USED Video Game Industry FOR SALE or RENT!

0:00this is believed one network every topic everywhere. All right guys we're going to do a separate video talking about bungee trying to sublet it's 200,000 square foot headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. This is after they had massive numbers of layoffs after they shut down destiny to and marathon is not doing very well for them and this is just another indication that AAA gaming is imploding in real time. We talked about that yesterday that you know what we'll mention and again here now I've got geeky here. So I am here. Hello. She's going to weigh in on this one but yeah we actually had Tim Swini come out and say that the second industry crash is here it's not you know there's no doubt whatsoever you're looking at all the massive amounts of layoffs that we're seeing and the contraction in the industry and we're going to talk about how they got here and it's not hard it's

1:02not hard to figure out. No you mean when you do the games you do you charge too much you listen to places like sweet maybe ink what did you expect? What did you expect to happen? Yeah so what's what's talk about this before you get into it any further please subscribe from our pop culture news views and ran skies okay if you do. If you would like more clownfish TV well we've got you covered on clownfishtv.com you can check out podcast episodes you will not find here on YouTube. In fact you won't find them anywhere else but on clownfishtv.com so check it out and yeah let's let's talk a little bit about this I did mention it in yesterday's video but mostly that video was talking about the industry crash which is here and I love how people tried to deny that the industry was in trouble for several years. Yeah everybody was like what are you talking about I mean as far as people that are denying it people were like what are you talking about obvious or issues? Yeah and they're like that's just the narrative that the chud's are trying to push that the video game industry is hurting and it's like no it's it's in deep deep shit

2:04right now. YouTube grifters. The YouTube grifters and again this is coming from Tim Sweeney who's in charge of epic which is the Fortnite people okay saying this is the worst that video games have been since 1983 this is bad and he talks about you know they talk a little bit about the interview to a bunch of different people and they talk about how you know what would take the right size and they said that triple A western gaming is ground zero for the crash. I'm surprised. Many reasons for that but companies like Bungie kind of led the charge spending way too much money on games that nobody wants to play for various reasons and marathon is another flop for them they went all in on marathon and I guess they're having they're having problems with matchmaking on marathon because so few people are playing this game right now that they can't even match players is basically Concord part I guess it'd be three at this point

3:05because they have the Concord trilogy or whatever they're trying to talk about was Concord and I can't remember the other one and marathon and they all kind of have some things in common what you know what is that you know what do you expect yeah it's it's all a lot of predatory practices DI and fusion uh-huh I was maybe being type stuff but yes yeah and and again these these budgets on these games and they talked about this 300 400 million dollars and and look at what happened with Warner Brothers they had a massive win with Hogwarts Legacy which was a self-contained single player game based on a popular IP at the same price point it did very very well for them and then the following year they released suicide squad which again have these stink of sweet baby ink on it but it also was you know always online first person shooter and the whole thing which people were like why are you doing this you know just make a standalone

4:06Gotham game they made a lot of unpopular decisions and all the money that they made from Harry Potter they lost on suicide squad yeah I mean and then so now now they're gonna have to lease out space and they're building yeah um what did you think was going to happen and Destiny 2 they shut that down it was never a huge it wasn't a huge hit for them they just kind of gave up on it marathon it seems to me like this is the the Hail Mary Pass for them but they tripped in fell fly on their face right out of the gate with this one and this is remember guys this is bungee this is the company that gave us halo okay yeah halo I love recent years you know with the show and stuff hasn't been the best oh hallows in in absolute shit state if we're gonna be honest here I mean that it's just like and again same kind of things same kind of issues same issues yeah different company Microsoft bot you know for those of you don't know uh Sony bot bungee but Microsoft bot halo off a bungee and they mismatched that now Sony is mismanaging bungee and I remember bungee I was telling uh

5:12squid king I remember them from their Mac days because I was a Mac owner in the 90s because I did graphic design and comics and all that stuff true and um there were a lot of games for Macs but bungee always made games for Mac so I always I was a huge bungee fan and then they jumped ship to Xbox I'm like oh Microsoft you traders how dare you but they you know again this company it's just the name it's they're not even the same company that they were they all have the same people there it's just a brand but they're gonna be I think they're gonna be shut down here pretty soon anyway it's coming from a PC gamer after a massive 2021 office expansion bungee is now trying to sublet it's 211 square foot headquarters uh let's see here they said in 2021 as now this Pete Parsons is part of the problem he's a big part of the problem he's a CEO he was kind of a free will and free spending guy but they thought the money was never gonna end right yeah it's a sit they all thought the money where's we keep making people gonna keep paying it that's what they thought so five years ago just five years ago Pete Parsons cited the company's recent tremendous

6:16growth and opportunity bungee announced his plans for a massive expansion to its Bellevue Washington headquarters so the campus and biggining which internal sources have reportedly described as costing hundreds of millions of dollars more than double the size of bungee's office space now after five and a half years of spending sprees publisher acquisitions stumbling product launches marathon product cancellations and repeated mass layoffs bungee appears to be seeking subletters for the goliath game development headquarters is no longer capable of filling good luck with that mm-hmm nobody has money nobody has money and they're not gonna move to Washington where they're gonna get taxed to shit I mean seriously that's you know a lot of it is where these companies are located too we got another video coming today talking about Hollywood but it's like you know you're you're in uh high tax high tax areas and you know honestly if you can if you can make games anywhere go go down south you're not gonna get hurt yeah or at least someplace else that isn't high tax area right right just have some of the taxes yes according to a 10 page leasing brochure reviewed by

7:22the game post bungee is seeking interested renters to sublet its expansive headquarters listing its 2010 nine hernave four square foot as turn a turnkey production facility in addition to expected office office fixtures the listing also features a dedicated lobby gym and exercise facilities including a rock climbing wall a mocap studio a cafe catering space in a private exterior patty well yeah again okay so it's another one of those cases where our employees all wanted special parks like we talked about this back oh my gosh it was a few years ago now because they got revaled six or eight years ago they were all making videos about here I am in my private space and here I am with my personal trainer and crunch your whole is one of these yeah here I am with my wine bar and now here I am at the coffee the free coffee and you know at all this other stuff and they kept a personal chef so they're mad when they had to bring their lunch to work and everything else and that sounds like this was another victim of those decisions yeah they said that bungee's

8:23exploring options to sublet's campus the studio transition to a digital first model several years ago and this move reflects the teams evolving workplace needs and the effectiveness of its remote collaboration which country are they collaborating with a walk take a couple guesses I'm just saying are they all American I don't think they are I'm gonna I'm just gonna guess bungee's gonna continue to maintain a physical office presence in Belvedgue yeah but might just be a small office bungee formally adopted remote work eligibility for most of us roles in 2022 why would okay following the studio shift to work from home during covid effectively defeating the purpose of its office expansion a year before like what who I okay so I know people have a lot of problems with Pete Parsons but I'm like who the fuck does that we're gonna spend hundreds of millions of dollars like it meant nothing to them hundreds of millions of dollars to build a facility that like a year later we're just gonna be like yeah you know what not feeling it we're not gonna do that yeah I'm

9:23just gonna I mean I I have no words this is just like it's so it uh they're talking about your mass layoffs the following year in October of 2023 how many of those jobs could have been saved if you had not spent that's what I was gonna say hundreds of millions of dollars on an office that you weren't going to use yes that's what I was gonna say it's like you guys spent how much money on the space and you got rid of people like you could have just not did this huge space or you know minimize some of that or not made it as big or got rid of all this like you know a catering area and a gym and all this other stuff wow uh this person says this is in the comments I can't believe they got out of Microsoft's rule only to go under Activision then under Sony they knew from the Microsoft days this didn't work so how could they go back and make the same mistake another two times because they can't survive on their own they're too big they're too bloated and they can't survive on their own they should that's like double fine they left Microsoft while

10:24I don't know if they willingly left Microsoft but Microsoft was you know getting rid of a lot of these studios they acquired during the pandemic or leading up to the pandemic and now they have to go out to Kickstarter to make games just like an indie dev you know like the games cost too much they should leave the gaming industry and move to real estate and land lottery um some entertainment companies have done that they actually own a lot of properties uh I am reasonably sure the owner of robotack actually has a lot of real estate I just thought land lottery sounds funny land lottery and the lord of landry and landlordery the laundry lord the lord of laundry land land laundry anyway um cook the books they did well and then they failed at the live service loop eventually angering original fans who gave up bunch of his profitable at some point that's how they got there basically what happens is these companies have a success instead of being like okay that was cool let's see if we can replicate that and let's put some money away for a rainy day they're like

11:27you know what we had one success let's just you know just shoot for the moon and spend hundreds of millions of dollars because the gravy trains never gonna end you're never allowed put money away for rainy day because anybody that's investing wants all that money like if there's any profit to get to them like right now yeah well that's that's just it and then the government comes in takes a bunch of it's right so this is interesting you know this is um cm allens as growth for growth sake is also the modest operandi of microbes and cancer both of which have a knack for killing their hosts you think self-aware humans would know better than the mimic that but apparently not okay so let's let's rip the damn bandaid off here and talk about kind of what you know beyond just bungee what led to the decline of the triple a western video game industry and it was bloat and DEI and those two things go hand in hand because they were hiring a lot of people they did not need to hire to hit quotas and they were hiring people like sensitivity readers and they were hiring people

12:28that really had no business working in the video game industry and they were paying them like six figure salaries right out of the gate and they brought nothing to the project and just they just kept ballooning up and they said a triple a game used to cost about ten million dollars now the the low end is like a hundred to two hundred million it's insane and that's so much money to make back and people are just you know and then you have the whole this not even their fault the whole thing with the gaming systems now starting to be the way they are about the stuff like other they're other manufacturers are getting in trouble or game studios because they were they weren't committing to physical discre certain systems and and they were mad about it and they're like I can't commit to this because I don't know whether they're going to let us have physical discs for the game system you know so the whole thing is just it's a the whole industry is just one giant cluster fuck at this point and and they did say it's mostly a triple a bubble burst in the the U.S. like Japan's doing fine-ish you know uh steams don't find indie devs are doing

13:30fine now this is actually I'm going to bring up the AI angle on it here because what they need to do is they need to get the budgets down and everybody is using AI they're just afraid to say anything about it they're using it they'll they say they're not they're lying they're lying and that's what the kingdom come deliverance director said they're like he went on a pro gen AI rant he didn't say he was pro gen AI so much as he said everybody's using it because they have to because the games cost too much right and our people's jobs being replaced with AI yes because really back in the day it would take a team of maybe 10 to 20 people to put together a game that now takes 500 to a thousand people and you got to pay salaries for all those people and you got and then you got to hire the sensitivity readers and bring the sweet baby angsin and and then all of a sudden you're looking at a game that costs 70 to 80 bucks and that takes in forever to do it too they have all the

14:30years to do it yeah oh ridiculously long time to do it it's it's ridiculous there was one studio in Canada and I can't remember I want to say it was I don't know if it was 10 cent shut down what some some company it was either Ubisoft or 10 cent but they they came in they shut the studio down and the studio had been around for five or six years in Canada and they had like a hundred and some people working for them and they didn't have a single thing to show for it see that just sounds like money laundering to me yeah I'm starting to wonder um you know is is the the triple A video game scene just a giant money laundering operation I'm only saying this because it shouldn't take I mean I get it's really involved I get every time there's more technology new technology everything has to be a high resolution it gets more and more complicated I say just maybe knock it back something gets about faster but you know um and if you're talking years and years and years and years there's nothing to show for it then I'm like where'd the money go yeah you've got people to sit there and twit all their thumbs like if it were a small team I could understand that like

15:32we've only got like five guys working on this game it gets done when it gets done or whatever I mean that's like the guy who did uh started a new valley I think it's just him and maybe you know hired help and he hasn't you know brought the chocolate to your haunt chocolate to your I guess called the still waiting for that I know the the follow up game um he hasn't brought that out yet but he's got very small team right yeah and that's I understand that it's gonna take you a long time and he's been showing different things because he's working on their stuff too and it's a small team you got all these people on these games and it's like 13 years later and it's like we're you know yeah and you have like how many and how many years did you have to pay salaries and then they all want to unionize so they want more money and they want job security beyond the end of that project and it's just like none of this is realistic none of it's sustainable I wanted to bring this up this is actually um this is actually uh uh a Sega veteran who did uh Sega Gaga which was pretty well regarded game right he did this game himself with AI and he wanted to see what would

16:35happen if a an actual skilled experienced veteran used AI on a budget and I guess he did this game for like 200 bucks total and it's going to be coming out on steam. But this is what we're looking at now is one or two people being able to put out games that would have taken a team before. Now this is a genesis style game or whatever. But that's fun though. It's I get looks fun. I don't know why he's going to charge for whatever. But he said, yeah, he just went nuts with it because he wanted to see like in the right hands, can veterans with AI tools put out games that would have historically taken a lot longer and more money to put out. And then you're going to have more people doing games on the cheap like this. And then what's going to happen is the studio is going to look at this and get people are like, well, it's just the AI replacing people. Like yeah, it's going to replace the people that aren't necessary. You still need the visionaries. You still need the, you know, game developers, designers, you might not need like 50 of them. You know, right. You might be able to put a really good game out that resonates with people for maybe

17:36$20 million versus $200 million. And I'm like, you know, and this, you know, those, those who are worried and upset about losing their jobs, because I don't like to see people lose their jobs. Cause this one thing about AI have two problems. They are the job losses and environmental stuff. But that being said, those people, it just means you could go do this too. Well, and that is another thing that's bothering people. They want to be the gatekeepers. No, I'm saying the ones that might not have a job anymore because they get gone. No one's so they can. Yeah. Well, they can't. Okay. So some of them will, a lot of them can't though. The lot of them have to hide in a group because they don't have what it takes to actually do something on their own. That's why they're like, I need a cushy job in the game industry. I need to hide. I can't go start my own website. I have to work for somebody else. That's what we're talking about. Right. So I want the security of being paid. I get that. I get that. But that goes in the creative industry. That just has it existed for a long time. Like, right, you're not going to work. Even

18:39the executives, they're not going to be there for like 30 years and retire with a watch. It's just it doesn't work that way. But they're going to make games on the cheap. They're looking even Sony. They're looking at Astrobot. I guess Astrobot was one of their biggest hits and only costs only costs like 50 million compared to $200, $300 million. But then, yeah, and I hit like that. Holly was the same thing. They're trying to walk their budgets back because you've got movies costing, you know, very little that are kicking ass and they get to keep all the money. You know, you get the profit all that. You know, you can might make a lot of money on theater, but you're not, you might not even break even where if you spend less and be more creative, you could make a lot of money. You didn't spend a lot of money. So you get to keep all that money. I think that's what they're thinking. That's they need to be doing. If they want to, you know, keep moving forward and keep making money, they need to keep the prices down for consumers. They really do. We we had this discussion in the car on the the way over where we're talking about like part of it is consumers

19:40don't have the money to subscribe to every streaming service to buy every $70, $80.000. They're going to be able to buy food now because inflation is so ridiculous. So if you can put together a decent game that resonates with people that doesn't break the bank, it's like 10 or 20 bucks. Does it have the fanciest thing? It's as long as it's fun and it's entertaining and people can take a break from it. It's not pushing crap. It's just a fun game that you can play. You make money, people spend less money, but have some entertainment that they can afford. It's a win-win. I think Powell World is a good example of that. Yeah, he would play in that last night. I was just playing it last night, but Powell World is like basically endless entertainment. They're always updating it and it costs $29 compared to a Pokemon game, which is oh my god, you can't say that, but I mean, you're talking 50, 60 bucks for a Pokemon game. Look at No Man's Sky. A lot of times it's on sale on Steam for like 15 bucks and that game has had like 20 or 30 updates since it came out in 2016. It's another game that you can basically play forever and not

20:42get tired of it. That's what people are looking for. If it's going to be a game that you're going to beat in a couple hours, then it can't cost more than like $10, $20. No, I mean, a game like No Man's Sky, though, I can see charging more for that because it's like hours, hours, hours, hours, and like, you know, you're going to play forever. Things like that, you know, I can see charging a little more for things like that, but only if it has the development costs to justify it, but like some of these games, you're literally going to play it for, you know, like a week and you're done. Then don't be charged a hundred bucks for that. And that's that's AAA gaming right now is the value. You are more yet to pay more. You need to do a new DLC pack or whatever so you can actually play more. So it's a $70 game. You got to pay 70 bucks for the game, but you also have to subscribe to whatever, you know, the Xbox or PlayStation or Nintendo network, whatever it is. So you have to subscribe, and then every time we do an update, you have to pay for that as well. You want skins, you got paper that you want this guy pay for that. Well, again, when you've got hundreds of people

21:43working for a company that, you know, built a 200,000 square foot office for no damn good reason. Yeah. Yeah. We really have to try to find a renter to pay for it. Yeah, it's insane. So I think we're going to see a lot of this and I think it's going to end with a lot of these companies just either consolidating or being just getting gone because it's just not. It's not sustainable. And I don't think we realize just how bad it is yet because a lot of these games, these people have been working on for the last five to 10 years haven't even been released yet. And when they release them and they fail, uh oh, you know, that's when the heads are going to roll. So they've already been rolling. So you already cut those people you are now you're getting rid of your building or you're releasing your building. So what's out? Yeah, Shell Games. I mentioned this yesterday they're here in the Pittsburgh area and they just laid a bunch of people off and they're actually subsidized by the government. I know they have like some kind of like Pennsylvania grant or something and they laid a bunch of people off too. So it's just it's not

22:45sustainable. I think I think we're going to again, like you said, we're going to have smaller teams of people making games that gamers actually want to play and the video game industry is going to rate size. Mm-hmm. Has to. Has to. All right, we're going to wrap it up. Yep. Please subscribe. We'll talk later. Bye.