youbehold, scattered throughout the history of video games, certain years of radical, fundamental change. We can see major collapses in the US gaming industry in 1977 and 1983, where bloated software libraries and hardware gluts destroyed trust in the medium and liquidated dozens of companies. We can also see the arrival of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1994, which brought 32-bit processors and 3D imaging into the industry spotlight, eliminating a generation of competing products from the Philips CD-i up to Atari. Jaguar. I think 2023 could be one of those years of sea change, not because of some major new technical milestone, but because the fabric of the games industry is now being dissolved and remade.
First, we are going to see a lot more consolidation this year, as large corporations bet on continued growth in the gaming industry. The great forerunners were Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda in 2021 Y Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga last year, but that was just the beginning. Tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta are circling the industry looking for legacy publishers like Square Enix and Electronic Arts to gain a foothold in the industry and move into what everyone believes is the next big thing: the metaverse. But it’s from Microsoft continued attempt to take over Activisionwhich is currently under investigation by competition regulators in the US, Europe and the UK, will be a major focus during 2023.
Whichever way this plays out, there will be vast ramifications. Jon Shiring, co-founder of new studio Gravity Well, is an industry veteran who previously worked on Call of Duty at Infinity Ward and Apex Legends at Respawn Entertainment. He is skeptical about Microsoft’s chances. “Can you find any examples of a company successfully beating the FTC? I can’t… Besides, will Activision shareholders sit around for years waiting to find out?”
But Shiring is also clear about why the deal is vital to Xbox. “Microsoft wants to have Game Pass on other platforms,” he says. Game Pass is Xbox’s game subscription service, offering a library of titles for a monthly fee. “Making hardware sucks [as a business]: They just want to offer a subscription. Sony is absolutely terrified of allowing Game Pass on PlayStation; this has been going on for a while behind the scenes… If Microsoft can get a good chunk of gamers to pay a monthly subscription on their competitor’s boxes, they’ll have taken a page out of the old EM Playbook. embrace and extend it’s back. Let other people lose money on hardware, you take the profit every month.”
This is just one part of a broader economic climate change that will affect the industry this year. “The global games market declined in 2022, so how it will respond in 2023 is one of the key questions at the start of the year,” says Piers Harding-Rolls, director of research at industry analysis firm Ampere. Games. “The market is less predictable than it has been for many years due to the difficult macroeconomic context, the post-pandemic consumer chill, the Ukraine war, mobile privacy changes, game development delays, the Chinese market, market and competition disruption. less-than-optimal regulation and availability of console hardware.
Harding-Rolls says it expects the console market to stabilize in 2023, but there are underlying issues caused in part by the Covid crisis, and things will be especially difficult for new or small studios. “Financials in 2023 are grim,” says Shiring. “Some publishing deals were signed on a fixed budget in 2021 or earlier, and 10% inflation has eaten a big hole in that money. Studios have to figure out how to do more with less.” He also says that many studios that acquired VC support in 2022, but not enough to release a game, may find their next investment rounds won’t raise as much as expected due to the shaky economy; so they are now potentially overvalued and underfunded.
It’s not just an economic change that developers will have to deal with. Cultural shifts are happening fast, and audiences and types of games once considered niche are likely to become much more important in the future. “In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in video game genres branching out and appealing to entirely new audiences,” says the award-winning game developer. lucy blundell. “healthy games, for example, has tapped into a market thirsty for cozy games, so I think we’ll start to see more of this in 2023, with dedicated curation and streams coming from all corners of the industry. Just like books and movies, video games now have something for everyone, and ‘Game of the Year’ lists will be much more tailored to the person.”
Blundell hopes to see a new generation of player creators using cheap development tools to create games that explore hot Gen Z topics like gender, sexuality and mental health. And while theme-based and autobiographical games have been a feature of the indie sector for years, the power and influence of this generation could have a much more profound effect from now on. Watch how Netflix, currently the leading source of entertainment for young adults, now it is being seriously threatened by TikTok with its emphasis on hyper-aware, meme-based, and user-generated content. Gen Z’s progressive voice and his ability to rally support and condemnation for major brands is a big deal. It will be interesting to see how Harry Potter relates Hogwarts Legacy this year’s rates, considering the backlash against JK Rowling’s gender-critical stance from Harry Potter’s millennial fanbase.
In a feverish atmosphere of economic uncertainty, generational change, and platform diversity, the old certainties of game design are likely to crumble, including the entire concept of genre. “The notion of genre can be thought of as a way of grouping works within a medium to market to people so they buy things that are similar to something they already like,” says game designer and consultant Will Luton. “But with access to content now so cheap and easy across music, movies, TV, and games, the need for genres starts to crumble. This is exacerbated by influencers and algorithmic delivery that can more accurately discover the good content you like.”
Luton believes gaming is behind the times when it comes to the entropy era of the genre, but the success of hard-to-categorize titles like Fall Guys and Vampire Survivors suggests we’re catching up. “Musicians like Lil Nas X, who blends rap, hip-hop, country, and pop, or directors like Bong Joon-ho, who mixes themes of drama, comedy, horror, crime, and science fiction in his films, are decidedly post-genre. …This year and beyond we’re going to see less strict adherence to the genre, as a new generation of designers making their way across many platforms and types of games begin to bring work to market.”
The concept of genre is dissolving, but so is the divide between passive screen entertainment (movies, TV) and interactive media (video games). Watch how television is now exploring new forms of game-like content with the arrival of new exploratory shows like The Traitors, The Rehearsal, and Kaleidoscope, blurring the lines between role-playing, interactivity, and storytelling. Check out the hit game Immortality by Sam Barlow, a modern reinterpretation of the interactive movie concept.
The forces at work in 2023 are affecting every facet of the video game industry, from production to funding to player culture. It is the type of perfect storm that has led to seismic changes in the past. And 2023 may be the maelstrom from which the modern video game industry truly emerges.
