Is the gaming industry due for a crash?

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

These days it seems like there are more and more AAA releases that are failing to live up to publisher expectations and ever increasing development budgets where games are needing to sell multi-millions just to break even along with stuff like the increasing number of games that are half-functional on release. So I've been thinking that it may be time for the gaming industry to fall in on itself, not to the extent of 82 but more for publishers and developers to realise that not every game is going to sell COD numbers (not even COD is doing COD numbers now) and that budgets could stand to be stripped back.

[Deleted]

not to mention stupid shit like this

That legendary edition is going for over 800 bucks. That's almost as much as my mortgage payment. Ridiculous 

[Fundertaker]

As long as micro-transactions keeping bringing in millions across any platform, gaming won't have to worry about a crash. Sure, some things will be left by the wayside (it's no coincidence that there are less and less movie and cartoon game tie-ins, and it's also no coincidence that that was one of THQ's focus) but it's also true that unlike 82 the consumer has access to way more information, games today are way more polished and most of the crap is either free or bought at a really low price, so the consumer most of the time won't even think twice about it.

But yes, the big game publishers (namely Activision, EA, Square-Enix and Capcom) will need some sort of hard wake up call about gaming budgets. And consumers, namely the teen ones, need to be educated on how graphics don't make the game and that's the main thing that's been driving up games budgets for the past decade.

[Feargus McReddit]

Honestly, probably not. We're more due for a shift in what is seen as a success to big publishers, though.

The main difference being that independent gaming is a huge, albeit competitive, thing where it's easier to develop for several platforms instead of having to make the effort to buy your own discs and beg a publisher to get into stores.

For every EA and Ubisoft, there's a Devolver, Team17, Double Fine and others willing to take risks on a different idea compared to the easy money most big publishers go for.

It's not like the market is oversaturated in one sense but more splintering off to different, varying markets which is much more substantial.

[Alice Syndrome]

I really hope the building backlash to this behavior takes out some of the Season Pass the price of the game, Day one DLC etc crap with it.

But I don't think it's going to end until people stop forking out $100 on launch day for the same Call of Duty game every year etc

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

I think we'll be seeing a shift, in terms of AAA third party multi platform titles, to more games as a service releases, perpetually online games that in some form or another make the publisher money over time, be it expansions or loot boxes.

Games like Destiny, Overwatch, even The Division and Rainbow Six: Siege, have been big business for Activision and Ubisoft.

[Heartbreaker]

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Jun 15, 2017 5:40:05 GMT -5 @razzle said:

not to mention stupid shit like this

That legendary edition is going for over 800 bucks. That's almost as much as my mortgage payment. Ridiculous 

Hopefully the game's more like Syndicate and Black Flag than Unity or Rogue.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Jun 15, 2017 5:40:05 GMT -5 @razzle said:

not to mention stupid shit like this

That legendary edition is going for over 800 bucks. That's almost as much as my mortgage payment. Ridiculous 

Hey they're learning...

not once did they use the word Iconic.

[Jiren]

Jun 15, 2017 5:40:05 GMT -5 @razzle said:

not to mention stupid shit like this

That legendary edition is going for over 800 bucks. That's almost as much as my mortgage payment. Ridiculous 

[Mozenrath]

As a whole? No.

Are some companies heading for perdition? YES.

[ToyfareMark]

The original crash happened because there were too many consoles, and no quality assurance when it came to games. Plus the 83 crash didn't hurt consumers, it hurt the industry itself. Any future crash would have to come from a completely different circumstance. Many of the things people complain about now are optional, once they make it to where playing a game at all requires constant extra purchases, then a problem will arise.

[Deleted]

I pretty much stopped playing video games for past three years now. I just don't feel justified to spend a bunch of money on a new console that is barely an upgrade of the last console while they make all these confusing big budgeted games with bunch of DLC. I'm simple just give me Rocket League but it's only on new consoles and I doubt my laptop can support it so f*** me.

[The Legend of Groose]

Nope. The sad thing about all these special editions and DLC packs is that people are dumb enough to buy them. Video games are making more cash than ever before, so a crash is not going to happen.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Jun 15, 2017 20:46:43 GMT -5 ToyfareMark said:

The original crash happened because there were too many consoles, and no quality assurance when it came to games. Plus the 83 crash didn't hurt consumers, it hurt the industry itself. Any future crash would have to come from a completely different circumstance. Many of the things people complain about now are optional, once they make it to where playing a game at all requires constant extra purchases, then a problem will arise.

I was almost 10 when the 83 crash happened. And seeing it thru my eyes back then and looking back on it,well it was great for the video game fans in the short term. Atari 2600 games went from being 20 to 40 bucks to being 5 bucks and sometimes even a buck. Before the crash I would get maybe 2 games at my birthday and 2 games at X-mas. No place in my area rented Atari games so you played whatever you had over and over. Or would swap games with friends. Then the crash happens and I go from having 20 or so games to quickly have over 200 games.

One kinda of drawback to the crash is in a indirect way it is the reason the original NES is so finicky.

But the crash was caused by a huge flood of horrible games on too many systems. Plus while home video games were huge in 83,they were no where near the size of the current home video game scene.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

People have been calling a second crash for at least as long as they've been declaring the death of TNA and much like that, there is no concrete evidence of it happening anytime soon.

The thing is, unlike in 82, video gaming isn't just a business any more, it's a medium. It's part of culture, with more and more people, even people who aren't gamers, recognizing it as an art form. So I can't see a new video game crash any more than I can see a film crash, a theatre crash or a sculpture crash.

What I can see is a change in the powerhouses if AAA companies keep up with their anti-consumer policies where they try to keep sucking more and more money from gamers, who have less and less disposable income, and if they don't stop throwing money out the window by doing dumb shit like greenlighting sequels before the original game is even out, so they can't be sure it's going to be a success and that there will be an audience for sequels, while also having wildly unrealistic expectations for sales, causing them to consider worldwide successes to be failures.

But even if that happens, other companies will stay strong and it will just make room for smaller ones to grow. That's another thing to keep in mind: the video game landscape is a lot more diverse now than it was in 82. Back then, it was pretty much just Atari and a bunch of obscure computers that were only available in some areas of the World and pretty much only hobbyists were interested in. Today though, you not only have multiple consoles manufactures, you have tons of big-budget companies and even more smaller-scale ones, not to mention that nowadays, thanks to how quickly you can gain publicity through the Internet, especially if you get the approval of the right person, it is entirely possible to be a one-man gaming company.

So no, the industry ain't gonna crash. At most, there will be some much needed restructuring. In fact, that's the problem with these big companies and their abhorrent policies: they don't realize that the gaming industry is bigger than them and that it can and will go on very well without them, thank you very much.

[Banjo Is Broken]

The 3DO is about due for a major comeback I'd say.

[The Captain]

Jun 15, 2017 20:46:43 GMT -5 ToyfareMark said:

The original crash happened because there were too many consoles, and no quality assurance when it came to games. Plus the 83 crash didn't hurt consumers, it hurt the industry itself. Any future crash would have to come from a completely different circumstance. Many of the things people complain about now are optional, once they make it to where playing a game at all requires constant extra purchases, then a problem will arise.

The 1983 crash mostly had to do with Atari than anything else. Atari was so dominant that when the company started to nosedive because of its poor business decisions (mostly involving flooding the market with a ton of shoddy games), the other companies with consoles (Mattel, Coleco, etc.) were so marginalized that they couldn't really step up to take Atari's place at the top of the heap. That's why it took Nintendo with its fresh ideas, embrace of third party companies making games, and internal quality assurance proces to ensure that consoles would survive Atari's downfall.

The video game crash was also something of a hyperbole. It wasn't the entire video game industry, as arcades and computer games did just fine, if not thrived, during the time when Atari started to shit its bed.

[mizerable]

No, why would it?

It's not like consumers in 1983 knew such a thing happened. It was mostly retailers and developers who felt the impact. People were still buying games, and the companies were losing money. It's like what happened with Hostess except in this case since licensing and quality wasn't exactly a full proof plan in the infancy of home consoles, then a lot of problems occurred.

Developers nowadays would need to f*** up big time to cause a self inflicted crash because the consumer demand has and will continue to be there.

["Trickster Dogg" James Jesse]

Gaming as a whole, not at all. Although I do think that the AAA formula for certain kinds of games, the tentpole games of the year sort of thing, is unsustainable. Time + money + expectations + hype = bad mojo.