The story repeats itself

[Armagon]

The gaming industry had a crash once. It was the 80's and Atari ruled. After the success of arcades in the 70's, the ability to play various games on your own television created a whole new experience for everyone. That experience was also a whole new opportunity for software companies and investors.

Developing games for Atari was cheap and everyone wanted a piece of such successful and lucrative market. A programmer could finish a game alone in a few weeks, and companies really didn't care if the game was good or not, as long as it was released. In 1983, the industry reached it's limit, flooded by crappy games like E.T., The A Team and Journey Escape, and crashed. Until 1986, with the release of NES and Nintendo's marketing strategies, no one cared about videogames.

So, guys, doesn't that story seem pretty similar to what we see today? Pretty much anyone can make a game. From tools like RPG Maker and Game Maker, to others like TGB, Construct, Unity and others, everyone has technical ability to create a game. You don't need to be a AAA programmer to finish a game, you just need an idea and the guts to learn any technical mumbo-jumbo that is required to finish your idea.

It's not only cheap to develop a game, it's also very easy to publish. But, if an individual can develop and publish his own games with much less money and efforts involved, then you can imagine why we have so many independent studios popping up everywhere.

We are at a time where we can do almost anything from our homes with the aid of computers and the internet. Music, movies, books, games, animation... we have completely eliminated the middle-man when it comes to developing and publishing our work. This is amazing, but unfortunately, i don't think the game industry benefits from this. Why? Unfortunately, we don't see good games as a result of this. We see a lot of crappy games, with a few good ones lost in the middle of the buzz.

Just look at the Apple Store. There are a lot of terrible games there, just like there were lot's and lot's of terrible games in the stores in the 80's. We are losing ourselves in the middle of the trash.

And, to make things worse, this is not a problem only with the indies, the mainstream industry has it's share. Big publishers like Activision (that fucked up once in the Atari age) and EA Games, are getting more and more crappy games published as gold. The difference is that people trust big publishers, and once they get crap results from them, the danger of a second game industry crash is much bigger.

[Tempest]

Quality control is in the hands of the gamers. If they refuse to buy low-quality games, than developers will stop putting out low-quality games. Hobbyists and small studios may not be able to match the AAA quality of large studios, but there is no reason for a small studio polished game (Tumbledrop, Puzzlebloom, etc).

Before this indie boom, there were other studios, larger studios, which put out low quality games. There has always been a high and lower quality of games in the stores. There may be more overall games now, and probably more low quality games than better ones, but that would be because the ratio to very professional developers to not-quite AAA quality developers also increases.

I don't think this is a bad thing. I don't think the industry is going harm to itself by having low quality games in it. It's part of it. No industry is expected to consistently put out top quality products. There has to be a range, and the consumers will control which studios continue on, and which studios do not.

[n0mad]

Yep, 80's crash can reborn at anytime, I started to feel that since January.
But it depends on the platform ... Appstore for sure is actually living it.

But for console games, they are so expensive to make that not anyone can produce one. This can in some way stop the crash gates to open.

edit : Hey you're my 1000th post ! Which makes you win .... wait for it ... eeer, well I have no idea. Sorry.

[Armagon]

That's not exactly true, n0mad. Look at WiiWare and Xbox Live Marketplace. How many good games you have there? And how many crappy games? Look at the retail Wii games... more crappy games. Once you have affordable development/publishing options, you have crappy games. This is pure danger, that's what happened with Atari: everyone could develop and sell games, having nothing but money on mind.

This is happening not only in the AppStore, but everywhere in today's industry. Wii Retail, WiiWare, Xbox Live and specially PC gaming. With the casual gaming boom, there are thousands of games that try to squeeze more money out of it. Therefore, we get clones, variations of the same thing, even games that only differ in graphics.

That's exactly what happened in the 80s. If one Atari game had success, we immediately had at least 10 clones. If one genre had a success, we had more and more games that were just theme variations. I remember playing an Space Invaders clone that you were a mouth and had to destroy food. It's not very different from what you get today.

Tempest, regarding your comment... customer quality control is where the crash lies hidden. If people stop buying the games, you will have an industry with serious problems. Studios that develop good games rely on publishers, that also publish shitty games, to sell their games and reach the audience. If people don't buy shitty games, publishers will be in trouble, and everyone will be in trouble.

The crash in 1983 happened because everyone was upset with crappy games. They stopped buying games, including the good ones. How you will know if the game is actually good, coming from the same publisher that sold you that last nightmare? Hardcore gamers, of course, will know. But the market does not rely on hardcore gamers, and you all know that.

[dreamora]

The main difference to back then is

1. The global market. With the spreading of the internet, many things changed.

2. The market is not ruled by one or two devices anymore, so the complete oversaturation has to reach a critical mass on a significantly higher amount of platforms.
For it to crash it bascially has to reach it on PC, Wii, X360, PS3, NDS, iPhone, webgames and PC casual, which thanks to the limitless possibilities of the internet is just near impossible to happen especially as the market still expands.

3. The shear amount of potential players and the massive spread of all the different devices is just in a range thats nowhere comparable. Back at the crash days, gaming was a geek / niche thing, now it kinds of crystalizes that not having some kind of a "game usable" device becomes a niche / geek thing.


That beeing said: A crash that would take the AA+ crap cannons out of business would be a very refreshing thing for the market.

[n0mad]

"The Indie scene killed the Videogame star"

[Armagon]

dreamora, i believe that a market based on multiple platforms will make things worse. If people stop purchasing games because they are not happy with them, they won't stop playing games. Instead, they will rely on alternatives that won't hurt their pocket. That means webgames (specially webgames, since i'm talking about the general market, not hardcore gamers) and free games.

If you don't want to pay for Plants vs. Zombies, because you don't trust in the industry anymore, you can find a free clone pretty much in any flash gaming site. It's faster, easier and cheaper. That's what really means for the end user. Few people worry about quality, specially when the very own game publishers sold them crappy games.

In the 80s, the game industry was not geeky. It was a casual, strong and massive market. Everyone played Atari with their children and you could find Atari cartridges anywhere. Gaming started to be geeky with Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and so on, after the crash. In fact, we could discuss that the crash created the hardcore gamers, since it scared casual players until the release of NES.


PS.: Remember the Space Invaders clone i mentioned earlier? Well, i got that from my DENTIST as an EDUCATIONAL ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN for kids. That's how strong Atari was, and the casual gaming market, back then.

[Tempest]

I find it difficult that a majority of gamers would lose faith in the entire market, all publishers, all developers. You might have a few people disappointed with a game, or even a string of games, but I don't see anything saying that people are rejecting gaming.

There is article after article about record numbers of money spent in this industry and people playing games. Gaming might have been popular in the 80s, but it is even more saturated now, in demographics that weren't before populated with gamers.

I think we're moving away from a publisher-dominated industry. You don't have to feel betrayed if a publisher who previously sold you a great game, now sells you a not-so-great game.

Instead, we now have many more studios you can choose from. With blogs, twitter and podcasts you can now know more about the developers and their philosophies/theories/beliefs, which will make your purchasing their game much more personal. Knowing who is behind 2D Boy, or Flashbang Studios development/work schedule, etc makes a big difference. More people are putting out games without publishers.

Even if there is a saturation of not-so-good games, I don't think it's going to have some huge crash. I think maybe we'll cut down on these multi-million dollar games, which end up being more of a gamble that threaten the industry more than anything. Huge projects which fail cost hundreds of jobs. A hundred smaller projects which don't have so much risk means more games of a smaller size (for a lesser price, too) which can still end up being high quality and polished productions.

[Mangopork]

A Crash is unlikely.

Steam, Wii, and Xbox Live Arcade, while indie-friendly, have strict quality controls.

They won't take just any game.

The industry was much smaller in the 80's.

Now? $30 billion. Enormous. And with multiple platforms.

Every cell phone can play games.

For the industry to crash again you'd have to tank several massive conglomerate-sized companies all at once, each with their own finely tuned distribution platforms AND hardware.

Not going to happen.

Still, gamers will eventually get fatigued from a lack of innovation and stop buying trite games (save for sports or tactical shooters, perhaps).

With so many choices, quality will stand out more than ever.

[Chaotic Heart]

I agree with most everyone else. A crash, at this point, is highly unlikely. Yes, the industry crashed hard in the 80's, but a LOT of things are different now than they were in the 80's.

1. Back before the crash, games were pretty popular. Not nearly as popular as they are now, though. You have to remember, back then you only had a handful of places games even popped up. Arcades, and a few home machines. That was it. Now, you find games in almost every facet of life. Every year, it seems some new market for games opens up and explodes. Now, people play them at home on consoles, on PC, on the web, on their cellphones, on portable devices of a million different varieties, at the occasional arcade, at lan centers, and even at the occasional restaurant. Back then, it was an interesting hobby. Now, it is literally a part of life. It is easy to drop a hobby. Separating a facet of life is a thousand times more difficult. If you doubt me, just remember something... despite how many new places games pop up, the old places never really lose popularity. Just because I can play games on my iPhone now, definitely does not stop me from getting the newest PS3 title and enjoying it. It is all just a part of life, these days.

2. Crappy games were part of the collapse back then. Not knowing which games were crappy and which were not was the real problem. These days, most people know the quality of a game before it is even released. You could walk down the street and ask a random person what the general reaction was to Dragon Age, and probably 80% of the people will be able to give you an accurate answer. Same thing if you ask their opinion of "Haze". The Internet Age really has changed the whole game for a TON of industries.

3. Another reason the industry crashed was because it became a "geeky" thing to do. This was not necessarily a reaction to bad games... it was more due to outside attacks. Bad movies portraying it as the hobby of basement-dwelling social lepers, high-profile stars looking down on it, etc. These days, if you are a star and you even remotely hint you are not clued in to the "digital age", YOU become the leper.

4. Stagnation. Clones did become a large problem back then. It was almost impossible to truly find a new and interesting experience. While you say such a cross-section of platforms to publish on is a bad thing, I say it is actually one of the things that will save the industry. With so many places to publish, and so many people publishing, there is ALWAYS something at least a little different than what you are used to. I do not foresee, for a very long time, there ever coming a point where people become bored due to the extreme repetition in games. It sort of happens now, but not anything like it did back then. Back then if you got tired of all the repetitive Atari games... well... too damned bad. Those were your only choices. Become bored of all the FPS coming out on Xbox? Well, play a few Wii games. Get tired of the Wii gimmicky games? Switch to a few indie "artsy" games. Etc. Always something new and different on the horizon, these days.

The industry is not going to crash. It has too much momentum and, more importantly, has learned to evolve. It will definitely change, and any not able to change with it will fall to the wayside. It will never "crash" again, though. It is too much a part of our lives.

The only thing that will ever cause us to shake games is if we, one day, become sick of all the fantasy and escapism of games... and go back to reality. That, of course, will not happen until 2012 when the robots enslave us using CoD: Modern Warfare 4.

[Mangopork]

Also, I foresee the advancement of development tools significantly reducing the cost and risk of creating games.

Unity being at once a substantial and obvious example of this, as well.

[blender 3D user]

I dont see it as a crash,i see it as a inprovement.

Yes,there are a lot of bad games bieng made and any one can make,but that isnt bad.All these bad games are bieng made because people are trying new ideas and thinking bold,but if we didnt think bold,we might not have halo 3,cod series,trails HD.

If we didnt think bold,and just stuck to the same ideas,we would have the same games,boring games,That would cause a crash.Write now is the the industries best.We have the wii with motion controllers,that was a bold idea that people could have hated but it turned out good,You have to take chances sometimes.

I also think its good that any one can make games,some of these people might grow up and become great game designers.There also always adding all kinds of ideas to the game industry.They might come up with bad ideas but maybe thell come up with the next best game.

This isnt a crash,if any thing,it a huge inprovement.

My opinion though.