There’s a bigger factor at play which I think is barrier to entry. Now you got individuals or small team of devs being able to publish games themselves on places like Steam, and add to the already huge amount of products that are competing with each other for sales. Used to be in the past when barrier was high these large publishers could gate keep, but now they can’t. And they have to fight ants too instead of just other few whales.
And these small ants have games that catch hype despite being lower budget and worse graphics. It’s a different landscape now. Even reviewers aren’t just some few large outlets they can control anymore, but individuals spread across sharing their opinions and discoveries on social media and places like Steam reviews. Much harder now to control products like in the past.
There’s a bigger factor at play which I think is barrier to entry. Now you got individuals or small team of devs being able to publish games themselves on places like Steam, and add to the already huge amount of products that are competing with each other for sales. Used to be in the past when barrier was high these large publishers could gate keep, but now they can’t. And they have to fight ants too instead of just other few whales.
And these small ants have games that catch hype despite being lower budget and worse graphics. It’s a different landscape now. Even reviewers aren’t just some few large outlets they can control anymore, but individuals spread across sharing their opinions and discoveries on social media and places like Steam reviews. Much harder now to control products like in the past.