![[WRITE-IN] Firelink Moving to Thursdays for a Month - EP #56](https://img5.nokimo.com/storage/8/mr/uc/fb3178-019e9102-7635-709c-bf30-cc49e2480a21.png)
[WRITE-IN] Firelink Moving to Thursdays for a Month - EP #56
Added 2025-02-27 01:08:13 +0000 UTCHey folks!
Just a quick update that Firelink will be on Thursday nights for the next six weeks starting tomorrow.
I have an obligation on Wednesday evenings, so we're switching the Metroid streams to Wednesday nights (starting right now) and Firelink to Thursday for the time-being.
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This week we're talking about the closure of Monolith Studios, Steam Next Fest and whatever news Pokémon drops in the morning! We may also have a special guest join us for tomorrow's episode, but we'll leave that as a surprise.
Send in your thoughts, questions, or topics you'd be interested in us discussing! We won't have time to read and discuss everything, and please keep posts topical, safe for work and not huge walls of text.
Submissions close at 4 PM CT on Wednesday, February 27th.
Comments
Different Topic: When making documentaries, what motivates the decision not to have a narrator? I've noticed that's a common thread through all of your documentaries going all the way back to Divinity Original Sin II.
Andrew White-Winter
2025-02-28 00:54:11 +0000 UTC@Tyler Jackson So the TLDR Version is, the AAA space is going to continue to shrink and these layoffs will continue to happen and studios shuttered because what they are demanding of these companies is unrealistic and comes from an ultra-capitalist space where there must be exponential growth in a creative medium. Long Version: I was being a little flippant, but let me elaborate a bit more. There's a fracturing within AAA that we are seeing in significant ways, AAA live service games are still massive money makers, the problem is the introduction of new titles, the constantly struggle these games have is to tear audiences away from the established kings of that arm of the industry, i.e. Apex, Dota 2 and Destiny 2 were among the top-grossing games of 2024 on Steam. So as long as studios keep throwing money at attempts to create space within that market, scenes like we have seen for the last few years of massive layoffs and cancelled projects will continue. Games like Helldivers 2 and Palworld are exceptions not the rule and shouldn't be discounted in this conversation. However it remains to be seen what their sustainability is, especially with Palworld in legal trouble, and Helldivers just one or two mistakes away from tanking their numbers and revenue streams. In addition to these live service and ongoing multiplayer games, you have the sports game sector which is under reported on at Second Wind, but when looking at the 20 top-grossing titles from a Gamespot report, 8 of those are sports games. My point is that the biggest money makers in the AAA space are communal experiences with established franchises, and the biggest mistake that publishers keep making is trying to compete with games that 20 years of nostalgia under their belts. The inflated budgets and wishful thinking will inevitably lead to disaster, i.e. Concord, which will not be the only example in the next year or two. On the other side of the AAA industry are the single player experiences which have always been difficult to sell especially when compared to multiplayer games. With that being said, there are plenty of examples to pull from of the sustainability of these titles, games like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 are big money makers, but to say that their original IPs is not entirely accurate as both come with reputations or legacy factors, Baldur's Gate is the third entry in a series that would've failed if a lot of factors hadn't been in play aside from it being one the best RPGs in the last decade, which unfortunately isn't enough to keep a game alive in the AAA space. Elden Ring comes with the FromSoft pedigree and was able to capitalize on the upward trend they had been experiencing since the launch of Dark Souls 1. The AAA industry much like movies and TV are IP driven, so any attempt to break away from that formula is an uphill battle that publishers are unwilling to accept is a long game. Because of the nature of their business model they can't accept a game make its money back and that's good enough, because these original IPs have to compete with the likes of Hogwart's Legacy and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. The people making the decisions are not informed by what you would call realistic metrics, all they have are cold hard numbers that are not given enough time or attention to gestate, there's no patience for sleeper hits or word of mouth, they have to make hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of weeks. And any projection that falls short of that will be called a failure, so we should be prepared to see this happen for at least the next 2-3 years as no one is really safe anymore.
LookItsAnEric
2025-02-27 23:30:03 +0000 UTCMarty and company have asserted that indie could not exist without AAA drawing attention and money in the first place, but so many AAA studios are closing piggybacking off of @LookitsanEric do you think a smaller number of active AAA studios could earn enough money to keep gaming alive? Do you think people would still play what is available and look for new things during events such as as Steam Next Fest or do you think they just accept the gaming solvent green? PS: Eric it does look like the direction we are headed in but I think indie stays alive at least as an enthusiast market. Better dev tools will enable creation, although maybe more slowly
Tyler Jackson
2025-02-27 22:45:38 +0000 UTCWith Monolith's shuttering how much longer will the viability of a AAA studio exist before all that's left are a handful of live service games and GTA 6? The recontextualizing of what it means to be AAA is coming hot and fast. PS screw venture capital
LookItsAnEric
2025-02-27 19:36:19 +0000 UTCWhat would be your pitch for a Wonder Woman game? Do you think Monolith was setup for failure - as in, were they forced to make a game with the DC brand that was similar to the Mordor games and not something new and original? It also blows my mind when years of development and money get scrapped to reboot a project. Should studios have more scrutiny during pre-development to really lock in a vision and avoid rebooting years later?
Kyle Vanden Eynden
2025-02-27 11:50:55 +0000 UTCI totally agree with Marty's recent article that Steam's storefront thinks my two most recent games are the only games I have ever played, and this year's Next Fest storefront feels almost impenetrable to me. Do y'all have any early recommendations of Next Fest demos to try? AND, do you know any tricks to improve the search experience? I want to find stuff that will actually click with me or surprise me, not just go to the ones that have the nicest key art.
TooManySpreadsheets
2025-02-27 07:43:17 +0000 UTCActually I do have a non joke question that doesn’t involve old man pickleball. Indie developers often make games inspired by the games they grew up on - we have seen this with the 16 bit era and more recently with some games going for the aesthetics of the ps1/64 era. However as technology progressed in the 2000s so does the complexity of games - so do we naturally reach a point where indie developers will find it harder to emulate the game styles of the mid 2000s onwards even if they grew up with them?
Inverse Skies
2025-02-27 07:23:53 +0000 UTCI just started the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time and am loving it so far, how do you guys/the Second Wind crew at large feel about patient gaming? It seems like Marty at least likes to replay and revisit classics, does anybody else on the team have the nostalgia bug or like to look through the archives (or the dumpster) when deciding on the next thing to play?
plz help
2025-02-27 02:24:42 +0000 UTCMonster Hunter Wilds is almost here! Does the Firelink team play? If so, what weapons do you main?
Altrus
2025-02-27 02:17:14 +0000 UTCWith all the studio closures over the last year and change, how do you think the games industry will be affected overall? Do you expect to see more AA games from those that were laid off or should we expect less games overall because of people too sick of the industry's issues to go to other studios after being laid off?
Pixel Grip
2025-02-27 01:28:11 +0000 UTCDid you win pickleball Nick?
Inverse Skies
2025-02-27 01:14:26 +0000 UTCNextFest gave me a new game to look forward to! Mochi's Cosy Adventure! Also i get to try Wanderstop before it comes out.
Far Too Many Frogs
2025-02-27 01:10:18 +0000 UTC
