Shams Jorjani, the 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 transitional period. He argued that the assumptions and playbooks that guided developers and publishers throughout the 2010s have become obsolete, and that the industry now operates under a completely different set of expectations. "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 continued rise of developers in the Asia‑Pacific region. This year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, for example, highlighted the growing creative muscle of studios from China and South Korea.
"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 tipping point in terms of quality.
Jorjani observed that while the Chinese market remains heavily mobile‑centric – a factor that influences design sensibilities – the overall ambition and polish of Chinese titles are accelerating, partly thanks to artificial intelligence. "AI is accelerating this because more and more games are coming out faster and faster everywhere," he said. Artificial intelligence, according to Jorjani, is perhaps the most unpredictable variable on the horizon. He contrasted the West’s cautious, ethically‑laden debate over AI training data with the East’s pragmatic, almost indifferent adoption.
In the West, developers wrestle with questions of morality, artistic integrity, and regulatory compliance. In contrast, many Asian studios have embraced AI tools without hesitation, focusing on functional outcomes rather than philosophical concerns.
"When you introduce AI to it, I understand that Western game developers have an existential crisis," he explained. "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.
The West will be slower on the uptake, but the uptake will still happen." Beyond AI, Jorjani highlighted the sheer length of development cycles for AAA titles as a structural challenge. Large‑scale projects often span five to six years and involve multiple teams across disparate time zones.
This reality pushes publishers toward established franchises and away from risky new intellectual properties, especially in Western markets. "If you know that and the market is changing, you need to be very certain that the bet you’re taking works," he 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 pointed out that brand familiarity also helps cut through the modern problem of "analysis paralysis," where consumers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of releases. A familiar name like Worms, for instance, instantly signals what kind of experience a player can expect, even if the game isn’t groundbreaking.
Data from Steam Replay 2025 supports this: roughly 44 % of playtime was spent on titles between one and seven years old, indicating that gamers often gravitate toward known quantities rather than untested new IPs. Nevertheless, Jorjani believes indie developers hold a strategic edge in this evolving landscape. He cited Riot Games and Supercell as examples of companies that juggle multiple projects simultaneously, allowing one hit to subsidise the others. Indie studios, however, can move much faster, leveraging early validation to de‑risk their concepts.
"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." Arrowhead itself is embracing this approach for its next project.
The studio plans to involve a select group of dedicated Helldivers players early in development, gathering granular feedback on preferences such as favorite IPs or gameplay motifs. By segmenting testers—those who love aliens and Helldivers versus those who enjoy the game but have different thematic interests—Arrowhead hopes to fine‑tune its offering before committing to a full‑scale launch. This method mirrors tactics used by mobile developers, who often test concepts through ad creatives to gauge audience reaction. Jorjani summed up the new mindset: "We’re going to be putting it in the hands of players right away as soon as possible.
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 conclusion, Jorjani warned that clinging to outdated playbooks—keeping projects secret for years before a big reveal—will no longer suffice. The industry demands rapid iteration, data‑driven validation, and a willingness to experiment with emerging technologies, even if that means confronting uncomfortable ethical debates. By embracing these changes, both established studios and indie creators can navigate the uncertainty and seize the opportunities presented by a market that is, as Jorjani put it, fundamentally different from the one they once knew.