You'd be laughed at for criticising expensive to make blockbuster films in the film industry. GTA4 and MGS4 will probably be two of the very best games in this generation and will undoubtedly sell huge numbers. Is there anything wrong with a developer striving to make their games to be the best they possibly can be on the available technology? Do people criticise Spielberg for making incredibly expensive films or criticise New Line for nearly making themselves bankrupt while creating Lord of the Rings, arguably the best fantasy films ever created?

Or do you want the entire gaming industry to churn out so-called cheap clones of previous games like another notable gaming company that you seem to adore? Perhaps we all already know the answer to that.

Uh...  No?

This is just an evolving business.  The Videogame industry is changing.  People are spending massive amounts of money to make massive amounts of money...  

Yes, GTAIV cost upwards of 100 million dollars, but look at what it took in first day?  In america, 170 million dollars, in UK, another 30-50 million (exchange rate + weak dollar = hard conversion), so that's roughly 210 million dollars day one.  Not counting the other ten to twelve million units it will sell between now and the end of the year, and the DLC that it will sell on the 360 also.  Take-Two did gamble, but it paid off, much like the movie business.

Movies are getting much more expensive to make, and if you took your argument, and put "movie" where the word "game" is, it'd be the same exact argument.  Studios spending massive amounts of money on movies, and making it back, when the movies blows up, and makes massive amounts of money.

There's no dark cloud looming, and no danger... This is merely a change.  And there will not be less quality games in place of blockbusters, there will always be independent games, and games that aren't blockbusters.  Not every game will be like GTAIV in scope, and take the risk that TT took.  That's one company's strategy, not every company on this earth.  You took the strategy of TT and the copy/pasted it to every other studio/developer, and got your post as the product of all of this, but not every company is TT.

You do have a compelling argument for TT though.  The bind making GTAIV put them in is bad, and praying that it would hit (though we all knew it would) is bad also, but that practice won't pay off if they do that to a lesser known game, and it doesn't pay off.

And if gaming ever becomes too dangerous a venture, that's what we have WiiWare, XBL Marketplace and the PS Store for, downloadable games are getting better and better.

Also, there's nothing wrong with 'not pushing the envelope', as Uncharted did.  Yes it was a simple copy/pasted, but that could be applied to many games, across all platforms, for as many years as we've been gaming.  I won't name names, but I'm sure that every single gamer on this earth has at least one game that does that...

The difference is Nintendo did what they did to ensure the market stability for Console gaming as opposed to PC gaming, in fact Sega promoted the same business models - people seem to love to point out Nintendo did that and ignore Sega doing it too. If they didn't do it who knows what would of happened.

Sony I don't have enough information about, I just know they bought in %'s of large companies either prior or after their respective major title launches, why I don't know, when is the most important question and I don't know.

Neither did what EA is doing, the economy is being very unique right now in that their is a 3 way competition and people are perplexed, competition is just truely begining, which will have it's ups and downs but the ups will be really high and the downs low beat the drop lessening as the years roll on. EA is ruining this competition by buying out their competition, regardless of intention doing such a thing will only set themselves up to an altered and constantly repeated nature.

It's just the way it is.

The main problem I see with EA buying Take2 is the acquisition 2K Sports in the deal. I think it is a bad idea for the #1 leader in the sports game market to buy out their main competitor in that market. Essentially, we know that the second EA owns Take2, 2K Sports will be all but shut down. I think that a fair argument can be made that the merger should be blocked by the FTC.

I hope not.

Take Two stocks are up almost 50% this year, and they keep increasing. EA's hostile takeover bid is now almost half a dollar (2%) under the normal price. EA will either have to make a new bid to the leadership, and after attempting a hostile takeover, this would need to be huge. They could also try a new hostile takeover, but this time the price would probably be at least 4%, and probably 5% bigger, as the stock is increasing at a faster rate than ever, and the minimum wait time to get an answer is a month (I believe)

I'm not certain that this is still an economically acceptable soltion for EA.

If you think EA ignores that, you sir, are a fool yourself.

Oh this should be rich...

You say evolution like this is the natural and unavoidable progression, like this is something we've seen every generation before this in gaming? Like this is the way things should be.

Wake up call to DMeisterJ, more people willing to spend more money on video games does not entail, require, demand nor force developers to invest more and more into increasingly risky, less profitable and isolated projects.

If there was any value to your argument here, then the industry would simply just have to raise the cost of invidual game copies to compensate an the consumer would gladly pay it without any backlash what-so-ever.

Are those figures you listed actual profits or just retail sales figures? I would hope even you would be able to tell the difference between the two. You're also ignoring the problems of fewer games being able to be made as a result of this concentrated investment and disproportionate lack of returns for every game in comparison to a game of relative scale last generation. It's not good business and its not good for gaming.

Movies have always been an industry far more expensive than video gaming to begin with and applied to a different set of industry rules. Also, for the record almost 99% of all movies that come out at these increased price figures (you claim they are) suck. And your argument here is so out of place in trying to compare the corporately raped and souless media form such as the movie industry with that of gaming which still maintains some glimmer of artistic virtue, integrity and independence. While movie making has become more expensive, it has never been the same risk that HD gaming is, in fact Movies over time have become increasingly tame and formulated. And this is what you can expect of the Video Game Industry if each project must be held to the same standard minus all the benefits of Hollywood's well oiled machine of networked resources and cross corporation deals & alliances. 

Unless you're perfectly fine in seeing the standard of future video games being that of the quality of Austin Powers 3, Fantastic Four: Return of the Silver Surfer, or Scary Movie 4... Unless you want to see video games held to the mercy of select groups of special interest producers who insist everything be made to the safest possible compromise of standards and practices then do yourself a favor and never think such a comparison worth mentioning ever again.

VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY IS NOT THE MOVIE INDUSTRY. One doing one thing does not justify the other following suit especially when their infrastructures and mechanics are uniquely different in respects to the isses we're talking about in video gaming. The Movie industry is perhaps of the most depressing and contemptable excuse for any art form ever seen. The fact you would even try to use them as a justifier for Video Games is a worrisome testament to how little it would take to satisfy you.

Really, and how many AAA games do you expect studios like Capcom, Konami and Take2 to put out with so many resources put into these games. Guess what I'm seeing alot from most of these studios, remakes, ports and other bargain bin projects. Funny Konami has also mentioned financial concern as well over MGS4 and just look at how many games they've put out during its development, hell they didn't even make Silent Hill Origins. It seems all companies are feeling the pinch and producing far and far less games so they can splurge on these handful of super projects. And I'm sorry, praise the indy developers all you want but I see no new Capcoms, Konamis or Take2s emerging to fill the void that is left by these developers putting everything into their super projects.

There is no arguing that TT is the epitomy of my argument and the most clear cut example, however Ubisoft is in a similar predicament itself with worrisome financial clouds over the horizon. Only Eastern developers seem to have any luck at balancing the production of big time HD games, though make no mistake the output of games and quality of lesser titles has suffered just the same. Take 2 is symptomatic of the trend, not an outlier, not the exception to the rule.

Oh so your solution is to default on the blind hope that niche online mini-projects will fill the void left by an absense of REAL video game projects that used to grace the stores shelves this time last generation? No offense, but I think this naive optimism sums up your argument quite nicely.

When such games become the flagships or poster child for thier console's gaming prowess, then such mediocrity is a cause for concern. We at least expect the first game of a series to be unique and trend setting or else why the hell bother making it, and by god we sure expect better from the people at Sony's sub studios who have pushed out gems like God of War, Shadow of the Collosus and many others of that callibur. Okami was able to incorporate loads of content from previous extisting games in that genre, but made them its own and unique, we would have at least expected a title like Uncharted to do the same.

I give up.

I can't win.

Take-Two and the Videogame industry are doomed, thanks to GTA IV. I need to go get an Umbrella so that I may weather the storm.

@halil23

I'm having a hard time determining if that is sarcasm or not as its basically true to some extent.

I'm not a big fan of EA but I try to distance my feelings about the support they put into their PC games (mostly crappy, but somewhat improved) from their behavior as a company. I am worried when EA buys up companies because I am afraid of the EA Sequel Whore mentality. All this aside though, my main opposition to EA acquiring Take2 is sports competition. EA Sports is EA's cash crop. Quite simply, they want it all, and they want it now. With the NFL license securely locked up by EA, they want to be the only major supplier of MLB, NBA, and NHL games also. Since those leagues aren't going exclusive, they are going the other route and trying to buy the 2nd major producer of those licensed games. Basically, they are saying to the leagues "you won't go exclusive with us? Fine. We'll make it so we are the only game company you can deal with." This is bad or game quality overall and bad for consumers. This is exactly the sort of thing that Anti-Trust laws were meant to prevent. The FTC is looking at this potential merger and I hope they do the right thing and block it.