We have to fix the games industry.
// 09.03.2024
Today, PlayStation announced that Concord will shut down after 2 weeks of service. The game was in development for 8 years, and though I personally didn’t have the time to check it out, I liked the art direction, knew people on Twitter who worked on the game, and hoped for its success on their behalf. This is another in a line of many fumbles from PlayStation execs in the past year, following giving up and abandoning PSVR2, and requiring PSN logins for Helldivers 2 after release, risking its massive success and locking out people in unsupported countries who already bought the game.
Arguably my first real console was the Nintendo Switch, but I really fell in love with gaming when I got a PS4 Slim in the last year of its life and got to play all of PlayStation’s great first-party exclusive story titles. The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, God of War, Days Gone, all of it. During this time, PlayStation changed my life and made me realize I want to be a game developer. I even wrote my college admissions essay about this. My dream job at the time was to work at Naughty Dog so I could make other people feel the way The Last of Us Part II made me feel.
Times have changed, though, and PlayStation’s decisions have impacted me greatly. As someone who has also grown to love the VR industry more than anything else over the past few years, I was extremely excited to see them enter the market and potentially push it forward with the PSVR2, expecting them to back it with their industry-leading, talented studios. That’s not how it ended up, though, as two years later, all it got was two in-house launch exclusives, and a $60 SteamVR adapter that doesn’t even support any of the exclusive features of the headset: adaptive triggers, eye tracking, headset haptics, and HDR (The PSVR1 to PS5 adapter was free btw). At the same time, the DualSense controller and all of its exclusive features are fully supported on all of their first-party titles on Steam. What a joke; an afterthought and an attempt to clear inventory. PlayStation more than anyone should know that indies shouldn’t carry the platform. AAA exclusives make the platform, and indies should prosper on top of that. This hurt me personally as someone who wants so desperately to see the VR industry succeed. It felt like my favorite gaming company gave up on me.
Side tangent on other predatory PlayStation practices
I wanted to play Fallout 76 with my girlfriend and her household only has a PS5. The game doesn’t have cross-platform play, so if I wanted to play with her, I had two options. On PS5, because you’re locked into their ecosystem, without waiting for a sale, your only choice is to pay the full $40 twice plus $10 a month twice for their online PS+ access. The game is not worth that much. On PC, the only thing we have to pay is $15 twice on Humble Bundle for Steam keys. What do you think we chose? I ended up giving her my gaming laptop that I was trying to sell so she didn’t have to be locked into their ecosystem anymore.
I also watched a video recently talking about how PlayStation is scamming people with how they handle stick drift in their controllers. Every modern controller has stick drift problems, but they designed DualSenses to be very complicated to repair. They supposedly fixed this in the $200 DualSense Edge controller that sells single stick modules for $20, but these are always out of stock even though the Edge is a very low-volume product??? It seems like they’re fabricating a system that is designed to just make you buy more $70 DualSense controllers with no other option, and I’ve seen this effect firsthand. (Trenton, 2024)
The PlayStation Portal is also a disappointing product because it is a very single-use device. It is designed to Remote Play to your PS5 and nothing else. No 3rd party Bluetooth headphones, no repairable joysticks, no video streaming, no old game emulation, no Android, nothing. That is part of the reason why I’ve really shifted to loving Valve’s practices with Steam and their Steam Deck, which is a handheld that encourages you to repair it, install Windows on it, buy games from other stores on it, use it as a productivity computer, do whatever you want with it. Valve has around 40 employees who make almost half a million dollars per year. (Peters, 2024) The vibe between publicly traded PlayStation and privately owned Valve and how they treat their employees and customers is very different.
Layoffs
Not exclusive to PlayStation, the games industry has become a pretty hostile place for game developers. In the past year, over 10,000 jobs were lost. 10,000 people with bills and families. With better execs, more developer influence, and the ability to avoid acquisitions like the $75 billion Microsoft paid for Activision-Blizzard, much of this is avoidable. (Wikimedia Foundation, 2024)
A creator who I have grown to love a lot recently is Pirate Software, as his main goal is to curate a positive and uplifting community of people by encouraging them to pursue their dreams and make cool games. He recently uploaded a short describing how game studios tend to keep going bigger and bigger until they make a game that eventually fails and the studio crashes. It’s much safer to make multiple moderate-sized projects, not spending all your money to have a safety net for your employees. (Software, 2024) Publicly traded companies have no place in the games industry. This industry should be driven by creativity and moderate successes.
Publicly Traded Companies Have No Business in the Games Industry.
I am extremely fortunate to have a job I love at a relatively small studio that treats me well, and I am even more fortunate that it is in the VR industry; seemingly an even more difficult market than the flatscreen gaming industry. But to all my friends who are in a worse position, I feel for you. It has to stop and AAA game devs need a union. We are not meat grinders and we have to have a say in our livelihoods. Crunch and fear of losing your job any day by factors out of your control are not conditions that you deserve, and frankly, aren’t conditions that result in the best games. I highly recommend you watch this video by one of my favorite journalism channels, People Make Games. In the words of Chris Bratt, “I feel radicalized by the games industry.” The only thing publicly traded companies care about, more than you, more than your game or your studio, is their share price being higher than it was yesterday. And they will continue to try and replace you with AI more and more. If I continue, I would end up plagiarizing this whole video, so please just watch it. It is very moving. (Bratt, 2024)
Conclusion
The games and VR industries have changed my life in more ways than I can count. I have never seen so much passion, beauty, and talent in my life. Games are the epitome of human beauty and creativity. Believe me when I say I would die for it. My heart goes out to Firewalk Studios. I know you love Concord and poured your heart into it. I know it’s not your fault and you didn’t decide that you had to compete in the oversaturated hero shooter market. I know you didn’t give up on it. I hope you don’t get laid off, and if you do, that another studio will utilize your talent better.
Best, Jack
Sources
Bratt, C. (2024, July 2). PMG Responds to the Games Industry Layoffs. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2xvbPpqcw
Peters, J. (2024, July 13). Here’s how much valve pays its staff - and how few people it employs. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/13/24197477/valve-employs-few-hundred-people-payroll-redacted
Software, P. (2024, August 14). Game Studio Gambles. YouTube. https://youtube.com/shorts/NLb9-DPspgA?si=ougagjHhOJeorjKP
Trenton, M. (2024, August 7). Sony’s Scam. YouTube. https://youtu.be/-H4-12ON40Q?si=6nD-2Wb7tRdO1Hdm
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, September 3). 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_video_game_industry_layoffs