Do you hope for an industry crash?
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This.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
To everyone who is too busy nitpicking about terminology to discuss the actual question.
Obviously, practically no one is expecting the overall game industry infrastructure to disappear like in '83, when gaming was just a speculative bubble based on future hopes of a growing industry to begin with, and not an actual money-making industry with stable market demand.
Still, let's say, for example if after a bad PS4 launch, Sony's leadership would suddenly get restructured and the new ones decide to cut their losses, while Microsoft wold delay Durango with a year after the backlash to their Always Online system plans, then next week EA's Ubisoft's and Activision's stock value would drop sharply (in reaction to the lack of upcoming systems boosing their sales) to which they would both react with 50% downsizings, but at least one of them would be too late even for that, most of the gaming press would agree that we are in a new "crash era", and continue to refer to the sum of these events as "The Crash of '14". So that's how I'm using the term.
So long as an industry conforms to certain business ideals and structures, what the industry is actually an 'industry' of is irrelevant. If we're talking in terms of what will happen within the industry, rather than its significance to the wider economy, then a gaming crash would actually be worse than a banking and hosing crisis, because the disposable nature of, as you put it, "luxury entertainment" would mean that people would stop spending money a hell of a lot faster and for a hell of a lot longer than in other markets that are kept afloat even in times of extreme crisis due to sheer necessity.ResonanceSD said:
- "it'll cut developers down to size..."
and where do you think those cuts are going to come from. The bosses may well carry the can and go yes, but they won't go cheaply. They'll go with multi-million/billion dollar settlement packages and become Executives for something else in another industry within a couple of months. Then, when the industry is back on the up again a decade later, they may well come back. The people in the industry who will carry the real hurt of the process you managed to oh so easily dismiss will be the worker bees. They'll be made redundant by the thousands, for as little as the companies can get away with settling them for (which will be a pittance), and they sure as hell won't be getting professional level work that matches with their skill set any time soon.
- "...make them realise they can't just peddle any old tripe..."
Any old tripe is precisely what they will be peddling for years on end if the worst happens. I won't say that the current model for AAA gaming is a shining beacon of originality, but recession is the death of ambition. Who, pray tell, is going to put up the money needed for ambitious new IP such as Mirror's Edge or the first Assassin's Creed when all trends will show that such projects will without fail be dead on arrival?
- "...games will have to be good and not bugged/broken to launch properly..."
Games will have to be made with the lowest conceivable budget and workforce to even get out of the door. In the event that a game even gets into the production stage to begin with, no studio will be able to afford any wasted funds due to release delays, and the people working on the games will have to multi-task like they've never multi-tasked before. That mean corner-cutting, lots of corner-cutting, which will in turn mean 'buggy as shit' becoming the rule rather than the exception.
- "...will stir up innovation in the industry as more crowdfunded/indie titles come online."
Crowdfunded? Not bloody likely. When gaming enthusiasts look around and see an industry in the shitter, let alone what's going on in the wider economy, do you think they'll be prepared to lay down significant portions of their own disposable income on a promise? They'll always be some people with more money than sense, but not enough. Indie might do ok, but at the sacrifice of innovation, not to the encouragement of it. Most Indie games, for all the fawning about how much more innovative they are than mainstream titles, are able to be made as cheaply as they are (which is still not as cheap as many like to think) because much of the architecture behind the skin your seeing on the screen has been lifted, cut, and pasted from other people's tried and tested works. To design and build your own unique engine, upon which to build a game with its own bespoke mechanics, takes a mother-fuck-load of manpower and resources, even for an indie game. During a time of deep recession after a crash, don't expect to be seeing a lot of that sort of thing from the indie scene. Expect a lot of re-skinned platformers instead (like there's not enough of those already).
It is possible (not set in stone, but possible) that a hand-full of positive lessons could be learned from a big industry crash. However, before we all say a prayer for the God of Pixelated Joy to make it rain for forty days and forty nights upon the sinful publishers, we should consider the consequences of such a drastic scenario. We should consider who else would be drowned in that flood, and how long it would take for all the salt water to drain away, and for things to start growing again. It wouldn't be worth it, in short.
in terms of the AAA market, yes. It's entirely to big and bloated to sustain it self, not when 3+ million sales of a game is a failure.
No matter how bad a crash may seem, I'm hoping it is an inevitability and I regret to say this... but at this point its the only way to achieve change in the industry.
Community is far to divided to stand up against it, industry, devs, and publishers are completely unaware of their misdeeds that constantly hurt the industry, and a majority of gamers themselves are completely unaware when they are deceived and cheated by companies. There I said it, a majority of gamers will stand there and take it up the tail pipe like drones, while us small minority of gamers try to keep the industry alive.
(Case and point: We tell Capcom to stop with the on disk DLC... then other companies do it...gamers don't do jack to stop it... WHY?!)
We take 1 small step forward...
Then 3 steps back...
If there is a chance at a crash, all my bets are for it. I'll take anything as long as it wakes people up.
OT: When it does happen, I'll be in my video game bomb shelter playing some Sly 2. Call me when the industry learns!
Community is far to divided to stand up against it, industry, devs, and publishers are completely unaware of their misdeeds that constantly hurt the industry, and a majority of gamers themselves are completely unaware when they are deceived and cheated by companies. There I said it, a majority of gamers will stand there and take it up the tail pipe like drones, while us small minority of gamers try to keep the industry alive.
(Case and point: We tell Capcom to stop with the on disk DLC... then other companies do it...gamers don't do jack to stop it... WHY?!)
We take 1 small step forward...
Then 3 steps back...
If there is a chance at a crash, all my bets are for it. I'll take anything as long as it wakes people up.
OT: When it does happen, I'll be in my video game bomb shelter playing some Sly 2. Call me when the industry learns!
What needs to happen is that we need to go back to the kind of environment that was around during the PS1 and PS2 era in which there WERE blockbusters that sold truckloads, but mid-tier games could still survive even if they didn't hit a million copies sold. Developers are in too much of a hurry with technology, not really having gotten the kinks of it out before they try to go to the next level. It's a lack of patience and restraint that more designers need to curb.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
I don't think there will be one like the first game industry crash, but I think there will be some kind of...revolution...or something...which forces the game industry to change monumentally. I have no idea what in what form this event will take when it happens.
This. As much as I'd like to see EA and Activision clean up their act, I don't want developers to lose their jobs.Daystar Clarion said:
I find that I agree with this sentiment. I get what "Benefits" a crash could bring, but I have a few friends who could end up losing jobs etc if it were to happen, and to lose your lively hood sucks, I've been there myself. Wishing it upon people is just nasty.Daystar Clarion said:
I like video games. People get so up in arms over certain things happening to certain games. While I agree that DRM and other nonsense is stupid, I just don't buy those games. It's quite simple.
What's your point? Because people have already lost their jobs, it's okay for more people to lose theirs?j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Again, what's your point?
The industry will balance itself out, self regulate like most industries do, there won't be a crash, but rather, a gentle parachuting to the ground.
Well, at least I hope it will, anyway
I don't want a crash to happen, I love the AAA market and I'd hate to see our favourite hobby suffer and jobs lost. I just can't stand the business behind it all and how the progression of consoles (my preferred platform) has been marred by corporate greed.
What I DO hope for is for something big to happen. Like, a MASSIVE shitstorm or technical crisis that not only provides enough of a boot in the ass and a wake up call to the industry, but gives us all something to look back on. Some kind of industry disaster so large that publishers and devs are forced to learn a lesson.
What I DO hope for is for something big to happen. Like, a MASSIVE shitstorm or technical crisis that not only provides enough of a boot in the ass and a wake up call to the industry, but gives us all something to look back on. Some kind of industry disaster so large that publishers and devs are forced to learn a lesson.
While a crash would probably be the swift kick to the face the game industry needs, I don't think most of us would want to actually see it happen for several reasons. One being that would would probably mean the loss of even more beloved companies like what happened with the recession. Another being that there would then be a fairly large lack of new games coming out if that were to happen.
