Summary
2024 has been another great year for games, but another horrendous year for game developers and development.
Ballooning costs and unrealistic development times haveled to an unprecedented number of layoffs, withBungie,Microsoft,Epic Games, andRocksteadybeingsome of the biggest offenders.
These layoffs have caused major frustration in the industry, with oneindie developertelling TheGamer that “a lot of it comes down to arrogance from the big publishers.”
“Oh, We’ll Just Throw More Money At It”
In an exclusive interview with TheGamer atTokyo Game Show, Rocket Panda Games' CEO Mike McNamara shared his “biggest beef with a lot of how the industry has gone.”
McNamara said, “There was a period where you could do no wrong. During COVID, there was all kinds of fresh money flooding into the industry. And the companies thought, ‘Oh, instead of making ten small games, let’s just go all in on one,” adding, “I think a lot of it comes down to arrogance from the big publishers.” He accused companies of “throwing more money at their games, thinking it would make them bigger and better.”
“I don’t know where these decisions happen, on what level of the corporate structure, but there was definitely some not good direction in the game itself,” he told me, saying companies didn’t “deploy their money intelligently,” and that he doesn’t believe “all of the money being spent and diverted in certain ways is really in the interest of the player.“
McNamara admitted his company massively exceeded its budget on Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate, but he said he was always “very mindful,” ensuring the money was being spent on features he felt the game needed.
He attributed Rocket Panda Games’ overspending on the costs of developing for multiple platforms, the fact that “Unreal Engineactually sucks,” and the dreaded ‘feature-creeping’.
Our full, insightful interview with McNamara is live now andcan be read right here.
Steam
Owned by Valve, Steam is a digital storefront and library for PC games. With many sales, updates, account functionality, and compatibility with many different platforms — as well as streaming options and its own Steam Deck handheld - it remains one of the biggest storefronts for PC gamers.
