“We live in a world where games that let you cover yourself with weed make way more money than novel games where you play as a ghost detective.” -Bruce Greene, Inside Gaming.”
Now this isn’t an article about big titles killing Indie titles because there are plenty of those, I want to discuss those companies that are not as big as Ubisoft, Activision or 343. Companies like Firaxis Games makers of XCOM: Enemy Unknown or IO Interactive makers of Hitman. Companies that make great games but are over shadowed by the annual blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed.
Now before everyone rolls their eyes at me let me say that I’m not biased towards Call of Duty, I may not play every installment but I in fact believe that without titles like Call of Duty the gaming industry wouldn’t survive for very long. Imagine that, a world with no Call of Duty, no Halo or any of the major First person shooters, what do we have left? Perhaps a better question to ask could be when. How often does a new game come out with an original idea and experience, not often enough. Fallout 4, Left for Dead 3, Half Life 3 are titles the world want perhaps not just because they’re fans of the franchise, perhaps people are screaming for change.
The perfect example I have is a title called Murdered: Soul Suspect, a game where as a detective, you must solve your own murder. The idea sounds pretty cool right? well the developers Airtight Games have as of yesterday declared closure, this is generally sad because the game didn’t do too well compared to games that have ideas remade year after year.
So why don’t original games sell well?
It’s getting harder and harder for unique games to make money and compete in the AAA space, not generally because those games aren’t good but because games such as Call of Duty shape the gaming world, it’s what consumers want whether you like it or not, this industry needs a franchise to rally behind or against but at the same time is it killing unique games. We will see less and less experimental ideas come onto the market because they just don’t sell well. At the end of the day the audience will vote with their wallets and the bigger games will continue to thrive while those who dare to try something different, will die.
What do you think? Are bigger titles slowly killing our mid card game developers?
Read more: http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2014/07/are-aaa-titles-killing-the-gaming-industry/#ixzz36jwfA4J5
