ARC Raiders – 4 million sales, Ghost of Yōtei – 3.3 million, Duckov – 3 million – all in the last month, but the games industry will still keep laying people off

October and November have been massive for the games industry. Those numbers above have all been announced in recent days and don’t even factor in things such as Battlefield 6 and Dispatch. If you just looked at turnover, you would think that Q4 2025 has been one of the best months we have ever seen.

Of course it has. This is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and there is plenty of cash to go around, and players do not seem to have a problem spending their hard-earned magic beans on a game that catches their eye.

Nobody is waiting for a Steam or PlayStation sale to come around to buy any of those listed above. They have jumped straight in and paid full RRP, so what’s the connection? Why have these games done so well? Is it because they are all good from dev teams that aren’t having to churn out products just to please shareholders? Surely not?

The fact that something like ARC Raiders has already sold over four million copies is nothing to sniff at. Escape from Duckov sells three million after going viral, but it is fundamentally a great game too. These games have, if not exactly come from nowhere, not been the ‘Triple-A’ standard fare we have grown accustomed to from the big companies.

While Ghost of Yōtei was a more predictable success, even with some corners seemingly wanting it to fail, those are still great numbers for a console exclusive. If you get the game right, you sell the game by the bucketload.

Have the big publishers gotten lazy?

For sure. I can’t be the only one fed up with seeing the “Game X didn’t perform as well as expected, so we are restructuring our great team to make it even more agile”, but in reality, that means getting rid of everybody, nonsense. I could have told you exactly how it would perform. There is not a game that has had disappointing sales that I have been shocked by, nor should the publisher be. They know full well what a game is going to do before they release it, because they are fully aware of how many corners have been cut in the process.

The fact that so many games miss the arbitrary sales target is a testament to the amount of dross there is out there, and it has the side-effect of also drowning out great games such as Ball x Pit and Death by Scrolling. There have been about six Madden games since the last Mutant League Football, and you won’t convince me ever that the former is a better game, but which is the one likely to sell the most.

AI has entered the room

Now I have no problem with AI. I find it useful in instances because I use it as a tool, not the be-all and end-all. I have no issue with smaller devs and one-man teams utilizing the tech to help them achieve something they would otherwise not be able to. I am far less sympathetic when the huge publishers switch to AI models as cost-cutting measures despite raking in the millions each year.

It’s a simple question. Does it benefit the player or the company more? If it is the latter, I am a lot less interested.

So, as we reach towards the end of yet another year that has seen so many people lose their jobs in an industry that is needing to build a bigger treasure room to keep all its gold in, we really should, as gamers, be evaluating where to spend our money more wisely don’t you think?