Searching for Success in the Gaming Industry

imagine for a moment that I'm an aspiring video game developer I have a choice ahead of me do I join a AAA Studio at the Forefront of the industry blazing a trail for the future of gaming technology or do I let my creative Juices Flow as an indie developer making games that'll be adored by small but dedicated communities is neither an option okay so clearly the industry is in a bit of a rough state right now after the covid-19 pandemic Market saturation is at an Al time high and Industry growth is on the decline Xbox is buying up major Publishers and falling behind in the console race as per usual the PS5 isn't getting any big titles anytime soon as if they had any to begin with and even Nintendo's output is slowing down presumably in anticipation of the switch 2 which is nowhere to be seen and don't even get me started on the layoffs Microsoft EA embracer epic games Riot all in all over 10,000 jobs were lost in 2023 either way there are risks that need to be taken into account when searching for success in the gaming industry and it's important for a developer to be aware of them let's talk about the different approaches AAA studios are most often very established they've historically offered more stability than Indie development but within the last year there have been massive layoffs across multiple Studios that throw job security into question the engine developer Unity has laid off almost 3,000 people since January of last year most recently as I'm recording this take two interactive the company behind GTA and 2K laid off 5% of their Workforce across all of their Studios so let's say you joined a AAA studio and your job isn't in Jeopardy there's still a lot to take into account aaa's are known for setting standards two examples of the rising standards last year were balers Gate 3 and tear of the Kingdom balers gate was an extremely in-depth and carefully crafted RPG with multiple story paths complete with fully voiced and motion captured performances and tears had what is perhaps the most seamless and versatile physics system ever in video game building on top of the foundation that breath of the wild laid with its chemistry interactions it was even delayed for a year just to make sure it was all working right here's the catch though these games are not only Diamonds in the Rough they're also special cases laran launched baldder gate in Early Access in 2020 and had a constant Revenue stream before the official release and Nintendo is the richest company in Japan on top of that the industry despite seeing many more releases than it used to is reaching a plateau in terms of fidelity and the true innovators are few and far between much more so than they used to be these two games indirectly sparked controversy about whether or not the standards for AAA development should be raised as a single developer you have the opportunity to be a part of something that could change the industry forever for the better but that window is closing while there are many successful AAA releases these days there's a lot of microtransaction ridden games as a service garbage that tends to float to the top listen I don't want to call out Destiny 2 in particular but general manager Justin Truman's comments about Bungie's Company motto and the backlash his GDC talk received for it is indicative of the distaste that people have for the state of AAA gaming if you're wondering about the motto well it used to say we make games we want to play but it was changed to we create worlds that Inspire friendship the same type of PR speak that a lot of people got sick of a long time ago often times developers are treated as an obstacle between the studio and their money and being a part of a AAA Studio can put a Target on your back not just from the higher ups but also from the community who often tend to blame Developers for problems that are out of their control and on that note let's talk about those problems higher-ups often impose strict deadlines on their teams and this leads to extensive crunch which is not only demoralizing to developers but can also lead to games that are broken or unfinished on release luckily crunch is being addressed but it's just as much of a cultural issue as it is a management issue it's not all doom and gloom for the AAA space though one of the other major benefits of AAA development is building up experience the larger team size on a AAA game means that individual developers can focus on honing a specific skill set without having to worry about the other factors of game development an environment artist doesn't also have to worry about character design or even something like marketing if that's not something they have experience with those larger team sizes are also useful for networking purposes of course on the flip side this can create unprofessional hierarchies and limit creativity for devs who might want to flex that muscle but but it's not like you have to make your choice and then it's made and then you can never change it though there are many Indie developers that had experience working for larger Studios and then broke off to start their own projects if you watch my YouTube channel you might know Rivals of ether which started as a solo project from former Microsoft Dev dam for AC well now we're on the cusp of Rivals 2's release from ether Studios helmed by the Dan himself and his Padawan Trevor Youngblood most recently Toys for Bob spun off of Activision to go Indie not too long after their acquisition by Microsoft heck steam wouldn't even exist today if it weren't for Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington breaking off from Microsoft to start valve wait why the heck is everyone leaving Microsoft so then what about any development well it's far from risk-free wait back up a second if you watch my YouTube channel you might know Rivals of ether which started as a solo project from former Microsoft Dev Dam forac that's it working on a video about game dep for class and I needed some examples of the pitfalls any development and I just realized that the perfect example was someone I've talked about on my channel before he was right under my nose the whole time thanks Dan for I'm a bad example I've never made a mistake in my life huh well back to the drawing board I guess D FY and ether studios are actually really interesting to look at here especially right now in his latest annual blog post he dives into the process of growing ether Studios as a a brand as well as what's next for Rivals as someone who's been following him since Rivals 1 was announced I can personally say his timeline is an interesting one he's overcome some of the biggest obstacles of any development like I said earlier Rivals 1 was a solo project from the start and has slowly been building up a small but dedicated fan base a lot of Indies struggle to find success in such a crowded market and while there are Avenues to discover ability like seam nextfest marketing is something that takes a lot of money and or time which a lot of solo devs don't have you can't just release a demo or a trailer for your game with the snap of a finger a lot of developers these days will just post gameplay Clips on Twitter or Tik Tok in the case of Rivals it's a platform fighter which at the time there weren't many of outside of the Super Smash Brothers series and it came around right around the launch of Smash 4 but at the same time a lot of people were kind of sick of the direction the series was headed in so it was definitely a right place right time kind of situation over the years the rivals team has grown and ether Studios has launched multiple spin-offs according to Dan in game development of any size just releasing projects especially self-published ones is a feat in its own right again this is echoed by multiple other Indies many Indies have to rely on finding Publishers who deal with marketing and those outside relationships can be Rocky depending on the developer and the publisher ether Studios is in a fortunate position because they can afford to self-publish all their projects and notably those specific projects were greenlit in an effort to grow Rivals and ether Studios brand recognition of course one of the biggest and most obvious benefits of being an indie developer is having total creative freedom they aren't motivated by profits like aaa's are this means that individuality shines across the Indie scene and as a player you really get to pick and choose which games to give your support to many Indies are inspired by other games but have some twist for instance smash was really the first game that defined what a platform fighter was the main appeal of Smash comes from its absolutely insane roster of characters and different IPS mixing together which is a luxury that Dan never had Rivals was inspired by that but it's more focused on accessible competitive play and unique characters that fall into one of four elements with gimmicks that revolve around that element while most smash titles are mainly concerned with being a good party game Above All Else But creative freedom comes at a cost simply put gamedev takes a lot of time Rivals 1 is still receiving patches almost a decade on and Rivals 2 has been an ongoing project since at least 2020 with plans to support the game for years to come following its launch and on top of that there are often unforeseen consequences to any development that can stretch out timelines long past expected dates this includes things like feature creep but also world events like a global pandemic and let's not forget about our friend Unity who lost the trust of thousands of developers overnight when they announced that they would require their users to pay them a flat fee based on how many installs their software would get and that it would also require them to pay for every install that they had ever had before it wasn't a change directed at Indies but they were seen as collateral damage because a change of this magnitude had the possibility of bankrupting several smaller teams ultimately Unity went into full damage control but since then many devs have been urging people to switch engines if possible which is no small feat Rivals doesn't run on Unity but it does run on Game maker and even switching from an older version of game maker to a newer version was a huge feat that on top of the Game's net Cod overhaul combined with the pandemic is the reason the game didn't launch on switch until 3 years after its PC release of course the other cost of any development is the monetary cost especially with a team like ether Studios whose main bread and butter is live service titles time is money and money is never an infinite resource it was one thing back when Rivals won was a solo project but the second time around with a larger team and more mouths to feed lots of Indies turned to crowdfunding in order to keep a revenue stream going rival 2 is no exception luckily Rivals as with most Indies was built on the backs of its Community meaning they had no problem reaching their Kickstarter goal a first-time developer won't have the benefit of an established Community though and many will have to turn to Publishers to find funding not to mention no studio is safe from layoffs unfortunately and that includes ether Studios who had to delay the story mode for Rivals 2 in order to get the base game out the door by the end of 2024 at least it's not to fill the pockets of their shareholders if this is the the price we have to pay for the Subspace Emissary 2o then so be it I think the biggest takeaway here is that game development is hard if you're trying to get into the industry know that it can be a yearslong process that while fulfilling can take its toll at times whether that's due to pressure from above lack of preparedness or anything in between but it's through these struggles that we get to see these success stories stories like balder's gate tear of the kingdom and even Rivals 2 which is on track to become one of the most successful titles in its genre and none of these games happened overnight by the way if you get a chance give Dan's medium blog post to read there's some great documentation on the Indie experience from a firsthand account and not to mention they're just fascinating reads especially as a Rivals fan I would also recommend checking out Masahiro sarai's YouTube channel if you want some more generalized AAA insights from the director of the Smash series but that's all I've got for now good luck aspiring game developer [Music]

Channel: MajestikLark

Views: 5,456

Keywords: gaming, nintendo, sony, xbox, microsoft, rivals, rivals 2, dan fornace, rivals of aether, aether studios, AAA, indie, baldur's gate, tears of the kingdom, zelda

Id: y2C7PfgmltA

Length: 11min 47sec (707 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024