Forget the AAAs, innovative indie developers were the real stars of Summer Game Fest

In this week's newsletter: While the blockbuster end of the games industry is in the doldrums, independent developers are leading a creative resurgence

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I've talked a lot about the declining state of the games industry in 2024: after an infusion of cash during the pandemic, when everybody was looking for safe ways to distract themselves and socialise indoors and the games industry's growth was temporarily supercharged, this year has been an overcorrection. Studios and corporations that expanded too fast, made too many hires and acquisitions, have been laying off staff and shuttering studios. Developers looking for work have been finding fewer opportunities. And the games whose development was disrupted by the pandemic have been taking longer to make it out into the world, resulting in a comparatively sparse slate of titles this year compared with the bonanza in 2023.

You could see Summer Game Fest - the smaller event in Los Angeles that has de facto replaced E3 - as a reflection of this diminishment. What was once an enormous, expensive-looking sensory assault of a trade show in the cavernous halls of the LA Convention Centre is now a small cluster of buildings a few blocks from Skid Row. What were once ostentatious press conferences are now 90-minute-long trailer livestreams that you can watch on your laptop. I found it hard not to feel glum on my first day in Los Angeles last week; I felt like the best days of the games industry might be well behind us.