I think "industry crash" was maybe much too strong, seeing as Mario was a VERY LUCKY situation.
What I would like is for gamers to become smarter and more selective and more vocal, and hopefully their wallets could drive certain bad developers and publishers into liquidation/closure, and force other publishers to straighten up and developers to once again try think outside the limits as not many do in this current day. Unfortunately, as I pointed out, too many gamers are part of that "lowest-common-denominator". They're fine with trash, and many don't even recognise it as such (those who think CoD is still amazing when it's literally added nothing new in 5+ years).
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Mediocrisy (Mediocrity?, you know, being mediocre) is always the common rule. Statistically most of the population is going to fall into that category, that's why crappy movies such 2fast2furious or crappy books as such the Da Vinci's Code are bestsellers and blockbusters.
And there's nothing you can do to change that.
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become smarter
Yes please!more selective
In certain cases (DLC for example), sure.and more vocal
Oh no... please no.
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Nintendo is, as always, the only company trying to breathe hope and originality into the Industry.
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That is, of course, why I'm still seeing Mario Kart everywhere. They're just as bad at milking as everyone else. Worse, in fact. The others haven't been around long enough to milk as long or as hard.
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I own and/or have played every single Mario Kart title there's been. And for a racing game, they do offer a substantial amount of innovation from title to title.
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And that innovation is...?
Because, with Call of Duty, I don't consider new maps or guns innovation. So what's Mario Kart offering?
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Sure. Fisrt of all Mario Kart 64 was the first game introducing mirror mode, double dash introduced two people per kart with new drifting and colliding mechanics, Mario Kart Wii introduced motorcycles, Mario Kart 7 offered the possiblilty of hand-gliding, water-driving and full kart personalisation and Mario Kart 8 is going to offer a gravity-less mode.
That witouth mentioning courses, characters or weapons. I see enough innovation in the non-portable ones.
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Mirror Mode was in the original Ridge Racer, the first game released on the Playstation, so that is not really innovation. The rest of your post is fine though!
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I was misinformed then. My bad. Thanks for the heads up.
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Nintendo has been making the same games for years and just updating the graphics. Adding multiplayer to Super Mario Bros. or replacing Mario in the title with Luigi doesn't make it new or original.
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I dare to disagree with your narrow-minded opinion. Go ahead and tell me which games are carbon copies of others.
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I think it's fair to criticize Nintendo for not having made a single original IP themselves in years. They really do just churn out "new" games in their various franchises, games that may offer some new ideas but largely just ape the old ones. That's not to say they're bad games, but for a company that is trying to make unique hardware, they're not actually making any new titles designed to take advantage of their own hardware.
Frankly, the WiiU is the only console I'm not remotely interested in. It's just a bad idea. It's barely (if at all) better than the current gen consoles, which works for now, cus the true next gen consoles aren't out yet, but in a year or two, when everyone switches fully over to next gen, Nintendo will be back to making their own handful of series, and no one else will develop for them because they have a pathetically small install base and the console is too weak to multiplat with the other consoles.
I say all this as a PC gamer who won't be buying any next gen consoles. I'll stick to PC, where sales are plentiful and there are always exciting new games coming out. And countless "exclusives".
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"They really do just churn out "new" games in their various franchises, games that may offer some new ideas but largely just ape the old ones. That's not to say they're bad games, but for a company that is trying to make unique hardware, they're not actually making any new titles designed to take advantage of their own hardware."
But they're making new games to take advantage of the hardware. They're not new IPs, but new games nonetheless.
"Frankly, the WiiU is the only console I'm not remotely interested in. It's just a bad idea."
Such a bad idea that Sony is using it on the PS4.
"It's barely (if at all) better than the current gen consoles"
Since when does that matter? The Wii was basically an improved GameCube yet it sold out more than both 360 and PS3.
Better hardware does not mean better sales. Look at the Vita. If you look at sales the weaker console always won the console war in the end. NES, SNES, PSX, PS2, Wii.
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I haven't seen many 1st Party titles, either on the Wii or WiiU, that actually depended on and really benefited from the WiiMote or Gamepad. MarioU used it some, but it was a pretty minor way, didn't radically change the game. Some of the party games used the gamepad well enough from what I saw, but nothing that interested me. Same for the Wiimote, most uses of it were pretty gimmicky. ZombieU had the most interesting use of the gamepad, and I never saw a use of the wiimote that actually made me want to play it. If you're gonna build an entire console around an idea like that, you need to make games that really benefit from and depend on it, and can't be played without it without losing something essential.
As to sony--not really. They have a touchscreen but it's really just a small feature, not a central idea. In any case, I wasn't referring to the gamepad--I think that's a decent enough idea--but the timing and power of the console. It'll fall into the same situation the Wii was in--games can't be made multiplatform for it, because it's too weak, and very few dev's outside nintendo itself will actually make exclusives for it.
The WiiU is current gen hardware masquerading as a next gen console, and it's selling terribly. Sales aren't everything, but the only thing that would compel devs to make exclusives for it is if it had a large install base of serious gamers. It doesn't.
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Pretty much all the side-scrolling Mario games after the NES games. Super Mario World had some new things, but it wasn't a very original game. Still, I liked that game a lot.
Then of course Mario Kart, Mario Party and Super Smash Bros. games have been pretty much the same after the first one. Sure they change some things, but there's nothing original about those series after the first game.
They sometimes make some new Mario or Luigi game with a bit different mechanics, but it still a Mario game in the Mario universe. Nintendo is playing it safe and not wanting to have brand new and original characters. I don't think Super Mario Galaxy is an original game. It looks like Super Mario 64, but Mario moves around spherical surfaces.
Could you elaborate where the originality in your opinion is? I just don't see any.
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I'm gonna agree with you that in the 2D marios (Apart from the RPG ones) there's neither much room for innovation, nor a lot of it has been made.
Then there's a post I wrote just above here listing innovations in Mario Kart. Mario Party is a board game, the introduced new minigames, boards, characters and mechanics with each iteration of the series. And SSB is a fighting game, what differences are there between the 1st SF and the fifth?.
Anyways, Then the 3D Marios are completely different one from another (Sunshine, 64, Galaxy). Then you have Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series as RPG, Luigi's Mansion. Dr. Mario, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Basketball, Soccer, Olimpic Games. All the Zelda games are different one from another.
It's true that they reuse the same characters ad nauseam, but all the games are mechanically and visually different enough to be considered original. In my opinion.
Then we could also take into account other franchises such as F-Zero, Metroid, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Golden Sun, Pokémon (eh). And so on.
I consider them to have the better and most varied 1st party titles from all the scene, after all those are what keep them afloat.
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sadly if they did not lock them to only nintendo consoles they would end up like sega. good or bad they want to stay in the console market and that would not be posable if they cross platformed. would you buy 3ds or wiiu if you could get nintendo games on ps3/xbox/pc/iso?
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they like to be considered the safe choice for kids so many older gamers tend to shy away from most of Nintendo's games. with all the adult content out now its a sure way to secure a place in the industry. you get your kid a wii and you know when you walk in your kids not beating up hookers or going on a killing spree in say gta.
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I as a gamer will always love Nintendo. They have lots of great games on the horizon (Smash Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Wind Waker). Nintendo's games have always had that touch of magic that no other game company can achieve.
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Also there's something you are forgetting. There's always been, and there will always be, crappy titles. The thing is that you only tend to remember those which are not so crappy.
Also Bethesda screws on their PC users too, I think that (alongside with Paradox) they still have to release a fucking game that's playable and has no game breaking bug.
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Yeah, I did say "generally" with Bethesda for that reason ;P (I was particularly upset when I got hit with a certain bug in Fallout 3)
I totally agree about crappy titles, but I think now they're less plain old bad, and more mediocre which means that they don't register as much negative press and so developers get the idea that it's okay to lower their quality since nobody is going to complain so much.
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That's no excuse. Their QA department is crap and they know it. They launch with far too many major bugs. Most of them are never fixed, even when pointed out to them. Not to mention, they outright lie in their patch reports. "Fixed rare save bug in Vaermina's quest." Garbage. That bug affected every player of every platform post-patch 1.5. It took until 1.8 to solve it. The bug was if you saved (even auto-saved) when you entered the weird Dreamworld thing, you would crash three-quarters of the way into the dungeon. Every. Time. Hope you had a previous save, guys! But don't worry, it was a rare bug.
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bugs are why i NEVER do day 1 purchases anymore (unless a preorderbonus is really good). i've gotten more than 1 game i could not play till it was on sale. funny thing is l4d2 was one of them and don't get me started on the preorder bonus baseballbat that was given to everyone like a week or 2 later.
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I thought the cricket bat was only made available when The Passing was released? That said, I wish all preorder stuff was available down the line, like a year after launch.
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"Valve is offering a number of enticing pre-order offers for their upcoming zombicidal action title, Left 4 Dead 2. bleh, bleh, bleh. a thrilling bonus: An in-game "American baseball bat.""
i also like when preorder bonuses are able to be gotten later but what valve did was a slap in the face and the fact i could not even enjoy the 2weeks with an exclusive weapon because it was unplayable hurt more.
p.s. i never knew about the cricket bat.
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I agree with you, the quality of games coming out has NEVER been better. 2011 and 2013 are the 2 best overall game release years I can remember in all my years of gaming. only 2000-2001 is close.
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Yeah, thanks to the Call of Duty. Thank God it exists!
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There are a lot of people doing the same thing, I agree there are even more people buying Call of Duties every year or buying every DLC from EA(or things like that). But to be honest, I'm sure the market itself will collapse if it continues like this. Lots of people are bored by the generic shooters or zombie games, and the people who play them now will also be bored of them sooner or later.
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The problem is all the casual fans that want to play simple games with their friends. Unfortunately, there are more casual gamers than there are hardcore gamers nowadays. So many of my friends that I would never consider hardcore gamers own Call of Duty or Halo and just keep paying for them year in and year out to play with friends. It's like a multiplier too. One person buys it, suddenly 3 more buy it so they can play with their friends, and it spreads out.
Meanwhile when I talk to friends about games, I recommend games that I think are great, and for the most part, they do like them a lot, but they don't have much time to play or get invested in the games. They want games you can just pick up for an hour or two when they have time and then put down without thinking about it until they get a chance to play again, possibly weeks later.
I'd like to blame casual gamers, but I feel like I have to blame developers/publishers just as much. There's a thing that seems to be going extinct in our world nowadays and that's pride in our work. It's sad that developers don't care about making the next big thing, being a big part of gaming history, starting a revolution in the market, trying to be the best, etc... They only care about making money. There are a couple, like Valve or CD Projekt Red, but they are few and far between. Wish more developers would take chances like Arkane Studios and try something fresh and make it work rather than try something old that hardly works.
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"Bethesda (generally) gives console players the cold shoulder"
Wow, well I haven't read something so false in a while... Because if we take for example the most recent blockbuster from them, Skyrim, that was so clear an xbox title it was not even funny. Milions in marketing for the xbox, less bugs and glitched across the board on the xbox compared to the PC version, half arsed UI for the PC version, probably one of the worst UIs ever made and the list goes on and on...
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you my friend are welcome to join me and my friends at our pub table
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We don't need a new Mario, we need a new Mario.
I've said this before and I'll say it here- Mario is basically dead to the mainstream of gaming. Now he's just milked to death by Nintendo because they're (sadly) losing their presence in the gaming world. What we need is a new Mario, a game that can show what gaming should be. However, it would need to be AAA if it wanted to make a change, which could (and mostly would) lead to the game or the potential series' corruption. It's a paradox almost.
I basically just go with the flow and be indifferent towards most things. Except DRM and Console Exclusives, fuck that. I wanna be able to know whether or not The Last of Us lives up, like everyone says, or if it's overrated, like my friends say. And I'm not prepared to watch 20 hours of gameplay of it.
Now, as for video game media- With the ever-growing amount of children and idiots on the internet, and the ever-growing amount of younger "gamers" (AKA CodFags), they will only grow more popular. The one redeeming quality with PewDiePie is that he tends to play games that quite a lot of his audience didn't know about, giving that game exposure. Plus, Felix himself is a great guy. He's hard-working, nice, and is raising money for charity using his strong presence in the gaming-media world.
So, to conclude, we're basically screwed too much to do anything now
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I was basically trying to say the new Mario, but I really didn't know how to approach wording it.
It's an unfortunate conclusion to come to, but that is where gaming is, and not much is going to change it. I just hope that some of those certain gamers can eventually wake up, play some older games and learn where the industry has come from, and then themselves demand change. Of course, that's a dream that won't happen.
On Pewdie, I don't hate him from a personal level, and I'm sure he's a nice and great guy. I just dislike his approach to Let's Plays and the monetisation. Otherwise though, he's completely fine by my standards.
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"CodFags"
Suspended. Come on, you've been around long enough to know we're not 4chan here...
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+1
The lack of creativity is whats wrong with the game industry today. Even tough I still enjoy the Mario games, many developers are walking the same road and just a few dare to take the side roads of creativity. I remembered when I played Burnout 3 Takedown, it blown my mind in pieces because it was different then the most racing games. Same happened to me with Splinter Cell 3 or BattleField 2 and lots of other games. Now I rarely find something different, not because alot of things have been done before, but because almost everyone doing the things they done before.
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"Bethesda (generally) gives console players the cold shoulder"
Bethesda's fucked everyone over equally since Oblivion. The only "cold shoulder" the console players get is that it's harder to fix the amount of shit that they left in with some modder's hard work.
"People still have it in their minds that console-exclusives are a good thing"
And why wouldn't they be? It drives competition and increases the differences between the consoles. I'd argue there aren't enough, personally.
So, now that we're done with the collation of every whinge thread in the last three years, what exactly is your point? What are you going to do about it? I think we've established these threads don't do jack shit. So I ask you. What do you plan to do about it?
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See my comment below, I was referring to the PS3 Skyrim.
It means that people like myself are driven away from amazing games like The Last of Us because we're unwilling to fork out $200 for a new piece of hardware we otherwise don't need because I have a gaming computer.
Nothing, because I can do nothing, but I needed a place to vent that wasn't on my assessments and this seemed appropriate. Maybe because seeing responses from people who agree makes me feel a little better that somewhere in the world, there are people who form a better class of gamer. I'm not looking so much for change, but rather just to know that there are people who agree that there are problems in the industry.
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Of course there are problems with the industry. 99% of the things you mentioned are very widely agreed upon. The problem is that everyone is saying them. Almost no-one, at least not in the numbers, is saying no to it. I've come to the conclusion that gamers are stupid and will keep suckling on sour milk. If I vote with my wallet, I have done jack shit. All I've done is deprive myself of a game I might have thoroughly enjoyed and it sold like hot cakes anyway. Alternatively, it didn't sell and they blame it on piracy and simply stop developing anything I would like anyway. So I have to choose: does this issue directly affect me? If yes, I won't get it and pray that something changes. If no, even if I disagree on a moral standpoint, I'm going to get it eventually at some point because otherwise I'm just wasting an oppurtunity for entertainment.
As for those, yes, you're deprived. However, gaming PCs have plenty of exclusives themselves. I have an Xbox. I wish I could play The Last of Us, or Uncharted. However, I can't, but I'll just have to kick back with my Halo and Gears of War on the 360, or perhaps my MMOs on PC or Antichamber. Every console has advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes games are one of those. Good. It drives competition, leading to more diversity, however little it may appear to be nowadays, and more innovations.
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I absolutely see your point there and I feel the same way. A lot of this stuff doesn't directly affect me and at the end of the day I'm jumping into the line of fire where I'm not needed because it's not going to do jack-squat. I think it's just a lot of personal motivation that makes want to hope gamers can change for "the better" (as I see in my own perspective). I think I also want to pretend that I'm going to be some amazing dev who will revolutionise the industry, when all I'm going to ultimately be is an average developer shouting into a vacuum.
That's true, it's some we need and I should be less close-minded in that respect (and get a job so I can start seeing what I've been missing on the PS3 side). I think my big problem is whenever I think console-exclusives, I look at the retro games and I think "how basic", and how they "can't compare to games of this era", and I come to the conclusion that because games were more or less very basic and similar (which they were most certainly not), console-exclusives now and then mean two separate things. I need to get out of the mindset that retro gaming is a lot of very basic and boring mindless fun compared to the "compelling experiences" of this current era.
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On the console thing, I get that I'm supposed to be incited to buy the console (and in all truthfulness I want a PS3 badly). Yes, we do need console exclusives and I should have probably skipped that point, but I personally don't like them as they force people to suddenly compare games instead of the systems themselves.
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I actively encourage them not to get into publisher contracts that will ultimately exploit their creative juices and talent for coin, and instead strive to be the voice that gamers can't be.
Unfortunately, that won't happen, because most developers are comfortable where they are.
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If indie development meant bread and butter on the table I dont doubt many devs would leave their jobs. game dev positions pay significantly less than generic software programming, which is an issue to consider; talent starts at games, realizes they're crunching for very little monetary reward/satisfaction and leave the industry altogether.
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Of course, it's a big problem and I know that's a position I myself will have to contend with (especially since I have university debts as well as all the costs associated with moving country to start developing). I don't want to get into an "importance of money" argument here, but I think that at the end of the day, you can define a good and a bad dev by what they do when money becomes tight.
I was actually really shocked and I felt a lot of respect for the Metro Last Light team, who ran out of money and resorted to a lot of cost-effective tactics to get the game done on time without major cuts.
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I don't think any developer doesn't have that reality in the back of their minds. Animators, modellers, programmers and sound and artists are usually lucky in that they can easily tweak their skills so that they can work in other industries where jobs are a plenty. But the designers (like me) are the ones who need to set themselves out as amazing at what they do and keep producing things people like.
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We don't want an industry crash we just need to stop paying for the bad things, if everyone stopped buying day one dlc and said "this should be included in the release" devs and publishers would do it. Its the mindless fools with too much money paying for anything and everything no questions asked that are killing the industry.
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You're right that we don't need an industry crash, and I was out of line to go that far, but unfortunately there are just too many people who don't care, don't mind or actually like many of the DLC practices, such as on-the-disc DLC and Day One DLC, that we want gone.
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Personally, I think it needs to be more like the original Half-Life. Half-Life 2 built this massive story and world, but there was something about the simplicity and the fact that you had little idea of what was going on that made Half-Life 1 one of the most immersive games I've ever played.
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I read all of your post but none of the comments, and have only a couple of things to say:
Firstly, and most noticably, is that you say the industry needs to change, while at the same time saying that this is the internet golden age. Minecraft was released less than two years ago. As such, the industry must be doing something right. And it is. The indie scene is bubbling with great, interesting indie games. Sure, they're few and far between, but that doesn't make them any less interesting. It's a problem that (part of) the gaming community are horrible people, and that it is causing good developers to quit the industry, however.
That said, I agree with you on the DLC-era that we have entered into, where everything must have DayOneDLC and oft feel like they've been stripped of content to make some extra money. And that's really annoying, and I believe it's also a reason a lot of people hold off on buying genuinly good games until a "GOTY" (or "complete") version comes out; which, to be fair, is probably the best way to handle it (read: Voting with your wallet).
I don't see the problem you have with digital services, though. Also, I really like the Let's Play scene in general, even if I don't like some individuals in it. It's the same as with other industries and communities; they're often pretty great, but with a few stand-outs that aren't all that great. Sometimes it's the ones that rise to the top that you don't like, and that's too bad - but that happens everywhere and shouldn't devalue the entire thing.
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Fuck those cunts. I didn't realise they'd gone to those lengths. Poor Hepler. :( Those bastards should be made to suffer what they said. See how funny they think it is then. :(
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I completely agree. It's horrid. It has even spurred support groups, which goes to show that it's not a rare occurrence.
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I didn't necessarily want to come off saying the internet is in its golden era, because indie gaming itself is still part of gaming as a whole, and there just happens to be some quality indie titles. I completely agree that many gaming communities are built off horrible people.
There's instinct inside me that I hate, where I always "MUST HAVE COMPLETE VERSION", and sometimes will refuse to buy games because they don't come with all the DLC since I feel I'm buying an incompletely game. I hate that I've come to that opinion, but that's what the industry has done to me.
I'm someone who has a lot of trouble with getting a stable connection, and I generally dislike multiplayer (something I shouldn't have let sway my opinion, but I'm an idiot). Cr1TiKaL is a standout for me - funny guy who donates all he makes to charity.
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I think it's fair to say that the industry is being kept in balance. Brilliant indie developers balance out the seemingly deteriorating AAA-scene (which one must assume is catering to the masses, and not really don't much wrong in that regard). It's a shame there are so many cheap copies of genuinly good games (indie and otherwise), but then.. That also happens in every industry that contains products.
I completely agree. It's an annoyance, to say the least. I, for one, would welcome back the time where DLC was actually expansions, and sometimes could have been standalone games. (Then I look at a game such as The Binding of Isaac, and realize that there's still hope for such a thing)
Ah. Yeah, I'm so used to my connection that I disregarded the fact that there are (likely a lot) of people in a different situation. In that case, I agree. Hopefully something starts pushing service providers to actually provide proper services. I'll also say that I enjoy having physical copies of things that work without having to download a tonne of "updates".
I've never heard of Cr1TiKaL, but I'll check him out. I currently mainly watch Northernlion, and the people in that "circle". This is where I'd post links to all of them, but it'd feel too much like a link-dump, so here's some names instead (I likely forgot some): JSmithOTI, RockLeeSmile, Ohmwrecker, Bisnap, ZeroDoxy, PrescriptionPixel, Green9090, PlayerUno, BaerTaffy - I can't say what they do with the money they make, but I honestly don't care much. I wouldn't mind seeing all of them do LPing for a living.
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Aye. Unfortunately, I've always held a negative stance around indie games and I really can't seem to shake it, even though I keep finding amazing indie games all over the place. I'm too stubborn, methinks.
I think the original The Sims was kind of the guiding hand for EA to say "Yes, you can add small content packs that should have been with the game and people will still pay".
It's probably my fault for using an awful router and being on the move so much, but until I become McJob, that won't be changing.
I love Northernlion. Never heard of those guys, but I'll give them a look up in these upcoming holidays.
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Fully agree with GOTY. I bought Borderlands 2 for quite cheap so I decided I could buy the Season pass as well thinking it will include ALL dlc. Lo and behold the Krieger pack was NOT INCLUDED cause why the fudge not, and that pissed me right off. So yea, pretty bummed I didn't wait for GOTY.
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I don't think you meant this part, but don't forget that an industry crash means A LOT of lost jobs and downsizing. Big companies like EA will survive, and the indie studios without the funding will fail. In fact, they may end up having to sell to companies like EA. So think twice about your desire for an industry crash.
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As I said in other comments, an industry crash was much too strong a wording, and I feel really bad anytime I know a developer lost their job (such as what Bethesda did to Obsidian). But, that's the unfortunate nature of capitalism, and something we have to live with in the first world.
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http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4583852251351385&pid=15.1
Seriously, when we look at "platforms", there is Nintendo, MS, and Sony for consoles, and Valve/Steam is the forefront name in PC platform. Each one of them leads their platforms as developers and as publishers. Which one of these "big 4" does not milk their franchises with sequel after sequel, DLC after DLC and so on. Valve hardly ever is developing/publishing new games, and their "Same old same old" games have MILLIONS of playesr globally and gets continually support. It's an uncommon event when they are putting out something 100% new, unlike the others who have some new or rehashed thing every couple months. it makes everything about them "diluted".
Frankly at this point, I think that if some kind of gaming related recession or crash occurs, it will be a Steambox (to bring the platform to the computer ignorant masses) that will bring us out of it and into the next gaming era.
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First of all console-exclusives is really a good thing i don't need pc games like in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RULv6HbgEjY&lc
where you can do it all without fireing a single shot because games meant to be played on console are now on PC 1:1.. so i would rather miss a title on pc then to start a game controlled with a total of 4 buttons!
Whats your plan to bring down the giants like EA? Even after crash which they will survive they will remain big and dictating. PPl pay 60 bucks for a "new" title which in reallty have only a few skins, weapons names and stats changed. Same engine same content, even same maps may as DLC but people buy it.. See even the origin spy scandal mucked EA nothing. Millions of gamers should have turned away from it on principle. But that won't happen, the world is just that. I feel with you, often you may get the feeling you are the only one seeing things like that.
It's just a unmet expectation from game industry making all sick...
I rather play old Dos games then some new titles!
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I get that moving games which were originally conceived as console games to a PC can be quite a bad thing in certain cases, but I think that some games could potentially become much better from being multi-platform. However, it does really depend on the investment of the development team.
I hate to admit it, but it does seem like EA, for now, is slightly moving back towards gamer favour with the new CEO who designed the Xbox 360. They're still doing some evil stuff here and there, but the changes they made recently do remedy some of their bad practices and habits under the previous CEO's leadership. With that said, I don't expect to bring them down. Digitial Distribution means that the need for publishers is less important than it has ever been, as the Indie market is evidence of. Yes, you need to loan money from sources to be able to finance serious game development, but you can make it work without publishers now.
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I don't have anything else to add, you nailed it. Godspeed OP, Godspeed.
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I don't mind the industry right now. DRM is my only problem.
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The crash that occurred earlier was a console crash, not an industry crash. Back then, games were divided into video games (consoles) and computer games (computers). And there was a video games crash, which in part caused a surge in computer games. Back then, just about everything was start-up. There wasn't a wall between someone having a new idea and that idea getting implemented, since the idea-maker was probably also the company owner and the game developer. People didn't need 50mil to make a game, and all the strings that that money comes with.
For those looking for such a crash, consoles are entering into a remarkably similar place. Lots of consoles entering the market, many of them trash. Steep rise in cost and price. A hard push to get things out to obey investor needs, even if the game is nowhere near ready. Several game scandals in rapid succession. Major console players teetering on insolvency.
But, even if there were to be a console crash, it wouldn't cause the same event. Now, there's handhelds and tablets. Phone games and facebook. Game companies would still be huge. Plus, investment money would still be the controlling force for game making. People would still not be reinvesting in new PCs, putting a hard line in how fast game tech can develop.
It's just not the same time as it was before.
An entire industry crash would change things. A lot of major people would leave, and the investment money would dry up. So, games development would fall back to under 1 mil. And in times of crisis, such as total industry crash, people do what is safe and expected. Meaning, cheap phone and facebook games with constant sequels.
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Yeah, I should probably change the title and one or two lines to reflect that as I said in the comments, industry crash is much too strong a term.
You bring up an interesting, and scary, point about cheap games with constant sequels. Scary because it's true. I really hate the majority of humanity at times.
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Your entire first paragraph is called in to question by the indie scene that exists now just as it did then. I'd wager that the modern indie scene is actually in significantly better shape than it was in previous console generations thanks to online marketplaces.
I've only really been gaming since the N64 era but gaming certainly isn't more expensive now compared with then, and that's despite AAA development costs increasing exponentially. Graphs and stuff.
I don't agree with your comment about there being lots of consoles either - in a few months time we'll have the PS4, Wii U, and XBOne for the living room and the Vita and 3DS on the handheld side. That's no more than previous generations.
Rose-tinted glasses and all that.
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Ouya (you should really do some searching on that one - it's funny), Steam box, Pandora, Dingoo, Caanoo.
So, when the consoles went down during the crash, you could not buy them. Stores pulled them off the shelves, and refused to purchase any new ones. But there were computer game only game shops for a while after.
Games aren't more expensive to the customer, but development cost is spiraling. A spiral on either end of the spectrum can cause a crash, since a spiral on dev costs increases the chances of company failure from games that failed to earn the large margin.
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Ah yes, thought of the Ouya before then forgot to mention it. I can't see it taking off personally, will have to wait and see what happens there. Not heard any news regarding the Steam box in a few months (might have missed it), as far as I'm aware it's just a PC in a small box that isn't running Windows. The others I've not heard of so will look into those.
Nice point regarding development costs, didn't think of it that way.
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I don't like the gaming industry as it is. Everything sucks. AAA is less about trying to take chances on making something incredible and more about pleasing the lowest common denominator, of which many screech from the tops of mountains, belittling those who actually have a valid opinion. Publishers no longer are PUBLISHERS but instead feel as though they are the ultimate gods of gaming, purchasing out the licenses to the best gaming franchises and milking them for all their worth. DLC practices are getting worse and worse, and the push to have more "free" (Read: Missing content designed to fool the non-informed consumer) online games. Hell, the industry is pushing more and more towards complete digital, online services, believing everyone in the world to already live in the future under the benevolent rule of Skynet.
The Indie market too is not doing so well, and it's oversaturated by mediocre titles by developers who don't have a passion for gaming but simply want to make a quick buck. The last console not to be produced by one of the three "mighty" titans was absolutely bollocks and showed that its creators were just as evil as the people making the other consoles. Games as good as Minecraft (in terms of what it did for indie gaming) are few and far between, and typically spawn a bazillion clones because these clone-developers believe that "if ain't broke, don't fix it" actually was supposed to be "if it ain't broke, remake the entire thing in Unity but miss everything that made the original good because we're unoriginal and we don't understand the golden era of video games."
Let's Plays by Pewdiepie apparently somehow are able to warrant millions of spoiled brats supremacy of YouTube, and Kotaku can write whatever random garbage spews from their mind and there will always be people who won't bat an eyelash. Some developers are leaving the industry because they receive enough hate over tiny decisions to match the Sun, whereas other developers are complete degenerates and it takes only a tiny realisation that nobody is laughing with them for a shitstorm to start. People review games by comparing them, not based on the games own merits, and people believe that all manner of "technical issues" (LEIK GUIZE ITZ LOCK'D 2 30FPS DIS R SHITE) should detract from the game's overall score, when it's clear they're the only one with their problems.
Console and PC wars continuing to rage on, and yet no developer wants to properly merge the gap out of fear they might actually convince gamers its okay to choose what works best for them. Ubisoft fucks PC games daily, Bethesda (generally) gives console players the cold shoulder, and Microsoft loves to screw with everybody equally. People still have it in their minds that console-exclusives are a good thing, and there are still "hardcore" gamers convinced that because a game has no more than the occasional button-click here and there, it shouldn't classify as a game. Meanwhile, "casual" gamers spend money on buying new items for Farmville or Angry Birds, items that take no more than 5 minutes to make and rake in hundreds of thousands of kilos worth of cocaine every day, giving the big publishers the incentive that suddenly all gamers are like that, so they can begin to push DLC right down the unwilling gaming public's throat.
I'm not done with gaming, but I'm pissed off that we've come to this. Only a few years ago, we were still in the warm and fuzzy period of gaming where things weren't as bad. YES. Some of these problems have been a constant. But they were nowhere near as drastic as they are now. This industry used to be about put players into places they've never been before, to experience things they've never felt before. The people who worked in it did so with passion for what they did, not so they could make it rich. Publishers weren't obsessed with licenses or DLC, they just wanted to rake in some profit off the side for distributing the games, as they rightfully should. Back then, you could look inside a game store and find a huge library of amazing games, not just a few awesome titles scattered through a lot of waste. Mario changed the industry forever. We need a new Mario (NOT A SEQUEL LIKE YOU'VE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS, NINTENDO).
Hate me if you will, but that's my perspective. Your move, gaming industry.
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