Is gaming dead?

[Lucky Godzilla]

In all seriousness a full crash of the Video Game market is HIGHLY unlikely. That would necessitate virtually everyone to stop buying video games at the same time, what we are seeing now is a slump. Keep in mind that this can be more equated to the economy than the actual business practices of the publishers. People are still being careful with their money, and videogames can be a very expensive pastime.

Firstly what caused the crash of '82 was caused not by shitty DRM or heavy-handed developers publishing for the masses. No, what caused the crash was a LACK of regulation and quality control by the hardware manufacturers. The actual cost of manufacturing a cartridge in '82 far exceeds the cost of manufacturing a dvd, blu-ray, or digital downloads. The high profile failures of Pac-Man and E.T, which lacked any form of quality control and were manufactured in troves lead to Atari suffering abysmal losses.

Second on the list was the mountains of shovel-ware published by third parties for these early systems. Hell in 1986 Hiroshi Yamuchi went on record to say "Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games." In order to prevent a repeat from happening, Nintendo limited the number of games a publisher could release on the nes annually to maximum of five, hence the Nintendo seal of quality.

Looking at today's video game marker, we see a landscape DOMINATED by high profile releases of only a handful of games. Shovel-ware still exists in the console market, but most of it has migrated over to ios. Furthermore, we see publishers diversifying their portfolios. Let's say the next CoD utterly flops in terms of sales, despite popular belief this would not spell doom for Activision. Their ownership of Blizzard, Skylanders, and perhaps Destiny ensures the publisher as a whole won't fail. A repeat of the crash of '82 is nigh impossible. Furthermore, stricter quality control prevents the quantity of shitty games we saw back then being published is impossible. Sure some truly bad high profile games do get through the cracks, but they are the exception not the rule.

In summary, no. What I do think will help the games industry in the long run is not a crash, but a resurgence in the economy. As people start buying more, publishers will become more willing to take risks. I mean hell, look at EA in 2007-08. This publisher released Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Rock Band, and Cryis(remember these games had started development before the recession). All of these games were new I.P's, and furthermore many of them were unique.

Furthermore all of these games required immense funding to fulfill their potential, and substantial marketing campaigns to spread awareness of these new games. Despite all the promise of Kickstarter, the feasibility of a project on the scale of say Crysis or Mass Effect receiving the necessary funding for not just development but also marketing is regrettably bleak.

And hey, if you don't want to deal with all the B.S with publishers indie games are currently undergoing a bit of a Renascence thanks to high profile releases such as Minecraft. And now we have crowd funding, which has already given me FTL as well a funded a myriad of promising games that may have never seen the light without sites such a kickstarter.

 

[briankoontz]

Yes, I was referring to the AAA market. I only know of three markets: the AAA, the indie and the casual market. In your view, are there others?

My point is that never since the AAA industry got big in the mid 1990s has it been less important. If it evaporated overnight there would still be great games being released all the time.

I don't see how the "tremendous" rise in "all other markets" has made the AAA "relatively unimportant". That is just too vague a statement. Relatively unimportant how? Also, just because the casual and indie markets are going strong lately does not mean we should just forget about the AAA market and its troubles.

The AAA market excels at wasting it's potential. Where's the emergent gameplay? Where's the facial expressions that help make great dramatic stories? The AAA game industry should be ashamed that so much money is being spent so foolishly, yet most of them don't give a shit. They don't care what we think either.

Yes, streamlining has had its beneficial effects, bringing many new gamers to the fold. It has also brought disappointment in the form of games such as Dragon Age II, Final Fantasy XIII and Ninja Gaiden III. There is a loss of depth/ enjoyment if a game goes from "easy to learn, hard to master" to just easy to learn/ execute.

Absolutely. Dark Souls stands out because it's as if the developers cared about the enjoyment of the players, instead of what the marketing department thinks. Games like Left for Dead and The Witcher series are made BY gamers, not by corporate entities that only care about money.

Also, the easier it is to be a total badass in gameplay...the harder it will be to convey a sense of weakness and accompanying growth story-wise. This is shown best by the new Tomb Raider. This is a design issue that may come up more often with the continuing streamlining of games.

What I'm saying is...streamlining is not a pure gain, it is offset by a subtle but substantial loss.

The industry has massive problems far beyond what either of us has talked about here. But the solution is not for us to talk to the AAA industry, who never listens. The solution is for us to play the great games that are being made all the time, and if you're looking for "sense of weakness and accompanying growth" then how about I Wanna Be the Guy: Gaiden, or Dark Souls, or Slender, or Hotline Miami, or Desktop Dungeons, or Spelunky, or Super Meat Boy, or Thomas Was Alone... or the great pleasure of playing all of them?

The AAA industry doesn't listen to our words, but they listen to our money. Our job is to support great games, and if we do that the AAA industry will respond by learning how to make great games. They clearly have a lot of learning to do.

 

[themilo504]

O boy another person claiming that video game are dying because everything was better in their day.
I didn?t like any of the games you mentioned gaming must have been dying around 1998.

I?m sure that isn?t your only reason, but really I?m getting sick and tired of people using games where better in my days as a reason for why gaming Is dying.

Also no it won?t die the industry might crash but unless everybody who likes video games dies there will always be a market left.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Eh, just like everything else, some things are better, some are worse.
I've had the privilege of watching most of (from the end of the Atari-era onward) the tech arms race evolve.
And yeah, there is something from the bygone eras in gaming that's been lost or replaced, but it isn't "dead".

(Though I still cringe when someone states "3D graphics is strictly better than 2D")

 

[xDarc]

It's pretty much dead to me. I'd say the decline started with the shift to console in 2006 and today, the social and mobile games are the last nail in the coffin. I would play more games if they made more games worth playing.