It’s no secret that the videogame industry is in a bit of a weird state. While we’re seeing more breakout successes at indie level – Big Walk, Iron Nest, and most recently ReStory to name but a few – we’re also seeing mass layoffs across the board, with Xbox’s colossal 3,200 redundancies making headlines everywhere. Questions swirl around the state of EA post-privatization, and layoffs hit Halo Studios following Campaign Evolve’s release. Factor in discussions around AI, and things get even more complicated – and divisive.
Ahead of Gamescom, the annual dev speaker survey tackled several of these issues head-on. With 100 speakers responding, it discusses AI use, leadership, and the implementation of smaller teams, whether that be due to AI or other factors. The overarching concern, perhaps unsurprisingly, is financial stability; something that lurks in the back of everyone’s minds.
Let’s start at the beginning: AI. Of the 100 participants, 47% believe that AI-assisted development will have the biggest impact on game production over the next three years, followed by hardware and RAM costs at 28%. 34% see AI being valuable for coding and production, while 30% wanted to see as little AI involvement as possible.
In terms of teams, 36% said that AI integration is likely to see teams change versus further layoffs and staffing reductions, with 33% believing the opposite, while 17% say it’ll have no impact. 14% believe that output will be increased per person.
It paints a somewhat mixed picture that effectively mirrors what we’re seeing more generally. While some developers are happy to integrate the tech into their workflows, others are firmly against it. When it comes to players, the general consensus seems to still swing towards ‘no AI in games,’ and the increasing RAM prices and sky-high cost of top-tier AI models effectively places the tech outside of the reach of most companies. It’ll be interesting, then, to see what the next three years look like.
There’s further discussion around team size, though, as 37% of respondents think that smaller teams represent “the biggest opportunity” for development in the next three years. 27% believe that the most-sought-after skill in development is also leadership, suggesting that smaller teams with stronger leaders will likely be the goal going forward.
It makes a lot of sense: games like Expedition 33 and the aforementioned breakout indie hits are doing better than triple-A because there are less checks and balances. Part of Xbox’s mass layoffs was, to quote CEO Asha Sharma, to “reduce management layers to no more than five,” as developers could, in some cases, be dealing with “14 layers of management.” The trend seems to be towards smaller, more agile teams, likely inspired by these double-A successes.
Then there’s the conversation around discoverability, which is becoming increasingly prevalent as Steam’s market dominance comes under scrutiny. 68% of respondents discover games via their friends and communities, while social media comes in at 46%.
Interestingly, digital storefronts only rank at 25%, beaten out by gaming media, video and streaming platforms, and online showcases. 22% think better storefront recommendations would help improve visibility, with more transparent platform algorithms being the primary recommendation at 32%.
It’s a tough time to be an indie game developer: let’s be real. Thousands of games release on Steam every day (if not more), with that number increasing as AI use lets users churn out ‘games’ at a faster pace. Breakout successes like Big Walk are, obviously, the goal, but despite triple-A fatigue and players looking for cheaper games, they’re still few and far between.
Steam continues to come under fire for leaving indies out in the cold, and while the Epic Games Store and GOG do exist, their market share is tiny compared to Valve’s. Discoverability doesn’t have a silver-bullet fix, but at least it’s finally being discussed.
You can check out the Gamescom dev website here, if you’re looking to grab yourself a ticket. Described as “Europe’s biggest game development event,” it runs from Sunday August 23 through to Tuesday August 25.