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Comment by s_trumpet | Hacker News Reader

> The old growth engines (microtransactions, live service games, season passes, user-generated content, loot boxes, eSports hero shooters, etc.) also no longer work, as neither general players nor whales find them appealing.

I just don't think that's true in a world where Marvel Rivals was the biggest launch of 2024. Live service games like Path of Exile, Counter-Strike, Genshin Impact, etc. make boatloads of money and have ever rising player counts.

The problem is that it's a very sink-or-swim market - if you manage to survive 2-3 years you will probably make it, but otherwise you are a very expensive flop. Not unlike VC-funded startups - just because some big names failed doesn't make investing into a unicorn any less attractive.

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By the way, the games you named are called black hole games. They capture players and don't let go. They are scarce (about 1 in 40,000-60,000), and many industry issues don't apply to them. For example, market oversaturation isn't a problem, player retention isn't a problem, network effects aren't a problem, and old growth engines aren't a problem. They are like “winning the lottery,” but most game developers live in a world where they haven't won.

Another similar exception to the industry rules is the top 20-30 franchises, like NBA2K, GTA, FIFA, Far Cry, Call of Duty, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed, etc. Together, they account for about half the new game and DLC sales. Black hole games take another ~30%, and the remaining 19,000 annually released games share the remaining 20%, with the top 50 games making up 19/20ths of it.

What matters for 95%+ of game developers is performing well in that 20%. And they sell close to 0 lootboxes, for example.

The issue is that there is no obvious driver for growth at the moment and the industry has seen pretty obscene growth over the twenty years I've been part of it. That's made VCs very gun shy, particularly as a lot of the companies they've funded have nose dived pretty spectacularly. It's no surprise that the two recent successes Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals both come from publisher funding and for the latter has a very strong IP licenced for it. All of this is definitely causing a dramatic impact on the number of content producing studios getting VC funding and publisher investment in to new live service titles.

Outside of live service everyone is also looking for that new growth driver. In my opinion the chances are though we're in for a longish period of stagnation. I don't even share the OPs rosey outlook towards more "grassroots" developers. Firstly because they're still businesses even with a big name attached. Secondly because there is going to be a bloodbath due to the large number of developers pivoting in that direction. It'll end up like the indie market where there are so many entrants success is extremely challenging to find.

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