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Interest in Console Gaming on the Decline
An anonymous reader writes "The results from a teen shopping behaviour and branding survey by Piper Jaffray & Co state that teen interest in playing video games is on the decline, as well as those that do play video games saying that they spend less time playing them." From the article: "The students were also surveyed on video game products and other consumer electronics. Results of the survey point out 79 percent of student households have at least one video game platform and 58 percent of students stating that they are occasional game players (playing at least monthly). In addition, 65 percent of student households own Sony's PS2, 50 percent own Microsoft's Xbox and 26 percent own Nintendo's GameCube. GameStop was recognized in the survey as the leading retailer for pre-owned video games with 60 percent market share and 29 percent market share for teen video game purchases. The survey also pointed out that 75 percent of teens say their interest in video games is declining and 78 percent indicated they spent less time playing in 2005."
Up front disclaimer: I am not a video-gamer, and have never been one.
I can add only anecdotal experience, but that experience jives with the article. I've had many friends who children were video game freaks. About ten years ago I was befuddled and bemused at the length of time they played and their intensity. Today, different friends, different generations... what I've seen has been that video games for today's kids is more of a diversion among many rather than a life style. I think video games were largely a fascination with "look what we can do with computers and graphics" emerging technology.
Video games will always have a market, but I would agree with the observed trend they don't hold sway today as in the past. I think a number of things factor into this:
Today, when I see kids playing video games at friend's homes it's typically a end-of-the-day diversion after all other activities have been exhausted.
If people are starting to lose interest in gaming, is this Nintendo's chance to shine with the Revolution, and its ideal of more accessible games and simple/intuitive controls?
As kids get older, their interest in something they've been doing for quite a while will normally tend to decline. That doesn't mean that todays 14-year-old is any less interested in the subject matter than a 14-year-old from several years ago, it just means that particular teen is less interested in the games than he was when he was 11 or 12.
weren't video games supposed to be the big entertainment of the future? Is it still what pundits predict? could we just be going through an ebb in what's still a relatively young medium, before a new explosion in creativity, perhaps with new controller ideas like the Revolution and new game genres?
It also makes me a bit sad, the thought that children might not have the gaming experiences i had growing up. The weekend with a friend playing Super Metroid, one of us navigating, the other playing. or with two friends on Secret of Mana. Happy times with a SNES. maybe they'll have better experiences with new forms of entertainment and new games, but the increasing range of options/decreasing time spent on each activity does seem like it might be less satisfying and possibly even harmful to a child's mental development. or maybe its better for them, who knows, i'm no expert. but now it's seems all "graphics graphics graphics", then 5 minutes later something else because they've lost interest (or the games haven't held their interest). maybe it's just the kids i see and somewhere theres kids getting really properly spend-all-weekend keep-playing-till-its-done stuck into games still :)
but i suspect, not so much.
have any studies been done on this? sounds like it's something worth funding.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
The PS2, X-Box, and Game Cube have been out for a while now. No surprise that interest is declining. This time next year when Revolution, 360, and PS3 have been released there'll be interest in console gaming again.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
But no mention of the rise on adult interest in playing video games ? ,definitely after the introduction of the PS, gaming has become more and more mainstream, and less of a 'kiddy thing' :
The latest surveys (not something to put all your trust in, but at least an indication) says that the general age of console owners is now around 27 years (and still, of course, mostly male) : It's funny to see how the last few years
Whereas I am a gamer at heart (grew up with a Vic20 and an Atari 2600), I don't know yet if this development has brought me more pros or cons. Let's find out in the future, when adaption of games by the masses will even become bigger :
With Nintendo's Revolution I can even imagine my grandma picking up the controller and giving it a try : It's so much more intuitive than a controller is.
Generally speaking, towards the end of each console's lifecycle you will see a decline in interest. That's why it is the end of the lifecycle. You saw that between the 2600 and the NES, the NES and the Genesis / SNES, the Genesis and the Playstation, and the Playstation and the PS2. If popularity of a console wasn't declining, they likely wouldn't replace it.
Likewise, it is well known that consoles and gaming in general do better during economic downturns. As we seem to be coming out of a deep recession into a reasonably good economy, it's not surprising that highly escapist forms of entertainment are less attractive, compared to traveling or spending time in the real world.
Third, an annoying thing that tends to speed up the decline of consoles at the end is that the publishers are all refocusing their attention and development resources on the upcoming platforms. There just isn't much to buy. What is Microsoft releasing for the Xbox this year? Has anyone managed to squeeze real development dollars out of SONY for the PS2 in the past year?
This is the normal cycle of the gaming industry. I'm not surprised. Things will pick up again in two to three years once the next console wars has really kicked off.
The ______ Agenda
The video game industry produces more than $10 billion dollars a year. That's more than the Hollywood. I don't think interest is on the decline, and I really don't think they care if teenagers aren't interested - Who says their target market is teenagers anyway??
At first kids would talk and play with their next door neighbors. Then they come out with books. Kids read to escape their dull lives by going to Treasure Island or the Little House on the Prairie. Then radio broadcasts come out and kids can listen to the Shadow or Little Orphan Annie and kids forget about their books. Then TV comes along and they can watch I Love Lucy or see Ed Sullivan introduce the new coolest bands and kids forget about radio programs. Then LSD, marijuana, and smoking bannana peels comes out and kids forget a lot of things.
Then video games come out with Pac-Man, Mario, Madden, MGS, and Halo and kids forget that they were addicted to drugs and become addicted to video games. Then the internet comes out and kids can talk and play with kids (and adults posing as kids) miles away, and kids forget about scripted forms of entertainment. Then they come out with the male contraceptive pill and all hell breaks loose.
"the failure of real-time on-line video gaming (too much latency)"
Eh? Maybe you need to upgrade your modem and/or move away from Antarctica.
a more mobile generation/society where a typical 16th birthday gift for kids is at least a used car.
Maybe in Belaire. I have news for you - most kids still work for their own cars - if they get one at all. The average gift for a 16 year old is certainly NOT a car of any sort. You've been watching far too much "Super Sweet 16" on MTV.
And cable isn't responsible for taking kids away from videogames. Television viewing is on the decline among the young. And how many young people are smart enough to figure out how to use streaming video or webcams and all that other crap? Sheesh. The average teenager today can barely figure out how to operate AIM so they can join chatrooms and A/S/L everyone.
I believe it could be in part that there hasnt been anything really new or innovative in the past few years. There has been a few titles here and there, but its all been sequels and known formulars. People will get bored of them.
Maybe if this downturn continues long enough (though i doubt with the new consoles) that it will force developers/publishers to try something new. I am going to buy a Revolution coz its so different. A lot of the Xbox 360 titles will be PC titles, I already have one. PS2 might get some funky Japanese stuff, but not as funky as nintendo.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
I would like to point out, that there might be similar declines in music and movies. Lots of consumers seem wary about the quality of newly released movies and music. The industry giants, dealing in art, wish to make product and profits more concrete and attempt to fabricate and force trends onto the public--it's my belief that the music industries stance on P2P software is that it enables the consumer to choose aged music versus the latest and greatest from the studios, eliminating their control over what people purchase.
Now, with movie's with more eyecandy than plot, with music with more glitz and glam than talent, we move onto video games. I own a GameBoy Advanced SP, a Sony PSP and a Sony PS2. The Sony PS2 has only been played a total of 2 hours, purchased while I was on a business trip to pass time while in the hotel. The PSP, serves more as a cheap and very nice movie player for trips, and as a bit of interactive benefit, it plays a few games too. The GameBoy Advanced SP, was only purchased inspite my ex, it's pretty much useless. OK, with those systems defined, I have purchased games for all. Many new games on the shelf, are modeled after the same movies in the box office. If the movies aren't worth a flip, why would a game based off that movie be any better? As it turns out, that flawed logic actually has weight in this circumstance. I purchased SpiderMan for the GB Advance and being an aged gamer who remembers the Atari 2600, Sega Genesis et al. I was stunned to learn I had beat the game. I had no idea. The game sucked, I was hoping it would get more difficult or exciting... then, with no forewarning, the glamorous presentation marking the games defeat showed and I was amazed. After telling my friend about this experience, he informed me that is what I get for buying a game based off a movie. A game that's crap, slapped together while the movie is still fresh in the consumers mind, no game play value whatsoever in favour of the image of conformance to what the movie presented.... trash, something to bleed the consumer for more money off on top of a 10 dollar ticket stub and 5 dollar drink at a mega cinema complex.
Gazing upon BestBuys shelves, noticing the implications of the covers to games, I noticed that a considerable number of games were based off of some movie. All the movies suck. If it were exciting to make music, they'd probably have a game based off of Britney Spears and then turn around and think that people aren't interested in gaming becuase noone wants to purchase the Britney Spears Dance game.
What happened to all the talented game developers out there? The guy who come up with PacMan? What about Tetris? Quake was a revolutionary game, Dungeons and Dragons? Have all the smart people, who are able to concoct a difficult puzzle working on the next release of Myst? What happened to the guy who wrote Burger Time? Did the guys who made the first Killer Instinct all retire? What happened to games like Zelda, and Super Mario Bros? Games are supposed to be fun (addictive), increase in difficulty to offer some kind of reward for the effort. But, todays games, simply lack both. Many games on the shelf are neither rewarding nor addictive. That's sad.
Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got - it sounds to me more like teenagers play less videogames as they get older. Otherwise you'd need to compare each age vs each age in previous years, not have each individual rate if they play more or less games than they did a year ago. Of course you're going to play less games when you're 16 as opposed to when you're 17--- you can drive and aren't stuck at home.
-Nick
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
As we seem to be coming out of a deep recession into a reasonably good economy
Not for somebody in the midwestern United States with a bachelor's degree in computer science. I even get turned down when I apply for minimum wage jobs.
We were not well-to-do at all, and got both of our daughters cars (to my objection) when they turned sixteen. And, virtually everyone in their peer group also had cars. Again, a demographic not rich by any means.
My friends of a younger generation also are giving their kids cars... if I guessed the percentage it would exceed 75%. Again, not a rich (but not poor) demographic. I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just reporting what I've seen.
And, cable isn't the only thing I listed. I do see kids playing with video cameras, digital cameras, etc. The suite of options is greater today and I think the affinity for activities is more spread spectrum because of that and the video game niche takes a hit from that.
I agree lots of kids today barely lift their energy beyond learning the basics of IM, but IM is an incredible black hole for kids' time and energy, again, taking away some from video gaming.
I think all things collectively contribute to this.
Good thoughts though.
If you have a GBA and can't find any good games for it then you aren't looking in the right places. I recently bought a DS (for when I travel for work) and a big reason for my buying it was GBA backwards compatibility. I went to gamespot.com and sorted their GBA reviews by rating and then read the reviews that most interested me, and then bought the 6 games that I thought I would most enjoy.
And you know what, they are a blast. Yeah, half of them I had to order on-line and some were ports or adaptations of old games (Super Mario Bros. 3, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Metroid: Zero Mission), but they were dang enjoyable games. Yeah, there's a lot of crap out there, but you can sift through it if you try.
They use the fact that teens say they play less videogames this year than last year as evidence that gameplaying is declining, when I have NEVER seen any teen, hardcore gamer or not, actually increase the amount of time they play videogames increase as they get older. Most likely because lives only get more complicated as you grow, and as such there is less time for games. Try stacking up this year's teens against last years teens of the same age and maybe I'll start listening.
I think there is a remote chance that the Revolution will be able stop the current decline.
No Sig For You
a more mobile generation/society where a typical 16th birthday gift for kids is at least a used car.
Anecdotal experience indeed!
I'm 20, and live in an upper-middle class suburban area near Albany. I don't know a SINGLE person that got a car for their birthday. Actually, I don't know anybody who was just given a car for any occasion. I know people whose parents HELPED them buy cars, certainly, but I think in each case the parents made the kids pay at least half. Up-front, usually.
Daddies have been giving and taking away t-birds for decades now.
Even outside of the "My daddy owns three companies and drives a different ferrari every day of the week" group, parents are giving their kids cars... new or used... to alleviate the harried mom effect, and to give their young adults some freedom and responsibilities. Sure, many work for those cars, but for quite a few of those, that "work" consists of "go pick up your little brother and these groceries". With most households having two or more cars, its easy to see that many of them are just getting the family car.
the previous article is discussing gaming addiction, while this one is about how gaming is on the decline
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
2005 hasn't been the golden year for video gaming in the first place. Halo 2 came out '04, Ninja Gaiden Black is nothing more than a 'gold edition', almost every successfully selling PS2 is a sequal of some time (I [heart] Katamari anyone?) and Nintendo is (still) off doing their own thing with slow, timed releases. PC gaming hasn't been much better with the RTS scene only getting a Dawn of War expansion, Guild Wars is arguably a niche game, Battlefield 2 is a buggy mess, and the only other highly noted games being released for the rest of the year is Serious Sam 2 which could suffer from lack of advertisement and Quake 4 which Doom 3 haters may end up passing up.
From clueless analysts. I am really tired of hearing all these analysts using their surveys to tell us that the games industry is in for a down turn. More people are playing games than ever and I don't see that changing. Do they think people will go back to passively absorbing TV? Surveys on the whole are pretty useless because people lie or say what they think is the right answer instead of what they really feel.
Sorry, but I grew up in a lowish middle class southern town. I got a car shortly after turning 17. It wasn't the greatest car, but I did drive it until I was 24. 80% of my peers had cars of some description as well.
:-)
I now live in a very rich area of California. Most of my co-workers' kids have cars (those who are 16+).
My experience doesn't match yours. And, like yours, means nothing statistically.
A quick glance doesn't seem to show anything special. However:
- The school/university year just started.
- School/uni is still being hyped as essential, more so since there are too many potential Bill Gates to even get your foot in the door. Thus, most people place a bit more focus on study.
- In some fields, you need to max out your skillset by studying, practice, etc... This takes away time from entertainment (even if it is something passive, such as watching CSI.)
- Those unemployed... generally thing job hunt is a 30hr/week task because they aren't told otherwise. (Either that, or other entries to tho workforce do not work.)
- The latest batch of games are being called rehashes.
- The classical batches are becoming harder to play - either because of emotional buildup against repetition, more primitive interface, or some other reason.
- Some people need to work 80-hours a week to keep employment. (Or keep up with school work...)
- All of this, in addition to comments by other posters.
This is no suprise. Perhaps the study should focus on amount of recreation tima available.
my mom used to always tell me:
"less gaming, more freestyle rapping"
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
I wonder why people wouldnt want to play Halo 2, Resident evil 4, Burnout 3, or Madden 2006 unless they alread own Halo Resident Evil 3 Burnout 2 or Maddden 2005....hmmm
But seriously there are many original games out there that are not sequels, Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance, Katamari Datmacy for the Playstation 2, Forza Motor sports Xbox, Ninja Gaiden xbox (totally not a sequel I dont care what anybody says), Paper Mario 1000 year door game cube (yes kinda a sequel, but no one played the original), Pikmin game cube, Metroid Prime game cube, Metroid zero mission, Deus Ex 2 (xbox, pc), Shin Megami Tensi: Digital Devil Saga (PS2), Ape Escape 2 (PS2) Rome Total War, Star trek: Starfleet command 2 (pc). game boy advance, all these games are amazingly awesome and will glue you to the game as if life outside the game did not exist. (starfleet command made me lose a fiance).
There are a ton of awesome and original game experience, but no one ever buys them, they would rather buy something familiar rather than risky, because games are too expensive. If we could get a digitial distribution system where games cost $15 bucks instead of $50 mabey people would take more risks on good games instead of just buying madden and rainbow 6.
You know what ? I'm actually pleased when I see kids playing video games. At least they're not out blasting their godawful walmart subwoofers in my general direction, or driving into my fender, or making babies' babies, or getting arrested for getting loopy on bleach tablets thinking it was E, while drinking underage in a gang-operated nightclub.
Hell, I wouldn't want to be a teenager today, and I was one of the "bad kids".
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Just like the Game industry supposedly passes Hollywood in monetary gain, so to have the models been copied in the creation of content. So many of the games today, for any console, are hyped up, multi-million dollar crap fests. People scream "Mature!" and expect blood, gore, and sex, but it just gets tiring after a while.
The problem with the old consoles (from Sega and Nintendo) was that the high cost and propierty of cartridges made it hard for companies to break in, not to mention home brewers. While I can't say personally, the programming and effort required to create a AAA game back then is probably considerably less than what it is now. Compare production times and cost for Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past with what is being pumped into Twilight Princess. I'm not saying the high cost/time isn't unwelcome- I have TP pre-ordered, and eagerly await it. I'm willing to pay for it, and so are probably a million other people out there.
But the fact remains that for every Twilight Princess, one might have been able to make three Link to the Pasts. People are so focused on 3D ultra graphics with realistic gore that gameplay is often forgotten (but not by Nintendo!) Rarely do you see a 2D game for consoles today. Viewtiful Joe proved that 2D gaming with 3D environments can be a blast. There was also this crazy little fighter, you might know it, Super Smash Brothers, which also used 3D environments but with 2D movements, a much easier feat to pull off.
Then we have the fact that many of the "hit" games are sequals. Burnout 3, GTA 4, Halo 2, the list goes on. The gaming market desperately craves new games and originality, but the producers (ala EA) refuse to put out, due to basically the high cost/time and how hard it is to recoup the money if a game sinks.
That's why I think Nintendo's Revolution is correctly labeled. With this new way to control games, a fresh thrust will be put into the gaming market. Entire new genres may be created (First Person Adventure, anyone?), and we will certainly see a lot more maneuverability and originality. Yes, they have the shell, but with the remote, companies will be booed by the press for not coming up with a way to use it and just reverting to the same old controller setup that other companies rely on. I would bet a small fortune that Microsoft and Sony will be copying Nintendo to some extent with their next-next-next gen "media stations".
Anyway, to increase the interest, the console runners (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) should reward originality. How they do this is up to them, but it needs to be done. Next, open up the consoles for homebrew. Don't want arbitrary code to run on the console? Fine, create your own pseudo-Java or C language (but you can bet the Linux guys will get something out of it, anyway), set up "micro" dev kits, and sell them to the masses. Look at the Dreamcast; it's been dead to the mainstream for a long while, but, to my knowledge, it's still a homebrewer's wet dream.
Finally, offer shorter games. Yes, yes, "Gasp!". Consider that, though the teenage market is a large one, it's still the younger adults (18-30) who are buying a good heap of the games. These people have nifty things like jobs, and many have families. Games that require 60 hours of input can be fun and all, but it's nice just to have something you can pop in, play for 10-20 minutes, and turn off without worrying about saving anything. What we need are games like tetris. But not tetris, because we've all played that already. Wario Ware is a good forray into this area; pick up, play a few rounds, put down. Auto-saves (I believe,) and simple.
... more interested in fine-ass brunette in English class. Film at 11!
Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance
Is a sequel. Nintendo made Fire Emblem on the Family Computer years ago... IN JAPAN!
Ape Escape 2 (PS2)
I'm not up on the Ape Escape series. Please clue us in on how a game with 2 in the name isn't a sequel. Or is it that there was no Rainbow 5?
If we could get a digitial distribution system where games cost $15 bucks instead of $50
Then the console makers wouldn't be able to subsidize their hardware products.
You make console homebrew in your spare time. You ported Lumines to the GBA. You've written up 400 things at everything.com. People glow about you on wikipedia. You've contributed to open source projects.
b s_all
Send your portfolio to one of the dozens of companies that do Game Boy development. Most companies don't publicise their openings, so send it anyway.
http://thq.kenexa.com/thq/cc/Home.ss
http://corporate.infogrames.com/hr.html?action=jo
Nintendo
Activision
EA
etc...
While you're at it, try Red Hat. They like to hire people who have contributed to open source projects, and have cool / geeky hobbies.
While you're doing that, learn to drive a car. After years of playing arcade racers, you should feel right at home. Then get your ass out to California, New York, Boston, or possibly Austin, where actual software development takes place. My girlfriend's recruiter keeps calling and calling... It's really quite different than the way things were 3 years ago. Hell, I'm turning down work, and I haven't looked for a job in two years.
If you distill everything you've done down, your resume must look impressive. Just get out to where jobs actually are and get your life going... Though definitely apply everywhere you might want to live, whether or not you are currently there. Lots of places do some degree of covering moving costs or offering signing bonuses. And scraping together enough money for a plane ticked from friends is a lot easier when you have a good-paying job waiting on the other end.
BTW, when applying for minimum-wage jobs, lie about your education. Always pretend to have the appropriate education for the job you're targeting. Usually that means "some college," or even "College degree," but never "BS in computer science from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology." People don't like to hire people for minimum wage jobs who aren't going to be trapped there. Be slightly more impressive than the average min wage worker, but not much beyond that.
The ______ Agenda
"the failure of real-time on-line video gaming (too much latency)"
Er, what? There are currently 254814 players (and 55392 games) on Battle.net (and World of Warcraft doesn't even use b.net), and that's just one company's online service (albeit one of the biggest ones). Of course traditionally most online play has been for the PC, but Xbox Live has been pretty popular, and latency is not a major issue for anyone with broadband (which is most heavy gamers these days).
Quite wrong, broadband usually means a fat pipe, it doesn't say anything about the latency. For example satellite has a really fat pipe, but the latency sucks big time. Plenty of adsl areas get crappy latency to most of the world.
1. The tactic to release most stuff for christmas isn't new, but in 2004 it got ridiculous and in 2005... well, let's just say there was almost nothing released the whole summer. (Followed by a rush to release unfinished stuff in September, presumably because everyone realized the case of all demand and no supply on the market.)
You know it's a bad year when Penny Arcade makes a strip about them buying Barbie Horse Adventures because nothing else got released in months. You know it's even worse when you actually take that as a hint to go to the shop and look for Barbie Horse Adventures. I swear to god, I actually did.
So, well, I'm not surprised a bunch of people have said they've played less in 2005, simply because there was a severe drought of stuff to play.
2. Additionally, one thing you need to understand is the way people answer in surveys. The answers invariably reflect the way people would like to be, or the way that would make them more socially acceptable, not the way they really are.
E.g., if a community publically values helping each other and stuff, people will invariably tell a surveyor "oh, yes, we help each other on the farm all the time and we even help each other build a house"... even when the last time that's actually happened was in the 50s. E.g., if a (ex-tribal) culture values being a warrior and a hunter, almost everyone will declare themselves one in a survey... even though almost all their food comes from agriculture, and most of the population has never even seen a weapon recently. E.g., at one point where meat prices went up, everyone declared in surveys that they eat less meat... even though the meat consumption has actually _doubled_.
All three above are actual cases studied by various anthropologists.
It's not even a case of consciously lying, it's just selective confirmation, because everyone wants to have some self-esteem. So they alter their perception of reality a little, remember the things they did right, or close enough, and quickly forget the things they did wrong.
What I'm getting at is that you should take such surveys with a grain of salt. With the anti-games campaign by the media and politics reaching such a climax, and games being presented as pure filth for degenerates... well, I can imagine a lot of people would like to look a bit less degenerate. So they'll adjust their answers accordingly.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I read your comment with interest, but sadly that will not happen. Here's why:
The media hates Nintendo. I don't know why, I don't pretend to know why, but they do, read almost any mainstream news outlet's report on Nintendo and it's always "child focused", or "younger gamer".
Secondly, the public (UK, but probably US as well) see Nintendo as that. As part of my community enrichment project at school, I tried to organise a GCN tournament of Soul Calibur 2. It bombed, everytime I brought the subject up, I was *laughed at*. Despite the fact that the game is a 15+ and is a multi-format game, my peers seemed to think that playing on a Nintendo console would make them somehow less mature, or less "manly".
Nintendo has no problems whatsoever with technology or development. Nintendo has a problem with perception
Don't you think that's only going to make your children more dependent on you? I mean, really, if kids don't work for cars, toys, CDs, games, clothing, etcetera, they don't appreciate them as much. If your daughters worked for their cars, and spent a summer of working retail and saving money, maybe they would learn financial independence and responsibility.
Not that I'm insulting your daughters, but don't be surprised if they come to you with a "Ooooh daddykins!" attitude every time they need new oil for their cars.
You have to remember that this is the end of the current generations life cycle. In just a few months, the Xbox 360 will come out, and later the PS3 and Revolution. New consoles will certainly regain interest in console gaming.
and it's hard to find anyone that will accept a pre-order for them, I don't buy the argument that consoles are losing interest. It took me a while to find a pre-order package that my web hosting company is going to be giving away...
We had agreements with them about what constituted qualifying to keep their cars. They had to maintain a GPA (one graduated Valedictorian of her class of 600 students, got straight A's, and is now a doctor and has been invited to participate in a prestigious research project; the other maintained a 3.5 out of 4 GPA, and is a teacher today). They BOTH worked, and paid for their own gas.
We did give them things but we were strict and insisted they be part of the community, e.g., hold jobs, and do community (volunteer) work.
So, yes, we did give them cars, but not to just hop into and go out and do whatever they wanted.
Your concerns are valid. I see many kids exhibiting what you describe: financially dependent; spoiled; and without a clue where things come from. These are probably the kids I worry about most.
True but irrelevant. No one gets satellite internet to play games. ADSL/cable modem gets good latency to nearby (few hundred miles) areas, enough to find a populated server with a 60 msec ping and play on it, assuming you're playing something fairly popular and don't live in the central Sahara. Of course you're not going to sit in LA and play on a server in South Africa, no-one ever thought that would be possible: the lightspeed limit means a minimum ping of 130 msec.
As someone who has played games since before I could ride a bicycle, I can tell you flat out that the reason for the decline in player's interest has nothing to do with other distractions, competing media or new health fads. It's all down to the simple fact that games are simply not as good as they used to be.
I might sound like an old coot, but believe me the signal to noise ration on game store shelves had been consistently declining year on year for the past five years.
There was a time ~1999-2000, when at every month at least one new innovative, fresh and enjoyable masterpiece of a game was guaranteed to come out. These days, your lucky if such a game comes around every six months, or even a year. Last summers drought of halfway decent games was indicative of this malaise.
I couldn't figure out the reason for this decline, paticularly given the abundance of new hardware power to play with. I would say that there is no one reason for this. A big factor is simply that too much time is being spent meeting some arbitrary graphics standard, which is always going up, instead of coding something that is fun. Another factor is the big publishers like EA, who consistently turn out basically fairly awful games which make money due to marketing campaigns.
Then there's increasing budgets(most spent on graphics), fixation on online play(for more revenue), fixation on releasing uninnovate sequels(Madden, FIFA, Burnout , etc, etc), increased sexual selling(this has gotten worse), higher prices(across the board), fixed prices(all games are not of equal value), insistence on realism(in a game?), pandering to the lowest common denominator(people who hardly play games at all), and a genuine adversion to taking risk(the destroyer of innovative markets).
The next console generation does not excite me AT ALL. It's rather shocking. Basically all I see is higher resolution texture versions of the crud I'm getting now, with shadow and lighting effects, new physics engines, "movie-like" soundtracks, voice acting and cut scenes, peppered about in an effort to sell me a game that simply at its most basic level, isn't very good to play. There's only so many times I can get burned before I simply stop buying. Developers seem to have forgotten amid all the cruft and crome that they are making something which is to be played, not watched.
I shocked myself last week when I realised that I haven't bought a game in over eight months. Quite a shock to me considering I had previously been an avid gamer. Whwnever I walk into a store these days, all I see is basically shelf upon shelf of rubbish. The chances of finding that diamond in the rough are decreasing all the time.
Time was you could rely on the "Big release", usually some in house development, as being a guarateed bang for your buck. Those days are gone. Nowadays nothing is guaranteed, except perhaps some lighting effects and a CGI into sequence. Whoop de do.
The game industry is getting more like the movie industry every day. As you can guess, I'm not a cinema going man myself.
May the Maths Be with you!
I agree with every point you've made. I grew up in the 1980s when video games were a great novelty, which made even the bad ones seem great, now that we're inundated with them it's a chore to be bothered to find a good one. I'd be really interested in seeing surveys on how many people who used to be hard-core gamers are now down to short sessions that occur daily at most, and find out how many of them just got bored with playing the same old recycled game ideas and moved on to more rewarding hobbies.
We did give them things but we were strict and insisted they be part of the community, e.g., hold jobs, and do community (volunteer) work.
Not that that's a bad thing, but doesn't FORCING someone to do "volunteer" work make it less "volunteer" and more "unpaid"?
I've been playing Madden 2004, NCAA football 2003, Mike Tyson's Punch Out and other outdated games for the last few years. My interest in these games hasn't declined, but my blind willingness to buy an "improved" copy of a game i own has been impaired by age.
Although no longer a teen, I still play quite a few hours of videogames per week (not having kids results in a good chunk of free time- w00t), however, they are "comfort games", things I can play while listening to CDs, chatting on the phone, and running IM.
In pure economic terms, if my marginal returns on games I own are not noticeably decreasing, why would I invest in something new.
We "insisted", never forced them. Never even brushed up against forcing them to do volunteer work. I guess my choice of the word "insist" misled, for that I apologize. Never said, do this volunteer work, or else. Never said you can't "...", if you don't do volunteer work.
As for having jobs, working for their own money, no stick there either. They had strong work ethics and having jobs was something they took pride in, both of them.
-cheers., -yagu
And guess what. I play video games more than ever these days. Perhaps the decline has to do with the end of the console cycles? The last big hit to pull people into gaming was sadly Halo and Halo 2, and all they've done is spawn the underbelly of gaming society, the Halo Freaks. Perhaps it's because they don't play the right video games? The great games on the DS have revived my interest in gaming completely.
I'm seeing a lot of kids who have nice cars, nice clothing, nice cellphones, and can't possibly work more than 20 or 30 hours a week.
Not that I'm saying nice things aren't important, and that they don't deserve them, but they just don't appear to appreciate them. Half the girls pull their cellphones out after class and start calling their friends to talk for the whole ten minutes between classes, and they all have at least decent cars.
Now, I don't have anything against rich people, I just think they should earn it.
As an avid gamer, I can say that after discussing the topic with friends it is partially due to the way the games are built nowdays along with the internet. Back in the days of 'Tomb Raider', 'Goldeneye', 'Final Fantasy'.. the games kept you interested and made you want to play for long periods of time mainly due to the fact there was nothing else to do.
Now with most households having the internet, kids find better stuff to do online and would rather read about the new games consoles coming out than play games on their PS2. I think we will see more and more growth in the PC and consoles being intergrated with the internet markets
Business Voyeur
As strange as it seems, my interest in gaming is on the decline, but that's because I'm in college and don't have enough time to play games and avoid studying:-)
This sig is false.
There are certainly plenty of spoiled children - and I wouldn't be surprised if half of all 16 to 18 year olds own or have access to a car - possibly even their own. However, I think that the number of people who just flat out buy a car for their child is slim. Perhaps as a graduation present - I don't know. I'd never buy one for my kid. Nobody ever bought one for me. My two siblings worked their asses off at low-paying crappy highschool jobs to afford their own used cars and most people I know both my age group and theirs (they're a decade younger than I am) paid for their own.
Now, the number of "necessities" for young people these days could be one aspect of why gaming is "down" (at least, in the context of number of hours the average person plays). That is, unless you come from an upper-middle class to wealthy family, your parents probably are not paying for your college, your car and insurance, your cell phone or any other activities. This means young people are working as early as allowed and putting in plenty of hours to afford the things they need and want to have.
When I was a kid (and probably you, too) - a cell phone was hardly a necessity. The bus system probably served us to get to and from our first jobs until we were a bit older. We set our sites on hanging out and doing things at the arcade or the mall or downtown with our buddies rather than going on vacation on the other side of the country with our friends and expensive accomodations.
I just get irked when I hear people talk as if most or even all kids are just given cell phones or cars or parents are just simply expected to dump $100k on their child's college. It does a disservice to all of the hard working kids out there who have to bust their asses for each and every one of those things - either because mom and dad are of modest means, are actually poor or maybe they just decided that Junior was going to have to foot his own bill in life if he wanted all those extra things.
Now, as far as the whole premise of this "study" - I think it's misguided. Gaming is more popular than ever. The average hours played may go down, but that's because of the number of new players getting into the world, dropping the average - because not every new gamer is going to be a 40 hour per week gamer like many of the older gamers would be.
This is just sensational crap to get some hits and attention, anyway.
If anything, myself and those I game with are looking to get OFFLINE. Bottom line: we don't want our gaming experiences to be manipulated by others. We deal with that shit in the real world. It'd be nice to, you know, play a game every now and then. When I play something online, I'm repeatedly managing other people's shit. That's not gaming. FUCK ONLINE.
Finally I am going to use some numbers that no one has tried yet for the car argument. About 1/2 down this page http://www.suntimes.com/output/auto/cst-fin-teen14 .html, you will find stats showing that 9% of 16-17 yr olds had new cars and 36% of 16-17 yr olds have used cars. Now assuming worst case scenario that their parents bought them these cars, that is only 45% of 16-17 yr olds with their own cars, not a majority unless my math has failed me.
Now, assuming that at least some percentage of those are paying for their cars and for the gas and maintenance, shit I would be surprised if they could even afford video games or had time to play them, the amount of money they'd be spending on gas these days and the time working to pay for them.
Trust me there are still a great majority of people where they do not get cars at all. This varies greatly by where you live because there are some places where a car is almost unnecessary to get around. There are also some places where a car is almost fully essential. Also some of these people with used cars are probably getting the car their parents at sitting around. My first car a 1985 Chevy S-10 that was 13yrs old when I turned 16. It had been used so long the tires were dry rotted and had to be replaced.
Ummm...how short of a period are you using for the "quantum leaps" in game tech? I remember playing on Coleco Vision in the '80s growing up and playing on NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis, N64, PSX, DC, PS2, and Xbox (probably missed some in there) over time (Note: I've only owned a NES, PSX, DC and PS2 and I bought all but the NES).
These game consoles certainly had more then better graphics going for them. There have been entire genres created and re-created on the consoles in this amount of time. There is also the evolution of the controller, which is still happening. There have been forays into new gameplay methods (microphone of Seaman, the Powerglove, the DDR dance pad...the list goes on). Trust me the game consoles have changed, just a great many of you forget that there were consoles before the Playstation.
I don't know about the distracting technologies argument. Many of these things are beginning to merge. I mean my cellphone plays games, has digital photography (and video), plays MP3s, allows "chatting." These "distracting technologies" are actually merging into single devices. Even the PS3 and Xbox 360 are trying to combine the "media" experience into the consoles. Yes cable and satellite have 200+ channels of which most people watch like 20 (I don't even think I get that many, college football, Whose Line, Family Guy, HD programming...I probably would survive with 20 or fewer channels if I got to pick them). Besides TV sort of counters your mobile argument next does it not? Also with integration of these "distracting techs" in handheld systems (a la PSP), the emerging tech and mobile generation begin to lose a bit more strength in their argument.
I addressed the getting a car argument above. While it does happen, I do not think it is as prolific as you think. Many of the parents I know set the...get a car...get a job rule. Where they may get you one, or help you buy one...but you are going to work. It also becomes a lot easier if your kid is big on extracurricular activities. (Note: To parents with daughters, the two seater is great...no back seat to worry about, if you know what I mean.)
The failure of real-time gaming? Yeah World of Warcraft has been a total flop. Diablo 2 didn't last for ages. Sporting games do run into problems on occassion but not so much as people would think. Oh wait remembered a console game that worked well, HALO!
Really your "anecdotal" experience is more like none at all. I think you will find that gaming might slowly be returning to its niche (though it might be a larger one). It is quite possible this crazy surge of console gaming is coming to an end. We might look back on this in 10 or 20 years and say, wow remember that crazy fad where everyone loved gaming...
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
There's always a lot of debate about this (I had to do 25 hours of "volunteer" work to graduate high school), but on balance, forced volunteer work does teach youngsters to a) figure out how to volunteer; b) see what help it can do; c) provide unpaid labor to (presumably) good causes.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
There seem to be a ridiculous number of "The Nintendo Revolution will save the gaming world, even though we know of no software for it, have only seen a few proof-of-concept demos and have no idea how the control will work in real life" Posts? Kinda funny, kinda sad.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
hey! you're only ONE!
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
as someone who works in a toyshop (that sells games) I see 4 million FPS games, about that racing games, and a couple of budget titles that have originality. what's wrong with this picture? only a unique, hyped game or a popular liscense get purchased, and I'm left explaining to someone why they should buy beyond good and evil even though they have never heard of it another point- as an Australian, we don't get local content. you can bet that a few people bought GT4 and Juiced because they want Australian cars- same with V8 Supercars (which I don't think they have in the US) and AFL 2005 (which you wouldn't want in the US) so if we could have more local content, lots more sales this is the downside of having EA make everything
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
Which child is better? the pristiguous research one or the teacher?
As far back as I can recall, the "dominant gaming platform" has bounced back from consoles to computers and back every few years.
In my first recollection of "gaming", it was *ALL* about the Atari 2600. *EVERYONE* had to have one, and if you talked about games on the *computer*, you were a joke. Then, everyone lost interest in consoles, seemingly overnight, and it was computer games or nothing; as the C64 gained popularity and the Apple ][ series gained a reasonable amount of RAM. Later, the NES, Super NES, and Genesis wrestled the gaming mind-share back to consoles for a while. Then, in the mid-late '90s, and especially as modems became standard equipment; computers came back, and it was all about who had the Voodoo 2, and who was this newcomer Nvidia; and whatever consoles came out were uninspiring "also-rans". Then, in the beginning of this century, the Dreamcast and PS2 re-captured everyone's interest in console gaming; and it's the PC that's the uninspiring "also-ran" of the gaming world.
So, if the pattern holds, it's simply the *TIME* for everyone to forget about consoles, and go back to PC gaming for a while. Nothing to see here, eh?
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Note: I'm not the same AC as the one you replied to.
d) build lifelong resentment against the "good" cause in a portion of the forced "volunteers".
True story: Liberal teacher dragged a class of 30 of us to antinuke/green/pro-welfare "causes" as "volunteers". A crafty Young Republican went along with the class and recruited 6 of the 30 (myself included) to the Party.
We wound up spending the next fall pounding pavement as real volunteers. For Reagan '80. We were happy to do it. We were proud of what we were doing. And we (well, 5 of the 6 - one left the Party in college, but balancing that out, two became honest-to-Dobbs hardcore Randroids, going even further than the rest of us, who considered ourselves merely pro-industry/pro-business technocrats / "country club" Republicans :) were pround of what we'd accomplished.
I don't write this to slag on my old teacher - I'm sure fundie churches do the same things to their members :)
The moral of the story is merely this: be careful in what you "volunteer" (force) your kids to do. You may end up creating volunteers -- but they'll be volunteers for the other side.
P.S. And yes, the 5 of the 6 of us who remained miss our Party too. The Fundies took it over fair and square, but that doesn't mean we don't regret it.
Eh, in my family, when you graduate from college, you get the most used car.
I got an 1986 mercury lynx in 1999.
My sister got a 1993 Ford Focus (with the basic engine, the thing was so slow) in 2002.
My other sister was supposed to get the decript minivan when she graduates next year, but she totaled it. I'm not sure what she'll get now, she'll get something, but it won't be a nice or a new something.
The thinking behind this is we need something to get us to our new jobs, and it's nice to start off your post-college life without a payment book. My poor mercury lynx lived two years of my hard driving abuse before it died, but by that time I had gotten a raise and could afford a new car. The idea is just to get a small push into life, not a silver spoon.
I miss my lynx, she was a good car. Plus, nobody would bother to break in to her....
Tepp
It all depends on where you live. When I was in high school, most of the students parents bought them cars, etc. In fact, luxury cars were not uncommon.
My family was not nearly as well off, and I had to buy my own. But nothing annoyed me more than some chick bragging about the Beemer that daddy bought her. (And this was about 7 years ago. It's even worse there now. Spoiled rich kids.)
While I certainly don't agree with the outright gifting of cars, there's no reason cars can't be loaned to kids if the circumstances are right.
I put myself through college mostly on my own dime. I worked my ass off in high school to get good grades, which turned into merit + need based financial aid. I worked full-time summer, and part-time during the year.
For college, I took my high school economics teacher's advice: that a car was a money pit. I didn't need a car living so close to campus, so for the first two years I didn't have one. But I did need a car to move home during the summer and winter breaks, and my parents got tired of that.
When they bought a new car, instead of trading in their old 91 Corolla, they loaned it to me. Since I didn't own it, they stipulated that they would pay the insurance if I handled the upkeep, and transported myself. They figured it would solve their problem while giving me more freedom.
(And my economics teacher was right. That car was STILL a money pit)
It was a good compromise. They didn't come back to my campus until graduation, and shortly thereafter got my own car. The Corolla was later loaned to my sister.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: pure evil!