The Business: Gamescom 2021 Shows The Industry Malaise

Gamescom 2021 is going on now. The Dorito Pope, Geoff Keighley, did his Opening Night Live showcase (complete with fake and gay awards) and while there were a few titles I'd like to check in on nothing leaped out at me. Well, no game did. Rather, what stood out was that Sabaton announced a new song and music video in a short segment; they got away with it due to World of Tanks being a partner in the video's production.

Hey, new Sabaton. I'm okay with this. Since we have another World War I album coming sooner than later, this will tide me over until it arrives.

However, I have to point out that it is not a good sign that the highlight of a videogame showcase is not a videogame at all. There were a lot of expansions, sequels, and other forms of brand-focused business decisions with a decided lack of creativity on display. This is not a showcase of an entertainment industry that is healthy and vibrant, but one that shows how badly an entire business segment has lost the plot.

Yesterday's XBox showcase was no better. Nothing that had the wholly-emergent explosion of organic interest that we saw 10, 20, or 30 years ago was present this year, continuing a trend of decline--if not collapse--that has been going on for at least a decade or so now. Less and less breakouts are coming, more and more also-rans and never-should-bees get on the showcase- be it PC, console, or mobile trash.

This is clearly a case of MBAs that can't stop shitting themselves in fear of a bad quarterly earnings report calling the shots, and as such they suck up venture capital and other financial resources in order to shore up their weak position in the industry; if they can control what gets made and distributed, they don't have to worry about bad financial reports.

The proof is in the indie scene--what we get of it, anyway--which produces far more good games than any other actor in videogaming, even accounting for the mountains of crap that gets published. Much like indie genre fiction, the stuff that people want is far more reliably found in indie games than in Big Gaming these days, and even the bigger corporations are catching on. For example, you'd never see Streets of Rage 4 or River City Girls if indie brawlers weren't a thing- and they are, just look at Steam's listings.

While AAA gaming remains obsessed with Frustrated Oscar productions, often influenced by Frustrated Novelists, indies remember that gaming is about gameplay first and foremost and all else is subordinate to that. It's why indies so often produce breakout hits like Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, or Death Road to Canada while AAA has to rely on consistent PR pushes and influencer marketing. Even then they are consistently playing catch-up; you would never get new DOOM games if indie Boomer Shooters weren't breaking out.

And in recent weeks, Splitgate has been tearing it up while still it Beta; mixing Halo and Portal as a multiplayer arena shooter is very entertaining.

If you wanted to get into videogames, indie is your best bet and a small-but-focused project is your best option; Enter The Gungeon is a case study to examine in this respect (including the failed follow-ups), as that small-but-focused project broke out HUGE and helped put Devolver Digital on the map. Give good game? Get good business. Done.

If only the MBAs in AAA could remember that.