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The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games | Jason Schreier
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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.Of course. But the good stuff will rise to the top. Especially in games. When it comes to bands, unfortunately not always the case, that's true. But that's a society issue. Universal basic income would help.
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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.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.
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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
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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?
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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?[Dunno how accurate this is ](https://gamalytic.com/game/2366970) but it says they sold 46k units. Not quite for nobody, is it? Even if everyone got it at 50% off, that's still 322k after steam's cut.
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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.I'm really looking forward to a game for the first in years, Arc raiders, probably because it's a new studio and hasn't been enshittified yet. Damn I've missed that feeling, but might be because of growing up and not having time to play much, and because the number of new games. Hard to keep up with upcoming releases
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Are we back in 1983?FTA > Most of last year’s Steam games went undiscovered and unplayed by the majority of users. But a surprising number were received quite well. Of the 1,431 games released last year that garnered more than 500 reviews — an indication that they were played by at least a few thousand people — more than 260 were rated positively by 90% or more of the players. More than 800 scored 80% or better. In other words, this isn’t like the 1980s, when the US gaming market crashed due to a flood of poorly made products. Today, there are too many video games, and many of them are great. >Today’s titles are also competing not just with the new games released every year but with countless old “service” games designed to keep people playing forever. The three most-played games on Steam are almost always Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds, all multiplayer games that have been around for years. Some of the other biggest games in the world, such as League of Legends and the top titles on Roblox, would be alongside them if they were on Steam.
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This isn’t some neoliberal conspiracy. Jason Schreier is a respected journalist and given his track record so far there’s no reason for this kind of silly accusations.
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This isn’t some neoliberal conspiracy. Jason Schreier is a respected journalist and given his track record so far there’s no reason for this kind of silly accusations.Track record. You mean like sitting on a bunch of abuse stories, allowing more people to get abused by Blizzzard's staff so he could publish and push his book? Or do you mean his support of grifter Sweet Baby Inc. Or do you mean his blatant racism shaming a small dev team for having the same skin color? Or do you mean his soyboy aversion to titties as he shat all over the masterpiece Dragon's Crown? The dude is a joke, straight up, a known liar fearmongering for clicks.
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Track record. You mean like sitting on a bunch of abuse stories, allowing more people to get abused by Blizzzard's staff so he could publish and push his book? Or do you mean his support of grifter Sweet Baby Inc. Or do you mean his blatant racism shaming a small dev team for having the same skin color? Or do you mean his soyboy aversion to titties as he shat all over the masterpiece Dragon's Crown? The dude is a joke, straight up, a known liar fearmongering for clicks.
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That's the funniest thing about people like you, the dude literally put his name on the newspaper and it still doesn't matterI’ve said it many times before, Bloomberg, FT and WSJ might be owned by neoliberal vampires, but by $deity, work ethic of their journalists is on another level to everyone else, probably because they have so much money. Admittedly, their souls are probably being sucked out in the process, but unless you have something against the article itself it seems like we’re wasting time debating integrity of Jason Schreier.
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I wish there were too many good games. There aren't, but there is certainly too much slop. Maybe stop making slop with hundred-man teams? Nah, it's the market that's the problem. Schreier still proving he's a moron who hates games and gamers.I hate to be rude, but there are literally *thousands* of great games cheaply accessible to you. They aren’t gonna be spoon fed to your eyeballs; you have to shop and dig.
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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.Not really. It may be “feel good nice” if you make a few bucks to a few hundred good reviews on a passion project, but it’s not enough to let you eat. And making a game is a pretty massive time sink. Not to belittle other artists, but the bare minimum time/financial investment for one game is higher than, say, a digital art portfolio or an album.
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I hate to be rude, but there are literally *thousands* of great games cheaply accessible to you. They aren’t gonna be spoon fed to your eyeballs; you have to shop and dig.
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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-gamesI’m sorry, but gamers are so entitled. We’re flooded with an incredible back catalog and a sea of gems, yet the sentiment is “small devs are fine” is totally ignorant of how, literally the vast majority of the time per the article, these small devs barely make ends meet on their genuinely good passion project. Or they generalize that all games are junk because they haven’t even made a bare minimum attempt to shop around the sea of excellently organized stores and review sites/databases the industry has, like they expect absolute perfection in a personal TikTok/YouTube feed directed at them, then turn around and complain about paying a few bucks for an indie after dropping $600 on a GPU. *** …There really *are* too many games because it’s so many passion projects now, and that’s… fine. It’s a lot better than the cinema situation now, for example, where indie makers are getting squeezed so hard. But I still don’t like the entitled culture that hurts the discoverability of these smaller games and feeds the AAA slop conveyer belts.
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[Dunno how accurate this is ](https://gamalytic.com/game/2366970) but it says they sold 46k units. Not quite for nobody, is it? Even if everyone got it at 50% off, that's still 322k after steam's cut.
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You literally named a bunch of old games that absolutely have modern alternatives. From indie 'retro' RTS games to Mass Effect (or more dramatic MGS) feeling RPGs/shooters that flew under the radar to great and original puzzle games in the vein of Portal. Have you ever played the Talos Principle or Antichamber, for instance? Discoverability is a *huge* issue, *because* there are so many games.
