How Will the Gaming Industry Crash?

[DanneSandin]

Mythmaker1 said:

DanneSandin said:

Mythmaker1 said:

DanneSandin said:

I actually wouldn't mind examples of both instances =)

But like mummelman put it just a few post ago; (digital) gaming has spread out too far and wide for it all to simply nearly disappearing. 500m downloads of Angry Birds should tell you something about how popular gaming is now.

I'm not saying it will disappear. An industry can crash without being completely destroyed.

For an example, comic books in the 90's. Arguably, the collapse of the Hollywood studio system. For that matter, historians might call what's happening in books and movies right now a crash. 

I think we need a proper describtion of the word "crash", or else it'll be hard to discuss it.

As far as I'm aware, people aren't reading or waching movies less now than they did 10 years ago; they might read and watch movies in a different kind of way, but that's not like the whole industry has come crashing down for those businesses. I might be wrong though; I'm no expert about anything ^^ But as for comics, it's my understanding that they've always come and gone somewhat in popularity (hence the term golden and silver age of comics), while video games has always been rising in popularity. And the whole 90's comic crash isn't applyable here I would think; one major aspect of that crash was the speculator bubble - and the fact that publishers learned to use that. Not quite the same thing for video games I would think, no?

By "crash," I'm referring to a general economic collapse.

I'm no expert either, but I understand the music industry is going through a tough time right now. I don't think you can call it a collapse, but it seems to be pretty unstable. As far as books, I guess that was hyperbolic. The brick-and-mortar side seems might have crashed, but the industry as a whole is still kicking.

Everything I know about comic books is second-hand, but from what I've read the crash came about because the big publishers misread the market. The speculators created perceived demand, which led to more comic shops opening, which led to more comics being bought to fill them, which led to more comics being produced. Basically, everyone jumped on the bandwagon of a market they were sure existed, but didn't actually have any staying power.

The reason I think it's sort of an apt comparison (superficially, at least) was the "casual" boom of last generation. A lot of people without much background entered the market, stirred up demand, and then kind of drifted away. The result? THQ doubles down on the U-play, Microsoft bundles a Kinect with every console, and Nintendo develops the Wii U.

With that said, I doubt we'll see an actual crash. Part of the issue with comic books was the method of distribution, and there's too many ways for people to buy games these days.

Like I said in my first post, I think we might see stagnation and/or decline in the gaming industry this gen, so that could definetily be called going through a tough time, but I wouldn't describe it as a crash.

And with regards to the comic book crash of the 90's, we seem to have the same view of the events =) but I wouldn't quite compare it to the gaming industry; yes, last gen was inflated by the so called "casuals" - but it's not like they've actually gone away, they've just moved on to mobilegaming. And that's one market that seems to be doing quite well (for now). And I wouldn't quite name the casuals as the main problem of last (and this) gen; it would seem far more fair to point out the business model behind the AAA titles as the cause of many of the problems the industry faces today. So we should actually blame the HARDCORES for most of the problems.

And yes, I agree with your last statement =)