at this point, would this industry benefit from a crash?

[Silence]

I would like to see a crash of specific business practices. The industry as a whole? No.

 

[inmunitas]

Sort of, I don't think we'll ever see the entire industry crash again. But I do think we may see a dramatic change, or possibly a crash, in the "traditional" publisher model side of game development at some point. In which we may see a move towards what Epic are trying out with the new Unreal Tournament, as in more like a community driven project.

 

[Redryhno]

How would this benefit anyone? The strength of the market is pumping out fantastic games and we're at a point now where indie titles are viable thanks to Steam.

FYI, Valve took the same cut they take from anyone that sells something on their site. It's significantly less than brick and mortar store fronts.

Then Bethesda took a similar cut for allowing them to use their storefront within Steam.

Modders were making $0 off of these products before and now they are allowed to profit from them. They can still charge $0 since it's not regulated.

So.... what's the complaint here?

I think a part of it is the culture surrounding modding has mostly been one of those legal grey areas that people know they're probably gonna get some kind of strike on their record for. Not to mention there's a few of the proposed paid mods that cost as much as the dlc, but with less content.

I have no qualms with people making money from the mods, but it's just sorta...eck in this instance. You don't really need mods/hats/maps to keep playing Dota, TF2, LFD. Vanilla TES games are nice enough, but the modding community is what made them as popular as they are since you can add anything you want to the game that was cut out from the previous iterations and then some because people have ideas that just work and not feel like you're cheating through the consolecommand thingy.

 

[Olas]

Of course not. Use your critical thinking skills, what would a crash entail? A severe decrease in the variety of games, which means fewer of the good ones you like. It would cause businesses to become even more risk averse, which means even less innovation.

I guess the idea here is that such a crash would teach developers a lesson on practices not to attempt in the future? Except that's not how it works, the lesson to the people who actually matter won't be "these specific industry practices are toxic" it'll be "this industry is toxic" and they'll just pack up their bags and go elsewhere. We're the ones with an invested interest in keeping the industry going, not them.Basically, if you're a gamer who doesn't exclusively play retro games, a crash can only be a negative for you, in both the short and long term.

Also, final point: it's a free market right? You can ignore the games and developers you don't like and support the ones you do.

 

[Danny Dowling]

it is very messy and i can see how the potential to just burn the canvas and start again looks positive to some... but, i dunno. I don't know that I want to go through watching the hobby I like destroy itself like that, especially when the net worth of video games is so much more than it was the last time we had a crash.

What would it mean for our current consoles? our digital titles? PS+ games? Things are just different now.

I would love to see DLC get taken away (yes, entirely taken away) and pre order bonus' gone. I'd like to see the pay to win model go, forever. But, is a crash the way to do this? I should think there are other options out there.

 

[FPLOON]

The game industry is like this music video in a nutshell:As long as companies have "money in the bank", even if a[nother] video game crash were to happen, they will bounce back like a rubber band ball... All the suppose "crash" would do is show some parallels to "history repeating itself" and the media "pretending" that it's more of a big deal than it actually is...

Other than that, there would be "benefits"... but not the benefits that would be "positive" to either the consumer and/or the other innocent victims working within the game industry... I think...

 

[endtherapture]

No. There's still a lot of great developers and games in the industry. For every consumer scandal we have coming out, there's a great game like The Witcher 3, The Banner Saga, or Metal Gear Solid 5 with a passionate team like CD Projekt Red or Kojima behind the game.

As much as we moan about games and exploitative practises, most of what we get is really good right now, and gaming is booming so a crash isn't really imminent.

 

[Doom972]

The industry won't, but gamers and gaming culture would benefit from a crash.

The sad truth is, that the majority of gaming audience are just kids who get hyped for every AAA release and just consume whatever publishers throw into their mouths. I'm nearing the age of 30 and I'm beginning to see why so many people I know stopped playing video games or became casual gamers.

I wonder how obnoxious this industry will get before people stop feeding it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Quantity often leads to quality, by the way. The more material being produced, the more likely something good will get made.

Yes, in this scenario Quality is proportional to Quantity.
However, also in the same scenario, Exposure is inversely proportional to Quantity.

If the bulk of the market offers garbage, then the bulk of the market will consume garbage until it becomes intolerable.
Even if some developer busts their arse making gaming's equivalent of Shakespeare it won't matter at all if their game can't garner any more than token or niche attention.

That's why we can't have nice things.

OT: All that said, a crash would not benefit the consumer; not for a very long time at any rate.

I would prefer seeing the proverbial ship right its course before plowing unwittingly into the looming iceberg ahead, but having experienced the bulk of gaming's history first hand; I've seen how unbelievably gullible and prone to exploitation it has become.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

THEY WILL TRY TO INNOVATE, they will do their best and work hard to earn back the trust of customers

Why? Its risky, I feel like when you are running a business, such risk will make people say "We better play it safe guys, theres not much money in games anymore...

because in a post-crash industry, the safe, wouldnt be safe anymore, the safe is what caused the crash

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

What people seem to forget is that there is the mid-game industry (medium studios) that do make good affordable games, Gust, Atlus and NISA are good examples, the triple A idustry is too big to fall, though if EA or Ubisoft implodes it might make the other tone down the shit (but not likely) finally the indie scene suffering from having incredibly shit games with minimal production costs that will never get away unless steam give some fucking standards.

Have to agree here. Some of the bigger names with more stable franchises, I'm referring to Nintendo and maybe SquarEnix on this, might survive if a crash were to happen. Found Atlus about a year ago thanks to some friends, and they're now among my favorite developers.

And while I'm at this, nothing is too big to fail. Hopefully, things don't take too big of a fall, but a good enough tumble down from the lofty perches these publishers (and some other developers) seem to have would likely be a nicer wake-up call to this industry and might help to benefit the gaming community more.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

You know, people always say how they're ready to tear things down. They never say how they're ready to build them back up again.

If the industry crashes then what? What's the plan after that? I know the idea of the destruction establishments you don't like FEELS satisfying, but usually building it back up means starting at square one, which usually means any and all progress that we've made is lost.

Also I feel like corruption is joining the long long LONG list of words that we use too freely on the internet. You don't have to like their decision (I frankly am kinda iffy on it) but it does fall to the decision of the modder and I'm pretty sure if you don't like it you can always go get free mods elsewhere. It's hardly corruption.

i used to think like this, but at this point i cannot see a way out of this ride other than to jump out of the train and hope for the best

for what is worth, if this industry crashes, and companies try to be more reasonable with their monetization when they try to rebuild consumer trust, ill be there


look, the inclusion of monetization bring many problems to the modding scene, both from cultural standpoint (as it breaks the dynamic between modders/players and modders/other modders, dynatic that has existed for decades) and from a legal standpoint as well, since the new policies allow people selling mods to effectively steal the work of any modders providing their work for free, without knowledge or consent

this forum post here, explains most of the mayor problems related to this

and this my friend, is a little bonus, THIS is the future you choose

Spoiler

also did i mention valve no longer lets you rate, comment on, or join the forums of paid mod items? fantastic isnt it?

i mean what if you have question about how the mod works if it will be compatible with other mods you have, screw you right?

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

What evidence is there to support that companies will be less dickish the second time around? I mean this industry has crashed before and that hasn't stopped people from being dickheads. It makes it sound like the solution you present is, at best, temporary.

Like I said. Dickish. But not corruption. Because...what's corrupt about it? EA selling Day One DLC is dickish, but it's not corrupt because that's not how corruption works. The only thing there that really applies is the removal of forum aspects with paid mods.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Snip

What evidence is there to support that companies will be less dickish the second time around? I mean this industry has crashed before and that hasn't stopped people from being dickheads. It makes it sound like the solution you present is, at best, temporary.

Like I said. Dickish. But not corruption. Because...what's corrupt about it? EA selling Day One DLC is dickish, but it's not corrupt because that's not how corruption works. The only thing there that really applies is the removal of forum aspects with paid mods.

well it took em 25 years to fall again didnt it? maybe next time we will like atleast 50 years

i meant corruption as in "perversion of integrity", modding was one of the last few nice things left in an industry largely contaminated by greed and mediocrity, one of the last bastions of originality, experimentation and fun

where devs failed, modders never failed to deliver


look like i said, i have no guarantee things will get better, only hope, because we cant stay like this, and i hope that, if there is a crash, companies will make sure to avoid practices that let to the crash

what was one the first things that nintendo implemented after the crash of 1983? quality control, the famous nintendo seal of quality, that put an end to one of the factors that lead to the crash, oversaturation of the market

maybe whatever comes next will implement a "consumer seal of quality" eh? god knows such thing is impossible in today's market

 

[CrystalShadow]

I don't know.

You have to remember the 'Gaming crash' was in fact only a crash of the US games market.
The reason it was possible to recover from it as quickly as seems to have been the case was because it was mostly US companies that collapsed, and foreign ones filled the void this left.

There was no crash in Japan, there was no crash in Europe. If anything, the UK reached a peak of it's own native home computer/games industry around the same time as the 'crash' happened.

In this day and age, any crash is likely going to be a global one, and that is going to be much more difficult to recover from...

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

I don't know.

You have to remember the 'Gaming crash' was in fact only a crash of the US games market.
The reason it was possible to recover from it as quickly as seems to have been the case was because it was mostly US companies that collapsed, and foreign ones filled the void this left.

There was no crash in Japan, there was no crash in Europe. If anything, the UK reached a peak of it's own native home computer/games industry around the same time as the 'crash' happened.

In this day and age, any crash is likely going to be a global one, and that is going to be much more difficult to recover from...

thats a very good point, i dont know what to say

 

[lacktheknack]

No.

Nothing "benefits" from a crash. That's the nature of a crash.

And as everything climbs back to the quality levels we have now... well, everything you didn't like in the first place just comes bounding right back.

If the option of monetizing mods has "ruined" anything for you, you may wish to consider taking a break from gaming and trying out a different hobby for a while.

 

[Tilly]

I wonder how obnoxious this industry will get before people stop feeding it.

Most of that just comes from the internet, not the gaming.

 

[Nazulu]

I don't believe a video game crash will even get rid of all this corruption now. All the greedy bastards have already learned how to monopolise and push more shitty business practices into everything.

Best thing to hope for is another Xbone reveal type backlash when it becomes really bad, plus it's funny to see all the sarcasm.

 

[Doom972]

I wonder how obnoxious this industry will get before people stop feeding it.

Most of that just comes from the internet, not the gaming.

I was talking about obnoxious practices like day one DLC, invasive DRM and overpriced unfinished games. That comes from the industry.