How Many Games is Too Many Games? An Assessment of Modern Releases

We are in the year 2022, and I have to say this: there are too many games. This problem only got worse when independent developers started pumping out indie titles left, right, and center, and now we are looking at roughly 44,000 game developers distributing games on just the Steam platform alone.

But what does this have to do with Nintendo? Well, I think you know. Ever since Iwata-san passed away and Kimishima-san took over as president, Nintendo really changed its direction and started accepting applications from any and all developers, not just kid and family-friendly ones. After overseeing the launch of the Switch, Kimishima-san stepped down as president and was succeeded by Shuntaro Furukawa, a Japanese businessman and executive, and that is when things started to open up even more.

Once Furukawa-san took over, the Nintendo Switch became the second-highest platform (Not counting mobile) for new releases behind Steam. Games from indie developers, particularly, have a goal of releasing on both Steam and Switch for a couple of strong reasons: 1) Steam is very easy and cheap to develop for, and 2) Switch is a better platform for indie games to thrive financially. Naturally this means that a ton of games are releasing on both platforms on a regular basis.

To put this into perspective, the Switch currently (As of June 2nd, 2022) has 7978 games and applications on its eShop, and the console only released on March 3rd, 2017. From the date of release to today, that is 1917 days. Based on the numbers of days the Switch has been around and the numbers of games currently available, the Switch is averaging 4.16 game releases per day, which is roughly 29 games per week and over 116 games per month. That is too many games.

Compare that to the NES and SNES days where game releases were cherished and the times between were spread out. We did not get dozens of games per week, we actually only got a couple of games per month. It felt more doable, and gamers could enjoy games for longer without the temptation of the next game pulling them away from the current one. Sure, game development back then was much more limited, and indie development was nowhere near ready for global acceptance. But there is something to think about here: how many games is too many games?

If you get on the eShop right now and go to Recent Releases, I guarantee you that the last 20 releases will mostly be games that you have never even heard of (Although I did just review TOKOYO recently). They range from quality indie games to shovelware to remakes to AAA releases. It is such a wide range of games that most titles on the Switch are just… no offense… not worth your time and money. The same can easily be said about Steam.

But this is a double-edged sword. More games means more garbage, but more games also means more opportunity for finding a diamond in the rough. One of the benefits of having too many games on the Switch eShop is that titles are constantly on sale to try and raise up their status on the Best Seller tab, which is a prime place to be for developers and publishers. Being on the Switch’s Best Seller list increases sales tremendously, so the strategy to get there for many games is to frequently go on sale (A win for us!) to rise up the chart and then remain on the Best Seller list once the price goes back to full. People who missed the sale will see the game on the Best Seller list and then buy it at full price, which is a win-win for the devs.

So yeah, there are some positives to this issue, too, but we also have to consider backlogs. Oh, the evergrowing backlog. Some of us have dozens of unplayed or unfinished games in our backlog while others have hundreds, possibly even thousands of games, and this brings us right back to the question, how many games is too many games?

As we are now officially in June 2022, this is a real concern for me, personally. The Switch is coming off its hottest year yet, and it doesn’t look like 2022 is slowing down any time soon, especially this month. I am still enjoying Nintendo Switch Sports on a regular basis, but how much will that joy diminish once the next hot thing arrives, like Mario Strikers: Battle League, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, and Hollow Knight: Silk Song? There is this sense of not having enough time to fully enjoy the games I am currently invested in, and that is genuinely one of the biggest problems I think we currently face: over-saturation.

At the end of the day, though, we definitely do not have to buy and play every game, but for us gamers that enjoy games on our free time and look forward to the new entries from the developers that we love, that piling backlog just gets more and more intimidating as we add dozens and dozens of new games each year with little-to-no possibility of actually playing, lone enough clearing. When that is the case, that just sounds like a problem of having too many games.

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Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link! What do you think of this issue? Do you think there are too many games today? Do you think there are too many games on the Switch? Or do you think the opposite and want more games? Let us know in the comments below! Happy gaming, everyone.