Poll: What's really hurting the Game industry?

[SilverUchiha]

Prices. Hands down. Why do we have piracy? Mostly attributed to the high prices people don't want to pay. Why do people not try new IPs? Because it's too large an investment on an unknown entity at $60. Why are pre-owned sales so good? Because they are typically cheaper and move easier than full price products. Why do you think Steam does so well? Aside from good service, it's the Steam Sales. No where else will you find something as good as Arkham Asylum or KOTOR for a mere $7 unless it's another digital download service. But Gamestop? Nope. Target? Hell no. Walmart? As if.

I'd say the industry isn't dying or crippled because of pricing currently. It's a problem, yes, like a hangover or a disease. Something temporary that needs to be dealt with ASAP. If this problem continues to grow, then the industry will price itself out of the business. Gaming (PC or Console) is an expensive hobby when each product you play is $60 and the device is the multiple-hundreds of dollars. Let's not forget that DVDs typically cost about $20 at initial release and drop to around $10 after a year. Books? Usually no more than $30 but I've seen most best sellers go for about $25 on average, and that's just the good ones with the advertising backing them up. And those go down in price after a while as well. However, games like Mario or Metroid, or even Smash Bros. will remain near $40 well after two years of being on shelves, if not longer. Even used, those things don't go down in price fast enough sometimes. If the industry wants to avoid a painful bunch of years reforming later down the road when these price increase start hurting them financially, they'll need to start making changes now.

 

[Lunar Templar]

other = how 'cookie cutter' a lot of games seem to be due to catering to one group of people

fallowed by piracy and DRM tied for second

and pre-owned a spec on the horizon for third

 

[DarkRyter]

Surprised so many people picked the "Inflated AAA prices" poll option.

I don't read alot of folks talk about that here.

 

[sivlin]

Your poll options all(most) work together in a cyclical effect which I like to call "The stupidity of DRM tactics".

It goes like this:

The entire issue starts with the consumer not wanting to spend 60 dollars for a game. There are many reason for this ranging from not having enough money to do so or not being confident the game is worth being at that price range.

Regardless, from this initial refusal to pay 60 dollars for a title, three options come about for the consumer...

Pirate the game.
Buy the game Used for less.
Don't purchase the game.

In all three of these scenarios the developer makes no money which is bad for the developer.

To combat Piracy the developers decided to initiate DRM on all of their products to make it "hard" to steal by putting in all sorts of safeguards that their paying customers have to go through just so those nasty pirates don't get a taste of the product.

Piracy, however, doesn't really care about the carefully implemented DRM and within hours (sometimes even before it hits the shelves) the carefully constructed obtrusive DRM is broken and the game is available without the hassle that paying customers have to through. Oh yeah, and it's free.

Meanwhile, paying customers do not have the luxury of playing DRM free and as such they become annoyed at the game industry for treating them like criminals. End result here is that more and more people convert to piracy since the developer is already treating them like criminals.

On a slightly grayer side of the spectrum, Used Games, the developers are STILL not making any money.

To combat this, an entirely different form of terrorism, I mean DRM, is put in place to lock certain content from being played by the secondary owner of the game thus forcing the player to pay extra for a game that they have already legally purchased. (In some cases making the customer pay more for a used game than they would have for a new version of the same game).

End Result: Used Game buyers convert to Piracy since they are not only being treated like criminals but are actually getting fined for it. Keep in mind that Piracy is still free and is still without all of the DRM hassle that a regular paying customer has to go through.




Essentially, what I am saying is this:

High prices caused the problem.
Piracy was our answer to the problem.
DRM was their answer to our solution which only made the problem worse.


Lower the prices. Get rid of DRM. Make quality games that people WANT to buy. THESE are the solutions to piracy.

 

[Vault101]

Other:


Trying to cater to too many different irrelavant consumer bases all at the same time. Gaming companies shouldn't want to be the next movies or books, gaming should be itself, if people like it then great, if they don't then they can have another hobby. The hunt to get a piece of the other kid's pie is hurting our medium.

eh? wouldnt you say thats the oposite of the problem? arnt we over saturated with bland brown FPS? I mean why do you think people love games like LA niore, assasins creed or Deus ex?

because they are somthing DIFFERENT...anyway there is variety out there (I mean by "game" standards of variety)

 

[TheDooD]

Let me take a shot in the dark and say EVERYTHING is hurting the game industry.

Hollywood doesn't like the fact that they basically take away from movie sells. The fact that watching game playthroughs is more entertaining then watching every goddamn reality show in history. We all know about the majority of horrid game based movies and movie based games. Then there are the developers that think they are movie directors and basically toss away the FUN of the GAME and basically what the force you to play for is a playable movie. Sometimes this is alright yet they need to remember you're suppose to be making. Of course there's the publishers a majority of'em are greedy pricks that most of us would speed up if we say their CEO or top suits crossing the street. They basically force you're suppose to play it our way or else mentality. They play the blame game on others when its basically their own fault for trying to be bastards and biting at the hands that a feed them. It's not the users, its not gamestop, it's not pirates, modders, and or rival companies. It's them being asshole forcing good development teams to do what they really don't want to do or else they'll completely destroy their IP's and company name.

Then it goes to the fans that really don't know what they want. There's alot of smart guys that know games and their insight can really help games. Yet those guy's voices are normally drowned out by those that really don't know what the fuck they're talking about and or the general "hate this shit cuz it's cool" troll. It's the overall rise of new gamer opinions that are normally bias because they haven't been exposed to much gaming. It's them always clashing with the gamers that been playing for years and seen real quality game production. It basically boils downs to "hipsters vs history buffs" when they fight at makes everybody look bad.

AAA gaming cost WAY too much to sell and to make. Some of the modern AAA titles are really good worthy of the AAA title while most are fucking yearly rackets just so you can spend more money on what is basically a yearly update. Or they just fall flat because the overall production and publishing was a mess. I also look at Nintendo who seems to be extremely afraid to evolve past the basic shit they been doing for almost 30 years. Then Nintendo America basically undermining on what gamers want and basically being so arrogant that they KNOW what people want yet they say no just to spite them then make they're whole next project just to focus on the gamers they basically said "fuck you" to not that long ago. They focus so much on gimmicks and trying to please everybody under the sun they forgot who in the fuck got'em there in the first place.

I put Blame unto Microsoft for setting the horrible bar of gimmicks in this generation. We don't need achievements, why in the fuck should we be paying 60$ for a lack luster game just because its it new. Why should game console be basically crappy PC's and we'll never forget about MS' shoddy work on the first generations of 360's that were basically fire hazards. Sony fucked up by not having protection for their loyal customer base. The PS2 in my opinion was the best console ever created because it had everything a gamer would want on there and more. Yet with the PS3 Sony was losing everything they once had. leading to the meme "PS3 has no gaems". Which still is pretty much true because I'll be damned that MGS4, Resistance, Killzone and Uncharted are better then the legacy's the PS2, hell the PSX left us.

I could go on but I'll end this rant here. I know others can fill in the gaps on the topic I left out and or didn't get detailed enough on.

 

[Twad]

Maybe add "publishers pushing too hard on dev team" problem as a poll option.

And all of these certainly add to total.

 

[phar]

Brown and Bloom or the customer. As long as people are demanding and taking the same type of game over and over, publishers will just push all their resources into that. When was the last time Activision tried to push another franchise apart from CoD?

 

[Gitty101]

Investors. I understand they are essential to most gaming firms, but most of them don't know smack about games or gaming. They only seek to build on the success of other franchises, hence the huge amount of modern FPS multiplayer focused games released over the last couple of years.

This in itself is causing stagnation within the industry, and people with genuine innovative ideas are usually turned away by investors. At least the Indie market exists for those with new talent to publish their works I guess...

 

[Robert Ewing]

None of the above.

I believe there are two things killing the industry.

1.) The over saturation of hardware, so there is not enough software to keep the hardware afloat.

2.) The industry has gotten to the point where people who don't like, play, or care about video games, can now make video games, and turn over somewhat of a profit. So they can do it all again.

 

[Nubbinsmustdie]

People who think gaming is the cause of violent children!

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

DRMs: the act of requiring internet to get a game running is an easy way to discourage people from buying the game, especially if it's high profile.

Piracy: and I mean of current generation games, NOT emulation. this is discouraging developers from continuing work on certain platforms and on certain IPs.

Publishers: I swear to god, look at The Extra Credits video on publishing, seriously, that's all I can say for now.

Capcom: OHGODWHYCAPCOMWHYDIDYOUCANCELMML3OHGODWHYYOUSICKMONSTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[xXAsherahXx]

Inflated sales are causing most of the problems on the poll. It takes a REALLY great game for me to buy it new, Assassin's Creed Revelations for instance. Other times I just wait until the price goes down to at least 30 or I buy it used. Piracy is different since a lot of people pirating games do it for their own selfish reasons, but others do it because they can't afford it. I know Extra Credits says that the argument is flat because gaming is a luxury, but a lot of my gaming systems came as a result of everybody pitching in. My PS3 was a Christmas present from literally everyone. I didn't get a single other present. The story isn't sad, it's just evidence.

Bring your fucking prices down AAA companies, then we'll talk about more new purchases. Kay?

 

[satanic kitty]

i would say stupid fps's are hurting most.

 

[Anthony Abney]

I wish I could vote for more than one thing as it's really multiple factors, anyway, my immediate answer was DRM, i think this comic sums up why fairly well http://xkcd.com/488

pre-owned sales hurt because places like GameStop don't give a portion of used game sales to the devs and they don't make as much money because of it, inflated AAA sales because it causes pre-owned sales to increase because people don't want to pay that much and will buy the cheaper used copies.

I don't think piracy is that big of a problem as some people just use it as a demo to try a game before they buy it to make sure that they like it/it works, etc. and of course I don't think anyone is going to say "I love this game that I stole" and they would go buy it out of guilt. the rest of the people (the ones who never buy it) are hurting the industry in a big way, but there's no way to be sure that it doesn't happen without infringing on some right or another, and it probably wouldn't be very practical anyway.

As for Micro-transactions, they allow for free-to-play games to remain free, so as long as they're done right (see Extra Credits micro-transactions video) they're not hurting the industry at all, but actually saving it by ending the other crap (high price, used game sales, and piracy stopped by the fact that it's free, DRM by the fact that it won't be needed without piracy)

 

[Kroxile]

over priced games for sure followed by used game sales.. whatever happened to 40 bucks for a brand new games?

 

[mateushac]

Valve not realeasing HL:ep3

[ON TOPIC] IMHO, the market got to a point in which gamers got so used to certain molds and setups that it isn't economically viable for developers/publishers to aim towards any kind of innovation.
Mr. Average Gamer got so used to things like (pardon the phrasing) "graphics whoring", "un-challenging tasks" and "excessive positive reinforcement" (not to count multiplayer-centric gaming and an extreme lack of interest in storytelling), that if a team ever wants to break away from these standards, it is almost granted not to reach the expected revenue threshold (which is actually unreasonably high these days, making seat holders on the large companies look like spoiled kids who would do anything for those extra 10 bucks).

Almost like palladin saviors, indie developers have been popping up all around these last years to save us from "yet-another-tan/brown-shooter-with-notsomuchRPG-traces" games.
Without many expectations too fulfill or shareholders to please, these guys have pretty much all the liberty they want to make their own games, filled with their own experiences and innovations, therefore being able to shift the industry progressively after everyone's individual desires and expectations.

Within all the possibilities of digital distribution, those indie developers have been being able to kit a much broader cut of the target market than they'd have ever dreamt of. Gamers have also profitted from this as now they have a much broader pannel of experiences to experience (), with prices fitting most wallet restraints.

Back to the world of My Little Humble Opinion, I'd say we have never been this close to being considered art. Outside of the AAA industry (way outside, I mean), processing requirements aren't directly related to game quality anymore, nor is title pricing or sales figures (ok, they are, but it's not all about greedy cash grabbing anymore). Mind provoking settings and themes, as deep ambiance and innovation is what moves our "little league" industry and from what I know, that's what art is all about: It's about inducing new, intriguing thoughts and experiences to your subject, no matter the mainstream acceptance or profitability of your projects.

Maybe then, as we say the industry is dead, we are simply being pessimistic about it, looking only at the angle of the fungal growth of profit-whoring companies in the AAA market and forgetting what beautifull stuff modern indie industry is doing and the potential for it to shape the future's mainstream market

 

[ResonanceSD]

Pricing, especially in Australia. And the fact that a lot of games are just plain shit.

 

[Denamic]

Hurting it?
The industry is bigger than it has ever been, despite the depression.
And it's still growing!
How in the world is it hurting?

 

[Kurea]

We are! The gamers. I bought El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron today, I was swiftly told that I was wasting my money and should wait for it to lower in price, as I was with Deus Ex, due to the fact that it isn't online.

I got told that because it wasn't an online multiplayer game, it wasn't worth buying for full price, not by a staff member but by a member of the public for that matter.

I know not everyone thinks this way but a fair amount of people do. That worries me so much as it's generally recognised that a lot of the biggest multiplayer games tend to recycle things year after year, escpecially a certain game related to fish that will charge ten pounds more than any other retail game this year which shall remain unnamed.

I brought up 3 single player, completely offline games, El Shaddai, Deus Ex and Skryim and was told that all 3 would be a waste of money due to the fact that they will fall in price eventually.

I think that what is hurting the game industry is a mixture of second hand sales and consumer habits and tastes. Games that should make money don't, games that push boundaries don't get bought and while games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Skyrim will undoubtedly earn money, nowhere near as much as a couple of first person shooters or remakes this year.

In my eyes, that is what is hurting the gaming industry.

There you have it. We are the problem. Buying into the notion that only certain types of games are worth playing. Not expecting, and even demanding, better and throwing our money at the feet of big name publishers who get away with murder (hyperbole, people, I know there are worse things out there). Assuming that "good enough" might as well be considered "great". That is what's hurting the industry. We can blame EA and Activision and Blizzard and all the companies we want to, but at the end of the day, we're the ones giving them money to burn.

As long as there are people out there who'll buy every new Guitar Hero that comes out, there will be more Guitar Hero ahead. I know, it's depressing.