Shams Jorjani, the chief executive of Arrowhead Game Studios—the studio behind Helldivers 2—recently told GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom that the video‑game sector is undergoing a profound transitional period. He argued that the assumptions and playbooks that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have essentially become obsolete. "Sometimes there’s been doom and gloom, but overall the games industry is doing well," Jorjani said. "It’s just that the things that we based our assumptions on have changed fundamentally.
The playbooks used from 2010 to 2020 no longer work. The bottom has fallen out of every business case that you had.
No one knew how well a game would sell, but they assumed it would sell at least this much. Whatever that number was, take a zero away.
And that’s the reality." Jorjani identified several forces driving this upheaval. One of the most visible is the continued ascent of developers from the Asia‑Pacific region. This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, for instance, highlighted the growing technical and creative capabilities of studios in China and South Korea.
"There’s always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," he explained. "That’s been ongoing for the last ten years, but now it’s reached a point where it’s game after game after game that’s really making it." China, in particular, appears to have reached a tipping point in terms of production quality. While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric—a factor that shapes design sensibilities—Jorjani believes the rapid pace of releases is being amplified by artificial intelligence. "AI is accelerating this because more and more games are coming out faster and faster everywhere," he said.
The influence of AI is perhaps the most unpredictable element on the horizon. Unlike previous hype cycles such as virtual reality, Jorjani contends that AI represents a genuine structural shift. He noted a stark contrast between Western and Eastern attitudes toward the technology. In the West, developers are wrestling with ethical questions, data‑training permissions, and artistic integrity.
In the East, by contrast, the industry appears to have embraced AI without the same moral reservations, treating it as a purely functional tool for code generation rather than a creative partner. "When you introduce AI to it, I understand that Western game developers have an existential crisis. I am an artist, and I’m also connecting with people on an artistic level, but when you make it into software, it’s just functional.
There’s a different attitude there. The West will be slower on the uptake, but the uptake will still happen," Jorjani observed.
Beyond technology, the sheer length of development cycles for AAA titles adds another layer of uncertainty. Large‑scale projects often span five to six years and involve multiple teams spread across time zones.
This lengthy horizon makes publishers wary of investing in new intellectual property, prompting a focus on established franchises that provide a degree of brand safety. "If you know that and the market is changing, you need to be very certain that the bet you’re taking works.
The only thing that really, really mitigates risk on that level is brand and recognisability," Jorjani explained. He pointed out that players gravitate toward familiar names because they know what to expect, even if the experience isn’t groundbreaking. Data from Steam Replay 2025 supports this, showing that 44 % of user playtime was spent on titles between one and seven years old, and roughly half of all Steam games played were older than 18 months.
This reliance on known brands creates a paradox: while consumers loudly demand fresh experiences, their purchasing habits often favor remakes and sequels. Arrowhead’s own success with Helldivers illustrates how a combination of luck, distinctive design, and strong branding can break through the noise. Jorjani also cited companies like Riot Games and Supercell, which juggle multiple projects simultaneously; a single hit can eclipse the rest of their pipeline, leaving smaller titles unnoticed.
For indie developers, however, the landscape offers a strategic advantage. Jorjani emphasized that early validation—showcasing a prototype or even a short GIF to the community and gathering feedback—can dramatically reduce risk. Indie teams typically operate on shorter cycles and are more transparent about their progress, allowing them to iterate quickly based on player response. He recalled the rise of Tiny Glade, an indie title that gained momentum after early visual teasers went viral week after week.
In contrast, a four‑year development timeline forces a studio to wait until the final product is polished before any meaningful marketing can occur. Arrowhead intends to adopt this indie‑style approach for its next project. The studio plans to involve a select group of dedicated Helldivers fans early in development, using their preferences to steer design decisions.
By segmenting players—those who love aliens, those who favor certain IPs, and so forth—Arrowhead hopes to gauge which concepts resonate most before committing extensive resources. "We’re going to be putting it in the hands of players right away as soon as possible," Jorjani said.
"Our philosophy has always been that we want to make games for a certain type of connoisseur. We don’t want just any action player fan.
We want a specific one." He concluded by warning that the old playbook—keeping ideas under wraps for years before a grand reveal—must be abandoned in favor of continuous, transparent engagement. The industry’s rapid transformation, driven by longer development cycles, the rise of Asian studios, and AI’s disruptive potential, demands that developers rethink how they validate, market, and ultimately deliver games.
Indie creators, with their agility and willingness to experiment early, appear uniquely positioned to thrive amid this uncertainty, while larger publishers will need to adapt their risk‑mitigation strategies or risk being left behind.