Kill the (Public) Games Industry

There has never been a "safe" way to run a publicly-traded company. Because shareholders own the companies that they invest in, public companies exist to appease shareholders — appease market growth. While it is possible to make your company insanely profitable in the public market, it is not likely. The path is paved with corpses.

Devolver Digital is trying to go private. It's possible they saw the corpses: Microsoft's body count has only continued to grow, seemingly with no end in sight. An unprecedented parts shortage — which was also created by the public market — has sent prices on games hardware spiraling wildly out of control. Development studios like Compulsion Games and Double Fine were chewed up by the market and then spat out, leaving them adrift on the ocean of the tech industry, waiting to be devoured by sharks.

I don't think that games are over, or that the industry is doomed, even. What I do think is that games studios and public publishers have been burned, not by the nebulous idea of the games industry, but by tech companies. The owners. The shareholders. "The Market."

I'm not going to mince words. The Market must die. The priorities of Microsoft and Sony do not represent and have never represented the desired market of games and the people who play games. In the wake of their decision to discontinue physical game discs, Sony claims that it is "a natural direction for [Sony] to adapt to consumer trends," but digital licenses have never been a consumer trend. If anyone has preferences for never-owned digital media, it's shareholders, who can be reassured that customers will continue to buy things that they already paid for.

When we hear that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds did not meet sales expectations, who set those expectations? The same financial report from SEGA SAMMY that described CrossWorlds' sales falling short promised a "total return ratio of 50% or more" to shareholders. They produced 5.4 billion yen in games sales in all of 2025, and 8.5 billion yen through just Q2 of 2026. CrossWorlds sold 1 million copies. This is unprofitable, somehow. What does profitability actually look like? Is anything good enough?

No. The public market will never be satisfied, will never stop trying to sell more. This reality is beginning to make itself clear. From SEGA we see a familiar story: An emphasis on DLC to cover for "disappointing sales." From Devolver Digital, the statement that the market is toxic to games development is a revelation, but not an unexpected one. We are watching the games industry burn. We are watching the market crash, supported by a bubble that it cannot possibly contain. Games are not dead, but the public games industry must die.

We are all waiting to see what's on the other side.