Is the video game industry heading towards another crash?

FomaldehydeJim

For those who aren't aware, in 1983 there was a crash in the video games industry.  This was largely as a result of a plethora of poorly realised and received game releases that resulted in a loss in consumer confidence. It resulted in the burial of ET in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial. 

I see similarities today. The steam greenlighting system and the likes of Kickstarter result in the release of an awful lot of games of dubious quality. Many popular IPs seem to regularly release lazy sequels or movie tie-ins.

The games industry is booming now, but we all know what inevitably comes after a boom. So is the industry heading towards another crash?  
  

Burntvet

The gaming industry on a macro level might be "booming" but that includes everything: mobile, phone, tablet, console, browser, and PC games.

It is too fragmented now to have any kind of crash affect the whole industry.

The MMORPG industry, for all intents and purposes, has crashed, in the West at least. Very few new AAA/"big" games are even being made anymore, and a lot of the companies that used to be players in the MMORPG space don't make MMORPGs anymore, are no longer relevant in the industry, have been sold, or just went under.

I think the so called "crowdfunding" industry will crash (despite a few successes like Wasteland 2 or Pillars of Eternity), as many such games have come out in crap shape or failed to come out at all. Same for the current "early access" trend that is currently the rage in the industry: many/most people will eventually pay "full price" for a couple too many crap early access titles, learn their lesson, and never support another one again. It is already starting to happen in the gaming space.

So while certain segments of the gaming market may crash and companies fail (and it has happened already) this is not 1983 where the atari 2600 owned 90%+ of the market, either.

So, probably no general crash.

Loke666

There been more crashes then just that one. It was one just one CD roms came, some companies put everything on that card too early and burned, companies like Cinemaware went under (it was a huge loss for us). Nintendo also lost a lot on that when Playstation had CD rom while they tried to keep cassetes.

The console market had one in the late 90s when consoles like Dreamcast went under.

There will be purges now and then, making bad copied games is one reason, jumping too quick or too slow on new technology is another which I think we will see soon with VR.

And purges can be merciless. some really good companies goes under while certain companies turns into giants instead and devouring some of the less successful companies.

FomaldehydeJim

I am inclined to agree with all of the above. I see certain sectors crashing (crowd funding as an example, or companies like Nintendo that unfortunately seem to be in terminal decline) but certainly not the industry as a whole.  

Wizardry

No.... times have changed,we are all about debt and writing off debt now,so it is easy for thousands to try out the market and lose nothing but other people's money.

I am sure there is already a sort of crash,hundreds of developers going out of business or going into maintenance mode remaining to collect whatever they can from any unsuspecting gamer's.

KenFisher

Online gaming with F2P monetization might end up being immune to crashing.  I mean how does one blow consumer confidence on games that are 'free'?  There is always a new one just around the corner.  Consumers gobble it up or discard it, then switch to the next 'new' title.  It's like gaming (at least online F2P) is transitioning from being seen as a product industry to a service industry.

Could it be called disposable gaming?  I don't see it as a crash waiting to happen, but it seems to me like the market is adjusting to some sort of new norm (or it might not be new, and I'm just misinterpreting what I see).

reeereee

MisterZebub said:

FomaldehydeJim said:

For those who aren't aware, in 1983 there was a crash in the video games industry.  This was largely as a result of a plethora of poorly realised and received game releases that resulted in a loss in consumer confidence. It resulted in the burial of ET in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial. 

I see similarities today. The steam greenlighting system and the likes of Kickstarter result in the release of an awful lot of games of dubious quality. Many popular IPs seem to regularly release lazy sequels or movie tie-ins.

The games industry is booming now, but we all know what inevitably comes after a boom. So is the industry heading towards another crash?  
  

The industry as a whole? No. Certain portions of the gaming industry? Possibly.

I see it kind of like what Steven Spielberg said about comic movies crashing soon, sure their popularity will wane and then something else will move in to replace them. That doesn't mean the film industry will go tits up, it will just adapt.

Unless a film or gaming studio rely too strongly on one or even a handful of titles, they should be just fine when they hear the inevitable "This sucks! Change it!".

This doesn't correlate at all to what I see.  The last thing anyone actually seems to want is change.  Why else do gamers seem to keep going back over and over and over again to a few well established franchises?

Beatnik59

I agree with Burntvet, somewhat.  I see Steam doing what online gaming did to big box back in the late 90's to the early 2000's, back when a bunch of studios and publishers we thought were bulletproof went under (Eidos, Interplay, Sierra).  We're in the middle of this decade, and studios we thought were bulletproof only a few years ago are folding (Maxis probably foremost).  Only a handful of titles can get away with the whole $59.99 scam premium; all established franchises (Grand Theft Auto, Arkham, etc.).  Most of the interesting stuff is app grade, or alpha release from Steam.  I'm thinking small and agile is the most efficient way to survive these days; the high costs associated with the big titles means they have a lot of bloat.

Expect one major to go under in the next five years.

Azaron_Nightblade

Nope.

Punk999

No way! I understand there are some pretty crap games out lately... then there is games like MGSV! Which is the best game i have played in years.

collekt

Absolutely not. The MMO industry maybe, but not the video game industry as a whole. There is way too much success in other genres for the whole industry to crash. Just look at MOBAs for example, and then there will always be triple A single player games on the horizon as well. As the guy above me pointed out, MGSV just dropped and is amazing.

Axehilt

MMORPGs seem unlikely to decline even as much as RTSes did, and that wasn't remotely close to the industry-wide Atari crash (largely because Atari made up such a big portion of the industry back then, while MMORPGs are only a subset of RPGs, which in turn are only a ~10% subset of all game genres.)

Beowulfsam

I wish there was a revolution in consumer taste and that people would stop throwing money at crap games which in turn breeds more crap games. Granted, beauty (or gaming experience in this case) is in the eye of the beholder, but still, there's so much crap games being made (from indie to AAA, from singleplayer to multi) I can only be amazed as to who the hell is giving them money. I wonder what's the ratio of good-mediocre-crap games... And no, I don't think financial success that is based on exploiting human psychology is equal to a good game (capital owners would disagree I guess :awesome: ). 

Anyway, doubt there will be a crash anytime soon. Still too much money being thrown at the screen and if global economy keeps advancing, well, you still have huge largely untapped markets. 

Righteous_Rock

I cant bring decent money for a kick ass pc ive got listed on ebay, i hate this industry so much now im done, its regressed, creativity is no longer the driving force for producing money, the money is still there though, but the industry is merely a shadow of its former self, the truth is today it flat out sucks. 

kemono55

This is an interesting topic because I've been thinking for a while now that game marked has exploded the last couple of years.
I have never seen as many big titles being released as rapid as it now.
And I am overflown with choices, even if I wanted to play every other big game,
I literary could not because to many are released at once.

And I have to wonder, have the consumer base grown this much over the past decade to support this many titles.

That said, I do kind of feel I get served "more of the same" (aka. Assassin Creed I with a different gimmick).
And the only innovation I see is coming from the indie scene.

Lobotomist

Definetly yes.

I work in game industry (even had one of our games advertised here), and thing aint pretty.

There is amazing hyper-production of games happening right now. But the business people are completely clueless and dont get it. So you can easily expect that around 90% produced at this moment are doomed to fail right at the door.

The free or cheap offering is so large that you simply can not earn no money unless you F2P and make disgusting monetization schemes.

On other hand we have games like Witcher 3 or GTA V that pushed the bar so far up that its almost impossible to reach anywhere near that quality without team made of best experts in the world and hundreds of millions of investment.

So yea.

If you are having plans of entering the gaming business , its a very bad place right now.

However the crush , that will happen will not be the same as 1980s. The games will not die. They will just become really bad investments

Regnor

There is no MMO on the horizon that interests me. Crowdsourcing and "early access alpha" titles are everywhere and every one of them I've tried has sucked badly. It's a bad time in the PC gaming industry, which I fear will suffer. But crash? I don't know. Gaming is still hugely profitable for multi-platform (particularly mobile) companies, which means that PC games are going to get more and more homogenized, dumbed down, and ported after-the-fact.

I so miss the early days of PC gaming. It was such an exciting rush. RIP.

Enyov

This may sound bad, but I think this is honestly what the gaming industry (Especially MMO's) needs. Developers need a wake-up call that they can no longer produce quickly made garbage.

This will only be good for gamers in the long run.

Axehilt

Enyov said:

This may sound bad, but I think this is honestly what the gaming industry (Especially MMO's) needs. Developers need a wake-up call that they can no longer produce quickly made garbage.

This will only be good for gamers in the long run.

Eh there are companies getting that "wake-up call" every month. Yet other companies produce successful games each month. 80% of everything is always crap, yet the world keeps spinning in spite of the doom prophets.

JDis25

1983? What was going on then in the video game world, pong? like probably .05% of the population played video games then and mostly pac-man type games at the local pizza restaurant.

I don't think that is an applicable model to predict a video game recession over 30 years later...

rojoArcueid

Now everyone wants to crowdfund games, and now everyone wants to make online games (mmos, mobas, etc).

Those will be the first to crash.

Shrilly

Only time will tell, personally I am keeping hope and looking towards visions like Revival, and Chronicles of Elyria. It may look dismall but these developers know that and they are hoping to catch the big wave of the tsunami to me.

Kopogero

If I go my me...the gaming industry has crashed 6+ years ago. Anything new developed since then has failed to open my wallet. In other words games have not evolved in complexity, features and overall quality, on the contrary...they have devolved. So, if there are crashes I'll be the least surprised person on these forums. When it comes to consoles, they have died for me 14 years ago when I finally got my PC.

KenFisher

Lobotomist said:

 
However the crush , that will happen will not be the same as 1980s. The games will not die. They will just become really bad investments

I think the big money games (MMORPGs) are already bad investments from the corporate perspective.

I think that is driving two things:  1) lots of offshore repackages for the western market.  2) crowd funded indies trying to fill the void left by lack of AAA releases.

Superman0X

FomaldehydeJim said:

For those who aren't aware, in 1983 there was a crash in the video games industry.  This was largely as a result of a plethora of poorly realised and received game releases that resulted in a loss in consumer confidence. It resulted in the burial of ET in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial. 

I see similarities today. The steam greenlighting system and the likes of Kickstarter result in the release of an awful lot of games of dubious quality. Many popular IPs seem to regularly release lazy sequels or movie tie-ins.

The games industry is booming now, but we all know what inevitably comes after a boom. So is the industry heading towards another crash?  
  

The PC Online Gaming industry had a crash in 2013. It is just now starting to recover, as seen by the slow decline in company closures, mergers, and acquisitions. The market was not stabilized by a change in consumer demand, but rather by a devaluation of the existing marketplace, and then a buyout by larger firms.

We are now starting to stabilize, and as such seeing more indy entries in to the market. We should expect this to start showing returns in 2016-18. Remember it takes 3-5 years to make a solid PC MMO.

Theocritus

I'm not sure if it will crash, but I'm sure we see a lot of change.....It wasn't all that long ago we used to go down to the local best buy or Comp USA and buy games off the shelf....Now with the exception of a very few retailers you don't see PC games sold on the shelves anymore......