Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series

The Next Big Thing in Games Is Low Tech

The gaming industry is currently defined by a persistent, industry-wide obsession with technological advancement, characterized by escalating development budgets and a reliance on high-compute infrastructure like AI and cloud streaming.

• The gaming industry has seen a 10x increase in average development budgets for AAA console games since 2000, driven by a persistent focus on technological advancement.
• Despite industry efforts to prioritize AI and high-compute infrastructure, there is a growing market trend toward analog play, with board games serving as a popular social connector that acts as a counterweight to digital screen time.
• The industry's reliance on tech-centric KPIs to measure success is increasingly criticized as ineffective, particularly when attempting to compare disparate titles like Candy Crush and PUBG.