Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani Says the Foundations of Our Assumptions Have Shifted Dramatically as the Games Industry Evolves Rapidly

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 argues that the playbooks and business models that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have largely become obsolete. "Sometimes there's been doom and gloom, but overall the games industry is doing well," Jorjani observed. "It's just that the things 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."\n\nSeveral forces are driving this shift.

One of the most visible is the continued rise of developers from the Asia‑Pacific region. This year's Gamescom Opening Night Live featured a slate of titles from China and South Korea, underscoring how these markets are no longer peripheral but central to the global ecosystem. "There's always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," Jorjani 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."\n\nChina, in particular, appears to have arrived at a tipping point in terms of the quality and ambition of its releases. While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric—a factor that shapes design sensibilities—the speed at which games are produced is accelerating, a trend Jorjani attributes in part to artificial intelligence. "It is definitely picking up for sure," he said.

"I think that there's still a way to go, but there are very different sensibilities to what makes the games tick as well. The Chinese audience is still primarily mobile-driven. That flavours the sensibilities, but it's going faster. I think AI is accelerating this because more and more games are coming out faster and faster everywhere."\n\nAI, according to Jorjani, is the most disruptive technological wave the industry has seen since the early days of VR, and it introduces a level of market unpredictability that makes long‑range forecasting extremely challenging.

He notes a stark cultural divide in how the technology is being embraced. In the West, developers wrestle with ethical questions, data‑training rights, and artistic integrity.

In the East, the conversation is largely absent; studios adopt AI tools pragmatically, focusing on efficiency rather than ideology. "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," he said.\n\nBeyond technology, Jorjani highlighted the structural challenge of lengthy development cycles for AAA titles. Creating a blockbuster can require five to six years and coordination across multiple studios and time zones.

This reality pushes publishers toward established franchises and away from risky new intellectual property, especially in Western markets where investors demand predictable returns. "Development cycles are still long.

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," he explained.

Recognisable IPs—think Worms, Helldivers, or other long‑standing series—provide a safety net because players already know what to expect, even if the next installment isn’t revolutionary. Data from Steam Replay 2025 supports this pattern: roughly 44 % of user playtime was spent on titles between one and seven years old, and half of all games played on the platform were over 18 months old. Despite vocal calls for fresh experiences, consumers still gravitate toward familiar names or remakes.\n\nJorjani sees indie developers as uniquely positioned to thrive in this environment.

Smaller studios can iterate quickly, gather early feedback, and pivot without the massive sunk costs that plague larger teams. "The secret sauce to any successful game is early validation," he said.

"The sooner you can get something in front of a person and get positive feedback, you know you're on track, onto something, and you can iterate. That's the strength of software development." He cited the indie hit Tiny Glade as an example: early GIFs posted by the developers went viral, providing immediate market validation that would have taken months for a AAA studio to achieve.\n\nArrowhead itself is adopting a hybrid approach that blends indie agility with the resources of a mid‑size studio. For its next project, the company plans to involve a curated group of dedicated Helldivers fans early in the development process.

By presenting prototypes to a hundred core players and surveying their preferences—such as a love for alien themes or specific gameplay loops—Arrowhead hopes to fine‑tune its design before committing to a full‑scale production. This method mirrors mobile‑game studios that test concepts through ad campaigns, measuring click‑through rates and retention before building a complete game.

"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."\n\nThe broader industry takeaway, according to Jorjani, is that the old playbook—keeping projects under wraps for years, then unveiling a massive marketing blitz—must be abandoned. Instead, studios need to embrace transparency, rapid prototyping, and data‑driven decision‑making. While the West may lag behind the East in AI adoption due to ethical debates, the inevitable convergence on these tools will reshape development pipelines across the globe. Developers who can balance artistic ambition with functional efficiency, who can leverage brand equity while remaining open to early user input, will be the ones that succeed in the coming decade.\n\nIn summary, the video‑game landscape is being reshaped by three interlocking trends: the ascendancy of Asian developers, the disruptive potential of AI, and the enduring pressure of long development cycles on risk‑averse publishers.

Indie studios, with their lean structures and willingness to experiment, are well‑suited to navigate this new reality. Arrowhead’s CEO believes that by discarding outdated assumptions, embracing early validation, and learning from both Eastern and Western approaches to technology, the industry can continue to flourish despite the uncertainty that defines its present moment.