Is the next video game crash coming?

I have been a bit disappointed with gaming in recent years, and I am starting to wonder, are we moving towards the next video game crash? For those who don't know, there was a video game crash in 1983 in the United States. This was long ago, when Atari dominated the market. The main reason for the crash was a supersaturation of bad games. E.T: The Extraterrestrial is the most shining and well-known example of such disasters.

Video gaming has a lot of problems these days. In my opinion, these problems are (in no particular order): oversimplification of gameplay features, overly long console hardware cycle, sequels that fail to live up to predecessors, DRM, high prices for low content, underwhelming DLC nickle and diming customers, games fall in price too quickly, too much emphasis on the casual gamer, and buggy releases. Are there pros to gaming these days? Sure. Digital distribution has helped support independent game developers. The indie scene is strong these days, and it seems to offer most of the innovation in todays gaming market.

I doubt that a video game crash would be anywhere near as bad as the 1983 one, simply because the industry has grown to such a huge degree since then. I do think that a large slide could happen if a number of factors came together. Two quarters full of disappointing releases, followed by a poor holiday season could build some major momentum to a video game slide. Casual gamers are the focus these days, but casual gamers are a fickle bunch. Since they aren't very serious on gaming to begin with, they may be quicker to abandon the hobby than a core gamer.

How would the PC segment handle a video game crash? I think PC gaming would weather the storm better than console for a couple of reasons. PCs are important for running businesses, and have many uses beyond entertainment. They are always going to be around in one form or another. PC also has more independent developers. Being the fuel of innovation and having small development budgets will be key to surviving any sort of video game crash.

I am hoping to start some intelligent discussion on the possibility of a video game crash, and its possible effect on PC gaming. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am getting tired of being bent over with high prices for poor content, buggy releases, crap DLC, DRM, and oversimplification. I suspect that I'm not the only one.

The video game crash came in 1983. Nintendo took off in 1985. To be honest, I didn't really feel the the negative effects all that much. The crash made me play through all the Atari games I already had. I wasn't even finished with them when Nintendo revitalized the market.

Just becouse you are not happy with gaming today does not mean there is anything wrong with it. Its evolving sure, maybe not in the direction you hoped, but games are still good. Plenty of people are willing to buy DLCs and this will not change and it will not cause a crash. Also seeing as that some DLC these days is actually worth the money and shows effort I think that most companies will in time get the idea of DLCs as mini expansions not map packs. Still all the things you list are simply things that you dont like. A crash would be more likely if companies were catering only to the hardcore instead of the casuals. As for something like DRM...people for the most part dont care. Just becouse there are people on the forum screaming bloody murder everytime a game is released with some sort of DRM doesnt mean anything. We, forum people, are a vocal minority.

I enjoy video games but strictly speaking you will grow out of it.

I fell inlove with video games when I was young just like many others seeing how it mainly served younger audiences.

Trust me the novelty wears off after a few decades I understand your point of view.

The video game crash came in 1983. Nintendo took off in 1985. To be honest, I didn't really feel the the negative effects all that much. The crash made me play through all the Atari games I already had. I wasn't even finished with them when Nintendo revitalized the market.

jun_aka_pekto

When looking at it in that light, the market could use a good crash to sweep away all the crap.

TC I think you might be on to something. While not a crash per ce I can see the casual crowd causing a mjor shift. The last 2 years we have seen modern warfare 2 and black ops become the highest selling games of all time despite their lack of originality. Games such as Uncharted, Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft 2, etc do not sell as much even though they have more time and effort put into them. So I fear if this keeps up developers are going to want to be able to compete with Call of Duty and in return will make their games easier, shorter, and put less work into them because if people are going to pay for the same crap every year than why work harder than you need to? Also since people keep buying map packs and other rip off DLC I get the feeling that more developers are going to leave parts of the game out and charge us for them as DLC. So I don't see an actual crash but rather an era in which games are dumbed down and low on quality.

That's back in the 80's where there's like what one system? And arcades. It's a totally different ball game now. Elann2008

Unless you meant it crashing on Atari, that is.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"]That's back in the 80's where there's like what one system? And arcades. It's a totally different ball game now. mitu123

Unless you meant it crashing on Atari, that is.

Yeah, I realize there's more than Atari. I was just exaggerating. :P Anyways, it's the only system I could remember as a kid pre-Nintendo NES. And the only one I got to play. Pulled one of those out of my cousin's closet. Played some Joust. I think I was like 7 years old.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/consoles-of-the-80s/a-200806189420522063

I played Adventure, Yar's Revenge, Missile Command and Pitfall on my Atari.8)

[QUOTE="jun_aka_pekto"]

The video game crash came in 1983. Nintendo took off in 1985. To be honest, I didn't really feel the the negative effects all that much. The crash made me play through all the Atari games I already had. I wasn't even finished with them when Nintendo revitalized the market.

topgunmv

When looking at it in that light, the market could use a good crash to sweep away all the crap.

TC I think you might be on to something. While not a crash per ce I can see the casual crowd causing a mjor shift. The last 2 years we have seen modern warfare 2 and black ops become the highest selling games of all time despite their lack of originality. Games such as Uncharted, Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft 2, etc do not sell as much even though they have more time and effort put into them. So I fear if this keeps up developers are going to want to be able to compete with Call of Duty and in return will make their games easier, shorter, and put less work into them because if people are going to pay for the same crap every year than why work harder than you need to? Also since people keep buying map packs and other rip off DLC I get the feeling that more developers are going to leave parts of the game out and charge us for them as DLC. So I don't see an actual crash but rather an era in which games are dumbed down and low on quality.

toddx77

[QUOTE="toddx77"]

TC I think you might be on to something. While not a crash per ce I can see the casual crowd causing a mjor shift. The last 2 years we have seen modern warfare 2 and black ops become the highest selling games of all time despite their lack of originality. Games such as Uncharted, Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft 2, etc do not sell as much even though they have more time and effort put into them. So I fear if this keeps up developers are going to want to be able to compete with Call of Duty and in return will make their games easier, shorter, and put less work into them because if people are going to pay for the same crap every year than why work harder than you need to? Also since people keep buying map packs and other rip off DLC I get the feeling that more developers are going to leave parts of the game out and charge us for them as DLC. So I don't see an actual crash but rather an era in which games are dumbed down and low on quality.

biggest_loser

I know but what I ment was that black ops sold more units those each of those games individually even though all those other games are way better than black ops.

No chance. Gaming is as profitable as it's ever been. One of the few industies to get through the recession pretty much unscathed.

I have actually had the same thought recently, but I honestly think that the video game industry is as good as it's ever been.

The reason we see bad games everywhere is that there are too many coming out and of course the good ones are only a minority.

Also there are a lot of AAA games that aren't good, just mediocre good looking games and that confuses us. The good worth playing games aren't always made by big devs with a lot of money. This dumbing down thing happens because the popularization of all this kind of technological entertainment, in the past the games where played by a few.

Anyway, I don't think there is a crash coming (other than the end of this gen a couple of years ahead), the thing that worries is the eventual extinction of the PC exclusive games.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"][QUOTE="toddx77"]

TC I think you might be on to something. While not a crash per ce I can see the casual crowd causing a mjor shift. The last 2 years we have seen modern warfare 2 and black ops become the highest selling games of all time despite their lack of originality. Games such as Uncharted, Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft 2, etc do not sell as much even though they have more time and effort put into them. So I fear if this keeps up developers are going to want to be able to compete with Call of Duty and in return will make their games easier, shorter, and put less work into them because if people are going to pay for the same crap every year than why work harder than you need to? Also since people keep buying map packs and other rip off DLC I get the feeling that more developers are going to leave parts of the game out and charge us for them as DLC. So I don't see an actual crash but rather an era in which games are dumbed down and low on quality.

toddx77

I know but what I ment was that black ops sold more units those each of those games individually even though all those other games are way better than black ops.

The only way a crash could happen today is if everyone gets tired of the FPS genre. However, it's been going strong for 20 years so I doubt that's going to happen.gameguy6700

I could see a major console crash, but right now pc is growing. Right now we are in a dry spell, there hasn't been really any amazing games this year, some good games but nothing that has blown me away

Duke Nukem Forever Battlefield 3 Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Portal 2 Batman: Arkham City Dungeon Siege 3 Rage Brink Max Payne 3 Mass Effect 3 Mortal Kombat Just a few games that are coming out (hopefully) later on this year. If your not excited about any of these then your not much of a gamer.Rattlesnake_8

So, just because I'm not excited about lame sequels...that means...I must not be a gamer...Got it.

TC I think you might be on to something. While not a crash per ce I can see the casual crowd causing a mjor shift. The last 2 years we have seen modern warfare 2 and black ops become the highest selling games of all time despite their lack of originality. Games such as Uncharted, Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft 2, etc do not sell as much even though they have more time and effort put into them. So I fear if this keeps up developers are going to want to be able to compete with Call of Duty and in return will make their games easier, shorter, and put less work into them because if people are going to pay for the same crap every year than why work harder than you need to? Also since people keep buying map packs and other rip off DLC I get the feeling that more developers are going to leave parts of the game out and charge us for them as DLC. So I don't see an actual crash but rather an era in which games are dumbed down and low on quality.

toddx77

I doubt it. PC gamers, by their very nature, have more access to information about games than consolers because we are almost always connected to the internet with an easy to use web browser so crap games wouldn't outnumber the good ones ever.

Also, just because games are crappy isn't enough to crash the market. It also depends on the number of gamers(higher than ever) and the amount of money they have to spend (which, despite the slow worldwide economy, is still a pretty huge amount.)

I don't see it happening. The worst case scenario for me would be maybe one or two major publishers going under due to overinvestment into only a few key franchises. That of course means that gamers eventually get tired of the same game year in year out. The chance of that happening is pretty low too but I like to hope that every gamer has a limit. Publishers are slowly pushing that limit.nutcrackr

I have been a bit disappointed with gaming in recent years, and I am starting to wonder, are we moving towards the next video game crash? For those who don't know, there was a video game crash in 1983 in the United States. This was long ago, when Atari dominated the market. The main reason for the crash was a supersaturation of bad games. E.T: The Extraterrestrial is the most shining and well-known example of such disasters.

Video gaming has a lot of problems these days. In my opinion, these problems are (in no particular order): oversimplification of gameplay features, overly long console hardware cycle, sequels that fail to live up to predecessors, DRM, high prices for low content, underwhelming DLC nickle and diming customers, games fall in price too quickly, too much emphasis on the casual gamer, and buggy releases. Are there pros to gaming these days? Sure. Digital distribution has helped support independent game developers. The indie scene is strong these days, and it seems to offer most of the innovation in todays gaming market.

I doubt that a video game crash would be anywhere near as bad as the 1983 one, simply because the industry has grown to such a huge degree since then. I do think that a large slide could happen if a number of factors came together. Two quarters full of disappointing releases, followed by a poor holiday season could build some major momentum to a video game slide. Casual gamers are the focus these days, but casual gamers are a fickle bunch. Since they aren't very serious on gaming to begin with, they may be quicker to abandon the hobby than a core gamer.

How would the PC segment handle a video game crash? I think PC gaming would weather the storm better than console for a couple of reasons. PCs are important for running businesses, and have many uses beyond entertainment. They are always going to be around in one form or another. PC also has more independent developers. Being the fuel of innovation and having small development budgets will be key to surviving any sort of video game crash.

I am hoping to start some intelligent discussion on the possibility of a video game crash, and its possible effect on PC gaming. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am getting tired of being bent over with high prices for poor content, buggy releases, crap DLC, DRM, and oversimplification. I suspect that I'm not the only one.

Falconoffury

First, no I don't think we're going to see anything that could reasonably be compared to the situation in 1983. However I do think we're going to see some significant changes in the games industry in terms of how games are made and how games are sold. You mention a number of frustrations you have with the games industry today, however I fear that a lot of those are the result of the changes already taking place rather than what will cause the changes to come about.

What I do think we'll see over the next 5 or so years is an end to (or at least sharp decline of) the traditional $50-60 titles. I think we're going to see a far greater focus on alternate payments, free to play + micro transactions, free to play + dlc, subscription based games and so on. I think once the current console generation starts to die out, so will traditional games. They won't disappear all together but the 50-100 million dollar projects will be limited to the few biggest brand names (Call of Duty, Warcraft, Battlefield, Halo, Grand Theft Auto). New franchise are not going to start out as big budget games in most cases, instead new and untested game genres, titles and concepts will start out as indie / downloadable / gameapp / facebook games.

Things I think we'll see less of:

- Big block buster franchise. I think the ones we have now will increasingly be milked out until the general public lose interest (much like what's already happened to Guitar Hero and Rock Band and what I think we're currently seeing Call of Duty go through). However I'm not sure if publishers are currently all that keen to risk the huge costs associated with trying to build up a new, untested, franchise from the ground.

- Long games. It's generally not a strong selling point. Customers seem to be more than willing to pay for 5-6 hours games. Offering a 10+ hours game doesn't seem to generate a lot more interest. Considering the additional development cost associated with longer games (and that the longer the game the longer it might be before the customer is looking to buy another title), I don't see games, on average, getting any longer.

- Games that pushes the technological limits. Right now it doesn't seem like really exploring the technological limits is a very good investment for game developers. Sales seem to show that superior graphics, AI or sound tend to be a relatively minor factors in what sells. The most successful games overall are all games that play it safe in terms of graphics (The Sims, World of Warcraft, Farmville on the PC. Halo, Call of Duty, Mario, Pokemon on the consoles). It dosent mean that there's no successful games that are also pushing the envelopes (Uncharted 2, Gears of War and KillZone on the consoles, Crysis and Total War on the PC), but given the high production cost to truly push the upper limit, it seems like publishers are better off aiming low, cheap and safe.

- Platforms. After the current console generation, I'm not sure if we will see another generation similar to the what we've been seeing for the last 20-30 years. I think we're much more likely to see online based systems or services like OnLive, STEAM, NetFlix, iTunes, Xbox Live moving into the role previously based on the available hardware.

Things I think we'll see more of:

- Indie games and developers. The Indie scene has really exploded the last couple of years as different venues for smaller games have appeared. With the growth of online purchases, STEAM, Xbox Live, PSN, app stores for apple, kindle and android devices there are now so many ways for small games to reach an audience. The real question is going to be what the big publishers are going to do in order to try and guarantee a piece of the profits?

- DLC. DLC is an incredibly effective way for publishers to increase profits from popular titles. DLC tend to be cheap to produce since more of the assets are already in place: the game engine, lots of the art assets, the core game design, With STEAM, Xbox Live and PSN, it's easy to sell to the consumers, it also makes it a lot easier to re-sell the original game again by releasing 'Complete' or 'Gold' or 'Game of the Year' versions where you can get the game back in front of the customer by re-packaging the original game with the DLC and a unique item or level.

- Free to play + ???. The more games we see offering a free to play option, the harder it's going to be for other game to compete unless they are able to offer a free version. Of course there is no such thing as a game that truly free to play. The game makes are aiming to make a profit in one or more ways: Advertising, Micro Transactions, DLC, Premium subscriptions.... I expect that we'll continue to see more and more free or cheap games that will offer the first level or two at a major discount and then charge extra to allow you to access the rest of the game. Compared to movies, it would be like changing Cinemas from charging $5 for a ticket to instead charging $1 for the first 30 mins and then charge $10 for the last hour.

[QUOTE="toddx77"]

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"] Those games you mentioned sold amazingly well. biggest_loser

I know but what I ment was that black ops sold more units those each of those games individually even though all those other games are way better than black ops.

I didnt even think of that.

Savagetwinkie: I know but games like Uncharted 2 also had a 2 year development as well and that game came out way better than any call of duty. That is what I was trying to get it.

Games may provide more bang for buck than movies, usually, but they are less value these days than they used to be. Games have gotten shorter, easier, and often have less replay value. Strangely, games also fall in price faster. It is almost as if the publishers are admitting that their product is worth less than the 50-60 dollar price point, by dropping the price after just one month.

I think gamers are going to realize more and more that buying most games on day 1 is a waste of money. Developers used to work hard to live up to that $50 price point. Now they just churn crap out and hope people buy it. The games industry needs more blockbuster titles that live up to the hype. Not more disappointments, like Dragon Age 2. Skyrim already looks like it is setting up for the next disappointment.

Some say that gaming will be more based on digital distribution and online services with micro transactions. I'm not so sure. With bandwidth caps being started in the USA just recently, people are going to be putting that factor into their purchasing decisions. I would surely think about my bandwidth cap before deciding to digitally purchase a 6 GB or more game. If bandwidth caps become the norm, then retail will always be important to gaming. Retail PC games are still big in Europe, largely because bandwidth caps are everywhere.

Indie gaming will dominate the future, IMO. Heck, strategy games have mostly fell to the indie community already. With the cross platform craze, there are not a lot of strategy games from big publishers, because they usually require a point and click interface that doesn't work so well with a controller. Indie developers will always be able to make fun games on small budgets, so they can weather virtually any economic storm. Big business has lost much of its passion for making great games, and I think that will eventually be their downfall.

Not likely at all, IMO. We may be living in something of an artistic drought, but it sure as hell is profitable and I think StarCraft II is a prime example of where we are at in the industry today. The production values are very high, multiplayer modes fully accommodated, the graphical technology is highly advanced, but the game itself is the same as what we saw in 1998.

Personally I think that the last 10 years for video games has been much like the 1980s for film, in which ideas are completely saturated and a fleshed out and a whole lot of cash is made off them. If it's that kind of phase that the industry is going through then sure enough the winds will change at some point and bring us back to innovation and risks.

Bear in mind the huge changes that games have gone through in the last 30 years - very dramatic when compared to other forms of art, due to the equally as dramatic advances in computer power. You can't expect things to keep changing at that rate, it has to reach a plateau somewhere, right? Also bear in mind that we have been in the economic red zone since 2008, which has widespread effects which even the video games industry can't avoid. Bottom line is that games may be at a low now, but they'll pick up at some point, whether it happen through the indie developers or the businessmen.

Its kinda sad, but gaming has went from being more art than product... To being more product than art... That is also a large reason why quality is so "dynamic".

Hopefully people (devs/publishers/and investors) will start to care more about making quality games, instead of making quality profits again...