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It's been a while since I made a topic here, so I thought I would air out some of the thoughts on the gaming industry I've had and collected over the past year.
First, some background. I love gaming. I used Lego blocks as controllers when I was 2, so I started early and was around for most of the creative renaissance in the medium that started in the 16 bit era, matured in the 32/64 bit era, and perfected in the 128 bit era. Mostly looking at the big blockbuster AAA titles, I cant help but feel familiarity for an era I was never around to experience first hand. The crash of 1983 was a dark time in gaming and much of what I know about it comes mostly from second hand research due to not being alive then. I'm noticing a pattern in recent history especially in the AAA sector of the industry that seems scarily familiar to what happened in the lead up to the 1983 crash. Oversaturation of rushed, often incomplete games, more and more desperate business and monetization practices all give me the feeling that history is repeating itself. The famous quote "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" comes to mind.
First Let's compare and contrast what's happening now with what happened in 1983.
Similarities:
A hypothetical crash would only affect a specific segment of the market (i.e. the AAA industry being affected today vs the console gaming industry in 1983)
The crash did not kill gaming, merely restructured it, for the better, imo
Both eras involved a general oversaturation of the market mostly with games
Other sectors such as PC gaming remained for the most part unaffected
The crash was mostly regional, only affecting North America/the West in general
Nintendo will remain strong throughout the crash
Differences:
The 1983 crash also involved an oversaturation of consoles, something the current era does not have
Gaming was younger, smaller, and more niche in 1983 compared to today
The crash will likely not be as dramatic or catastrophic as 1983
Europe and most of the west in general will be affected as opposed to just North America in 1983
Now that that's been established here what I see happening now, and how it could determine what may happen in the future. E.T. is often, maybe jokingly cited as the sole cause of the 1983 crash, Fallout 76 seems to mirror E.T. in many ways. It was a rushed game that clearly needed more time in the oven so to speak and was not ready for release when it came out and it does not seem up to the usual quality of Bethesda's games. we're seeing general franchise fatigue for many long running franchises, innovation seems stagnant when it seems like every AAA game is just Assassin's Creed 19, CoD 19, or Battlefield 19. We live in strange times when the only thing differentiating free to play mobile games from $60 AAA games is the price tag. Not every AAA game is bad, Sony can still put out quality first party exclusives like God of War and Spiderman PS4 and those games show that all you need to do be not only fun, but profitable is simply make the best game possible. Sadly, in the AAA market those games are the exception rather than the norm.
The general disappointment with AAA offerings is why Nintendo first party titles, retro, AA, indie, and niche Japanese games are performing so strongly, so it's not all bad. AA and indie devs are working with smaller, more modest budgets and showing how much more you can do with less. So it's not all gloom and doom and we do have more options than ever before today. Still when it comes to AAA, things need to change, as the current model is unsustainable long term.
A hypothetical crash of 20XX would only affect AAA and would likely not kill most if any of the big companies as gaming at this point as a whole is far too big to die. We won't see giants like EA Activision-Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and Bethesda going belly up. What we will see however is a massive restructuring within these companies that mostly involves replacing the businessmen that rule that these companies with passionate gamers as AA and indie games remain strong in the meantime. Even if there are enough big spending whales to keep AAA live services going for another 5-10 years, perhaps this restructuring could return gaming back to the days where when you bought a game, you got everything at launch and it worked, and anything extra was earned only through gameplay and if you wanted more than that, you paid for expansion packs. We could see the birth of a second golden age post AAA crash.
So what do you think? do you think history is repeating itself? or are you enjoying gaming, AAA included now just as much as you did back in the day?
First, some background. I love gaming. I used Lego blocks as controllers when I was 2, so I started early and was around for most of the creative renaissance in the medium that started in the 16 bit era, matured in the 32/64 bit era, and perfected in the 128 bit era. Mostly looking at the big blockbuster AAA titles, I cant help but feel familiarity for an era I was never around to experience first hand. The crash of 1983 was a dark time in gaming and much of what I know about it comes mostly from second hand research due to not being alive then. I'm noticing a pattern in recent history especially in the AAA sector of the industry that seems scarily familiar to what happened in the lead up to the 1983 crash. Oversaturation of rushed, often incomplete games, more and more desperate business and monetization practices all give me the feeling that history is repeating itself. The famous quote "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" comes to mind.
First Let's compare and contrast what's happening now with what happened in 1983.
Similarities:
A hypothetical crash would only affect a specific segment of the market (i.e. the AAA industry being affected today vs the console gaming industry in 1983)
The crash did not kill gaming, merely restructured it, for the better, imo
Both eras involved a general oversaturation of the market mostly with games
Other sectors such as PC gaming remained for the most part unaffected
The crash was mostly regional, only affecting North America/the West in general
Nintendo will remain strong throughout the crash
Differences:
The 1983 crash also involved an oversaturation of consoles, something the current era does not have
Gaming was younger, smaller, and more niche in 1983 compared to today
The crash will likely not be as dramatic or catastrophic as 1983
Europe and most of the west in general will be affected as opposed to just North America in 1983
Now that that's been established here what I see happening now, and how it could determine what may happen in the future. E.T. is often, maybe jokingly cited as the sole cause of the 1983 crash, Fallout 76 seems to mirror E.T. in many ways. It was a rushed game that clearly needed more time in the oven so to speak and was not ready for release when it came out and it does not seem up to the usual quality of Bethesda's games. we're seeing general franchise fatigue for many long running franchises, innovation seems stagnant when it seems like every AAA game is just Assassin's Creed 19, CoD 19, or Battlefield 19. We live in strange times when the only thing differentiating free to play mobile games from $60 AAA games is the price tag. Not every AAA game is bad, Sony can still put out quality first party exclusives like God of War and Spiderman PS4 and those games show that all you need to do be not only fun, but profitable is simply make the best game possible. Sadly, in the AAA market those games are the exception rather than the norm.
The general disappointment with AAA offerings is why Nintendo first party titles, retro, AA, indie, and niche Japanese games are performing so strongly, so it's not all bad. AA and indie devs are working with smaller, more modest budgets and showing how much more you can do with less. So it's not all gloom and doom and we do have more options than ever before today. Still when it comes to AAA, things need to change, as the current model is unsustainable long term.
A hypothetical crash of 20XX would only affect AAA and would likely not kill most if any of the big companies as gaming at this point as a whole is far too big to die. We won't see giants like EA Activision-Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and Bethesda going belly up. What we will see however is a massive restructuring within these companies that mostly involves replacing the businessmen that rule that these companies with passionate gamers as AA and indie games remain strong in the meantime. Even if there are enough big spending whales to keep AAA live services going for another 5-10 years, perhaps this restructuring could return gaming back to the days where when you bought a game, you got everything at launch and it worked, and anything extra was earned only through gameplay and if you wanted more than that, you paid for expansion packs. We could see the birth of a second golden age post AAA crash.
So what do you think? do you think history is repeating itself? or are you enjoying gaming, AAA included now just as much as you did back in the day?