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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The State of the Gaming Business

Tagged games:

 

Is the gaming industry healthy?

Yes, just look at dem console sales! 10 20.41%
 
No, dem AAA games costs t... 9 18.37%
 
I'm honestly a little co... 18 36.73%
 
We're heading for new Crash!! 9 18.37%
 
I'll just put on my tin ... 1 2.04%
 
Total:47
pokoko on 03 February 2015
badgenome said:
radha said:
1- The problem are artist: game development is not that much more expensive with all the middleware and game engines out there, before ps360, few studios were buying game engines, now everyone has one and that has made things easier for some studios, but the amount of art required to make a HD game is huge and artist are very expensive, they are the ones eating much of the budget.

2- Game prices need to go up: in truth i do think that US$60 is a lot of money, but lets admit it, publishers are not making money, developers are not making money, we are getting rushed/unfinished games WE are losing this battle. If that is all fixed by making games US$70, man I'm more than willing to pay that, I just ones quality games that work at launch. If making games US$80 ensures that Ill will not get a day one in disc DLC and micro transactions I'm willing to pay for that too.

That is no fix. All that would happen is people will buy fewer games at full price. It might mean more money for games that are already making bank (GTA, COD, and the like), but that's about it.

People wonder why I'm fine with non-intrusive micro-transactions, "season passes", and DLC.  Let rich kids subsidize my gaming experience, I say.  Better than MY costs going up.



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badgenome on 03 February 2015
pokoko said:

People wonder why I'm fine with non-intrusive micro-transactions, "season passes", and DLC.  Let rich kids subsidize my gaming experience, I say.  Better than MY costs going up.

It's certainly preferable to your typical microtransactions, where business model and game design become one in the same, or raising the cost of entry. There's relatively little downside to giving people the option of paying for more of a game they already liked. My only complaint is when important things are clearly ripped out of a game to be sold separately, like Javik and the Leviathans in Mass Effect 3. If every DLC were just fun extra stuff like Saints Row's, I'd have no complaints at all.



PxlStorm on 03 February 2015

2014 was one of the worst years the gaming industry has ever had. Alot of broken or underwhelming games came out (Destiny, MCC, Watch Dogs, Unity, Drive Club and more) and 2 consoles (Vita & Wii U) are still struggling, even though both of them have alot of high quality games. Great games like Bayonetta 2 are ignored and sell horribly while CoD keeps on getting copy-pasted and sell way more. The 3DS also had a pretty weak year compared to 2012 & 2013. Both PSN and Xbox Live experienced a lot of problems and got hacked way more than ever before. DLCs and Microtransactions are getting more and more. And Sega is now nothing more than a smartphone game producer.

These were my unorganized thoughts about 2014. They aren't in any logical order, I just wrote everything down which came to my mind. The future of gaming isn't looking too bright, but we'll see.



fleischr on 03 February 2015

I think we're hitting the peak for non-handheld mobile gaming. The business model is so large, flat, and competitive that only those with the most generic licenses, like EA, Activision, or 2K can really succeed there.



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

badgenome on 03 February 2015
fleischr said:
I think we're hitting the peak for non-handheld mobile gaming. The business model is so large, flat, and competitive that only those with the most generic licenses, like EA, Activision, or 2K can really succeed there.

I think so, too, but I'd say it's more like it's so crowded that only those who can buy exposure can really hope to succeed there. Even then, there's no guarantee. Nobody really cares about anything else Rovio makes. The viral nature of the market seems to be creating a lot of staggeringly huge one hit wonders.



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radha on 04 February 2015
badgenome said:
radha said:
1- The problem are artist: game development is not that much more expensive with all the middleware and game engines out there, before ps360, few studios were buying game engines, now everyone has one and that has made things easier for some studios, but the amount of art required to make a HD game is huge and artist are very expensive, they are the ones eating much of the budget.

2- Game prices need to go up: in truth i do think that US$60 is a lot of money, but lets admit it, publishers are not making money, developers are not making money, we are getting rushed/unfinished games WE are losing this battle. If that is all fixed by making games US$70, man I'm more than willing to pay that, I just ones quality games that work at launch. If making games US$80 ensures that Ill will not get a day one in disc DLC and micro transactions I'm willing to pay for that too.

That is no fix. All that would happen is people will buy fewer games at full price. It might mean more money for games that are already making bank (GTA, COD, and the like), but that's about it.


I dont think US$10 is that big of a difference for the consumer, but the comullative difference for the publisher/developer could be big. I think that it would allow for more quality games, and as a consequence more people buying games.



dd if = /dev/brain | tail -f | grep games | nc -lnvvp 80

Hey Listen!

https://archive.org/details/kohina_radio_music_collection

radha on 04 February 2015
pokoko said:
badgenome said:
radha said:
1- The problem are artist: game development is not that much more expensive with all the middleware and game engines out there, before ps360, few studios were buying game engines, now everyone has one and that has made things easier for some studios, but the amount of art required to make a HD game is huge and artist are very expensive, they are the ones eating much of the budget.

2- Game prices need to go up: in truth i do think that US$60 is a lot of money, but lets admit it, publishers are not making money, developers are not making money, we are getting rushed/unfinished games WE are losing this battle. If that is all fixed by making games US$70, man I'm more than willing to pay that, I just ones quality games that work at launch. If making games US$80 ensures that Ill will not get a day one in disc DLC and micro transactions I'm willing to pay for that too.

That is no fix. All that would happen is people will buy fewer games at full price. It might mean more money for games that are already making bank (GTA, COD, and the like), but that's about it.

People wonder why I'm fine with non-intrusive micro-transactions, "season passes", and DLC.  Let rich kids subsidize my gaming experience, I say.  Better than MY costs going up.


Yeah but is very hard to be successfull right now, at least with quaility games, that is why we are seen studios closing and moving to mobile.



dd if = /dev/brain | tail -f | grep games | nc -lnvvp 80

Hey Listen!

https://archive.org/details/kohina_radio_music_collection

radha on 04 February 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
badgenome said:
radha said:
1- The problem are artist: game development is not that much more expensive with all the middleware and game engines out there, before ps360, few studios were buying game engines, now everyone has one and that has made things easier for some studios, but the amount of art required to make a HD game is huge and artist are very expensive, they are the ones eating much of the budget.

2- Game prices need to go up: in truth i do think that US$60 is a lot of money, but lets admit it, publishers are not making money, developers are not making money, we are getting rushed/unfinished games WE are losing this battle. If that is all fixed by making games US$70, man I'm more than willing to pay that, I just ones quality games that work at launch. If making games US$80 ensures that Ill will not get a day one in disc DLC and micro transactions I'm willing to pay for that too.

That is no fix. All that would happen is people will buy fewer games at full price. It might mean more money for games that are already making bank (GTA, COD, and the like), but that's about it.

Yeah those kinds of games would be fine but it would really damage all the smaller games.


But smaller games are in a different tier, the problem is when developers make low tier games and "think" they are worth the same as a High quality game with a lot of content (look at Evolve, they are charging 60 on a multi player only game, and then charging for DLC, and the base game lacks content...or look at destiny).



dd if = /dev/brain | tail -f | grep games | nc -lnvvp 80

Hey Listen!

https://archive.org/details/kohina_radio_music_collection

tiffac on 04 February 2015

Sega is laying off people at Sega of America because they don't plan to localize a lot of games anyways. Sadly, this is known.

Capcom seems to have found a knack with doing buddy projects with the Big 3.



Soundwave on 04 February 2015

Capcom will be OK I think. MH, Street Fighter, and Resident Evil are continual cash cows, some fiscal years they just won't have new entries in each of those IP so ups and downs are to be expected. They still made a decent profit.

Sega-Sammy was never a good fit. Would've been great if they could've worked with Nintendo or merged with Capcom or Namco instead.