Yeah, personally I am worried about IOI going down the “enshittification” route:
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Randomly breaking things in the WoA, which at its core is excellent, but whose sheen is repeatedly chipped away at when unforced errors are made with updates that break things that used to work perfectly, and which are seemingly completely unrelated to the things that the update is intended to fix or improve.
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The departure of several key team members who were at the heart of some of the most beloved parts of the WoA - even allowing for the harsh financial reality of Squexit and the unavoidable downsizing that resulted from that, in the new independent era IOI have lost some devs like Mattias Engstrom and Mette Pødenphant who personally led development on some of the WoA’s most memorable moments.
- This one’s harder to quantify and more just vibez-based, but I just get the feeling that as IOI are expanding both in terms of studio locations and headcount, they’re becoming more ‘corporate’, and not in a good way. For the last few years, the IOI social media channels have felt much, MUCH more like a Linkedin advert to attract potential employee recruits than they have been a tool to excite the fanbase and engage in meaningful dialogue with them. The culture that they present just seems much more slick and ‘business-y’ these days, and I have much less of a feeling that they’re looking to connect with their fans…
- …which ties in with my final observation that (like seemingly everyone else) I reckon their comms with fans has been going down the toilet for quite a while at this point, and sadly the new arrivals in this area don’t seem to be reversing this trend as things stand.