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It’s often understated that the gaming industry is worth more than the movie AND music industry combined. While new blockbusters and hit singles are being released year-round, video game studios have kinda stopped releasing new games. In fact, big game companies will avoid producing new games because their businesses do better the lesser they make. Here’s why: 👇 👇
1. Microtransactions 🎲💲
Want more game content? Pay more to unlock new levels, characters or items. Game developers are turning a one-time purchasable game into a subscription model. Not to mention mystery gifts, which is essentially a gambling mechanic within the video game.
2. Too Risky to Go Big 😨💲
AAA games require lots of manpower and investment, yet are often underwhelming upon release. The more moving parts, the more could go wrong like with buggy features or overpromising and underdelivering. Big studios were aiming to make the next biggest game, with the most features, biggest world, best graphics and abundant customisation. However, players don’t want ‘big’ they just want good. The flashy stuff should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. AAA games are more expensive yet riskier to produce so studios rather focus on what they already have.
3. Gamer Loyalty 👨💻📅
Many gamers have already invested a lot in their old games with the time spent, and purchased in-game items. Loyal gamers would be left with a lot of bought virtual items for an outdated game, if a newer game is released. New games often also require higher-end hardware, which reduces accessibility to many.
4. Game Services are more Profitable 👑💲
Big name developers rather host game sites for other smaller game developers. Valve used to be a successful game studio, now they make more money running the Steam marketplace for games. Epic Games gives out their game developing software for free and charge a 5% royalty fee on any sales that a game makes over $1M. EA and Ubisoft acquire dozens of smaller game studios rather than develop games under their own name. Basically, during a Gold Rush, it’s better to sell shovels than to dig for gold.
Rockstar, creators of the Grand Theft Auto series, used to release a new game roughly every 4 months. Now, their latest game is almost 4 years old, yet Rockstar just had their best financial year. This will be the trend in gaming, big studios are just following where the money is.
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