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Games Entertainment

Gaming Industry Going Down? 108

Posted by Zonk from the once-around-the-bowl dept.
Stefan Constantinescu wrote to mention an Inquirer article positing that the gaming industry is due for another crash. From the article: "Sadly, the gaming industry is in a self-imposed death spiral. Everyone is putting on a brave face, touting the latest v6 of a game that came out before most of it's audience was born. What was a fun hobby full of creative geniuses and their mad art has become a grey corporate parking lot. We are about to take that dive again, the industry is desperately trying to speed up the process with each passing day. Rather than take a step back, they are addicted to marketing plans and money men. It will kill them, and in a few years, good will arise from the ashes. It happened with arcades, it happened with the first wave of consoles, and is about to happen again. It is high time someone flushed the toilet that the games industry has become, it will do us all a world of good."
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Gaming Industry Going Down? More

Gaming Industry Going Down?

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  • Please.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:13PM (#14140045)
    I cant remember a time that I've had MORE games on my system than today. The industry seems to be doing fine, although I will admit the signal to noise ratio does seem to be going up..

    • Re:Please.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BigDork1001 ( 683341 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:17PM (#14140076) Homepage
      Yeah but I'm going to take a quality over quantity approach. Sure there's a lot of games coming out but how many are original and fun? How many are rehashes and sequals. How many are the same game under a different name? How many are games that were released 20 years ago and are being sold to suckers feeling a little nostalgia?

      • Re:Please.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by snuf23 ( 182335 )
        "How many are rehashes and sequals."

        Quite a few. And just as with new properties they vary in quality. I quite enjoyed Call of Duty 2 and think that Civilization 4 packs some truly excellent interface design.
        On one hand you could say these are the same old formula, on the other hand they are significant updates.
        I think there is a place for updates of older games but we do need more innovation. Katamari was excellent because it was a unique gaming experience and had a unique sense of style and whimsy.
        Good gr
      • Just because the market is flooded with games, doesn't mean that there are any less good (i.e. innovative) games. They are just lost to those without eyes to see.

        Think back, back, back to the Nintendo or even the Atari days. Back when all games were apparently original and fun. Well of course they were all original, they were all NEW; but all fun? Really.

        Did you ever encounter or (heaven forbid) play:

        Journey Escape? - play the band, avoid the evil managers and photographers (seriously)
        Hot Dog Maze? - play p
        • Hey, man, Yo! Noid was... well, it wasn't that bad... it didn't make much sense, and got boring and repetitive after a while, but... wait, what was my point? Oh yeah, Yo! Noid sucked. Just like the old crappy Tengen NES Road Runner game.

          They weren't all great, it's just that we only remember the good ones. I wonder if that's what we'll think about the PS/PS2 in a decade...
        • HEY!! I played Tiger Heli(on the NES right?) and thought it was pretty good, annoyingly hard at the time maybe but I liked it.
          • Yeah, until you get to the end (after ever so much annoyance and frustration) and get the prize: the game restarts! Woo!

            It was fun for ten minutes. Even better, I passed up Contra to get that crap.
            • lol, I never beat it so I didn't know that (it was my cousin's game, not mine). I've ran into a few games like that and it's pretty annoying. I withdraw my previous position.
        • wall street kid, I remember I got this game for like 50 cents, to this day I still have no clue how the hell to play that peice of shit. I got stuck on the first part of the game for like 5 days and it would never let me pass by it, no matter what I selected it would give me a new menu that didn't do a damn thing....god do I hate that game.

    • Re:Please.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by twoflower ( 24166 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:21PM (#14140111)
      ... although I will admit the signal to noise ratio does seem to be going up..
      You mean "down". "Up" would imply more signal, less noise.

    • Re:Please.. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nmaster64 ( 867033 )
      That's one of the biggest problems right now, it SEEMS like it's doing fine, and the numbers even back that up...

      But if you break everything down and look at it in a different light, you'll see we're actually doing WORSE off than back in the NES days.

      Back when the NES was the only console around, it had about a 1/3 household penetration. While sales of consoles and games today are WAY higher than back then, you'll find that in the end, the gaming households percentage actually comes to a little bit UNDE

    • Re:Please.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ultranova ( 717540 )

      I cant remember a time that I've had MORE games on my system than today. The industry seems to be doing fine, although I will admit the signal to noise ratio does seem to be going up..

      Think about it from the game makers point of view. First, the cost of making a game is constantly increasing. Graphics keep getting better; someone has to draw them. Everything has to have 3D graphics nowadays, someone has to model them (which is a lot harder than drawing 2D graphics). Every game has to have speech; someon

      • ultranova, any more info available on your turn-based fantasy game? I'm always curious about what other indy game devs are coming up with, these tend to be much more free-form than any of the bland Generic First-Person Shooter 6: Extreme Bumpmap Edition we seem to see everywhere.

        I too and developing a game in my spare time, a classic-style arcade shooter [darkicon.com], leveraging my personal experience as an artist helps with the graphics though. Nothing revolutionary, just a fun, simple kill-everything-and-try-not-to-

        • ultranova, any more info available on your turn-based fantasy game? I'm always curious about what other indy game devs are coming up with, these tend to be much more free-form than any of the bland Generic First-Person Shooter 6: Extreme Bumpmap Edition we seem to see everywhere.

          Sorry it took so long to answer; for whatever reason, my eyes didn't register that a followup had been posted :(.

          The basic idea is to make a fantasy strategy game where diplomacy, both domestic and foreign, is more important t

          • Ok, I'll admit I usually tend more toward the military-conquest type of strategy gaming, but man, what you're doing sounds like it'll be a blast to play! Got a website yet? If not... why?? Even if you have nothing to show yet, you could at least place a "coming soon" message there, maybe with a condensed description like your post above, to generate interest ahead of release.

            Anyway, I can't wait to play it. Sounds awesome. :)

            • Ok, I'll admit I usually tend more toward the military-conquest type of strategy gaming,

              Military conquest is certainly a factor. An important factor, even. But it isn't the only factor; this isn't a game where everything ultimately serves getting a better and bigger army, this is a game where everything serves getting more influence :). But of course a big army is very helpfull.

              Got a website yet? If not... why?? Even if you have nothing to show yet, you could at least place a "coming soon" message th

  • I know that they aren't near as popular as they once were but isn't it because the consoles can do things just as well as arcade games now? Arcades keep trying to adapt too. They've moved onto more specialized games that you can't recreate as well using a home console.

    I'm not an industry person, that's just how I see it.

    • Re:Did the same thing happen with Arcades? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Durrill ( 908003 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:30PM (#14140193)
      Arcades were a big thing in my city 10 years ago. But, one day, we noticed that all the new "Hot" games that were being released cost 2 quarters to play. Many of us would ponder, is it worth paying more for a game that I know nothing about, only to die in less than 5 minutes? It started to spiral down from there. Now there are no arcades at all in my city, and you'll only find a handful of arcade machines at the big movie theatres. Even there the cheapest game cost 6 quarters (the most expensive needing 16 quarters) to play... i wonder why I never see anyone playing the games.

      I could care less what quality an arcade machine has over consoles, i don't care how much it cost for the store / movie theatre / arcade to purchase the machine. Keep arcade games at only one quarter per play, people will play often at such a cheap rate, like they did in the past. You would certainly make alot more money that way than off the odd person that likes to spend 4 bucks for 5 minutes of disappointment.

      You'd think it would have dawned on all the arcade owners as to why people just stopped coming to their arcades so many years ago.
      • Thank you. Finally someone agrees with me on this.

        People say, "Oh, well it was home consoles that killed arcades." Bullshit. That may have been a contributer, but it was mainly the fact that it now costs you a 75 cents a play for a game to kill you in under 2 minutes often times. Some arcades like Dave and Busters in st. louis are even worse.

        When I look at the arcade today, I see two types of games. Games like tekken, where it costs 50 cents to play, and if you play against someone else, you will get ab
        • I also agree and I will take the argument one point further.

          Who benefits from empty machines? If I was an arcade owner, I would make the games cheap enough that every one is being played at any given time. The only ones I would price at a premium are the newest games that are going to be constantly full. Nowadays you can't go to whatever arcades are left without $20 in your pocket. You will be cleaned out of this $20 within an hour. Make the games dirt cheap, increase your revenue by opening up a small food
      • "(the most expensive needing 16 quarters) to play... i wonder why I never see anyone playing the games."

        You do? Seems kinda obvious to me...
      • $0.25 in 1980 is $0.63 today. Arcade games (at least the little ones) are cheaper now.
    • I thought the example was funny as well. The author talks about how we're headed for a video game crash because all of the games are the same but we can get out of it by making fresh new games again. The example, though, is a situation where there were a wide variety of games, but then the arcades crashed, and the only way they could recover was by making all of the games the same (i.e. rhythm games).

      Rob
    • I know that they aren't near as popular as they once were but isn't it because the consoles can do things just as well as arcade games now? Arcades keep trying to adapt too. They've moved onto more specialized games that you can't recreate as well using a home console. I'm not an industry person, that's just how I see it.

      Having worked at an arcade for a number of years and played in quite a few tournaments, I can tell you what killed the fighting game craze. Broadband internet connections. Every gamer

  • Chicken Little (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Generic Guy ( 678542 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:17PM (#14140072)
    I'm not so sure these days. Games seem to be eating Hollywood's lunch, which is bad for theaters, and small development houses grow merge and die off but that's the norm. There's nothing which would indicate a full blown game crash like the 1983 Atari debacle.

  • Just like Hollywood... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MoaDweeb ( 858263 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:21PM (#14140113)
    From TFA: How many games are not sequels, fight games, drivers, or FPSes? Few. Just like Hollywood (to which the games industry is endlessly compared) the suits control the expenditure and they lack not only the vision but also the cajones to do anything but look backwards and extrapolate from there. If and when there is a correction the next breed/ style of games will come through.
    • That is the case, but think about it this way. At some point the industry gets torn between whether to provide what gamers who want what is familiar to them or those who require something that is completely different. Another thing is that it seems to me that there are a lot of people out there who want to see a new version of title X; Some of those people go on to cry about it when title X+1 and any further versions fail to be completely revolutionary every time. Anyway, my point in all this is that if you
    • Who can blame them? When a truly original film comes out of nowhere, how does it do in the box office? Almost always, it does poorly. Take Dark City, or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

      The problem isn't the suits, but the huge mass of moviegoers who don't want to take the risk. The business is just following their customers.

  • Strange Prediction (Score:3, Insightful)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:23PM (#14140124)
    I always smile a little when I see these articles about how the gaming industry is doomed, how it's only a matter of time until the whole industry comes crashing down.

    I guess it's a valid thing to talk about, but look at where we are right now: Video games are actually semi-cool now - they're no longer limited to a nerd's basement, more people are buying games than ever before, and gaming is actually competing with Hollywood. Movies are boilerplate also, and nobody is preaching the impending doom of that industry.

    Also the fact that games are becoming cookie-cutter has no bearing on this conversation. If you think that gaming is getting stale now, remember not THAT much has changed since the original Doom.

    • If you think that gaming is getting stale now, remember not THAT much has changed since the original Doom.

      You mean Wolfenstein 3d.

    • Re:Strange Prediction (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rabbot ( 740825 )

      Also the fact that games are becoming cookie-cutter has no bearing on this conversation. If you think that gaming is getting stale now, remember not THAT much has changed since the original Doom.

      It has a lot of bearing on the conversation. The game industry is diving right in the crapper because the suits play it safe by releasing cookie cutter games year after year. How much longer do you think people are going to put up with Madden 200X, GTA random city, and all the other regurgitated crap that keeps

      • Look at how many people go to see random action movie X, or random college comedy movie Y. New, original, GOOD things are very rare. The difference between movies and video games is that video game sequels are consistently better than the ones that came before them. Movie sequels almost always suck.

        And I'm not saying that I wouldn't like some new kinds of game to play, but I think that the reason that the current games-types are popular and sell so well is because they are GOOD. They may be derivative

      • Re:Strange Prediction (Score:5, Funny)

        by Thrakkerzog ( 7580 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @03:47PM (#14140956)
        How much longer do you think people are going to put up with Madden 200X

        I'm guessing 2010.

    • I guess it's a valid thing to talk about, but look at where we are right now: Video games are actually semi-cool now - they're no longer limited to a nerd's basement

      I dunno, games were pretty damn cool when the Atari crashed. Pac-Man Fever was on the top-10 charts, and Pac-Man himself had a saturday morning cartoon. Also, the Atari seemed to appeal more towards famlies/people of all ages than the later consoles (such as the Nintendo and Genesis) did. You found a lot of adults playing Pong or Combat on At

  • On the money (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ludomancer ( 921940 )
    I work in the industry, and I can tell you that this article hits the nail on the head. You see so much more marketting now than every before because the corporate money men want to get their cash and run, and let the developers take the fall when it all comes down. I love capitalism!

  • I don't see it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FadedTimes ( 581715 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:26PM (#14140162)
    I consider the game industry PC, Consoles, and hand helds. PC games like world of Warcraft have strong Sales. Consoles like the new xbox360 has sold well. Hand helds like the Nintendo DS has sold well. I don't see any signs that things are heading toward a downward spiral. What I will say is it takes large budgets to make most modern games, this may balloon up and explode at some point, but I don't think it will crash the industry, it will just force game developers to be more innovative, and hopefully end the yearly updates and releases of games that arn't much diffferent from the previous years and games (EA sports and MMORPG's as examples).

    • Re:I don't see it (Score:3, Interesting)

      by harrkev ( 623093 )
      Well, your "yearly update" is part of the problem. If you have "Power Nose-Ball 2005," will you pay $60 for "Power Nose-Ball 2006" which is the exact same game, just with a different roster of players, and perhaps slightly improved textures?

      But one point of the article that I agree with is a lack of creativity. Look at the following genres:

      1) FPS
      2) Strategy
      3) RPG
      4) Sports
      5) Platform
      6) Car Race
      7) Flight/space sim.

      How many games do not fit neatly into one of those categories? Very few. A few years ago, I
      • I don't buy the premise that the ability to categorize a game means it is not fun, or even unoriginal. Just like in books, movies, and art good story and craft can transcend any genre - conversely, genre-bending unclassifiable works can be utter dreck.

      • Re:I don't see it (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 )
        Some of those categories are extremely broad. RPG? Strategy? Platform? That can be so many subgenres that fit into those genres and plenty of room for creativity.

        That's like saying there's no creativity in books anymore because it pretty much all fits into fiction or nonfiction.

  • big media (Score:4, Insightful)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:27PM (#14140174)
    The decline of the gaming industry is because "big media" has gotten involved. They choose the concept (or sequel, or license), then run it through accounting to see if it fits their return on investment requirements. During development, if they suddenly have a concern over quarterly earnings per share, it may be more attractive for them to cut the game off, toss out the staff, and report minutely better earnings.

    It's simply quantity (or eye-candy) over quality, just like television. How many reality shows are there, and how long have most halfway thinking adults been entirely through with that theme?

    Good shows are really rare, and as we know, some great shows get cut after one episode if the numbers don't show immediately.

    Even pimps run better business than big media.

    Two games a few years ago that really stood out (and had huge sales, and even huger income/cost ratios) were Re-volt and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Both games were innovative, fun, and even pretty. But they didn't have million dollar rendered movie cut scenes, any advertizing, or big public rollouts.

    The one upside to the downside in the game industry is that it forces some of us to re-enter the real world. There are plenty of fun things to do there.
    • First of all, what decline??

      Secondly, the vast majority of games, books, television, etc is crap. You think it'd be better if indie developers were in charge? I'd bet an even higher portion of the content would be crap. The same goes for TV and movies. Maybe it seems like there are all these good independent movies out and the main ones are all crap. But what you didn't see was all the independent stuff that was too terrible for even the most die hard art house movie goers to want to see. The difference i

  • Bad comma, no donut (Score:2, Insightful)

    by csbrooks ( 126129 )
    Crappy games are going to kill the games industry at about the same time that rampant and fervent misuse of the comma kills the Inquirer. And don't get me started about "it's".

    Seriously though, I don't think games are any worse (or better) now than they were five years ago. There's still cool, original stuff and there are still sequels. Plenty of games are still fun.

  • Compare and CONTRAST (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:35PM (#14140243) Journal
    "Is the apocalypse nigh? I sure think so. The last one happened at the height of Atari's power, they were invincible, pumping out hit after hit. Pac-Man, ET, Asteroids, movie tie-ins, overflowing arcades and a rabid fan base. They were in the spotlight of the mainstream press, songs making the top 10, and money coming out of their ears. What could go wrong?"

    TFA is missing a couple key differences.

    (1) Video games are not a nascent market, like they were with the 2600. The biggest market for video games has been playing them their entire life, and have the purchasing power to keep the industry afloat.

    (2) PCs and consoles are more ubiquitous in the American home today. The potential market is larger.

    I believe that the video game market will not crash. It may not be able to continue in its present form, with tons of high-stakes gambling on low-risk ventures, but the money will be there for the taking... but the terms of competition may change.

    If I were a big-time game dev CEO (Ryan, you listening?), I'd be looking at creating an engine that could be used to create many games of different genres & styles... then I'd save on dev costs and be able to focus on content & gameplay. And, be able to license the engine for a long tail.
    • This [ign.com] is a transcript of a Nintendo Press Summit. It is press/marketing, so take of it what you will.

      They analyze console growth, and figure that the growth of the industry has been consistant with population growth, and multiple console ownership. Additionally, according to a study by Piper Jalfray, the number of gamers in the male 10-14 bracket are spending less time playing games. The group of young boys that will be feeding into the 10-14 bracket is down 8-10% from previous generations, so the futur

    • If I were a big-time game dev CEO (Ryan, you listening?), I'd be looking at creating an engine that could be used to create many games of different genres & styles... then I'd save on dev costs and be able to focus on content & gameplay. And, be able to license the engine for a long tail.

      I agree with you entirely, *but* there seems a lot of reluctance in the game industry to re-use engines. (Which a few exceptions; the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance engine was used for several games, Unreal engines us
      • Uh first off, what parent poster described sounds a lot like what ID is doing. Maybe a superficial version of what you describe, but if you consider the sheer number of Quake 3 engine based games from different publishers and their many differences its not a a stretch.

        and to this:

        "2) Developers generally want their own engines because they want to add their own features to make their game more unique."

        Do they really? I doubt many game developers are very excited about their work. Maybe in the creation of sa
      • Actually, while most developers use their own engine, they are generally re-used many times and in many titles. You may not be able to see it, but very rarely does a core 3D renderer get thrown out and replaced.

        There are a lot of problems with using an off-the-shelf engine for anything other than what it was originally intended to do. On any engine, to get the kind of performance and RAM optimizations you need, you are going to tweak the living hell out of it. "Oh, we need these objects to be sprites abo
    • Atari was huge. Over it's lifetime the Atari 2600 shipped a total of 25 million units. That's hardly a nascent market. From 1979-1982 their sales consistantly doubled every year. They made headlines. They had mainstream bands named after them. They were un-fucking stoppable. It was the second major era of consoles(we're now in the third) and it was hardly a nascent market.

      Then, the crash hit in '83. Perception swung from there's no end to the video game boom to the boom has busted almost overnight.
      • " Atari was huge. Over it's lifetime the Atari 2600 shipped a total of 25 million units. That's hardly a nascent market."

        Actually, that's exactly what a nascent market is. When the 2600 was released, the market was tiny, with tons of potential for growth.

        At the time of the bust in 83, the market was no longer nascent -- growth of the market would no longer carry sales. The industry needed to adapt well or go bust, and we know which happened :).

        But, the console game industry is changing -- like subs
    • >If I were a big-time game dev CEO (Ryan, you listening?), I'd >be looking at creating an engine that could be used to create >many games of different genres & styles... then I'd save on >dev costs and be able to focus on content & gameplay. And, be >able to license the engine for a long tail.

      You mean like... id?
  • Just look at the sea change that Nintendo is bringing. End of the polygon wars. A small, low cost console that has a Revolutionary controller. Look at DS and NintenDogs.

  • Bitter much? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:41PM (#14140292) Journal
    Man, and I thought *I* was bitter... this guy is making me look happy-go-lucky by comparison.

    Of course, who cares what this guy thinks? That's probably why he's so bitter... it's bad enough he's been working his whole life to become a writer, now suddenly his opinion is worth about as much as some dude on blog*.com...

    I'll pay attention when more articles like this start originating from developers, project managers, and game industry execs. Oh, and when whole-dollar-sales of video games start to dip. Call me when all of that happens. Until then, can we ignore crackpots ? That'd be nice. Thanks.

    • What about Iwata? He's been saying this for years. That is why Nintendo appears to be taking so many risks.

      For the record, game sales in Japan are shrinking.

      The writing is on the wall. Sony and Microsoft are looking at dueling losses in the next generation, each trying to pave they way to what they see as the ultimate profits in the next next generation after their foes have been vanquished. How long can they both keep their respective business models? There is a tipping point to this game of corporate chic
      • What about Iwata? He's been saying this for years. That is why Nintendo appears to be taking so many risks.

        Or not taking risks. I mean, despite the 'revolutionary' nature of the new controller, is Nintendo doing anything crazy and dramatic like spending tons of money developing truly cutting-edge hardware and selling it at a loss? No, they're not. That would be Microsoft and Sony, as you point out. Nintendo is taking the safe position, targeting a market they know well- people who play cute, fun games to

        • I think it is a bigger risk for Nintendo than you do. The concept of the controller is very sound, but if the technology behind it isn't perfected, the Revolution will be a huge flop. I also think Nintendo is targeting a more broad demographic than they (or anyone else in the game's industry) ever have before. If it pays off, they could make a ton of money.

          Neither of them really see a problem with making only a little money on their respective ventures when counted in terms of pure hardware sales, they both
          • Sure, some will want HD movies for their HD living rooms, but I can't imagine many people paying so much extra for the equipment and the media when they are satisfied with what they have.

            Then again, I didn't believe anyone would buy a UMD movie for $20. I've been wrong before.

            Well, people with money are funny that way... the HD content folks are looking ahead to a time when most people have HD displays in their living rooms. Over-the-air standard definition broadcasts *will* actually stop soon, HD disp

            • Your average family won't be replacing their old DVDs even after they get HD sets and HD DVD/Blu-ray players

              I have to say that this confuses about the HD media push. It is very likely that HD DVD and Blu-Ray players will still support standard DVDs. The big money boom of the DVDs was the replacement of VHS movies. The studios got to charge their customers again. If it is less likely for the customers to buy thier old DVD movies again, is there anything to be gained by a hard push for the media?

              Also, I've he
              • Also, I've heard rumblings that the Blu-ray drives that Sony might incorporate into the PS3 might have slower data transfer speeds than their DVD brothers. If that is the case, the load times might be oppressive.

                Wow do I find that hard to believe... unless they're talking about DVD-ROM data read rates, and even then, they can't be that much slower, can they?

                If it is less likely for the customers to buy thier old DVD movies again, is there anything to be gained by a hard push for the media?

                I think they'r

    • Sorry to hear about your low self worth, but I can assure you, mine is not that bad.

      For the record, my first writing assignment was the Opteron launch, so you do the math, but about 10% of my life. If you start aspiring for the same goals, in a year and a half, you will be at the same percentage.

      Also, I was a dev for the Atari Jaguar, project manager too. Guess that shoots down your other point. I'll let you keep the one on your head.

              -Charlie
      • I was a dev for the Atari Jaguar, project manager too.

        Thanks Charlie! That's the info I didn't manage to find in my google search on you... I can see how that'd get burried under your more recent writting gigs !

        However, the reason I had looked for your gaming industry job history was to get a feel for why you're so bitter and down on the industry. *Jaguar* dev, of all things, no wonder you're bitter, I would be, too ! Hell, you've *earned* that bitterness, developing a great system to see it go down in fla

  • Haven't Bought Much Lately (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:47PM (#14140336) Homepage
    As a consumer nestled well within the target demographic for the industry, I have to say I've bought less games this year than ever before.

    Admittedly, it's due in part to the glut of games out there. There's a LOT of games coming out weekly, and scant few are worth spending the money on. The last games I've bought myself are Shadow of the Colossus (my god, what a GREAT game), Burnout Legends (basically BO3 on the PSP), Burnout Revenge (mediocre improvements on 3), and that last Incredible Hulk game (lots of destruction, but who's still playing it?). There have been a huge swath of first person shooters out on the PC, action/adventure games on the console, as well as platformers (what are they up to now, Ratchet & Clank XIII?). But most make small improvements (at best) on existing games.

    I'm also a fan of MMOs, and as such am more inclined to play ONE game for a much longer period of time than a game I can finish in a weekend.

    I've been watching the next gen consoles with great interest, but to be honest none of the launch titles for the 360 really do much for me. I'm not a fan of sports games, which are the very embodiment of what is wrong with the gaming industry, and I can get Call of Duty 2 on the PC for CHEAPER than the 360. Project Gotham Racing 3 looks nice, but I have like three Gran Turismo games kicking around on my PS2. So what's the incentive?

    Graphics? Ok things are looking much nicer, but there's no innovative gameplay out there anymore. The last really impressive console game was Colossus, and that's an "old generation" game.

    It might be too early to tell. First batches of games for new console generations usually are the suck, until developers start getting ballsy with the hardware. But I'm hoping the industry doesn't bottom out before then.

    Just my opinion.

  • Nice one! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Miros ( 734652 ) * on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @02:53PM (#14140401)
    If only we could all rip on the games industry as well as this guy does. There was a time when i would have agreed with him, and so would penny arcade (those were good days, good days...) But anyway, I've come to see the games industry the same way i see every creative industry. It's gotten to be large, and innovative. There are many differnt people trying to differnt things differnt ways. Of course, there will be better years, and worse years, knock-offs, blockbusters, trend games, and endless merchandising. But, in the end, these things are natural for this type of industry.
  • Who is making money? Who isn't?

  • End of Cathedral, start of Bazaar? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @03:08PM (#14140555)
    There's not a shadow of doubt that 8-figure-and-rising development costs per game are utterly unsustainable. The question is, what can be done about it?

    The market volume is there, the demand for games is unquenchable, the platforms are in very good shape and gettting better, so the only problem is actually MAKING the products without spending gazillions. And that problem boils down to one (and ONLY one) issue: manpower.

    People will immediately object that game assets and development infrastructure cost a lot more than manpower, but my point here is that those things are only *symptoms* of the current problem and not central. You see, game assets only have astronomic price tags when you're licensing a blockbuster title from its blood-sucking owner (and we don't need any more of those), otherwise the cost of assets is simply that of the manpower and computer time needed to create them.

    So, here's the most obvious and straightforward solution to the malaise in the gaming industry: knock down the cathedrals of the current games producers, and put game component and game asset development out to tender in the bazaar of the worldwide development community.

    Manpower costs would then fall drastically owing to the huge supply of computing skills in the world, and even the machinery costs would plummet since much of it would be personally owned by the distributed developers. Furthermore, this addresses the other two contributory issues that I didn't mention above, lack of reuse in the industry and very little standing on the shoulders of giants. FOSS has a proven track record in that area.

    Of course, this doesn't tackle the whole problem, but it certainly rips out its rotting heart. And freed from the shackles of megabuck production costs and the time-to-market issues that they create, I have no doubt that novelty in games will start to flourish again. There is no shortage of amazing ideas in the world.
    • There's not a shadow of doubt that 8-figure-and-rising development costs per game are utterly unsustainable. The question is, what can be done about it?

      Not a shadow of doubt? I doubt it. What makes it unsustainable? The movie industry has been in the 8 digits since the 80s, and it's doing alright, isn't it?

      In any case, I think your bazaar already exists. Modders are all over the place, forming teams to make total conversions every time a new game engine comes out. How many free total conversions were t
    • Why would high production budgets be the anthesis of gaming? By their very nature of being basically fixed development, free reproduction, hudge budgets are to be expected. Besides, a year's worth of Star Trek TNG cost in the 8 figures, why would a year's worth of game development be any different?

      BTW, with very specific exceptions when you put your game out to the worldwide development community [stellarstone.com] you get crap [gamespot.com]. Even Art and music resources will need to be edited the heck out to get them to fit with your g
  • A lot of people talk about the video gaming crash of the eighties as if gaming simply stopped untill the NES hit big. Whilst it's true that Atari etc suffered a major loss in sales, the period also saw a boom in the home computer industry, with machines like the C64 coming to the fore. Gamers may have left the stagnating console market, but a lot of them jumped to 'proper' computers insted.

    • I was just about to say the same thing. I keep hearing about this crash, but for me there wasn't a crash. I'm not sure what time it was supposed to happen, but I think it was the time I was playing the best games I'd ever seen and they were loads of them coming out all the time. I had a Vic-20, and C64 from about 84 until Sept 87. I only heard about this crash about 5 years ago and I didn't know what people were talking about.

      And as for the NES saving us all! HA! I've never even SEEN one in real life

  • Recession, not depression (Score:3, Interesting)

    by VGR ( 467274 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @03:42PM (#14140904)
    Mostly curmudgeony grousing on the article's part, but obviously there's a fair amount of truth in there: the games industry mostly sucks. Or, as a wise fellow once said, 90% of anything is crud.

    I don't think a crash is imminent, because we have a different pricing model than we had in the 80s.

    Back then, a 2600 game would typically cost $30, unless it was a "hot" title from Atari themselves, in which case it was $40 or $50. Most of the Atari titles did not disappoint, but zillions of third party developers jumped in with horrendous garbage that made the buyer want to shed tears for having been forced to view such a pitiful excuse for gameplay on his television. I think if I'd paid $30 for Mythicon's "Sorcerer" I'd be very unlikely to ever buy another game. Trying out games at kiosks is something only kids have time for.

    Nowadays, games (and all technology) come down in price pretty predictably. After a year, a game is $20. ($30 if it's really popular.) After two years, it's $15 or less. After three years, it's in bargain bins, unless it's been sent back to the distributor's warehouse.

    I routinely wait two years before getting most games. Maybe that's because I play a lot of single-player and not much multiplayer, so I don't have to worry about whether I'll be able to find a server. For a long time I knew hardly anyone who did the same thing, but I'm starting to encounter increasing numbers of people who practice the same buying strategy.

    This is the market in action. Most games suck, and they're not worth $50. I know it. Others have been stung enough that they're starting to notice it. I don't think the gaming industry is in for a crash; I think it's in for a fall. I think starting sometime in the next few years, most games will be $20 or less when they hit the shelves. If that doesn't pay the bills for the extravagant graphics and movie licensing... too bad, guess they should have spent more of that money on gameplay. If "Tetris" didn't teach the lesson that a great game doesn't need great graphics, I don't know what will.

    Which brings up another point: true occasional revitalization of the industry comes from true innovations like Tetris. A game concept that's completely unlike anything else. A genre unto itself. Those things are very hard to come up with, obviously, but they do still happen. I think the gaming industry would have fallen a long time ago if Tetris hadn't injected a whole new genre into it. In the 80s, most developers were trying to come up with a new genre; now it's rare but it does still happen once in a while.

    Oh, and Charlie... it's the Atari 7800, not the Atari 7200.
  • This feels different than the crash that occured with the Atari and Intellivision some years ago. At the time, the signal to noise ratio went way up, but it seemed that there were just far too many bad, cheap games. There didn't seem to be the proliferation of sequels and "newer, better, prettier" versions of the same games we'd already purchased.

    Now it feels that even though we are getting more sequels, the addition of online play is extending the life of franchises and taking the focus off of the single

  • And this is new / different... how? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by popo ( 107611 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @04:00PM (#14141078) Homepage

    As I see it, if the gaming industry became filled with moneymen and fewer creative geniuses... ... that would only be part of a larger, well-established pattern of media businesses.

    Film, TV, Music... its all the same.

    There are only about 1, maybe 2 good films in a year also... but we don't use the
    scarcity of quality to predict the downfall of cinema.

    The gaming industry is doing fine. On a revenue basis, it grows every year. End of story.
  • Oh Good! This will give me time to play through the immense backlog of games that I've bought and never played over the past 5 years. Let it rest, I say, let it rest.
  • The game industry coming to a crash may be true. But it won't be because people dislike having so many sequels or licensed products. Having so many sequels is more of a symptom then a cause. The cause that I see could cause the game industry to fall a bit is money and time.

    Games are getting more and more expensive to make. More technologies are required. More people are needed, development times are increasing and now the people making games are even demanding to be treated like people and get time off. Mar

  • E.T. a big hit?!? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tholomyes ( 610627 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @04:16PM (#14141269) Homepage

    "Is the apocalypse nigh? I sure think so. The last one happened at the height of Atari's power, they were invincible, pumping out hit after hit. Pac-Man, ET, Asteroids, movie tie-ins, overflowing arcades and a rabid fan base."

    The same Pac-Man that Atari was left with 5 million unsold cartridges for? The same E.T. that was so lamented that most of the copies of the cartridge came back and are now occupying landfill space in New Mexico [snopes.com]? These aren't prime examples.

  • you're right (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i work in the industry, and i have taken to putting more passion into my homebrew projects than in the processes that occur at the office. there is a tangible lack of creativity, and people are here to grab stock before we go public, rather than to work on fun games. my skills as a programmer have been effectively neutralized.

  • Stop... (Score:2, Informative)

    by xalres ( 668363 )

    If they'd stop pushing out buggy crap before it's finished just to meet a deadline maybe more of us would buy more games. As it is now I don't have a whole lot of time to play anymore and I need to be extra choosy about what I spend my money on. I'd rather not spend what I thought would be my first play session with a game just patching the damn thing.

    Originality seems to be lacking too, developers (I'm looking at you EA) seem to want to stick to what they're sure will work. So we end up with GenericFPS20

  • I too have stopped purchasing, and playing, games. They have gotten too hard. In the effort to appeal to, ever more jaded, professional game players (reviewers and kids) the games have become too hard to play and enjoy. I find myself using ever more cheats to reach a minimal level of enjoyment in the games. Then there is the issue of graphics over content. Shoot the other guy gets old; I need reason to shoot him. I find myself playing spiderwebs games more. They have terrible graphics, but at least it seem
  • This finance article [yahoo.com] makes me lose all faith in the video gaming industry, and makes it seem like a sure bet that the industry is going downhill.
  • Hold on, hold on, let me check...

    Oh, Nintendo is still making bags of money and isn't going out of business. Whew.

    Okay, I'm not worried. EA, Ubisoft, Eidos, Blizzard and Rockstar can all bite the dust, for all I care. I'd like it if they spared Arenanet, though. And Nintendo can just buy Free Radical when they get cheap enough.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "Klytus, I'm bored! What plaything can you offer me today?"

    Remember when all games seemed new? Or at least every year there were several games with new twists and play styles? It's just the same thing day after day anymore. Personally, it helps me stayed focus on work. ;)

    But seriously, if the industry isn't heading for a crash yet, it soon will be. You can't survive on churning out the same thing day after day. It's boring. And I'm bored with modern games. Yet I keep playing the oldies and finding new oldie

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