I don’t know that I would call it a complaint, but saying we have too many video games sure seems like a good problem to have – for the player.
But having too much of anything is almost certainly going to, at least, end up being bad.
I don’t know when we might see the negatives for this and maybe we already are – I keep, as best I can, a running total of job losses in video games alone for the year. Now some of those come from mergers and buyouts but a lot just come from studios who release a game and then don’t make that money back so they have to cut staff and sometimes just close up shop altogether.
I’m not sure releasing fewer games would help the situation but it sure would give me more time to buy what I want and play it while waiting for the next thing (that’s a really funny joke if you know my buying/playing habits, but we’re talking in a general sense here). I know it would give more games more time to soak. Time to own the shelf space or the mind space of the players.
Breathing room. Not only for the game but the consumer as well.
I don’t know the result of this or when/if we ever see one. I worry that with all the games releasing and a fair chunk of them being very good titles, they’ll miss the boat. Studios releasing in an uncrowded space could make their money back but not currently it seems. And more failures to reach money goals means more layoffs and closures means less games.
Maybe there’s an ebb and flow to that. Maybe we’ve done this before and I just wasn’t paying attention. Maybe this is blown out of proportion. I just know you don’t hear us talking about playing the latest titles almost ever in the sense that we’ve played them. But, man, that’s a lot of job losses for the year so far.
Ubisoft, it has been 4,423 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released.
Also, there’s been 4,400 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.
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