Shams Jorjani, the chief executive of Arrowhead Game Studios—the studio behind the upcoming 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, and that the industry now operates under a very different set of expectations.
"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." He identified three interlocking forces that are reshaping the market. The first is the continued rise of developers in the Asia‑Pacific region.
This year's Gamescom Opening Night Live, for example, highlighted the growing creative firepower of studios from China and South Korea, which are now delivering high‑quality, globally competitive titles at a rapid pace. "There's always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," Jorjani explained.
"That's been ongoing for the last 10 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 values and design sophistication. While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric—a factor that influences the kinds of experiences that resonate with local players—Jorjani noted that the speed at which Chinese studios iterate and ship new games is accelerating, a trend that is being amplified by 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." Artificial intelligence, Jorjani argued, is perhaps the most disruptive technology the industry has seen in recent memory.
Unlike previous hype cycles—such as virtual reality, which generated excitement but ultimately delivered modest commercial impact—AI is already reshaping development pipelines, asset creation, and even design iteration. Yet its adoption is uneven across regions. "For AI, I think it is more transformative in a completely different way.
It's also interesting to see the difference between East and West in our adoption and approach to AI. In the West, we're asking if it is ethical and whether these companies are allowed to train on this data, and whether we should oppose it on ideological or artistic grounds. Whereas in the East, they absolutely do not care whatsoever," Jorjani observed. He likened the Western hesitation to an existential dilemma for artists who worry that AI could reduce their craft to mere code execution, whereas many Eastern studios treat the technology as a pragmatic tool without moral reservations.
"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 added.
The second major challenge, according to Jorjani, is the sheer length of development cycles for AAA titles. Projects that aim for blockbuster status often require five or six years of work, coordinated across multiple studios and time zones. This lengthy horizon forces publishers to lean heavily on established IPs and recognizable brands, because the financial risk of launching a brand‑new property after such an investment is enormous.
"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.
People know what they're getting, so you can offset that risk," Jorjani explained. He pointed out that the modern marketplace is saturated with releases, leading to what he called "analysis paralysis" for consumers. Familiar franchises—like the long‑running Worms series—provide a shortcut: players instantly understand the experience they are buying, even if the game itself is not revolutionary.
He cited Steam data indicating that roughly half of the titles played on the platform are older than 18 months, and that a significant share of user playtime is spent on games released between one and seven years ago. This suggests that while gamers vocalize a desire for fresh IPs, their actual spending habits often favor proven, legacy franchises or remakes. The third factor is the strategic advantage that indie developers now enjoy. Jorjani highlighted the importance of early validation—getting a prototype or a short video clip in front of real players as quickly as possible.
This rapid feedback loop allows small teams to pivot, iterate, or double down before committing extensive resources. "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 illustrated this with the example of Tiny Glade, an indie title that gained massive traction after the developers shared early GIFs that resonated with the community week after week.
In contrast, a four‑year AAA cycle that waits until the final product is complete before launching a massive marketing push lacks that agile responsiveness. Arrowhead itself is adopting this indie‑style methodology for its next project. The studio plans to expose early builds to a curated group of dedicated Helldivers fans, gathering detailed preferences about genre, setting, and gameplay mechanics. By segmenting the test audience—comparing a core group that loves both Helldivers and alien‑themed shooters against a control group that enjoys Helldivers but not the alien motif—the team hopes to fine‑tune its design decisions early, rather than waiting for post‑launch metrics.
"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. So we'll probably put the game in the hands of 100 Helldivers players, and then we'll ask them what their favourite IPs or games are.
If they're interested in aliens and they like Helldivers and they like the game they're playing with us, then we know that they should score the game higher than the control group that all like Helldivers, but aliens isn't their favourite. That will allow us to know that we're able to hit that specific group, and we should do this now, early into development rather than waiting two years after getting broad user tests." Jorjani concluded that the industry must abandon the old habit of keeping projects under wraps for years and then unveiling them with a massive, polished marketing blitz.
Instead, developers should embrace transparency, rapid prototyping, and continuous player engagement—a shift that aligns with the broader trends of shorter development cycles, the rise of Asian studios, and the transformative impact of AI. By doing so, both established publishers and indie creators can navigate the uncertain future with greater confidence and adaptability.