This past week, games industry royalty Brenda and John Romero spoke to GIbiz in an interview that honestly set my heart pounding – and not in a good way.
“I feel like the industry’s in a really horrible place,” Brenda Romero said as the duo spoke about the industry’s total lack of funding, the dismal state of AI nonsense, and studios being closed even when games are wildly successful. “I mean, we were there in the ’80s for the crash, and this is definitely crashier.”
If the Romeros are worried, I’m worried. Well, I was already worried. But now I’m extra nervous that even they don’t see a clear path through it. How much of the current industry is just ending up in the digital equivalent of a landfill in Alamogordo?
So let’s talk about it for this week’s Massively Overthinking. How panicked are we about the state of the games industry? What about MMORPGs specifically? Where do we go from here?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): I don’t personally remember the crash of 1983, but I can read and you should too, so I’m pretty sure the only reason my family had an Atari and games in the years following that was everything was being sold for pennies on the dollar – when it wasn’t shoved into a landfill for being nearly worthless as the industry collapsed.
But yeah, I think if anything, the Romeros are underselling the crisis (even though their own studio was deeply affected by it). The ’83 crash didn’t have the same kind of external economic factors (the AI bubble) exacerbating it, nor was it propped up and ready to topple after decades of accelerating income inequality and corporate consolidation and asset stripping on a massive scale (i.e., where the planet is right now). I’m with Lady Brenda here; I don’t see how we get out of it. The only way out is through, and through is devastating. I guess I don’t feel panicked, only resigned, and that’s worse. I can only repeat: Support the games we’ve got.
Side note, I thought it was an interesting twist that NCsoft’s western CEO came out with a more hopeful tone this week. I think JJ is right that MMORPGs will come around again eventually; I just think it’s gonna be a lot longer than she thinks.
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): No panic on the Carlo front for me. The games I like and want to play are already out (except for Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era). I highly doubt we will get a crash like in the ’80s because anyone can make video games now. I literally had my computer science students build one for me on Python as their midterm project. Crash or not, I have a backlog to attend to!
If anything, making “a” video game is the easy part. Making a fun and mindblowing game that’s easy to pick up, hard to master, and hitting all the right notes is the hard part. But that’s why all the games I want to play are already out (except Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era). The older games had it figured out. Not as much noise as there is today.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): Brenda Romero closed the piece with, “It can’t stay like this forever,” and on that point I most certainly agree, not only because I’m a frequent optimist despite all of the tire fire smoke. Still, it is hard to justify and even nurture that optimism when the headlines suggest that we’re all going to die under a cloud of toxic gas pouring out from an AI data center, or that video games will be wholly priced out for the regular person.
The problem, of course, is that we have to wait for a few bubbles to pop, or perhaps more specifically an iceberg or two to hit the big ships. But that doesn’t just happen organically, and certainly not with gen AI encroachment. Luckily it does appear that the vast majority are wising up to the massive impacts of this tech across several different vectors, which is what fuels some of my hope for a turnaround.
John and Brenda also mention that there’s still ways for “micro teams” as they put it to make games happen, even if the gestation period now takes longer than before as a result. There still seems like there are a lot of actually passionate fans of the medium that are still stoking the fires and cranking out new things, even if some of those new things can still feel a bit derivative at times; I swear it feels like I’ve seen Super Meat Boy made 12 different ways.
As for what this means for MMORPGs, it gets more complicated, particularly with the tug-o-war between funding a regular MMO and crafting the next GaaS money printer. But here I yet again look to the potential of the smaller games like Project Gorgon, or take some comfort yet again in the old guard still adding new things. Sometimes having continued stuff added to the already released is a good thing, you know? Especially in the age of live service games being pulled out by the roots within months over ROI screeching.
So, no, I don’t think there’s panic. Certainly lots of understandable and warranted worry, and a whole huge amount of frustration with the impacts that c-suite goons and investor vulture flocks, but I still feel like this is a pendulum swing. It just seems like that pendulum has reached its zenith into the “we can’t have nice things” scale.
Sam Kash (@samkash@mastodon.social): Sadly I’ll admit that if I were a game developer, I’d be pretty worried for my work. It’s obvious that the games studios do not care much at all about the games themselves or their developers. On top of that is all the other craziness going on in the economy right now. It’s really scary for everyone out there!
So not only do game devs have the fear of working in an industry for people who seemingly do not care for them, they are competing with AI for their own jobs, and they largely work in an entertainment industry. As someone who spends money on entertainment when I have extra savings and not when I’m pinching pennies for fear of an economic meltdown, that’s not a good sign at all.
So at an individual human level, yes, it’s pretty awful out there. And from an MMO level, I am not confident either. The closest I’ve been to an MMO I actually enjoyed was recently shut down, and I am increasingly worried about the ones I have been anticipating.
The best thing we do have going is that it is easier than ever for indie teams to make some headway and create really great games. Mostly I’ve seen success in the offline game area, but there are some co-op and small multiplayer games that have been successful. Hopefully that can reach out into the MMO space more too.
Tyler Edwards (blog): On a macro level, no, I’m not worried about the industry. Things are bad right now, and it sucks for the people losing or fearing losing their jobs, but it’s not like the millions of people worldwide who love games are going to disappear. Video games aren’t going anywhere, and we’ll get back to equilibrium sooner or later.
But I do think a contraction like this could be fatal for more niche genres, like MMORPGs. When the industry is already struggling to survive, who’s going to invest in a genre that’s expensive to build and maintain while appealing to only a small audience?
The big established names like WoW, GW2, and FFXIV will be OK for the foreseeable future, but I don’t see much future for growth or evolution in our genre at this point. I fear we may be at a point where we’ve seen the last of new triple-A (or even double-A) Western MMORPGs.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!