Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani Says Core Assumptions Have Shifted as the Games Industry Evolves Rapidly

Shams Jorjani, 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 transition. He explained that the formulas that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have largely lost their effectiveness in today’s market. "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." Several forces are driving this shift. One of the most visible is the continued rise of developers in the Asia‑Pacific region.

This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live featured a parade of titles from China and South Korea, underscoring how these markets are no longer peripheral but central to the global conversation. "There’s always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," Jorjani said. "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 arrived at a tipping point in terms of quality and ambition.

While the Chinese audience remains heavily mobile‑centric—a factor that shapes design sensibilities—Jorjani noted that the speed of production is accelerating, partly because artificial intelligence is being leveraged to streamline development pipelines. "It is definitely picking up for sure," he added. "I think 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." AI, perhaps more than any other recent technology, has injected a new level of uncertainty into the industry’s future. Jorjani contrasted the West’s cautious, ethically‑focused debate over AI training data with the East’s pragmatic, almost indifferent adoption. "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," he explained. He likened the situation to his friends in the broader IT sector, many of whom have already shifted to AI‑driven workflows without moral qualms because the output is functional code rather than artistic expression. "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." Beyond AI, the sheer length of development cycles for AAA titles remains a critical obstacle to forecasting. Projects that span five or six years, often involving multiple studios across different time zones, compel publishers to lean on established franchises rather than risk new intellectual property.

Jorjani emphasized that brand recognition is the primary risk mitigant in such an environment. "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," he said. He illustrated this with the phenomenon of “analysis paralysis”: with an ever‑growing flood of releases, consumers gravitate toward familiar names.

"You might recognise Worms, for example; it’s been around forever. You know these ten other games announced two days ago are probably super cool; you might individually click through them to form an opinion. With Worms, you know what you’re getting.

Will it be innovative? I don’t really know, but it’s brand recognition." Statistics support this trend. Steam’s 2025 replay data showed that 44 % of user playtime was spent on titles between one and seven years old, and roughly half of all games played on the platform were over 18 months old.

While players vocalize a desire for fresh experiences, purchasing behavior still favors remakes and sequels. Arrowhead’s own success with Helldivers was, Jorjani admitted, a mixture of luck and a “secret sauce” that made the game distinctive yet instantly recognizable. He pointed to companies like Riot Games and Supercell, which often juggle multiple projects simultaneously. One breakout hit can eclipse the others, creating a market environment where indie developers can thrive by being nimble and responsive.

"The secret sauce to any successful game is early validation," Jorjani asserted. "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." Indie studios, with their shorter cycles and willingness to share progress publicly—sometimes through a single GIF—can gauge audience reaction almost in real time. Jorjani recalled the indie title Tiny Glade, which generated viral buzz after early visual teasers were posted. By contrast, a four‑year AAA cycle that waits until a game is fully finished before launching a massive marketing push lacks that iterative feedback loop.

Arrowhead plans to adopt this early‑validation mindset for its next project. The studio is inspired by mobile developers who routinely test concepts via ad placements, measuring which creative assets perform best before committing significant 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. 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, 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." In summary, Jorjani believes the industry must abandon the old playbook of keeping projects under wraps for years and then unveiling them with a grand spectacle. Instead, developers should embrace rapid prototyping, continuous player feedback, and a willingness to experiment with emerging technologies—especially AI—while recognizing regional differences in adoption. By doing so, both established studios and independent creators can navigate the uncertain terrain ahead and find new pathways to success.