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00:00Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're doing a health check on the video game industry
00:09in 2024. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
00:20Before we begin, we publish new content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring
00:25the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:29Let's start with the good things about gaming, because let's be honest, there isn't a lot
00:32to talk about. Yes, the standard of individual games has been higher than it's ever been
00:37in the last few years, with monster hits like Alan Wake 2, God of War Ragnarok, Final Fantasy
00:427 Remake and Rebirth, Elden Ring, and of course Baldur's Gate 3. Big RPGs are enjoying a
00:53new heyday as well, though it's rare to find a game nowadays that doesn't include some
00:57kind of RPG mechanics, for better or worse, while live service games finally seem to be
01:02dying a death as gamers no longer want them. Indie games are also better than ever, with
01:07indies like Hades, Palworld, Bellatro, Vampire Survivors, and more taking the industry by
01:12storm. And finally, we're in a new era for hardware, because handheld gaming has taken
01:22off even more with the release of the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck wasn't the first PC
01:27handheld, but it is the most affordable and has ushered in even more competition, from
01:31devices like the ASUS ROG Ally and the MSI Claw.
01:42Now we're moving on to the negative things about gaming in the 2020s, and there is a
01:46lot. First, we have to talk about hardware. While handheld devices are doing great, consoles
01:51aren't as much. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S released in 2020, with the
01:57COVID-19 pandemic still raging and in the midst of a years-long chip shortage. There
02:02were shortages of both, but especially the PS5, for years, which led to more games than
02:07ever before in a new console generation being released for older platforms. In fact, it
02:12wasn't until the last two years that we started getting games only for 9th gen hardware,
02:16meaning the potential performance of both devices has been throttled by this necessity
02:20to release on old machines.
02:22Considering all of this, it looks absurd that Sony wants to release a PS5 Pro when we've
02:27barely reached the potential of the base PS5. As well as that, hardware prices haven't
02:32come down, and in a lot of territories have actually risen. Sony introduced a PS5 Slim
02:36at the same MSRP as the base PS5 at launch, despite it not having a disk drive. And the
02:42Pro doesn't have a disk drive either. There's an external disk drive on sale for $80, but
02:47Already, scalpers have bought them up anticipating the increased demand when the Pro releases.
02:52Even after years, scalpers remain a huge issue across gaming, buying up consoles and graphic
02:57cards, and companies still aren't doing enough to stop them.
03:04While Microsoft hasn't released a Pro version of the Xbox, it has released a Series X that
03:09also has no disk drive, pushing people even closer to all digital models. While a lot
03:14of people like owning games digitally, sure, it's a model with a lot of problems. Not
03:18only does it lock you into a vertically integrated system, paying prices, Sony says to buy Sony
03:24games on Sony hardware, for instance, but you don't actually own any of those games.
03:28In September 2024, California, the most populous US state, passed a law that would force sellers
03:34to admit that you don't own digital games, removing words like buy from storefronts.
03:39This came after Ubisoft shut down the crew, but plenty of other old multiplayer games
03:43have their servers shut down after a long enough time as well. Only GOG.com avoids being
03:48forced to admit this because it's the only digital platform where you really do own DRM-free
03:53versions of games.
04:02All digital ecosystems also mean companies that own the devices, like Sony and Microsoft,
04:07can set the prices of games to be whatever they want, and you have no alternate way to
04:11buy those games unless you want to switch to a PC. It's also terrible news for backwards
04:16compatibility because without disk drives, your collection of older games won't work
04:20on new hardware. Worse yet, you can't even rely on digital storefronts themselves to
04:24keep existing because those keep getting shut down too. Nintendo has shut down the eShops
04:29on the 3DS and Wii U, while Microsoft also shut down the Xbox 360 store. Sony announced
04:34the closure of the PS3 and PS Vita stores, but after intense backlash, walked back this
04:40decision. But how long will it be until they try again? This is all awful news for game
04:44preservation, but it still gets worse.
04:52You may argue that even if those eShops close down, we still have emulators, but companies
04:56are doing more and more to shut these down too. The biggest culprit is, of course, Nintendo,
05:01which has recently sent copyright takedown notices to YouTube videos that show people
05:05emulated games running on non-Nintendo hardware. Nintendo has also been filing patents to
05:10try and kill competitors, notably Palworld, which is being sued by Nintendo for violating
05:15patents that Nintendo didn't even file until after the game actually came out. And even
05:19if you do buy into these digital ecosystems completely, Sony has taken its IP protection
05:24even further by trying to block people from playing its games on PC if they don't log
05:29in with a PlayStation Network account. If you're in a big western country, you may
05:33think that this isn't a big deal, but actually PSN is completely unavailable in more countries
05:38than not. 70 countries have PSN and 120 do not, meaning that even if they have all the
05:43hardware and buy those games legitimately on PC, they can't log in to play them. Sony
05:48walked this back with Helldivers too, but recently a modder got in hot water for making
05:52a mod removing the PSN requirement for God of War Ragnarok on PC, while the Horizon Zero
05:58Dawn remaster also requires a PSN login.
06:07But if you thought not owning games you pay full price for is bad enough, what about subscription
06:11models? Popularized by Netflix, subscriptions are everywhere now, with people often paying
06:19for dozens of them to access movies, TV shows, video games, books, and music. Xbox introduced
06:25subscriptions through Xbox Game Pass, but in 2024 it's become clear that Game Pass
06:30is not profitable. Sony has multiple tiers of PS Plus, each offering different game selections
06:35to compete with Game Pass, but you might still end up paying out every month for these subscriptions.
06:41And that's without talking about publisher-specific subscriptions like EA Play and Ubisoft Plus,
06:46which are even more unpopular. There is something to be said about the convenience of them and
06:50getting to play day one releases without stumping up $70 up front, but when Microsoft
06:55also introduces tiers and starts removing big exclusives like Starfield from the cheaper
06:59ones, it's really no wonder that people are canceling Game Pass subscriptions in droves.
07:04You could end up spending hundreds if not thousands in subscriptions over the years
07:07and you still won't own anything.
07:15Despite the price of games rising to higher than it's ever been, within the industry
07:19employment has never looked so bleak. That's right, we're talking about the layoffs and
07:23studio closures, which have gotten worse and worse since the pandemic. From Microsoft shuttering
07:27Tango Gameworks after making the acclaimed game Hi-Fi Rush, and then turning around and
07:32saying it wants to invest more in popular indie games, to huge job losses at massive
07:36companies like Microsoft, EA, Take-Two, Riot, Sony, Epic, and more, you may start to feel
07:42like there's never been a worse time to be a developer. And it's not just developers
07:53either, with Game Informer Magazine also getting closed down by parent company GameStop, which
07:58yes, still exists. With the risk of layoffs hanging over studios' heads, it's now
08:02even more essential that every single game that gets released is a hugely popular, critically
08:07acclaimed game of the year contender. But this isn't good either. While you may think
08:17it leads to great games, it actually doesn't. You only need to look at Rocksteady, once
08:21a studio that never missed, and the release of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League to
08:26see that these conditions don't make good games. Rocksteady has survived this failure,
08:30but only just. Ubisoft meanwhile has also put out middling games for years now, and
08:35with its stock prices in the toilet, is allegedly looking at a potential buyout from Chinese
08:39conglomerate Tencent. There's no room anymore for a solid 7 out of 10 game that, while they're
08:45not perfect and they don't reinvent the wheel, are still an absolute blast to play.
08:49If studios don't release perfect system-selling titles, they run the risk of being axed, and
08:54even if they do, they could still be subjected to huge layoffs, or indeed close down anyway
08:59like what we saw with Tango. Despite all these layoffs though, big companies seem to
09:09have no shortage of cash, because the last four years have seen a huge increase in acquisitions.
09:15This is largely coming from Microsoft, buying up companies in a desperate bid to compete
09:19with Sony. We saw the ZeniMax acquisition give them Bethesda, but then despite years
09:23of opposition from trade watchdogs, the Activision Blizzard acquisition was allowed to go ahead.
09:28To fund this, Microsoft again raised the price of Game Pass and added the aforementioned
09:33tiers, with only the most expensive tiers getting Call of Duty on day one. But with
09:37Starfield ultimately a flop for Microsoft, leading to no notable increase in sales of
09:42the Xbox, it's looking like all that cash was a waste of money. It's also extremely
09:46bad for competition and means that Microsoft is hemorrhaging money in its games division
09:51with no way back other than abolishing Game Pass completely and going back to the old
09:55model, which we imagine it'll probably have to do before the next console generation.
10:09And on top of raising the price of games and raising the price of subscriptions, publishers
10:13are still going to great lengths to add even more monetization to their titles. We still
10:18have relentless microtransactions even in paid games. Skull & Bones released at full
10:22price and was still full of them. And Ubisoft hasn't yet made it free to play for some
10:28weird reason, even though it definitely should be. And a new predatory strategy to try and
10:33get more money from us has appeared as well, Early Access. This isn't the Early Access
10:37you get with PC games, where games are still in development, released in unfinished states
10:41to get player feedback. No, this Early Access is a model that lets you play a brand new
10:46game a few days before anybody else if you pre-order.
10:57Pre-ordering itself is nearly always a terrible idea. You shouldn't spend money on a product
11:02that doesn't actually exist yet, but this new incentive is very shady. We saw it with
11:06blockbuster games like Starfield and Star Wars Outlaws, and it doesn't seem to have
11:10them, so hopefully it ends soon at least.
11:18But after all that, it's still true that many of the biggest games coming out are remakes
11:22and remasters. This trend began with Capcom's Resident Evil 2 remake back in 2019, and while
11:27Capcom is still knocking it out of the park, other companies are also getting in on remakes,
11:32even if those remakes are, you know, somewhat unnecessary. Yet again, Sony is the main culprit
11:36releasing remakes like The Last of Us Part 1, not to mention remastering games that barely
11:41need any changes, like Spider-Man and Horizon Zero Dawn. Heck, even Nintendo isn't great
11:45with this. While it did remake Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, the remake only ran
11:50at 30fps on Switch, despite the original running at 60fps on the Gamecube.
12:02While we're getting a lot of good games, the future of gaming itself is clearly in
12:06question, and there's no telling how we'll be playing games or what devices we'll be
12:10using in just 5 years' time, and whether the future is actually going to be better
12:14than the past. Let us know in the comments what you think about modern gaming and whether
12:21you think it's in a good place or whether you think previous generations were the peak
12:25of the medium, and that was the state of gaming in 2024.