1y ago

505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make

www.pcgamer.com 505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make

Digital Bros joins the chorus of game companies putting people out of work in the name of "operational efficiency."

81 comments

We like new IP. We just don't want trash at launch.
- Or live service games.
  
  Or poorly implemented cash grabs.
- The problem is that it's a measurement of trust.
  New IP comes out, people are apprehensive if they know nothing about it.
  Sequel to popular IP comes out, people trust it because they know and like the earlier game, and assume a sequel will be more of that.
  And if a sequel ever deviates from the proven model of its predecessors, people lose their shit and send death threats to developers.
  That's why you see so much recycled garbage come out, because trying something new usually results in more risk and lower returns. Not always, but usually.

Never even heard of them. For a start we want no always online bullshit, no battle passes or micro transactions. No stupid launchers either.
- I keep finding all these cool games and instantly get deflated when I find out they're online. I want single player, i really don't like playing with other people.
  
  I remember being a kid playing Morrowind and really wishing my friends could play with me.
  Now I'm an adult and I don't want to play with the kids. They have way more time to play and take my ass to the cleaners. After the umpteenth time getting tea bagged while some 13 year old goes on about fucking my mother, his voice breaking repeatedly throughout, I swore off multiplayer.
  
  I feel you, I mostly skip the online parts unless they are private games with a few people I know.

The future of entertainment is bleak as fuck.
- Unapproved language detected. Drink verification can!
- Meh, at least as far as the games industry goes, we've been here before. Really the past few years have been incredible for games, now it's time to settle into another stretch of mediocrity as companies learn the same lessons over again. Super sucks for the devs, though, seems they always get the shortest end of the stick.
- And I'm here trying to figure out which assumptions have to be true for this statement to be true.

So for the next 20 years all AAA game publishers will do the game equivalent of only releasing MCU/DC reboots, sequels and prequels?
- Ah yes the anime treatment. Only release reboots, sequels, prequels, and poor spinoffs. For every One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100, Chainsaw Man, or Megalobox, there are way more re-do’s or milking such as Yet Another Gundam Series, a new Bleach something or another, InuYasha retread, Trigun reboot, Hunter x Hunter reboot, FMA Brotherhood, Fruits Basket, Fate/Stay universe, Evangelion remake, everything DragonBall…I could go on. It’s rather depressing.
  Games are just following the curves established by other artistic mediums over the decades when laziness and greed wins, as it always does. Even The Last of Us wasn’t safe.
  
  For every reboot sequel and prequel there are 10 new series. There are around 40 different new anime this season. (Without counting Chinese, musics, poor quality and children's show). Take a look at myanimelist seasonal anime.
  (Anime in Japan come out in season : winter, spring, summer, fall. So they start and finish roughly at the same time).
  .
  And most or your example are pretty bad,
  bleach just got an end that everyone liked
  hunter hunter was paused because the author is sick, it never stopped and it's not a reboot
  FMA brotherhood was great because it fixed the issue with FMA : the end of the anime was made before the manga. And it's 2009 come on you can't use that to say that nowadays there's only reboots
  yeah they are milking the fate franchise and evangelion, and their community is all for it
  
  Sounds like you just need to stay away from Shonen series.
  
  last r we

Everyone should start prepping for cheaper and crappier "AAA" titles moving forward.
- cheaper
  If only
  
  Cheaper development budgets, no room for QA, rushed out the door; still sold for 70 bucks.
  
  cheaper quality
  
  Nah, I don't want to pay less for AAA games. I don't pay for them at all. They're all mass-produced garbage.
- Already there, though not with the cheap part
- I don't recall the last AAA or major studio game I bought.
  
  I can’t remember the last time I got drunk.

Game devs should unionize

What gamers want is innovation and overall fun gameplay, sequel or not. I've heard rather little coming from AAA studios of interest to me as of late 'cause they've all gone to creating endless battle royales, action RPGs or looter-shooters that all play near identically, all with the same military or techno jungle aesthetic that just doesn't appeal to me. It's all gunning for their game to get big on that e-sport sponsorship money or find some way to load their games with micro transaction pay to win gambling BS. For the most part, small and indie studios are doing as well as the AAA big boys because they are able to put more creativity into their games on smaller budgets. When a big AAA game such as BG3 does succeed, it's because they put as much or more effort and care into innovative and entertaining gameplay as they do into fancy ray tracing graphics and cash grab mechanics. Games like BG3 are as praised as they are because they are complete games that work like they should out of the box, no day 1 patch/DLC or extra money required for the full intended experience. We get the quality we expect for our $60-$70. Whether that's a brand new IP or a sequel doesn't matter much.
- My only quibble with this is that I'm not sure I'd classify larian as a AAA studio. Not when you're comparing to Activision or Bethesda or something. The game is absolutely amazing, I've put over 700 hours in and am still playing it. I can't think of any of the big AAA studios releasing a game that comes close anytime in the last decade.

Execs see baldurs gate 3 doing great and they don't get further than the title lol

I bet it's a PR stunt to cover the fact they are just downsizing their mismanaged business.
- Like retail chains blaming theft for shutting down locations

You may not agree, but they are right. We are not most people. They want, and they have, that sweet “lowest common denominator” market, and they will take advantage of that until something else generates more cash. The “lowest common denominator” demand more CoD and whatnot. They don’t care if it’s bad, because them and all their friends will buy it and perhaps even have some fun. The big studios converging on vapid cash grabs instead of creating interesting content is depressing, sure, but hardly surprising in a world where morals and ethics don’t matter, where you can get away with the absolute most heinous, reprehensible acts, and suffer zero consequences.
I don’t really care though. The indie scene is unaffected by this, and has only gotten better every year for as long as it has been around. It’s fucking GLORIOUS already, and it’s not going anywhere because it’s not run by an oligarchy of publicly traded shitfactories.
- There is still hope in projects like baldurs gate 3
  
  Which is a sequel...
  The best selling new game was Hogwarts Legacy. Which still has a strong IP behind it (which really was the only reason the game was selling so much).
  The only game in the top 10 of the best selling games 2023 without being a sequel or having a strong IP behind it, is Starfield.
- and the open source, free tools for creating such games are getting better almost by the day.
- Yeah i think we're in a golden age of indie games. When i want to find a new game, i search youtube for "best indie games of 2018" or 2017, 2021 or whatever. So much great stuff to play made in the last 5-10 years. And so much more affordable. And it feels great to give my money to these devs.
  
  If someone told me 4-5 years ago, that the year we got really incredible sequels to both Breath of the Wild, and that cool new Spider-Man game on PS4, my most-enjoyed game would be an indie Lovecraftian light-horror fishing game, I wouldn't have believed them.
- Yeah. I'm of the same mind. I was here to witness the resurgence of Boomer and Movement Shooters. Now, we're in the cusp of the resurgence of RTS. I am very much happy with the state of gaming, without having to focus on sequels.
  The last game published by 505 I played were apparently Indivisible, which was trash. I never played Ghostrunner nor Control which basically eliminates most of their notable recent output. I think I can safely say I'll be fine with my continued ignoring of them as a publisher.
  
  Some people didn't like it but I fucking loved Control...great game and worth a play imho
- Also, making a good game is always a risk, it’s an intersection of tech, business, and art. Control e.g. sold only a few million copies, depsite being widely praised.
  If you however want be sure, you invest a lot in marketing and monetisation, targeting a wide audience as you said, and can take a lower risk to make back your investment. Absolutely hate this of course, but luckily there are still good games, as long as e.g. Sony is willing to take that risk to sell more PS consoles, or we get wonders like BG3
- Spacebourne 2.
  Not polished as it's still in early access, not amazing graphics, but turning out to be a damn good game that most "AAA" developers wouldn't even try to make, that was made by one guy (and now a small team of volunteers/contractors lol)
- Yup. They'll let smaller studios take risks on new IP and buy them if it's profitable. They get the wins but none of the losses.

Yeah if the sequels are good and not like Payday 3...

Sounds like parent company is Disney

Ironic for a company that published indie hits like Terraria and fresh mainstream games like A Tale of 2 Sons.
This does not reflect the whole gaming market but rather the failure of publishers to innovate well and make new things people like. Big publishers are risk averse and it's a common path them as they get bigger, and care more about shareholder value or venture capital. They won't take risks, and can't accept failures so they retrench. It's not a recipe for success as that end of the games market is already dominated by big publishers churning out annual versions of their mass market games.
A publisher like 505 r ally only has two possible futures on this road - go bankrupt as they can't compete or get bought out by a big fish who want their IP.
It doesn't say much abou the games market as it's actually very large, vibrant and varied. A publisher like 505 is not on the vanguard of the games market and like most people I had to look them up to even see which games they had published. This is just yet another company being mismanaged into oblivion and well beyond its hey day.
- Isn’t baulders gate a good example of an indie dev doing good work and not just playing it safe? While also not going bankrupt.
  
  Baldur's gate is the third installment in a decades old franchise that is based on d&d, a franchise that has been established for nearly 50 years now

Why do these ghouls run businesses in an industry they clearly don't have any faith in or understanding of,

sequels of what?
My highest play time game is probably minecraft, and my recent go-to is slay the spire.
Sequels are seen as safer profits (there is an existing market) so they get more investment and more investment tends to make better games.
This doesn't mean its what people want, it just means that name recognition means its cheaper to market a hit game with previous versions acting as a marketing boost. Its a feedback loop.

It is always amusing to see the head of optional entertainment industries make statements like they are making a declaration on par with climate change, a economic depression, etc. As if they expect massive press coverage and endless crying by their would be customers.
When in reality the actual reaction by most is along the lines of "oh no, anyway" and move on to the next bit of optional entertainment media while they and their company are forgotten to the trash pile of failed companies.

All you See Sweets can keep trying to quantify what it is gamers like. The truth is its ephemeral until it is materialized and on our screens. You never know how fun your thing is until milliona of people can access it. So stop trying to codify it, or find a formula. There is none. Make fun shit, take all the risk. Make new shit that no one has ever made before. But for the love of fps fucking please don't pretend you've drilled down on what gamers like. Thats a promise to fail.

A quick 5 minute search shows me that this is true. Lots of articles and lists out there. And the only games I could see that weren't sequels or remakes, are Starfield and Harry Potter.
This isn't a new development either. Pong had a sequel.
- Elden Ring. Cyberpunk. Outer Wilds. HiFi Rush. Stray. Midnight Suns (licensed like Potter but original).
  Not saying a lot. But far from none. And alongside Starfield and Horizon Forbidden West (second game in an original series) it’s hardly no original titles.
  
  Not arguing. Just stating my experience.

When’s the last time you played an indie game?
- I'm only one data point but nearly all my gaming hours are indie.
- Uh... Yesterday? They've become my go to now. They're so much more fun. A lot of them are just pick up and play. And they bring new concepts and stories instead of the same old crap.
  Oh and they're a lot more affordable.
- Was always a big fan, but the steam deck has me playing a handful of new indie games every month, and it’s fucking awesome. So many little gems, so many unique ideas, for way less money, way less time invested, way less SERIOUS BUSINESS.
- About 15 minutes ago. Slay The Spire is fun.
  
  This comment needs to come with a warning, I bought slay the spire 2 weeks ago and it combined with a steam deck is taking over my life. It has the civ "one more turn" factor massively, doesn't seem to have the same run diversity as Binding of isaac but it's as addictive.
- Tuesday, why?
- Bg3 is indie
- Just finished UNPACKING last night and it was so addictive. Before that I played forager which I loved, and before that I played the shit out of Dysmantle and Wytchwood. I love AAA games but there are some really great Indies out there
- Earlier this week! I play what I like and that covers a pretty wide variety.
- Every time I play, it seems like. Ive not bought a AAA game made within the past 4 years, and older than that is always at 50%+ discounts.
  I buy full price indie games once a month or two.
- Basically all I play outside of Paradox titles these days.
- Played slay the spire on the train this weekend. Also monster train. Played a lot of sandrock the past couple months, too. (Heidi is my love).
  I do play a lot of guild wars 2 though. The old standby.
  
  Paid 60 bucks since August on games and sunk over 200 hours into them. Vampire survivors for 3, slay the spire for 6 and Baldurs Gate for 50.
  I have only 30-50 hours on Baldurs Gate though.
- I just beat OneShot yesterday, and before that I beat Dodgeball Academia. In my top 25 favorite games, only 5 of then are AAA, the rest are Indie or AA. There are no AAA in my top 5 of all time.

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