r/gaming • u/CiabattaKatsuie Console • Oct 01 '24

The games industry is undergoing a 'generational change,' says Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: 'A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling'

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-games-industry-is-undergoing-a-generational-change-says-epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-a-lot-of-games-are-released-with-high-budgets-and-theyre-not-selling/

Tim Sweeney apparently thinks big budget games fail because... They aren't social enough? I personally feel that this is BS, but what do you guys think? Is there a trend to support his comments?

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u/SilverGGer Oct 02 '24

But they are. For him at least. He has to present more times to the people owning the money than to the people buying the product.

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

Great, they can all have a lovely shareholder meeting together off in Jackson Hole or wherever, but they will still struggle to get the returns they promise to the shareholders.

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u/TeutonJon78 Oct 02 '24

Epic is private. He owns most of it himself (41-51%), he has a the biggest say, not sure if it's a controlling interest or not still.

Tencent owns like 40%, and now sure who owns the rest.

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u/FFCProductions Oct 02 '24

It is 40% owned by tencent that happened many years ago. Private doesn't mean a board of trustees isn't there just like shareholders causing bad decisions for the trajectory of a business

EDIT: 51% of RIOT!(League of Legends) not Epic Games

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u/StevelandCleamer Oct 02 '24

Hey...

I like Jackson Hole.

Just not the visitors.

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u/Auggie_Otter Oct 02 '24

Jackson Hole as it exists now is made to cater to visitors.

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u/StevelandCleamer Oct 02 '24

As a resident of a college town, I completely understand the duality.

We hate the traffic from events, and we hate the idiocy of the eternally ignorant incoming freshman class, but the city thrives on their ecosystem.

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u/malgadar Oct 03 '24

You can only layoff so many people

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u/s_p_oop15-ue Oct 02 '24

Again, I said it before but the disease of investors killed many industries and is currently killing games. Volkswagen started sucking in the 2000s because you only need to make components that made the guarantee date. Why? Investors. It is ruining everything and games are just the most recent thing. Why the fuck do we get 17 transformers movies? Investors.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '24

[deleted]

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u/s_p_oop15-ue Oct 03 '24

I hear that. I do feel like the complexities boil down to too few having too much and everyone else going "well fuck it I don't want to be the one left holding the bag" when really we all need to hold that bag and not drop it ever.

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u/IsEqualToKel Oct 02 '24

Exactly, and the people with the money will never use the product.

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u/demalo Oct 02 '24

Irony. When the product is the stock, the game just becomes the grift.

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u/guspaz Oct 02 '24

Epic Games is a privately held company, of which Tim Sweeney owns 51.4%.

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u/Signal-Woodpecker691 Oct 02 '24

Yup, people buying video games are just a resource to be exploited to make money for shareholders.

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u/Sharticus123 Oct 02 '24

That’s the problem with capitalism as a whole. The investor class gets priority treatment at the expense of everyone and everything else.

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

Yes, but to provide the returns to his customers, their customers (us) have to want to buy the games.

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u/LunchBoxer72 Oct 03 '24

You know it's not a public company....

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u/00owl Oct 02 '24

Not true. He has to present to them four times a year. He has to present to customers millions of times a year. Every single time a potential customer engages with his product he's making a presentation.

Understandable that you didn't see it like this as I think a lot of people have forgotten that the CEO's job should be directly tied to customer satisfaction and not quarterly reports bloated by job cuts and short term decisions.