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Does anyone know how to drive this thing?
An opinion piece argues that major video game publishers have taken control of an industry filled with talented professionals and engaged consumers, yet seem fundamentally unprepared to manage it effectively. The author characterises the sector's trajectory as reckless and directionless, comparing it to a runaway vehicle without functioning brakes, driven by executives pursuing infinite profits without a clear strategy.
The article uses Sony's Concord as a primary example of widespread mismanagement. The company invested hundreds of millions of pounds developing a live-service game that was discontinued within its first week, exemplifying what the author sees as a broader pattern of publisher incompetence. The piece suggests that despite decades of industry experience, current leadership lacks fundamental understanding of how to create sustainable, profitable games.
In short
- Gaming publisher executives are mismanaging an industry they inherited but appear not to understand, squandering resources on failed strategies.
- Sony's Concord live-service game exemplifies the pattern: the company invested hundreds of millions only to shut it down within a week of launch.
- The author questions whether the industry's leadership possesses basic competence in strategic planning and risk management.
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The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Publishers' repeated investment in failed projects like Concord—where hundreds of millions were spent on a live-service game discontinued within a week—suggests systemic mismanagement rather than isolated bad luck. The pattern of unfinished launches, abandoned monetisation strategies, and ignored player feedback across multiple studios indicates that despite decades of industry experience and access to detailed sales data, current leadership consistently makes decisions that prove unsustainable, suggesting a fundamental disconnect between executive strategy and market realities.
The case against
Game development is genuinely high-risk, and some investment failures are inevitable even with competent management; Concord's discontinuation, whilst wasteful, represents a calculated risk that ultimately proved unviable rather than clear evidence of incompetence. Publishers manage vast portfolios generating hundreds of billions in revenue, successfully maintain numerous profitable franchises, and do adapt strategies based on failures—the existence of losses alongside widespread commercial success suggests uneven rather than fundamentally broken management, and attributing all this to incompetence oversimplifies the genuine complexities of developing games at such scales and costs.
Explained simply
Video game publishers are major entertainment companies that develop and release games to millions of players worldwide. The largest firms, including Sony, Microsoft, and others, control significant portions of a multi-billion-pound global industry and employ thousands of talented developers, artists, and designers.
In recent years, many publishers have invested heavily in live-service games—games released online that continue to evolve with new content, features, and cosmetics for sale to players over months or years. These games can be extremely profitable if managed well, but require careful planning, ongoing investment, and understanding of what players actually want.
Sony's game Concord is a significant example: the company invested hundreds of millions of pounds developing the game before shutting it down within a week of launch. As gaming has become one of the world's largest entertainment sectors by revenue, such significant losses prompt questions about the strategic decision-making of the companies that control the industry.