If I were a studio looking for a publisher, I’d only consider ones which aren’t publicly traded. Once a business is listed on the stock exchange, it changes the goalposts to infinite growth rather than simply profitability
If Ads are going to be in AAA games, if almost all of the AAA games are turning live service, if every AAA game now needs to make billions while being unfinished, then my expectations have become just as insurmountable as infinite growth corporations.
There is a nearly limitless number of decent to fantastic indie games on the market. All of the most fun and emotional experiences I've had in years have been from games not enough people know about. I became disillusioned from the AAA space a long time ago and I've never been more impressed with the creativity at play when you don't have shareholders to please.
What do we actually get in return for these invasive changes? A consistent $60 price tag? I've just started immediately buying any indie game that looks somewhat interesting instead of getting the same major title again and again. Fuck the AAA model.
Apart from King, every single IP that came with the deal is at the end of their lifespan. And, on top of that, they cut off access from a third of the remaining playerbase. I genuinely don't know how they thought $70bn was an investment. It's Musk levels of stupidity.
Before that 70bn, Xbox was just fine. The higher ups just saw it as a quaint earmark in some stock portfolio. Now it’s a glaring red exclamation point. Now those with the real money are taking over. I absolutely believe the soft coup theory. Satya came to collect.
@@DroosterH It fricken is Musk level. I was just stunned by the amount of money microsoft could spend and DID spend. Exactly same with Twitter. That's seventy-thousand-millions.... Insanity. They could make 70 thousand of their own workers millionaires.. . . ... .. . .. .. .. .. Numbers.. Insanity.
We mention a lot of these games in our Inside Games Roundup every week. There's a section dedicated to next week's releases near the end, check it out!
I always love when Lawrence does a deep dive into a topic. Video game reviews, different industries, capitalism, even the matrix franchise. I can hear this man speak forever. Please make more of these types of videos!!
If you are saying that larger companies buy smaller companies for the soul reason of eliminating potential future competition.. Then yes, I totally agree with that. I have also worked for small companies that were bought out by larger ones. They took the products they liked, rebranded them, then got rid of the rest of us as by that time, their inhouse staff had been trained on what our jobs were. WE became the overhead. Maybe its not so bad if you are in a large city with other options available to you, but in smaller ones, its devastating. Not that it matters to larger corporations.
Imagine how every single dev under the umbrella feels now. Nobody is safe. It’s maddening thinking of all those IPs we grew up with that may never ever see the light of day again. Fuck Microsoft
Phil Spencer fucked up buying Bethesda and Activision, and we're playing the price with studio closures (Vicarious Visions, Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks) which will probably lead to worse games.
@@HS_Rick Everyone rises to their level of incompetence - aka the peter principle. Phil Spencer is that dude living on the couch who smokes all the pot and eats all the food, but somehow doesn't get kicked out of the house because he's fun at parties.
Lmao. You are idiots. You think Phil made the decision. Lmao. You all need to get a life. Microsoft is about making money. They will do what they want to make as much money as possible. Phil has no say.
Two corrections to what was said in the video. 1) PS+ comprises 12% of Playstation's overall revenue, not "most" of their revenue as was said in the vid, and 2) GP growth is actually flat and not growing at all. We have data from the FTC leak that GP subs were at 34 million two years ago. Tom Warren recently reported that current 2024 GP total is 34 million - i.e., no growth at all over the past two years. Flat line. p.s. I should clarify, the 34 million in 2022 was total subs, GP + Live Gold combined. What MS then did was restructure the service tiers and labels, folding 11.7 million Live Gold subs into GP, now counting them as GP. They shifted numbers from one column to the next, although the actual numbers of total subs did not grow. 34 million in 2022, 34 million in 2024. MS shuffled the categories to make it look as if GP grew by 11 million from 2022 to 2024, but this was a mirage, a misdirection. They had merely folded 11 million Live Gold subs into the GP category.
I was just thinking that MS must understand that since GamePass already provides such an insane value proposition, everyone who are incentivised to sub would've subbed already. When the overwhelming majority of your core target customers are already paying you, surely there won't be much room for growth, period. If they keep closing studios and throwing that value proposition down the drain instead of thinking up new ways of monetising the existing customer base, they may have issues on retaining their existing subscribers rather than growth.
If your heart really aches for people being laid off...then cash out and quit your 401k and refrain from reinvestment. Your 401k is the main beneficiary of corporate layoffs.
@@ksks6802There's always that guy in the comments. "You should fix problems that are caused by and should be fixed by holding shitty executives possible". Don't punish customers, punish executives and don't let up.
@@MicaiahBaron please tell me you know that CEOs do what dictates the stock market? I'm assuming your of a younger generation. Stop kicking the can down the road for other generations to fix. Screwing with the corps money is the only thing that they understand. Do better with your thought process in the future.
@@ksks6802 You are delusional if you think regular working class people who have a few thousand in some investments are going to have any influence on the decision making of CEOs in massive multinational corporations.
@@Tetragrammaton22 I like how you instantly used some of the biggest corporations in the world to compare to consumer investment, kinda eroded my trust in your logic but let's roll with it. Older folks in their 40s let's say are usually invested in those more stable established corporations. Because they yield less risk for people who aren't gonna work much longer. At least I'm providing a solution and the rest of you are shouting angrily into the void of the internet....the generation of "all bark and no bite". Lol. And I thought my generation sucked.
I swear if Microsoft kills id Software, I'll never spend another dollar on an Xbox game or console. id is my favorite studio owned by Microsoft, these days. The idea of id getting the axe is unforgivable.
if they do that, i'd cancel game pass in a heartbeat... it may not be the same legendary team that broke gaming history anymore, but you can't mess with the hardest of the hardest of goats and get away scot free
Its funny how similar the Gaming Industry mirrored Hollywood. Today all the best work doesnt come from "major" studios. It comes from places like Blumhluse and A24. It seems likely the gaming industry is going that way too.
In a way it’s happening to Sony too not so much to Nintendo. That being said, there’s some bad fucking ass indies coming to PSN within 2024/25. I dunno about Xbox game store. For a lot of these indie studios, putting something on gamepass means actually less money than they could make if they just outright sold it. Xbox console sales are so low, so therefore it also means even bothering to put the title on Xbox store at all is too much risk and not worth the investment. With the switch 2 coming soon, plus the rise of PC handhelds I honestly don’t see a place for an Xbox at all. I still see a place for Sony, Nintendo and definitely PC.
Well said sir. You break this whole situation down well enough as depressing as it is. It definitely paints a picture of a really rocky future for smaller AA studios like you and Bruce alluded to in your previous video.
Xbox are really shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how boring & generic the next generation of Xbox games will be - because the devs will all be terrified of taking creative risks. The irony is that Redfall failed because Bethesda wanted Arkane to chase commercial online service trend rather than using their creative strengths (single player immersive sim)
Redfall failed because Arkane and Microsoft forced this game through COVID era without a coherent plan. Has nothing to do with live service, Unreal Engine was a large contributor
I think not making Hi-Fi Rush 2 (but this time with actual marketing! ) was a huge missed opportunity for Xbox. If they had got an animated Netflix Hi-Fi Rush show lined up in tandem with the game sequel - I think it would have sold really well! Animated shows like Arcane & Castlevania are really popular right now & the Cyberpunk show boosted sales for CDPR. Fallout show is now really boosting that IP too. It doesn’t alway work (Halo), but I think Hi-Fi Rush would have worked really well for a quirky animated show
They still own the IP, they just canned the game studio. Which is emblematic of a bigger problem with copyright laws and also how corporations like Microsoft demand growth & consolidation to expand their overall market share.
Games held on hostage, Devs has nothing to do but bend over. Industry will be monopolize. It was never a good idea to begin with. Xbox fans are just too damn desperate
Double Fine better watch out. Time to turn Costume Quest into a live service game? Broken Age with micro transaction hint systems? Psychonauts endless runner for mobile?
Gaming needs a consumer movement not unlike the recent ‘digitine’ movement taking over social media regarding celebrities. We need to promote not purchasing AAA titles until we see a dramatic shift in priorities and oversight in how these games are made. This is absolutely unsustainable and we’re headed for another collapse. Budgets are out of control, successful studios are being shuttered for not be Uber-successful and games are increasing getting worse with support and quality control, a new live service every single day comes out that doesn’t get supported because of critical misunderstanding of the market. People need to unilaterally stop purchasing AAA titles and play small private studio games.
The core of it that bothers me is that this all started as a result of Xbox spending 70 billion to buy a activision/blizzard rather than spending a fraction of that bolstering the studios they already had
Something to consider… single digit profit margins when pegged against double digit inflation for resources always looks like a loss to corpos. “Greed” is kind of the lazy answer and ignores the macro that leads to “passing costs to customers”
Not to mention that single-digit profit margin looks bad to an investor when compared to just stuffing your money into "risk-free" CD or Treasury Bill paying 5% interest.
I mean to argue the capitalist point of it, sort of, but also not really. You stand to make money in capitalism from putting your capital at risk. That’s exactly what happened here. Xbox leveraged a shit ton of Microsoft’s capital to buy new studios, fund massive AAA games, and sell consoles at a loss. They were able to spend the capital on the promise of x revenue compared to y cost of the acquisitions. They didn’t, and this was likely the last straw. All things considered, I’m surprised Phil Spencer still has a job. I think he has done a great job at repairing the Xbox brand, but he has consistently underperformed compared to Sony, and thus Microsoft’s expectations. Microsoft allowed Phil Spencer to buy public opinion in the wake of the mishandling of the 8th generation of consoles. There would be no golden days of Game Pass or Xbox Series S without the stupid Kinect and $500 launch price. Xbox One was a disaster compared to Xbox 360, they had to do everything they can to win back some marketshare. But the fact of the matter is, Lawrence is absolutely correct, the future of gaming is on PC and Mobile. Hobbyist gamers will switch to PC and casual gamers who bought an Xbox to play Madden or FIFA will be able to do that through streaming. Microsoft basically already owns the PC, that’s why they’re able to make a 35% profit margin, they have a monopoly on the personal computer operating system, so they can charge whatever they want. Why would they continue to operate in a sector where they can only make a single digit profit? That’s why it’s not really capitalistic because what Microsoft would really like is to stop competing with Playstation. They don’t care. They’re happy to give up and let Sony win the console war because Xbox is a hobby to Microsoft compared to their practice of printing money from Windows and Office licenses. They’re much happier to sell you a license for an OS that costs them pennies on the dollar to develop, for you to use on hardware that they don’t have to subsidize. To then let you rent games from them on a network that you don’t own. That’s what it boils down to, they’re coming for the untapped PC market. All those gamers who aren’t paying for a third-party network to host their games, that’s free money right there, and they’ll get to control your operating system so that you have to pay for it. Welcome to the future, it sucks.
The sad part is they do it to themselves too. So many people just sign up for the abuse to do what they love or to get recognition when they’d be better off doing it as a side thing.
"Invest in a PC" I'm literally starting a PC build, my first PC! I feel like PS and Xbox have been dropping the ball lately, and there's so much more out there that aren't on consoles
The fact that Microsoft values Call of Duty and Warcraft at 66 billion more dollars than Disney paid for Star Wars *WHEN IT WAS STILL POPULAR* says a lot about their future prospects. They think they're going to make that money back fairly quickly. Don't forget Microsoft already has to pay Sony a fee every time they make a console because Sony owns Blu-ray technology. They are bleeding money left and right and attempting to move everything to a live service format, while losing out on the funds people would normally spend on Xbox exclusives because they're on Game Pass Day 1 for a fraction of the cost. They haven't known what they should be doing since Xbox One.
Awesome insight. Corpo mindset doesnt end with "did I make money" it goes farther to ask "could I have made more money" and thats exactly where we get these wild brutal cuts regardless of good sales numbers or following
Well capitalism is so far been the best form of government humans have done so far and is responsible for the greatest prosperity in human history as of now.
@@mightguy911 Capitalism worked to an extent and helped pushed technology and society forward, but it’s not the perfect answer to everything. We’re reaching the tipping point and the foundation is cracking. Without some correction or support, corporate greed is going continually make things worse for society.
A lot of your final conclusion is similar to my take on the film industry. Right now, the art is being held by independent cinema that isn’t creating the massive revenue the larger studios are seeking. Though that resulted in companies like A24 needing to license massive brands like Friday the 13th to bring in more money, and can result in less of the vibrant films we’ve seen over the last 10 years. We need more people willing to put aside the professionalism you “need” to see onscreen, and open ourselves to the artists who are proud to work with what they have and are earnest in their art. RUclips is a solid distribution platform, but I wish there were platforms such as Tubi aren’t owned by larger studios and are instead independently owned. That’s a major reason why I am a huge supporter of Troma and their streaming service/film.
I've been a video game business enthusiast for a bit. Glad to see Lawrence is too. It's always fun trying to understand why decisions are made. The big corp vs the little guy tends to be a boring oversimplification of what is another face of human activity.
Thank you for this piece - it's one of the most grounded and logical takes on the situation I've seen. As a former Bullfrog employee who has experienced being taken over (by EA) and then ground to the dust like so many other creative studios before and after, it was clear to me where the ABK acquisition was leading. All those cheerleading the take over were blinded to the fact that this kind of spend brought xbox right into the clutches of the main corporation and will result in the death of many other smaller creative studios. This is just the start.
Absolutely love the content. It's always nice and nostalgic to see you and Bruce together still. Also adding Kasem to the gameplays is always fun. Keep it up guys, yall rock
As sad as it is to see these studios go, I understand their decision as a short term business decision. These studios are pretty niche and don't generate substantial subscription growth. What I'm wondering is if these decisions were worth the massive hit on their public image and the confidence of their developers.
might be an obvious thing to say, but i think we'll be seeing the rift between indie gaming and high-budget gaming widen to the point where they become two completely distinct and independent realities from one another, that don't ever mix because it's beneficial to neither to do so. I mean, it's already like this, but with more and more indie games coming out and more and more A or AA studios being shut down with their talent scattered to the wind, we'll see basically two distinct yet equally beloved classes of gaming in the market. More creative/innovative studios will not even want to gamble on the AAA market as it becomes a lot more hostile to them.
I 1000% agree with this, there will be 'games' for enthusiasts and then 'interactive entertainment products' for everyone else. There may be a bit of overlap but as you said, the gap will widen over time.
Not really. Turns out universal healthcare would save the US government money. The subsidies the government pays (not including what we pay as customers on top) cost more than if the government was to just pay for every single medical expense directly. So it costs more money for the government to fund a private company that already over charges customers.
Thanks for having a realistic and sound take on this. I got tired of the mass amount of youtube complain about business decisions and morals. I agree with how you stated at that time it was truth but when situations changes so does the facts. IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY Great Job
it is genuinely remarkable to watch a gaming news video on youtube that feels less reactionary than the multibillion dollar corporation it’s about. informative, analytical + enjoyable. this rules lawrence
I would argue "id" also has Quake to play with, which hey, that has a history of multiplayer delight! I wouldn't be surprised to see them be pushed to make a live-service Quake game tbh
Its unfortunate, but it in some entertainment industries, corporations are anathema to success. I don't think what Xbox, Sony and Warner Bros. have done recently are coincidences. All of the smaller companies they bought out are failing because the corporate model simply does not work. Not everything can be easily maximized for quarterly profit all the time. Video games are an art form that inherently require risk by developers. Same for some episodic animations/shows.
Lawrence, this was such outstanding reporting. An extremely fair, measured, and largely unemotional approach that really captures I think one of the deeper understandings of the industry. It has been so cool to watch you grow as one of my early favs on Funhaus into what you and Bruce are doing now, and am excited to see what you create with the new hires you mentioned. Keep killing it dude, and if they blow Doom 3 I'm sure a AA will make a cooler one.
I was literally just about to go to twitter to talk about the dark and light side of where we're at right now. The AA space has been incredibly interesting these past few years, it's really putting the "AAAA" space on notice. Great video as always
Even though it had Comedy music, this was about as personal as it could get. And I appreciate that about you! Keep up the great work, and I agree it may get worse from here on out. I hope no one else buys another company because I don’t want this happening to anyone else or there families!
Yeah, Phil Spencer screwed up by convincing Microsoft to spend $100 Billion Dollars to acquire game studios. The more money spent the higher the expectations. This is why Phil Spencer is no longer at the wheel, it's Microsoft's higherups driving the Xbox ship now. Phil Spencer would have been better off outbidding Sony on 3rd party exclusives... would had been much cheaper as well.
Great video would love more of these single topic kind of videos. I'm not really in the gaming world anymore but just enjoyable to here smart discussion.
Yep - Extend, embrace, extinguish. That's been Microsoft's MO for forever. This is pretty standard practice for them. They're not about product, they're about market control. Not just in games, but everywhere. But Phil Spencer knew that and that was a huge reason in buying those studios. And I guarantee once they finish this round of closures with Bethesda and in Activision, the dust settles, Microsoft may start growing a little and Xbox fans have forgotten and/or forgiven them for this, and they're going to be on the hunt for more studios. I'd be surprised if they didn't have their eyes on EA or even 2K, just waiting for them to make a misstep and swoop in to purchase them (or maybe even Take Two before GTA comes out, but that's a stretch). They've explicitly said their goal is to buy out the competition and starve the rest - right in line with Microsoft. If they're left unchecked, this honestly could be the start of a very slow and serious decline to the gaming industry as a whole, leaving only one or two publishers with maybe two consoles (Nintendo's and one other) on the market. PC will be the only way to go, buying indie games, but even still I don't see a lot of that, just considering the money it would take. And if they get too big risk being bought by one of the two big ones and extinguished like the rest. Hooray for unregulated late stage capitalism woooo
yeah I don't think they'll be allowed to do any of that they barely got Activision damn acquiring any more AAA Studios is going to be an issue like genuinely it's not going to be as easy as people think it Will be
@@shawngaines1117 I honestly hope you're right. I really do. Just given how these things are treated in American courts, especially even more so over the last 5-10 years, they always tend to side with corporations. And especially now that there's a precedent set with Microsoft buying Activision, any party trying to stop another large acquisition like that is going to have even harder of a time. And given that the FCC and others failed with the first, short of a straight literal monopoly, I don't see it getting any easier for them to shut down another one. Also looking at the mergers happening in the media industry, telecommunications industry, and others, bigger, more eyebrow-raising mergers have gone through unscathed. I don't see Microsoft having too many legal issues. Maybe I'm just a nihilist. But I've had a pretty good personal track-record with predicting these things, which kinda bums me out. Again though, I really really hope you're right.
I love it when Lawerence speaks what's on his mind. Through, emotional, academic, purposeful, and passionate. hopefully, we will see more of Lawrence letting it out
Thanks for building your case Lawrence. I have also been thinking about this, as xbox has some of my favorite smaller ips (AoE, psychonauts, state of decay), and I couldn't understand why. It makes more sense now under this context. It also feels like xbox is now just catching up to the industry as a whole unfortunately. Big publishers only focusing on big live service games. If they start to shutter studios in the 40-50 tier, I'm gonna take a sick day off work.
Another option for them is to trim all outflows of cash and clean up all around the balance sheet to make them totally saleable but I don't know other companies that would want to buy them so got to show a profit for their stockholders. Even Bathesda in their connection to the tv show fallout put in the deal of fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to make money! That leaves anyone other than owners will not make money or even be able to get service when the service part of it is sold off. lol Catch 22
I think one of the largest reasons for why Microsoft closed the studios they did was that these studios had little in active development. If they need to cut down on their studios, it makes sense to target an area they don't have the time or allocated resources to manage effectively so studios under Bethesda make sense to target, but from reporting on the closures we learned that both Arkane and Tango were only in the process of pitching their next projects which means not much money would've been invested in ongoing development on them. If they were in the middle of even pre-production that'd be a significant amount of money wasted on those projects if they got shut down alongside the studios but since neither studios were at that stage of development there's nowhere near as much lost investment.
it might be the backlash from gamer and Xbox fans that disappointed because newly acquired ip from Activision and Bethesda planned to release multi-platform...
I really wish corporations in general would see their workers and consumers as investments rather than trying to bleed them dry. I've become so disenchanted with how these businesses run.
The part I find so infuriating about closing the likes of Tango etc is: Where do they expect the *next* AAA blockbuster to come from? Most of the blockbuster franchises are over two *decades* old!
You know If they don't shutter or close studios also. Which they've done before and probably will do again. Just because one company is in the red light, don't think the other company is the green light. Both are companies, both will do shit that we like and don't like.
In fact the biggest example of this is Sony blocking Ghost of Tsushima from 50+ countries because multiplayer restrictions, and the recent psn requirements for specific PC games
I started feeling late last year that AAA games started feeling a bit like junk food. You enjoy them, but i kinda turn my brain off when playing them. So i started making the move to indies and AA games and i've been WAY more fed this year, so much so i'm getting a Steamdeck to enjoy more of them. It's good in that we have so many great ideas happening in that space, but man does it suck for ANYONE trapped under a big corpo like MS or Embracer (or whatever it's calling itself now)
I suspect MS will strip down and put any existing subscription models from bought studios into GP That makes some sense and would be a decent incentive if say, Live Service things in CoD and others were discounted or even included in GP Ultimate
Thanks for the insight, unfortunately this is the current landscape: companies buying studios just to prevent them from releasing hits on competing platforms then closing them down to cut costs. Hope all the people that have been removed will get back together into an independent studio again.
A big thing with Bethesda games, is that they're popular, but they're REALLY popular because of the modding support and openness they have. And whilst we have the creation club that allows some mods on Console, a lot of the more indepth scripting mods, that require the likes of SKSE (A scripting framework for Skyrim) cannot come to Consoles. But also, from at least my memory, Microsoft Store/Gamepass versions of games on PC, are not supported in most if not all mod managers as they handle how files are stored differently from the "standard" Steam Version, even the GOG version has to have certain mods packaged differently. The PC culture is different to that of the Consoles, we've had to always run patches, find little work arounds or even buy extra little bits of hardware in order to run certain games. We've been modders from the start. I would be willing to wager 3 cookies and a jar of oatmeal, that most PC players would either Try a trial or buy one month of Gamepass to see if they like a Bethesda game, and then purchase it on a platform that has propper mod support. Or Outright just buy it on one of the platforms that has that modding support that they have been using for years. This is only looking at it from a PC user perspective. But I feel like Microsoft buying Bethesda for Starfield was just a bad move because sure, Skyrim sold a bucket load on all the non modded support platforms, even before the Creation Club was a thing, but Starfield had to exceed that magic that Skyrim had, and expecting it to even come close years later, Especcially after the poor reception of Fallout 76, (which came out 3 years before the MSFT-BETH aquisition) was just blind faith at that point.
Great video Lawrence. It sucks out there right now. I wish "profit over all" wasn't such an ingrained thing in these big corporations. If you have a shit ton of employees, a shit ton of properties, tons of costs, and are STILL making profit (even in the single digits) then I feel like that should be good enough? Your end of video speech about mid range games is interesting. I agree that is where the good future of videogames is going to be. It's kind of funny though because I feel like the past 10 years or so we kind of stopped seeing any significant amount of AA games. It was either AAA or indie. Very few in between. I am starting to see a bit more pop up, and with all the closures I can definitely see those developers joining smaller outfits and producing lighter scope games.
great video! My friends say there are no good games any more. That may be true for AAA games, but AA and indie games are releasing great games more and more.
Great video Lawrence. Honestly I feel the same about DOOM and the worry behind the studio, ID did thankfully make Eternal. And if Eternal was to be the last TRUE DOOM game, they went out with a bang.
I cannot agree more with Lawrence at the end of the video. I encourage every gamer out there to invest in a PC; it has the biggest catalogue of games oftentimes at great deals. Also, with Xbox putting all their games on Steam and Sony gearing towards much of the same, I would advise skipping the next console generation because I guarantee you there would be little to no advantage compared to what a PC has to offer.
Everything is corpo greed now. Doesn't only apply to gaming. It's every industry. The corporate world is in the middle of the biggest cash grab that I have seen in my 40 years of life
Nice message in the end. Pay attention to AA and indie games on PC, best games today are there, and the best ones are ported to consoles. We may look forward for a few AAA games or especific devs like FromSoftware and Larian, but innovation rarely will come from there.
I feel like this is going to really push me fully into indie and retro gaming. Though Ive been on that track for a long time. I enjoy finding those charming inventive ideas coming out of that scene. And the pure genius and tenacity of the retro scene to revive and port those older experiences to new hardware. It does hurt that Ill probably never see that pure Quake III Arena style game if they kill id but that genre really does along time ago so I might as well be holding my breath for a Starcraft Ghost revival.
its something i have started to espouse more having picked up game creation first a a hobby but starting to lean more into the indisphere, is that gamers need to become more aware and support the indi side of gaming. where passion over profit is the focus, and should an indi become a hit have the balls to turn down corporate interests. thus eventually starve them out of the gaming space as investment loses interest, or forces corporation owned studios to change tact. its a big ask but, there is enough talent and tool accessibility at a low enough cost that indi titles can be on par or better than mainstream AAA in terms of quality, the only deciding factor is time. gamers would also need to be patient
That middle layer is what I love the most. AAA gaming has been increasingly the lower denominator for me when selecting games to buy and play. Just about every AAA game I’ve bought this year has been boring and a waste of money. So I’m not worried about gaming. But I am sad that some of my fav AAA studios will no longer imo be able to make games with art as the focus.
Microsoft are aquiring the ip. Their vision of the future is... - AI allowing to run leaner teams. - Subscription based cloud services regardless of where you play. Much like Microsoft Office, they don't care where you play Microsoft Home. - Tiered subscription models (basic / pro / elite etc), micro transactions and expansions. (They'll have multiple pricepoints to tweak to hit year on year.) - =Like what Steve Jobs said, souless, corporate cynicism. It hurts when Sarah Bond spews out that they love the industry because it's creatively artisitc. God forbid, they actually are artisitically creative. They buy the creativity so they can sell it. They pretty much said they can now build games and deliver them. And the most important part is how much they can make delivering them.
By far the best analysis of this topic, not biased thinking on just how good Hi Fi Rush was like most videos out there, but how it was nowhere near enough for MS corporation which is the truth.
Just go play games on your phone then, less console peasants ruining the industry the better. You're the ones to really blame for stuff like this anyway, not eViL Microsoft. With your 2-3 game purchases a year, probably at a discount. If you only plan on playing games one console generation and one only your entire life that's the only way you're coming out on top fiscally by not building your (cheaper) library on a forever platform (PC)
@@ninochaosdrache3189"similar specs" key words. Nobody needs 4k, console aren't even 4k unless you stand totally still. Dynamic resolution. Not too mention probably 30 fps. If you ppl ever get a PC you'll regret every single day you didn't do it sooner and every single console purchase (rental)
@@smalltime0 yeah.... But unlike Starfield, I would prefer game breaking bugs over incomplete or shallow content. Just give us the console and a means to "fix" the game when we encounter the bugs!
If I were a studio looking for a publisher, I’d only consider ones which aren’t publicly traded. Once a business is listed on the stock exchange, it changes the goalposts to infinite growth rather than simply profitability
Line has to go up.
@@smalltime0MBAs were a mistake
tough to say when you don't have millions of $ on a table in front of you.
@@sadmanh0 Also these aren't independent studios. They were already purchased by a publisher. M$ bought the publisher
As tough as it is to say, true.. we all act uber-principled until millions of $ are waved in our face.
If Ads are going to be in AAA games, if almost all of the AAA games are turning live service, if every AAA game now needs to make billions while being unfinished, then my expectations have become just as insurmountable as infinite growth corporations.
There is a nearly limitless number of decent to fantastic indie games on the market. All of the most fun and emotional experiences I've had in years have been from games not enough people know about. I became disillusioned from the AAA space a long time ago and I've never been more impressed with the creativity at play when you don't have shareholders to please.
What do we actually get in return for these invasive changes? A consistent $60 price tag?
I've just started immediately buying any indie game that looks somewhat interesting instead of getting the same major title again and again. Fuck the AAA model.
That 70 Billion deal was way off, complete insanity.
Apart from King, every single IP that came with the deal is at the end of their lifespan. And, on top of that, they cut off access from a third of the remaining playerbase.
I genuinely don't know how they thought $70bn was an investment. It's Musk levels of stupidity.
@@DroosterH They over paid, what a fuck up.
Agreed, Fox Studios went for less and it was over valued
Before that 70bn, Xbox was just fine. The higher ups just saw it as a quaint earmark in some stock portfolio. Now it’s a glaring red exclamation point. Now those with the real money are taking over. I absolutely believe the soft coup theory. Satya came to collect.
@@DroosterH It fricken is Musk level. I was just stunned by the amount of money microsoft could spend and DID spend. Exactly same with Twitter. That's seventy-thousand-millions.... Insanity. They could make 70 thousand of their own workers millionaires.. . . ... .. . .. .. .. .. Numbers.. Insanity.
I heard someone say "Xbox is no longer Xbox. It is Microsoft Gaming " 😅
i cannot believe they'd just throw away legacy branding like that. it's twitter all over again
it was always that, people imagined it was a separated company, they were confused
It's ALLWAYS been Microsoft gaming.
Look really hard in their past, how they conducteur themselves in the industry and how they handled compition.
It's almost as if corporate consolidation is bad actually.
Yea but buying out the competition is competition
nonono, Microsoft / Xbox owning everything is actually good for you, don't you see? /s
You guys should do s short AA game roundup each month or so, showcasing new releases from talented studios. That would be great!
We mention a lot of these games in our Inside Games Roundup every week. There's a section dedicated to next week's releases near the end, check it out!
@@insidegames yea I really enjoy seeing the smaller game in the roundup!
I always love when Lawrence does a deep dive into a topic. Video game reviews, different industries, capitalism, even the matrix franchise. I can hear this man speak forever. Please make more of these types of videos!!
If you are saying that larger companies buy smaller companies for the soul reason of eliminating potential future competition.. Then yes, I totally agree with that. I have also worked for small companies that were bought out by larger ones. They took the products they liked, rebranded them, then got rid of the rest of us as by that time, their inhouse staff had been trained on what our jobs were. WE became the overhead. Maybe its not so bad if you are in a large city with other options available to you, but in smaller ones, its devastating. Not that it matters to larger corporations.
Well, the solution then is to say No to the buying offer. Nobody forces you to sell out.
Oh Hey speaking of Xbox, Hellblade 2 comes out a week from today. I wonder how the devs at the studio are feeling right now.....
Rip ninja theory... 😢
Tameem already bailed
Imagine how every single dev under the umbrella feels now. Nobody is safe. It’s maddening thinking of all those IPs we grew up with that may never ever see the light of day again. Fuck Microsoft
I haven't seen a single ad or content creator talking about Hellblade 2. The game is going to flounder.
Obsidian most likely doesn't feel any better either
Phil Spencer fucked up buying Bethesda and Activision, and we're playing the price with studio closures (Vicarious Visions, Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks) which will probably lead to worse games.
@@HS_Rick Everyone rises to their level of incompetence - aka the peter principle.
Phil Spencer is that dude living on the couch who smokes all the pot and eats all the food, but somehow doesn't get kicked out of the house because he's fun at parties.
Likely not so much Bethesda but yeah definitely Activision
VICARIOUS VISIONS CLOSED?!
@@MeowieGamer they were turned into "Blizzard Albany" apparently
Lmao. You are idiots. You think Phil made the decision. Lmao. You all need to get a life. Microsoft is about making money. They will do what they want to make as much money as possible. Phil has no say.
RIP Tango Gameworks
A dev team full of soul, caught in the sights of soulless corpos.
Two corrections to what was said in the video. 1) PS+ comprises 12% of Playstation's overall revenue, not "most" of their revenue as was said in the vid, and 2) GP growth is actually flat and not growing at all. We have data from the FTC leak that GP subs were at 34 million two years ago. Tom Warren recently reported that current 2024 GP total is 34 million - i.e., no growth at all over the past two years. Flat line.
p.s. I should clarify, the 34 million in 2022 was total subs, GP + Live Gold combined. What MS then did was restructure the service tiers and labels, folding 11.7 million Live Gold subs into GP, now counting them as GP. They shifted numbers from one column to the next, although the actual numbers of total subs did not grow. 34 million in 2022, 34 million in 2024. MS shuffled the categories to make it look as if GP grew by 11 million from 2022 to 2024, but this was a mirage, a misdirection. They had merely folded 11 million Live Gold subs into the GP category.
I was just thinking that MS must understand that since GamePass already provides such an insane value proposition, everyone who are incentivised to sub would've subbed already. When the overwhelming majority of your core target customers are already paying you, surely there won't be much room for growth, period. If they keep closing studios and throwing that value proposition down the drain instead of thinking up new ways of monetising the existing customer base, they may have issues on retaining their existing subscribers rather than growth.
For those who are affected by those studio closures, my heart aches for them. Hopefully they can get back on their feet.
If your heart really aches for people being laid off...then cash out and quit your 401k and refrain from reinvestment. Your 401k is the main beneficiary of corporate layoffs.
@@ksks6802There's always that guy in the comments. "You should fix problems that are caused by and should be fixed by holding shitty executives possible". Don't punish customers, punish executives and don't let up.
@@MicaiahBaron please tell me you know that CEOs do what dictates the stock market? I'm assuming your of a younger generation. Stop kicking the can down the road for other generations to fix. Screwing with the corps money is the only thing that they understand. Do better with your thought process in the future.
@@ksks6802 You are delusional if you think regular working class people who have a few thousand in some investments are going to have any influence on the decision making of CEOs in massive multinational corporations.
@@Tetragrammaton22 I like how you instantly used some of the biggest corporations in the world to compare to consumer investment, kinda eroded my trust in your logic but let's roll with it. Older folks in their 40s let's say are usually invested in those more stable established corporations. Because they yield less risk for people who aren't gonna work much longer. At least I'm providing a solution and the rest of you are shouting angrily into the void of the internet....the generation of "all bark and no bite". Lol. And I thought my generation sucked.
I swear if Microsoft kills id Software, I'll never spend another dollar on an Xbox game or console. id is my favorite studio owned by Microsoft, these days. The idea of id getting the axe is unforgivable.
if they do that, i'd cancel game pass in a heartbeat... it may not be the same legendary team that broke gaming history anymore, but you can't mess with the hardest of the hardest of goats and get away scot free
Its funny how similar the Gaming Industry mirrored Hollywood. Today all the best work doesnt come from "major" studios. It comes from places like Blumhluse and A24. It seems likely the gaming industry is going that way too.
Not quite, that’s how it’s going for Xbox😂
In a way it’s happening to Sony too not so much to Nintendo. That being said, there’s some bad fucking ass indies coming to PSN within 2024/25. I dunno about Xbox game store. For a lot of these indie studios, putting something on gamepass means actually less money than they could make if they just outright sold it. Xbox console sales are so low, so therefore it also means even bothering to put the title on Xbox store at all is too much risk and not worth the investment. With the switch 2 coming soon, plus the rise of PC handhelds I honestly don’t see a place for an Xbox at all. I still see a place for Sony, Nintendo and definitely PC.
LDog dropping an insightful take. This is part of why i'm here
Some would say he's the Gandhi of gaming
Well said sir. You break this whole situation down well enough as depressing as it is. It definitely paints a picture of a really rocky future for smaller AA studios like you and Bruce alluded to in your previous video.
Xbox are really shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how boring & generic the next generation of Xbox games will be - because the devs will all be terrified of taking creative risks.
The irony is that Redfall failed because Bethesda wanted Arkane to chase commercial online service trend rather than using their creative strengths (single player immersive sim)
Redfall failed because Arkane and Microsoft forced this game through COVID era without a coherent plan. Has nothing to do with live service, Unreal Engine was a large contributor
Can't be worse than the this and the XBOX One gen.
I think not making Hi-Fi Rush 2 (but this time with actual marketing! ) was a huge missed opportunity for Xbox. If they had got an animated Netflix Hi-Fi Rush show lined up in tandem with the game sequel - I think it would have sold really well!
Animated shows like Arcane & Castlevania are really popular right now & the Cyberpunk show boosted sales for CDPR. Fallout show is now really boosting that IP too. It doesn’t alway work (Halo), but I think Hi-Fi Rush would have worked really well for a quirky animated show
They still own the IP, they just canned the game studio. Which is emblematic of a bigger problem with copyright laws and also how corporations like Microsoft demand growth & consolidation to expand their overall market share.
That buyout was the worst possible thing to ever happen, and there were people who pushed for it…well, they were wrong
Games held on hostage, Devs has nothing to do but bend over. Industry will be monopolize. It was never a good idea to begin with. Xbox fans are just too damn desperate
@@vonnblagaming984 indeed…
@@vonnblagaming984 why is it xbox fans fault?
@@jasperhorne cuz they justify the move as good for the industry. Where as they think it just benefits the Xbox platform
i hope they are happy now, they claimed that it was sony fanboys and just people full of envy, i really hope they are happy
Double Fine better watch out. Time to turn Costume Quest into a live service game? Broken Age with micro transaction hint systems? Psychonauts endless runner for mobile?
Gaming needs a consumer movement not unlike the recent ‘digitine’ movement taking over social media regarding celebrities. We need to promote not purchasing AAA titles until we see a dramatic shift in priorities and oversight in how these games are made. This is absolutely unsustainable and we’re headed for another collapse. Budgets are out of control, successful studios are being shuttered for not be Uber-successful and games are increasing getting worse with support and quality control, a new live service every single day comes out that doesn’t get supported because of critical misunderstanding of the market. People need to unilaterally stop purchasing AAA titles and play small private studio games.
The core of it that bothers me is that this all started as a result of Xbox spending 70 billion to buy a activision/blizzard rather than spending a fraction of that bolstering the studios they already had
Something to consider… single digit profit margins when pegged against double digit inflation for resources always looks like a loss to corpos. “Greed” is kind of the lazy answer and ignores the macro that leads to “passing costs to customers”
Not to mention that single-digit profit margin looks bad to an investor when compared to just stuffing your money into "risk-free" CD or Treasury Bill paying 5% interest.
I mean to argue the capitalist point of it, sort of, but also not really. You stand to make money in capitalism from putting your capital at risk. That’s exactly what happened here.
Xbox leveraged a shit ton of Microsoft’s capital to buy new studios, fund massive AAA games, and sell consoles at a loss. They were able to spend the capital on the promise of x revenue compared to y cost of the acquisitions. They didn’t, and this was likely the last straw. All things considered, I’m surprised Phil Spencer still has a job. I think he has done a great job at repairing the Xbox brand, but he has consistently underperformed compared to Sony, and thus Microsoft’s expectations.
Microsoft allowed Phil Spencer to buy public opinion in the wake of the mishandling of the 8th generation of consoles. There would be no golden days of Game Pass or Xbox Series S without the stupid Kinect and $500 launch price. Xbox One was a disaster compared to Xbox 360, they had to do everything they can to win back some marketshare.
But the fact of the matter is, Lawrence is absolutely correct, the future of gaming is on PC and Mobile. Hobbyist gamers will switch to PC and casual gamers who bought an Xbox to play Madden or FIFA will be able to do that through streaming.
Microsoft basically already owns the PC, that’s why they’re able to make a 35% profit margin, they have a monopoly on the personal computer operating system, so they can charge whatever they want. Why would they continue to operate in a sector where they can only make a single digit profit?
That’s why it’s not really capitalistic because what Microsoft would really like is to stop competing with Playstation. They don’t care. They’re happy to give up and let Sony win the console war because Xbox is a hobby to Microsoft compared to their practice of printing money from Windows and Office licenses.
They’re much happier to sell you a license for an OS that costs them pennies on the dollar to develop, for you to use on hardware that they don’t have to subsidize. To then let you rent games from them on a network that you don’t own.
That’s what it boils down to, they’re coming for the untapped PC market. All those gamers who aren’t paying for a third-party network to host their games, that’s free money right there, and they’ll get to control your operating system so that you have to pay for it. Welcome to the future, it sucks.
How have I never heard of this channel. This was so we’ll write. Full of unique insight. Thanks!
Well written* lol
100% Lawrence, AA gaming is where it's at. Higher quality games by smaller teams for
It’s a shame AAA gaming is turning into the fast food industry in nearly every way
Common Lawrence W
Oh god you are describing this industry turning into verbatim the anime industry, a hell on earth for creatives
The sad part is they do it to themselves too. So many people just sign up for the abuse to do what they love or to get recognition when they’d be better off doing it as a side thing.
"Invest in a PC" I'm literally starting a PC build, my first PC! I feel like PS and Xbox have been dropping the ball lately, and there's so much more out there that aren't on consoles
The fact that Microsoft values Call of Duty and Warcraft at 66 billion more dollars than Disney paid for Star Wars *WHEN IT WAS STILL POPULAR* says a lot about their future prospects. They think they're going to make that money back fairly quickly. Don't forget Microsoft already has to pay Sony a fee every time they make a console because Sony owns Blu-ray technology. They are bleeding money left and right and attempting to move everything to a live service format, while losing out on the funds people would normally spend on Xbox exclusives because they're on Game Pass Day 1 for a fraction of the cost. They haven't known what they should be doing since Xbox One.
Awesome insight. Corpo mindset doesnt end with "did I make money" it goes farther to ask "could I have made more money" and thats exactly where we get these wild brutal cuts regardless of good sales numbers or following
Is it corporate greed? Or simply capitalism working as intended? (Or not working depending on the the context)
Not working in the long run
Well capitalism is so far been the best form of government humans have done so far and is responsible for the greatest prosperity in human history as of now.
@@mightguy911lol you’re funny
@@mightguy911not form of government. Form of economy. You can't say it's the best as it does lead to corporatism, like now
@@mightguy911
Capitalism worked to an extent and helped pushed technology and society forward, but it’s not the perfect answer to everything.
We’re reaching the tipping point and the foundation is cracking. Without some correction or support, corporate greed is going continually make things worse for society.
A lot of your final conclusion is similar to my take on the film industry. Right now, the art is being held by independent cinema that isn’t creating the massive revenue the larger studios are seeking. Though that resulted in companies like A24 needing to license massive brands like Friday the 13th to bring in more money, and can result in less of the vibrant films we’ve seen over the last 10 years. We need more people willing to put aside the professionalism you “need” to see onscreen, and open ourselves to the artists who are proud to work with what they have and are earnest in their art. RUclips is a solid distribution platform, but I wish there were platforms such as Tubi aren’t owned by larger studios and are instead independently owned. That’s a major reason why I am a huge supporter of Troma and their streaming service/film.
Microsoft's CEO was compensated ~$49.5M between base salary, bonus, and other comp in 2023.
There’s no way it was that low
The Gamepass golden goose would've been Helldivers 2. Perfect use of a Live Service
I've been a video game business enthusiast for a bit. Glad to see Lawrence is too. It's always fun trying to understand why decisions are made. The big corp vs the little guy tends to be a boring oversimplification of what is another face of human activity.
Thank you for this piece - it's one of the most grounded and logical takes on the situation I've seen.
As a former Bullfrog employee who has experienced being taken over (by EA) and then ground to the dust like so many other creative studios before and after, it was clear to me where the ABK acquisition was leading.
All those cheerleading the take over were blinded to the fact that this kind of spend brought xbox right into the clutches of the main corporation and will result in the death of many other smaller creative studios. This is just the start.
Absolutely love the content. It's always nice and nostalgic to see you and Bruce together still. Also adding Kasem to the gameplays is always fun. Keep it up guys, yall rock
As sad as it is to see these studios go, I understand their decision as a short term business decision. These studios are pretty niche and don't generate substantial subscription growth. What I'm wondering is if these decisions were worth the massive hit on their public image and the confidence of their developers.
Bruce is my dad. he got sold off to increase profits for Inside Games.
might be an obvious thing to say, but i think we'll be seeing the rift between indie gaming and high-budget gaming widen to the point where they become two completely distinct and independent realities from one another, that don't ever mix because it's beneficial to neither to do so. I mean, it's already like this, but with more and more indie games coming out and more and more A or AA studios being shut down with their talent scattered to the wind, we'll see basically two distinct yet equally beloved classes of gaming in the market.
More creative/innovative studios will not even want to gamble on the AAA market as it becomes a lot more hostile to them.
I 1000% agree with this, there will be 'games' for enthusiasts and then 'interactive entertainment products' for everyone else. There may be a bit of overlap but as you said, the gap will widen over time.
Hello Lawrence my old friend. I'm hear to watch your show again.
I love to see these more thought piece type videos along with the normal news stuff. Thanks Inside Games!
What’s even scarier to me is if any of these smaller titles make the sales goal what does that mean for the next one in the series.
I LOVE these videos when Lawrence just talks to camera. His insight is eye opening
And corporate taxes used to be at 35%. Corporations had to pay taxes. Now, not so much. 🤦♂️ There goes what could cover universal healthcare btw.
Not really. Turns out universal healthcare would save the US government money.
The subsidies the government pays (not including what we pay as customers on top) cost more than if the government was to just pay for every single medical expense directly.
So it costs more money for the government to fund a private company that already over charges customers.
Thanks for having a realistic and sound take on this. I got tired of the mass amount of youtube complain about business decisions and morals. I agree with how you stated at that time it was truth but when situations changes so does the facts. IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY Great Job
These acquisitions are killing the gaming industry.
it is genuinely remarkable to watch a gaming news video on youtube that feels less reactionary than the multibillion dollar corporation it’s about. informative, analytical + enjoyable. this rules lawrence
Give the average person Microsoft money and 10 studios, they would accidentally produce far more games than Xbox has over the past 15 years.
I would argue "id" also has Quake to play with, which hey, that has a history of multiplayer delight! I wouldn't be surprised to see them be pushed to make a live-service Quake game tbh
Only one thing can save Xbox.
Splosion Man 3.
Its unfortunate, but it in some entertainment industries, corporations are anathema to success. I don't think what Xbox, Sony and Warner Bros. have done recently are coincidences. All of the smaller companies they bought out are failing because the corporate model simply does not work. Not everything can be easily maximized for quarterly profit all the time. Video games are an art form that inherently require risk by developers. Same for some episodic animations/shows.
Lawrence, this was such outstanding reporting. An extremely fair, measured, and largely unemotional approach that really captures I think one of the deeper understandings of the industry. It has been so cool to watch you grow as one of my early favs on Funhaus into what you and Bruce are doing now, and am excited to see what you create with the new hires you mentioned.
Keep killing it dude, and if they blow Doom 3 I'm sure a AA will make a cooler one.
I was literally just about to go to twitter to talk about the dark and light side of where we're at right now. The AA space has been incredibly interesting these past few years, it's really putting the "AAAA" space on notice.
Great video as always
Ive been playing Hi-Fi rush on ps5 a bit. Seeing all the evil within easter eggs makes me sad that we (probably) wont get a 3rd and final installment
Even though it had Comedy music, this was about as personal as it could get. And I appreciate that about you! Keep up the great work, and I agree it may get worse from here on out. I hope no one else buys another company because I don’t want this happening to anyone else or there families!
Your closing on this video was perfect. As bleak as the future is, the middle layer that you mentioned is vibrant. Thank you for making this!
Yeah, Phil Spencer screwed up by convincing Microsoft to spend $100 Billion Dollars to acquire game studios. The more money spent the higher the expectations. This is why Phil Spencer is no longer at the wheel, it's Microsoft's higherups driving the Xbox ship now. Phil Spencer would have been better off outbidding Sony on 3rd party exclusives... would had been much cheaper as well.
Great video would love more of these single topic kind of videos. I'm not really in the gaming world anymore but just enjoyable to here smart discussion.
This is probably the the most realistic level headed take on this situation. Very well put together man!
Yep - Extend, embrace, extinguish. That's been Microsoft's MO for forever. This is pretty standard practice for them. They're not about product, they're about market control. Not just in games, but everywhere. But Phil Spencer knew that and that was a huge reason in buying those studios. And I guarantee once they finish this round of closures with Bethesda and in Activision, the dust settles, Microsoft may start growing a little and Xbox fans have forgotten and/or forgiven them for this, and they're going to be on the hunt for more studios. I'd be surprised if they didn't have their eyes on EA or even 2K, just waiting for them to make a misstep and swoop in to purchase them (or maybe even Take Two before GTA comes out, but that's a stretch). They've explicitly said their goal is to buy out the competition and starve the rest - right in line with Microsoft. If they're left unchecked, this honestly could be the start of a very slow and serious decline to the gaming industry as a whole, leaving only one or two publishers with maybe two consoles (Nintendo's and one other) on the market. PC will be the only way to go, buying indie games, but even still I don't see a lot of that, just considering the money it would take. And if they get too big risk being bought by one of the two big ones and extinguished like the rest. Hooray for unregulated late stage capitalism woooo
yeah I don't think they'll be allowed to do any of that they barely got Activision damn acquiring any more AAA Studios is going to be an issue like genuinely it's not going to be as easy as people think it Will be
@@shawngaines1117 I honestly hope you're right. I really do. Just given how these things are treated in American courts, especially even more so over the last 5-10 years, they always tend to side with corporations. And especially now that there's a precedent set with Microsoft buying Activision, any party trying to stop another large acquisition like that is going to have even harder of a time. And given that the FCC and others failed with the first, short of a straight literal monopoly, I don't see it getting any easier for them to shut down another one. Also looking at the mergers happening in the media industry, telecommunications industry, and others, bigger, more eyebrow-raising mergers have gone through unscathed. I don't see Microsoft having too many legal issues. Maybe I'm just a nihilist. But I've had a pretty good personal track-record with predicting these things, which kinda bums me out. Again though, I really really hope you're right.
You guys are the best!
I love it when Lawerence speaks what's on his mind. Through, emotional, academic, purposeful, and passionate. hopefully, we will see more of Lawrence letting it out
Thanks for building your case Lawrence. I have also been thinking about this, as xbox has some of my favorite smaller ips (AoE, psychonauts, state of decay), and I couldn't understand why. It makes more sense now under this context. It also feels like xbox is now just catching up to the industry as a whole unfortunately. Big publishers only focusing on big live service games.
If they start to shutter studios in the 40-50 tier, I'm gonna take a sick day off work.
Another option for them is to trim all outflows of cash and clean up all around the balance sheet to make them totally saleable but I don't know other companies that would want to buy them so got to show a profit for their stockholders. Even Bathesda in their connection to the tv show fallout put in the deal of fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to make money! That leaves anyone other than owners will not make money or even be able to get service when the service part of it is sold off. lol Catch 22
I think one of the largest reasons for why Microsoft closed the studios they did was that these studios had little in active development. If they need to cut down on their studios, it makes sense to target an area they don't have the time or allocated resources to manage effectively so studios under Bethesda make sense to target, but from reporting on the closures we learned that both Arkane and Tango were only in the process of pitching their next projects which means not much money would've been invested in ongoing development on them. If they were in the middle of even pre-production that'd be a significant amount of money wasted on those projects if they got shut down alongside the studios but since neither studios were at that stage of development there's nowhere near as much lost investment.
This entire situation is so depressing, to be honest. Thanks for explaining it in more detail, Laurence.
it might be the backlash from gamer and Xbox fans that disappointed because newly acquired ip from Activision and Bethesda planned to release multi-platform...
I love listening to Lawrence talk, it leaves me informed and positive - which seem to be mutually exclusive in recent years.
What I'm scared of, is now that a lot of companies know they could be on the chopping block, do we see people leave the jobs early?
I really wish corporations in general would see their workers and consumers as investments rather than trying to bleed them dry. I've become so disenchanted with how these businesses run.
The part I find so infuriating about closing the likes of Tango etc is: Where do they expect the *next* AAA blockbuster to come from? Most of the blockbuster franchises are over two *decades* old!
Sony has an opportunity to build an All-Star studio with all these available developers and make something truly great.
You know If they don't shutter or close studios also. Which they've done before and probably will do again. Just because one company is in the red light, don't think the other company is the green light. Both are companies, both will do shit that we like and don't like.
Thats a funny joke. Sony is just as bad as xbox.
In fact, they did this kinda shit *first*.
In fact the biggest example of this is Sony blocking Ghost of Tsushima from 50+ countries because multiplayer restrictions, and the recent psn requirements for specific PC games
I started feeling late last year that AAA games started feeling a bit like junk food. You enjoy them, but i kinda turn my brain off when playing them. So i started making the move to indies and AA games and i've been WAY more fed this year, so much so i'm getting a Steamdeck to enjoy more of them. It's good in that we have so many great ideas happening in that space, but man does it suck for ANYONE trapped under a big corpo like MS or Embracer (or whatever it's calling itself now)
I suspect MS will strip down and put any existing subscription models from bought studios into GP
That makes some sense and would be a decent incentive if say, Live Service things in CoD and others were discounted or even included in GP Ultimate
Thanks for the insight, unfortunately this is the current landscape: companies buying studios just to prevent them from releasing hits on competing platforms then closing them down to cut costs. Hope all the people that have been removed will get back together into an independent studio again.
I like this type of format. It's like having a one on one with Lawerence.
A big thing with Bethesda games, is that they're popular, but they're REALLY popular because of the modding support and openness they have.
And whilst we have the creation club that allows some mods on Console, a lot of the more indepth scripting mods, that require the likes of SKSE (A scripting framework for Skyrim) cannot come to Consoles.
But also, from at least my memory, Microsoft Store/Gamepass versions of games on PC, are not supported in most if not all mod managers as they handle how files are stored differently from the "standard" Steam Version, even the GOG version has to have certain mods packaged differently.
The PC culture is different to that of the Consoles, we've had to always run patches, find little work arounds or even buy extra little bits of hardware in order to run certain games. We've been modders from the start. I would be willing to wager 3 cookies and a jar of oatmeal, that most PC players would either
Try a trial or buy one month of Gamepass to see if they like a Bethesda game, and then purchase it on a platform that has propper mod support.
Or
Outright just buy it on one of the platforms that has that modding support that they have been using for years.
This is only looking at it from a PC user perspective.
But I feel like Microsoft buying Bethesda for Starfield was just a bad move because sure, Skyrim sold a bucket load on all the non modded support platforms, even before the Creation Club was a thing, but Starfield had to exceed that magic that Skyrim had, and expecting it to even come close years later, Especcially after the poor reception of Fallout 76, (which came out 3 years before the MSFT-BETH aquisition) was just blind faith at that point.
Great video Lawrence. It sucks out there right now. I wish "profit over all" wasn't such an ingrained thing in these big corporations. If you have a shit ton of employees, a shit ton of properties, tons of costs, and are STILL making profit (even in the single digits) then I feel like that should be good enough?
Your end of video speech about mid range games is interesting. I agree that is where the good future of videogames is going to be. It's kind of funny though because I feel like the past 10 years or so we kind of stopped seeing any significant amount of AA games. It was either AAA or indie. Very few in between. I am starting to see a bit more pop up, and with all the closures I can definitely see those developers joining smaller outfits and producing lighter scope games.
great video! My friends say there are no good games any more. That may be true for AAA games, but AA and indie games are releasing great games more and more.
Great video, Lawrence. Very insightful. I dig the natural style of your delivery, and the editor did great too. Keep em coming!
Great video Lawrence. Honestly I feel the same about DOOM and the worry behind the studio, ID did thankfully make Eternal. And if Eternal was to be the last TRUE DOOM game, they went out with a bang.
I cannot agree more with Lawrence at the end of the video. I encourage every gamer out there to invest in a PC; it has the biggest catalogue of games oftentimes at great deals. Also, with Xbox putting all their games on Steam and Sony gearing towards much of the same, I would advise skipping the next console generation because I guarantee you there would be little to no advantage compared to what a PC has to offer.
Everything is corpo greed now. Doesn't only apply to gaming. It's every industry. The corporate world is in the middle of the biggest cash grab that I have seen in my 40 years of life
Nice message in the end. Pay attention to AA and indie games on PC, best games today are there, and the best ones are ported to consoles. We may look forward for a few AAA games or especific devs like FromSoftware and Larian, but innovation rarely will come from there.
this is smart, I wish everyone made video's with thinking and not just rage. Great analysis!
Great video Lawrence! I wouldn’t mind having a video every now and then where Lawrence just talks about a story he’s passionate about like this
Excellent breakdown, Lawrence. I expect nothing less from the Quintessential Gamer.
I feel like this is going to really push me fully into indie and retro gaming. Though Ive been on that track for a long time. I enjoy finding those charming inventive ideas coming out of that scene. And the pure genius and tenacity of the retro scene to revive and port those older experiences to new hardware.
It does hurt that Ill probably never see that pure Quake III Arena style game if they kill id but that genre really does along time ago so I might as well be holding my breath for a Starcraft Ghost revival.
If Gamers were smart, they would stop playing The Big industry games, that's the only way to hurt these corporations, but Gamers are ADDICTS.,
its something i have started to espouse more having picked up game creation first a a hobby but starting to lean more into the indisphere, is that gamers need to become more aware and support the indi side of gaming. where passion over profit is the focus, and should an indi become a hit have the balls to turn down corporate interests. thus eventually starve them out of the gaming space as investment loses interest, or forces corporation owned studios to change tact. its a big ask but, there is enough talent and tool accessibility at a low enough cost that indi titles can be on par or better than mainstream AAA in terms of quality, the only deciding factor is time. gamers would also need to be patient
That middle layer is what I love the most. AAA gaming has been increasingly the lower denominator for me when selecting games to buy and play. Just about every AAA game I’ve bought this year has been boring and a waste of money. So I’m not worried about gaming. But I am sad that some of my fav AAA studios will no longer imo be able to make games with art as the focus.
Microsoft are aquiring the ip. Their vision of the future is...
- AI allowing to run leaner teams.
- Subscription based cloud services regardless of where you play. Much like Microsoft Office, they don't care where you play Microsoft Home.
- Tiered subscription models (basic / pro / elite etc), micro transactions and expansions. (They'll have multiple pricepoints to tweak to hit year on year.)
- =Like what Steve Jobs said, souless, corporate cynicism.
It hurts when Sarah Bond spews out that they love the industry because it's creatively artisitc. God forbid, they actually are artisitically creative. They buy the creativity so they can sell it. They pretty much said they can now build games and deliver them. And the most important part is how much they can make delivering them.
By far the best analysis of this topic, not biased thinking on just how good Hi Fi Rush was like most videos out there, but how it was nowhere near enough for MS corporation which is the truth.
Invest in a PC? Yeah, that's only 3 times the cost of a console
No it doesn't have to. You can definitely build a pretty good gaming PC with what you spend on a console.
@@palaven4048
You can't though. Eurogamer made a test and they couldn't build a PC with similar specs to the price of a console.
And way more unnecessary hassle to deal with. (DRM, Windows Updates, Driver Updates, games not working for no reason)
Just go play games on your phone then, less console peasants ruining the industry the better. You're the ones to really blame for stuff like this anyway, not eViL Microsoft. With your 2-3 game purchases a year, probably at a discount. If you only plan on playing games one console generation and one only your entire life that's the only way you're coming out on top fiscally by not building your (cheaper) library on a forever platform (PC)
@@ninochaosdrache3189"similar specs" key words. Nobody needs 4k, console aren't even 4k unless you stand totally still. Dynamic resolution. Not too mention probably 30 fps. If you ppl ever get a PC you'll regret every single day you didn't do it sooner and every single console purchase (rental)
Love you Law Dog, thanks for doing these deep dives and for Inside Games in general :)
So you mean to say that they’re gonna announce ES6 in the upcoming showcase and rush its development???
Erm, if they didn't rush it to market with day 1 game breaking bugs, it wouldn't be an Elder Scrolls game.
@@smalltime0 yeah.... But unlike Starfield, I would prefer game breaking bugs over incomplete or shallow content. Just give us the console and a means to "fix" the game when we encounter the bugs!
Xbox is making a huge gamble and the consumer is the one who will ultimately pay when it fails.