Research Warns of Possible Game Industry Crash

[Hutzpah Chicken]

If there is a crash in the game market, I figure that it wouldn't be as severe to producers as the 1983 crash. Half the subjects surveyed play on the PC, thus a crash would affect revenue greatly on the console side, the Glorious PC Master Race will still receive games from PC publishers and other companies that port to the PC. Even so, I'm sure everyone would enjoy playing through Borderlands or Bioshock again.

 

[Berny Marcus]

With a market over saturated with CoD like clones, and shooters of any type. With Companies like Capcom, and Square Enix getting hurt financially over stupid decisions that leads them with less money. Like for example, Square Enix's unrealistic sales expectations for Tomb Raider, while selling over 4 million, didn't meet it's sales projects and thus had to restructure or Capcoms lousy business practice like locked on Disc DLC, that they sell that should've been in the game in the first place anyway. Has led them to have less then 152 million dollars in the bank, and that is low for a Mega corporation like Cacpom

Companies like EA, stripping games of there content in the form of micro transactions.

With all this bullshit being slinged around by game publishers or developers, I expect a crash to happen in the near term.

If this isn't a wake up call for anyone in the industry, I don't know what is.

 

[Strazdas]

Ok, lets make it clear once and for all, despite how much you want it to cras the industry will not crash.
What will likely happen is that consoles will see a major loss with the new generation, consoles, not the largest part of gaming to begin with, will decline. thats it.

You mean like a standard computer running a Microsoft operating system?

We've had that since the 90s. You could play DOOM on an IBM *and* an HP. ;P

Yea, or DVD players.

As it stands right now, it's kinda like you could buy a DVD and have it only work on Toshiba players, for example.

Funny thing is they almost did that for DVDs.....

It doesn't just happen with stocks; everything economic wise has highs and lows. After a large period of growth there is a period of stagnation for instance. Crashes happen all the time and there's no way to immunize something against that. A crash WILL happen, just not on the same level as '83.

Thing is, gaming indsutry isnt just consoles anymore, so crash in one side does not mean crash in another. you know, ore mining boomed like theres no tomorrow during this economic recession. they key is diversification, and gaming has done that quite well.

Interesting that PCs are gaining ground, though. I wonder if that's gamers actually being more interested in PC gaming for some reason (quality, easier access than before, free multiplayer, etc.) and being willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make that investment, or are gamers just able to afford bigger investments now that that our mean age has increased, correlating with higher incomes?

PC gaming is cheaper. that is a fact. You make a higher initial investment in hardware, and buy cheaper games. with modern PCs, you no longer need to have much knowledge anymore, and comparing to the new consoles coming out PCs are as much plug and play as consoles now.
Another factor may be console peopel migrating. back when consoels were announced there were a lot of threads on the escapist that went "oh new consoles sucks im moving to PC gaming help me build a PC". so we see influx from former console players as the generations shift. New console price also does not help, as they are almost as expensive as a PC that could run the same games is, so the whole "initial investment" point also becomes moot looking at launch prices and will come back once ocnsoles get discounted.
To put it simply, PC is running on a high ground now due to multiple factors oncverging at the same time. If anything, the gamers are younger now, what with average gamer age falling down to 30 from 37 as new yonug generation embraced gaming (especially helped by portable gaming that are more popular among the younger people). gamers arent more rich now, at least not comapred to any other group of people.

 

[TomWiley]

So gamers being... Facebook? What are the parameters of this survey? What's the classification of a gamer? What is their definition of "Casual" and "Hardcore"?


(And one of the sources -- gamepolitics -- isn't working.)

Exactly what i thought. Alot of that PC percentage include people playing farmville etc. Doesnt specifically state they Steam based gamers or FB based gamers.

As far as a gaming crash. If it happens then it happens. Not much anyone can do about it.

This attitude confuses me. What's the real difference between "Facebook games" such as Farmvilles and the like and Steam games? Well, obviously the Facebook games are low-fidelity flash games where Steam features AAA-titles, but with that logic, even 2d-indie platforms aren't "real games", or with other words, they end up in the same category as Facebook games. But if graphics and production costs is not criteria, what is? Gameplay?

Overall, the categorization of some games as casual and others as hardcore is kinda odd, in that it doesn't seem to be based on anything concrete, more like a wish for some people do distance themselves from other customer segments.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

The study provides some interesting numbers to back up this claim. In 2008, 42 percent of gamers played primarily on a console, 37 percent primarily on a PC and 5 percent did most of their gaming on mobile devices. A survey this past March, though, shows that now 51 percent of gamers play primarily on a PC, 30 percent on consoles and 13 percent on mobile devices.

I can only assume the 51% PC playerbase must be casual/facebook/browser games, poker or MMOs. If PC had that much market share, surely the big publishers wouldn't be treating us as pirates not worth their attention (ie. Rockstar), give us the laziest console ports (everyone else), etc.

PC gaming has been held back for years because of old and infirm console hardware. Why haven't any publishers made a mainstream game at the PCs cutting edge in years? 51%? I don't believe it. Kickstarter seems to be the only source for bona fide PC games now. What I wouldn't give for even one cutting edge, no holds barred, honest-to-God PC shooter or RPG. With a toolset, private servers and all the things we used to have. Oh, I need new trousers now, please excuse me.

 

[alj]

It needs to happen, the industry is just going insane noways with totally unsustainable budgets and multi million dollar call of duty clone flops. Whist on pc with kickstarter and steam smaller companies with smaller budgets are churning out quality products for a fraction of the cost.

 

[SmugFrog]

Is it that time of the year again? Also, in other news, PC gaming is dying out.