LogInThat's the biggest problem for the game industry.
Image credit: Teyon, RoboCop: Rogue City
In a recent interview, Benoit Clerc, the Head of Publishing at Nacon, talked about the problems the game industry has been facing, lots of layoffs and closures, just to name a few, and touched upon the struggles developers and publishers experience, adding that there are simply "too many games on the market."
"There are too many games currently on the market. We're seeing today the results of investment made after [COVID] when the market was bursting, and every game was making a lot of money so there were a lot of investments being made. This is two or three years after that, so the games we're seeing now on the market were financed in that time and there are simply too many for customers to be able to play them," Clerc stated.
According to Clerc, with 50 or 60 games being released on Steam some days, publishers and developers find it challenging to attract attention to their games. He believes the key to success in this environment is to clearly position each game for a specific target audience.
To prove his point, he mentioned RoboCop: Rogue City, a shooter that combined "a big mainstream brand with a product that is super high quality." Speaking of which, the game is Nacon's most successful release, just within two weeks of its launch, it was played by over 435 thousand people.
Image credit: KT Racing, WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship
Clerc admitted that as a mid-tier publisher, Nacon couldn't compete with corporations releasing AAA blockbusters. However, he also believes that effectively working with a niche audience not fully reached by market leaders provides an opportunity for success.
"I'm not spending $200 million on promotion, so I need to target gamers that have a passion and expertise for off-road racing when I'm doing WRC, that have an expertise in rogue-like games when I'm doing Ravenswatch, or that have an expertise in sports games when I'm doing Cricket 24," said Clerc. "They know the sport and game mechanics very well, and I need developers in front of that who have the same expertise and share the same passion in order for those two groups to talk together."
Read the full interview on GamesIndustry.biz and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
Keep reading
You may find these articles interesting