Rainbird said:
Okay, adapting is the wrong term, but they are gaining new tools to keep people from trading in their games and holding on to them instead. And I'm curious. How would you adapt to this new market? What business model do you see as fitting and also working? Good! (lol) |
It's not really about business models actually. It is mainly about catering to the huge expanded market out there. Adding revenue streams from things like DLC and online play doesn't increase their actual market but rather "milks" the old market: Same customers, more money. But not all people are willing to download DLC or play via the internet and only so many people can be hyped for new games. When developers release some of their heavy hitters and are still in the red there is something wrong. The problem is that a lot of developers are gamers themselves and see the expanded market as some sort of "lol" market that only buys crappy games. That's not true, of course. All of my friends can distinguish a good game from a bad one and that's why sequels to minigame collections don't sell in most cases: People thought "hey that sounds cool" and bought a game and then realized the game was crap. That only works one time (hopefully 
).
So now developers need to change their attitude towards that market. They have to realize there is a huge market out there they have to take serious. I think they are somewhat afraid because Nintendo really isn't doing things for the sake of the industry and doesn't depend on 3rd parties as much as Sony and Microsoft do (I'd be afraid, too if I was a 3rd party that had to compete with Nintendo's games as Nintendo has almost unlimited resources and very talented people, etc.). But basically if they are able to sell to the expanded market (which means producing games like Mario Bros. that core and casual gamers can play alike) they would see huge sales and rank in more profit. Thus they'd be able to give us more game for less money because they wouldn't need the money from DLC or online play or whatever.
When it comes to business model they'd have to stop building games with a focus on art and graphics and huge production values to games with addictive gameplay that are easy to learn but hard to master. Resident Evil 4 / 5 is such an example. It's basically a very simple arcade shooter with addictive gameplay. Everyone can play it (well... everyone over 18) but it is still very challenging and absolutely a "core" game.
They have to cut things like online-exclusive multiplayer because most people don't play online and focus more on local multiplayer (of course you can add both).
Catering to this way bigger market (in a serious way) still allows them to develop a certain number of games for smaller audiences while at the same time seeing increased sales because their potential market gets way bigger. In the end we are the ones to profit because they'll stop raising prices (because they don't have to) and because we are going to see a way healthier industry that has more money for new I.P.'s and experimential gameplay ideas.
The thing is that somehow we, the core gamers, got into this because of the whole "console war" thing and because we see this as some sort of competition between gamers. And of course some industry people really like to hype us for "their" idea of gaming.
I know the transition would be somewhat painful for a lot of gamers because it would feel like admitting that they've lost. But I'm sure as a long term effect this would help the industry to grow tremendously and especially help Sony and Microsoft to sell more consoles. But currently they are used by the industry to pump billions of dollars into a developing model that doesn't really work anymore. I want a healthy Sony and a helathy Microsoft but if you look at their financial statements of the past years there is no question they are currently not in a very healthy situation, especially Sony. And I don't want them to leave this business in the end just because some developers are ramming their busines models down their throat.
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