Where do we go from here?

By Phil Bothun

You’ve seen the same news for so long that you can’t keep the studios and outlets separate. The 1,900 people laid off from Microsoft mere months ago has already slipped from your mind as did the closures of Roll7 and Intercept Games two weeks ago. Each week—everyday at this point—brings with it another headline telling us that the industry and medium we love is collapsing.

Somewhere between LAN parties and today, the games industry got tech-bro-ified. It’s “to the moon” or to the bread lines, while faceless grifters in search of the next get-rich-quick racket get bonuses before paying out severance. Or maybe you haven’t been embraced by private equity and your auteur of a director got a huge payout by selling to a trillion dollar company…while you become redundant. But don’t worry, your (former) CEO will walk out on a stage this June and wear a nostalgic t-shirt and all will be forgotten.

And that’s nothing to say about the state of games journalism these days. Our favorite sites and communities for games coverage are disappearing (or are bought, then disappear) as the money dries up. Digital ads revenue is plummeting in value and on-the-rocks publications are picked up for pennies by companies with “ventures” in their name. Sure, some new outlets are popping up: small, worker-owned collectives of former journalists sticking it out together instead of relying on venture capital. Whether its sites like Remap (former folks from Vice’s Waypoint) or Aftermath (mostly from Kotaku), industry-known people are asking their audiences for money directly. Unfortunately, money is tight for the common person and there are only so many Patreon dollars to go around. The gamble is that the small, collective support of a decently-sized community is enough to be sustainable.

The real bastard of it all is that exact reason these studios and outlets are being shutdown could’ve been a great opportunity to branch out. We heard for months about every studio or outlet acquisition being a result of how cheap borrowing money was; it was the prime time for massive corporations to absorb smaller studios and equity firms to leverage a ton of debt and try to find their next hit. Looking back, maybe it would’ve been a good time to start a new, sustainable outlet too, but you know what they say about hindsight.

So, what happens now?

Well, probably more of the same. The layoffs will continue until morale improves. Massive swaths of people will leave this industry and never return, hopefully finding work in more stable, well-paying jobs elsewhere. More projects we’ve never heard of will die and shareholder value will increase nonetheless. The big players in the games industry will further regress to playing the AAA hits while smaller studios struggle to make the coolest thing you’ve never seen before.

But, I think there’s still hope. From a games coverage perspective, a shift is already happening. Sites like Defector are serving as a beacon for new and old blood in the games media. Those in the games media have flocked to Patreon or other subscription-style support, stepping into the areas best known for supporting artists and podcasters. While professional positions in games media decline, there is a growing number trying to make a career from a hobby. Podcasters, streamers, and layperson writers grow audiences on social media, Patreon, or Substack. Their podcast audiences grow and, ultimately, they settle into their niche. The future of the games media is smaller, more focused, and personal. Their goals—whether out of burnout or necessity—are more human: making a livable wage, instead of laboring for someone else’s buyout, and finding some joy in the process.

The games-making industry is moving slower; the layoffs are an order of magnitude more than those in the media and the project timelines are measured in years, not weeks. The economics of crowdfunding or ongoing subscriptions will probably never work out in favor of supporting something like Hi-Fi Rush 2; the heady days of kickstarting something like Star Citizen seem to be behind us. So many people will never return to a field primarily fueled (and exploited) by love and passion.

And yet, there is still hope. New projects are being greenlit and studios are still appearing (though they are not enough to pick up the masses of talent still looking for work). We’re beginning to hear of new studios founded by ex-so-and-so workers, instead of single-auteur-makes-a-new-studio. Just like in the media, small groups of people are banding together, hitching their wagons to each other and the hope that small successes will be enough. Everyday, Steam is flooded with new, innovative games doing genre-bending things we never could’ve dreamed of made by small teams. Yes, making a universal hit is damn-near impossible, but it feels like making a hit for a small audience might be just enough for a small team.

Being an optimist in the face of rampant, gluttonous capitalism can feel Sisyphean. Through the haze of all the big wig cigar smoke, there is something, though. We can see small sites doing less work and seeing more of their money. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll start seeing more shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less. It finally feels like that’s possible, just maybe not in the way we wanted or imagined.