Shams Jorjani, the chief executive of Arrowhead Game Studios – the team behind Helldivers 2 – told GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom that the video‑game sector is currently undergoing a profound transitional period. He explained that the assumptions and playbooks that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have largely lost their relevance today.
"Sometimes there’s been doom and gloom, but overall the games industry is doing well," he said, adding that the fundamental premises on which business cases were built have been upended. "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 three inter‑related forces driving this shift. The first is the continued ascent of developers from the Asia‑Pacific region.
This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, for example, highlighted the technical and creative capabilities of studios from China and South Korea, underscoring a decade‑long trend of Asian games making deeper inroads into Western markets. "There’s always been a general rise of Asian games and companies into the West," Jorjani noted.
"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 quality tipping point. While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric – a factor that shapes design sensibilities – the speed at which new titles are produced is accelerating, a trend Jorjani attributes in part to artificial intelligence.
"It is definitely picking up for sure," he said. "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." The second catalyst is AI, which Jorjani believes introduces a level of market unpredictability that eclipses previous hype cycles such as virtual reality. He observed a stark cultural divide in how the technology is embraced.
In the West, developers wrestle with ethical questions, data‑training rights, and artistic integrity, often slowing adoption. In contrast, many Eastern studios appear to adopt AI without hesitation, treating it as a purely functional tool rather than a creative dilemma. "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 explained. The third factor is the sheer length of development cycles for AAA titles.
Large‑scale projects can span five to six years, involve multiple studios across time zones, and demand massive financial commitments. Because of this, publishers increasingly lean on established IPs to mitigate risk, favoring sequels or remakes over brand‑new concepts.
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 also pointed out a phenomenon he calls "analysis paralysis": with an ever‑growing flood of new releases, consumers struggle to evaluate each offering.
Familiar franchises like Worms provide a shortcut – players know the core experience and can decide quickly. Data from Steam Replay 2025 supports this, showing that 44 % of playtime was spent on titles between one and seven years old, and half of all Steam games played were over 18 months old. Despite vocal demand for fresh IPs, purchasing behavior still leans toward proven properties and remasters.
Indie developers, however, possess a strategic edge in this environment. Jorjani highlighted the importance of early validation – getting a prototype or even a short GIF in front of an audience quickly and iterating based on feedback. This agile approach contrasts sharply with the four‑year, closed‑door cycles of many AAA studios. He cited the indie hit Tiny Glade as an example: early social media buzz propelled the game’s visibility week after week.
"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." Arrowhead is planning to embed this philosophy into its next project. Inspired by mobile‑gaming practices, the studio intends to expose early concepts to a curated group of players, gathering granular data on preferences such as favorite IPs or thematic interests.
By testing with a small, highly relevant cohort – for instance, 100 Helldivers fans who also love alien‑themed games – the team can gauge whether a new idea resonates with its target demographic before committing to a full production run. This method, Jorjani argued, forces the company to abandon the old “keep cards close to the chest for years” mindset in favor of a more transparent, data‑driven development pipeline.
In summary, Jorjani paints a picture of an industry at a crossroads: longer development timelines, a surge of high‑quality Asian titles, and the disruptive potential of AI are reshaping how games are conceived, funded, and marketed. While established franchises retain their risk‑mitigating power, the agility and early‑feedback loops characteristic of indie studios may become the decisive factor for success in the coming years.
Arrowhead’s own shift toward rapid prototyping and community‑driven validation exemplifies how even mid‑size studios can adapt to this rapidly evolving landscape.