The Changing Videogame Industry

Great news everyone, the AAA video game market is in complete collapse

Now, most people will either tell you it’s due to DEI infesting games, or they’ll give you the biggest cope imaginable. Yes, DEI is a major reason we are seeing Gigaflops (a special kind of flop that is both pathetic as it is catastrophic). However , I think the reason we are seeing these collapse has a lot to do with some other macro economic factors.

Declining Economy - If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’d realize that inflation is kind of bad. Over the last two years, people have struggled to make ends meet. Its now starting to impact company’s bottom lines. McDonalds earnings calls both mentioned that consumers are getting tapped out

“At the end of the day, we expect customers will continue to feel the pinch of the economy and a higher cost of living for at least the next several quarters in this very competitive landscape,” McDonald’s U.S. President Joe Erlinger said (Link)

Other heads of major companies have seen the same thing. Consumer spending is slowing (see here)

If people can’t afford God damn McDonalds, then how are they going to buy your $70 slop. No one in the industry has considered this. Oh, and let’s not talk about the rising credit card and auto loan delinquencies. I’m sure people will have no problem buying games when they can’t pay off their credit card (ZeroHedge)

Millennials Aging Out - The Millennials generation are those born between 1981 and 1996 and are the generation that grew up on videogames. For fun, let’s do some simple math. In the 2010, the Millennials were between 14 and 29. Why does that matter? Well this is around the time where you started seeing massive hits. It wasn’t unusual to see games like Skyrim sell 20 million copies or GTA5 becoming the fastest selling game of all time (well till the Chinese started buying the monkey game that is). Millennials had more money than before and could buy more games. This is how you had so many breakout successes. Now, Millennials are between 28 and 43. Millennials are reaching the point where they are having families and are busier with work (as they enter higher positions). They aren’t college students and bachelors anymore. They are naturally going to be buying fewer games. The Zoomer generation isn’t going to pick of the slack as their generation is smaller and less well off than Millennials (which has been the trend since the Boomer generation). They don’t have the same buying power and even still, they are more willing to play free-to-play games.

PC Migration Means More Competition - PC gaming is getting bigger and bigger. In 2022, Steam reached 30 million concurrent users. In 2024, it’s reached 37 million. Seeing as Steam is most of PC gaming now, it means that it becoming a bigger and bigger market.

Now that everyone is moving to PC, it’s having an unintended knock-on effect. With Steam, you have far more games than you had on the consoles. Moreover, Steam tends to push prices of games down. Don’t want to spend 70 bucks on a new game. Wait till a sale and get it 20% off (lol at industry people thinking the price of games will go up). If the game they want isn’t on Steam, then download one of the dozens of emulators and play games from the extensive library of classics already released. Point is, there are more games than ever out there. You aren’t completing with the titles released this year or what is already released on the console. You are now competing with almost every game every released. Good luck selling slop when your competition is fucking Chrono Trigger.

Now, this isn’t to say DEI isn’t causing games to Gigaflop. They absolutely are. The difference is the macro environment allows it to happen. People have less money, the pool of customers is shrinking, and people have more options. Mix these together and the bar for success is much higher. The consumer is getting picky. Give them a reason to avoid a game, and they’ll take it. The newest AAAAA game is full of ugly women and “a diverse cast of characters”? Well, I guess I don’t need to buy that games. It’s why something like Apex Legends can find an audience 6 to 7 years ago while Concord today absolutely couldn’t.

The industry got fat of the era of Milk and Honey. But those days are a distant memory. Now, you really have to get everything right if you want to succeed. The shills will tell you how Concord “had great gameplay” or “no battlepasses” but that’s not enough anymore. Moreover, Game developers have been used to acting all high and mighty over the last decade. Now they are going have to start groveling if they don’t want to be bagging groceries. They treated customers are lowly peasants for the longest time. Now, they need to treat them like kings.

Pictured Here: Game Developer in 2025