How is the first quarter of 2024 for video game industry so far?

Dear video game fans in the Giant Bomb forums

Now we're currently in the 2nd quarter of 2024, there is quite a lot of news that happened during Q1 2024 for the video game industry.

The good things that I like so far:

• Thomas Jackermeier gets fired from being Fanatec CEO (For bad customer service)
• Automobilista 2 announced partnership with IMSA
• Forza Motorsport 2023 and Gran Turismo 7 both getting more updates
• Gran Turismo Sport received an offline patch after its servers ended
• The Crew Motorfest gets more updates
• Forza Horizon 5 gets more updates
• Guilty Gear -Strive- Season 4 announced
• Tekken 8 is well received
• Nintendo Switch turned 7 years old
• Horizon Forbidden West on PC launched so well

The bad things that I don't like:

• Le Mans Ultimate (Early Access) is a buggy mess (But taking time to improve though)
• EA Sports WRC is still having bugs
• The Crew servers ended without releasing an offline patch
• There are no news about the main BlazBlue series these days
• Akira Toriyama (Creator of Dragon Ball, Dr Slump & Sand Land, and the illustrator of Blue Dragon, Dragon Quest & Chrono Trigger) passed away
• PlayStation laid off 900 employees from whichever subsidiary studios, just like what happened to Xbox last year.

In terms of game releases it's been a mixed bag, with some disasters like Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones being balanced out by some excellent releases like Helldivers 2, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. In general it seems like Japan is doing better than the West in terms of reliably releasing good games as so many Western publishers have destroyed numerous titles chasing live service money.

In terms of indies it's been a decent year so far with games like Balatro and Penny's Big Breakaway (though the latter doesn't seem to have done well in terms of sales.)

But as an INDUSTRY it's been a horrendous bloodbath, with enormous job losses, further consolidation of the industry in megapublishers, and companies doubling down on live service nonsense even in the face of consumer disinterest. Just a dumpster fire of a quarter from a business perspective.

It is clear the gaming industry is fundamentally broken and nobody in charge seems to have any ideas on how to fix it except to plow more resources into the saturated genres that are currently doing well.

Persona 3 Reload is an excellent remake despite some stuff from the PS2 version being missing, which they clearly are going to add later for a price. And speaking of remakes, Final Fantasy Rebirth is currently my front runner for GOTY. I first thought it was kind of overrated. But after getting used to the expanded combat mechanics and just playing it in general, I ended up loving it. I think how the game ended was great and leaves the door open for many possibilities. I put 99 hours into that game, but the time just flew by.

I haven't gotten around to the other games released in 2024, yet. Mainly, because I've been playing Immortals of Aveum on PS Plus and realizing the bashing that game got when released was a horrible crime. It's not the greatest FPS ever made, but it's far from bad.

In terms of the industry itself, well, we know the story there. it's not good and seems to be getting worse every day.

@av_gamer: I think they've announced that they're adding The Answer in DLC and even put the expansion pass on to Game Pass.

Welcome to the Immortals of Aveum defense squad, glad to have you. You should bump my old thread to tell everyone how right I was ;)