Why do people care so much anyways?

[johnlucas]

I'll tell you why, That Guy (love your signature and avatar by the way. who is that?).

Unlike the movie industry the videogame industry is very fragile. Nintendo is the foundation that keeps this whole business together and others haven't gotten to their level in regards to freshening the industry while keeping up a healthy profit. A few bad decisions by enough companies and this whole industry goes extinct. That's almost what happened 25 years ago.

Unlike movies less people are apt to want to play games. It is seen as a kid's hobby and any adult playing still gets seen as undeveloped man-children or women-children in the rarer case. That whole "When I was a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things" kind o' thing. The audience and this stigma has improved over the years but the population at large still doesn't play videogames in comparison to the ones that do. I think they say the videogame market hasn't gotten over 33% of the entire population YET. (people surprised at DS's success don't realize that Nintendo has plenty of room to grow because of this fact)

Since the market is limited sales are harder to come by. This business is notoriously difficult to make a decent profit out of. Once again only Nintendo has mastered this. Every other company including Sony finds it difficult to make money in this field. Sony put in so much to get back so little and they had the best selling systems of all time. An expensive field with little reward. Microsoft lost HOW much? $4,000,000,000 USD trying to break into this market and they're the richest company in the world. Had it been anyone else they would have folded and possibly gone out of business or at least bankruptcy. Money problems destroyed Sega as a hardware maker. Sales don't mean a 'darn' thing if you ain't making some green to stash away in your Scrooge McDuck Money Bin to swim in. Aye Laddie...Work Smarrrtar, No' Harrrdar. Atari and Mattel and every 2nd gen competitor flunked out of game school because they couldn't survive the Crash. Atari hung on but got scratched by a wild Jaguar. Now they've been bought and sold to so many corporate johns that they are just fighting to stay alive as a name. Good games don't always mean good sales and companies have to strike the balance between making something fresh and unique to keep the art form moving forward and putting out slapped-together money-making hashes for short term funds. People don't cherish videogames like they do movies and play a little bit, cheat or run through the game fast and then demand more. All those years and months that went behind the making of a game and yet the buyer will always complain and be unsatisfied still wanting more as if this stuff can be slapped out like water from a tap.

On top of this you have to worry about pirates who understandably or not-so-understandably bootleg the games creating a cancer effect on the selling power of the companies' games. Only a few markets will actually pay money to buy videogames and some won't pay until the price comes down to player's choice/best seller steals. Most of the world which is poor will bootleg. The other bootleggers just do it for the sake of doing it regardless of their income. And even in the markets that actually put down dollars to buy games bootleggers are prevalent. And you really can't stop a pirate; all you can do is slow him. If it can be made, it can be hacked and cracked. All depends on the skill level of the bootlegger.

Then you got the used games market which is a good thing for economical buyers but basically recycles old already-bought games to new users. It's good because the buyer may become loyal to a certain company and may seek to pay money for a new game once his finances allow but the money spent in used games only goes to the used games sellers in the meantime.

Not counting added stigmas about children corruption via vieogames, games causing couch potato obesity syndrome and the constant siege of this pastime you also got to worry about competition's direction. Videogames are supposed to be a cheap simply-accessed luxury. You have companies behaving like computer companies and going far beyond the pale in the making of their machines. Raising prices trying to stupidly push the technological envelope on a videogame console. That's not what they were designed for. That's a computer's job to push the technological envelope. Consoles have a threshhold that people won't go beyond when considering spending dollars. It is viewed as a superfluous pastime and unlike with jewelry or other high-ticket items most people are not going to spend extraorbitant amounts of money on a game set-up. It hasn't attained that status yet. The people who have money like that are probably least apt to want to play videogames in the first place. They don't have to escape into a fantasy world; they can just take a plane to any exotic resort they wish at will. Imagine buying your wife a PS3 for your 10th wedding anniversary instead of a gold diamond necklace. Though there ARE girls who may appreciate a PS3 as a present most women will be displeased. As The Rock would say "some companies are forgetting to know their role". Unchecked companies that try to use a game console as a place to make the highest tech will bankrupt themselves and alienate game players who will end up going to simpler games on cell phones and the low-end parlor games on the computer. Or stop playing altogether.

With gas prices rising, job security becoming a part of folklore, and retirements and pensions becoming ancient Greek mythology people will spend on certain things disregarding the others. Since the game market is still a minority splintering this group further bodes horribly for the gamesindustry.

People speak out of concern for a very teeter-totter industry that is still in danger of extinction. People related to movie screen for a century. Good or bad it will always survive. Network TV is similarly resilient despite losing ground to games, internet, cable TV and home video over the years. Some industries can sustain themselves because of the sheer potential audience available. Most of the American population watches movies. Most of the current approximate 300,000,000. This is not so with games. Gas industry won't fade until someone has the guts to unveil a better energy source. You HAVE to get gas to do everything in this country. It is essential to the infrastructure. That's why these guys get away with jacking up the prices. What are you gonna do without your local electric and water monopoly? Not a dadgum thing unless you play the generator game or live ruffneck mountain man style with the outhouse and manual well (if you're lucky).

Game industry ain't got it like that so people voice their concerns over something that may not be tomorrow and infinite competition is not reality. There's really not room for more than two competitors at a time as it stands right now. The money spread is limited so some company will always get the shaft. People campaign out of subconscious or conscious desire to gather support for their system so that it succeeds. Others speak out for the concerns of the future of the industry.

This may change in the future but as of right now this is how it is. And until that changes you will see more of this. Some rational, some irrational.

On the other hand be GLAD people care so much. Quality goes down when people stop caring about the industry they participate in. That's why there's so much junk on TV & Movies. The audience became so big that no one had to care anymore and junk was produced as the rule not the balance.

You can say this about the politcal industry as well.

John Lucas