| greenmedic88 said: No, what he's referring to is the video game crash of 1983 when the common acceptance of video games among general consumers (not gamers) led to an influx of systems and more damaging, a flood of poor quality titles that were cranked out in minimal time in an attempt to jump on board a popular trend and cash in. We all know how that turned out. I see it happening with the Wii already. New budget titles, likely only to be bought by unassuming consumers who don't know how to judge quality titles and don't read reviews or video game press. Also a lot of shoddy peripherals that no one really needs and generally don't enhance the basic playing experience (read: waste of money). The difference is that there are still quality titles on the platform that are selling more than well enough to guarantee future sequels to franchises, some of which have been running for almost two decades. Most general consumers who don't know next to nothing about games are still safe buying just about any game published by Nintendo. The trick is getting them to buy a $50 quality game instead of a $20-30 game that probably shouldn't have been published in the first place. General consumers often look at price first if they don't know the difference in quality or aren't buying based upon good word of mouth advice. |
Just because casual gamers aren't going to hardcore review sites that tell them all their favorite games suck, doesn't mean they're not getting informed. They ask their friends for advice, they look up good games on Google or Ask.com or Yahoo! Answers. Once at Yahoo! Answers I stumbled upon a large group of people in their 40s and older who just started gaming on the Wii, and they were giving each other advice on what games to get for themselves and what games to get for their kids.
The game market is not going to crash again. Today's market has nothing in common with 1983's market. You think they both have a flood of crappy titles? 1983's flood was a dozen times bigger and there was no internet to help people sort through it at all. I think the majority of games have always been pretty awful, but now we can even watch gameplay videos of every game ever online. And if you're not in the loop and going to GameTrailers or other sites, you at least know how to look a game up on YouTube.
