The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:  Trends of 2009 Pt. 2

by Casey Loe

Play Magazine Associate Editor

Play Magazine Volume Eight:  Issue 4 pgs. 19-20

Three Hopeful Trends of 2009

Year -- Around Release Schedule

The 2008 holiday season was a massive clusterf**ck of game releases with mega-franchise titles squeezing a half-dozen promising games to death.  I wasn't happy to see Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, and Tomb Raider:  Underworld bomb, but at least it taught a valuable lesson to the publishers who crammed them into an already packed holiday season.  Many have admitted the mistake in their financial reports and media interviews, so this may be the year we finally begin moving towards a year-round schedule of A-list releases.  The first few quarters of 2009 look unusually rich, full of excellent titles that were wisely pulled from 2008 holiday line-ups, and all signs point to a saner holiday season and a smooth line-up of releases in the years to come.

The Continuation of the Status Quo

It's usually around four years into a console cycle that you begin hearing rumblings about a new hardware generation, so in 2009 we should be learning about the next offerings from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.  But I doubt we'll hear a peep.  If the Wii has taught platform-holders anything, it's that we've hit a point where lower prices and innovative ideas are more appealing to a general audience than the next iterative step in graphics technology.  But to satisfy their current audience of core gamers, they'll want that too, which means waiting until both the next generation of video cards and gimmicks like touch-screen controllers and VR technologies are a whole lot cheaper.  Fortunately, no one has an incentive to rush things.  Nintendo and Microsoft will want to milk their success for as long as they can, and Sony still has plenty of untapped markets to aim for with the PS3 and PSP.  That's great news; between the global recession and the talented developers that are still raising the bar with their PS3 and 360 releases, does anyone actually want to move on to the next generation?

The Year of Hard-M Gaming

2009 may be the year that the game industry successfully pushes the envelope a little bit farther in terms of adult content.  I'm not eager to see hardcore Wii pornography or anything, but there's no reason that the content allowed in M-rated games shouldn't correspond to what's allowed in R-rated movies, especially when the average Xbox 360 / PS3 owner is well into adulthood.  In the past, any movements in this direction have failed miserably, being led by trashy titles like Manhunt 2 that paint the industry as being childishly obsessed with violence.  But this year's poster child for adult content looks to be Heavy Rain, a game that shows every sign of also being mature in the good meaning of the word.  When the games that are pushing the envelope are beloved by critics and industry figures, the debate may unfold differently...if it happens at all.  Now that anti-gaming agitator Jack Thompson has been disbarred and discredited, and the industry's self-policing policies have done a better job of keeping M-rated games out of the hands of kids than all the reactionary state laws, the mainstream media just might choose to focus on some of the world's actual problems instead.

Three Dreadful Trends of 2009

The Impending Japanese Studio Collapse

I'm sorry for those who were laid off at EA, Brash, Midway, and a handful of struggling development studios, but I'm not concerned about the health of the western game industry.  When an industry expands this rapidly, it's normal for poorly run companies to survive longer than they should, and for good companies to expand more than they can sustain.  What's spooky is that we haven't seen anywhere near as many studio collapses and publisher consolidations in Japan, where they have a rapidly shrinking game industry on top of the same global economic woes.  But I can't imagine 2009 will pass without the deaths of at least a few major  Japanese game companies.  And while few gamers care about the aborted line-up at Brash Entertainment or the cancelled titles at Midway, what happens in Japan could hurt.  When the Sword of Damocles falls, it's going to land on a lot of good studios and beloved series.

The Stealth Release

Nintendo clawed their way back to the top of the industry on the strength of a lot of good ideas...and despite a few bad ones.  One of the worst is their new marketing strategy, based on research that shows the ideal time for audiences to gain awareness of a new title is a few weeks before its release, and that hyping a title too soon results in a consumer backlash.  Wii Fit moms may indeed by peeved when they can't find a title at Wal-Mart after reading about it in Ladies' Home Journal, but this strategy fails miserably for serious gamers who want as much information as possible before they commit to a title.

Now other publishers seem to be experimenting with the same idea.  Sony dump releases Japanese-developed games like Siren and Afrika with barely more than a press release, and are sitting on already-localized versions of games like Demon's Souls while RPG fans are flocking to their competitors.  Microsoft pulled a similar trick with Ninja Blade, and certainly isn't in any rush to clarify their 2009 release plans.  Just a reminder, publishers of the world:  We would be happy to inform people about your upcoming products -- for free -- but you kind of need to tell us about them in advance.

The Marginalization of Enthusiast Gaming

One of the things I always liked by the video game industry was the way quality and innovation actually mattered.  It wasn't everything, but if you compared a list of top-selling games with a list of top-reviewed games, you'll see a lot of overlap, which you won't see in the worlds of film, literature, or music.  But with the rise of the Wii and iPhone, two platforms that are swimming in wildly successful crap, those days may be coming to an end.  Casual gamers have such different priorities that they make formerly mainstream game reviewers seem like overeducated film critics who prattle on about mise en scene and milieu while their readers skim for mentions of car chases or tits.  There are enough enthusiast gamers that the franchises geared to us will continue to thrive, but in 2009 I can only see the rift between casual gamers and enthusiast gamers widening, with the gaming hardcore-types slowly transforming from nerds to snobs in the eyes of the public.  I'm not sure that's an improvement.