The state of video games 2025

[MeachTheMonster]

PRESENTATION: The State of Video Gaming in 2025 — MatthewBall.co

A (free) 220 page presentation on the past, present and potential future of the video game industry.

www.matthewball.co

The exhaustion of decade-plus growth drivers that grew players, playtime, and spend... coincided with evolving user behavior, changing monitization models, and growing “lock-in” effects…that exacerbated long running competitive and budgetary escalations, while growth concentrated in foreign markets that shifted to local productions (and then took share abroad) and occurred alongside acute macroeconomic financial events and epidemics... were worsened by microeconomic platform policy shifts... as well as the emergence of new and hyper-viral substitutes... and foreign-based competition... alongside too many would-be new growth drivers that have yet to deliver.

Lots of staggering numbers in here.

Will pull some of the slides out later.

 

[The Mad Titan]

Will check out later on

 

[VegetasHairline]

Sony Stans

 

[OJ Simpsom]

Sony Stans

 

[Fatboi1]

Sony Stans

 

[Diunx]

Games peaked in the ps2 era

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Sony stans wanna clown actual information then they don’t understand how/why sony’s first party is struggling the way it is

 

[2 Up 2 Down]

Games peaked in the ps2 era

Facts. The chase for AAA games with big returns ruined the industry. It nearly killed off mid tier studios

 

[Styles]

Gaming has peaked in a way. Graphically there are not a lot of advancements to be made. Innovations have mostly flopped like VR. Let’s see what Sony does with PS6. The PS5 is great, but ultimately it’s just a nice FPS boost with a SSD. I don’t think there’s a game out there that will be more revolutionary than TLOU2 and RDR2 from last gen for example. Better NPC AI is probably it, but those games were pretty great already.

A new genre could help too. Open world games were huge for last gen, because of the graphical advancement. Sometimes one massive game can breathe life to an industry. GTA6 could be that.

Ultimately though, I’m not really pessimistic on the future of gaming. It will work out, and I feel like there are a ton of solutions.

 

[Rekkapryde]

Gaming has peaked in a way. Graphically there are not a lot of advancements to be made. Innovations have mostly flopped like VR. Let’s see what Sony does with PS6. The PS5 is great, but ultimately it’s just a nice FPS boost with a SSD. I don’t think there’s a game out there that will be more revolutionary than TLOU2 and RDR2 from last gen for example. Better NPC AI is probably it, but those games were pretty great already.

A new genre could help too. Open world games were huge for last gen, because of the graphical advancement. Sometimes one massive game can breathe life to an industry. GTA6 could be that.

Ultimately though, I’m not really pessimistic on the future of gaming. It will work out, and I feel like there are a ton of solutions.

Pretty much

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Gaming has peaked in a way. Graphically there are not a lot of advancements to be made. Innovations have mostly flopped like VR. Let’s see what Sony does with PS6. The PS5 is great, but ultimately it’s just a nice FPS boost with a SSD. I don’t think there’s a game out there that will be more revolutionary than TLOU2 and RDR2 from last gen for example. Better NPC AI is probably it, but those games were pretty great already.

A new genre could help too. Open world games were huge for last gen, because of the graphical advancement. Sometimes one massive game can breathe life to an industry. GTA6 could be that.

Ultimately though, I’m not really pessimistic on the future of gaming. It will work out, and I feel like there are a ton of solutions.

The “solutions” ain’t what people want to hear but i agree, things will change and gaming will be alright.

This report is just the context on how we got here.

 

[Illuminatos]

I mainly do retro gaming in between the big AAA releases nowadays.
Now I don’t know how much of that is the industry falling off or me hitting my 30s and getting nostalgic about my pre-teenager gaming years.

 

[Rekkapryde]

I mainly do retro gaming in between the big AAA releases nowadays.
Now I don’t know how much of that is the industry falling off or me hitting my 30s and getting nostalgic about my pre-teenager gaming years.

if you can get indie games that look like AAA games without ridiculous play lengths, that is a sweet spot.

the real issue with AAA games is the suits making the decisions IMO.

 

[feelosofer]

Games peaked in the ps2 era

I'd have to agree

 

[The Mad Titan]

Games peaked in the ps2 era

PlayStation games did for sure. There isn't a single PS3 1st game or exclusive I couldn't do without playing at all on that console besides the last of us.

The PS2 and PS1 though...

Too many to name