Did too many games release in Q3 of 2024?

Couldn't tell ya. I'm still playing games from 2019. With so many game releases nowadays, I have the patience to wait for a good sale to pick up anything new. The only game I've bought on release in the past few years is Baldurs Gate III

> The too many games argument always seemed toxically Malthusian to me. Like who made too many games? Who should stop making games?

It's exactly the same as farmers planting too much. It doesn't matter if people love what they planted. There is a limit to what people can reasonably consume.

Only, unlike farming, I don't expect governments to intervene in the market. Video games aren't exactly a critical good.

Videogames are rapidly becoming the predominant medium of artistic expression. Especially horror (even Undertale could be categorized as horror or at least with horror elements). I've seen horror games that are far more complex thematically than anything coming out of Hollywood or in literature these days.

I’d say quantity is no replacement for quality. 3000 games could have been released in Q3 of 2024 but I wouldn’t have noticed because there are exactly zero I want to play online with game pass or be permanently connected to the internet for.

Like any production, most corporate interests simply don't respect the medium.

Its a tough call for studios, as training some talent is impossible due to zero workmanship ethics from prior trauma in production environment art. And No, most don't give a fsck about AI due to the copyright liability it injects. lol =3

For juxtapositional context: This article [1] came out in 2016 and gives a great overview of why and how difficult it is to be successful (especially more than once) in the video game industry.

Entertaining people is _very_ challenging work.

John Carmack [2]: "The work in the aerospace industry is "simple" compared to the work he does in video games"

[1] https://lostgarden.com/2016/11/17/autumn-of-indie-game-marke...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack#Armadillo_Aerospa...

We're in a 5 year slump for gaming. The best games are improvements on known formulas.(Elden ring, Wukong : Dark Souls, BG3 : Divinity, etc, GOW, Last of Us : Sequels). Alyx & Flight Simulators are exceptions, and neither are games in the traditional sense. Now culturally, the gaming industry has been broken for a while now. This slump was a long time coming. But, I didn't expect it to be such a grand collapse.

I'm speculating, but the writing on the wall was there since the mid-2010s. A much needed reckoning during #MeToo opened the flood gates. It broke a clearly abusive, yet stable equilibrium. The subsequent instability saw a panicked pivot into faux-inclusive corporatization & an exodus of the talented few who made these miraculous games happen. Artistic endeavors can only sustain so many MBAs.

Look at the top studios. Ubisoft & EA have yet to take risks on a single 'inspired' original IP since 2020. Both tried to pivot to mobile, only to realize that East-Asia & gambling studios had that market cornered. Blizzard & Bethesda crumbled below a pile of scandals. Post acquisition by Microsoft, neither have produced a single decent game. Sony's existing IPs are doing doing ok; eg: GOW, Remakes, Souls-like games. But, they haven't produced fresh IP or face planted with (non)releases like Concord.

We are in an interesting Liminal space for gaming. Hyped games like GTA 6 & Elder Scrolls 6 are too far away. No recent AAA game has taken over. And the choke-hold of long running games is waning(Dota, LOL, Fortnite, CS, Pokemon Go). I see a 2 year margin for a new game to take over the scene. Black Myth showed how wide-open the arena is right now. If 2077 had managed their release well, they'd have won out....but alas. For mid-sized indie game developers (eg: Supergiant Games), this is their shot at triggering this decades Fortnite/LOL moment........Or, it'll be a roblox game. It's going to be a roblox game isn't it ?

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P.S: I'm confused why costs for AAA games have ballooned. Machines, engines & tooling have improved many fold. At the same time, consumer expectations haven't changed since Crysis released 15 years ago. It should be a lot cheaper to make polished games. That's ignoring all the benefits of gen AI too.

The problem is not too many but games but not enough good games being released.