5 Problems in the Industry

1. Lack of Original Content

One of the biggest problems in the gaming industry is also one of the biggest problems in the entertainment industry. Many game studios tend to remake older games without making many adjustments to the gameplay and the story. A great example of such trend is the Call of Duty series. The first Modern Warfare made the Infinity Ward, the developers of the game, very famous. In fact, when they decided to make Modern Warfare 2, they hyped it so much, that they entered the record books with $401.6 million in sales revenue of the sequel, on the first day of the release. The problem here is that the second installment of the game was no different from the prequel. Some aspects of the game have changed, but they were not significant enough to deserve that much money.

2. Uneven Release Dates

The release dates for video games tend to be lopsided towards Christmas. The financial reason is obvious, but many hardcore gamers, who are the key contributors to the revenue that the developers receive, complain about the fact that they don't have many good games to play in the middle of the year. From personal experience, I agree with many hardcore players. I get very bored during the summer, and then overwhelmed just after the holiday breaks. Even though the trend has been disappearing, it is moving too slow. According to statistics below, which were released on November 9, 2010, there are as many games released during the "Holiday Season" as there are throughout the rest of the year.

3. Too Much Attention Devoted to 3D and Motion Control

The most money in the gaming industry comes from hardcore gamers. They are the ones who are willing to buy the game and spend additional money on DLC, expansion packs, and other gear that would make them better gamers. They could almost be compared to athletes, who don't do any physical activity. However, since the release of the Wii, by Nintendo™, the whole industry has become obsessed with motion control, and now, 3D. The problem with the Wii argument, that many casual gamers are willing to spend money on games if games became more user friendly, is that the highest grossing game for the Wii has been Wii Sports. This game came bundled with the console at the launch. This means that people bought the Wii, and decided to stop at that. Hardcore gamers are being betrayed, and are showing a tendency of switching back to PC gaming from the console zones.

4. Multiplayer Lag

This has been one of the most annoying things about multiplayer gaming since the start. The problem is the lack of dedicated servers. Many game developers don't want to hold their own servers for all players to connect to, and therefore have the same speed over the internet, because of high cost of continuous maintenance. Currently, many third party games, and even some of the first party games, use host connection. This means that the person who is a host in the game has the fastest connection, and therefore, an unfair advantage.

5. Rise in Online Subscription Costs

Currently, there are four major players in the video game industry. They are: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Steam (PC software distributor). All of them have some kind of multiplayer subscription. Nintendo has a free subscription, but it is also nonexistent. This means that it is so badly executed, that many players refuse to use it. Steam is a free subscription, and is also one of the best distributors there is. This giant constantly has sales throughout the year. Sometimes it seems that they put a $2 price tag on a good game just because they can afford to. The main problem lies in Microsoft and Sony. PlayStation, which is a Sony console, just released its business model for the online subscription. It is competitive in pricing with Microsoft's Xbox 360, but it doesn't have as many features. The price tag on Sony's subscription is $50. Although Sony is not great at executing its plan, Microsoft takes the pot as the king of ripping off the gamers. One of the problems is the constantly increasing cost of playing over the internet. Just a month ago, the price went up from $50 to $60, with no reasons behind the move. Of course there are many options available on the Xbox, but none of the recent ones are worth a $10 increase. Besides that, Microsoft has invented its own monetary system, called Microsoft Point. "How clever!" $20 in real life is worth 1600 Microsoft Points. Even though $5 to 400 points conversion doesn't seem to be too terrible, it is the pricing of items that kills the whole system. Some items are worth something like 320 points, or 240 points. So if a gamer buys 400 points and rents an HD movie for 320 points, he or she will have 80 points left over. If that gamer wants to rent another movie, he or she can't just buy 240 more points to fill in the gap, the player need to buy another 400 points, just there could be 160 points left over. The vicious cycle keeps going until some people decide to prosecute. And they did. However, Microsoft had only changed the pricing on the games on demand, and not movies or TV shows.