Christofer Sundberg, who is known for his hot takes, has made another bold statement about the state of gaming. In an interview, Sundberg said he’s observing things in the games industry today that he hasn’t seen in his 30+ years making games.
“I’ve been making games for over three decades and never experienced such a desperate, cowardly (they call it ‘risk averse’), and confused state of the business,” Sundberg told wccftech. “After the acquisition / over-investing party during ’21-’23, we are dealing with the hangover and it’s been going on for three years.”
Sundberg is referring to the video game boom from the pandemic, and how it seemingly has not paid off the way investors imagined. The result of this has been mass layoffs, game cancellations, and investors not spending as much on new projects.
Sundberg went on to say that his new studio, Liquid Swords, is making its new game, Samson, on a “limited budget.” In 2025, the company laid off half its development team “to buy us a longer runway,” he said.
“We made a bet, and we do everything we can to deliver a fun $25 experience to lay the foundation for the future. I hope our future players will see the potential in our work and follow us on our journey to make something bigger,” he said.
Samson is a new crime game set in the city of Tyndalston. Players duke it out in hand-to-hand combat and drive cars in a gritty city, with a story focusing on the character Samson trying to clear his debt. As Sundberg mentioned, Samson is a $25 game that launches for PC on April 8.
It’s not surprising to hear Sundberg speak frankly about the state of the games industry. In 2019, when he left Avalanche, he said he was “not so fond of the constant gold digging mentality of the industry.”