We are living in an age of unprecedented gaming abundance. In 2024, almost 19,000 games were released via digital distribution platform Steam. This means you could have played 52 new games each day of the year, and still had some left over. And yet 2024 was actually considered a light year for big releases. This year promises far more, with new entries in major franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Monster Hunter and the arrival of the newly announced Nintendo Switch 2 console. At the time of writing, 715 games have already been released in 2025.
If you ask gamers how it feels to live through this embarrassment of riches, you’ll hear the same answer over and over: it’s exhausting. Online communities are clogged with players saying they’re overwhelmed by the number of new releases. Too many games, too little time. How did we reach the point where the cornucopia of options feels more like a chore than a joy?