Because the indie space is also a graveyard. Investors are increasingly wary of funding anything but a "guarantee" and plenty of studios have had to shutter because the funding they were promised was rescinded.

The major publishers are at least a paycheck that can keep a studio going for another year or two.

Remember that the people actually doing the work don't decide who to make deals with.

Meanwhile Larian studio reminding everyone that a good way to make money and avoid layoffs is to be nimble and make good games.

Big Corps sees nimble and good studio making a good game, starts layoffs immediately.

The real murderers are the people that sell their studio to a big publisher. They immediately seal the fate of their teams. They will have layoffs eventually...

Hmmm it's almost like Jim Ryan was on to something when he said gamepass wasn't good for the industry and publishers didn't like it during the antitrust trial with Microsoft.

It blows my fucking mind how stupid some people are just to be able to play the next rehashed bullshit CoD on gamepass instead of paying $70 a year for the same garbage.

Pentiment and Psychonauts were great too so RIP to those studios 🫠

Most of the upper eschalon of 343 have left or were kicked out over the last year, including some of the worst offenders who drove the creation of the crap we've had recently such as Kiki Wolf kill.

It seems like they're internally rebuilding 343 because they know how much of a powerhouse that IP can be if done right. I'm not optimistic about the next Halo, but cautiously hopeful now at least.

Arcane austin was already killed by the development of redfall. Most of the talent responsible for making dishonered and prey the games they were left during development of redfall. If arcane austin went back to making immersive sims instead of closing, it would be a new team making it, with little help from the pedegree implied by arcane's legacy.

Keep in mind however that arcane was two studios, the main studio in lyon france, and the other in austin texas. Dishonered was developed jointly. Dishonored 2 was lyon, pray was austin, and deathloop was lyon.

The lyon studio still exists. They are continuing to make games. The only thing announced from arcane is the marvel's blade game. Not optimistic, but arcane may still be around a while yet.

but Dishonored, Deathloop, and Prey all did pretty well I thought

I thought Arkane Austin (the closed one) was only Prey of those. Which is a shame, because Prey was utterly fantastic.

Yeah the studio put out nothing but nice games. Sure, Ghostwire in particular wasn't stellar, but it was also enjoyable and pretty well done. Evil Within was dorky, but in just the right way. Hi-Fi was phenomenal, and that alone should have seen them physically behead every single higher manager at Bethesda before they tough anyone at Tango.

But alas, apparently if it ain't Fallout: Ghostwire or Fallout: Hi-Fi, then it doesn't matter. Manager bonuses ain't going to pay themselves (hrm... come to think of it, they do?), line has to go up!

Cool but most indie devs don't have the capital to fund the development. They want to make those games, but they have to partner with publishers so they can afford to buy stuff like food and rent while developing before they make any sales.

I am going to pretend you didn't mean it this way but that REALLY comes across as telling people who lost their jobs that they deserve it because they didn't meet your requirements (that weren't even true back in the day of DOS and BBSes...)

Please.. fuck right off with that. The devs at Arkane Austin or Tango aren't making the decision to add a battlepass or to release a game before it is "done". They are doing what management requires of them. The same management that then fires them to make sure that the overall branch of the company turns a profit.

You are kicking people when they are down.

The Indie scene releases a dozen of these every day. The problem is there's actually too much and most of these fail to ever find an audience.

Wow, what hollow platitude

Laid off workers don't have the ability to choose these options though. You're talking about management/marketing decisions.

This is such a fanboy opinion. Sony killed basically their entire Japanese Development, had 13 GaaS in development at the same time and actively are holding back the standard of Cross Save. They give plenty of reasons to not be the 'gamer' console. Especially now when they are also beginning to drop games on gamepass.

Ironically we still know of more single player games coming to Xbox then games coming to Sony outside of Spider-Man Leaks.

Fallout is currently the hottest game on the market thanks to the Show on top of this.

This really fucking sucks but damn stop trying to use this as a way to promote your team

And this is WHY the smaller studios are on the chopping block and not core Bethesda.

Because smaller games that are incredibly solid don't matter. What matters are AAA tentpoles. And Tango's A/AA games were "lukewarm" at best. They had an AMAZING B/A game but fuck 'em. Same with Arkane Austin

And... probably same with Obsidian this fall (?) when their Elder Pillars game comes out and people decide it isn't Skyrim so it is bad. Ignore that Pentiment was amazing or their long legacy as one of the best studios in CRPGs. People will just talk doom and gloom because it isn't The Last Of Us.

Which will lead to MS continuing to try to be Sony rather than take advantage of the studios they actually have. And people will continue to talk about how they can't compete with Sony because they don't have a Horizon Zero Dawn.

I've been saying it ever since MS started buying every studio they could. They have an AMAZING roster and can basically dominate the market by "flooding" it with high production value "indie" games. But... people want their AAA tentpoles.

From the grave