The 'deprofessionalization of video games' was on full display at PAX East

7 amichail 2 5/17/2025, 1:07:19 PM gamedeveloper.com ↗

Comments (2)

its-summertime · 5h ago
this could have been written at any time in the prior 15+ years.

Introversion software tried to do the give-back-to-the-community-by-hiring-heavily and almost went bankrupt. You can look at the correct wage for a good specialized software developer, artist, or writer, and look at the profit from your average indie, and see that the correct amount of people to hire is almost always near zero.

Look at Blizzard Activision or Rockstar Games amount of ongoing profit and investment, that is what is required to hire an actual team: Loyal customers, who will pay subscriptions, and being able to conceptualize and make multiple series of games all at the same time.

fragmede · 4h ago
And to have really good games 30 years ago, so that there's a hardcore loyal demographic that's now old enough to pay for said subscriptions. That one's a bit harder to copy.