A look into the sad trajectory of indie games from high successful releases to complete irrelevancy in just a few weeks or months.
"This is GSD figures, which tracks all digital game sales from most major publishers (Nintendo data is absent), and physical game sales in all major European markets."
"The No.1 selling game in May this year was EA Sports FC 24, followed by Grand Theft Auto 5. F1 2024 races in at No.3. The PC release of Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut sends the PlayStation game up to No.4."
"11.6 million PC and console games were sold across European markets in May. Compared with the same five week period in 2023, that's a drop of nearly 17%."
"Hellblade 2, System Shock Remake, and the Rogue Prince of Persia all missing out on the Top 100."
I need an xbox fan to explain to me how Hellblade didn't even enter the top 100 since Game Pass doesn't effect sales and you guys are all just using the service as a trial to buy the games later.... /s (for sigh)
Also tell me again how 3.5 M sales first month for FF was bad...
If Microsoft didn't buy the developer this could have been a multiplatform game and if they wanted they still could have got it day 1 on Game Pass.
If I worked at Ninja Theory I'd be sprucing up my resume right about now.
Here we go.. too much barking about EA CEO getting a big bonus when the same ones are buying his games. So pathetic
Eurogamer: "Xbox's Matt Booty has spoken more on the closure of Tango Gameworks earlier this year."
I call BS on this. All metrics were met apparently or was that another lie. There's something deeper happening within xbox's management
The gaming media better get on board with these sort of articles as MS buying up the industry means you guys won't get review copies or exclusive news unless you push the MS narrative.
The MS narrative "it's everyone else's fault."
WARNING ⚠️ SARCASM AHEAD WARNING ⚠️ sure they have an awful management with sexual harassment and embezzlement of funds so let’s close the studio we just purchased and leave games in the table. END OF SARCASM
( insert here a comic strip of guy thrown out of window for suggesting firing the management )
While AAA games make headlines all over the internet, AA games are quietly and profoundly impacting the gaming industry with their creativity.
No sh!t, like that's one thing that I will give the modern game industry is the re-uprising of the mid-tier. It's not as big as it was during the PS2 like Golden era of the mid-tier, but it's pretty damn good at the moment.
I have enjoyed some amazing AA gaming this gen, and the Portal has been a surprising catylist for me getting into these.
Hades sold 7 mil on steam alone. Disco Alysium 2.7 just on steam. Plague tale Requiem(is this even AA?) is at 3 mill. How did they not get attention?
And Forespoken is on the attention getting side? It bombed! What a idiotic thumbnail.
SMTVengence is a game that is getting overlooked. Put that on the thumbnail.
Here are some examples of some smaller games that I'd recommend people give a go:
- Metal Hellsinger
- Katana Zero
- The Talos Principle 2
- Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
- Rollerdrome
- Trepang2
- Tinykin
- Another Crab's Treasure
- Sifu
- Ghostrunner
- Penny's Big Breakaway
- The Pathless
- Kena: Bridge Of Spirits
- Midnight Fight Express
- Jusant
- Solar Ash
- Outer Wilds
- Furi
- Superhot
- The Forgotten City
- Crow Country
- Signalis
And obviously stuff like Hotline Miami but that's an obvious choice. Great game
Easy not enough developpers to add content to the game (palworld)
That's the thing with gaming there's always new experiences to have why spend months or years playing a single game when there's a new experience right around the corner.
Indie or AAA if your building your game expecting long term player counts you'll probably be disappointed as gamers often enjoy something for a few weeks and move on only to return if it's truely a classic.
Out of all the generations I've experienced there's games from 30 plus years ago I still dust off and play like super Mario bros, earthbound, vice city and san Andreas being games I treasure and revisit every few years but I'm not going back to play a game designed to keep me engaged for months on end because it's also designed to milk my wallet in most cases.
Build a great game that people love make it playable offline and ask does it matter if the concurrent player count is under 100 a year post launch more often that not it doesn't
The price of entry is too high to take chances like I used to. Was looking at V Rising and that ranges from $50-$130 CAD. That’s a lot for an indie imo. By the time it goes on sale, the player count might be dwindling. But that’s the trade-off, I guess.
I’m glad my preference is single player experiences, Indie devs got me covered 👊🏻