We are used to seeing trends in the video game industry. Once a studio hits something big, you see many copies come after it. Some of these games end up being gems of their right. However, a lot fall short of anything to make it memorable. Right now, if you were to ask Abubakar Salim, the state of gaming is focused too much on making the next big games as a service experience.
There are plenty of live service games out there that do incredibly well. However, you can’t bank on players wanting another Fortnite challenger type of experience. The marketplace is flooded with some of these live service games, and it’s showing that players are increasingly getting a little tired of them. Take, for example, PlayStation’s recent flop with Concord. That game lasted only two weeks after it launched into the marketplace.
Thanks to Dexerto, we’re finding out the publication had a chance to speak with actor and developer Abubakar Salim. If you’re unfamiliar with this person by their name, you might have seen their works in House of the Dragon or as Bayek Siwa from Assassin’s Creed Origins. Furthermore, they have recently embarked on the video game industry as a developer, with the first release being Tales of Kenzera: Zau.
During their conversation, Abubakar noted that they realized the industry treats games as a business rather than an art form. In his eyes, the reason so many studios are going for a service model is the hopes of making the next Fortnite because they believe it will generate a lot of money. But according to Abubakar, this shouldn’t be the goal for games; it should be more about expression, enjoyment, storytelling, connectivity, and interactivity.
The one thing that I’ve realized about the industry as a whole is that games are still very much treated as a business rather than necessarily as an art form. I think it needs to be seen more as an artistic expression rather than as a business because then it allows more daring games to be celebrated for their boldness rather than being a niche.
There’s a reason why like a lot of these big game publishers and companies are going for the games as a service model. They want to try and recreate the next Fortnite because it’s going to make them more money. – Abubakar Salim
As mentioned, Concord is an example of a game flopping right out of the gate. However, it does seem like Sony is trying to bring this one back out, as it has been discovered that the game was updated recently through Steam. Whether Sony has succeeded with a new reworked release remains to be seen.
