The Life is Strange franchise’s new studio Deck Nine is reeling after Life is Strange: Double Exposure bombed commercially despite critical mixed-to-lukewarm reception, triggering multiple rounds of layoffs and exposing the fragility of narrative-driven AAA-adjacent titles in a saturated market, while the original Life is Strange developers Don’t Nod face potential closure after successive underperformers including Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and the 2026 sci-fi title Aphelion, with revenue halved, cash reserves dwindling, up to 90 layoffs, safeguard proceedings, and uncertainty beyond early 2027. This comes amid the broader continuing collapse of AAA gaming, highlighted by Auroch Digital (the Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 studio) announcing cuts to roughly a quarter of its staff just days after the retro boomer-shooter sequel’s October 2026 launch despite positive early reception, as well as Microsoft’s aggressive Xbox restructuring under new leadership—thousands of job cuts across multiple rounds, studio divestitures and potential closures (including threats to teams like Ninja Theory), franchise shifts to Activision, and wider industry bloodletting that has already seen over 12,000 roles eliminated in 2026 alone plus high-profile shutdowns such as BioWare. Rising development costs, post-pandemic overexpansion, audience fatigue with $70 games, and the failure of both prestige narrative experiences and mid-tier licensed titles to deliver reliable returns are accelerating the end of the old AAA model.
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I’m sure Starbucks is hiring.
3:58 yeah I have to agree with the Chinese lady political correctness should have no place in video games
I swear game developers are one of the only people who don’t even try to cater to there audience. Gears of war is obviously a game geared towards men and what do they do? 2 new main characters are females that’s be 1% of there audience relates to
Wouldn't be surprised if boltgun 2 underperformed compared to the first one just because a sister of battle was added. That's always a massive red flag in a game series
There are a lot of things you can blame Corporate Greed for. But that requires the company to be doing very well. Like Kneon of ClownfishTV says: You need to justify your existence.
Over-paid, under-skilled, TDS afflicted, under-delivering, budget wasting, customer insulting, delusional, antagonistic, childlike – Western AAA devs. Not one tear will be shed when they lose their jobs. Let it burn.
Not sure I’d blame Sony for a security vulnerability that affected most of the internet, context had to matter at least a little… 😅 Wish I’d gotten Raisonnance, looks nice but spent too much on SE in the last year,, si that one didn’t qualify. Maybe once it’s in sale 😁
Holy hell, that chinese IGN lady just verbally eviscerated western gaming and is so accurate it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. I never thought that the word 'based' would apply to someone at IGN but here we are
I love the smell of woke AAA studio corpses in the morning.
you know your society is fuked when china is right
"Gamers are over."
Meanwhile, in reality, gaming has the largest entertainment footprint in the west. So much so that GTA6 may, unironically, affect the entire western economy.
I was there when it got hacked on PS3 , feel old rn lol
WOKE is pure HATE for the customer.
for the algorithm
They kidnapped the gaming industry and created one slop after another. We – the gamers – don't cry, when people who should not have been creating something with the label "games" are pushed back from where they came and leave gaming to gamers again.
Back to that twitter post about interference. What kind of interference was applied during production of Dragon Age?
4:15 It's not that the west lacks the talent, it's that our talent is not allowed in the industry. The indie space PROVES this.
They're kinda right that corporate mismanagement killed BioWoke. If they hadn't hired all the losers who made Veilguard the studio may have survived.
What if your not subscribed to the service
Is it really "propaganda" if its true?
F with the customers just to please the journalists and consultants will be the biggest mistake any businesses might make. I do not know why or when this start to happen in the West but even the Communist of China understand that if you want a flourishing business you do not piss of the potential customers.
once i see a picture of who is on the dev team i know instantly if i will buy the game or not
western game reviewers are basically paid ads for games intertwined with ideological indoctrination and virtue signalling
Shame about Boltgun 2…. Coincidentally I just started Boltgun last night and I am enjoying it. If Alanah Pearce was part of BG 2 then it's coming off the wishlist.
Sony got caught out when a data breach occurred and it turned out they were storing user's full unencrypted credit card details
I don't think they dislike Asian games. I think they hate all games but they get swag from western studios to give good reviews.
The only western studio i like is actually hello games! Cant wait too see their next game light no fire
This just makes me think of the BP apology where the president is naked on the bear rug saying, "We're sorry. So sorry."
boltgun 2 went woke so i didn't give them my money it's as simple as that I got the 1 but the 2 nah
How could have guessed that actively insulting your customers and hating the fans would have consequences?!
Korea, Japan, and China will take over the gaming share in the West, we do not need western developers for great games
Western gaming media doesnt like eastern devs because the eastern devs dont care about the media in the west. We are in the information age, you dont need to go to gaming magazines, or websites to get reviewed. No one trusts the reviews anyways.
Expedition 33 is woke garbage, it's just far less quantity and not always forced into your face, you have to go out and look for it.
Phantom Blade Zero looks fantastic! 👌
The 2010 PSN hack was ridiculous. Between that and Zipper Interactive having the monster of all shitcan ideas, it was a bad time to be a MAG player. Honestly, if they put more work in to that, rather than trying to revive SOCOM, the studio might still be around today.
But sony assured us that Play is Unlimited! The sales for games like Yotei are in the millions! The security updates were safenand sound! Why would sony ever belittle & disrespect their fanbase?!
"Data breaches" are intentional. It's a legal loophole they use to sell our data.
China teaching someone else what high quality looks like is an oxymoron 😂
They all received the NPC firmware update and all saying its corporate greed instead of admitting the chuds still run the gaming scene.
Don't make a game for us? enjoy being laid off