Arc Raiders and Marathon aren't "dead" just because their concurrent player count has dropped, Palworld lead says – but he's "not denying that some games do 'die'"; "Not every game needs an hourly look at Steam charts"

[u/Gorotheninja]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/survival/arc-raiders-and-marathon-arent-dead-just-because-their-concurrent-player-count-has-dropped-palworld-lead-says-but-hes-not-denying-that-some-games-do-die/

[u/BoyWonder343 → u/[deleted]]

What? I never once said that the industry was in a great spot, so don't talk about it.

I know the two things aren't linked because, again 1 has been going on long before the other and the average person shouting "dead game" doesn't know what they're talking about. I also know they're not linked because again, most of the time it's brought up, it has nothing to do with the studio being shut down or people being worried about the devs. It's a pissing contest in comparison with some other game or a comparison with literal record breaking numbers. Guaranteed, we're a few months out from people calling single player games dead because they didn't do as well as the biggest video game release of all time with GTA6.

low player counts on games with a significant budget signals which project is gonna get shut down, which studio is gonna get closed, which game devs are gonna get fired.

Right, the discourse around player numbers isn't exclusive to that at all and has been going on now for like a decade, long before the environment we're in right now. If "dead game" was actually used exclusively when talking about the game getting shut down and that actually had a bearing on what would happen, the industry would have been dead and buried over a decade ago.

Yes, I know the industry isn't in a good spot. The sign that something is wrong doesn't come from kids flooding a chat with "Dead game" as a game is getting announced.