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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Interest in Console Gaming on the Decline 115

Posted by Zonk from the i-think-they're-fibbing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The results from a teen shopping behaviour and branding survey by Piper Jaffray & Co state that teen interest in playing video games is on the decline, as well as those that do play video games saying that they spend less time playing them." From the article: "The students were also surveyed on video game products and other consumer electronics. Results of the survey point out 79 percent of student households have at least one video game platform and 58 percent of students stating that they are occasional game players (playing at least monthly). In addition, 65 percent of student households own Sony's PS2, 50 percent own Microsoft's Xbox and 26 percent own Nintendo's GameCube. GameStop was recognized in the survey as the leading retailer for pre-owned video games with 60 percent market share and 29 percent market share for teen video game purchases. The survey also pointed out that 75 percent of teens say their interest in video games is declining and 78 percent indicated they spent less time playing in 2005."
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Interest in Console Gaming on the Decline More

Interest in Console Gaming on the Decline

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  • I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:56PM (#13743746) Journal

    Up front disclaimer: I am not a video-gamer, and have never been one.

    I can add only anecdotal experience, but that experience jives with the article. I've had many friends who children were video game freaks. About ten years ago I was befuddled and bemused at the length of time they played and their intensity. Today, different friends, different generations... what I've seen has been that video games for today's kids is more of a diversion among many rather than a life style. I think video games were largely a fascination with "look what we can do with computers and graphics" emerging technology.

    Video games will always have a market, but I would agree with the observed trend they don't hold sway today as in the past. I think a number of things factor into this:

    • no creative quantum leaps in game technology since its emergence (better graphics alone don't cut it -- I still see kids playing ten year old console games because they simply like the old games better, regardless of inferior graphics)
    • emergence of so many other distracting technologies (mp3, video on-line, chat, cell phones, digital photography, cable/satellite 200+ tv channel selection)
    • a more mobile generation/society where a typical 16th birthday gift for kids is at least a used car. (that was virtually unheard of when I was a kid). today's generation is more likely to hop in the car and go somewhere rather than hole up in their room with video games.
    • the failure of real-time on-line video gaming (too much latency)

    Today, when I see kids playing video games at friend's homes it's typically a end-of-the-day diversion after all other activities have been exhausted.

    • lots of good point there, i've been thinking/noticing some of the same things
      weren't video games supposed to be the big entertainment of the future? Is it still what pundits predict? could we just be going through an ebb in what's still a relatively young medium, before a new explosion in creativity, perhaps with new controller ideas like the Revolution and new game genres?

      It also makes me a bit sad, the thought that children might not have the gaming experiences i had growing up. The weekend with a fri

    • Re:I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @09:14PM (#13744173)
      a more mobile generation/society where a typical 16th birthday gift for kids is at least a used car.

      Maybe in Belaire. I have news for you - most kids still work for their own cars - if they get one at all. The average gift for a 16 year old is certainly NOT a car of any sort. You've been watching far too much "Super Sweet 16" on MTV.

      And cable isn't responsible for taking kids away from videogames. Television viewing is on the decline among the young. And how many young people are smart enough to figure out how to use streaming video or webcams and all that other crap? Sheesh. The average teenager today can barely figure out how to operate AIM so they can join chatrooms and A/S/L everyone.

      • We were not well-to-do at all, and got both of our daughters cars (to my objection) when they turned sixteen. And, virtually everyone in their peer group also had cars. Again, a demographic not rich by any means.

        My friends of a younger generation also are giving their kids cars... if I guessed the percentage it would exceed 75%. Again, not a rich (but not poor) demographic. I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just reporting what I've seen.

        And, cable isn't the only thing I listed. I do see kids playin

        • Don't you think that's only going to make your children more dependent on you? I mean, really, if kids don't work for cars, toys, CDs, games, clothing, etcetera, they don't appreciate them as much. If your daughters worked for their cars, and spent a summer of working retail and saving money, maybe they would learn financial independence and responsibility.
          Not that I'm insulting your daughters, but don't be surprised if they come to you with a "Ooooh daddykins!" attitude every time they need new oil for the

          • Re:I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Saturday October 08, 2005 @10:08AM (#13746249) Journal

            We had agreements with them about what constituted qualifying to keep their cars. They had to maintain a GPA (one graduated Valedictorian of her class of 600 students, got straight A's, and is now a doctor and has been invited to participate in a prestigious research project; the other maintained a 3.5 out of 4 GPA, and is a teacher today). They BOTH worked, and paid for their own gas.

            We did give them things but we were strict and insisted they be part of the community, e.g., hold jobs, and do community (volunteer) work.

            So, yes, we did give them cars, but not to just hop into and go out and do whatever they wanted.

            Your concerns are valid. I see many kids exhibiting what you describe: financially dependent; spoiled; and without a clue where things come from. These are probably the kids I worry about most.

            • We did give them things but we were strict and insisted they be part of the community, e.g., hold jobs, and do community (volunteer) work.


              Not that that's a bad thing, but doesn't FORCING someone to do "volunteer" work make it less "volunteer" and more "unpaid"?

              • There's always a lot of debate about this (I had to do 25 hours of "volunteer" work to graduate high school), but on balance, forced volunteer work does teach youngsters to a) figure out how to volunteer; b) see what help it can do; c) provide unpaid labor to (presumably) good causes.

            • Re:I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Meagermanx ( 768421 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @07:04PM (#13748307)
              I'm seeing a lot of kids who have nice cars, nice clothing, nice cellphones, and can't possibly work more than 20 or 30 hours a week.
              Not that I'm saying nice things aren't important, and that they don't deserve them, but they just don't appear to appreciate them. Half the girls pull their cellphones out after class and start calling their friends to talk for the whole ten minutes between classes, and they all have at least decent cars.
              Now, I don't have anything against rich people, I just think they should earn it.
        • There are certainly plenty of spoiled children - and I wouldn't be surprised if half of all 16 to 18 year olds own or have access to a car - possibly even their own. However, I think that the number of people who just flat out buy a car for their child is slim. Perhaps as a graduation present - I don't know. I'd never buy one for my kid. Nobody ever bought one for me. My two siblings worked their asses off at low-paying crappy highschool jobs to afford their own used cars and most people I know both my age
          • It all depends on where you live. When I was in high school, most of the students parents bought them cars, etc. In fact, luxury cars were not uncommon.

            My family was not nearly as well off, and I had to buy my own. But nothing annoyed me more than some chick bragging about the Beemer that daddy bought her. (And this was about 7 years ago. It's even worse there now. Spoiled rich kids.)
    • a more mobile generation/society where a typical 16th birthday gift for kids is at least a used car.

      Anecdotal experience indeed!

      I'm 20, and live in an upper-middle class suburban area near Albany. I don't know a SINGLE person that got a car for their birthday. Actually, I don't know anybody who was just given a car for any occasion. I know people whose parents HELPED them buy cars, certainly, but I think in each case the parents made the kids pay at least half. Up-front, usually.

      • Re:I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Sorry, but I grew up in a lowish middle class southern town. I got a car shortly after turning 17. It wasn't the greatest car, but I did drive it until I was 24. 80% of my peers had cars of some description as well.

        I now live in a very rich area of California. Most of my co-workers' kids have cars (those who are 16+).

        My experience doesn't match yours. And, like yours, means nothing statistically. :-)
      • Eh, in my family, when you graduate from college, you get the most used car.

        I got an 1986 mercury lynx in 1999.

        My sister got a 1993 Ford Focus (with the basic engine, the thing was so slow) in 2002.

        My other sister was supposed to get the decript minivan when she graduates next year, but she totaled it. I'm not sure what she'll get now, she'll get something, but it won't be a nice or a new something.

        The thinking behind this is we need something to get us to our new jobs, and it's nice to start off your post-
      • While I certainly don't agree with the outright gifting of cars, there's no reason cars can't be loaned to kids if the circumstances are right.

        I put myself through college mostly on my own dime. I worked my ass off in high school to get good grades, which turned into merit + need based financial aid. I worked full-time summer, and part-time during the year.

        For college, I took my high school economics teacher's advice: that a car was a money pit. I didn't need a car living so close to campus, so for the f
    • You know what ? I'm actually pleased when I see kids playing video games. At least they're not out blasting their godawful walmart subwoofers in my general direction, or driving into my fender, or making babies' babies, or getting arrested for getting loopy on bleach tablets thinking it was E, while drinking underage in a gang-operated nightclub.

      Hell, I wouldn't want to be a teenager today, and I was one of the "bad kids".
    • "the failure of real-time on-line video gaming (too much latency)"

      Er, what? There are currently 254814 players (and 55392 games) on Battle.net (and World of Warcraft doesn't even use b.net), and that's just one company's online service (albeit one of the biggest ones). Of course traditionally most online play has been for the PC, but Xbox Live has been pretty popular, and latency is not a major issue for anyone with broadband (which is most heavy gamers these days).

      • Re:I've seen the decline. I don't mind. (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Quite wrong, broadband usually means a fat pipe, it doesn't say anything about the latency. For example satellite has a really fat pipe, but the latency sucks big time. Plenty of adsl areas get crappy latency to most of the world.

    • Or maybe it's just 2005, or maybe something else (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @06:34AM (#13745778) Journal
      1. The tactic to release most stuff for christmas isn't new, but in 2004 it got ridiculous and in 2005... well, let's just say there was almost nothing released the whole summer. (Followed by a rush to release unfinished stuff in September, presumably because everyone realized the case of all demand and no supply on the market.)

      You know it's a bad year when Penny Arcade makes a strip about them buying Barbie Horse Adventures because nothing else got released in months. You know it's even worse when you actually take that as a hint to go to the shop and look for Barbie Horse Adventures. I swear to god, I actually did.

      So, well, I'm not surprised a bunch of people have said they've played less in 2005, simply because there was a severe drought of stuff to play.

      2. Additionally, one thing you need to understand is the way people answer in surveys. The answers invariably reflect the way people would like to be, or the way that would make them more socially acceptable, not the way they really are.

      E.g., if a community publically values helping each other and stuff, people will invariably tell a surveyor "oh, yes, we help each other on the farm all the time and we even help each other build a house"... even when the last time that's actually happened was in the 50s. E.g., if a (ex-tribal) culture values being a warrior and a hunter, almost everyone will declare themselves one in a survey... even though almost all their food comes from agriculture, and most of the population has never even seen a weapon recently. E.g., at one point where meat prices went up, everyone declared in surveys that they eat less meat... even though the meat consumption has actually _doubled_.

      All three above are actual cases studied by various anthropologists.

      It's not even a case of consciously lying, it's just selective confirmation, because everyone wants to have some self-esteem. So they alter their perception of reality a little, remember the things they did right, or close enough, and quickly forget the things they did wrong.

      What I'm getting at is that you should take such surveys with a grain of salt. With the anti-games campaign by the media and politics reaching such a climax, and games being presented as pure filth for degenerates... well, I can imagine a lot of people would like to look a bit less degenerate. So they'll adjust their answers accordingly.
    • I agree with every point you've made. I grew up in the 1980s when video games were a great novelty, which made even the bad ones seem great, now that we're inundated with them it's a chore to be bothered to find a good one. I'd be really interested in seeing surveys on how many people who used to be hard-core gamers are now down to short sessions that occur daily at most, and find out how many of them just got bored with playing the same old recycled game ideas and moved on to more rewarding hobbies.
    • If anything, myself and those I game with are looking to get OFFLINE. Bottom line: we don't want our gaming experiences to be manipulated by others. We deal with that shit in the real world. It'd be nice to, you know, play a game every now and then. When I play something online, I'm repeatedly managing other people's shit. That's not gaming. FUCK ONLINE.
      • Perhaps you were down-modded because of a perception of vulgar language, but it's much more likely that someone was just sniping at your +1 good karma bonus. I've noticed some of what looks like that during meta-modding recently.

        A few years ago I used to go out of my way to avoid posting with the extra point and found that it made it more likely that I would attract what appeared to be "grudge mods" so I went back to starting off at +2. Don't know if you're hated by different mods or if things have just c

    • Finally I am going to use some numbers that no one has tried yet for the car argument. About 1/2 down this page http://www.suntimes.com/output/auto/cst-fin-teen1 4 .html [suntimes.com], you will find stats showing that 9% of 16-17 yr olds had new cars and 36% of 16-17 yr olds have used cars. Now assuming worst case scenario that their parents bought them these cars, that is only 45% of 16-17 yr olds with their own cars, not a majority unless my math has failed me.

      Now, assuming that at least some percentage of those are

  • Is this what Nintendo is talking about? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhotoBoy ( 684898 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:04PM (#13743810)
    If people are starting to lose interest in gaming, is this Nintendo's chance to shine with the Revolution, and its ideal of more accessible games and simple/intuitive controls?
    • Look at the console ownership figures? If people had any interest in Nintendo's vision of gaming (which they've been pushing for the last 2 generations), don't you think it'd be a bit higher than 26%?
    • I read your comment with interest, but sadly that will not happen. Here's why:
      The media hates Nintendo. I don't know why, I don't pretend to know why, but they do, read almost any mainstream news outlet's report on Nintendo and it's always "child focused", or "younger gamer".
      Secondly, the public (UK, but probably US as well) see Nintendo as that. As part of my community enrichment project at school, I tried to organise a GCN tournament of Soul Calibur 2. It bombed, everytime I brought the subject up, I was
      • Maybe they were laughing at the controller?
        That's why I don't like GCs.
        I've heard they're fine once you use them a while, but they just seem cumbersom.
        • I'm actually in love with my Gamecube controllers, I have adaptors to use them for emulators on my pc and everything. Most other controllers either hurt my hands (PS2), are too small (S Xbox controllers) or the buttons hurt my fingers after extended use (PS2 D-pad, and the majority of the buttons on an Xbox controller).

      • The media hates Nintendo. I don't know why, I don't pretend to know why, but they do, read almost any mainstream news outlet's report on Nintendo and it's always "child focused", or "younger gamer".

        Read any mainstream new outlet's reports on anything to do with video games and youll realise very few of them have any fucking clue what they are talking about, so what mainstream outlets say doesnt hold alot of water in the internet days, and people are starting to realise this.

    • So let me try to figure out your logic. People are losing interest in gaming so they will all go to Nintendo now because Nintendo doesn't make games. Oh wait, they do make games! Ok ok, so you mean that Nintendo doesn't have anything out right now that gamers could play and the Revolution is about to come out. Oh wait, they have something called the "GameCube"!

      Seriously...how can an article saying that less people are gaming going to help Nintendo. Unless you believe they are gaming less because of th
      • Because the article says people are spending less money and time on gaming. Nintendo's strategy with the Revolution is to have a cheaper console with simple accessible games that don't require hours of constant playing.

        I wasn't saying it was definitely going to be Nintendo's big comeback, I was merely suggesting that Nintendo might have seen this trend and are trying to adapt to it.

        And on the subject of logic, where on earth did this "people will go to Nintendo now because Nintendo doesn't make games" garba

  • I hate to point out the obvious, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tchuladdiass ( 174342 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:16PM (#13743875) Homepage
    As kids get older, their interest in something they've been doing for quite a while will normally tend to decline. That doesn't mean that todays 14-year-old is any less interested in the subject matter than a 14-year-old from several years ago, it just means that particular teen is less interested in the games than he was when he was 11 or 12.
    • I, too, hate to point out the obvious, but as young people get older, new young people replace them.

      So the fact that some 11 year olds are now 14 - and thus not into "kid stuff" anymore - does not, in fact, explain a decline in video gaming.

  • No Surprise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BigDork1001 ( 683341 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:17PM (#13743885) Homepage
    The PS2, X-Box, and Game Cube have been out for a while now. No surprise that interest is declining. This time next year when Revolution, 360, and PS3 have been released there'll be interest in console gaming again.
    • Absolutely, there's nothing shocking here. It should be apparent that the big three are in the latter stages of the product lifecycle. Even Nintendo's Yoshihiro Mori said "...the product's life is nearing its end." As a Gamecube owner I can only see myself making one more (game) purchase.

  • There's more interest from adults though. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:21PM (#13743907)
    Teen interest in playing video games is on the decline.

    But no mention of the rise on adult interest in playing video games ?
    The latest surveys (not something to put all your trust in, but at least an indication) says that the general age of console owners is now around 27 years (and still, of course, mostly male) : It's funny to see how the last few years ,definitely after the introduction of the PS, gaming has become more and more mainstream, and less of a 'kiddy thing' :

    Whereas I am a gamer at heart (grew up with a Vic20 and an Atari 2600), I don't know yet if this development has brought me more pros or cons. Let's find out in the future, when adaption of games by the masses will even become bigger :
    With Nintendo's Revolution I can even imagine my grandma picking up the controller and giving it a try : It's so much more intuitive than a controller is.

    • Re:There's more interest from adults though. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The odd paradox with adult gamers is that although they now have the money to buy any gaming system and all the games they want, they do not have the time to devote to playing videogames that a teenager does.

      Honestly, I think I represent the average 26 year old gamer; in the average week I have 2 or 3 hours to play videogames and every month or two I buy a new game. When I was a teenager I spent (as a guess) in the 20-40 hour a week range playing videogames, I would rent games every weekend and I bought as
      • I'm a 37 year old gamer, and sadly, what you say is true.

        I went for about a year where I bought 3-4 games per month. Most of them I would put in for a while, and play for a few hours before I had to get on with my real life. The money part didn't bother me at all, it was just the lack of time that pissed me off.

        Finally I wised up, and I've only bought 2 games in the past 6 months (I still played through the old ones). I bought Blackhawk Down, which I put about 45 minutes into before declaring it to be cr

  • This is the Usual Pattern (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:29PM (#13743940) Homepage
    Generally speaking, towards the end of each console's lifecycle you will see a decline in interest. That's why it is the end of the lifecycle. You saw that between the 2600 and the NES, the NES and the Genesis / SNES, the Genesis and the Playstation, and the Playstation and the PS2. If popularity of a console wasn't declining, they likely wouldn't replace it.

    Likewise, it is well known that consoles and gaming in general do better during economic downturns. As we seem to be coming out of a deep recession into a reasonably good economy, it's not surprising that highly escapist forms of entertainment are less attractive, compared to traveling or spending time in the real world.

    Third, an annoying thing that tends to speed up the decline of consoles at the end is that the publishers are all refocusing their attention and development resources on the upcoming platforms. There just isn't much to buy. What is Microsoft releasing for the Xbox this year? Has anyone managed to squeeze real development dollars out of SONY for the PS2 in the past year?

    This is the normal cycle of the gaming industry. I'm not surprised. Things will pick up again in two to three years once the next console wars has really kicked off.

    • That is so true. Going from Genesis to Saturn/PS1, I remember buying an all time low 1 game that year. I asked myself if that was actually the end of video games for me at that point. Then Twisted Metal and Tekken came out, and I was back again.

    • As we seem to be coming out of a deep recession into a reasonably good economy

      Not for somebody in the midwestern United States with a bachelor's degree in computer science. I even get turned down when I apply for minimum wage jobs.

    • I don't think you can completely chalk it up to the popularity of a console declining. Some of the lessening interest has to be because of the marketing push that's already begun for the new shit. Why buy games for the current console when you can save the money for the new ones?

  • 10 billions dollars (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pbaumgar ( 595159 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:31PM (#13743954)
    The video game industry produces more than $10 billion dollars a year. That's more than the Hollywood. I don't think interest is on the decline, and I really don't think they care if teenagers aren't interested - Who says their target market is teenagers anyway??
    • Who says their target market is teenagers anyway??

      The problem is those teenagers eventually grow into adults. It's the McDonalds' theory of marketing. You hook 'em when they're young, and they'll keep coming back and then bring their kids as they become adults. And the cycle begins again.

      If the cycle is broken, that's the end of everything. You lose the kids as they grow into adults, and you never hook that next generation.

      I'm not convinced there's any real shift going on, though; I think it's probably

  • The Natural Progression of Things (Score:5, Funny)

    by iridium_ionizer ( 790600 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:38PM (#13743981)
    At first kids would talk and play with their next door neighbors. Then they come out with books. Kids read to escape their dull lives by going to Treasure Island or the Little House on the Prairie. Then radio broadcasts come out and kids can listen to the Shadow or Little Orphan Annie and kids forget about their books. Then TV comes along and they can watch I Love Lucy or see Ed Sullivan introduce the new coolest bands and kids forget about radio programs. Then LSD, marijuana, and smoking bannana peels comes out and kids forget a lot of things.

    Then video games come out with Pac-Man, Mario, Madden, MGS, and Halo and kids forget that they were addicted to drugs and become addicted to video games. Then the internet comes out and kids can talk and play with kids (and adults posing as kids) miles away, and kids forget about scripted forms of entertainment. Then they come out with the male contraceptive pill and all hell breaks loose.
    • At first kids would talk and play with their next door neighbors. Then they come out with books. Kids read to escape their dull lives by going to Treasure Island or the Little House on the Prairie. Then radio broadcasts come out and kids can listen to the Shadow or Little Orphan Annie and kids forget about their books. Then TV comes along and they can watch I Love Lucy or see Ed Sullivan introduce the new coolest bands and kids forget about radio programs. Then LSD, marijuana, and smoking bannana peels come

  • Repetiveness (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zeussy ( 868062 )
    I believe it could be in part that there hasnt been anything really new or innovative in the past few years. There has been a few titles here and there, but its all been sequels and known formulars. People will get bored of them.

    Maybe if this downturn continues long enough (though i doubt with the new consoles) that it will force developers/publishers to try something new. I am going to buy a Revolution coz its so different. A lot of the Xbox 360 titles will be PC titles, I already have one. PS2 mig
  • I would like to point out, that there might be similar declines in music and movies. Lots of consumers seem wary about the quality of newly released movies and music. The industry giants, dealing in art, wish to make product and profits more concrete and attempt to fabricate and force trends onto the public--it's my belief that the music industries stance on P2P software is that it enables the consumer to choose aged music versus the latest and greatest from the studios, eliminating their control over wha
    • Gazing upon BestBuys shelves, noticing the implications of the covers to games, I noticed that a considerable number of games were based off of some movie. All the movies suck. If it were exciting to make music, they'd probably have a game based off of Britney Spears and then turn around and think that people aren't interested in gaming becuase noone wants to purchase the Britney Spears Dance game.

      They made such a game. [gamespot.com] Only it's a dancing game.
    • If you have a GBA and can't find any good games for it then you aren't looking in the right places. I recently bought a DS (for when I travel for work) and a big reason for my buying it was GBA backwards compatibility. I went to gamespot.com and sorted their GBA reviews by rating and then read the reviews that most interested me, and then bought the 6 games that I thought I would most enjoy.

      And you know what, they are a blast. Yeah, half of them I had to order on-line and some were ports or adaptations of o
    • >>What happened to all the talented game developers out there? The guy who come up with PacMan? What about Tetris? Quake was a revolutionary game, Dungeons and Dragons? Have all the smart people, who are able to concoct a difficult puzzle working on the next release of Myst? What happened to the guy who wrote Burger Time? Did the guys who made the first Killer Instinct all retire? What happened to games like Zelda, and Super Mario Bros?

      All of those games (with the exception of Burger Time and Kill

  • Flawed study? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by np_bernstein ( 453840 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @09:25PM (#13744237) Homepage
    Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got - it sounds to me more like teenagers play less videogames as they get older. Otherwise you'd need to compare each age vs each age in previous years, not have each individual rate if they play more or less games than they did a year ago. Of course you're going to play less games when you're 16 as opposed to when you're 17--- you can drive and aren't stuck at home.

    -Nick
    • "Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got"

      Well, a couple of things sprung to mind after reading the Slashdot summary. (Nah, didn't read the article. I'm tired.) First, why are they looking at surveys when they could look at the total games sold in the last few years? I'm under the impression that console game sales have been going way way up over the last 10 years. Gaming is becoming more mainstream. It is reasonable to expect that the more people climbing on board that the more d
    • Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got - it sounds to me more like teenagers play less videogames as they get older.

      Reminds me of this quote of some US senator: "Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after the age of 25".

  • A bit misleading... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RealmRPGer ( 889362 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @10:02PM (#13744422)
    They use the fact that teens say they play less videogames this year than last year as evidence that gameplaying is declining, when I have NEVER seen any teen, hardcore gamer or not, actually increase the amount of time they play videogames increase as they get older. Most likely because lives only get more complicated as you grow, and as such there is less time for games. Try stacking up this year's teens against last years teens of the same age and maybe I'll start listening.
  • I think there is a remote chance that the Revolution will be able stop the current decline.

  • Funny that (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kent Simon ( 760127 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @10:57PM (#13744651) Homepage
    the previous article is discussing gaming addiction, while this one is about how gaming is on the decline

  • No, really? /sarcasm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @10:59PM (#13744659)
    The survey also pointed out that 75 percent of teens say their interest in video games is declining and 78 percent indicated they spent less time playing in 2005.

    2005 hasn't been the golden year for video gaming in the first place. Halo 2 came out '04, Ninja Gaiden Black is nothing more than a 'gold edition', almost every successfully selling PS2 is a sequal of some time (I [heart] Katamari anyone?) and Nintendo is (still) off doing their own thing with slow, timed releases. PC gaming hasn't been much better with the RTS scene only getting a Dawn of War expansion, Guild Wars is arguably a niche game, Battlefield 2 is a buggy mess, and the only other highly noted games being released for the rest of the year is Serious Sam 2 which could suffer from lack of advertisement and Quake 4 which Doom 3 haters may end up passing up.

  • Another doom and gloom prediction (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaveCBio ( 659840 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @11:00PM (#13744666)
    From clueless analysts. I am really tired of hearing all these analysts using their surveys to tell us that the games industry is in for a down turn. More people are playing games than ever and I don't see that changing. Do they think people will go back to passively absorbing TV? Surveys on the whole are pretty useless because people lie or say what they think is the right answer instead of what they really feel.
  • A quick glance doesn't seem to show anything special. However:

    - The school/university year just started.
    - School/uni is still being hyped as essential, more so since there are too many potential Bill Gates to even get your foot in the door. Thus, most people place a bit more focus on study.
    - In some fields, you need to max out your skillset by studying, practice, etc... This takes away time from entertainment (even if it is something passive, such as watching CSI.)
    - Those unemployed... generally thing jo

  • understandable (Score:4, Funny)

    by Flunitrazepam ( 664690 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @11:58PM (#13744866) Journal
    my mom used to always tell me:
    "less gaming, more freestyle rapping"

  • I cant imagine why (Score:4, Insightful)

    by marcybots ( 473417 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @12:05AM (#13744901)
    I wonder why people wouldnt want to play Halo 2, Resident evil 4, Burnout 3, or Madden 2006 unless they alread own Halo Resident Evil 3 Burnout 2 or Maddden 2005....hmmm

    But seriously there are many original games out there that are not sequels, Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance, Katamari Datmacy for the Playstation 2, Forza Motor sports Xbox, Ninja Gaiden xbox (totally not a sequel I dont care what anybody says), Paper Mario 1000 year door game cube (yes kinda a sequel, but no one played the original), Pikmin game cube, Metroid Prime game cube, Metroid zero mission, Deus Ex 2 (xbox, pc), Shin Megami Tensi: Digital Devil Saga (PS2), Ape Escape 2 (PS2) Rome Total War, Star trek: Starfleet command 2 (pc). game boy advance, all these games are amazingly awesome and will glue you to the game as if life outside the game did not exist. (starfleet command made me lose a fiance).

    There are a ton of awesome and original game experience, but no one ever buys them, they would rather buy something familiar rather than risky, because games are too expensive. If we could get a digitial distribution system where games cost $15 bucks instead of $50 mabey people would take more risks on good games instead of just buying madden and rainbow 6.

    • Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance

      Is a sequel. Nintendo made Fire Emblem on the Family Computer years ago... IN JAPAN!

      Ape Escape 2 (PS2)

      I'm not up on the Ape Escape series. Please clue us in on how a game with 2 in the name isn't a sequel. Or is it that there was no Rainbow 5?

      If we could get a digitial distribution system where games cost $15 bucks instead of $50

      Then the console makers wouldn't be able to subsidize their hardware products.

    • I agree that there are too many sequels and what is worse those sequels are coming out *way* to quickly. I don't mind getting a new Mario every five years, heck Gameboy hadn't had a new Mario for around 12 years, but when a sequels comes out even before I made it trough the predecessor things are really going wrong.

      Anyway, the list of games you give is quite a bit off: ResidentEvil4 is a completly different game from ResidentEvil3 or any of the other former ResidentEvil titles, different controls, different
    • The Fire Emblem you speak off as not being a sequel is actually Fire Emblem 7, the first one was on the NES in 1990...
    • Similar thing could be said about consoles. PS1, PS2, PS3. Pretty much the same with better graphics. Xbox, Xbox360. Pretty much the same but with better graphics. Nintendo is the only company right now that isn't building a "sequel" to the previous consoles. The Revo is an entirely new gaming experience. We have to give credit where credit is due.

  • The reason should be obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <<tukaro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Saturday October 08, 2005 @12:43AM (#13745000) Homepage Journal
    Just like the Game industry supposedly passes Hollywood in monetary gain, so to have the models been copied in the creation of content. So many of the games today, for any console, are hyped up, multi-million dollar crap fests. People scream "Mature!" and expect blood, gore, and sex, but it just gets tiring after a while.

    The problem with the old consoles (from Sega and Nintendo) was that the high cost and propierty of cartridges made it hard for companies to break in, not to mention home brewers. While I can't say personally, the programming and effort required to create a AAA game back then is probably considerably less than what it is now. Compare production times and cost for Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past with what is being pumped into Twilight Princess. I'm not saying the high cost/time isn't unwelcome- I have TP pre-ordered, and eagerly await it. I'm willing to pay for it, and so are probably a million other people out there.

    But the fact remains that for every Twilight Princess, one might have been able to make three Link to the Pasts. People are so focused on 3D ultra graphics with realistic gore that gameplay is often forgotten (but not by Nintendo!) Rarely do you see a 2D game for consoles today. Viewtiful Joe proved that 2D gaming with 3D environments can be a blast. There was also this crazy little fighter, you might know it, Super Smash Brothers, which also used 3D environments but with 2D movements, a much easier feat to pull off.

    Then we have the fact that many of the "hit" games are sequals. Burnout 3, GTA 4, Halo 2, the list goes on. The gaming market desperately craves new games and originality, but the producers (ala EA) refuse to put out, due to basically the high cost/time and how hard it is to recoup the money if a game sinks.

    That's why I think Nintendo's Revolution is correctly labeled. With this new way to control games, a fresh thrust will be put into the gaming market. Entire new genres may be created (First Person Adventure, anyone?), and we will certainly see a lot more maneuverability and originality. Yes, they have the shell, but with the remote, companies will be booed by the press for not coming up with a way to use it and just reverting to the same old controller setup that other companies rely on. I would bet a small fortune that Microsoft and Sony will be copying Nintendo to some extent with their next-next-next gen "media stations".

    Anyway, to increase the interest, the console runners (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) should reward originality. How they do this is up to them, but it needs to be done. Next, open up the consoles for homebrew. Don't want arbitrary code to run on the console? Fine, create your own pseudo-Java or C language (but you can bet the Linux guys will get something out of it, anyway), set up "micro" dev kits, and sell them to the masses. Look at the Dreamcast; it's been dead to the mainstream for a long while, but, to my knowledge, it's still a homebrewer's wet dream.

    Finally, offer shorter games. Yes, yes, "Gasp!". Consider that, though the teenage market is a large one, it's still the younger adults (18-30) who are buying a good heap of the games. These people have nifty things like jobs, and many have families. Games that require 60 hours of input can be fun and all, but it's nice just to have something you can pop in, play for 10-20 minutes, and turn off without worrying about saving anything. What we need are games like tetris. But not tetris, because we've all played that already. Wario Ware is a good forray into this area; pick up, play a few rounds, put down. Auto-saves (I believe,) and simple.
    • This is one of the reasons I love playing my Nintendo DS. If I have five minutes to wait on something, I can pop in a quick game of whatever and play. Even if it is a longer game, if I need to leave the game in a hurry, I just close the shell and it goes to sleep. When I open it up, the game is there waiting for me.
    • Entire new genres may be created (First Person Adventure, anyone?)

      Er... you mean like Myst, Normality Inc, and Return to Zork - or, indeed, the whole Famicom Detective Club series, which were on Nintendo consoles 15 years ago?

      Not precisely what I'd describe as "entirely new", but maybe you had something different in mind.
    • The Revolution will just solidify Nintendo as the Apple of the gaming world. They make good quality, niche products. There is no way the Rev will live up to it's moniker. Also, people like to drone on about innovation adn originality in games, but have a look at the market adn you'll see that casual gamers are the ones driving things these days. And casual gamers want the 25th version of Madden and the "smash the crap out of things" racing games. The good thing is that pays the bills and does allow some ori
  • and it's hard to find anyone that will accept a pre-order for them, I don't buy the argument that consoles are losing interest. It took me a while to find a pre-order package that my web hosting company is going to be giving away...
  • As someone who has played games since before I could ride a bicycle, I can tell you flat out that the reason for the decline in player's interest has nothing to do with other distractions, competing media or new health fads. It's all down to the simple fact that games are simply not as good as they used to be.

    I might sound like an old coot, but believe me the signal to noise ration on game store shelves had been consistently declining year on year for the past five years.

    There was a time ~1999-2000, when at
    • There was a time ~1999-2000, when at every month at least one new innovative, fresh and enjoyable masterpiece of a game was guaranteed to come out.

      In 1999 and 2000 was the end of the playstation lifecycle, and people were complaining about a lack of "innovative" games. People always complain not enough great games come out.

      Last summers drought of halfway decent games was indicative of this malaise

      And what about last holiday season, where there were lots of great games all coming out at the same time.
  • I've been playing Madden 2004, NCAA football 2003, Mike Tyson's Punch Out and other outdated games for the last few years. My interest in these games hasn't declined, but my blind willingness to buy an "improved" copy of a game i own has been impaired by age.

    Although no longer a teen, I still play quite a few hours of videogames per week (not having kids results in a good chunk of free time- w00t), however, they are "comfort games", things I can play while listening to CDs, chatting on the phone, and runnin
  • And guess what. I play video games more than ever these days. Perhaps the decline has to do with the end of the console cycles? The last big hit to pull people into gaming was sadly Halo and Halo 2, and all they've done is spawn the underbelly of gaming society, the Halo Freaks. Perhaps it's because they don't play the right video games? The great games on the DS have revived my interest in gaming completely.
  • As an avid gamer, I can say that after discussing the topic with friends it is partially due to the way the games are built nowdays along with the internet. Back in the days of 'Tomb Raider', 'Goldeneye', 'Final Fantasy'.. the games kept you interested and made you want to play for long periods of time mainly due to the fact there was nothing else to do.
    Now with most households having the internet, kids find better stuff to do online and would rather read about the new games consoles coming out than play
  • As strange as it seems, my interest in gaming is on the decline, but that's because I'm in college and don't have enough time to play games and avoid studying:-)
  • There seem to be a ridiculous number of "The Nintendo Revolution will save the gaming world, even though we know of no software for it, have only seen a few proof-of-concept demos and have no idea how the control will work in real life" Posts? Kinda funny, kinda sad.
  • as someone who works in a toyshop (that sells games) I see 4 million FPS games, about that racing games, and a couple of budget titles that have originality. what's wrong with this picture? only a unique, hyped game or a popular liscense get purchased, and I'm left explaining to someone why they should buy beyond good and evil even though they have never heard of it another point- as an Australian, we don't get local content. you can bet that a few people bought GT4 and Juiced because they want Australia
    • as an Australian, we don't get local content

      Coming soon... GTA: Brisvegas. Look, I don't really feel that local content is what I'm looking for in a game (although it'd be nice if Animal Crossing had an option for southern hemisphere so it is summer when it really is summer).

      The best Australian game I've played of late was Destroy All Humans. It included nothing that was really Australian (you could say the humour was Australian though). Maybe local content is more important for sports titles, but for
  • As far back as I can recall, the "dominant gaming platform" has bounced back from consoles to computers and back every few years.

    In my first recollection of "gaming", it was *ALL* about the Atari 2600. *EVERYONE* had to have one, and if you talked about games on the *computer*, you were a joke. Then, everyone lost interest in consoles, seemingly overnight, and it was computer games or nothing; as the C64 gained popularity and the Apple ][ series gained a reasonable amount of RAM. Later, the NES, Super NE

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