Industry vets behind Dishonored, Ultima Online, Her Story and more agree the games industry crisis goes beyond games: ‘Ultimately, to fix what’s broken in the videogame industry, we might have to fix reality’
Industry veterans behind acclaimed titles including Dishonored, Ultima Online, and Her Story have shared their perspectives on the current state of the videogame industry in a new report published by Edge magazine. There is broad consensus among these experienced developers that the industry is facing a significant crisis, though contributors disagree on the severity of the situation.
Developer Tim Cain contends that while the industry’s current challenges are serious, they do not rival the scale of the infamous videogame crash of the early 1980s. Brenda Romero, however, takes the opposite view, arguing that the present crisis is actually worse than that historical collapse. Despite this disagreement on magnitude, all contributors concur that the industry is clearly troubled.
The report suggests that addressing the videogame industry’s fundamental problems may require looking beyond the sector itself. One contributor provocatively suggests that “ultimately, to fix what’s broken in the videogame industry, we might have to fix reality,” implying that the industry’s challenges are rooted in broader systemic issues that extend far beyond game development and publishing practices alone.