Editor's Note: State of the Industry

[LadyZephyr]

Wow, thank you. That was only completely useless. Instead of pointing fingers, why not talk about what can actually be done to save the industry? Why not talk about metrics or an increased dialogue between gamer and developer? Why not talk about what games need more hype? Why not actually hype those games and talk about some new IPs? Games cost a lot and this is a shitty economy. Gamers don't want to go out on a limb and spend $50 to $100 (depending on where in the world you live) on games that only might be good. So they go with the sure thing, the trusted IP they know will deliver. And you want to point a finger at us for that? Gee, thank you. That's helpful, yeah, thanks.

(The last game I paid full price for was Portal 2 on the PS3. And well all now how that clusterfuck went. Not exactly reinforcing good spending habits, are you Sony?)

Mr. Pitts, you have a platform to start meaningful discussion on the industry. Use it better next time.

 

[zutier]

How many people will go back to the PS2 generation of graphics on a PC or console? I think a lot of people would vomit with rage at the sight of graphics consistent with the early part of the current generation and not buy a game like that on principle.

Minecraft

 

[manythings]

How many people will go back to the PS2 generation of graphics on a PC or console? I think a lot of people would vomit with rage at the sight of graphics consistent with the early part of the current generation and not buy a game like that on principle.

Minecraft

And people still play Mario NES, don't hand me an apple and tell me it's car. The difference there is who, and that who isn't the mainstay of the console market.

 

[maantren]

I agree with Russ's multi-sided take. There are more great games being made now than ever before, amid a set of opportunities and platforms that were practically science fiction not long ago. I couldn't agree more that some of the smartest, most interesting individuals I've ever met are developers.

But having kicked the living shit out of most of the 'easy' problems around making great games, the industry now gets to deal with bigger, systemic issues than run extremely deep and often don't have solutions. IMO the two most difficult are the transition to the top level of the entertainment industry, with all its accompanying traps, and the culture of obsessive dissatisfaction from the hardcore vocal minority of 'fans'.

We've got the tools, the people, and the money to aim for the stars. But there's a lot of bad shit out there in space, some of which we're taking with us.

Cheers

Colin

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I think L.A. Noire will make a difference.

At least I hope it will... if it is as good and innovative as we're all hoping and it sells bucketloads, other publishers might take note and realise you don't have to make the next COD clone to sell your games.

 

[octafish]

We can tell Russ is being serious because he said "fuck". Just like Aria in Mass Effect 2! There is no more mature way showing you fucking mean business than by saying the naughtiest of curses. As soon as you hear "fuck", you know - yeah - he's hardcore. You shouldn't fuck with Russ Pitts.

You can tell I'm not being serious because I'm making a positive comparison with BioWare writing. I'm sure they agonized over how to communicate to the player how much of a bad-ass Aria is. Then someone made the fateful realization that bad-asses say "fuck", and the rest - as they say - is history.

Comedians in the 90s also realized that people get a thrill form hearing words they weren't allowed to say as kids.

So can we move past this now?

So **** isn't the naughtiest of swear words anymore? Cool.

Bad-arses don't say fuck, they say cocksucker.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Having read this week's articles and then re-read this editorial piece I still don't "get it". This article's content and tone make it almost impossible to take it seriously, but if it's a joke then I think I must have missed the punchline.

We, the gamers, the consumers, are the gaming industry's raison d'etre. It exists only because there is money to be made by satisfying our desire for entertainment.

I disagree with piracy both from a moral and practical perspective. I'm 34 and I've never pirated a game, never bought a second-hand game, and never rented a game. I can count on one hand the number of games I've borrowed from friends instead of purchasing, and in each case my suspicion that I would not enjoy the game (let alone finish it) was proved correct within an hour of starting it.

Because of this it is very important to me that I can make informed decisions about my purchases. So yes I want honest reviews, and yes I look at Metacritic, and if developers are being told "score X% or you won't get paid" then I say hooray for Metacritic! Is this system perfect? No. Will it last forever? No. But anything that improves the experience for me is something I support, and any developer who disagrees with that is working in the wrong industry (hell, they're working on the wrong planet). Current AAA games seem to be more polished and less buggy than ever before, which I think is due to a number of factors but mostly it's because that's what we want. A strong average on Metacritic is no guarantee that a game will be good, but I think it pretty much guarantees that a games is at least well made, and when I'm shelling out the equivalent of 60 USD then I expect well made to come as standard.

Have I completely missed the point of the editorial? If so, please write gooderer. I'm the reader, and it's what I think that counts.

 

[drunken_munki]

1. How about the big publishers stop making/forcing the devs to get their game out on every device for zero day. Stop The corporate greed and give the devs the time to polish their game for the target machine, then it might not bomb in the charts?

2. This goes to zero day DLC as well. That time should have been spent on working on the game, that people paid for.

3. And all of the draconian DRM. Time and money wasted. Why you no make the game better instead?

What used to happen? If the game was popular enough to warrant, then the Dev teams could be directed to make DLC / expansions and ports. IF. This means all that time won't be wasted if the game bombs, but you get t expand it when it's successful (because you know that it will sell to the rest).

This had the bonus effect that people who liked the game would renew their excitement upon hearing of the DLC, rather than get face raped by it on first run.

As for ports, it used to be you'd wait and see if the thing was ported, some were, some were not. But that built to the build up of potential sales and free advertising.

 

[GonzoGamer]

The videogame industry is utterly screwed, and it's all your fault

That's funny because the game industry seems to be doing fine. Plenty of asshats making money hand over fist.
It seems to me that the gamers are the one's who are utterly screwed for basically all the same reasons you noted.
It just seems like gamers are paying more money for less content and/or quality. The big problem is, most gamers seem okay with it.

They got our number too: they're just going to keep asking for more and more money while providing even less quantity and/or quality.

 

[Gameonicon]

All I have to say about the state of the industry:

 

[Weaver]

Furthering my suspicion that Russ Pitts hates practically every single thing about the game industry, including the members of this site.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The videogame industry is utterly screwed, and it's all your fault

That's funny because the game industry seems to be doing fine. Plenty of asshats making money hand over fist.
It seems to me that the gamers are the one's who are utterly screwed for basically all the same reasons you noted.
It just seems like gamers are paying more money for less content and/or quality. The big problem is, most gamers seem okay with it.

They got our number too: they're just going to keep asking for more and more money while providing even less quantity and/or quality.

What I find funny (or alarming) is how directly the video game industry's history mimics that of animation; albeit far more accelerated. It started out odd and original (obviously), grew up with some truly timeless classics, crashed hard once when cheap commercial exploitation took over, grew out of that with new talent and tech, and is now so big that it cannot grow any further *except* into other mediums.

The industry is so big now that it cannot sustain itself on anything that resembles niche' or quality productions (barring smaller/amateur developers who aren't yet part of the system), but rather shiny imitations of older productions.

The industry is terrified of commercial failure in any respect, so it's afraid to do *anything* new, or take any initiative on its own despite the incredible resources at its disposal. Its so obsessed with economic profit (not just accounting profit; there is a difference) that a game breaking a million copies sold and turning a profit post-production costs is now considered "barely-acceptable".

Gaming has become far too much of a business now to do much of anything meaningful (except to those too young to know any better). Even the remaining pioneers of yesterday have been reduced to bland, money-churning profit-engines (Bioware, Blizzard, id Software, many others); held by the leash of an even worse middleman (Activision, EA, Square-Enix).

So, considering that, I take back my prediction of a market crash. The industry is too big to collapse yet. Shrink and recede, sure, but not collapse. The business suits are too smart to let that happen now.

 

[Atmos Duality]

*double post*

I have no earthly clue how this happened. I had no errors when posting before.
Oh wells. Disregard this waste of space.

 

[GonzoGamer]

The videogame industry is utterly screwed, and it's all your fault

That's funny because the game industry seems to be doing fine. Plenty of asshats making money hand over fist.
It seems to me that the gamers are the one's who are utterly screwed for basically all the same reasons you noted.
It just seems like gamers are paying more money for less content and/or quality. The big problem is, most gamers seem okay with it.

They got our number too: they're just going to keep asking for more and more money while providing even less quantity and/or quality.

What I find funny (or alarming) is how directly the video game industry's history mimics that of animation; albeit far more accelerated. It started out odd and original (obviously), grew up with some truly timeless classics, crashed hard once when cheap commercial exploitation took over, grew out of that with new talent and tech, and is now so big that it cannot grow any further *except* into other mediums.

The industry is so big now that it cannot sustain itself on anything that resembles niche' or quality productions (barring smaller/amateur developers who aren't yet part of the system), but rather shiny imitations of older productions.

The industry is terrified of commercial failure in any respect, so it's afraid to do *anything* new, or take any initiative on its own despite the incredible resources at its disposal. Its so obsessed with economic profit (not just accounting profit; there is a difference) that a game breaking a million copies sold and turning a profit post-production costs is now considered "barely-acceptable".

Gaming has become far too much of a business now to do much of anything meaningful (except to those too young to know any better). Even the remaining pioneers of yesterday have been reduced to bland, money-churning profit-engines (Bioware, Blizzard, id Software, many others); held by the leash of an even worse middleman (Activision, EA, Square-Enix).

So, considering that, I take back my prediction of a market crash. The industry is too big to collapse yet. Shrink and recede, sure, but not collapse. The business suits are too smart to let that happen now.

Never say too big to fail.
Actually, I?m of the feeling that they?re getting too clever for their own good. Most of the ps2 owners I know haven?t made the transition to the ps3 or 360. And some of these are people who have owned a console for each generation since the NES. They think the new machines are either overpriced, lack backwards compatibility, have regular fees for online functions, and have games that don?t come with as much content... so you are compelled buy more later.
All these sly money making schemes might have gotten them to farm more money off of the loyal suckers like me but have scared more than half their customer base away. I have to admit, if I knew the ps3 would go downhill as much as it has since I bought it, I would?ve never bought it in the first place.
Will it kill the industry? Probably not, not yet at least, but (and I realize I?m contradicting myself a little) it will negate the expansion of the market that the wii brought along as regular people wont be willing to make that added commitment. So the market will become stagnant again and then collapse if they can?t keep the remaining users happy.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Never say too big to fail.

I will refine my point then: Too big to crash, but not too big to fail slowly.
It probably won't fail immediately (crash) so much as it will recede and shrink.
Markets do that. Mediums do that. Crashes are not nearly as common.

Another possibility: We could be looking forward to a group of consumers who grew up getting ripped off but not knowing how badly; so they will be perfectly fine with paying 60 bucks (equivalent today) for a game with half the content of today's, and another 50 for the content that was ripped out at the end. But I'm hoping, praying, that tomorrow's gamers won't be that stupid.

I was quite pleased when Kane and Lynch 2 tried that shit, and was lambasted for it.

Actually, I?m of the feeling that they?re getting too clever for their own good. Most of the ps2 owners I know haven?t made the transition to the ps3 or 360. And some of these are people who have owned a console for each generation since the NES.
They think the new machines are either overpriced, lack backwards compatibility, have regular fees for online functions, and have games that don?t come with as much content... so you are compelled buy more later.

I agree there; many of my friends didn't move onto the PS3 despite Sony's success with their phenomenal PS2.
Sony, in their supreme arrogance, destroyed the early marketability of the PS3 by not including that emotion engine emulator standard (as a cost cutting measure on an already outrageously expensive console).
Several markets were being squeezed hard early on because the PS3 was so scarce. I bet a lot of those early adopters are furious now due to the massive hacking incident.

I do love how so much DLC comes with double-standards EULAs. If I bought the DLC for Borderlands on launch, I would have gotten 3 installs out of it total (on Steam). If I buy the GotY Edition (again on Steam), it comes bundled forever. So now it often doesn't pay to buy early or when the game first comes out. Of course, EA launched Project 10 Dollar as a means of encouraging the customer to buy early AND new.

It's worth mentioning that the whole DLC racket only works when the developer kills the potential modding community off (with legalese). It's a bitter irony that many games sold well because of how moddable they were. Now the games are being sold to sell overpriced mods instead.

All these sly money making schemes might have gotten them to farm more money off of the loyal suckers like me but have scared more than half their customer base away. I have to admit, if I knew the ps3 would go downhill as much as it has since I bought it, I would?ve never bought it in the first place.
Will it kill the industry? Probably not, not yet at least, but (and I realize I?m contradicting myself a little) it will negate the expansion of the market that the wii brought along as regular people wont be willing to make that added commitment. So the market will become stagnant again and then collapse if they can?t keep the remaining users happy.

I've found it surprisingly easy to explain how they keep their core demographic so happy.
Sure, Gaming could become a medium for more grown-up entertainment (and has tried) or more deep and meaningful explorations into any given concept, but fact is that most of gaming sales result from impressionable teens to young adults. The industry knows this, and thus they know that trying harder will only result in higher development costs, and possibly less marketability. The industry in the last 10 years has tried as hard as it can to stomp out "Niche markets"; relying on remakes and clones of more successful games so that they could avoid having to try anything new or risky.

It's why Call of Duty 4.x and its clones will continue to set sales records despite not budging an inch from the formula. It's why Zynga will remain wildly profitable even if they haven't put an ounce of creative or original thought into anything they produce.

Popularity and hype keep these otherwise unremarkable titles afloat.

I wonder how many of today's younger gamers will be pissing and moaning as uselessly (as I do now), 10 years from now? I wonder if they will realize that back when they were trolling the forums that some of us actually gave a damn about "meaningless shit" like consumers rights or accountability?

 

[GonzoGamer]

Another possibility: We could be looking forward to a group of consumers who grew up getting ripped off but not knowing how badly; so they will be perfectly fine with paying 60 bucks (equivalent today) for a game with half the content of today's, and another 50 for the content that was ripped out at the end. But I'm hoping, praying, that tomorrow's gamers won't be that stupid.
....

I wonder how many of today's younger gamers will be pissing and moaning as uselessly (as I do now), 10 years from now? I wonder if they will realize that back when they were trolling the forums that some of us actually gave a damn about "meaningless shit" like consumers rights or accountability?

That's essentially what's scaring me away from the console market. It seems that most of the gamers who have taken in a current gen machine are more than willing to pay for everything they're asked to pay for: they are willing to pay anything from $5 to the full $60 for a game that they're not going to actually be able to get for months just because gamestop has them convinced that if they don't, that they will be "left out in the cold" which is total BS to anyone who's walked into a real store on a Tuesday; and don't even get me started on the trade in/used game prices but anyone who falls for that is not a savvy consumer; gamers seem to be willing to pay for whatever fee is laid down in front of them... hell MS was even able to increase the fee for xbl within the same console cycle; I sometimes feel like the only ps3 owner who is disgruntled over the loss of functions and the lack of additional functions (it's the psp all over again where future firmware will only be constantly updated to fend off hackers and not add functionality), and all those other things you mentioned being put into regular practice with little protest is worrying.
At first I thought it was just me being paranoid (I grew up in borderline poverty so I can be very protective of the wealth I have accumulated) until I considered that this "paranoia" (which is closer to thriftiness) is the reason I don't worry about money anymore. Maybe it's just the cliche of the gnerd being a total pushover turning out to be mostly true.

I hate to be derogatory towards a group I am a part of but I'm afraid of the same thing: that the publishers, retailers, and platform developers will keep pushing the generosity and/or gullibility of gamers until we are paying $60 for a demo and an additional $60 (or more) for the rest of the game. I look at MvC3 which (if they continue to bump up the roster to the size of MvC2 at $5 a character, it) could cost another $100. While I'm just projecting there, $160 for a fighting game seems absurd.
I too hope that tomorrow's gamer is a more savvy consumer but I can't say I'm too optimistic.

 

[llyrnion]

Editor's Note: State of the Industry

Nor is it a crime that you want what you want how you want it. After years of bitching about wanting the right to make copies of your game purchases, you've bent over and grabbed your ankles for Steam, paying good money for games you don't even get to hold to begin with, much less make copies of or even play the damn things without an internet connection.

Regarding this point, I'd say: Vote with your wallet.

I'm a very happy GOG.com costumer, and I hope to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Yes, I know - GOG.com is for classics, "The Witcher 2" being the exception (already pre-downloaded, BTW). There are games on Steam you won't find on GOG.com.

But that's not the point here. The point is how fair is the deal I'm getting when I buy a game? If I don't like the deal, I don't care how much I love the game.

One example - the Thief Series is my favorite, ever. I check the Thief 4 site almost daily, just to see what's new. However, when it comes out, I'll only buy it if I like the deal (esp. where DRM is concerned). As much as I love this series, as much as I am counting the days to a somewhat mytical date when Thief 4 will be released, my purchase is far from guaranteed. That will depend on the deal I'm offered.

There are a lot of good games out there, and there are developers/publishers willing to give gamers a fair deal. I'll look for them, and give them my money. In the case of GOG.com, I've even bought a few games I already own, a) to save me from the hassle of patching/configuring them to run in Win7; and b) because, since I'm buying these games, I prefer to reward a company that is playing fair with me.

I'd say this is the real power we have, notwithstanding internet pressure (blogs, facebook, twitter, etc).

 

[Darth_Murmeltier]

I love you Russ, best read I had in a while. I totally have to agree with you, we're fucked but we have the power to change that!

 

[Skratt]

Perhaps the industry should start looking at percentages of complaints to sales and react accordingly instead of trying to please the squeaky wheel minority? It's always the pissed off minority that get listened to and half of that crowd is often bitching for questionable reasons.

I don't work in the industry so I don't really understand the whole beholden to the overlords thing that makes up the Developer to Publisher relationship, but perhaps it's time to right-size the industry? I'm actually still in awe that the bubble hasn't popped in the gaming industry the way it does for everything else, and I think the only reason for that is the indie companies seem to be a bloodletting force on the industry as a whole. They give behemoth companies that are too busy suing each other over IP an opportunity to pause and give statements like "Angry Birds made how much money? Well that's garbage, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. We can't compete with that business model."

When expenses begin to top profits and companies start looking toward outside forces for the cause, it's more often than not their internal bloat that got them into the mess in the first place. Call it a critical mass if you will. The industry might not be there yet, and might never get there because the consumer still has a voracious appetite and disposable income to match, but I'd say it's pretty well established that the needle is in the yellow if not already in the red.

Loved the article. However, at some point there has to be a voice of reason. If the publishers can't tell the difference between these two phrases:

"You're a dick, you punched me in the face"
"You're a dick, you let him wear a funny hat and not me"

we're in deeper shit than anyone can possibly imagine.

 

[Levethian]

CD Projekt Red seems to be doing that. At least according to this little message hidden in their first trailer:

Spoiler

Seems they're using money as a means to make great games. While most of the other publishers are using games as a means to make money. Yes they need money to survive, but its not their main goal.

After all, humans need food to survive, but you don't live solely to eat, do you?

Nice sentiment. Hope it lasts!