Correct, to put things into precise terms, **the corporate too-big-to-fail gaming industry is unable to make a profit in the gaming industry if there is any functional competition at all, even competition from indie game companies with much smaller budgets.** Just because large corporations with no desire to actually let artists make art cannot make a sufficient profit unless boosted with the artificial advantage of having the rest of the industry destroyed... doesn't mean that there are too many video games out there to make money from making another one.

> The market for new video games isn’t just oversaturated — it’s nearly impenetrable. Teams of hundreds of people are spending years of their lives developing games that are destined to get lost in the sea of new releases. Yeah, let's take one that didn't get lost. Dragon Age 4. A game that I personally had been watching and waiting for a release for 7 years since it was first teased, **11 years** since the last installment. According to "traditional" ways to make games it had everything going for it. A ton of development time, marketing galore, a major studio behind it, releasing on all major platforms - aaaand it flopped. Why did it flop? According to businessmen who pretend to know gamers it should have been a wonderful success! Except they obviously killed every creative idea that could have gone into that game. We got the most boring, bland experience out of any of the Dragon Age franchise. We got flat characters with no personality, we got no choices in the game, no real consequences to our actions, and what things they did stick the stake in the ground they browbeat you with zero nuance at all. Every line of dialogue was obviously decided by corporate committee and spoke like what I would expect to hear in an all-hands meeting instead of from someone who was supposedly my companion. Maybe the suits at the top need to finally realize that businesses don't make great games - creative people do, and just **get the fuck out of their way and let them make games.**

I don't know a single gamer who would say "Yup, too much, I am not looking forward to any sequel or new game on the horizon". It's that they keep releasing corporate committee-approved boring drivel that doesn't even function on release, then getting pissy that no one likes purchasing their 1000 subscriptions and addons.

https://archive.ph/2025.09.26-181241/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-26/the-video-game-industry-has-a-problem-there-are-too-many-games

Omg yes. I love dragon age games and honestly if the corpo fuckwits didn't fuck up the game veilguad would have been a smash fucking hit. All that it is missing is the writing/stoy. The combat is so great! Each class is fun and unique with multiple viable builds. Reset skill points whenever. It is very different from the other DA games but it is great in its own right. More action and doges, less tactics. Oh you like the way that armor looks but the stats suck? Veilguard you can change the appearance of any armour so you get the cool looks and the good stats. Same with weapons. Spend forever on the way your character looks during character creation? Now you want to start another play through with the same "character", but you don't want spend forever in character creation again? Veilguard let's you copy the appearance of other saves!! Wanna pause during a cutsence? You can do that. Veilguard has so many great game choices and quality of life improvements. Truly the only downside is the dogshit story. These MBAs had the devs start over multiple times. The devs had some ideas, then the MBAs come in and say make an mmo. Devs are like this is stupid but you the boss. MBAs realize it's trash. Devs start over. MBAs decide to fire writers that had been there since the first game and second games. Right away veilgaurd shits on so much of the lore and world state of the previous games. All the game needs is a half way decent story, then it would have been a huge hit I swear

But you still have to discover someone putting out the equivalent of Master of puppets. The issue isn't that too many games get released, the issue is that too many good games get released. When every year 15 master of puppets comes are you going to buy all 15? Are you even going to be aware of all 15 of them? People will buy what they're aware of and the issue is that so much good stuff is coming out it's almost impossible to be aware of all the good stuff coming out. That's the issue here, great games falling through the cracks because other great games release around it.

I can't think of any games I'm looking forward to at this point, since Subnautica 2 died. I have no planned video game purchases at this point. I'm not really looking forward to anything at all, if I'm honest. Nothing. I can't hope for the future anymore, every future I've ever met has been fuckgarbage because that's what futures are. Putrid fuckgarbage.

There are hundreds of Masters of Puppets daily probably but it’s hard to tell because so much stuff is coming out, which is an issue when we want artists to be able to afford food. At this point I think civilised countries should be exploring how to fund video games like we fund other forms of art.

Are there too many musicians? Are there too many painters? Yes, it hurts discoverability, but honestly, if your game is good, it'll be played, I'm pretty sure. Metal doesn't appeal to the masses.. same for games.. not everything will appeal to the average gamer. But if you release the gaming equivalent of Master of puppets, people will buy it, I'm sure.

I'm looking forward to whatever supergiant does next. Also haunted chocolatier

Cool Michael Bloomberg thinks too many games are getting released. I wonder why. Could it be that AAA/ Investor friendly buy-out shells aren't doing well. Anyway play Kitsune Tails https://store.steampowered.com/app/1325260/Kitsune_Tails/

What do you mean hundreds daily? We barely get 1 a month and even that is a stretch. I actually do listen to new metal releases almost every day and I can promise you, most of them are a 6-7/10 at best. I'm not some snob or picky listener either, so it's not a me problem. So yeah, music might have a discoverability issue due to sheer number of stuff coming out, but I don't think gaming is quite there yet. As for the funding, I agree. But that's a society issue, not a gaming specific one.

In a sense yes there are too many. When the question is around the industrial level and making a living off the work. There 110% are too many. No industry can support an infinite number of creators. There is a finite number of customers to serve after all. There's not a single genre at this point that I can think of that isn't saturated by slop.

Well, not everything has mass appeal. That's why I gave a metal album as an example. Despite it being a masterpiece, not everyone will listen to it because it's not for everyone. Same with games. Not every game will sell as much as it deserves, but I believe it's more because of it not being appealing enough and not because there's a discoverability issue The closest I could find about games that are masterpieces that flopped are either old games, which is a different issue or stuff like prey (2017) or Titanfall 2. So pretty big games, just not huge.

You might try to keep track of every new release but you’ll never be able to listen to everything coming from local bands that haven’t managed to make a bigger splash even if they objectively deserve it. I’m hyperbolising of course with the numbers. It’s a problem in loads of forms of media these days and if you happen to consume couple of different kinds of media / genres then trying to do that means you’ll get swept by never ending tides and discoverability is just part of the problem. We no longer have bandwidth to consume everything that’s worth consuming.

But great things have mass appeal outside their niche. Metallica is an excellent example of that because it's not only metalheads who listen to Metallica. Same thing with games. I think we can agree that soulslikes are not for everyone. Lies of p and Lords of the fallen give a rough estimate what the core audience for soulslike is, which is pretty small. But it didn't stop Elden Ring from being the biggest release of that year, because Elden Ring transcends the genre it's in. Great games will pull people from outside their niche the same way great songs, shows, movies, books and paintings can reach well outside the box people have put them in. In gaming we've seen the same thing happen with Silksong. Same thing happened with Clair Obscur and the JRPG genre. Same thing happen with BL4 and the looter shooter genre. Hades 2 will most likely pull people outside the roguelite genre. Silent hill f will most likely pull people outside the horror genre. When you have so many great games pulling players from outside their niche and hogging all the limelight, how are you going to discover those other great games that don't get any of the limelight? You won't, which is why this is a discoverability issue.

https://archive.ph/2025.09.26-181241/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-26/the-video-game-industry-has-a-problem-there-are-too-many-games

But which are these undiscovered gems? Feels like we're talking hypotheticals because googling hasn't produced any examples. I feel like it's also very subjective because it's quite easy to really like a game and feel like it's a 10/10 for you even tho for most other people it's just a 6/10 or maybe worse. I enjoy stuff like caves of qud or whatever but I understand why it's not more popular. It's not for everyone.

Of course you're going to have a hard time finding anything on Google because any game that fails to be a success also drops from search results. But to give an example, [Arco](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366970/Arco/). It's got positive reviews from pretty much everyone giving it a review and yet it didn't even get more than 200 concurrent players on Steam. I'm not saying it's some unbelievable gaming experience, but it is a good game. If there's nothing wrong with the game why was it a failure? Am I supposed to believe they made a game for nobody?

I can't think of any games I'm looking forward to at this point, since Subnautica 2 died. I have no planned video game purchases at this point. I'm not really looking forward to anything at all, if I'm honest. Nothing. I can't hope for the future anymore, every future I've ever met has been fuckgarbage because that's what futures are. Putrid fuckgarbage.