>>712480942There are actually too many video games now, which is why most of them fail. Outside of children and a handful of basement dwellers, most people don't have more than a couple of hours to dedicate to gaming a week.
It's a total zero-sum game, but the industry is too dumb to realise it.
How much money did Square-Enix waste on Forspoken and FF16? The latter just dropped on Xbox and it's not even in the Top 200 games. FIFA 23, of all things, is.
There will be an industry crash, and it won't be due to $80 games but the sheer fact too many people are competing for limited time budgets with games that don't hold mass appeal. At least with a cheap and cheerful indie game you can get away with lower engagement.