Shams Jorjani, the chief executive of Arrowhead Game Studios – the studio behind Helldivers 2 – told GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom that the video‑game sector is undergoing a profound transition. He explained that the assumptions and 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," he 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 reshaping the landscape. One of the most visible is the continued rise of developers from the Asia‑Pacific region. This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live highlighted the growing capabilities of studios in China and South Korea, and Jorjani noted that Asian games have been gaining ground in Western markets for a decade, but now they are delivering hit after hit. "China, in particular, has reached a tipping point in the quality of games its developers produce," he said.
While the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric – a factor that influences design sensibilities – the speed of production is accelerating, a trend Jorjani attributes in part to artificial intelligence. AI, he argued, is the single technology that introduces genuine uncertainty about the next five or ten years. Unlike previous hype cycles such as virtual reality, AI is already being woven into the creation pipeline, shortening development timelines and enabling rapid iteration.
However, its adoption is uneven across regions. In the West, developers are wrestling with ethical questions, data‑training rights, and artistic concerns. In the East, Jorjani observed, "they absolutely do not care whatsoever" – companies simply adopt AI to get functional code, treating games more like software tools than artistic expressions.
This cultural split, he believes, will lead to a slower but inevitable uptake in the West, while the East may surge ahead. Beyond technology, the sheer length of AAA development cycles remains a major hurdle. Projects that take five or six years and involve multiple teams spread across time zones create a high‑risk environment.
Consequently, Western publishers have leaned toward established franchises and shied away from funding brand‑new intellectual property. Jorjani explained that when development horizons are long, the safest bet is a recognizable brand that can mitigate risk. He cited the example of Worms, a decades‑old series that instantly signals to players what to expect, even if it may not be groundbreaking.
Data from Steam Replay 2025 shows that roughly 44 % of user playtime is spent on titles between one and seven years old, underscoring the market’s preference for familiar experiences over untested new IPs. This dynamic, however, creates an opening for indie developers. Jorjani highlighted the advantage of early validation: the ability to put a prototype or a simple GIF in front of an audience and gauge reaction quickly. Indie studios often work in short, transparent cycles, sharing progress publicly and iterating based on immediate feedback.
He recalled the indie hit Tiny Glade, which exploded in popularity after early GIFs went viral week after week. In contrast, a four‑year AAA cycle forces studios to wait until the product is near completion before launching a massive marketing push, reducing flexibility. Arrowhead itself is adopting this indie‑style approach for its next project.
The studio plans to involve a select group of dedicated Helldivers fans early in development, asking them about their favorite IPs, genre preferences, and specific themes such as alien warfare. By segmenting this test group and comparing their responses to a control group, Arrowhead hopes to fine‑tune its game to a niche audience rather than casting a wide net and hoping for broad appeal. Jorjani likened this method to the way mobile developers run ad‑based concept tests, iterating on the most promising ideas before committing large resources.
In summary, Jorjani sees the industry at a crossroads where long‑standing business models are being upended by faster development tools, the surge of high‑quality Asian titles, and the disruptive potential of AI. While these shifts generate uncertainty for large‑scale publishers, they also empower smaller, more agile teams that can validate concepts early and adapt quickly.
The key, according to Jorjani, is to abandon the old playbook of keeping projects secret for years and instead embrace transparency, rapid feedback, and targeted audience engagement. This mindset, he believes, will define the successful games of the next decade.