Benoit Clerc, the head of publishing at video game publisher and gaming peripheral manufacturer Nacon, has been reflecting on the current state of the games industry in a new interview.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.Biz, Clerc states that one of the issues facing mid-size publishers is that there are simply “too many games currently on the market” right now, which has left consumers without the time “to be able to play them.”
He explains that “when you look at Steam some days, there are 50 or 60 games released in one day only, so it’s more difficult to get enough traction to expose a game.”
Using some of the games in the Nacon portfolio as examples, he argues that the way for a company to succeed is to target niche demographics.
"I'm not spending $200 million on promotion, so I need to target gamers that have a passion and expertise for off-road racing when I'm doing WRC, that have an expertise in rogue-like games when I'm doing Ravenswatch, or that have an expertise in sports games when I'm doing Cricket 24.”
"You're in a different situation in the market currently when you have games that have nothing super specific to say to a specific group of gamers," he says.
This certainly rings true in my experience, especially as someone who has been trying to find new games to play via Steam recently. With so many options littering the home page, I find that it can be pretty hard to locate quality games that directly appeal to me unless I'm already searching within a very, very specific niche.
While I broadly know the kinds of genres that I like, the sheer volume of choice in each category means that I sometimes have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that I'm getting the best bang for my buck.
For some recommendations of quality games, see our guides to the best single-player games or the best dating games
