10 Reasons The Video Game Industry Is Heading For Another Crash
3. Successful Independent Publishers Either Sell Up Or Go Bust
Look at the big indie success stories in gaming over the last few years:
In 2009 Zynga launched Farmville, the game that would take Facebook by storm with 16 million daily users at its height. But by 2013, Zynga was laying off staff and closing three offices across the world and in 2014 they laid off another 300-plus staff. Angry Birds is a genuine media franchise, but 2014 saw an announcement that net profits were down 50% on the previous year, with 130 out of the 800 people working for the company losing their jobs as a result.
The only thing that can compare to the success of Angry Birds in recent memory is Minecraft. The sandbox game has made the same giant leap from game to entertainment phenomenon, and as a result the creators sold the company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. But after looking at Rovio and Zynga, who can blame them?
The success of the indie market has pulled casual gamers away from consoles to some extent. But because the success isn't sustainable, more indies will sell to AAA developers, leaving a vacuum for new studios who will either go bust or sell-up. It will go round in circles until the indies have taken so much of the market away from the AAAs that they can't afford to buy them anymore, and the previous system will collapse.