The next gaming crash: Do you see the signs?

[xPixelatedx]

It receives good scores because *shock* it is a good game.

That's right, it is. It received a perfect score and it is a good game, which is a contradiction in of itself. Even if it is just the ending, one wrong thing already obliterates a chance at being in the highest bracket. Putting aside the game has been a bit simplified for the sake of action (whether that's a good thing or not is opinionated),but the fact that the playable roster is so much smaller is a negative to. I do believe it deserves a great review and a high number, but 10 is a bit pushing it. Of course it is kind of pointless to argue this, since 10 has become synonymous with 'it's a New high profile game' and no longer 'it's a spectacular game that defined our generation'. I also know the reason why they do this is because every other score is considered a zero by the way our rating system works now. It's fun to live by extremes, apparently.

I also don't know how GAME worked, but if they are anything like GameStop they cannibalized and destroyed all their competitors. By the way people described it, I assume GAME did something similar as it seemed to be the only contender widely available. It is very silly to say it's ok that consumers now have to turn to the internet to get something that should be widely available. It works better the deeper to get into the hard core crowd, but it gets shaky when you factor in everyone else. Whether or not the game is a Triple-A title being pushed by advertising also helps, but not every game has that luxury. Believe it or not, people still like to buy merchandise at stores. If they didn't then EVERY store would have already been put out of business by Amazon and eBay. Of course this excludes renting, but having a rental subscription and buying something is entierly different.
I could be wrong, we will see after this. Rating the success of a Triple-A game is hardly the best way to gauge it though, particularly a game that was an end to a widely known trilogy.

 

[MammothBlade]

There is an exactly 0% chance that there will be another gaming crash.

I wish people would stop bringing this topic up. The conditions that led to the crash in the early 80s CAN NOT repeat themselves these days. It's not possible.

This sort of complacency does no good. The exact conditions might not be there, but I think there are definitely parallels.

I think social gaming is a bubble which is soon going to burst - Zynga's parasitism is killing creativity; the nintendo wii has reached market saturation, and the 3DS isn't doing too good either, and is bringing down nintendo with it; the PSP Vita isn't selling well - the poor sales of dedicated handhelds might be partly caused by the rise of mobile gaming. Parts of the games market could well crash. And that will reverberate amongst others, the market will restructure, and undergo a paradigm shift.

 

[AyaReiko]

Globally, won't happen.

Regionally, that's possible. Though the chances are slim, I'd say the Japanese VG dev scene could crash as production costs continue to climb while the companies fail to realize why their games fail to appeal outside of their region.

 

[MailOrderClone]

If a crash comes it's probably going to start in Japan. Several companies over there are engaging in increasingly worrying business practices (see Konami, Capcom), and others are pouring excessive amounts of money into games that are not seeing acceptable returns. Quite a few of these companies, perhaps even major ones, are going to flounder and possibly even collapse in the coming years if they continue on the track they're on.

 

[Epona]

I was in Gamestop the other day and I saw that they are now selling alot of digital downloads. That is like admitting defeat considering that other retail chains, rightly, oppose digital distribution as it cuts them out of the loop.

Gamestop helping digital distribution makes no sense for their business model, is this the beginning of the end for used games and Gamestop? If it is, I am done too.

 

[Epona]

It can't happen.

The old crash was due to people not buying crappy games with zero innovation and little motivation to be creative.

These days, people will buy them in the boat-load.

...and one day people will look back and realize how many hundreds or thousands of dollars they wasted on worthless video games. No one regrets buying Mario 64 but how many will look back and regret buying 10 generic shooters or 10 samey JRPG's/WRPG's?

 

[MammothBlade]

The "social gaming" phenomenon by no means represents the majority or even that significant a portion of the games industry, and the demise of this fad wouldn't harm the industry to any severe extent.

More people play certain social networking games than own a Nintendo Wii or play World of Warcraft. Whilst I don't believe that social gaming is representative of the "core" games market, it's still big enough that when the bubble bursts, it could reverberate throughout the games industry.

ACCORDING TO WHO? The 3DS is doing fine by all accounts. The Wii was the best-selling console of the last generation. Nintendo isn't going down at all, and I fail to see how you could be so misinformed as to think so.

To the contrary:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16737858

Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has unveiled heavy losses, blaming the strong yen and poor sales of its key 3DS console.

In the nine months to 31 December, it posted a loss of 48.35bn yen ($628m; £400m).

Business confidence in Nintendo is at an all-time low, and the whilst the Wii was a burning star in the previous console race, its days are numbered. The wii isn't selling well anymore.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577001082008873776.html

What "parts"? Even if some of these components do crash, I don't think it'll have that great an effect on the industry as a whole. The social gaming "bubble"? I doubt its collapse would affect the AAA Console games. That's just me, I guess.

There are quite a few investors/companies who either (foolishly) lump gaming into one market or have investments in both social and PC/console games. It could hit their willingness to fund expensive projects.

 

[castlewise]

I dont think there will be another 80's style crash. Gaming is too immersed in culture now. That being said I think that the bottom will drop out of the mobile apps market, and that includes mobile games.

 

[Darkmantle]

honestly, if the market crashes, it will probably be EA and Activisions fault. They are like the new atari, oversaturating the market and hurting buyer faith.

 

[T3hSource]

Just because some companies are going down,doesn't mean the entire industry is going to be dragged down with them.It certainly isn't as monetized as it was back in 1983.
What you're suggesting is ludicrous,but that might be my words of ignorance...

 

[Xenowolf]

You may not like the way the games industry is soing (and neither do I), but other than GAME going bankrupt, but video games are making mre money than ever. Just a few days ago, it was announced that more money has been made from selling games than video lasy year in the UK for the first time [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458205]. Financially, it's only the Japanese market that is in any real danger of a crash any time soon.

 

[gigastar]

No doubt things are being dragged through a rough patch at the moment.

Also i dont trust that "Things wrong with Capcom" image. I saw a previous version and it was throwing shit as Asura's Wrath just for including QTE's and Dragons Dogma for being what its author defined as a Monster Hunter clone. And its still listing "Developed by Ninja Theory" as something wrong with DmC.

And stating that Dan being killed off as something wrong with SFxT, i can think of a number of better things wrong with SFxT but that is the marker of a severely butthurt fanboy at the photoshop editor.

EDIT: Recalling more details from the image i remembered.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Calls it a Gears of War clone. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight its less that than it is a third person shooter based on Left 4 Dead only with the diffculty knob cranked up then ripped out. And a more traditional multiplayer.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record was implicated for what the author saw as a Dead Rising 2 with Frank West in it instead, taking no note of the full extent of changes to the actual game.

HD remakes, all of them, for simply being HD remakes.

 

[Epona]

You may not like the way the games industry is soing (and neither do I), but other than GAME going bankrupt, but video games are making mre money than ever. Just a few days ago, it was announced that more money has been made from selling games than video lasy year in the UK for the first time [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458205]. Financially, it's only the Japanese market that is in any real danger of a crash any time soon.

Maybe people are getting sick of seeing things like this while also hearing publishers whine about the used market.

 

[veloper]

I'm seeing a renaissance happening actually.

Indies looking to the classic games from the 80s and 90s for good features to bring to 2012.
Steam has given indie gaming a bigger audience and now Kickstarter makes million dollar funding without publishers possible. Creative minds in gaming never had so many resources and so much freedom as they have now.

Other good stuff: PC gaming is growing, turn-based tactics may be making a comeback, Double Fine will be making a Lucas Arts style adventure game.
We never had this much reason to be optimistic about the future of the hobby.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Not addressed to me, but you do seem to be the only person here making interesting counter-points...

the nintendo wii has reached market saturation, and the 3DS isn't doing too good either, and is bringing down nintendo with it;

ACCORDING TO WHO? The 3DS is doing fine by all accounts. The Wii was the best-selling console of the last generation. Nintendo isn't going down at all, and I fail to see how you could be so misinformed as to think so.

Nintendo posted losses for the first time last year. Not minor or insignificant losses at that. Their stock price tumbled on the mere RUMOR that Miyamoto was retiring. Third party-support for all of Nintendo's systems is near-nil outside of Japan, barring the usual barrage of shovelware.

This suggests to me that things are NOT all that stable at Nintendo now, despite their booming success in this console cycle. When the Wii's demand dropped, it dropped HARD. Fad-in, fad-out. Sony and Microsoft's motion controls have been looking for better numbers ever since Christmas 2010, so it's safe to assume the Motion Gaming fad has subsided (it may return with Wii-U, but I'm not confident in that yet).

The 3DS is backed overwhelmingly by 1st party titles (which in themselves are actually quite excellent. Kid Icarus Uprising is actually...really good IMO.), which indicates low confidence from 3rd-party developers.
Honestly: I want to know just what the hell changed between E3 of 2010 (announcement of the 3DS) and the launch of the 3DS. Nintendo had a KILLER lineup of backing at E3, yet that has vanished almost entirely since then.

Vita..well I'm getting to that.

the PSP Vita isn't selling well - the poor sales of dedicated handhelds might be partly caused by the rise of mobile gaming.

I'll agree with you here, I don't think we'll be seeing many more dedicated gaming handhelds. It's still too early to write off the Vita, however.

That depends primarily on what their competition does. I don't necessarily want to have to sign into a cell phone contract just to play mobile games, which comprises the majority of competition currently.
How much practical overlap occurs depends on how much iPhones and Droids want to become like consoles, and how much the handheld consoles want to become like cell phones. In either case: I think it's good that Nintendo and Sony have practical competition here.
Sony has become far too militaristic with their DRM and control policies as of late and Nintendo needs to learn to stop relying so heavily on first-person titles to carry a system.

IMO, tablets are the more "practical" competition to the Vita. Until the iPad-fad hit, tablet PCs were mostly niche. Now, everyone wants a piece of the action it seems. That's the market I'm watching, since the 3DS and the Vita are going to appeal to diverging demographics when compared to each other.
At least until Nintendo manages to scrape up better third party support. All I'm currently looking forward to is the new Smash Bros title (which definitely won't be here until 2013 at earliest) and...maybe the Monster Hunter port. :\

 

[Xenowolf]

You may not like the way the games industry is soing (and neither do I), but other than GAME going bankrupt, but video games are making mre money than ever. Just a few days ago, it was announced that more money has been made from selling games than video lasy year in the UK for the first time [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458205]. Financially, it's only the Japanese market that is in any real danger of a crash any time soon.

Maybe people are getting sick of seeing things like this while also hearing publishers whine about the used market.

I suppose, but most people just seem to blindly buy into all the crap that publishers throw at us, sadly.

 

[Epona]

You may not like the way the games industry is soing (and neither do I), but other than GAME going bankrupt, but video games are making mre money than ever. Just a few days ago, it was announced that more money has been made from selling games than video lasy year in the UK for the first time [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458205]. Financially, it's only the Japanese market that is in any real danger of a crash any time soon.

Maybe people are getting sick of seeing things like this while also hearing publishers whine about the used market.

I suppose, but most people just seem to blindly buy into all the crap that publishers throw at us, sadly.

That's always a temporary situation. Sooner or later everyone gets tired of crap and that is likely what happened in 1982.