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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."
Yeah but I'm going to take a quality over quantity approach. Sure there's a lot of games coming out but how many are original and fun? How many are rehashes and sequals. How many are the same game under a different name? How many are games that were released 20 years ago and are being sold to suckers feeling a little nostalgia?
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Arcades were a big thing in my city 10 years ago. But, one day, we noticed that all the new "Hot" games that were being released cost 2 quarters to play. Many of us would ponder, is it worth paying more for a game that I know nothing about, only to die in less than 5 minutes? It started to spiral down from there. Now there are no arcades at all in my city, and you'll only find a handful of arcade machines at the big movie theatres. Even there the cheapest game cost 6 quarters (the most expensive needing 16 quarters) to play... i wonder why I never see anyone playing the games.
I could care less what quality an arcade machine has over consoles, i don't care how much it cost for the store / movie theatre / arcade to purchase the machine. Keep arcade games at only one quarter per play, people will play often at such a cheap rate, like they did in the past. You would certainly make alot more money that way than off the odd person that likes to spend 4 bucks for 5 minutes of disappointment.
You'd think it would have dawned on all the arcade owners as to why people just stopped coming to their arcades so many years ago.
If i wanted to hear bullshit, i'd go to church.
"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
I'm guessing 2010.