Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah says that this year is even "more brutal" for the games industry than last, and as companies continue to chase live-service wins, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is "a strong signal" of what players really want.
In a new interview with YouTube creator MrMattyPlays (below), Darrah is asked if he has any concerns about the current state of the games industry and the "economy for games" amid ongoing challenges for developers to find investment for their projects, layoffs still painfully prevalent across multiple companies, and publishers continually chasing live-service wins, for better or worse. "I mean, last year it was 'survive till '25,' and this year has definitely put the lie to that because it's more brutal this year than last year from everything that I can see," he responds.
Darrah argues that in 2024, we were "seeing the small money, like the people that invest in the very early starts of projects and studios, and that starting to come out of the shadows again. But then this year seems shakier than ever."
He points to live service games, and says that the reason we have "so many" is ultimately "because a successful live service, a Fortnite, makes all the money, and Microsoft and EA and Ubisoft and Sony and all these companies would be perfectly happy – in fact, they would be more happy – if they each had five live services that made all the money and no other games.
"But we don't want that," he continues. "I don't think anyone who plays games really wants the industry to look like that. But business, from a business perspective, that'd be awesome. You know that [...] you only have to worry about five games at your publishing organization, and then one will start to slowly decline, and then you go and you start to hunt for the one that's going to replace it as it eventually dies. I don't want the industry to look like that. And I kind of feel like maybe people are starting to signal with their wallets that they don't want it to look like that either."
One great example of this, Darrah continues, is this year's French JRPG masterpiece Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has been a massive hit for Sandfall Interactive. "I think Clair Obscur in a lot of ways is a strong signal, because it's a game made pretty cheaply with good but not over good visuals," Darrah says, pointing out that it "sold great," before addressing another upcoming popular game – GTA 6.
"Every time I talk, as I'm talking, I just see like the GTA 6 logo rising out of this fog in the back of my mind," he jokes. "I think that's going to be what decides, honestly. Ask me again after GTA 6 ships because… if GTA 6 doesn't sell 70, 80 million copies or whatever GTA 5 sold, then that's going to signal something. But if it's basically, you know, if it's the most successful launch of all time… We'll see."
He then goes on to talk about the problem with publicly traded companies – like "so many of the major publishers" are – constantly finding that "the line needs to go up," even each quarter, and that's getting harder with dev times getting longer.
Darrah continues: "We've seen a lot of studios started by people who left AAA companies – BioWare, but others as well – who got investment, big investment, and then this year, late last year, they're gone. That their money went away. But I think that Clair Obscur, again, maybe is the way, because they had external investment. I can't remember from whom, but I think [...] they were less dependent on that.
"So maybe that's the promise. Maybe we'll just have a rebuilding period. Maybe it'll be really long, and maybe we'll get like a bunch of indie people who over the next five years grow into AA, and then that's what will form the next AAA."
