So, I'm giving this thread a little bump. In the past few months we've had:
- Unity announce a new pricing model, apparently due to financial issues with the current model
- Unreal announce a new pricing model, apparently due to financial issues with the current model
- Sega canceling what is reportedly it's most expensive game ever.
- Layoffs across the industry
- Near 30% drop in Square Enix's valuation
- Some insight into the costs of subscription models (mostly Game Pass) via court documents from the Activision Merger FTC case
I'm not trying to doom or disregard other previously tough spots the industry has been in, in fact studio closures are a rather common story. However, I see all of this as the consequence of budget bloat as discussed in the OP and elsewhere in the thread, and some second thinking of the GAAS model. Hyenas being canceled in particular, which had been playable and was reportedly more or less done, seems like a massive red flag to me and a lack of faith in the model, despite the apparent massive investment.
Again, I don't believe we're heading to a video game Armageddon in the way North America experienced in the 80s, but mass contraction seems less like a worry and more like... what's just going on now. Even first parties among Sony and Microsoft seem to be even less encouraging than when I wrote the OP in May, given we've still seen really nothing from Sony beyond Spider-Man 2 and Microsoft doesn't seem to have a next big thing lined up after Starfield (which itself doesn't seem to have been a next big thing on the level of prior Bethesda RPGs).
Anyway, just wanted to kind of keep posting my ongoing thoughts as time goes on to see how things ended up progressing down the line.
