This post highlights a very annoying trend in video game publishers: hyping, milking, and eventually destroying:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/inafune-japanese-game-industry-is-finished/
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Is the Western Game Industry listening? Are the analysts listening? Listen. The “Game Industry”, of course, has a terminal case of cancer. It will die. The question is not whether the “Game Industry”’s death will allow a ‘new’ “Game Industry” to rise. The question is whether the collapse of the “Game Industry” means the collapse of gaming you know and love. Don’t scoff! Look at what once was the PC Gaming “Industry”. All the PC game companies went to consoles or are out of business. Sure, there are new ‘industry’ such as flash games and all. But the question is where will that go? The demise of the PC Game Industry killed many of the games you knew and loved. And what ultimately killed PC Gaming? It was the “Game Industry” itself. Highlights of PC gaming such as Command and Conquer and Ultima, controlled by EA under the mentality of “Game Industry” watched these series slowly shrink and die. The “Game Industry” attitude is to milk revenue. The “Game Industry” all think they are business geniuses. Yet, they end up smothering every game they touch. And you can find these examples everywhere. I hear Sims players complain how disappointed they are in Sims 3. Could the “Game Industry” mentality be killing that great game? History points that this has been the norm. The dirty secret is that guys like Inafune and other older game developers don’t care. They got their money. They got their millions. They don’t care if the “game industry”, that made them wealthy, is no longer around for future generations. They don’t care about criticisms from older gamers saying that games keep going down in quality. Who cares about quality when you can get a bonus? Think of the pioneers of gaming. The pioneers, who were brilliant (they were into computers before it became ‘cool’), got little to no money for their work. They received very little recognition. They had to fight to make customers. The “Game Industry” has been leveraging and milking their foundation for decades. They don’t care if there are less customers today than there were yesterday. All that matters is the revenue. If they can get the same amount of revenue from less customers, they are for that. They don’t care that gaming, itself, contracts. The “Game Industry” is the parasite on gaming. It is not a matter of question whether the “Game Industry” will die. Its entire dismissal of creating customers but only devouring them points to the certain future. The question is whether gaming will die with the “Game Industry”. Some might say, “Absurd! Gaming cannot die! It will be reborn!” Perhaps it might be reborn. But think of the carnage in the meantime. Think of the destroyed infrastructure. Once these game companies are gone, they can never be brought back just the same. When watching games die, the death almost always comes from the top management. Someone thinks they are ‘business geniuses’ because this is a ‘famous franchise’, and they will have big bonuses at the end of the year. Other times, it is someone who thinks they are an ‘artistic genius’ and think their ‘vision’ is so amazing and inflict it on the ‘franchise’. The customers complain bitterly. But who cares? The game sold due to hype. They have their money. Who cares if 90% of the sales come in the first few weeks? All that matters is ‘revenue’. The fact that such practices end up killing the golden goose doesn’t seem to phase them. Some poor but persistent developer, after years of toiling in obscurity, puts out a game unlike anyone has ever seen, and it causes a big hit. The “Game Industry” says, “Ahh, another ‘Golden Goose’,” and they begin to clone that game and turn it into a ‘franchise’. The rise and fall of the music games with ‘Guitar Hero’ is a microcosm for the entire “Game Industry”. In the end, they will say, “This is good business.” But if it is a good business, why does the golden goose keep dying? Good businessmen do not kill their industry. They grow it. They expand it. They are not leaving gaming better then when they found it. For all the talk the “Game Industry” does about ‘Next Generation’, thinking of future generations is the last thing on their mind. |
