| Reasonable said: It's a definite issue, although hardly uncommon - arguably both the music and film industries, particularly in US, have faced the same issue of a huge swing to demographically driven, narrow genre "more of the same but different" titles. It could lead to some nasty crashes at some point if the market simply hits saturation of big titles - then just as with films you'll see some big failures and some real panic set in. But so long as there's an avenue to market for less costly, more adventurous titles - and of course a market for them - then it'll work itself out over time. On a personal note my tastes have swung away from the supposed AAA titles - I doubt I'll be getting MW3 in a rush for example - and to either newer franchises that still seem to have fresh ideas or smaller, indie or digital titles. For example the single game I'm most interested right now is the PSN title The Journey, very much looking forward to trying it. It's worth remembering that the truth is there simply are more people looking for another meal of more of the same than those looking for something new and fresh and willing to risk some disappointment - that dictates a lot of the issues you mention as it drives the market that then drives businesses towards low risk approaches. |
So long as there is an interest in games, there will be a market. There may be an ending to a large number of studois, EA could go under and so on. However, I do believe now, unlike the Crash of the 1980s, videogames are established as part of people's lifestyles. Portable devices stand to pick up interest, and Indie developers will still plug away. People may end up buying more board and card game stuff also. Just, I wouldn't bank on a lot of L.A Noire projects happening during this phase. Can see a lot of free to play, and upgrade later, which means NO big teams developing.
What IS happening is that genres are dying. The music game genre is dead now. You have stuff like Dance Central and Just Dance. Key will also possibly be on hit seasonable fads that are new and capture an under-developed marketspace. Thing about games is that they aren't like other things out there. You don't see them like cars and so on. Done right, people will keep playing them. Also, people seek novelty to. When people get bored of a genre, they move on to other things. This is particularly true with fad genres.
