Is 2024 a bad year for gaming, or just a wide-open year?
I almost ruined The Game Awards.
This is a strange year in gaming. We knew it would be like this, but it's still weird. The industry is seeing record layoffs at the same time as widespread game cancellations and cutbacks in development budgets. The release schedule for major games is sparse. PlayStation, as a first-party publisher, is taking care of this. Nintendo's Switch 2 (or whatever it's going to be called) has reportedly been delayed to 2025. Xbox is, bafflingly, both a dominant publisher and a fading hardware platform at the same time. Publishers and developers struggle with developing time and budgets.
The lack of big video game releases is particularly evident in the time-honored ritual of Game of the Year (or GOTY) discussion, a hobbyist's hobby within the gaming community. We're already halfway to 2024 and no consensus is forming at all, either around already released games or upcoming titles.
But hold on – why are we talking about this?
