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As much as people deny it or just don't care enough to pay attention, video games are big. It is a multi-billion dolor industry that has even surpassed the music industry in terms of the money it makes. In the span of 30 some odd years, video games have grown to be a staple in the world, for better or for worse. But the industry is dynamic, with the market being changed in a matter of a few years. Due to the dynamic nature, it becomes very hard to actually understand where the industry is going. Well I;m gonna make a long post explaining what I feel is gonna happen. I love gaming and I'm kind of bored. But
I also want to know what you guys think!Consoles Will Live But Physical Copies Will DieI keep seeing it over and over again on different websites, with "analysts" and "experts" all saying that the console will die. They theorize that online streaming services, mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, and the PC will kill the need for the console. And you know what? They would be right if consoles were just for gaming. My 360 is not just a gaming machine: it is a DVD player, a Netflix player, a Hulu Plus player, has tons of streaming services and it is a rental/buying device for movies and TV shows. Consoles, for the past 10 years, have been becoming entertainment hubs. Thus, their need and use goes well beyond the audience of gamers. You will say"But I can do all that with my smartphone by just plugging it in with a micro HDMI" But can it play really awesome games? No. You take away one of the aspects, it fails. You take away none of those things and it thrives.
Even though it is looking like the next Xbox will be using discs, sometime after that the gaming industry will switch to a complete digital experience. You will no longer be able to buy a disc with the game on it. There are many factors that lead to that. The first and probably the biggest is switching to a digital service will combat the used gaming industry. Developers have been at war with used game industry for years now.
Do you ever wonder why the gaming industry is at war with the used sales market, yet the music and movie industry isn't? I don't see the music and movie industry getting all pissed off at FYE for allowing them to buy the latest Carly Rae (or whatever the hell is popular right now) for $5 less than buying it new. It's because these industries don't 100% rely on people to come in and buy their stuff! Movies have theaters and ticket sales, and TV networks pay the studio money to play their movies. Same thing with music. They get concert money and the radio pays them to be allowed to play their songs.
You may think that people will buy less games but that thought is wrong. Just look at Steam and the rise of digital services. With Internet connections getting faster and hard drives getting bigger, the convenience of buying a game 75% off. from your own home, is intoxicating. The rumors are Valve is making a machine that will be able to play their games on your TV and at home. Valve is likely to make this console and Microsoft, Sony, and hopefully Nintendo will follow.
It's about convenience and service. Why would I go through the effort of going to the store to buy a physical copy of a game for $60 when I can get it for 25% off on a Steam sale? Why preorder a game and stand in front of a store till midnight when I can just download it beforehand and play it at 12 on the dot in the comfort of my own home? And you take the convenience of digital services and combine them with, lets say, Xbox Live that also has other entertainment services and apps that Steam doesn't? It's no contest. So why not buy a PC, which does all that stuff already? Again, convenience and service. A big chunk of people don't know or don't wanna mess with having to upgrade their PCs or figure out how to attach it your living room TV. And consoles are a bit more portable than lugging around a big PC tower and keyboard and mouse. On vacations and going to a friend's house, I often bring my Xbox while the thought of even bring my PC doesn't even cross my mind.
Consoles aren't dying. They are switching to a digital service, which helps the developers by hurting the used game industry and is what the customers want.
Internet, Piracy, and PreordersThis is probably the most difficult topic to discuss. The other thing that has been hurting the gaming industry besides used games is piracy. But honestly, what the hell hasn't been affected by piracy? Music, movie, TV, games, comic books, the works! Why the hell should I get HBO to watch Game of Thrones when it shows up on bittorrent the next morning? A lot of developers and services require you to be logged in to the Internet to play a game, even when it is single player. All to combat piracy.
Here is the sad fact: you're never gonna stop piracy. It's like an ever changing virus that adapts to whatever has been trying to kill it. My theory is that the best way to combat piracy is to make something good enough that people will love it enough to pay for it. But I don't think "Let's make our games really good and engaging" is coming up as an idea in the Activision and EA studios.
And here is the bottom line: it will depend on the service, not the developer, on whether you need an Internet connection or not. Developers will have no need for "Enter online pass to play the game's multiplayer" or any of that junk when people have to buy the game digitally and not used. So it will fall on the digital service. Steam will continue with the constant Internet connection. Xbox Live and PSN requires an Internet connection to play arcade games but that could change. And is that such a bad thing? Every console will have built in wireless for convenience and just about every home is switching to wireless.
Preorders? Sorry, they ain't going anywhere. While their primary use was to combat the used market, they have become a way to hook you in to buying from their store. Preorder from Steam and get blah! No, preorder from Gamestop and get blah! Sorry guys, they ain't leaving.
Hardware and CreativityThere has always been a cycle when it comes to gaming. A console or technology comes out, it is out for a few years, a newer and better console comes out. 8bit to 16bit. 16bit to 32bit. 32bit to 3D, so on and so on. But we have recently seen a slow down of the technology in games. Back in the day, you had to upgrade a video card almost every year to play the most graphically demanding games smoothly. Now you can play Skyrim with a video card that is 2 years old, no problem. Recently, developers have been releasing tech demos for new engines, such as Unreal 4 or the Luminous Studio Engine. But this has taken quite some time to spring up. There are two reasons for this:
The first is the console market has had very little need to upgrade. Consoles make up a huge chunk, if not the majority, of the market of video gamers. With consoles so integrated with the Internet, you no longer have to build a whole new machine to the service and capabilities. Thus, the only reason to even build a new machine is to upgrade the hardware alone. And with developers wanting to get the most money for their games, they often adhere to consoles.
The other part is that the industry is imploding. The cost of making a high end game is becoming larger than what the industry will pay for it. And thus the risk is high. Don't get me wrong, the gaming industry is still growing but not that fast. It can take over 60 million dollars just to make one game!
As technology is continuously researched, it becomes better and cheaper. For everything. Does anyone remember what it cost to buy a 42in HDTV 5 years ago? Today, you can get a 42in HDTV that is BETTER than the one from 5 years ago and is half the price. The same thing is with gaming but the industry isn't growing fast enough to keep up. Thus, the cycle or upgrading will continue but it will be longer. Much longer. The standard 3-5 year cycle may be 10 years.
So what does this mean for the games? This has come up quite a bit, especially with the smartphone market throwing a curve ball at the gaming market. Angry Birds making millions of dollars for such a small game can do that. People left and right are thinking that these little $2.99 games are gonna take over the gaming market.
Wrong.
Games will go backwards, but in a good way. What will come forth is a gaming Renaissance. In many ways, we are already in the gaming Renaissance what with XBLA, PSN, and all the rise of Indie games coming out. Developers will have to stop relying on big graphics and huge production to be selling points with their games. Developers will do the cheaper option of
aesthetically enhancing their games through artistic and subjective means rather than the expensive pursuit of coming closer to reality. New ideas and creative gaming ideas will be REQUIRED to sell your game. You may think of it as the rise of the mid range game. Not the $2.99 or the $60, but the $15-$30.
The "hardcore" games will still be there, as well as the high end production games. Do you think Activision, EA, and Microsoft will quit with their hit franchises when they are making a butt load of cash off of Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo? They won't. And there will always be a market for those games because there is an audience for it. There will always be people who want those games. And the sequels will still continue to come out each and every year. But with a creative and cheaper (thus less risky) option with the mid range games, developers will finally get to make use of their creativity.
But there is one thing that people always predict, and they are always wrong: gaming won't die, it will only change.
Edit: Sep 06, 12 1:50pm
