Is the video game industry dying? Like Languish?

[viper37]

I figure you'd need a pretty big advancement in AI for it to be a feature that actually drive people to buy more games. I'd expect that advances in AI are conceptual rather than hardware based.

Galactic civilizations 2 used multiple-cores, and it shows in the AI.

More content = higher costs to develop = greater risk for the developer = fewer, safer games.

That's one of the dynamics that's driving the decline in console games right now.

Console games are notably shorter than PC games.  Making a 100hr game is not necessarly 4x the costs of a 25hrs game.

That's, at best, the fixing of a minor annoyance. It's nice, but I doubt it'll reverse any trends unless the faster access times leads to some new types of games that refreshes console appeal.

Well, console games load fast because there's no heavy graphics to load on to memory.  If you have better graphics, wich might not add to the costs that much nowadays (unless you go way overboard), you need faster loading times.

PC games are up, console games are down.  Publishers keep bitching about piracy on PC games, though, but I doubt it's that much of a factor in the past decline.
On article among others

[viper37]

The hundreds of dollars I spent on WOW were much better spent than most of the 20 dollar games I've bought over the years.

I tried that last week-end.  I just can't get into that game.  Don't understand all the hype, it seems about as advanced as Zelda.

[Barrister]

The hundreds of dollars I spent on WOW were much better spent than most of the 20 dollar games I've bought over the years.

I tried that last week-end.  I just can't get into that game.  Don't understand all the hype, it seems about as advanced as Zelda.

The key, of course, is the "multiplayer" part.

If you're playing with a group of other people it can be a lot of fun.  But yeah playing it as a single player game there isn't all that much to the game play.

It does get more complex as you level up though - many more abilities to juggle.

[Josephus]

PC games are up, console games are down.  Publishers keep bitching about piracy on PC games, though, but I doubt it's that much of a factor in the past decline.

I find this fascinating. It wasn't that long ago everyone was saying there's no market for PC games anymore. Look at how EB refuses to stock them (I guess sales are all downloaded now?).

[garbon]

Console games load fast?

[Razgovory]

I must be weird, I've been saying the PC market has been weak for years, but thought that recently it's doing much better.  I've been deeply impressed with Steam, GOG.com, and the new kickstarter thing.  It's made me really very optimistic.  I also noticed that smaller developers making less costly games (often with poorer graphics) have been really shining.  In a way, it seems as if the PC market is returning to late 1980's and early 1990's model which involves a lot of niche games (many of which I like).  I like pretty graphics of triple A games and such (recently had a blast with Arkham City), but i'm fine as long as the graphics are functional and aren't hideous.  If a game is based on the source engine, I often find the graphics good enough.

Don't know how the piracy aspect has been doing.  I know developers are producing lots of new DRM stuff that people are complaining about, I don't know how successful they are though.  If successful, I'm willing to jump through those hoops (as a PC gamer I'm used to jumping through stupid hoops).

As for PC games, I almost never buy hardcopies if I can avoid it.  GOG, gamersgate and Steam are my primary methods of buying games.  I really like not having dig around for DVDS.  People like me might explain why EB barely stocks PC games anymore.

I know some of you have noted that I thought PC games were dying and made a big argument with Berkut this year or last on the subject.  I am reversing my position on this.  To me the big savior is not the top of the line games like Crysis but the mid and even lower level games like Minecraft and Combat mission.  It's titles like that that have made me love PC gaming to begin with.

[Neil]

PC games are up, console games are down.  Publishers keep bitching about piracy on PC games, though, but I doubt it's that much of a factor in the past decline.

I find this fascinating. It wasn't that long ago everyone was saying there's no market for PC games anymore. Look at how EB refuses to stock them (I guess sales are all downloaded now?).

Steam pretty much ruined PC game sales for the brick and mortar stores.

[Fate]

PC games are up, console games are down.  Publishers keep bitching about piracy on PC games, though, but I doubt it's that much of a factor in the past decline.

I find this fascinating. It wasn't that long ago everyone was saying there's no market for PC games anymore. Look at how EB refuses to stock them (I guess sales are all downloaded now?).

I mean places like Gamestop and then mega stores like Walmart/Target still have most major PC releases. That's probably where most non-Steam people end up getting their games.

[MadImmortalMan]

What Raz said, pretty much. I think we're only going to get better, at least for a while.

[dps]

That's already water over the bridge. The damage is done. It's the recovery that's coming, and yeah a lot of shops won't survive it.

Is it?  Because it seems to be going strong to me.  But surely it would mean things like Elder Scrolls wpuld be less profitable if they were just PC.

Yeah, but since the last few installments were dumbed down for consoles, they'd be better games if they didn't have to worry about that market.

[viper37]

PC games are up, console games are down.  Publishers keep bitching about piracy on PC games, though, but I doubt it's that much of a factor in the past decline.

I find this fascinating. It wasn't that long ago everyone was saying there's no market for PC games anymore. Look at how EB refuses to stock them (I guess sales are all downloaded now?).

I think Steam got it right.  And now, all publishers are trying to emulate them, with their own platform for their own games.

[Valmy]

I think Steam got it right.  And now, all publishers are trying to emulate them, with their own platform for their own games.

As a consumer I love using Steam.  So convenient.  It really rewards those of us who do not pirate I think, with the convenience.

[Brazen]

Online gaming is shifting away from gamers' gaming and towards the populist, like online bingo and mobile gambling. There's an advert for at least one or the other in every ad break over here. Not sure how that applies with stricter US gambling laws.

[CountDeMoney]

Online gaming is shifting away from gamers' gaming and towards the populist, like online bingo and mobile gambling.

Sorry, but I refuse to believe the future of video gaming rests on my mother's gaming tastes in bingo and slot machine apps.

[Syt]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/05/e3s-press-events-do-not-represent-the-gaming-i-know/

After alternately watching live feeds of the press conferences last night, and watching colleagues' reactions to them on Twitter, I awake with a heavy cynicism for the entire industry. While a couple of new IPs were announced, and they were perhaps even interesting, the overwhelming message of the LA evening was one of partisanship, stagnation, and a disturbing lack of awareness of what is most problematic in the gaming world. Which can pretty much be summed up in the frighteningly repeated phrase, "With exclusive DLC for our console."

This is, of course, in a large part due to our being in that final vigil beside the deathbeds of the current generation of consoles. With pretty much everyone certain that both the PS4 and the Xbox 3 (let's not embrace the moniker "720″ until such a point as Microsoft are insane enough to adopt it) will be out for Christmas 2013, it's obviously too early to make significant announcements about them. But both Microsoft and Sony are making announcements about games that will likely be out then. Which leads to a confusing, stilted release list that has to pretend the current consoles are the state-of-the-art must-haves for every excited kiddy, while everyone knows they're bargain bin material about to be superseded.

The frustration of this from our perspective is of course that the PC is perpetually at the cutting edge, its latest model released each and every day, and the need for this peculiar behaviour completely absent. Which is why, of course, that 2012 and most of next year are going to be brilliant years for the PC. As developers grow frustrated by nearly decade-old tech and next gen devkits that aren't yet reliable, the PC looks like a promised ground of being able to realise their ideas. For at least a year the definitive version of any cross-platform game has been the PC, and now we're seeing increasing numbers of PC exclusives. It's a great time for us. A time, of course, ignored by the E3 noise and pomp.

But perhaps even more egregiously ignored is the prevailing attitude of gamers toward the way they're treated by the bigger publishers. Let's break down that DLC thing.

Announcing DLC many months before a game is released ignores the ever-larger realisation that this is an affront to those who are paying full price for a new game. People have long since sussed this, and while arguments about how DLC development keeps developers in employment after the main game is finished can win some sympathy, it's not really a very relevant factor to the customer. The customer who is asked to pay another chunk of money for what has previously been given away free, or rolled into a later, more worthwhile expansion pack. That's pretty much a given now, so it was peculiar to see DLC so loudly boasted during many of the events.

But worse is the boast that it's exclusive to a particular console. Of course, if you're Microsoft and you're having a Microsoft show, you want to boast about what 360 owners will get that others won't... So long as you don't actually stop to think about your customers. It plays into the very dated notion of console loyalty, at a time where people can pick up either of the big two models for under £100. Gone are the days when a £400 investment meant people would become tribal and defend their choice, to start with. And more frustrating, if you don't happen to own the console that's currently hawking the third-party cross-platform game, you've been just been given a hefty middle finger from the developer/publisher responsible. It doesn't say, "Hey, the X version of this game is superior!" It says, "All other versions of our game are inferior." Which is a pretty bloody weird message to be sending out to customers.

And that's just one example of the hoary, outdated tone all these pressers took. Embarrassing moments were scattered throughout, from a peculiar display of esports in tight-fitting clothing, to hosts declaring that they're "a gamer first and, er, er, a woman seventh", all punctuated throughout the night by producers holding controllers and pretending to control cutscenes like kids in a service station yanking the steering wheels of the driving arcades while "INSERT COIN" flashes on screen. The message is a peculiar contempt for the audience – of course they're not really playing! In any game where you can get killed by the enemy, or, as so many of those shown wished you to believe, events are procedural and unscripted, not having a pre-filmed sequence in a live show would be just stupid. Stop pretending – it's embarrassing.

While games like Watch Dogs and Far Cry 3 definitely look interesting, it was a night of primarily sequels of men shooting guns at men shooting guns, those two included, representing an industry that just is no longer familiar to me. The games I consume, both mainstream and indie, offer me an incredible variety of genres and themes, and while I'm not in mad denial of the volume of manshooters, I'm also conscious of an industry that offers so much more. Yet the outward facing presentation from all of these publishers was one of a dinosaur that hasn't noticed the gaming world isn't entirely made of Gears Of War, occasionally intercut by a grinning lunatic waving their cartoon arms at their Kinect. Oh, and that's when they're not completely distracting themselves by trying to be Apple and declare they've invented the future of technology. How unbearably embarrassing was Microsoft's declaration that SmartGlass was the "first time" we could control our TV's using our smartphones? Er, that's weird, because I'm fairly sure I remember using Unified Remote on my Android to control Windows on my TV last night.

I wonder if part of it is due to the Peter-Molyneux-ism of recent years, where developers have stood up to announce games that would change the way we live our lives, see the world, peel our oranges, and perceive colour, with pseudo-experimental concepts that eventually go on to be mediocre social games. There has been a steering away from "Gaming will ascend us beyond mere humanity" and back to, "MAN SHOOTS MAN AND BUILDING FALLS DOWN!" Excruciatingly dull footage of CODBLOPS2 was the peak of this brown drear, as we realise that watching someone else pushing forward between cutscenes is almost no different an experience from being the person holding the controller. And even the now-much-vaunted Watch Dogs' potential is being celebrated mostly in people's heads, rather than based on what we saw: a man walking painfully slowly through a pretty city, listening in to a phone call, walking painfully slowly around a building, and then shooting some men.

So I'm delighted to say that what we saw at E3 last night was not representative of the gaming industry of which I'm a part. And I wonder how long it will be until the reality of the industry will be represented in these events. Although so long as the attending press sit there whooping until they vomit, perhaps that will be a bloody long time.