Ronan Kelly
With the vast majority of AAA games fighting for 4k resolutions, subsurface scattering on every character, and ray tracing that would make a solar physicist blush, we continue to witness indie developers enjoying record breaking profits by releasing small but captivating passion projects that prove the games industry is not dying, but evolving.
“The AAA industry has a lot of momentum and inertia, but it’s not where a lot of interesting things are happening.” - Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve
The fundamental reality of the games industry is that so long as money is to be made, companies will rise to take their piece of the pie. In the caseof the games industry of 2025, we are experiencing the middle of a massive waveof companies closing studios to insulate profits and offset costs. Over thepast 10 years, we have witnessed many AAA franchise games move towards a liveservice business model and an associated surge in the viability for developersto obtain and retain jobs within these corporate mega-structures. While thiswas initially received with sceptical interest from many players within thetest environment games, and as many games began to adopt the new model, a distastebegan to grow amongst first time players who joined communities and gamesseeing that the beginner experience began to be filled with short experiencesthat lead directly to features that were locked behind paywalls.
One of the most infamous experiences of this is the liveservice game Destiny 2 by Bungie. Destiny 2 is an MMORPG that boasts a swath ofcontent for players to experience. However, after free themselves from theirActivision buyout, Bungie began to push harder on its monetization, and it ispassing off its new players from its free content to its paid content. Newplayers are immediately slammed with pop-ups preaching season passes,DLC content, dungeons, raids, and more with the each with theintrusiveness slowly pulling back to quests that lead to pop-ups or spontaneousemails claiming that players have "unlocked" the ability to buy merchandisefrom their store page bungiestore.com. Call of Duty has, at the time ofwriting, nineteen titles within its series. Each COD has built upon itspredecessor in a small way, with graphics or mechanics making small leapsbetween each title in ways that are noticeable by its players, who subjectthemselves the same controls, maps, mechanics, and experience for hundreds ofhours on end. Many of its player base has played and will play the next titlewithout knowing what it is because of the trap it has created. Because ofFOMO.
"FOMO", the Fear Of Missing Out is the enginethat powers the live service industry, with many games like Call of Duty andDestiny 2 having features that call upon the fear of missing out on somethingexciting and new because you didn't play at a specific time. Once you arehooked by a game, it is hard to resist justifying $50 price tags forDLC and unlocks, with each subsequent purchase becoming easier and easierto justify. Drip feeding new weapons or content to players allows for you to stretchyour game into a live service model, keeping players playing and allowing youto push more monetization on them. Even if every nine players hate this greedybusiness style, statistics determine that you will experience and increase inthe number of in-game purchases from the 1 person in 10 that is willing to makethat once off purchase. However, more players voice distaste with this thancontend with it. Even with players resisting this, a number of companies haveseen remarkable success from this, such of Ubisoft with their AssassinsCreed franchise, with cosmetics providing unique effects on the playerexperience. Armour sets come with buffs or builds built into them that allowplayers to dominate the game and make their overall experience less dependenton 100% exploration. The want to succeed has plagued games since the days ofPong, and with companies foaming at the mouth to push more monetization, theonly people to suffer are the players. And speaking from experience, FOMO ishard trap to escape from.
Among Us, Lethal Company, Phasmaphobia, Stardew Valley,and Undertale, are just some of the few games made by rogue indie developersthat brought success like no other in recent years. While games like Call ofDuty, Assassin's Creed, and Mortal Kombat can stand proud in the Hall of GamesHistory for the might monetary empires they have built, so rarely do theyinspire waves of nostalgia and repeat play sessions years past their hay-day.As much as we hate to admit it, games such as these spoil with time and feedoff their own earliest incarnation's nostalgia in order to continue theirfranchise. However, there exists a fascinating experience where a completelyunknown game designer or studio appears from the void, spends 4-5 years workingon a side project for which they have little faith will succeed in anycapacity, after which they produce a game of such unfathomable quality, thatall it takes is a single online influencer making a video about it for it tosuddenly dominate the entire gaming sphere for months. Among Us, which wasreleased in mid-2018, is the most well-known example of this, having reportedlygenerated $86 million in revenue since its release. Among Us wasdeveloped by the same studio who made the beloved flash game series "HenryStickman", Innersloth, with an ardent team of ~6 people.
Games like Among Us seemed to have become more prominentwith the advent age of influencers, where just like these spontaneous successstories, single individuals can amass immense following seeminglyovernight. These influencers exist across almost every discipline andmedia possible, including most prominently games. Influencers such as MarkFischbach, known online as Markiplier, have following in the hundreds ofmillions and can act as catalysts for success for almost any media thorough anymedium. This time in history where companies no longer exist as the pinnacle ofstardom, has allowed said stardom to be within the grasp of almost anyone, andmore importantly providing the opportunity for mass market manipulation throughparasocial connections. In short, people trust influencers more than advertisersand are more inclined to try something if an influencer they like promotes it.This is the exact relationship that allows games like Among Us to be catapultedinto stardom, and the same time allow companies to pay influencers to shilltheir product to much greater success than traditional forms of advertising. Itis a dangerous ouroboros of parasocializing and mass market manipulating. Butit cannot be denied that it has resulted in some amazing gaming experiences forthose who cannot trawl through the wasteland of the internet for hidden gems.
Lethal Company, Undertale and Stardew Valley are primeexample of indie games that rocketed to the heights of financial and cultural success.Lethal Company was developed by a single developer using the game engine Unity.It is developer, Zeekerss, previously developed games on the game creationplatform, Roblox and eventually transferred to Unity when the limitations ofthe platform become too much. Lethal Company did not have a game designdocument — a common document in games development which provides a high-leveloverview of what the game will be like. The game was slowly developed byZeekerss over a number of years and was used as proof of skills for their timespent learning Unity. From a humble test project to international success,Lethal Company will exist in the minds of those who played it for years tocome, and most assuredly will inspire many a nostalgic storytelling andspontaneous play session. Lethal Company is not alone in its notoriety.Undertale and Stardew Valley share an almost identical story, or at the veryleast a similar success story. Spontaneous, international success, followed bya firm seating in the Hall of Nostalgia for a time gone by.
Every game die... except for the original Doom. It seemswherever a screen can exist, people will endeavour to run Doom on it, no matterhow illogical it to see it. A strong and hearty shout-out to Twitter User"Foome" who managed to run the entire game of doom off the screen ofa pregnancy test. My congratulations to you and yours.
In all seriousness, every media dies at some point. Everymovie will eventually stop being watched, every book will eventually stop beingread, and every game eventually slips out of the consciousness of gamers, neverto be played again. The quality of these media is directly correlated to theamount of time it will take to be forgotten. Even if Call of Duty #54 releases,it is predecessors will be long forgotten in the minds of those who playedthem. However, in rare cases, the feeling of certain mechanics, or the memoriesshared through the lens of Call of Duty between friends will be remembered foras long as there are people to remember them. However, those original gameswill no longer be played, whether that is due to changing tastes ortechnological limitations. Even if the name Call of Duty persists, the memoryof what it once was will be forgotten.
The games that are remembered for a long time are not thefifth game of a series, nor a sequel or prequel. The games that are rememberedfor a long time are games that had enjoyable and fun mechanics and facilitatedenjoyable and fun experiences. They are not the games they did the same thingas their predecessors and attempted to nickel and dime their players. They aregames like Among Us, Lethal Company and Stardew Valley, as well as Call ofDuty: Modern Warfare 2 (the original). They have amazing mechanics and facilitatethe experiences that made gamers enjoy them. Among Us ruined friendships in thefunniest ways possible by pitting friends against friends with cartoon gore.Lethal Company was a terrifying, cel-shaded experience with spatially effected proximity-basedvoice chat that muted your friends’ distant screams. And Call Duty: ModernWarfare 2 had some of the best maps and guns for one-v-one, snipers only, quickscope only, duelling of the 21st Century. These games are memorable becausethey focused on the fun of the experience first and dealt the how and whylater. The passion required to make these games still exist in the gamesindustry, but due to the nature of a profitable industry, those who have themoney to facilitate these games also seek to damage the experience bymonetizing it. The irony of which is that in most cases, they must monetize thesegames to the most immoral level because it cost so much to make from the start.For the indie games however, the cost is the time it takes to make them andpeople who must compromise of their own future, sanity and mental health torisk making a game they cannot know will succeed. No genuine success story iswithout genuine compromise.
So, when a game that we love, can no longer entertain us inthe manner it has before, it begins its death. There will be no organicresurgence of interest in that game. It will sit as a memory in our minds andwill die a peaceful death. It is only natural for us to long for the nostalgicdays of old, where these games existed. But memories are fragile, and they liefor our safety. They do not tell us the whole truth of the experience, becauseas technology changes, our tastes, and limits change. And if you ask any personwho had a game they loved like these games if they have or would play again,they will tell you that they have or will not. The stories of these nostalgiadriven play sessions are stories of confusion, disappointment, and sadness. Thecontrols are clunky, the graphics are bad, and the experience is weaker thanyou remembered. The games you once played have not changed a bit, and yet theyare the not the same time they once were. The reality is that you changed, notthe game.
Games in 2025 sit at a crossroad. The greed that spawned from the success of the live service format has hollowed out the experience of playing AAA games. And yet, the light at theend of the tunnel is that once every blue moon a single person or a single teamputs out a game of passion that takes the world by storm and we get toexperience a game of true majesty, before retiring back to our expecting AAAexperience. While I do believe that concept stands on its own, the more honestreality is that we never changed. We had "bad" games that we stillplayed when we were younger. We had "great" games that we lovedplaying when we were younger. And we had animosity towards the quality of gamesat that time. But we still demanded better. We still voted with our wallets, westill listened to the advice of friends, we still booed the bad and cheered thegood, but most importantly we still wanted better. So, if this essay is tostand for anything, it is this... Nostalgia is a weapon with two handles, onefor your and one for them. So never let yourself believe you deserve less.
