Shams Jorjani, the chief executive of Arrowhead Game Studios – the team behind Helldivers 2 – recently told GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom that the video‑game sector is undergoing a profound transition. He argued that the tactics that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have largely lost their effectiveness in today’s rapidly evolving landscape. "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 several forces driving this shift.
One of the most visible is the continuing ascent of developers from the Asia‑Pacific region. This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, for instance, highlighted the capabilities of studios from China and South Korea, underscoring how Asian games are now regularly entering Western markets. "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." China, in particular, appears to have arrived at a tipping point in terms of the quality and ambition of its titles.
While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric – a factor that shapes design sensibilities – the overall pace of development is accelerating, a trend Jorjani attributes in part to artificial intelligence. "It is definitely picking up for sure," he noted. "I think there’s still a way to go, but there are very different sensibilities to what makes 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, is perhaps the most unpredictable variable on the horizon. While previous hype cycles – such as virtual reality – fizzled out, AI is already reshaping production pipelines, asset creation, and even design iteration.
He pointed out a stark cultural divide in how the technology is embraced. "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 said.
"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 developers are experiencing an "existential crisis" as AI blurs the line between artistic creation and software engineering. He expects the West to adopt AI more slowly, but he believes the transition is inevitable.
Beyond technology, the sheer length of AAA development cycles remains a major obstacle to forecasting. Large‑scale projects often require five to six years and coordination across multiple studios and time zones. This reality has encouraged publishers to lean on established franchises rather than gamble on new intellectual property. "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 observed. "The only thing that really mitigates risk on that level is brand and recognisability. People know what they’re getting, so you can offset that risk." He illustrated this with the example of the classic Worms series. Even if a new Worms title isn’t groundbreaking, its brand recognition gives it a built‑in audience, which is valuable in a market suffering from "analysis paralysis" – the overwhelm caused by an ever‑growing flood of releases.
Data from Steam Replay 2025 supports his point: roughly 44 % of player time is spent on games that are between one and seven years old, and half of all Steam titles played are over 18 months old. While gamers vocalise a desire for fresh experiences, purchasing behavior still favours familiar franchises and remakes. Jorjani highlighted Riot Games and Supercell as companies that juggle multiple projects simultaneously; a single hit can eclipse the rest, allowing those studios to survive even if several titles underperform. This dynamic, he argued, creates a strategic opening for indie developers.
"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." Indie studios, with their shorter cycles and willingness to share progress openly – often through GIFs or early gameplay clips – can gauge audience reaction almost in real time. Jorjani cited Tiny Glade as an example of an indie title that exploded in popularity after a series of early GIFs went viral.
In contrast, a four‑year AAA development timeline forces studios to wait until a game is near completion before launching a massive marketing push, which can be risky if market conditions have shifted. Arrowhead itself is adopting an indie‑like approach for its next project. The studio plans to involve a small, highly targeted group of Helldivers fans early in development, asking them about preferred IPs and themes.
By measuring responses from players who love aliens, Helldivers, and the specific genre under consideration, Arrowhead hopes to refine its concept before committing extensive resources. "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.
"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." He concluded by emphasizing the need to abandon the old playbook of keeping projects under wraps for years and then unveiling them with a grand spectacle. Instead, continuous player feedback and rapid iteration should become the new norm, especially as AI, shorter development cycles, and the rise of Asian studios continue to reshape the industry.