Here we are in 2012 and things seem to be going along pretty well for, “ye olde video games.” There are phones, pcs, consoles, ipads, and even a few televisions that can play games. Never in the history of video games have things been so amazingly rich and diverse. So why is everyone so worried and saying that the video game industry is failing. There can be NO DOUBT that things aren’t going very well. THQ just laid off a bunch of people, EA is set to lay off some soon, and even Blizzard dumped some customer service folks earlier this year. Which considering how well their current Diablo 3 downloader works might have not been a good idea. Anyway, without going into REAL numbers; which would probably either bore you or frighten you.
The games industry is not doing as well as it was back in 2008. But what industry is? In 2008, there was a Global Financial Crisis that effected every form of every industry and is still being felt today in everything from oil prices to real estate sales. So looking at things through that lens we should probably be happy new games are being made and people can afford to buy them. But instead, we have the people who run publishers saying crazy things like;
“We need to have online passes to recoup our used game sales or prevent people from trading games in.
We need to have a DLC flow, that while it doesn’t make any sense we are going to hold back finished content for day one dlc or maybe just dribble the content out over a series of months. Not create anything new, just make sure we have enough stuff after the game goes gold to hold people for the next six months to a year.
Keep console game prices up so that it is hard for people to afford new games and make sure these prices stick by creating digital marketplaces where games NEVER decrease in value even two or more years after they are released.
We need to implement buggy DRMs to make sure that players must be online at all times even in single player games. Who cares whether or not it really works, at least we can show stockholders that we are trying.
Finally, make sure not to spend one penny more than we need to on advertising because games don’t really need good television commercials when we can just slam every website with popup ads. “
Before some one out there accuses me of being overly negative; each one of these examples is based on something a publisher did this year or late last year. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
With the exception of the the DRM thing, however there has been one constant bastion throughout this time of troubles. The PC game market; here games drop in price like stones dropped off of a cart(unless they are published by EA). The graphics are amazing, the framerates are incredible, oh and there is more choice than there EVER has been before. No where do we see the stagnation of the console industry except in the ports that come from it. There are no online passes and DLC often comes in the form of free content patches(unless its an EA published title). Steam has managed to keep things interesting and with the emergence of other digital delivery services like Gamefly(used to be Direct2Drive), Good Old Games(you get the idea), and Amazon(not just for boxed products anymore). There has been a new revolution. There are even Free to Play games that aren’t horrible. While the consoles have languished in their as of this year 6 year cycle. We are seeing PCs and PC games explode with content and possibilities. Not everything is coming up roses, after all, games are often buggier on the PC and usually late in getting there. The industry is definitely focused mainly on the consoles. But as the consoles age even further(a Fall of 2013 for new consoles is rumored!) We are going to see the PC market get even stronger still as the mobile and social network markets grow right along with it.
With all this evolution most REALLY hardcore gamers who aren’t rich either buy all their games used or buy them on PC digitally at a discount or perhaps at a lower than regular price. So it comes as quite a shock when rumors start swirling that the new consoles(circa 2013, remember). Are not going to be able to play used games and are going to be only as powerful as a PC you could buy this year for around $700. To this I say, WTF?? If these rumors are true, which considering the frequency of them, they cannot be completely false. That would mean you want to sell me something that isn’t as good as a new PC and want me to subscribe to the same model as PCs; except I won’t get any of the benefits of them?
In another environment, I would discount this as purely speculation on someone’s part. But considering a recent study that said that more people use their XBOX 360 for doing things other than gaming than the other way around. It’s starting to sound pretty logical. Currently the 360, is a clunky piece of hardware that has gotten its upper limits so completely tested that the machine now stutters when it tries to load the starting screen. The XBOX of today and the XBOX of 2005 are like the difference between the iphone of today and the iphone of 2005. The folks at Microsoft are asking their machine to do far too much with far too little. So if they released an updated version of this machine(updated circa this year or last years medium priced PC); they probably wouldn’t have to worry again for say, another 4-5 years. You know the length of a console cycle or say how often most analysts suggest the average person buys a new PC. Strangely logical isn’t it? Oh and because of this lack of technological advancement they can probably charge much less for it. Launch consoles probably won’t exceed $450, they learned that lesson in 2005. Never again….
After all, if the typical end user is going to spend all their time watching Netflix, Youtube, or watching movies downloaded from the Zune store. They are going to be far more concerned about their internet connection than the power of the box they run it all through. Which of course, leaves hardcore gamers to buy new and better PCs and not ever again touch their consoles or buy new ones. In two or three years every game that has ever come out for the consoles will be cheaper and available on PC anyway. And if you can’t buy new releases used, you may as well get them on a platform with the most power and flexibility. And as exclusives begin to go the way of the dodo, this future seems even more probable.
This means for game publishers that most of their console sales will dry up and their PC sales will probably double or triple. Then the whole industry shifts again until someone realizes there is something that they can only do on some new console. So that company makes one and this starts all over again. Or maybe not… There has been a lot of talk over the past ten years of a one console future. That console is probably either Ipad or some kind of Android pad that has yet to come out. But what they were probably considering at the time; will probably appear in the next two or three years on the PC.
Unless of course, all the rumors and speculation are completely wrong. In that case, well, things will go on the way they are until technology makes another paradigm shift and we are all using computers in our brains or something.
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