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 transformation. He argues that the playbooks that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have effectively 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 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 ascent of developers in the Asia‑Pacific region. Jorjani noted that this year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live served as a showcase for the capabilities of studios from China and South Korea, highlighting a trend that has been building for the past decade. "There’s always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," he 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 arrived at a tipping point in terms of quality and ambition. While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric—a factor that shapes design sensibilities—Jorjani believes the rapid pace of development is being accelerated 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." AI, according to Jorjani, introduces a level of unpredictability that makes it difficult to forecast the industry’s trajectory over the next five to ten years. He contrasted the West’s cautious, ethically‑focused debate with the East’s pragmatic embrace of the technology. In the West, developers wrestle with questions about data ownership, artistic integrity, and moral responsibility.
In the East, he observed, "they absolutely do not care whatsoever. Everyone’s shifted over to using AI completely and without any major moral qualms, because at the end of the day, if you’re making functional code, you’re not making entertainment where you’re trying to connect with other humans." Jorjani admitted that Western studios are experiencing an "existential crisis" as AI blurs the line between artistic creation and software engineering. He predicts a slower adoption curve in the West, but one that will inevitably catch up. "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 technology, the sheer length of AAA development cycles remains a structural challenge. Large‑scale titles often require five to six years of coordinated effort across multiple studios and time zones.
This reality pushes publishers toward established franchises and away from risky new IP, especially in Western markets. "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," Jorjani said. "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 highlighted the phenomenon of "analysis paralysis" that results from an ever‑growing flood of releases.
Players gravitate toward familiar names because they provide a guaranteed experience, even if the games are not groundbreaking. Jorjani cited Steam data showing that roughly half of the titles played on the platform are over 18 months old, underscoring the market’s appetite for known quantities. "People scream for new games and IPs, but they don’t actually buy them.
We tend to buy remakes," he observed. In this environment, indie developers possess a strategic advantage.
Jorjani pointed to companies like Riot and Supercell, which juggle multiple projects simultaneously; a single hit can eclipse the rest, allowing smaller teams to capture attention more easily. "The secret sauce to any successful game is early validation," he 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 often share progress openly—posting GIFs, short videos, or early builds—and gauge community reaction in real time.
Jorjani recalled the indie hit Tiny Glade, whose early promotional GIFs generated a viral week‑over‑week surge. By contrast, a four‑year AAA cycle forces developers to wait until the final product before launching a massive marketing push, reducing flexibility. Arrowhead itself is adopting this early‑feedback model for its next project.
Inspired by mobile‑gaming practices that test concepts through ads and rapid A/B testing, the studio plans to place prototypes directly into the hands of a curated group of players. "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," Jorjani explained.
By targeting a specific subset—players who love aliens, enjoy Helldivers, and respond positively to the new concept—the team can gauge whether the game resonates with its intended audience early in development, rather than waiting years for broad user testing. Jorjani concluded that embracing this new approach requires abandoning the old playbook of secrecy and long‑term hype cycles. "But it requires you to let go of that old playbook of playing your cards close to the chest for years, and then dazzle and razzle," he said, emphasizing that the future belongs to those who can iterate quickly, validate early, and adapt to a market where assumptions shift as rapidly as technology itself.