When Geoff Keighley takes the stage at an event like the Game Awards, he doesn’t tend to talk about current events. This has been a point of frustration for some people over the years who have expressed criticism of how the gaming figurehead uses (or abuses) his platform. As Keighley took the stage at this year’s Summer Game Fest, expectations for his acknowledgment of the video game industry’s ongoing layoff crisis were low. Then, Keighley delivered the biggest surprise of the series in the first minute.
“It has been a tumultuous and difficult year with company layoffs and studio closures that have left us all disappointed. But there’s also something else happening,” Keighley said as he opened the presentation before moving to a slide showing the 10 best-selling new games on Steam so far in 2024. The list wasn’t filled with blockbusters; it was crowned with surprise successes like World Pal, BalatroAnd Lords of the Manor.
“Our industry is evolving and changing. And thanks to digital distribution, small teams and new creators are seeing incredible success… Two of them are considered big company games, but the other eight are from independent, mid-sized teams, or indie developers . I look at this list and am inspired by the fact that new ideas, new teams, and small creators can and will break through. This reminds large companies that they need to treat their developers well, because there are many paths to sustainability and success today. And that’s what makes this industry so great.
It was a big moment for Keighley, which saw him address his critics directly and accept the responsibilities that come with a high-visibility platform like his. But this moment wasn’t just about Keighley; it established an important narrative about where the video game industry is heading that was played throughout the showcase. At the end of the event, the message was clear: India is the next frontier for major publishers seeking a more sustainable future.
Become independant
It’s no secret that the video game industry is in free fall. We have already seen more than 10,000 workers laid off in 2024 at publishers large and small. Xbox has laid off thousands of people alone, even shutting down beloved studios like Tango Gameworks entirely. Polygon reports that 2024 has already seen more layoffs in the gaming sector than all of 2023 combined – and that’s only June. This is a dire situation that highlights the need for change. Inflated budgets, eight-year development cycles, and huge “mega-games” are no longer sustainable strategies. But what is the alternative?
The recurring response to Summer Game Fest was to go small. Keighley has made a more concerted effort this year to showcase indie games like Killer bean alongside Harry Potter and other intellectual property giants. There is a cynical reading of Keighley’s opening monologue; one might see this as a way to tightly control the narrative of a live broadcast devoid of high-profile “world premieres,” as if to convince audiences tuning into major broadcasts that they care more about independent films than they do thinks. It would be a smart way to set expectations up front and focus on small games as intentional, rather than the byproduct of the tangible impact of layoffs on big games.
Putting that aside, Summer Game Fest painted a sincerely compelling narrative about sustainability. This became obvious in two moments. One was when Among us creator Innersloth has revealed his new publishing initiative, Outersloth, aimed at uplifting up-and-coming freelancers who need help. Victoria Tran of Innersloth called the initiative “a passion project and a dream for a better industry”.
The most pivotal moment, however, came just before that, when Blumhouse Games got a lengthy segment showcasing its mysterious publishing plans. While gamers may have expected the Hollywood megapower to reveal glitzy horror games, that’s not what happened. Instead, we saw a reel of small, independent films. Fear the spotlight, for example, is a flashback made by two people. In an onstage segment following the reveal, Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum took the stage to explain his company’s gaming mission.
“We wanted to try to take our approach to filmmaking and apply it to games, and that’s what you see here,” Blum said during the show. “We are going to make independent games. We’re going to seek out creators and give them a platform, and encourage those creators to be weird and subversive and find the creepiest, creepiest things possible and put them into really cool games.
Blumhouse Games Interview and Trailer with Jason Blum and Louise Blain | Summer Gaming Festival 2024
Both moments sent a clear message: publishers see a way forward in supporting the types of small games that appeared in the opening slide of Keighley’s Steam success stories. This philosophy is not only present in companies like Blumhouse. Xbox has already claimed the meteoric success of World Pal, which launched on Xbox Game Pass, as a win for the company. Even Sony has seen the fruits of this effort, as Helldiverse 2, from Swedish indie studio Arrowhead, proved to be a surprise hit for the company. While mega-games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth While big publishers are struggling to meet sales expectations, smaller games are paying off.
New Hollywood
While this is an emerging trend in video games, it is not unprecedented for the arts in general. In fact, what is currently happening in the field of video games has a direct equivalent in the history of cinema. In the 1950s, Hollywood was falling apart after its golden age. There were several factors, including a 1948 Supreme Court decision that broke the studio system, as well as the growing popularity of television. Soon, the types of big epics modeled on which Hollywood thrived were no longer sustainable, especially since they weren’t reaching young moviegoers.
In a Hail Mary attempt to save the industry, studios began taking greater risks in an attempt to find a new audience. This era was nicknamed New Hollywood. Rather than increasing the number of war epics and musicals, they began financing films by young independent directors who went against the grain. Soon, then-unknown filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg rose to prominence. And while this method sometimes produced costly failures, it also revived public interest in cinema. It was the fresh blood Hollywood needed to stay alive.
The moment we saw at Summer Game Fest indicates that the video game industry is on the cusp of its own New Hollywood moment. We’re quickly approaching a future in which major publishers start funding and promoting independent projects from small, proven developers, rather than relying on big-budget mega-games. Don’t be surprised if you see publishers like Xbox making deals with developers like World Pal‘s Pocket Pair Inc. to carry out their next projects for them.
Will this strategy pay off? It’s a risk, just as it was for Hollywood in the 1960s. It’s difficult to predict which games will be hits, especially when it comes to left-field elevator pitches like “roguelike poker “. And just because a developer hits gold once doesn’t mean their second game will have the same success. Independent development also presents its own set of obstacles; it’s not a magic cure for the industry’s problems. After all, the whole New Hollywood experiment largely ended after the success of Star Wars pushed studios to create modeled blockbusters rather than gamble on crazy ideas. Publishers could sideline independents for now Grand Theft Auto 6 launches itself and swallows up money.
In the meantime, pay close attention to the types of small games that are topping the Steam charts from left field. The studios behind these games might just create your next favorite PlayStation or Xbox exclusive.
Editors’ Recommendations