“It’s going to continue to both happen and be controversial,” Pearce says of these kinds of mergers and acquisitions. That includes the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which is attempting to block the acquisition, and the European Union, which is investigating Microsoft’s deal. The Swedish Embracer Group and Chinese Tencent have quietly acquired game studios, but Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard got the most attention last year. The consolidation of the video game industry, which Pearce doesn’t see slowing down any time soon, could also play an unexpected role in the labor movement. Unions will become something that actually attracts employees.” “And I think the other thing that’s going to happen is it’s going to become a competitive edge for companies that have better working conditions. “I think is going to become a trend,” she adds. “It’s so ridiculous to say that 2022 is an important union year, but in our backwards, up industry, it is shockingly groundbreaking that there’s a union,” Pearce says. What does that mean for the games industry? read more Saudi Arabia is going all in on video games. The year ended with testers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios, which is responsible for major franchises like “The Elder Scrolls,” “Doom” and “Fallout,” becoming the first union at Microsoft, which announced it would remain neutral in union decisions. And they weren’t alone workers at studios big and small made moves to unionize. In May 2022, quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard-owned Raven Studios voted to form the industry’s first major union. Game industry workers have been trying to unionize for decades in an attempt to improve labor conditions in an industry defined by low pay, crunch culture and harassment at every level. Last year, Pearce says, the industry was defined by three major trends that will continue to impact the industry in 2023: unionization, mergers and the ongoing saga of California regulators’ gender-based harassment lawsuit against industry giant Activision Blizzard. “This is part of why indie games have become a viable economic tier because they’re shorter and cheaper.” “I don’t see how they’re going to be able to spend more and more money while still charging the same amount for the games,” Pearce says. But if developers want to continue making games like “God of War Ragnarok,” especially as unions start to have a say in pay and work hours, those prices will have to shift industry-wide in 2023. Last fall, for the first time in decades, AAA developers started charging a bit more for their games, increasing the price of select titles from the industry standard $60 to $70. “But guess what? The cost of games hasn’t gone up in 20 years.” “What’s been trending in the last two decades on the console and PC side is the computers are getting better, faster and have more graphics, and what that means is that you have to have more and more people working on and they’re more expensive,” Pearce says. Celia Pearce, professor of game design in the College of Arts, Media and Design. At a certain point, it comes down to basic economics. The smaller, cheaper and faster computer chips get, the more expensive, labor-intensive and time-consuming game development gets. In terms of the games themselves, the blockbuster model of big budget, graphically intense, 40+ hour experiences will continue to dominate video games in 2023––but Pearce questions if it’s sustainable. Pearce hesitates to predict 2023 will herald a tidal wave of change for the industry but emphasizes the waves felt this year are the result of ripples that started, or grew, in 2022. But Celia Pearce, a professor of game design at Northeastern University, says there are several industry-shaking trends––a growing labor movement, corporate consolidation and calls to reform toxic workplace culture––that will define games in 2023. Newzoo predicts the industry will return to the regular growth it’s seen over the last decade. For gamers and those following the video game industry, 2023 is shaping up to be a significant year, one that could change the shape of the industry as a whole.Īfter a pandemic era boom in game sales, revenue growth dipped in 2022––$184.4 billion, down from $192.7 billion in 2021––even as player numbers increased to 3.2 billion, according to a report from Newzoo.
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