Five video game releases shaping the end of 2024, 05/09/2024
It’s the end of the year as we know it (and I feel fine)
Astro Bot, Black Ops 6 and Indiana Jones whip the rest of 2024 into shape
PlayStation kills multiplayer title Concord just two weeks after it launches
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions corrects the rules of a terrible fictional sport in the week’s releases
Hello there,
Do you remember this time last week when I said that my next international trip would be to Australia?
Well, it turns out a week can be a long time in the world of Video Games Industry Memo.
I’m going to be making a quick trip to New York from Monday 23rd September and Wednesday 25th September to attend an event, do a smidgen of business and, at some point, assert to passing drivers that I am strolling in a given location.
If you’re in the Big Apple and would like to meet for a coffee, email george@half-space.consulting.
For everyone else, I have a humble request for questions for next Friday’s Ask George feature.
If you’d like me to tackle a question about video games, the video games industry or anything else that you’re interested in, pop a comment below this piece or drop me an email with your poser and I’ll get onto it.
In the meantime, shall we get on with another big read?
The big read - Five video game releases shaping the end of 2024
I met with a friend on Saturday afternoon, who is formerly of this industry but remains close to it.
As we left the pub after sharing a few pints, a lot of video games chatter and some personal gossip, they stopped me dead to tell me something that they always say at this time of year.
“It’s only three pay days until Christmas, George.”
Yes, we are literally into the business end of the calendar year. September has seen the games industry shift gear, readying itself for a busy period of selling to tie off a tumultuous 2024.
But which releases stand out between now and the end of the year? What do they say about the industry today? And what could their success, or otherwise, mean for the sector at large?
Let’s take a look at five major releases to, vaguely, answer those questions.
Astro Bot - Friday 6th September
The Astro Bot series has occupied an odd place within PlayStation’s business over the past six years.
Both Astro Bot Rescue Mission, launched in 2018 for the PlayStation VR, and Astro’s Playroom, a free demo that arrived with the PlayStation 5 in 2020, proved popular amongst critics and consumers alike.
But Team Asobi’s series - which cleverly blends cutesy characters, tight game play and clever use of console hardware - has been unable to generate a massive commercial hit for the company because the first two entries in the series were, to differing extents, essentially tech demos for the hardware being flogged.
So the launch of a full fat first party Astro Bot later this week will give us a chance to see both just how successful the series could be and whether PlayStation could have a family friendly breakout IP hit on its hands.
And given that writers such as The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald are already speaking warmly about the game, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it smash things out of the park by the time 2024 passes.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - Thursday 26th September
The past seven years have been pretty much perfect for Nintendo. Since the launch of the Switch in 2017, Nintendo has seen its handheld console hybrid sell over 143m units - making it the third best selling console of all time and lifting the tide of the entire business in the process.
This year, however, has proven tough for the company so far. The slippage of the launch of a successor to the Switch into 2025 and the absence of major hit games like Super Mario Wonder saw Nintendo record remarkably disappointing financial results last quarter: putting it under pressure to up its game during a transitional year for the business.
The launch of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is therefore an important one for the company at large.
The game, which surprised everyone when it was announced earlier this year, aims to strike a balance by offering players something genuinely new - you play as Zelda finally! - while pragmatically redeploying assets used in The Link to the Past remake to keep costs down.
The question is what impact it will have. My sense is that the game itself will sell well when it launches later this month, especially in light of Nintendo’s wider quieter release schedule this year.
But given that the company has so far shifted only 2.1m of the 13m Switches it intended to sell this fiscal year, Echoes of Wisdom needs to be a console seller. And I don’t think it is quite the right profile of game to do that.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 - Friday 25th October
Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 a game that I am interested in on a personal level? Beyond my previously mentioned excitement for the in-game Bill Clinton, not really. But is it a key marker for where the industry may go next? Absolutely.
In most circumstances, the release of a new Call of Duty game based on one of the popular sub-franchises within the series would offer little to write home about (apart from how many billions of dollars it generates).
Yet this year’s release is significant because it is the first time a flagship game in the series has launched since Microsoft finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
As a result, the goalposts for this launch have shifted. Success this year isn’t going to be defined by how many copies it sells alone; it’s going to be calculated against how effectively it acquires - and locks players - into Microsoft’s Game Pass ecosystem.
If it does prove to be a major hook for the subscription service, it could nudge the video game economy towards Microsoft’s vision for a borderless Xbox ‘platform’ - positioning it well for the years to come.
But if Call of Duty fails to do that, there may well be the need for a major (and costly) reconfiguration of the company’s long term strategy for games.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows - Friday 15th November
How much should game developers care about noisy idiots on the internet? Assassin’s Creed: Shadows looks like it could well provide the answer later this year.
The game, which is set in 16th century Japan, was subjected to a hate campaign from online bigots after Ubisoft chose to base one of its main characters on an historical figure called Yasuke - a Portuguese-Mozambique who served as a samurai to a Japanese emperor between 1581-1582.
The controversy led to the company issuing an odd non-apology in an effort to stem the flow of criticism, which neither fully rebuked the critics or totally protected the game’s developers from being criticised for *checks notes* writing historical fiction.
But despite the fire and the fury from terrible people, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows looks to be in quiet good health.
In its most recent financial results, Ubisoft reported that its better than expected performance was partly due to higher than expected pre-orders for its mainline historical murdering franchise.
My hunch for some time has been that video games companies are too susceptible to the loudest, and usually most aggressive, voices within their communities.
And my hope is that Shadows may remind businesses that the quiet, happy majority of players are the ones they really need to make games for.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Friday 6th December
Finally, it’s fair to say that one of the grand traditions of just about everybody who plays video games is to pick a ‘Christmas game’ to churn through during the holidays.
And while I will admit that I tend to look back in time for my holiday game (it was Super Metroid last year) Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is likely to be a popular pick amongst players this festive period.
The first person action adventure game has timed its release beautifully, offering up a prestige release in early December that is based on a popular IP that the whole family can get behind.
But for industry watchers, it’ll be another opportunity to see whether Microsoft’s strategy for platform exclusives is an effective one.
While the game will launch on Xbox, on PC and be available to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers from day one, players on PlayStation will not be diving into Indy’s adventure until early in 2025.
Can Microsoft benefit from a ‘double dip’ whereby it benefits from platform exclusivity pre Christmas and then sells effectively across platforms early next year?
Or does it risk spreading its impact too thinly, missing out on an opportunity for a truly gangbuster hit at a time when the rest of the industry is relatively quiet?
Either way, I can’t have a worse time with it than I did watching The Dial of Destiny last Christmas. Poor Phoebe Waller-Bridge…
Best of the rest
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was one of a handful of tentpole releases confirmed for 2024 before the year started. Its arrival next week will give us a sense of how much it has benefitted from that clear run-up over its rivals.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases on 31st October, marking the first release of a BioWare game in blooming ages. Will it prove a return to form for the company? And can it possibly keep up with inflated player expectations in the wake of Baldur’s Gate 3? I’m not entirely sure…
Ok, so Football Manager 2025 is partly on this list because it’s my newsletter and I can write what I want to. But it’s also here because Sports Interactive changed the game’s development engine for the first time in decades: opening up the possibility of both a fresh new experience or a challenging transitional year for the franchise. Spicy.
Monument Valley 3 launches exclusively on Netflix on 10th December. While ustwo has spoken warmly of the subscription service’s support for carefully crafted mobile games, the success of the release will depend on Netflix’s ability to finally coax its subscribers to actually play the great mobile games they’re entitled to - something it hasn’t really achieved thus far.
The Bluffer’s Guide To The Final Releases of The Year
Do say: A quiet year for the industry ends with a flurry of noise as the major players start to position themselves for a busy 2025.
Don’t say: …who’s feeling hyped for the Starfield DLC?! *awkward silence*
News in brief
Concord crashes: PlayStation has pulled the plug on Concord, a live-service multiplayer shooter, just two weeks after launch. The company announced it is shuttering the game and offering all players refunds after its concurrent player count reportedly peaked at just 697 in launch week.
Squadding down: Speaking of live service disasters, Eurogamer is reporting hefty layoffs at London based Rocksteady following the failure of its Suicide Squad game. Headcount in quality assurance has reportedly been halved, with wider lay-offs also occurring across the wider business too.
Financial feuding: This landed just before last week’s VGIM, but it’s worth catching up with Bloomberg’s report which alleges that Xsolla’s founder Aleksandr Agatipov transferred $100m from the company’s accounts to his own between 2021-2023. As well as being a great story, the piece also offers insight into what great games journalism with the right backing looks like.
Ninten-dos and don’ts: Nintendo has updated its guidelines for content creators on Monday to strengthen its ability to take down ‘inappropriate’ videos made using its IP. The move reportedly comes after the company successfully took down a video created by Liora Channel, in which the creator interviewed ‘Splatoon Girls’ within the community about their sexual relationships with other high-ranked players. Grim.
Suspender Disbelief: And finally, the MCV/Develop Women in Game Awards has a new sponsor…Ann Summers. The lingerie and sex toy store has signed on to support the awards - which celebrate the contribution of women to the UK video games industry - on 26th September. Rather than give you my thoughts, here’s some select feedback I’ve received about the news: “I feel so empowered seeing this”, “what the fuck”, and “HAHAHAHA!” 😬
Moving on
Nintendo has appointed Luciano Pereña as President, CEO and Chairman of its European operations. Laurent Fischer has been appointed as Chief Marketing Officer and Tom Enoki has been appointed Senior Managing Director for the corporate planning office following a hefty internal reshuffle. Stephen Bole, the company’s former CEO for Europe, steps down after six years at the helm…The Apple shake up continues, with Luca Maestri stepping down as CFO on 1st January 2025. Kevan Parekh, the company’s VP of Financial Planning, is set to replace him…Hideaki Itsuno, who was the series director for Devil May Cry and Dragon’s Dogma, has left Capcom after 30 years...And Thomas Koegler has been appointed CEO of Asmodee as Embracer Group’s restructure continues…
Jobs ahoy
Arrowhead Game Studios is hiring a Marketing and Community Director to manage its legion of Helldivers in Stockholm…Sega is hiring an Internal Communications & Engagement Specialist based in its Brentford office…Epic Games has a fixed term contract post going for a Talent Acquisition Partner…Roblox is recruiting a Senior Manager, Policy Communications in San Mateo to tell its public policy story…Scopely is scoping (ha!) for a Senior Producer for Star Trek Fleet Command who can choose to base themselves in the UK, Ireland, Spain or Portugal…
Events and conferences
Nexus, Dublin - 25th-26th September (Discount available for VGIM Insiders)
Tokyo Game Show, Tokyo - 26th-29th September
Pocket Gamer Connects, Helsinki - 1st-2nd October
Game Connect Asia Pacific, Melbourne -7th-9th October
AI and Games Conference, London - 8th November (Discount available for VGIM Insiders)
Games of the week
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions - Wizarding sports game, which proudly states it contains ‘no microtransactions’, releases this week.
NBA 2K25 - 2K’s ever popular basketball series, which is absolutely stuffed with microtransactions, arrives across all platforms.
Age of Mythology: Retold - Strategy game from the creators of Age of Empires releases to the delight of at least one regular VGIM reader.
Before you go…
There are two toucans that I love in this world: the Irish pub in Soho and the bird who provided sound effects for some recent Sea of Thieves content.
BBC Surrey spoke to Katie Tarrant, a senior sound designer from Rare, about the challenges of capturing a vocal performance from Boy, a toco toucan who lives at Birdworld in Farnham.
And though this story may be about a tropical bird, it is very Partridge in character.
I'm still not feeling this idea of a first-person Indiana Jones. I guess I liked the third-person games too much. But let's see how it goes!