Gaming Is UNRECOGNISABLE In 2024

10. AAA Is Literally Unsustainable

AAA gaming may be where the biggest money is made, but it also bears the largest cost and therefore the greatest risk. And in recent years it's become increasingly concerning how perilous, even outright unsustainable, that model is.

With the average development time of a AAA game ballooning considerably as of late, this means that a single flop game - or even a mere underperformance - can mean serious trouble for developers who don't have the backing of a major publisher.

Uncharted co-creator Amy Hennig pointed out how unviable this business model was back in 2019, and the result is that publishers are basically incentivised to only greenlight the most safe-bet AAA games moving forward, where the chance of financial failure is minimised. Now, 95% of developers are reportedly working on at least one live-service title.

It's clear that something fundamentally needs to change about how games are made - perhaps moving away from an obsession with raw technical power requiring the efforts of thousands of people, making games shorter, and setting more realistic sales targets (looking at you, Square Enix).

But it's a tricky balance to strike, given that many players simply won't want to shell out top day-one dollar for a game that doesn't look cutting-edge, and won't offer at least 30-40 hours of gameplay. 

Again, it's unsustainable without some serious business overhauls and tough decisions over the next few years.