20 Aug CTRL, ALT, HACKED. The Good, The Bad, And The Strange in the Video Games Industry
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As summer ends, we explore gaming’s dark side, major releases, and Woz’s insights.
– Paul John Spaulding
Northport, N.Y. – Aug. 20, 2024
2024 has already made its mark in gaming history with an unprecedented 10,000 people being laid off in just the first six months. Microsoft alone let go of over 2,000 people including developer Tango Gameworks who made the critically acclaimed and commercially successful “Hi-Fi Rush” as Xbox console sales remain in a freefall.
In July, Bungie dropped 17 percent of its workforce while their CEO, Pete Parsons, continued to purchase classic cars.
We’ve also seen anticheat systems — with kernel level access — stall an “Apex Legends” tournament; Angry “Club Penguin” hackers infiltrate Disney; “Roblox” battle with pedophiles on their platform; Monopoly Go, a mobile version of the popular board game, be exposed for malicious gambling practices; Ronin Network, a platform that powers Web3 gaming, get hacked for $600 million dollars; and a campaign to stop killing games set ablaze after Ubisoft publicly cut support for “The Crew” on March 31.
The nail in the coffin of this never-ending bad news was when the longest-running video game magazine, Game Informer, shut down after three decades.
This year has been a whirlwind, but it hasn’t all been bad news.
We’ve seen the revival of beloved franchises with Electronic Arts bringing back a series not seen since 2014 with the release of College Football 25.
“Prince of Persia,” a classic that pushed the Apple II’s memory to its limit back in 1989, also re-entered the scene with “The Lost Crown.”
Fans of “Fallout” saw the release of a TV series and finally got their hands on the long anticipated total conversion mod “Fallout: London.”
PlayStation made history with “Helldivers 2,” which became its fastest-selling game of all time.
Sony’s PC pipeline showed no signs of slowing either with “Horizon Forbidden West” releasing in March, and “Ghost of Tsushima” following in May.
However, the eagerly anticipated “God of War Ragnarök” PC port will have to wait until September.
Meanwhile, “Dragon’s Dogma 2” came onto the scene with critical acclaim 12 years after its predecessor and “Edlen Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree” reignited an interest in this fantasy RPG not seen since the base game’s release in 2022.
And in a surprise indie twist, “Animal Well,” a game developed by a one-man studio based in Chicago, is shaping up to be the most acclaimed metroidvania since “Hollow Knight” according to PCGamer. This success story joins other tiny team hits such as Balatro, a poker roguelike game, that has sold two million copies since it’s February launch.
With the summer coming to a close there’s still a lot of video game life (or death) left this year. “Star Wars Outlaws” initial preview was met with skepticism, but has many fans excited following Ubisoft’s release of “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” late last year.
Nintendo’s commitment to the third best selling console of all time continues with a Nintendo Direct in June that left many surprised with this aging platform.
Some of the games announced include “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom,” “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond,” “Mario & Luigi: Brothership” and “Super Mario Party: Jamboree.” This roster joins “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door” which launched back in May.
Social media gaming is on the rise, yet unexpectedly the Cybercrime Magazine office was taken by storm when LinkedIn added in-app games.
Our initial discussions of this concept left us perplexed, but we now compete with each other everyday.
Taylor Fox, our Media Coordinator, taunted potential challengers – “My record is twelve seconds, beat that!” – Fox said of the logic based game, ‘Queens,’ while being interviewed on our gaming podcast CTRL. ALT. HACKED.
Fox’s score has improved since recording that podcast. Eight seconds is the time to beat.
Other episodes in our podcast series, usually co-hosted with my colleagues, Kyle Haglund and Sam White, have covered the metaverse gaming market, questioned Twitch‘s move to change their Safety Advisory Council, and include a conversation Adam Marre, CISO at Arctic Wolf, about his journey from game development to cybersecurity.
This rollercoaster year may put us on track for a complicated future in the video game industry, but in uncertain times we look for luminaries to put our perspectives in context. Steve Wozniak, best known as the Co-Founder of Apple, has also been a video game trailblazer developing the initial prototype for Breakout, an Atari classic, in 1975.
In an interview with Game Informer back in 2013 Woz remarked “If you imagine a society without games, you probably have a pretty hard life… humans want to make up games. It’s part of the natural creative element based within us.”
Reach out to us – Let us know your thoughts on where gaming is headed.
– Paul John Spaulding is GM Production at Cybercrime Magazine.