No More Computer Games
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- mydo
"A few months ago, a producer at a major video-game company startled me by admitting that the economic viability of the triple-A video-game production cycle — the expensive development process, in other words, by which games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, and BioShock are unleashed upon the world — is in all likelihood doomed. Shortly after that, a developer told me he has a hard time imagining how single-player narrative video games are going to survive in the long run; such games, he believes, will eventually be seen as a historical anomaly. Neither man was particularly thrilled to imagine a future largely absent of the kinds of games he makes and most cares about, but current trends could not be ignored.
I told the developer that he sounded a bit like my fiction-writer friends going on about the inevitable death of the novel. “It takes one person to write a novel,” he told me. “To make the kinds of games we’re talking about, you need several dozen people — probably more like a hundred — with training across several fields. If the money’s not there, which is increasingly the case, the games can’t be made.”
The two most enjoyable console video games I have played in the past six months, Bulletstorm and Dead Space 2, underperformed commercially despite superlative reviews. (Not even the condemnation of Fox News, which asked if Bulletstorm was “the worst video game in the world,” could push that game into best-sellerdom.) Another game I loved, Shadows of the Damned, which was developed by Shinji Mikami and Suda 51, two of the most admired, influential, and eccentric minds in games today, moved something like 26,000 copies in its first month of release. Even recent “successes” like Portal 2 and L.A. Noire, which were reviewed everywhere, failed to sell as many copies as projected."
srsly? i'm going to have to play angry birds the rest of my life? I was hoping to spend my retirement playing GTA 14 VR
- dMullins0
I am not entirely sure I get the point of the post. Is it that first-person oriented games are doomed, while multiplayer-focused games will succeed? Or, is it that the production-quality of games is supposedly at risk?
- Peter0
Technical complexity and realistic graphics doesn't necessarily equal 'more fun'.
- mydo0
I disagree, since the first day i ever played a game i want the next game to have better graphics. And i'm not going to be satisfied until my in game graphics look like transformers 3.
- drgs0
I havent played games since I had first sex
- different kind of games now huh?honest
- I haven't played games since I first discovered drugs.lukus_W2
- why not do both at the same time?glitchsbrew
- lukus_W20
Death of the movie would be a better comparison.
I don't think movies are going anywhere.
- inteliboy0
Death of books. Death of Radio. iPod killer! iPhone killer!! Death of albums!!! Music videos!! TV. MOVIES! No more computer games!!
What the fuck are we going to do with ourselves?!
- detritus0
Thank God.
All the games that I've enjoyed over the past few years haven't come from the megabuck stable, which as far as I'm concerned only outputs CGI-intensive, adolescent-narrative, lowest-common denomonator tat.
Though perhaps you're simply referring to the console market... from everything I've been exposed to over the past few years, the PC market finally seems to be getting back to its roots... enabling indie production design through online sales channels (with, admittedly, more than a little seepage into the XBox marketplace, but not primarily).
Losing the megabucks merely means people have to focus on extracting the most fun from the newest technologies... which is exactly what's happening.. people are making the most of physics and dynamic graphic apis, as well as the increasing capacities of networks and multiplayer options, to create games that weren't even physically possible a few years ago.
Pathways for evolutionary success require hardship, require constraints and filter points. Gaming, from the gamer's perspective, will only improve.
The only people who stand to lose are those in the business of megabucking production houses (the money-sucking weasels who run EA, et al) and those Game-like experience Consumers who want the equivalent of the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster, in all its saccharine stupidity, blazing from their 64" LCD gogglebox.
- omg0
I despise all these latest video games that have come out in recent years. They games are all cookie cut from the same game I played 20 years ago, but with better graphics.
- clearThoughts0
nah bro... music, games, books or films aren't going anywhere...
Maybe the industry will die, but humans will still play and listen to music, play games, watch films and listen to games...
- CygnusZero40
Whoever told you that is an idiot. GTA4 took like 3-4 years to build and cost many of millions of dollars, and guess what, it had epic sales and they made a massive profit on it.
They have probably been working on the new GTA for over 2 years, maybe even 3 years now and havent even announced it yet. And when it comes out it will make them a huge mountain of money. These kinds of big time games arent going anywhere. The videogame industry generates more money than music and movies, partly due to how expensive everything is of course, but it's ridiculously popular.
- cruddlebub0
im not allowed to play the ps3....well, not when she's around.
- ephix0
doesnt gta make more money than most films or someshit?
- It's often said, but how much is a game vs a cinema ticket? Not necessarily more popular.MrT
- If a $60 game sells 15 million copies, then yeah, you do the math. Big AAA games arent going anywhere.CygnusZero4
- MrT0
@mydo - any idea which games those people have worked on?
I'm not that bothered if we lose the pile of facsimiles that follow in the wake of a great, successful game (GTA, Halo, Uncharted, Gears, LBP, etc etc). There's plenty going on between the AAA blockbuster releases and Angry Birds on your iPhone.
@omg - you can't possibly have played them all! I'm totally with you that too many games are little more than Michael-Bay-with-buttons but there are also plenty of gems.
There's also the idea that gaming has never been healthier; the number of more accessible platforms beyond the big consoles; alternative delivery methods to boxed media (web, Steam, App stores); the growth of social and online gaming; free-to-play; micro transactions and episodic games; the new Wii U alone brings interesting possibilities.
It might mean less of a certain type of game but surely there is momentum in other areas to suggest a less-than-bleak future.
- sticklebrick0
I've been in the industry for nearly ten years as an artist and from what I can see this is true, only a handful of devs can afford the wage bills to create a competetive AA title. Then you have the marketing costs to push your game into the charts. It's a seriously expensive and competitive marketplace.
Our studio has just been closed down, some 140 people out of jobs over the last few months.
The industry has changed and the IOS platforms are now the cashcows, This is an exciting timethough, you can now create a game with a handful of people from a single room, the age of the start up is upon us once again and it's a great thing.
- CygnusZero40
^ Very true, but it sounded like he thought the big AAA level games would go away, and that's just not happening. If anyone think they are ever going to stop making GTA games, they are nuts. Same thing with Mario, Metal Gear, Madden, Gran Turismo, Zelda, final Fantasy, and all those other games that sell millions by default. They will always turn a profit, so they will just keep being made.
- jon_d0
most of those narrative games suck.
- jon_d0
Videogames are trying to be movies but dont know how to be movies and fail.
Meanwhile, movies are trying to be videogames.
Fail all around.
- Despite what I said above..
http://www.youtube.c…detritus
- Despite what I said above..
- ETM0
They make big budget movies using hundreds of people and millions of dollars that bust all the time. Then they have a few that make a fortune that help balance the books. Gaming is much the same. We've even seen the hierarchy of the game industry start to mirror the movie industry. Despite the constant wailing that the movie industry is dying or that piracy is killing them, they still manage record profits year over year. I am not concerned.