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Gaming Industry Going Down?
Stefan Constantinescu wrote to mention an Inquirer article positing that the gaming industry is due for another crash. From the article: "Sadly, the gaming industry is in a self-imposed death spiral. Everyone is putting on a brave face, touting the latest v6 of a game that came out before most of it's audience was born. What was a fun hobby full of creative geniuses and their mad art has become a grey corporate parking lot. We are about to take that dive again, the industry is desperately trying to speed up the process with each passing day. Rather than take a step back, they are addicted to marketing plans and money men. It will kill them, and in a few years, good will arise from the ashes. It happened with arcades, it happened with the first wave of consoles, and is about to happen again. It is high time someone flushed the toilet that the games industry has become, it will do us all a world of good."
I cant remember a time that I've had MORE games on my system than today. The industry seems to be doing fine, although I will admit the signal to noise ratio does seem to be going up..
I know that they aren't near as popular as they once were but isn't it because the consoles can do things just as well as arcade games now? Arcades keep trying to adapt too. They've moved onto more specialized games that you can't recreate as well using a home console.
I'm not an industry person, that's just how I see it.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
I'm not so sure these days. Games seem to be eating Hollywood's lunch, which is bad for theaters, and small development houses grow merge and die off but that's the norm. There's nothing which would indicate a full blown game crash like the 1983 Atari debacle.
{ - Generic Guy - }
From TFA: How many games are not sequels, fight games, drivers, or FPSes? Few. Just like Hollywood (to which the games industry is endlessly compared) the suits control the expenditure and they lack not only the vision but also the cajones to do anything but look backwards and extrapolate from there. If and when there is a correction the next breed/ style of games will come through.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
I guess it's a valid thing to talk about, but look at where we are right now: Video games are actually semi-cool now - they're no longer limited to a nerd's basement, more people are buying games than ever before, and gaming is actually competing with Hollywood. Movies are boilerplate also, and nobody is preaching the impending doom of that industry.
Also the fact that games are becoming cookie-cutter has no bearing on this conversation. If you think that gaming is getting stale now, remember not THAT much has changed since the original Doom.
It seems that the industry is heading for a full on collision with a brick wall. I've noticed that with just about every big movie, there is a game that is being released alongside it. With every big franchise, there will always be a sequal, and sadly they are always better than the first, but never offer anything new. So your left with a happy feeling, but not the same feeling as you would when you play something new.
Take a look at shadow of the collosus or katamari demancy. Should there of been a huge uproar over these games? Yes, because there great games. But its sad how MUCH there adored just because there different.
Even a more sad affair is that the large companies seem to want to bring in more of an audience, to rake in more money, making gaming more mainstream. The mainstream gaming culture is whats bringing gaming to a hault. Sadly its the samething that happened in the 80's, its just a matter of time.
I work in the industry, and I can tell you that this article hits the nail on the head. You see so much more marketting now than every before because the corporate money men want to get their cash and run, and let the developers take the fall when it all comes down. I love capitalism!
I consider the game industry PC, Consoles, and hand helds. PC games like world of Warcraft have strong Sales. Consoles like the new xbox360 has sold well. Hand helds like the Nintendo DS has sold well. I don't see any signs that things are heading toward a downward spiral. What I will say is it takes large budgets to make most modern games, this may balloon up and explode at some point, but I don't think it will crash the industry, it will just force game developers to be more innovative, and hopefully end the yearly updates and releases of games that arn't much diffferent from the previous years and games (EA sports and MMORPG's as examples).
The decline of the gaming industry is because "big media" has gotten involved. They choose the concept (or sequel, or license), then run it through accounting to see if it fits their return on investment requirements. During development, if they suddenly have a concern over quarterly earnings per share, it may be more attractive for them to cut the game off, toss out the staff, and report minutely better earnings.
It's simply quantity (or eye-candy) over quality, just like television. How many reality shows are there, and how long have most halfway thinking adults been entirely through with that theme?
Good shows are really rare, and as we know, some great shows get cut after one episode if the numbers don't show immediately.
Even pimps run better business than big media.
Two games a few years ago that really stood out (and had huge sales, and even huger income/cost ratios) were Re-volt and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Both games were innovative, fun, and even pretty. But they didn't have million dollar rendered movie cut scenes, any advertizing, or big public rollouts.
The one upside to the downside in the game industry is that it forces some of us to re-enter the real world. There are plenty of fun things to do there.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Crappy games are going to kill the games industry at about the same time that rampant and fervent misuse of the comma kills the Inquirer. And don't get me started about "it's".
Seriously though, I don't think games are any worse (or better) now than they were five years ago. There's still cool, original stuff and there are still sequels. Plenty of games are still fun.
Game Company Database
i can see plenty of reasons why this is a puff piece, designed to distract from the truth ...
..
the game industry is full of posers, tho'
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Is the apocalypse nigh? I sure think so. The last one happened at the height of Atari's power, they were invincible, pumping out hit after hit. Pac-Man, ET, Asteroids, movie tie-ins, overflowing arcades and a rabid fan base. They were in the spotlight of the mainstream press, songs making the top 10, and money coming out of their ears. What could go wrong?"
TFA is missing a couple key differences.
(1) Video games are not a nascent market, like they were with the 2600. The biggest market for video games has been playing them their entire life, and have the purchasing power to keep the industry afloat.
(2) PCs and consoles are more ubiquitous in the American home today. The potential market is larger.
I believe that the video game market will not crash. It may not be able to continue in its present form, with tons of high-stakes gambling on low-risk ventures, but the money will be there for the taking... but the terms of competition may change.
If I were a big-time game dev CEO (Ryan, you listening?), I'd be looking at creating an engine that could be used to create many games of different genres & styles... then I'd save on dev costs and be able to focus on content & gameplay. And, be able to license the engine for a long tail.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Just look at the sea change that Nintendo is bringing. End of the polygon wars. A small, low cost console that has a Revolutionary controller. Look at DS and NintenDogs.
Of course, who cares what this guy thinks? That's probably why he's so bitter... it's bad enough he's been working his whole life to become a writer, now suddenly his opinion is worth about as much as some dude on blog*.com...
I'll pay attention when more articles like this start originating from developers, project managers, and game industry execs. Oh, and when whole-dollar-sales of video games start to dip. Call me when all of that happens. Until then, can we ignore crackpots ? That'd be nice. Thanks.
As a consumer nestled well within the target demographic for the industry, I have to say I've bought less games this year than ever before.
Admittedly, it's due in part to the glut of games out there. There's a LOT of games coming out weekly, and scant few are worth spending the money on. The last games I've bought myself are Shadow of the Colossus (my god, what a GREAT game), Burnout Legends (basically BO3 on the PSP), Burnout Revenge (mediocre improvements on 3), and that last Incredible Hulk game (lots of destruction, but who's still playing it?). There have been a huge swath of first person shooters out on the PC, action/adventure games on the console, as well as platformers (what are they up to now, Ratchet & Clank XIII?). But most make small improvements (at best) on existing games.
I'm also a fan of MMOs, and as such am more inclined to play ONE game for a much longer period of time than a game I can finish in a weekend.
I've been watching the next gen consoles with great interest, but to be honest none of the launch titles for the 360 really do much for me. I'm not a fan of sports games, which are the very embodiment of what is wrong with the gaming industry, and I can get Call of Duty 2 on the PC for CHEAPER than the 360. Project Gotham Racing 3 looks nice, but I have like three Gran Turismo games kicking around on my PS2. So what's the incentive?
Graphics? Ok things are looking much nicer, but there's no innovative gameplay out there anymore. The last really impressive console game was Colossus, and that's an "old generation" game.
It might be too early to tell. First batches of games for new console generations usually are the suck, until developers start getting ballsy with the hardware. But I'm hoping the industry doesn't bottom out before then.
Just my opinion.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
If only we could all rip on the games industry as well as this guy does. There was a time when i would have agreed with him, and so would penny arcade (those were good days, good days...) But anyway, I've come to see the games industry the same way i see every creative industry. It's gotten to be large, and innovative. There are many differnt people trying to differnt things differnt ways. Of course, there will be better years, and worse years, knock-offs, blockbusters, trend games, and endless merchandising. But, in the end, these things are natural for this type of industry.
The first video game crash happened because there was only one dominant player in the market, Atari. Its game console was slow to advance, and so developers were forced to release new games that featured the same stale graphics and ideas as games from 5 years ealier. Despite there being other players in the market like ColecoVision and Intellivision, Atari was the dominant force and when sales of Atari units and games dropped the market bottomed out.
Now with 3 dominant players in the market, I wouldn't be so quick to believe or propose that the video game market will bottom out like it did back then.
True, there is a trend to release the "same old games" with new eye candy, as with Quack 4 and and Doom3, the whole industry has been wrapped in the idea that customers are hungry for the next major evolution in 3D graphics, even if its the SAME GAME over and over again. Some offer us better sequels, but many simply offer us the same game in a new package.
But, what the Inquirer article fails to realize is the variety of games out there that will keep the industry a float even if the customer base revolts against sequels.
First, there is a large nostalgia market that has built up over the years. From proprietary game controlers that come with x number of built in classics, to collections being released for new game consoles and on PC, there is a strong market for people looking to go back to a time when games were played that were simple, addictive and one learned to play them by instinct rather then thought.
Second, the mobile sector is striving to offer ubiquitous gaming, on PDA's and cellphones. While not as profitable as game console sales, this is a strong market segment where people like to play the same old puzzle and platform jumpers that have kept them occupied for years. Throw in the PSP's and Gameboy's that revamp games from a generation or two behind the big consoles and you will always find a market of consumers looking for something to occupy their time. Back in the days of Atari, the only electronic mobile games were a few LED's on a static surface.
Thirdly, innovation is still strong in the game industry, Nintendo can attest to that. Between the DS and the upcoming Revolution, Nintendo won't allow the game market to stagnate into a series of cloned sequels. Even though they are now up to Mario Something X, by offering novel (or even gimmicky) game play like dual screens, touch screens, or motion sensors, they can still bank there will be a market willing to eat up these sequels simply because they are offered in a novel form factor (i.e. kids). It might be more rare, but many other companies offer new and innovative games, people just have to live on the wild side and give these titles a try rather then only buying the Quack, Doom, Halflife sequels.
Fourthly, the graphics card market still isn't finished giving us new and improved technology. As long as there are some substantial improvements in game graphics, people will be curious and excited about new games that offer state-of-the-art graphics technology. Game sales will be strong until they hit the photorealistic level of quality, where you can play a game with CG as good looking as what they do in movies. People will want to buy new games simply because they still are avid about buying new graphics hardware. There is also upcoming physics hardware add-ons that will allow for improved realism in terms of offloading complex physics onto a dedicated chip. These games will offer us unprecidented gameplay as they strive to incorporate more advanced physics and realistic interaction within virtual worlds. There will be a big consumer drive to find and play games incorporating this new technology.
Finally, there are still strong sales for repeat visits to old favourites. People are eagerly anticipating a sequel to Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein. Civilization 4 just topped the best sellers list, and I am sure any new Sims sequel will have strong sales along with their plethora of Sims add-ons.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Who is making money? Who isn't?
There's not a shadow of doubt that 8-figure-and-rising development costs per game are utterly unsustainable. The question is, what can be done about it?
The market volume is there, the demand for games is unquenchable, the platforms are in very good shape and gettting better, so the only problem is actually MAKING the products without spending gazillions. And that problem boils down to one (and ONLY one) issue: manpower.
People will immediately object that game assets and development infrastructure cost a lot more than manpower, but my point here is that those things are only *symptoms* of the current problem and not central. You see, game assets only have astronomic price tags when you're licensing a blockbuster title from its blood-sucking owner (and we don't need any more of those), otherwise the cost of assets is simply that of the manpower and computer time needed to create them.
So, here's the most obvious and straightforward solution to the malaise in the gaming industry: knock down the cathedrals of the current games producers, and put game component and game asset development out to tender in the bazaar of the worldwide development community.
Manpower costs would then fall drastically owing to the huge supply of computing skills in the world, and even the machinery costs would plummet since much of it would be personally owned by the distributed developers. Furthermore, this addresses the other two contributory issues that I didn't mention above, lack of reuse in the industry and very little standing on the shoulders of giants. FOSS has a proven track record in that area.
Of course, this doesn't tackle the whole problem, but it certainly rips out its rotting heart. And freed from the shackles of megabuck production costs and the time-to-market issues that they create, I have no doubt that novelty in games will start to flourish again. There is no shortage of amazing ideas in the world.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm sorry but can you clarify what impact a niche handheld system has on the industry as a whole? The N-Gage sold more units than the GP32.
no. ask me again in 6 months.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Pinball is starting to come back so thats where people are going
I was just about to say the same thing. I keep hearing about this crash, but for me there wasn't a crash. I'm not sure what time it was supposed to happen, but I think it was the time I was playing the best games I'd ever seen and they were loads of them coming out all the time. I had a Vic-20, and C64 from about 84 until Sept 87. I only heard about this crash about 5 years ago and I didn't know what people were talking about.
And as for the NES saving us all! HA! I've never even SEEN one in real life (apart from probably in a shop or a computer show/museum under glass). I don't know of a single person who had one and I can't remember anyone ever mentioning playing on one. I'm sure someone I know had one (or played on one), but it's never some up in conversation. The C64, Spectrum, Amiga and even Dragon 32 have all been mentioned several times by people I know, but never an NES (or SNES for that matter).
If we have another "crash" that affects me in the same way as the last one, then it will be the second "golden age of gaming" for me!
Mostly curmudgeony grousing on the article's part, but obviously there's a fair amount of truth in there: the games industry mostly sucks. Or, as a wise fellow once said, 90% of anything is crud.
I don't think a crash is imminent, because we have a different pricing model than we had in the 80s.
Back then, a 2600 game would typically cost $30, unless it was a "hot" title from Atari themselves, in which case it was $40 or $50. Most of the Atari titles did not disappoint, but zillions of third party developers jumped in with horrendous garbage that made the buyer want to shed tears for having been forced to view such a pitiful excuse for gameplay on his television. I think if I'd paid $30 for Mythicon's "Sorcerer" I'd be very unlikely to ever buy another game. Trying out games at kiosks is something only kids have time for.
Nowadays, games (and all technology) come down in price pretty predictably. After a year, a game is $20. ($30 if it's really popular.) After two years, it's $15 or less. After three years, it's in bargain bins, unless it's been sent back to the distributor's warehouse.
I routinely wait two years before getting most games. Maybe that's because I play a lot of single-player and not much multiplayer, so I don't have to worry about whether I'll be able to find a server. For a long time I knew hardly anyone who did the same thing, but I'm starting to encounter increasing numbers of people who practice the same buying strategy.
This is the market in action. Most games suck, and they're not worth $50. I know it. Others have been stung enough that they're starting to notice it. I don't think the gaming industry is in for a crash; I think it's in for a fall. I think starting sometime in the next few years, most games will be $20 or less when they hit the shelves. If that doesn't pay the bills for the extravagant graphics and movie licensing... too bad, guess they should have spent more of that money on gameplay. If "Tetris" didn't teach the lesson that a great game doesn't need great graphics, I don't know what will.
Which brings up another point: true occasional revitalization of the industry comes from true innovations like Tetris. A game concept that's completely unlike anything else. A genre unto itself. Those things are very hard to come up with, obviously, but they do still happen. I think the gaming industry would have fallen a long time ago if Tetris hadn't injected a whole new genre into it. In the 80s, most developers were trying to come up with a new genre; now it's rare but it does still happen once in a while.
Oh, and Charlie... it's the Atari 7800, not the Atari 7200.
The Internet is full. Go away.
This feels different than the crash that occured with the Atari and Intellivision some years ago. At the time, the signal to noise ratio went way up, but it seemed that there were just far too many bad, cheap games. There didn't seem to be the proliferation of sequels and "newer, better, prettier" versions of the same games we'd already purchased.
Now it feels that even though we are getting more sequels, the addition of online play is extending the life of franchises and taking the focus off of the single player storyline and more on the new features that can be used to enhance the gameplay experience, not the story itself.
As I see it, if the gaming industry became filled with moneymen and fewer creative geniuses...
Film, TV, Music... its all the same.
There are only about 1, maybe 2 good films in a year also... but we don't use the
scarcity of quality to predict the downfall of cinema.
The gaming industry is doing fine. On a revenue basis, it grows every year. End of story.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Oh Good! This will give me time to play through the immense backlog of games that I've bought and never played over the past 5 years. Let it rest, I say, let it rest.
The game industry coming to a crash may be true. But it won't be because people dislike having so many sequels or licensed products. Having so many sequels is more of a symptom then a cause. The cause that I see could cause the game industry to fall a bit is money and time.
Games are getting more and more expensive to make. More technologies are required. More people are needed, development times are increasing and now the people making games are even demanding to be treated like people and get time off. Marketing for games is getting exponentially more expensive to reach the larger target audiences. Security for game is increasing to combat against piracy. Also games are requiring additional continuing costs for server maintenance and patch work. That is a lot of money necessary to make a game work in today's market.
To combat these increasing costs game companies have been trying quite a few things. Prices of games are rising, adding advertisements to games brings in some revenue, and sequels and licensed products guarantee a certain amount of return revenue. But everything the game industry does to increase the return of a game just is not keeping up with the pace of the cost increase to create a game.
Eventually game companies just won't be able to keep up and will have to close down. When enough of the companies shut down a lot of the previously mentioned costs will drop. Games will get simpler again, there will be less competition for marketing, technologies will get cheaper, and hopefully piracy will drop down when games get more affordable. When that happens small companies will be able to compete in the industry again and the industry will enter into another climb.
I really do hope it happens actually.
"Is the apocalypse nigh? I sure think so. The last one happened at the height of Atari's power, they were invincible, pumping out hit after hit. Pac-Man, ET, Asteroids, movie tie-ins, overflowing arcades and a rabid fan base."
The same Pac-Man that Atari was left with 5 million unsold cartridges for? The same E.T. that was so lamented that most of the copies of the cartridge came back and are now occupying landfill space in New Mexico? These aren't prime examples.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
Oh I see. You're drumming up hype behind a shitty product. Thanks! Apparently you can actually buy advertising on this site instead of going through the trouble of posting and trying to sound genuine.
i work in the industry, and i have taken to putting more passion into my homebrew projects than in the processes that occur at the office. there is a tangible lack of creativity, and people are here to grab stock before we go public, rather than to work on fun games. my skills as a programmer have been effectively neutralized.
If they'd stop pushing out buggy crap before it's finished just to meet a deadline maybe more of us would buy more games. As it is now I don't have a whole lot of time to play anymore and I need to be extra choosy about what I spend my money on. I'd rather not spend what I thought would be my first play session with a game just patching the damn thing.
Originality seems to be lacking too, developers (I'm looking at you EA) seem to want to stick to what they're sure will work. So we end up with GenericFPS2005 or GenericWWIIShooter or another iteration of [insert professional sports league] 200x. There really is a difference between older games and those that have been developed recently, it seems like the developers genuinely cared about their product back then instead of just meeting a deadline.
There's a reason I've ordered a GP2X (SHIP ALREADY DAMN YOU!) over a PSP.
If whales learn how to use weapons we're all screwed!
The frequent reason I see people having for getting a GP(insert version) is running various emulators. And I highly doubt people will be dumping and playing their own personal ROMs/ISOs of classic games they own.
Lets not forget homebrew, you can get clunky open source PDA applications and games. NO wait a minute, what am I saying.... That can't be true, they never do clones/knock-offs, all their stuff is 100% A+++ quality & bug free, and they sure are not "... full of posers" that fancy themselves to be the saviors of this current "sorry state" of the games/applications/etc industire(s)....
I think the GP32x is a good system(PDA stuff, plays videos, music, homebrew apps, emulators, etc), but I highly doubt this system is going to do jack against the industries as much as people like him claim. Look at the links they provided for crying out loud, it is funny how a section labeled "General [GP32]- Reviews" is full of reviews for SNES, NES, Atari, etc ROMs. And linking to a German and Korean site really does good to sell one the system.
If it is anything like the last one, expect little to no impact. At the most I expect it to do better then the Gizmondo.
Back in the Atari crash, it was more or less a monopoly on home consoles. Nowadays, we have three defined competitors and competition creates quality(....eventually). While that doesn't exactly apply directly, the big three will try to get developers to get some new content out there once the market for rehashes slows down. Gaming will crash just like the world ended in 2000
The press comes up with this every time there's a rollover in the industry of consoles. They appeared when the PS2/Dreamcast/Cube/Xbox arrived, they appeared when the Saturn/Jaguar/PS1/N64 arrived, etc.
The industry will have peaks and valleys for one reason for another - but carping about sequals is beside the point (considering GTA3 was a new game in every right apart from the name means I don't really give this argument the time of day).
The point is the crash of 1984 had more to do with Warner Brothers not having any balls, and Nintendo having them in massive sizes. It had to do with Warner seeing their 75% profit engine stall under insane management, while Nintendo noticed their arcade revenue and console sales in Japan thrive. These sales indicators hinted to Nintendo that the doomsayers in North America were full of shit.
In 1985, Nintendo proved this with the NES. The gaming naysayers have been full of shit ever since. Every - single - one of them. Mass-media, magazines, game-sites, slashdot, politicians and even game designers of yesteryear always crow how they have the "in" and everything is going to go Atari.
You can't - Atari was a one-shot configuration of many - many different things happening all at once, with the end results being a domestic-market panic when Warner pulled the plug. Nintendo didn't care - and ate everyone's lunch.
Now, with Sony getting most of it's current profits from interactive entertainment (because their movie properties and music properties suck) there's some interesting paralells. But given the variety of genre types, the companies with deep pockets that can take billions of dollars in development and wait for returns years out (or in Microsoft's case - decades out) the whole "chickenshit" reportage smacks of PR-ratings pretending to be journalism.
Spare me.
Plus come-on - "theinquirer.net"? Are you fucking kidding me? Wake me up for a real news source slashdot. Jesus tapdancing Christ. What's next - the Weekly World News?
I reloaded Baldur's gate last week and it is sill good. I liked Fallout and Fallout III. I even enjoyed mechwarrior III. I don't recall any games that I have liked since then, and I have rally slowed down on game purchases.
If I could give a bit of advise to game developers, it would be, "don't worry about using the latest game engine, just hire some good writers."
This finance article makes me lose all faith in the video gaming industry, and makes it seem like a sure bet that the industry is going downhill.
There was a lot more to the 1984 crash then the actions of Warner Communications. The market was glutted with titles, many of such low quality that picture would roll. Mattel underestimated its inventory by 100%. Coleco tried to branch out in to home computers.
What Nintendo eventually brought to the marketplace was a console system with proprietary licensing that until that time was considered illegal. You had to have permission from Ninetendo to make NES cartridges. Had Warner employed such a legal tactic, it might still be selling consoles.
Hold on, hold on, let me check...
Oh, Nintendo is still making bags of money and isn't going out of business. Whew.
Okay, I'm not worried. EA, Ubisoft, Eidos, Blizzard and Rockstar can all bite the dust, for all I care. I'd like it if they spared Arenanet, though. And Nintendo can just buy Free Radical when they get cheap enough.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
I think that this report is just a sign that many "old-timers" are just burned out with video games. All us oldies who grew up with the Atari 2600 have little patience anymore. I think a lot of people feel that pretty much anything that could be done with video games has already been done to death. The only thing left to do is to be creative with good storylines, and boost the graphics capabilities of some machines. We have busy lives and the older we get, the less time we think we have to play around. We don't have time to do D-Day for the gazillionth time in the next WW2 FPS. Sure, there are innovative game concepts out there yet to be exploited, but all the easy pickings are gone, all the ideas which are actually fun are gone, and we've grown tired/out of everything. I'm STILL waiting for virtual reality machines to become feasible.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Sorry to hear about your low self worth, but I can assure you, mine is not that bad.
For the record, my first writing assignment was the Opteron launch, so you do the math, but about 10% of my life. If you start aspiring for the same goals, in a year and a half, you will be at the same percentage.
Also, I was a dev for the Atari Jaguar, project manager too. Guess that shoots down your other point. I'll let you keep the one on your head.
-Charlie
"Klytus, I'm bored! What plaything can you offer me today?"
;)
Remember when all games seemed new? Or at least every year there were several games with new twists and play styles? It's just the same thing day after day anymore. Personally, it helps me stayed focus on work.
But seriously, if the industry isn't heading for a crash yet, it soon will be. You can't survive on churning out the same thing day after day. It's boring. And I'm bored with modern games. Yet I keep playing the oldies and finding new oldies that make me say "wow! Look at that!"
For castles made of sand must eventually return to the sea.
re:" Coleco tried to branch out in to home computers." Coleco and everyone gave up when Warner pulled the plug. Commodore's success in the low-end computer market instilled a panic with all console makers that was finalized when Atari announced it was getting out of the business. Coleco's grab-ass - the Adam was a dog from the get-go.
I'm not saying there wasn't poor product, but when you look at what the 7800 could have done if it had been released as planned, and if other console manufacturers had followed through on their plans, Nintendo's all encompassing charge wouldn't have been nearly as certain.
The bottom line - when game companies panicked and decided that games were a "fad" - companies that knew otherwise, Nintendo and the arcade manufacturers (Namco-Atari Games, Williams-Midway, etc) continued to work the marketplace by staying focused. Those that didn't - lost out - deservedly so.
Oh and lastly, regarding Nintendo's lock-out, Atari had them too. They called them lawyers. Little-known little touted fact, many 2600 producers did end up paying licensing fees and settlements to Atari rather than get tied up in endless litigation. One of the reasons Atari was doing so well is the incrimental payments they got from 3rd party games. It wasn't licensing the way that Nintendo/Sega/Sony has it today - but it was licensing by proxy.
The first I heard about it was from David Crane on Tech TV on "The Screen Savers". After he mentioned Activision's settlement - the whole picture of how Atari was making money on the glut came into focus.
I've talked directly with other video game authors (Steven L. Kent among others) and this info was so far under the radar that most concluded that the terms of the settlements - plus possible paranoia regarding anti-cartel or collusion laws - kept this very much under the table.
Activision was sued by Atari because the founders, including David Crane, were former Atari employees who signed nondisclosure agreements.
There were dozens of companies making Atari cartridges that weren't threatened by lawsuits. As long as you didn't hire former Atari employees (or had a clean-room reverse engineering effort), you were OK.
About a year before the crash, anyone could buy a reverse-engineered Atari spec for about $20,000.
So, while there were some companies that paid licensing fees to Atari, many did not (including the company I worked for in my 2600 programming days) and that was a key reason for the game glut and the crash.