5 Reasons Cyberpunk Fans Might Know More Than Avowed About Hoyo's Trump Tariff Woes

Cyberpunk 2077, despite its initial launch woes, has become a cultural touchstone. Its fans, deeply immersed in the world of Night City, are surprisingly attuned to the intricate supply chains that underpin the gaming industry. They follow development updates, speculate on future content, and often possess a keen awareness of the broader economic forces that shape the games they love. This is where the connection to Hoyo, the Chinese developer of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, becomes relevant. Hoyo's reliance on manufacturing in China makes them particularly vulnerable to tariff increases. The potential for Trump-era tariffs to disrupt the flow of board games like Gloomhaven into US retail channels highlights the vulnerability of even non-digital entertainment to trade wars. This has implications for the QA sector. Imagine a situation where a smaller studio is developing a niche indie game. Increased import costs for hardware needed for testing could cripple their budget, leading to compromised QA and a potentially buggy release. Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment's upcoming first-person fantasy RPG, stands in contrast to the experiences of Hoyo and CD Projekt Red. As a Microsoft-owned studio, Obsidian benefits from the stability and resources of a major corporation. While they wouldn't be entirely immune to global economic shifts, their position offers a greater degree of insulation. This difference in vulnerability has a significant impact on the QA processes of these studios. Here are 5 possible reasons why Cyberpunk fans might know more than Avowed fans about Hoyo's tariff troubles:

Cyberpunk 2077's turbulent launch forced fans to pay close attention to the game's development cycle. They became invested in understanding the challenges faced by CD Projekt Red, including supply chain issues and external pressures.

The themes of Cyberpunk 2077, a dystopian future grappling with corporate power and globalization, may inherently attract players with a global perspective and awareness of international trade.

Online communities dedicated to Cyberpunk 2077 are rife with discussions on industry trends, technological advancements, and the economic factors influencing the game's development and future.

Obsidian Entertainment tends to maintain a tighter lid on development details. This creates an information vacuum around Avowed, making fans less likely to speculate on external factors like tariffs.

Avowed fans are likely more concerned with the game's lore, characters, and gameplay mechanics, rather than the intricacies of global trade and manufacturing. The confluence of the QA industry, international trade, and consumer expectations creates a complex ecosystem. QA isn't just about finding bugs; it's about understanding the entire development process, including the potential impact of global events. While Avowed might be insulated from immediate tariff-related crises due to the game's ties to the Microsoft family, fans of the game and its developers would do well to understand the realities of how current economic trends could impact smaller game makers, game players and the industry at large. The globalized industry means that something as mundane as tariffs can impact QA pipelines; in other words, something that is seemingly out of a game company's control, can, in fact, cripple the entire product's quality due to increased financial burdens for smaller studios that have to source resources internationally - thus making it difficult for players to immerse themselves into the game as easily as they had once anticipated. A stable game begins with QA which begins with an awareness of geopolitical realities.