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Abubakar Salim is a prominent figure in the gaming industry as well as the TV and film industry. He initially started out as an actor but was fascinated by the gaming industry after voicing Bayek in 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. He later set up a studio called Surgent Studios and served as the director of 2024’s Tales of Kenzera: ZAU.
Abubakar Salim has also appeared in House of the Dragon (Image via HBO)Salim is a huge fan of video games but he believes that the current state of the gaming industry is not up to the mark. In a recent interview, he explained the mistake that most publishers are making nowadays with their highly anticipated video games.
Abubakar Salim Explains Why Games Like Star Wars Outlaws Are Not Meeting Sales Expectations
2024’s Star Wars Outlaws was a massive letdown (Image via Ubisoft)Abubakar Salim, a well-known actor and the founder of Surgent Studios, recently appeared for an interview with Dexerto and talked about the gaming industry. Many highly anticipated video games were released in 2024 such as Star Wars Outlaws and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League but these games turned out to be a complete disappointment.
Salim put a spotlight on single-player video games, explaining that most studios nowadays see video games as a product rather than a medium for storytelling,
[Video games] shouldn’t be about money, it should be about expression, it should be about enjoyment, about storytelling, about connectivity, about interactivity because that’s the thing that film and TV have really hit the mark with. It’s about story, it’s about entertainment – I think once that is embraced, games will be seen more as a medium for storytelling rather than a business or product.
Another issue is that video game publishers are putting their entire focus on visuals/graphics. Studios try their best to make their early demos visually stunning to make sure the game meets the sales expectations, however, most video games aren’t even optimized properly for the existing hardware. There is no point in playing a game with good graphics if the storyline feels bland and unexciting.
Abubakar Salim Says Most Video Game Developers Are Trying To Recreate Fortnite
Fortnite reportedly generated $4.4 billion in revenue in 2022 (Image via Epic Games)In the same interview, Salim added that many industry giants are trying to recreate what Epic Games did with Fortnite. It’s no secret that Fortnite generates massive revenue for Epic Games, so it makes sense why other studios are trying to follow the same operating model. Salim said,
There’s a reason why like a lot of these big game publishers and companies are going for the games as a service model. They want to try and recreate the next Fortnite because it’s going to make them more money – Games shouldn’t be about that.
Salim strongly believes that many hyped video games lack the storytelling aspect, and as a result, most games are failing to meet their sales expectations. Not just single-player games, but many new multiplayer games are just a copy of other popular video games. Concord, for example, was Sony’s own first-person hero shooter game, however, the game was a complete disaster and was shut down just two weeks after its release.
Do you think Abubakar Salim is right about the gaming industry? Share your views in the comments!
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