Gamers around the world are going to feel the pain in the 2009 holiday season after the economy shakes apart many great development studios. Electronic Arts feels the pain of being a public company as their investors complain about lackluster revenue, THQ deals with closing studios to extend their runway and other firms will lose more headcount in the coming months.
It’s not all bad. But, it’s going to get ugly before it gets better.
The financial market has played tricks on everyone in our global economy and companies across all industries are going to feel a bit of a tightening around the belt. Investors are shaken and doing their best to protect their investments and cutting loose those that aren’t projecting profits in the near future. Game studios are going to slow their financial burn rates, trim a bit of the fat and hunker down the long term. The end result, next years holiday season will have a few less games because those games are being dropped to the floor now.
Mid-sized studios within larger firms may find their projects canceled or put on hold and their employees re-structured or let go while big studios assess what projects will make the long haul. This is the ugly side of the business, having to make a decision on what games stay and what games go with the grief of having to tell some of your best talent “goodbye.”
The bad part of the industry is occurring today, with publishers posting mediocre profits and trying to convince their investors to be patient and trust they’ve got a firm hold on their destiny. The game industry is not alone in this, many firms are reducing head count and many startups are finding themselves without series A or B funding; they’re closing their doors because the money is being directed to more stable ventures.
What’s the good in all of this?
(more…)
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed:
“I didn’t ask for this” – Deus Ex guy (sue me, i forgot the guy’s name)
“But i’ll take it… gladly” – Me
@QOTW:
I have a list…
Cthulhu Saves the world (epic fun awesome RPG)
Terraria (bought for 2.50)
Space Pirates and Zombies (2.50 as well – all hail Ganben)
I could go on, but these are the high awesomeness ones!
Have not yet listened to the podcast, but I thank you very much for the games. Made my crappy day a lot better =D.
Jordan, glad to hear about the job.
@Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal
Jonah, good point on stretch goals. If I ever ever come up with a project that requires funding, and if I put it on Kickstarter, it’ll have all the requirements mentioned, no stretch goals.
@Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
Ah, EA’s way of pushing Origin … just kidding!
Still, gotta hand it to them the way they do their testing :P. You can test for server outages, bad network conditions, you can test that.
What can I say, COD lost me at Modern Warfare 2. It became just waay too action movie like. Now, Medal Of Honor, that’s a modern warfare game that I liked!
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
Meh … i liked Mortal Kombat, but that’s pretty much it on games turned into movies.
@QOTW:
Ib. Free game, no microtransactions. It went waaay above my expectations, becoming a point of reference for “story and characters beat graphics”.
Black Ops 2 is Activision, not Electronic Arts.
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed: Seriously, how many video game movies have been announced and then they run into problems? Just wait until you actually have finished something, and just announce it with a trailer because I’m getting sick of this. Halo, Uncharted, God of War, Castlevania, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock and Gears of War are just a few of the many that will probably never see the light of day.
@Epic Mickey 2: Seeing as the sequel got pretty much the same reviews as the 1st one which I loved, I will probably end up playing this. Would be pretty excited to play it if I hadn’t like 6 new games which I would like to play.
Epic Mickey 2 is getting worse reviews, actually.
@Kickstarting the Party
As fun as Kickstarter sounds, I stay away from it. I am very conservative about how my games are made and frown upon the Rise of Communism in gaming. I still think that Kickstarter is just a passing fad and will eventually wither away.
@Patchy Black Ops
Haven’t played multiplayer. Although I own the Xbox 360 version so I should be safe. People expect Xbox games to run well on-line because we pay the Gold Tax and are entitled on it. Maybe PS3 should have had a payed subscription. It’s on-line is a mess compared to Xbox 360. It’s not just Black Ops that runs bad.
@Deus Ex
At least it wasn’t Uwe Boll…
@Taking the Mickey
Jonah’s right. Epic Mickey 2 is taking a critical beating. It doesn’t matter how many endings you have if your AI partner puts all effort ensuring that you never make it to the end.
@QOTW
GunZ Online. I played it back in 2006 before it went freemium. Back then there weren’t that many free on-line games. Especially action games that weren’t MMORPGs. That made GunZ stand out and I sunk a good few life-times into that game. Occasionally I come back there but the smell of nostalgia is not enough to keep me interested for long. Better games to play these days.