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He makes a good point.
Hariken
Member EpicPosts: 2,680
I thought this was something good to share.
Comments
Yes, but he is a few years too late. What he is describing is the lack of consumer confidence that caused the rise of F2P. The crash has already happened, and now we are in the recovery phase (with F2P).
Sorry but you are wrong. We've not seen a crash like what happened in 1983. I was a gamer back then and I can tell you it's a pretty sad sight when every store that used to be lined with games of every type and variety suddenly only has the vast majority of their games in a $5 bin and they are still not selling them. When 90% of the big gaming companies file for chapter 11 protection within a few months time. Only the largest gaming companies like Atari and Activision made it through but even they were scared forever as a result.
We haven't seen a true industry wide crash yet but as Boogie states in his video all of the warning signs that were present in 1982 are present today. Some believe that the gaming industry has grown too large for another crash to happen and I sincerely hope they are right because all of the warning signs are present. You only have to look around to see them.
Bren
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I agree that there was not a 'dramatic' crash... however there was an abrupt unplanned (for many) industry wide change in sales for the gaming industry. The landing was much softer due to F2P, digital downloads, crowdsourcing, and the increase in indy development. It may be more of an 'adjustment' than a crash, but the changes have already occurred.
How can anyone pull parallels from the 1980's in regard to a future crashes? Games are designed/developed and sold in a completely different way to back then.
Back in the 80's the consumer had no input in the development (be it via alpha/beta green lit/kick starter) of a game. You read a review, played a demo or just bought it and hoped it was good.
That's the flaw in his argument IMO.
If the WWW was as popular as it is today back in the 80's, where developers/programmers (whether it be indie/AAA) can get instant feedback about their product, would of there been a crash?
If anything causes a crash it will be piracy.
I read a report that only 1 in 3 crowd funded games release, of them how many are worth playing? IMO this could lead to consumer blow back on a level we have yet to see but in no way do I think the gaming industry will crash like it did in the 80's but I think parts of it could die and may.
Someone is always predicting the end of days for something. It makes for good ratings.
Gaming has never been better imo with indie games and kickstarter bypassing greedy publishers.
How he says Steam is part of the problem is hilarious. Without Steam i'd never had bought or played Bastion, Mark of the Ninja, Amnesia, Braid, FTL, World of Goo and loads of other great games.
In the 80's i remember buying a really expensive game and playing the crap out of it for months just because the selection was smaller and also that was all i could afford. Now at a Steam sale i usually buy more games than i can possible play lol.
He also talks about bad games journalism which is true but never touches on Twitch where a lot of people now go to see how games actually play without someone hyping the game up.
He is just ranting about how he doesn't like AAA games anymore. Well neither do i for the most part but they still sell well and its not to jaded older gamers but to people like my nephew and his friends who love the latest Call of Duty and either play online with friends or sit on front of a TV playing 4 way death match.
If he can't find any games to play he likes then maybe he needs to find a new hobby tbh.
Since you basically restate the exact argument you made in another, similar thread I'll do the same but do you one better and actually copy pasta the whole response:
Ok, before I go any further, I'd be remiss if I didn't also toss in the name Chivalry. Yes, Chivalry. Firstly, it's a Canadian product. Secondly, it only raised 85k. Third, it only sold 1.2 million copies in it's first year. Totally flies under my radar even though I have it on Steam. Being that I'm Canadian myself, I feel terrible I forgot that, but it almost never comes to mind, probably because it is so successful.
Ok, so I obviously hate myself today and decided to simply go ahead and break this spreadsheet back out and re-review it, THANKS!!!!!!
Anyway, of the games on the list, there are currently 85 of 305 which are MIA (So 28% still not shipped). Of those, 8 (versus 5 on my last update) have been cancelled. 7 Others are on Hiatus. These numbers were updated manually based on updates to their Kickstarter projects, including those which simply stated that "We need to take a break" or stuff like that. So that leaves us with 70 titles still in active development. The average time that a game is late 8 months (including early titles). The average time a game is late in the event is actually does ship late is over 10 months. So, basically, when people guess wrong, they're guessing wrong by nearly a year.
So, even if we were to say that every game that isn't delivered today is a lost cause (considering also that games like Pillars of Eternity or star citizen will release without question), that means that there is a 28% failure rate, or less than 1/3. 92 of the released projects were released in 2013, although the data scraping performed by the "apparent" expert occurred over the last weekend of December 2013. Also, he "apparently" reviewed everything manually, but references a data scraper, so whatever, right? Same diff! Anyway, no data scrapers here, I went through each and every individual record manually and also performed deep digging in order to confirm and verify where some evident release (thanks Steam) wasn't out there.
55 of the 218 released projects have been released in 2014. 29 projects (or nearly half of the outstanding projects) were intended to be released in 2014. Given that we know that the average time to release following a missed schedule is over 10 months, I'm hoping that we'll continue to see this release trend into 2015 and hopefully that means that release failure rate will be cut in half. Keep in mind, also, that the project that was delivered the latest was 27 months, so pretty much any of the remaining projects to be shipped would fall within that range.
That's it!! cards on the table. It's obviously not the 95% release rate that I was at, and it's not at the 33% release rate that the other dude was at, but it's around the middle. However, If we were not to consider projects still in active development, 93% of Kickstarter projects are delivered at some point. That takes into consideration projects shipped versus those we know are cancelled or on hiatus (assuming they never go back to them which is probably likely).
Do with it what you like, but MY data is current, compared to this dude's data which is over a year old now.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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He does indeed make some good points, and on the whole I agree with him.
However, while he has identified the problems (basically pointing the finger at all of us, youtubers, and the rest of the gaming industry), he didn't really accurately talk about the solutions. Or even what solved the first gaming crisis.
What saved video games back in the 1980s was actually the birth of Nintendo. A previously undervalued company who snuck it's console (the NES) into the american market by disguising that it was a gaming console.
Us stopping our habits of buying crap games is only part of the solution. And ironically enough will actually expedite the coming of a gaming crash. The second part of that equation is supporting good games, and the developers trying to make them. We aren't really doing that either.
The problem though, is if a crash does come, who would be able to pick up the pieces? I dont think it would completely destroy the gaming industry, but it would severely change it as we know it.
I read it the first time (((shrugs))) Copy and pasting your same comment is kinda bad form on a forum. Unless you are quoting someone else. I didnt respond to you last time but I will this time as it fits the topic better IMO. There has been some scams in crowd funded games, some people in over their heads and also some great games. I am loving Banner Saga for one. So far I am not sure what is winning, the positive or the negative impact of crowd funded games.
The big problem with crowd funded games under this topic is the consumer gets emotionally invested in a lot of cases, more so then normal. I have seen mobs of gamers on the forums back a game and act as crazed as any punch drinking loons. For them I hope it works out well but when a group like that sees their game fail due to a scam or just a fail on the part of the dev team, I think the emotional backlash could end up having a internet backlash that could shut down or change how things like Kickstarter work. Be this a good or bad thing, Im sitting back with my popcorn watching to see how it unfolds. I think its just a matter of time.
I liked what I saw. He had many great points and placed blame where it needs to go, most of it on us gamers.
The bad thing is that nothing will change until after it crashes. We just do not do well "preemptively" speaking. Good luck getting gamers, with apparently more cash then they know what to do with, to STOP buying EVERY game that releases.
My own "consumer confidence" has been thoroughly throttled in the past 10 years as games get more efficient and less fun. Unlike many gamers, I do NOT buy games unless I do some research and see if they have a hope in hell of being fun for me. Let me tell you that gaming journalists/reviewers rarely help me in this.
I guess we'll see what happens after the crash happens... again.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Is it as bad form as rehashing the same argument without consideration for actual evidence? I guess that's a judgement call. However, I can account for 13 games that have been cancelled or are on hiatus of over 300. I don't think there have been "scams" in video games, but I'm more than willing to hear you out on whatever projects you can bring forward. There have been failures and there have been people in over their heads, that's for sure. I think that crowd sourcing will mature whem people invest in projects that have a reasonable chance of succeeding, and I don't think there is necessarily a great understanding of how that looks yet.
As far as emotional investment goes, *ahem* Diablo 3 /drop microphone
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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