There’s something I noticed at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live. Fewer memes, less spam in the chat. It’s just a feeling mind you, not an empirical observation, but the enthusiasm and energy that greets a week long series of videogame press conferences isn’t what it used to be. Whether its the mid-year Summer Games Fest or the end of the year Game Awards, it feels like a cultural malaise for games.
And I don’t think it’s because we’re all older and the online culture is a lot more complicated than it used to be. While it’s true that the hope for a new Half-Life or Metroid is no longer the unifying force that it used to be, I don’t think it has anything to do with the fracturing of our attention across an increasing number of brands, fandoms, franchises and IP either.
One could say that the decreased number of memes and spam in stream chat is the first sign of the end times for AAA hype culture. Don’t get me wrong, I shed no tears for people turning comments sections and live chat into incessant cries of “Silksong release date when????” or “Bring back Dino Crisis” or “Need for Speed Most Wanted remake???” But that used to be a defining feature of these events. In their place are snark, disenchantment and skepticism facing every announcement.
My first instinct was to believe that we’ve sort of hit a marketing dry spell, the time before a few big things are just around the corner to get everyone energized again. But that seems at odds with the fact that marketing for videogames is in a constant fever pitch. We already know that Grand Theft Auto 6 and the next Monster Hunter are real things, and that new installments of major tentpole franchises like Resident Evil and Persona are simply inevitable.
And sure, there are now more videogames are launching every year than the human mind can contain. (Last year saw over 12,000 games released on Steam, more than all of the years between 2004-2016 combined.) So maybe it’s harder to focus our attention on just a handful of hyped titles. But there’s also the fact that the biggest releases take longer to make. Indies and other smaller productions provide meaningful experiences to while away the months, but in the end, many are left waiting.
Worse still, between the spiraling costs of game development and the lengthy production cycles, there’s simply more riding on every big project, turning them into make or break affairs. That’s a death knell for experimentation and creativity. It used to be that big studios like Rockstar, Valve, id Software would take a new risk every other year or so. Now they’re all playing safe with releases that are subject to monthly executive review and focus tested to death over the course of several years.
Sure, the biggest announcements of Gamescom like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Civilization 7 seem closer to reality than anything else announced earlier this year. But the likes of Dying Light: The Beast and Borderlands 4 seem like the latest in another round of nebulous announcements. Anecdotally speaking, I’ve asked two dozen different folks about these games and most aren’t holding their breath, keeping their eyes focused on what’s actually coming out before Christmas.
The biggest videogames take too long for us to get excited about anymore, and between collapsing studios, massive layoffs and declining creativity, it’s a symptom of worse things to come.
