Can the game industry Collaspse on itself?

Ok I know this sounds stupid and more but hear me out

(ALL Numbers are for QUAILTY GAMES NOT 5 dollar cash INS)

Ok at the start it costed around nothing to make games(garage games came out and we loved them)

Then nes came out and then prices went up and up

Ps1 was a few hundred thousands

PS2 was a few million tops to 10+ for quality games

nows it 15-25 million and counting

killzone 2 has over 30 million in it so far

thast just games not just consoles

console went from a small project to multi billion dollar ventures ala PS3 to 360(Wii maybe)

as cost rise the sales would have to rise or to the price of games so they can make a profit or even break even

I belive for most games to cut a profit around 200k to 300k equals breaking even to profit

Yes the industry is getting bigger but how long till its gets where you need 1 million people to buy a game to break even which will lead to the industry collapsing on itself because of cost

digital distribution 2scoopsofempty

Yea, I can see it leaning towards that. Less fun though since I don't get a pretty box. Nice avatar, I own a Black 2006 TypeS.

The games industry is growing. We're still a pretty niche hobby, something that people do very little or not at all, and those that do mostly don't buy too many games per year. Movies have the same problem with the price thing, but they don't collapse because movies are entrenched in culture and people watch many movies per year. Soon, the same will happen with games. got_systems

[QUOTE="2scoopsofempty"]digital distribution whocares9

Yea, I can see it leaning towards that. Less fun though since I don't get a pretty box. Nice avatar, I own a Black 2006 TypeS.

well hello my fellow DC5 owner. If you post on Club RSX my name on there is NpDC5

I dont think that the video game industry will collapse, but maybe adjust. If a 30 million budget yields a profit, then it is a good idea. For a game series like GTA I'm sure any investment will be money well spent. If inflated budgets lead to massive losses, then those budgets will be scaled back

[QUOTE="got_systems"]The games industry is growing. We're still a pretty niche hobby, something that people do very little or not at all, and those that do mostly don't buy too many games per year. Movies have the same problem with the price thing, but they don't collapse because movies are entrenched in culture and people watch many movies per year. Soon, the same will happen with games. Vandalvideo

[QUOTE="got_systems"]The games industry is growing. We're still a pretty niche hobby, something that people do very little or not at all, and those that do mostly don't buy too many games per year. Movies have the same problem with the price thing, but they don't collapse because movies are entrenched in culture and people watch many movies per year. Soon, the same will happen with games. Vandalvideo

It was much easier last time, becuase the cost of producing a game was so low that every company could and did open up their own dev houses, plus games were seen then as a veritable gold mine, while today it's quite obvious that we're a hits based industry where making a game is a huge risk and takes a lot of capital. got_systems

The games industry is growing. We're still a pretty niche hobby, something that people do very little or not at all, and those that do mostly don't buy too many games per year. Movies have the same problem with the price of production, but they don't collapse because movies are entrenched in culture and people watch many movies per year. Soon, the same will happen with games. got_systems

I think you spelled "feet" by mistake in your sig as "feat". Just letting you know, though your quote may be trying to trick me.

It seems like gaming could get stale in this way:

If games all have big budgets, then that money will have to be accounted for. That means that any idea must accepted through a process that at least attempts to determine what people will buy. That will mean some kind of bs formula for what works and what doesn't, and any true artist will never get the money to make a game that can compete because any radical ideas will be seen as a huge risk. Board rooms will dominate the individual designer.

Second, games will be so detailed and massive at the same time that almost all games will be made with set templates for much of the environments and anything visual, templates that can be reused over and over. Again, this will mean that any radical visual design will be difficult because you would have to develop a new template for it, and this would be even more difficult to justify if the game is an artistic risk to begin with.

It seems like gaming could get stale in this way:

If games all have big budgets, then that money will have to be accounted for. That means that any idea must accepted through a process that at least attempts to determine what people will buy. That will mean some kind of bs formula for what works and what doesn't, and any true artist will never get the money to make a game that can compete because any radical ideas will be seen as a huge risk. Board rooms will dominate the individual designer.

Second, games will be so detailed and massive at the same time that almost all games will be made with set templates for much of the environments and anything visual, templates that can be reused over and over. Again, this will mean that any radical visual design will be difficult because you would have to develop a new template for it, and this would be even more difficult to justify if the game is an artistic risk to begin with.

GunSmith1_basic

[QUOTE="got_systems"] It was much easier last time, becuase the cost of producing a game was so low that every company could and did open up their own dev houses, plus games were seen then as a veritable gold mine, while today it's quite obvious that we're a hits based industry where making a game is a huge risk and takes a lot of capital. Vandalvideo

[QUOTE="got_systems"]The games industry is growing. We're still a pretty niche hobby, something that people do very little or not at all, and those that do mostly don't buy too many games per year. Movies have the same problem with the price of production, but they don't collapse because movies are entrenched in culture and people watch many movies per year. Soon, the same will happen with games. whocares9

I think you spelled "feet" by mistake in your sig as "feat". Just letting you know, though your quote may be trying to trick me.

Oh man, you're right! I can't believe I haven't caught that after all this time. It's because I copied it directly from Wikiquote instead of taking the time to type it out. Thanks for the heads up.

[QUOTE="Vandalvideo"][QUOTE="got_systems"] It was much easier last time, becuase the cost of producing a game was so low that every company could and did open up their own dev houses, plus games were seen then as a veritable gold mine, while today it's quite obvious that we're a hits based industry where making a game is a huge risk and takes a lot of capital. got_systems

All the liscened games will kill the industryVandalvideo

I didn't read the OP, but all I can say is that if it wasn't for the Wii or DS the industry would've definately went the way of Japan and hit a huge regression.

Even if the DS was released I could gurantee that the console market would begin to fade.

dont know, but only the console segment would suffer.

The industry can collapase becasue the cauals could cop out like at the last collaspse and with the 20+million budget games coming out this could colaspse the industry this bussiness only need pne REALLY BAD year and it all falls downMiles0T0Prower

Saying that the game industry could crash so suddenly is kinda odd. The cause of the first crash was due to gaming not being established enough. There weren't really any followers in gaming it was just a fad. It's simlar to those scooters in the early 2000's or yoyo's and what not. Today the industry is far too established to be gone in the mater of a few years.

What I would've happen more a likely (assuming that Nintendo just released a next-gen powered Gamecube) would've been a decline in the market (similar to Japan).

Actually the market was already begining to decline. (Though I can't find any info in 2006, I assume sales were similar)

What some have been saying in this thread I agree. With next-generation games costsing an average of $20,000,000 to create, there is just no way you can make profit off of that without huge buys. Eventually people would start to get tired of the true and tired releases, people would get tired of shooting things in the head. And as a result of gaming getting stale people would start to look into other forms of entertainment (internet, DVD's, etc.). Developers probably wouldn't be able to do anything, I mean if the tried and true doesn't work, what are the odds that something completely different would work? The most likely scenerio for them to perform is just to wait and watch the gaming market shift to niche poportions.