2023 is when we started getting these stories of layoffs and course correction.




For the current gen consoles, there are more 80 + games during those aforementioned release peaks than any other time during the life of those systems.

For Playstation 4, there are more 80+ games during periods prior to that current gen peak, when PS4 was most relevant and as a console and was getting more releases.

Did you even look at these?

And I'm going to stop you while you're ahead: you're the only one here that only qualifies 90+ above as "good" games. No one else has agreed with you your stringent qualification on those merits. So garbage like this:

can get tossed.

Metacritic has more higher rated 90+ games in 2023. Metacritic is the measurement you are using to assign quality.

Appealing to authority to prove your point.

There are 2,232 Nintendo Switch games released in the year 2021.

There are 1,921 Nintendo Switch games released in the year 2022.

There are 1,183 Nintendo Switch games released in the year 2023.

There are 473 PlayStation 5 games released in the year 2021.

There are 856 PlayStation 5 games released in the year 2022.

There are 822 PlayStation 5 games released in the year 2023.

There are 981 Xbox Series games released in the year 2021.

There are 890 Xbox Series games released in the year 2022.

There are 755 Xbox Series games released in the year 2023.

For those following at home 2023 (the year of the highest 90+ Metacritic scores) actually saw a reduction in releases.

If your theory that more games = more quality games it should reflect at any point in the data.

It doesn't.

Also no graph?

If you had a graph you could clearly illustrate your point below instead of just saying "trust me, that's the way it is, deal with it".

You could break it down by platform and it might actually help your argument if a pattern emerges.

Just so we are clear on arguments.

I'm arguing there is no glut of quality games and there is room for more.

You're arguing...

The entertainment industry at large could use less releases for some time.

and

We definitely are. This isn't an opinion it's a fact. There are more video games, television shows and movies being released than ever.

This is a fact.

With more product available, that is going to naturally raise the statistical likelihood any particular product is going to be good, bad, or something inbetween.

It's just numbers.

Linking to an NPR article that references Metacritic 90+ to support your "fact". Then immediately backtrack.


Burden of proof is on you to defend this take. Can't get mad when someone calls you out on it.

 

[Kye]

Look, no offense, but you're displaying statistical illiteracy and I don't have any time to educate you.

"Appealing to Authority"?

Good talk.

 

[Liha]

That means that Star Wars Jedi 3 is most likely the final Star Wars game from EA.

 

[MysticGon]

Look, no offense, but you're displaying statistical illiteracy and I don't have any time to educate you.

"Appealing to Authority"?

Good talk.

You can attack me all you want. It just makes your argument look weaker.

A graph on the other hand, that would show me a thing or two about stats and data.

 

[MegaXZero]

Can we cool it down please.

 

[unkindlynice]

The ocean is too red, there is no growth of players and everything is more expensive to make, this interview was 20 years and this issue was already brooding.

Interview: Hiroshi Yamauchi - IGN

If DS is unsuccessful, Nintendo will be crushed, says former NCL president.

www.ign.com

It's an interesting conundrum. Will players respond by buying other games or by will they just play less games. Increasing cost/risk for publishers even further.

 

[Tiddums]

Regarding release numbers versus quality, I would point out that only a scant percentage of games released every year get a metacritic score to begin with. It's a reasonable survey of high budget and high profile games and how the games media feels about them at the time, but critics aren't playing most games (nor could they if they tried). So comparing metrics like total releases in the 8000 range versus top metacritic scoring games is always going to be problematic. In addition to the obvious assumption that metacritic is a sufficient proxy for quality, this adds a second assumption that quality will always get noticed, at which point I don't think it's useful to spend much time arguing on a statistical basis.

 

[Ray00101]

Edit: stated better above^^

Isn’t using review aggregators a pretty not great way to determine quality? It goes hand-in-hand with there being more releases—the more games released, the less chance of being reviewed if you’re a smaller indie.

 

[Remember_spinal]

Isn’t using review aggregators a pretty not great way to determine quality? It goes hand-in-hand with there being more releases—the more games released, the less chance of being reviewed if you’re a smaller indie.

It’s another form of marketing for companies.

 

[Kye]

Edit: stated better above^^

Isn’t using review aggregators a pretty not great way to determine quality? It goes hand-in-hand with there being more releases—the more games released, the less chance of being reviewed if you’re a smaller indie.

This is right. But I wanted to engage with the data I was being presented. Because while it's not a good metric, it's better than nothing regarding the discussion at hand.

In addition to the obvious assumption that metacritic is a sufficient proxy for quality, this adds a second assumption that quality will always get noticed, at which point I don't think it's useful to spend much time arguing on a statistical basis.

You can definitely draw some statistical inferences, as long as the data points and conclusions drawn from them are properly qualified.

 

[Tiddums]

This is right. But I wanted to engage with the data I was being presented. Because while it's not a good metric, it's better than nothing regarding the discussion at hand.

I think if you wanted to take another approach, measuring the number of big budget games each year (as opposed to total # of game releases) is probably going to reveal some useful correlations regarding metacritic scores and the number of games. You could likely find a near-complete data set for said big budget releases by going to the wiki pages for "X year in gaming".

Another possibility would be taking the # of metacritic reviews for games by year, and then doing the 80+ and 90+ score games as a percentage of total reviews that are on the site that year.

 

[Djehuty]

I believe the problem is less AA or AAA and more that the audiences of PS, XBOX and high end PC are expecting a certain level of polish and presentation. Stray, SIFU or Kena are no AAA games, but AA games. They were successful because of a good core gameplay and very nice presentation. What should be reduced is needless bloat. Sometimes less is more.
As long as people get a good 20-30 hours of gameplay out of a game the full-price sales will be good. It doesn’t need to be filled with too much cutscenes or endless side activities of which most are ignored anyway.

I agree, because those games like sifu showing that they can be hits without huge budgets is my whole point.

more sifu, less avengers.