Game Industry Optimistic About Surviving Economic Crisis

CNet is running a story about how the gaming industry is looking at the recent economic troubles. Despite their status as luxury items, games and game systems have seen strong sales numbers in recent months, and that trend is expected to continue into the holiday season. Most companies are optimistic, despite the fact that many of their stock values have been hit hard and that analysts' views are divided on whether game-related purchases will be one of the first things cut from consumers' budgets. "'I do think that the video game industry is going to do reasonably well in this time of recession because video games are a pretty damned efficient use of time,' said Bridges. 'That said, the...industry has some other problems that it has been ignoring for awhile and that are creeping up on it.' Essentially, Bridges explained, he thinks that the dominance of giant publishers like EA and their general reliance on physical, in-the-box, units, can't hold up. Instead, he said, new tools, ubiquitous broadband and hungry independent developers are going to all combine to eat away at the continued supremacy of the $60 big-name title. And that could spell big trouble for the industry."

Comments

Re:It will survive, sure, but how good are the gam

[GMonkeyLouie]

Not a concern to me, as I think that the industry will be made better if games have to spend less time in the tube.

Constricted cash flow for industry giants and consumers --> more small, short projects and smaller (but more) purchases made by consumers --> more room for smaller independent developers to compete and more room for innovation in the market.

As a man who came into video games in the era of adventure games with shitty graphics that survived on intuitive interfaces and a good sense of humor, I don't really mind if they can't spend an extra two months making sure the light effects on the water are just perfect.

simpler explanation

[ILuvRamen]

there's all that psychological "people want video games to make themselves happy during a recession" stuff and then there's reality. It's really quite simple: Teenagers buy most video games. Teenagers don't have investments and mortgages that tanked nor are they good at saving instead of spending. Thus, game sales are doing just fine. But of course if the marketing and finance departments at video game companies said that the boss would think they weren't working very hard.

Re:It will survive, sure, but how good are the gam

[hairyfeet]

I just hope it means they will spend more on gameplay and less on flashy graphics crap. I mean seriously, look at how many truly great games were made with the Quake 2 and 3 engines. Were they real flashy and made everyone go "ooh pretty"? Nope, but they made up for it by actually trying to make games that were FUN. I am so damned tired of FPS that look really good but play like shit because they spent every dime on the "ooh pretty" and didn't have anything left for such things as decent AI or a good story.

And after reading review after review with variations on "game looks great, but is kinda sucky" I know I am not alone. Hell I wouldn't care if they used the Quake 3 engine as long as it had a truly great story and AI that didn't come off as retarded. So please, if there are any game developers reading this, just license whichever engine you can get for the best price and spend your time making the game FUN instead of flashy. If I got to add my own .02 to the game I'd ask for the ability to disarm my opponents with a well placed shot like I do when I play SoF I&II, allow me to play it MY way like with Deus Ex, and finally throw in some unique cool weapons like NoLF I&II instead of the same machine guns and pistols that everybody else uses.

If you build it and focus on the FUN, then we will come. Pass out some early stage demos and the gamers will be happy to help you keep it on track with feedback and suggestions. And with the economy getting worse every day try to aim for the $30-40 price point. Because with money getting tight there will be fewer and fewer megahits that will be able to make money at the $60 price point. Lastly don't fall into the EA trap of spending big bucks trying to make sure you have the nastiest DRM infection of the bunch. It doesn't do jack squat to stop the pirates and royally screws and pisses off your customers when they have to jump through hoop after hoop and end up searching warez sites to find a crack for the game they paid you good money for just to get the damned thing to work. I know that after buying many a game from EA I simply won't give them a dime, even if I found their entire catalog in the bargain bin for $10. My gaming machine runs too nicely to purposely infect it with a nasty DRM Trojan like the ones that EA uses. But if you treat us fair and keep it FUN, then we will be happy to hand you our hard earned money, even if you don't have the "ooh pretty" of a Crysis.

Re:It's not the retail sales.

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps they should dial down the game budgets then, I'm pretty sure those new market games Nintendo is making aren't exactly costing tens of millions.