Summary
Geoff Keighley kicked offSummer Game Festby tempering expectations. It was agood call ahead of a triple-A-lite show, and is generally a good thing to say to gamers ahead of these showcases anyway. Whatever you’re showing bar Elden Ring 2, if it’s notSilksongand or Bloodborne Remastered on PC, people will be mad.
However, he followed this up with a surprising start to his reveal show. He mentioned the layoffs, as members of the industry have been asking him to for years at this point, but glossed over them in favour of getting on with the world premieres. It seems like he can’t do anything right, but it’s not too hard to show solidarity and support for laid off developers. We’re asking for the bare minimum here.
After this, Keighley revealed his PowerPoint presentation of the best-selling games this year, stating that eight of them were made by small developers. “Two of them are considered big company games,” he says. “But the other eight come from indie, mid-sized teams, or solo developers.”
I’m not sure which of the Sony, Capcom, or Pocketpair games is considered in any way small (presumably the Palworld developer, as it doesn’t quite match the billions of the former two), but his point is clear. Indies and double-A titles are ruling the roost in 2024.
It was fantastic to see games made by tiny teams, likeBalatroand Buckshot Roulette, on this list. You go, gamers.
The rest of the show followed suit. When your biggest name is a Lego spinoff of a PlayStation exclusive and the best-received was about a bean with a gun, you know this isn’t like the SGFs of old. There wasn’t even a Kojima cameo, despite the fact that Death Stranding 2 and OD are still in development. While other showcases had bigger reveals (Ubisoft and Xbox showed plenty of, well, Ubisoft and Xbox games), the livestreams and showfloor were dominated by indies.
As well as Killer Bean, the most-talked about games in my circles have been Slitterhead, Fear the Spotlight, Afterlove EP, Neva, and Phantom Blade Zero. These are all vastly different games aimed at different audiences, but all have been given the spotlight in the absence of triple-A bombshells.
Thank goodness the indies have stepped up. Triple-A development is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Budgets are expanding, timelines are extending, and sequels are now entire console generations apart (or even two, in GTA 6’s case). If these games don’t sell like hotcakes, entire studios will be shuttered, thousands of developers will be laid off, and the industry will eventually crumble. Even if The Elder Scrolls 6 is a roaring success, number seven will be a decade later at this rate. Indies must fill the gaps.
The highlights of the show wereBlumhouse Gamesand Innersloth. Both are trying to support the indie scene by placing numerous small bets, instead of putting all their chips on The Last of Us 3.
I assumed Blumhouse Games would be announcing M3GAN: The Game or something, but it is instead investing in half a dozen small horror games, approaching the industry much like it does movies. Blumhouse famously spends about $10 million on each of its horror flicks, and it seems to be taking a similar tack with video games. Horror games and horror movies have a lot in common beyond the genre itself, and small budgets can be stretched further than in other genres.
Innersloth is following suit, announcing the Outersloth fund for independent developers. The Among Us developer is offering a pot of money for small teams and weird games, advice for devs who may be new to the industry, and won’t steal any of your IP for its trouble. It’s an incredible way of giving back, and may pave the future of the industry. Who knows what the next Among Us will be, but Innersloth (or Outersloth) may fund it.
While Xbox and PlayStation are duking it out in the ring, competing for every last dollar in your wallet, indie games are co-operating and coming together. They’re helping each other onto the empty pedestal vacated by the behemoths of the industry. The future of the industry is notanother middling Assassin’s Creed game, it’s not anotherStar Wars RPG. The future of the games industry is independent.
