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Report: Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios is cutting jobs
- Thread starter Lucia
- Start date
I've had this opinion for the last several years while working in the industry.
Yeah. And what outcome is there except for studios to close and fewer games be made? I agree with you, but if the market can't support this many games...I don't know, this is what happens, and everyone says it's a shame, and it is, but...I don't know that it's anything outside ordinary market forces.
If I'm on a small team and our game got bombed and people decided to reboot the industry, the only way I see it is by cutting my salary.
If I'm gonna get paid less for being highly educated and proficient in my field, I'm just gonna get out of gamedev entirely so I can get paid to eat good.
I mean, think about the overwhelming amount of games we saw over the course of Summer Game Fest and how that's only a fraction of what's coming out. Then think about how we get those showcases every year.
Even with COVID putting things on halt for a bit, we're still seeing a flood of content that's just too much. In this economy where people only have so much to spend and so much time for their hobbies there's an ever-building stack of games to explore and people have to make choices.
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A lot of talk in this thread about the industry being broken because an indie can't get their start and such… the industry is obviously very broken in a lot of ways, but you guys do know that Surgent Studios was like 50 people at peak and that the game had multiple support studios on board, right? The core team was bigger than teams that shipped titles like Unicorn Overlord or Princess Peach Showtime. Seriously, Surgent was a successful film company who moved into games by working with the AAA establishment at just about the highest level possible (EA) to make an artistically dope game in a heavily oversaturated genre. It's truly tragic that they're in a position that they can't continue and the abuse they received was obviously beyond heinous, but I think people aren't being realistic about how big the studio actually was and the massive opportunity they got with funding and absolutely premium marketing spots. They got way more than the average indie team will ever get, and unfortunately it didn't shake out.
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Props to Bloodworth from EZA. He's one of the only personalities that really pushed for this game.
Probably didn't help with whole negative chudgrift campaign attention it managed to get.
I find it hard to believe that anyone who was ever going to buy the game in first place would have decided against it because of chud grifting.
That's such a shame.
I'm not super far into Kenzera, but I really enjoyed what I've played so far, and think it's a solid Metroidvania. It reminded me a lot of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, in a good way, and I had hoped that it had sold better, especially since it released at a pretty solid price, and was also included as part of PS+.
Making video games is hard. Getting a game to the finish line and actually shipping is quite an accomplishment for any studio, big or small. Being a new studio debuting your first title is also a challenge.
I tip my had to the team at Surgent Games, and I hope that the talented folks impacted by the layoffs land on their feet, and Surgent's next title is a great success.
This industry is brutal, and it's a bit deflating when smaller, indie studios aren't able to bring in enough success to avoid layoffs.
The reality is that there are a ton of games being released every month, and the vast majority of them aren't selling, even the really good games. There's so much vying for our attention, precious time, and hard earned money. And not just in the gaming space, but the entertainment space. Movies, tv shows, books, comics, music, etc, etc. All of it is trying to get us to invest in them, but right now, there just isn't enough time, and money, for folks to spend to invest in all of this.
I'm not super far into Kenzera, but I really enjoyed what I've played so far, and think it's a solid Metroidvania. It reminded me a lot of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, in a good way, and I had hoped that it had sold better, especially since it released at a pretty solid price, and was also included as part of PS+.
Making video games is hard. Getting a game to the finish line and actually shipping is quite an accomplishment for any studio, big or small. Being a new studio debuting your first title is also a challenge.
I tip my had to the team at Surgent Games, and I hope that the talented folks impacted by the layoffs land on their feet, and Surgent's next title is a great success.
This industry is brutal, and it's a bit deflating when smaller, indie studios aren't able to bring in enough success to avoid layoffs.
The reality is that there are a ton of games being released every month, and the vast majority of them aren't selling, even the really good games. There's so much vying for our attention, precious time, and hard earned money. And not just in the gaming space, but the entertainment space. Movies, tv shows, books, comics, music, etc, etc. All of it is trying to get us to invest in them, but right now, there just isn't enough time, and money, for folks to spend to invest in all of this.
reboot into what? the problem isn't the industry, it's society.
That's why I said help, people that were already on board obviously are buying it but it definitely drowned out most positive word of mouth that was going on, however mild it was.
Agreed. With the both of you!
I've felt the same way for a while now concerning the amount of games being released, and how it's almost impossible to keep up with them all, both big tentpole releases, and smaller indie projects.
And I've finally reached a point in my career where I can afford more games than I ever could in the past, but it's still not enough. I can't buy everything of interest that I want, and I also don't have the time to play the games I do buy.
I was just mentioning in another thread how my PS5 collection is over 1,000 games large. Sure, this includes some PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS4 titles, but that kind of illustrates my point. I bought those games because I could, and because I had every intention to play them at some point, yet for most of them, I haven't even booted them up yet, let alone devoted more than a few minutes to hours on them.
spoilering for length:
Yet I've managed to sink a combined hundreds of hours into FFVII Rebirth, Elden Ring, Stellar Blade, Persona 3 Reload, Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man 2, Dragons Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, No Man's Sky, Vampire Survivors, Prince of Persia: TLC, etc, just in the past 12 months for example.
I feel like I'm doing my best to support this industry that I love and work in, but it's not enough. I can't buy everything. I can't play everything. There's just too much to play.
And, in a bit of ironic hypocrisy, I'm also going to be adding to the pot in the future because I'm developing my own game. lol. Is it going to sell? I have no idea. That'd be wonderful, but it's not something any of us can really predict. With that said, my focus is just on making a cool game that I think the gamers that give it a shot will enjoy. I still have my industry job at the moment, but we're still investing our time and money into building our own game and studio, and there are no guarantees at how it will be received once released.
Hearing about Surgent Studio's struggles is certainly not encouraging, though.
I'm torn, because I love video games, and I get excited to see all the amazing games that talented studios are pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into, but I also think there are simply too many games being released, and I'm not sure that the current gaming community is large enough to support it all.
We got PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, mobile platforms, VR platforms, many boasting incredibly large libraries of titles available to play now, let alone the hundred or so new games that get released every month.
Younger audiences that may love to game either stick to a single game they're addicted to (like a Fortnite or Minecraft), and naturally, they don't really have the money to spend on games, so that falls to their parents, who have other priorities to manage if they aren't gamers (ie, keeping a roof over the family's heads, food in their stomachs, and the bills paid), so while I don't think the industry is shrinking, and while I do think it has the capacity to grow, I also think that it boils down to people simply not spending as much money on a bunch of different types of games.
If a parent sees that little Johnny and Kimmy are content with playing just one game for hundreds of hours, and maybe they'll ask for a few bucks to buy some kind of extra content for a game (like a character or character skin), as opposed to them bugging them every week to drop $60-70USD on whatever latest game is releasing from Sony, MS, or Nintendo, I can't say I blame them.
My buddy has 6 kids, 5 of them not at an age to have their own job. He's a huge gamer, and makes more than enough money to buy whatever games tickle his fancy, but he's not buying a ton of games for his kids, and, thanks to his own gaming library, he doesn't really have to. They'll play what he's playing, and for the really young ones, they're obsessed with shit like Roblox or some random iOS game they discovered that they love.
As someone who works in the industry, and could be let go if my job decides to reduce costs, it's all so terrifying.
As someone who is in the process of developing a game of my own for commercial release, it's additionally terrifying.
Shit is just so bleak right now. But I don't think it's hopeless. I think the industry will recover. Unfortunately, like I've mentioned somewhere else on this forum (at least I think it's on this forum), it's not going to be without great loss to some truly talented individuals who could do some wonderful things and create some great experiences for gamers.
The industry has always been brutal. It's just that now we have more visibility compared to in generation's past, when coverage wasn't nearly as constant.
I feel like I'm doing my best to support this industry that I love and work in, but it's not enough. I can't buy everything. I can't play everything. There's just too much to play.
And, in a bit of ironic hypocrisy, I'm also going to be adding to the pot in the future because I'm developing my own game. lol. Is it going to sell? I have no idea. That'd be wonderful, but it's not something any of us can really predict. With that said, my focus is just on making a cool game that I think the gamers that give it a shot will enjoy. I still have my industry job at the moment, but we're still investing our time and money into building our own game and studio, and there are no guarantees at how it will be received once released.
Hearing about Surgent Studio's struggles is certainly not encouraging, though.
I'm torn, because I love video games, and I get excited to see all the amazing games that talented studios are pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into, but I also think there are simply too many games being released, and I'm not sure that the current gaming community is large enough to support it all.
We got PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, mobile platforms, VR platforms, many boasting incredibly large libraries of titles available to play now, let alone the hundred or so new games that get released every month.
Younger audiences that may love to game either stick to a single game they're addicted to (like a Fortnite or Minecraft), and naturally, they don't really have the money to spend on games, so that falls to their parents, who have other priorities to manage if they aren't gamers (ie, keeping a roof over the family's heads, food in their stomachs, and the bills paid), so while I don't think the industry is shrinking, and while I do think it has the capacity to grow, I also think that it boils down to people simply not spending as much money on a bunch of different types of games.
If a parent sees that little Johnny and Kimmy are content with playing just one game for hundreds of hours, and maybe they'll ask for a few bucks to buy some kind of extra content for a game (like a character or character skin), as opposed to them bugging them every week to drop $60-70USD on whatever latest game is releasing from Sony, MS, or Nintendo, I can't say I blame them.
My buddy has 6 kids, 5 of them not at an age to have their own job. He's a huge gamer, and makes more than enough money to buy whatever games tickle his fancy, but he's not buying a ton of games for his kids, and, thanks to his own gaming library, he doesn't really have to. They'll play what he's playing, and for the really young ones, they're obsessed with shit like Roblox or some random iOS game they discovered that they love.
As someone who works in the industry, and could be let go if my job decides to reduce costs, it's all so terrifying.
As someone who is in the process of developing a game of my own for commercial release, it's additionally terrifying.
Shit is just so bleak right now. But I don't think it's hopeless. I think the industry will recover. Unfortunately, like I've mentioned somewhere else on this forum (at least I think it's on this forum), it's not going to be without great loss to some truly talented individuals who could do some wonderful things and create some great experiences for gamers.
The industry has always been brutal. It's just that now we have more visibility compared to in generation's past, when coverage wasn't nearly as constant.
I also think it's possible just too many people got into game dev to a market that didn't expand enough to support it.
I bought the game when it was in discount, and also because I want to encourage my indie pairs from the industry. I did so when the creator has talked from his heart why this game was worth discovering, but it seems alas that it was not enough for them to break even, which is a shame and equally sad. Hope they will recover fast and find another as much creative project to work on in the future.
I think with a Metroidvania-vania presenting game like this, with a AA team and budget behind it, you would have to be swimming in 9s and 10s to drive consumer interest enough to buy it. And honestly, the game really isn't even a Metroidvania as much as it is just an 2D contiguous map adventure, and so immediately it received a lack of interest from the niche audience it was already presumably targeting, and the reviews peg it at 7.6 on metacritic which sounds about right from my experience with the game. It was good, not great, very competent and beautiful, but the biggest unique factor it had was a strong story element for a genre that typically doesn't have that focus. And that's not really a very appealing unique factor for a lot of people.
It's a shame and I hope those losing their jobs find somewhere safe in the future, and that the studio continues to weather this and put out new titles, but Tales of Kenzera not being a financial success is sadly unsurprising.
It's a shame and I hope those losing their jobs find somewhere safe in the future, and that the studio continues to weather this and put out new titles, but Tales of Kenzera not being a financial success is sadly unsurprising.
Too many, costing too much, and taking too long.
There's no room for anyone or anything to breathe.
The reality is 20% of all new businesses close in year 1, and 50% close within 5 years. The game industry is no different in this regard, and your comment about having only one shot is why so many investors are spooked.
I firmly believe that the traditional games market has stagnated in terms of growth because of the sheer dominance of games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox.
An entire generation of would-be gamers is entering their teen years and early adulthood with no interest in playing anything other than the one live-service game they've been playing for 5+ years.
To me it's the single biggest existential threat to the future of traditional non-live service games. I genuinely worry about the kinds of games that most of us here on ERA enjoy will become extinct or nearly extinct within the next decade.
It also feels like that we are getting to the hard cap of people who currently play games at all. Everyone who is ever going to buy and play video games at all is quite certainly doing so by now. It's hard to see where growth could come anymore. Maybe from further expansion to third world countries and slashing prices in general, but as if the latter is going to happen.
Most people over the age of 40/45 don't play video games at all. That demographic gets cycled out with newer, younger folks. There is still massive growth potential, but the live service game trend is definitely troubling.
The unique nature of games as a medium is just going to always make this tough. Movies are 2-3 at most of your time and they're social. Same as TV, which is even more casual and easily incorporated into social activities. In terms of physically being in the same place, it's a hard sell to get people together to watch one person play Kenzera. Which means buying it and playing it is committing 10-20 hours of your life to being alone playing that game.
And that's fine in a vacuum but when you have games you wanna play that take 100 hours like Baldur's Gate or games you've beaten but want to replay or online multiplayer games that you want to get to before the player base dries up and casual time kill games like Vampire Survivors and countless other indies you're interested in, at some point there just isn't time, much less money, to actually support or engage with a game you might otherwise want to.
If I were to support and play every game I was interested in and genuinely wanted to buy and play, it would eat up all my discretionary income and all my free time. The same isn't true for movies or TV. It's true for books but you're seeing the same problem there. There are obviously problems with capitalism and the industries themselves but at the end of the day, there are 24 hours and you need a third of that for sleep and another quarter to a third of that for work. Assuming you want time for your relationships and life maintenance and other hobbies, there's always going to be more people willing and able to make good games than there will be resources (time, money, etc.) to support them
And that's fine in a vacuum but when you have games you wanna play that take 100 hours like Baldur's Gate or games you've beaten but want to replay or online multiplayer games that you want to get to before the player base dries up and casual time kill games like Vampire Survivors and countless other indies you're interested in, at some point there just isn't time, much less money, to actually support or engage with a game you might otherwise want to.
If I were to support and play every game I was interested in and genuinely wanted to buy and play, it would eat up all my discretionary income and all my free time. The same isn't true for movies or TV. It's true for books but you're seeing the same problem there. There are obviously problems with capitalism and the industries themselves but at the end of the day, there are 24 hours and you need a third of that for sleep and another quarter to a third of that for work. Assuming you want time for your relationships and life maintenance and other hobbies, there's always going to be more people willing and able to make good games than there will be resources (time, money, etc.) to support them
Just to make sure, you want to express that, as time goes on, the 40 - 45 year olds in future years will be playing games too, hence we will have more people in sum playing games. (my other read was that you want to say the opposite, so that the sum total of people playing games is fixed, and current players will turn into non-players once they are over 45)
It is an interesting question, for sure. OTOH, it would be weird if people just stop engaging with the medium as they get older, that I don't see. But their habits might change as they get older. They might no longer have the appetite for the same kinds of games, or be willing to play for the same amount of time, and so on.