Affected devs:
- Arkane Austin (closed)
- Tango Gameworks (closed)
- Alpha Dog Studios (closed)
- Roundhouse Games (absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios)
These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.
Hi-Fi rush comes out of nowhere to massive critical acclaim just to be shut down anyway because Starfield sucked ass. Why people ever do business with these shitass publishers I’ll never understand
Because the indie space is also a graveyard. Investors are increasingly wary of funding anything but a “guarantee” and plenty of studios have had to shutter because the funding they were promised was rescinded.
The major publishers are at least a paycheck that can keep a studio going for another year or two.
Because the indie space is also a graveyard. Investors are increasingly wary of funding anything but a “guarantee” and plenty of studios have had to shutter because the funding they were promised was rescinded.
Maybe gaming has become too bloated as a concept if no company can ever produce a product with their own money any more, instead always listening entirely to investor cash.
So… only independently wealthy people should make games?
Game dev takes time. The way you shrink that time is to do it full time instead of working on it in your spare time for a decade or so. Because of increased cost of living, the ability to just take a few months off and burn your savings is increasingly not viable.
That is where investors come in. Whether it is a kickstarter campaign (NEVER PRE-ORDER!! RAWR!!!), a venture capitalist, or a major publisher. And all of those have consequences.
But, increasingly, it is only the major publishers who are even trying. And they are increasingly selective of who they try it with. NoClip have been making an indie game as a way to better understand the market and they have a SPECTACULAR video where Danny O’Dwyer talks about his experience pitching the game to publishers and what kinds of responses they get. And it is really telling that he gushes over how nice one publisher (I think it was Humble?) were in that they actually responded and said they couldn’t move forward rather than just ghosting him.
