Is the video game industry dying? Like Languish?

[CountDeMoney]

I love the Western.  They're up there with gangsters as like the ur-genre for movies.  Both are so open to changing interpretations.  They're not so much genres as a series of tropes which can be used while directors/writers/actors do their thing, whatever that may be.

Yes, the Western is as much a vehicle as it is a bona fide setting.

[Syt]

I do agree with the article, though, that generic shooters are reaching the point of oversaturation, similar to RTS in the style of C&C, WC, AoE before them.

And before them there were the 1st wave of FPS games (Doom and it's million clones), and before that the flight sims.

Oh, I asbolutely agree. I'm not saying the shooter is dying, but it will probably go back to "normal" levels sometime soon (one or two years). Hopefully the indie scene equivalent (tower defense games) will do the same).

[Eddie Teach]

Oh, I asbolutely agree. I'm not saying the shooter is dying, but it will probably go back to "normal" levels sometime soon (one or two years). Hopefully the indie scene equivalent (tower defense games) will do the same).

Seems to me the number of new TD games has already started to drop off.

[Fate]

Hookers, really? Now that's a family oriented activity.

Seems like a good father/son or uncle/nephew activity.

[garbon]

Hookers, really? Now that's a family oriented activity.

Seems like a good father/son or uncle/nephew activity.

[Jacob]

The video game industry may or may not be dying, but the console makers are in some trouble. For a while now, console development has been trending like the Hollywood film industry in some respects. Most significantly, the big blockbuster titles make almost all the money, while most other projects lose money. So the business model is to spare no expense on a few big bets and cancel the rest. Of course, the bigger you bet, the safer you have to go. It's not uncommon to see a basically finished game with a sunk development cost of $50 million to get canned because the marketing plan calls for another $50 million, and it's you're going to make a profit on the particular game after a $100 million spend.

There are people trying to make it work on the margins, but there aren't that many studios that have figured it out.

On top of that, I think the nature of the console market has changed - or rather it hasn't changed. It seems to me that most of the games are still being made for the generation that grew up with the original consoles. Kids and teenagers these days may have consoles, but they're just as likely to do their gaming on their phone/ tablet or on PC social networks.

I don't have a clear overview of the console industry since I'm out of it (and not missing it one bit), but my impression is one of decline. In the recent past, the money, creativity and talent seems to have been flowing towards mobile and social games. Personally, that's where I think we're going to see more interesting developments. The risk/reward ratio is better and there's more room for creativity. Yes there's a ton of derivative schlock and tepid gameplay models, but that's exactly because there's more scope for experimentation and risk taking and that's the environment you need to see interesting new development. I expect we'll start seeing meatier gameplay on those platforms in the next little while - the so-called mid-core games.

That's my view anyhow and it's where I've put my career direction.

[Barrister]

The video game industry may or may not be dying, but the console makers are in some trouble. For a while now, console development has been trending like the Hollywood film industry in some respects. Most significantly, the big blockbuster titles make almost all the money, while most other projects lose money. So the business model is to spare no expense on a few big bets and cancel the rest. Of course, the bigger you bet, the safer you have to go. It's not uncommon to see a basically finished game with a sunk development cost of $50 million to get canned because the marketing plan calls for another $50 million, and it's you're going to make a profit on the particular game after a $100 million spend.

There are people trying to make it work on the margins, but there aren't that many studios that have figured it out.

On top of that, I think the nature of the console market has changed - or rather it hasn't changed. It seems to me that most of the games are still being made for the generation that grew up with the original consoles. Kids and teenagers these days may have consoles, but they're just as likely to do their gaming on their phone/ tablet or on PC social networks.

I don't have a clear overview of the console industry since I'm out of it (and not missing it one bit), but my impression is one of decline. In the recent past, the money, creativity and talent seems to have been flowing towards mobile and social games. Personally, that's where I think we're going to see more interesting developments. The risk/reward ratio is better and there's more room for creativity. Yes there's a ton of derivative schlock and tepid gameplay models, but that's exactly because there's more scope for experimentation and risk taking and that's the environment you need to see interesting new development. I expect we'll start seeing meatier gameplay on those platforms in the next little while - the so-called mid-core games.

That's my view anyhow and it's where I've put my career direction.

I keep hearing that "nobody is making any money in mobile games" though.  Or, rather, that making money is like winning the lottery - one app out of 10,000 goes on to make millions ala Angry Birds, but nobody else makes any money.

Obviously you know far far more about your industry than I do.  I'm curious what you think about the economics of such games.

[Eddie Teach]

Hookers, really? Now that's a family oriented activity.

Seems like a good father/son or uncle/nephew activity.

Maybe if garbon's dad had taken him to a whorehouse when he was young enough, they might have cured teh gay. 

[garbon]

Hookers, really? Now that's a family oriented activity.

Seems like a good father/son or uncle/nephew activity.

Maybe if garbon's dad had taken him to a whorehouse when he was young enough, they might have cured teh gay. 

So like when I was 10?

[Malthus]

The video game industry may or may not be dying, but the console makers are in some trouble. For a while now, console development has been trending like the Hollywood film industry in some respects. Most significantly, the big blockbuster titles make almost all the money, while most other projects lose money. So the business model is to spare no expense on a few big bets and cancel the rest. Of course, the bigger you bet, the safer you have to go. It's not uncommon to see a basically finished game with a sunk development cost of $50 million to get canned because the marketing plan calls for another $50 million, and it's you're going to make a profit on the particular game after a $100 million spend.

There are people trying to make it work on the margins, but there aren't that many studios that have figured it out.

On top of that, I think the nature of the console market has changed - or rather it hasn't changed. It seems to me that most of the games are still being made for the generation that grew up with the original consoles. Kids and teenagers these days may have consoles, but they're just as likely to do their gaming on their phone/ tablet or on PC social networks.

I don't have a clear overview of the console industry since I'm out of it (and not missing it one bit), but my impression is one of decline. In the recent past, the money, creativity and talent seems to have been flowing towards mobile and social games. Personally, that's where I think we're going to see more interesting developments. The risk/reward ratio is better and there's more room for creativity. Yes there's a ton of derivative schlock and tepid gameplay models, but that's exactly because there's more scope for experimentation and risk taking and that's the environment you need to see interesting new development. I expect we'll start seeing meatier gameplay on those platforms in the next little while - the so-called mid-core games.

That's my view anyhow and it's where I've put my career direction.

I keep hearing that "nobody is making any money in mobile games" though.  Or, rather, that making money is like winning the lottery - one app out of 10,000 goes on to make millions ala Angry Birds, but nobody else makes any money.

Obviously you know far far more about your industry than I do.  I'm curious what you think about the economics of such games.

I have no idea how the money works in the industry, but it is obvious just looking at iphone or ipad game apps that there is a lot more variety there than with console games. 

[Jacob]

I keep hearing that "nobody is making any money in mobile games" though.  Or, rather, that making money is like winning the lottery - one app out of 10,000 goes on to make millions ala Angry Birds, but nobody else makes any money.

Obviously you know far far more about your industry than I do.  I'm curious what you think about the economics of such games.

People make money, for sure.

I mean, the chance of two guys putting together and making and app and making hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions is getting smaller as the market place matures (though I do know people who've pulled it off). So in one sense it is getting harder.

And yeah, lots of apps don't make any money, but there are plenty of apps that make thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a day which adds up over time. If you can make $5K/ day (and that's far from unreachable - i.e. $0.05 per user per day from 100 000 users) and keep that up for three months (which isn't really that long once a game starts sticking) that's $750K. If you only spent $50K-$100K developing the game (and a few hundred a day to maintain it), that's a pretty good return. And that's not really a big hit, so you can do a lot better. But if you do worse, you're only out $50K-$100K to begin with.

It's smaller numbers per game (in most cases) than console, but it all adds up.

That said, the business and profit models are less firm than they are in console, but I think that's a good thing in terms of opportunity and creativity.

[Ideologue]

Hookers, really? Now that's a family oriented activity.

Wow, a guy has a kid and he just completely changes.

[Barrister]

I have no idea how the money works in the industry, but it is obvious just looking at iphone or ipad game apps that there is a lot more variety there than with console games.

Indeed.  I wish I had an iPhone or iPad (we have one, but my wife's grip on it is pretty tight and it's tied into her Apple ID).  It sure seems like a lot of vey imaginative games are being made that I'd love to try out.

[DontSayBanana]

iPad seems to be the sweet spot, yeah.  It's less limited, hardware-wise, than most other mobile platforms, it's not hard to see it getting close to NES market saturation, and since the deployment model is unchanged from the iPhone, it carries all the low-cost perks- it's easy to see why more of the games go to iOS than Android.

[CountDeMoney]

I think there's still growth for the console industry, there just needs to be another jump in processor speed and functionality.  The mid 90s through the end of the PS2 saw lots of platforms (including Sega and the Cube, not to mention Nintendo still punching out cartridge tech)  and lots of titles in shortened cycles because the the capability of the CD and the cartridge as a media storage platform was so high compared to the programming ceiling, which started off so low--hell, even the PS2 never saw 100% of its possibilities at the end of its market life.

Now, there's been a leveling off on PS3 and Sexbox architecture, not to mention the whole sale reinvention of the dev model.  Combine that with the resources poured into online play, first by Microsoft and then anemically followed up by Sony, there simply hasn't been the progression seen in the previous platforms.

Once firmware, processing speed and the dev engines to match, make another astronomical jump, the console will come back to life.