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

[NuclearKangaroo]

i think by this point we are all aware of valve's BRILLIANT idea of giving modders the chance to charge people for their mods (valve and the publisher of the game, naturally, get 75% out of every sale)

for many people this is the straw that broke the camel's back, one of the last nice and uncorrupted things in gaming, might now be ruined forever

i cant be the only one who is tired of all this, how paying for 60 bucks doesnt guarantee you a full game or even a working game on launch these days, how devs hide content away in day one DLC and pre-order bonuses, how tons of DLC get constantly added to a game instead of free updates or even mere patches, how even microtransactions have made their way into full priced games

im sick of devs and publishers trying every trick under the sun to squeeze every last cent out of me, instead of actually making good games that make want to buy

could another video game crash actually get rid of all of this? drive all these terrible companies to bankruptcy or lead them away from the game industry once and for all? a video game crash that would make a an example, a record, to never take your customer support for granted?

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

With things like GreenLight, EarlyAccess, worthless DLC, on disc DLC, games being broken at launch, abuse of microtransactions, and more... Hell now even indie devs are starting to cash in on this horror show.


At this point I'm absolutely certain that a Games industry crash is inevitable. Will it help? Only the results of the crash will actually tell at this point.

Edit: We're seeing the same money grubbing mentality that lead to the 1983 game market crash, so that's where my thought process is leading me. Same as before too. People who have no idea how to cater to the gamer market are running the industry... This is going to absolutely slaughter pocket books and it really does need to happen.

Also... Cashing in on minority groups with token characters is becoming a new trend in the industry... Seriously the crash needs to happen.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

No way, then youd have a bunch of super paranoid companies too afraid to innovate for years after the industry managed to get back on its feet. Theyd probably end up doubling down on miserly policies.

It might be alright if you like indie budget level games, but I for one would sure miss my big budget extravaganzas...

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

No way, then youd have a bunch of super paranoid companies too afraid to innovate for years after the industry managed to get back on its feet. Theyd probably end up doubling down on miserly policies.

It might be alright if you like indie budget level games, but I for one would sure miss my big budget extravaganzas...

heres the problem, that is already happening, companies are making games with budgets so bloated they dont innovate, they only go for the safe route that will give them the most cash and justify the budget

with big game companies gone, this problem will solve itself, but the few companies that will remain, or the new companies that decide to venture into the barren wasteland that gaming will become, THEY WILL TRY TO INNOVATE, they will do their best and work hard to earn back the trust of customers

 

[Fox12]

Uh, no. Destroying the medium in a scorched earth campaign would probably, you know, ruin everything. Investors would run away, and if the medium ever recovered, it would take decades. Quantity often leads to quality, by the way. The more material being produced, the more likely something good will get made. In other words, if 90% of everything is bad, then you want that 10% to be as large as possible. You can hate the COD's, the Assassins Creed's, the GTA, and any other AAA title out there, but their financial success helps to sustain the industry, and allows smaller art projects to get made. There probably wouldn't be a Dark Souls if it wasn't for the sheer size of the industry. A niche company like Atlus couldn't survive (much less thrive) if the market wasn't so large. If the market was smaller then games would only try to pander to the largest demographic even more then they already do, because there would be fewer niches available.

And that's the thing. Good games ARE being made. In fact, gaming has never been better. The writing is better, the game play is better, there's more variety, and, best of all, the medium is finally being taken seriously. And you want an industry crash NOW? Corrupt business practices have always existed in the games industry. Vote with your wallet by refusing to purchase games that violate your standards. I do, and I have plenty to play. Heck, the only AAA game I've probably played in the last three years in Bloodborne.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

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...

 

[Erttheking]

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.

 

[asdfen]

first thing that needs to happen is PC gaming needs to become mainstream. The consoles with their dlc, lack of backwards compatability, charges for multiplayer and other bullshit will die. Then due to the fact that PC gaming library is so vast no one would need to buy the latest games only as there are so many awesome pc titles out there ready to be enjoyed.

Maybe Microsoft needs to go as well so we can enjoy linux and its glory because game developers are forced to used propriotary tech that MS fully controlls. Nvidia's bullshit with their sneacky propriety tech needs to stop as well - Physx. Stuff that only leads to unplayable games down the road. Maybe Steams console is exactly what needs to happen as long as its not full of proprietary tech and just is a mainstream configuration of linux that anyone has acess to without paying insane upfornt licensing fees.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I've honestly stopped caring. This "generation" has been extremely disappointing, and the transparent greed is definitely escalating out of control. If the industry crashes, meh. If it maintains course and turns into a ridiculously insidious money leeching monstrosity, meh. I'll probably be doing something else either way.

 

[Tatsuki]

Frankly no, I do not think the industry would benefit from a crash at all.

We would get the AAA companies either giving up or sticking to even MORE rigid formulas for their games, and the cookie cutters they use are already pretty damn rigid.
Medium companies of quality would probably keep making the games they do IF they manage to stay afloat and don't go bust.
Low budget games and indies will always be made, and 99% will continue to be crap with a few gems shining through.

But from all this happening, overall the release schedule would be slower and more baron, we would have less choice in our gaming and many people would lose their jobs. We would have less crap to wade through, but if our job is finding gems in that crap then we are selling ourselves short.

Not to mention I am happy with the current gaming world personally, I see bad practices and I don't buy into them. I wish other people would do the same but if they enjoy their purchases and still play the crap then I;m happy for them.

 

[veloper]

The only thing that could crash the game industry at this point is a global catastrophe of some kind, so no.
During hard times some big publishers may fall and that's about it.

Videogames are cheap and effective entertainment. There will always be a demand and the products require little in the way of resources, except human resources, which we won't likely run out of.

Sure there's a huge history of good old games on PC that can still be played, but most people are graphics whores and everything new will be server based long before we get to photo-realistic virtual reality. On top of that the expectations for games are changing with the times. Gamers will want new shit.

 

[Signa]

In fact, gaming has never been better.

False. Gaming has been better. Between 1997 and 2002 to be exact. Most of the franchises that are seeing constant sequels were made in that era. You're right that writing is a ton better, but why are we trying to make movies out of our games? They are not incompatible entirely, but too much of one sours the positives of the other.

OT: I would like a crash, but it's really hard to say what exactly would happen if it did crash. I would expect that the phone games would be mostly unaffected, because they are so cheap to produce that it doesn't hurt to make them without a market.

The Indie scene probably would be hurt the most, but that might be a good thing. People that are making shit games with little to no passion for the medium probably wouldn't put any effort into making more crap.

The AAA's are the ones I want hurt most, but probably would be the most resistant to the crash. They have a lot to lose before they get truly damaged, and it will just give them reason to double down on their bad practices, because they are lucrative.

If it were at all possible, I'd hope for a "bad practices" crash, but that's way to nebulous of an idea to get anything to happen with it. I think I'm just going to have to resign to the fact that mainstream gaming may no longer be for me.

 

[Mutant1988]

No.

But it would benefit from stronger pro-consumer lobbies to form organized protests against consumer hostile practises or practises that damage the distribution of information and preservation of the medium.

For starters: Games no longer supported should not be illegal to remove the DRM of and make functional.

Second: Games should not be rendered non-functional by discontinuation of services unless the service is integral to it's function. In other words, always on DRM should not make games unplayable and games that do not always use an online component should not be impossible to play offline.

So yeah, I think we need to just tell the companies trying to turn the industry into their money generating machine at our expense where to stick their creative hostile, greedy, short sighted, monopolizing and restrictive practises.

Spoiler

Up their bum is where.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

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.

Too big to fail is actually a fallacy in terms of concepts. What really happens with a company that's "too big to fail," is that it takes a longer period of time, during which the companies panic. When a large company crashes it doesn't go away though, what does happen is that they toss management. Which would be a good thing. The reason the market at current takes no risks is because AAA is run by people from packaged goods markets. The sort of people who think all people eat is tuna on white bread.

So a crash needs to happen just so we can get rid of these turds.

Also having executives and marketing departments from packaged goods does weird things. Since packaged goods is such a competitive field, the people from it want either all of, or none of the money. They're such competitive idiotic jerks they can't fathom settling for turning a good profit.

 

[Redd the Sock]

First off, a crash of the industry isn't likely. While there are similarities in some practices, a lot of the '83 crash was a product of the new nature of video games. It having barely any level of mainstream attention for 2 - 3 years made people think the fad had dies out, so one company's problems took everyone down. Gaming is too entrenched these days for people to think it's over. We might lose a major studio or two, but the industry is safe.

Second, I'm not more a fan of these practices than anyone else, but I have to admit one thing: companies aren't that stupid. As much as we hate these practices, they work, and are highly profitable. That's why companies do them. I mean Forbes gives these as the top 10 for 2014:


Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Madden NFL 15
Destiny
Grand Theft Auto 5
Minecraft
Super Smash Bros (for 3DS and Wii U)
NBA 2K15
Watch Dogs
FIFA 15
Call of Duty Ghosts

Does it look like people are tired of the BS? At least not enough to push something else up there. People keep seeing game companies as leaving good money to chase bad, yet sales seem to say otherwise, and have for years despite the complaints never changing. Hell, companies like Atlus have bumped up the cost of games an extra 10 bucks over the norm to compensate for how poorly they do. I could rant about why, but TL;DR version is a combo of casual gamers and hype being a bigger factor in our gaming choices.

Ultimately though I agree with people that say gaming has never been better. Yeah, the AAA is a disappointment, but indies, digital distribution, and an open mind have my shelf swamped with more games than I have time to play. If more people supported the smaller studios not doing shitty things, the big guys would see that's where the money is and follow suit, and the industry would be stronger. A crash as the market stands would more likely kill the small stuidos and leave the AAA practices alone as the only viable alternatives.

 

[Fox12]

In fact, gaming has never been better.

False. Gaming has been better. Between 1997 and 2002 to be exact. Most of the franchises that are seeing constant sequels were made in that era. You're right that writing is a ton better, but why are we trying to make movies out of our games? They are not incompatible entirely, but too much of one sours the positives of the other.

Was it? I love the ps1/ps2 era, but I think the industry has improved tremendously. This is subjective, so we'll never agree, but I would say that game mechanics have gotten much better. Unskippable cut scenes, anyone? Or awful 3d platform mechanics? Besides, there are a tone of great titles being created with good gameplay. Dark Souls is a modern classic, and The Last of Us was fantastic.

Incidentally, why does good writing equate to making a film? This logic seems heavily flawed to me. If you're game has thirty minute cut scenes then I wouldn't consider that good writing, because it fails to utilize the strengths of the medium. Sometimes a good writer knows when to shut up and let the audience figure things out. Dark Souls did this well, as it had one of the best written stories in all of gaming. The characters are very complex, and there are some really deep themes at work. But does the game ever take long breaks to explain the story to you? No, because it lets the audience figure things out for itself. I would argue that The Last of Us did good as well. People say it was too linear, and there were too many cut scenes, but I disagree. Most of the story was told during game play, and the game play was actually used to develop the characters. The game was linear, sure, but it was also well designed, as opposed to an open world game that's a cluster of poor design decisions. In this regard I think The Last of Us succeeded in marrying narrative and game play.

Anyway, a crash is a terrible idea. We would see MORE freemium games, more micro transactions, more cell phone titles, more franchise driven AAA titles that rely on marketing and test groups, and lots of day 1 DLC. We would see less innovation, fewer indie titles, and fewer developers like Atlus and FROM Software. All the things you guys are complaining about would be increased by crash, not fixed.

Hell, companies like Atlus have bumped up the cost of games an extra 10 bucks over the norm to compensate for how poorly they do.

When did this happen? I'm confused, does this mean Persona 5 is going to cost me $70 now? I know their niche, but I thought they were doing pretty well for themselves over that past few years.

 

[Signa]

In fact, gaming has never been better.

False. Gaming has been better. Between 1997 and 2002 to be exact. Most of the franchises that are seeing constant sequels were made in that era. You're right that writing is a ton better, but why are we trying to make movies out of our games? They are not incompatible entirely, but too much of one sours the positives of the other.

Was it? I love the ps1/ps2 era, but I think the industry has improved tremendously. This is subjective, so we'll never agree, but I would say that game mechanics have gotten much better. Unskippable cut scenes, anyone? Or awful 3d platform mechanics? Besides, there are a tone of great titles being created with good gameplay. Dark Souls is a modern classic, and The Last of Us was fantastic.

Incidentally, why does good writing equate to making a film? This logic seems heavily flawed to me. If you're game has thirty minute cut scenes then I wouldn't consider that good writing, because it fails to utilize the strengths of the medium. Sometimes a good writer knows when to shut up and let the audience figure things out. Dark Souls did this well, as it had one of the best written stories in all of gaming. The characters are very complex, and there are some really deep themes at work. But does the game ever take long breaks to explain the story to you? No, because it lets the audience figure things out for itself. I would argue that The Last of Us did good as well. People say it was too linear, and there were too many cut scenes, but I disagree. Most of the story was told during game play, and the game play was actually used to develop the characters. The game was linear, sure, but it was also well designed, as opposed to an open world game that's a cluster of poor design decisions. In this regard I think The Last of Us succeeded in marrying narrative and game play.

Anyway, a crash is a terrible idea. We would see MORE freemium games, more micro transactions, more cell phone titles, more franchise driven AAA titles that rely on marketing and test groups, and lots of day 1 DLC. We would see less innovation, fewer indie titles, and fewer developers like Atlus and FROM Software. All the things you guys are complaining about would be increased by crash, not fixed.

Yeah, I know it's 100% about opinion, but I was just trying to pull a Dwight Schrute.

I agree there are some things like UI and graphics that are undeniably better, but mechanics? Depends on how you look at it. Mechanics on average have gotten really, really shallow in most games. I'm looking at examples like Bioshock Infinite where you get an auto-kill button when you're on the Skyline. That's partially UI, but it affects game mechanics as well. Back in my day we still had to hit the attack button after pushing the jump/release button to execute a kill like that. I don't consider examples of that to be an improvement.

There are going to be specific examples of games that are certainly better than those before times, but I'm speaking with massive generalizations right now. I've not played The Last of Us, but I have seen enough footage to feel like the gameplay isn't anything special.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Hell, companies like Atlus have bumped up the cost of games an extra 10 bucks over the norm to compensate for how poorly they do.

When did this happen? I'm confused, does this mean Persona 5 is going to cost me $70 now? I know their niche, but I thought they were doing pretty well for themselves over that past few years.

It was noticed earlier this year with 3DS games going from 40 to 50 dollars. Worse for me since I'm Canadian and the dollar's been hit adding another 10 to the pile. Persona 5's a bigger title, and a ways off for localization so things might change, on the other hand, Persona Q on 3DS was where this started. Either way, for now, I'll be paying $60 for the next Etrian game.

 

[Lightknight]

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? "Oh no, now modders have an avenue for some income whereas before they had none!"

It would be nice to see companies that employee practices that are adversarial to consumers have their own private crash though.