In a previous post you mentioned that “the cost of development for AAA fidelity games is mostly too high now to be profitable on their own”. And we have heard that it’s more expensive now to make games than ever before. But we also hear that profits from games are higher than ever before as well. How do those two statements go together? If profits from making games have gone up (with a bigger market, what I presume is DLC bringing in extra money) why are game prices still rising from 60 to 70 USD, for example?

boynextdoornews

We're not seeing profits from games being higher than ever before. We're seeing record profits from successful games and we're seeing a bunch of unsuccessful games pull the profits down because those unsuccessful games cost just as much as the successful games to build. Many are still talking about the failure of Concord, but don't forget there was also Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Forspoken, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull and Bones, Redfall, The Day Before, Saints Row 2022, Babylon's Fall, and so on that failed to recoup their investment costs.

Games that succeed are earning more money, but most games don't succeed and the money spent to develop those failures is gone and isn't coming back. This is the main reason why we've had a record-setting number of layoffs in the game industry in 2023, only to be topped by a new record-setting number of layoffs in 2024, with a whole three months left to go. When profits are expected to rise, shareholders want companies to hire and increase production. When profits are expected to shrink, shareholders want companies to cut costs and improve their financials. It's the jobs of devs like me that are the costs that are being cut.

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