/Thread - 12/15/23
This was the wrong week to stop sniffin' glue!
Greetings, traveler, and welcome to /Thread, a weekly roundup of what’s happening in the game industry, for game industry professionals, just like you.
Today’s Densely Daily Dosage
Tim Epic wins a battle against Sundar Google Play Store. Epic won a huge antitrust victory against Google this week, where a jury unanimously agreed that Google had an unfair monopoly with its Play store. GamesIndustry has a great recap of the whole situation that’s worth your time.
I come to bury E3, not to praise it. It seems like the ESA finally decided to end the will-they won’t-they around E3, and have officially canceled it forever. The venerable gaming show was probably the first gaming show you went to, at least if you’re old like me. But as new competitors like PAX came online, E3 just didn’t evolve fast enough to maintain its relevance. Our own Chris shared his thoughts on the matter, a nostalgic take on the show during its heyday.
Pictured: A buncha people shocked at how goddamn hot Downtown LA is in June. Like the vaporware of old. FNTASTIC, developers of The Day Before, announced that they were shutting down the studio four days after the top-wishlisted game launched to dismal reviews. Their announcement on Twitter painted a picture of a studio that reached too high and too far, and weren’t able to meet their own ambitions. From a marketing perspective, theirs is a story of over-promising and under-delivering in a major, major way. Pro-tip: don’t do that.
How much does it cost to get Wishlists from the Game Awards? The Game Awards came and went since we last spoke, and aside from the fanfare of the show itself, a question lingers: Just how effective are those announcements that studios pay so much for? The answer: it depends. Simon Carless over at gamediscoverco put together an awesome spreadsheet that details the impact the show had on studios launching trailers. Chris did some math and found that the least successful games likely paid over $20 per wishlist. The big winners? Under a buck.
And another one. This one’s real bad. Hasbro announced over 1,000 layoffs just ahead of the holiday season. The reasoning? “It’s lever we must pull to keep Hasbro healthy.” Word is the layoffs hit every part of the business, including profitable ones like WotC. Pretty sure whoever pulled that lever is gonna get a visit from Krampus.
By The Numbers
1 - Days until you probably have the rest of the year off, at least if you’re at a big studio.
33 - The dollars-per-wishlist figure we estimate the lowest-performing studio paid to feature their game at The Game Awards.
Looking For More
Brought to you by our friends at gamejobs.co
Dreamhaven (Irvine, CA ) - Performance Marketing and Martech Lead
Fortis Games (Remote) - Staff Game Designer
Better Know An Indie
Hacknet is an immersive, terminal-based hacking simulator for PC. Dive down a rabbit hoIe as you follow the instructions of a recently deceased hacker, whose death may not have been the accident the media reports. Grab it on Steam for $9.99.
Have a Great Weekend
As always, thanks for stopping by. We’ll see you next week!