A Second '83 Style Video Game Crash: Would it, could it, what ifs, and whys...

[WokiBakoki]

A lot more bad news than good in recent years. Bangers happen sure, I'm playing Ys X right now via the enhanced version released this year and it's amazing so far! Buuut, generally the industry is in some hot water. Probably not financially but certainly surrounded by hate.

Makes you think, could the big one happen? The gamer apocalypse, a crash not unlike the first in the Atari days. Totally different and much larger business nowadays so, I'm aware it's almost impossible. But even if everyone collectively stopped buying new games and stuck to emulation or quit for good. It probably wouldn't last very long before the "gaming is back" propaganda reeled casuals right back in. Still, all you ever hear is "vote with your wallet" and "don't let these greedy execs ruin x franchise". What if everyone just did that? All at once. Even just in the console market?

Here's the post to discuss all things theoretical market crash. Would it kick companies asses into shape like we wish it would? Or would it just mean no one gets any games for a few years? Do a few hold outs rule the now way smaller market? Are the sensabilities of what makes a video game replaced as they reinvent the wheel to resurrect the industy? All this and more...

 

[Dr.Kisaragi Dr.Kisaragi]

I think the triple A will crash and the indie studio will be the new double A standard videos games they will kill the old heads to the new kids.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

it's inevitable, but indies will take over. It'll be stuff we mention to each other and pass along. Nothing but recommendations and personal discoveries. Then maybe some of them will hit it big and become popular like games used to back then. But then that runs the risk of becoming too corporate. But the real ones will sell. :)

 

[Mr. SyS]

I've been beating this drum for 15 years. Not happening but with the dystopian direction the industry is going I wish it would.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

I've been beating this drum for 15 years. Not happening but with the dystopian direction the industry is going I wish it would.

1,000 dollars for consoles, 100 dollars per game, lack of content, tons of paid DLC, paying for online gaming on top of paying internet bills and it's all getting more expensive. Tariffs, oil prices driving shipping up, parts to make the consoles costing more to develop, it's all because of greed.

 

[Tonberry]

Some sort of major shift is probably going to happen, but I'm not sure it'll be the kind of massive paradigm shift people wish for, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought it'd happen for the last near-decade, too.

Then again, it very well couldn't. The video game industry are a bunch of separate software and hardware industries and markets lumped together under one umbrella term, what would affect AAA production might likely not affect indies in the same way, etc.
But we all as consumers usually suffer for whatever happens, of course

 

[BrawlMan]

We are already in a slow industry crash. When the big crash eventually does happen there are many indie studios that will suffer or even smaller studios. The big guys, leaving for whatever reason or ditching for something else does hurt the smaller guys and gals.

1,000 dollars for consoles, 100 dollars per game, lack of content, tons of paid DLC, paying for online gaming on top of paying internet bills and it's all getting more expensive. Tariffs, oil prices driving shipping up, parts to make the consoles costing more to develop, it's all because of greed.

This is why you never put a bitch in a box stand in charge. They only care about themselves and no one else.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

Meanwhile most indie games cost between 5-20 dollars per game and they're usually better.

 

[Morgan Katarn]

the industry is WAY WAY WAY to large for it to happen. It is even large than the movie industry and I think even the pron industry today. For a crash to happen today they would need to bleed money like hell. I mean they need to keep making Concord or Failguard quality of games for that to happen. But even so if the so called AAA industry crashes and burns it would just inflame the Indy scene which I think would be great.

I said it once and I say it a million times more AAA industry needs to die EA, Nintendo, Sony, Xbox, Ubitards ect they all need to go under and die. It would help us gamer immensely but also it would also help video game preservation if the big shots died because then they could not grease their way out of it.

But yeah it will never happen because stupid game supports all these criminals and defends them so much like they getting free shit of they keep sucking on the company D.

We don´t need a crash we just need to clean out the old evil trash and get in some new less criminal companies that probably turn evil ones they become big enough.

We need fresh meat not old and rotten to the core.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

the industry is WAY WAY WAY to large for it to happen. It is even large than the movie industry and I think even the pron industry today. For a crash to happen today they would need to bleed money like hell. I mean they need to keep making Concord or Failguard quality of games for that to happen. But even so if the so called AAA industry crashes and burns it would just inflame the Indy scene which I think would be great.

I said it once and I say it a million times more AAA industry needs to die EA, Nintendo, Sony, Xbox, Ubitards ect they all need to go under and die. It would help us gamer immensely but also it would also help video game preservation if the big shots died because then they could not grease their way out of it.

But yeah it will never happen because stupid game supports all these criminals and defends them so much like they getting free shit of they keep sucking on the company D.

We don´t need a crash we just need to clean out the old evil trash and get in some new less criminal companies that probably turn evil ones they become big enough.

We need fresh meat not old and rotten to the core.

the pron industry is overrun with AI bot farms.

 

[Aldia Aldia]

Component prices have gone up.
Console prices have gone up.
AAA game prices have been artificially increased.
Subscription prices are at an all-time high.

I'd say it's possible.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

It would be disastrous and leave a lot of people without a job in an economy that would eat them alive, but I think it's ultimately necessary for the common good.

The gaming industry, as it is right now, is little more than a bright-colored testing ground for evaluating how much abuse users can take before they move those same practices over to more important stuff. The very foundations are well beyond repair and could use a second cleansing by fire.

 

[BrawlMan]

Meanwhile most indie games cost between 5-20 dollars per game and they're usually better.

Rushing Beat X ain't exactly an indie game, but it's basically a 2008 XBLA game at a price of $20 digital. The physical versions that come out this week are $44 on PS5 and $54 on Switch 2 respectively. I had more fun with this game at a cheap price any major large game. The game is jank and has its issues, but there is clearly a lot of hard put into it, and the people making this game are mega fans of the franchise and of Jaleco's games as a whole. You can't replicate that love with Gen AI garbage.

 

[Sumea]

Yeah. There likely will not be a crash. The first crash, that again, is also located entirely in USA, almost entirely around Atari VCS/2600 and it's competition in crossfire, and not experienced by other regions mostly thanks to lesser popularity of the Atari platform, is not going to repeat likely in same way in major way.

The American Atari Crash, which would be more apt to call it, was pushed by price versus quality of games versus the waning novelty of the platform itself. Atari made a lot of bucks by a lot of people casually buying the thing in America. But I feel like, that I am not likely alone, that even people in early 80's felt what I felt: That the games were mostly a toy like thing. Most not a type of thing to get that invested in. No story, no levels. All simple arcade stuff, and way simple, versus the prices the ROM cartridges fetched. Add on top of that the 3rd parties getting in and doing whatever causing trust in your purchase to not exist, and the Atari crashed. E.T. was not a reason, it was a symptom. It was the bell consumers and audience rang towards Atari. It was all the crap before that one. So, Atari 2600 crashes in US, and with it, the biggest slice of the industry at that point. I do not like to shit on needlessly on Atari but if I would in my hubris to go and guess, the simplicity of the platform was already a death knell for any long life it could have. You throw in NES from Japan with MMC cartridges almost the same year as the US launch with much bigger games, RPG's, and so on and you are creating people truly invested in games. People who do not see it as a toy only but something more. These are aspects missing from these days where we have had generations of technological progress, and game design.

Right now, for lack of better term, gamers, people who are actually invested as a hobby towards video games have been dismayed by the industry's many misgivings, laughing at the many failures. But those have not yet been enough to cause much against the big studios behind them. Sony Computer Entertainment is doing fine. They own the most popular console platform, still. Nintendo is doing better than ever since launching switch. Microsoft might exit the console race but not gaming entirely, likely giving their own pushes against towards PC and Windows as gaming platform and a publisher and owner of many big titles. The vast majority of the audience is types of people we never even talk to. Normal friday beer type of boys and girls that own a PS4 because it has NHL or NBA, Fortnite they casually play with their friends, but it is not something that significant to them. They like it, but they likely would live without it. These just are the majority of the business. Families etc. There is strong, in my estimation with source being I made it the fuck up, third of the business that is hardcore gamers, and loosing them is a lot, but not all of it. But think what I just said about the gamers you do not even associate with casually and the headlines about the man who had used 10k£ in FIFA and guess which side of gaming that guy likely was in.

Now. There is maybe crashes within the industry. Some bombs may go off and wipe some cities. But the nation that is the industry is not gonna be wiped out, as many said, it is just bit too big for that to realistically happen. Ubisoft has misfired enough to cause them a possible upcoming demise, which in this industry still means a buyout and existence in some zombie manner, maybe IP's sold out etc. Microsoft seems to be at least course adjusting their approach towards console market. Games will be made like Concord and crash in weeks and Sony just has money to say no to it and adjust away from live service, or future of live service gets adjusted in major ways. This has happened before without killing anything major in the industry. The boom of World of Warcraft followed by all the investment and tries to make the next World of Warcraft only for the dozens to be dead and forgotten while World of Warcraft still exists. To some, dead, but not to all.

The economic downturn will be hitting games. Cheap gaming will make a come back, as that was the norm from the beginning in UK where you paid 2-15£ for a game on cassette for your amstrad or sinclaire. But the forces needed to replicate the American Atari Crash are not here today.

 

[SpcDaicon]

Not a crash but maybe a deceleration of the AAA and console markets in the coming years.

The AAA market got too overblown over the years with investors pouring ludicrous amonts of cash on projects with insane deadlines and even more insane profit goals.

Consoles now are just glorified PCs and have reached a techinological ceiling. Every passing generation techinologic gets less and less impressive and tends towards homogenization. Do we really see a big difference between, say, PS4 and PS5? Or even between Xbox and PS? No.

Gaming as a whole won't be affected but console and AAA industries should embrace for impact.

Yeah. There likely will not be a crash. The first crash, that again, is also located entirely in USA, almost entirely around Atari VCS/2600 and it's competition in crossfire, and not experienced by other regions mostly thanks to lesser popularity of the Atari platform, is not going to repeat likely in same way in major way.

THIS. Americans like to overblow the importance of the "Video Game Crash". US aside, other regions were mostly unaffected by Atari crashing the US market.

It would be disastrous and leave a lot of people without a job in an economy that would eat them alive, but I think it's ultimately necessary for the common good.

The gaming industry is already leaving people without jobs regardless. Game didn't perform very well and gave 100000% profit day 1? Layoffs. Game performed well? Layoffs. I wouldn't advise someone to try to get in a market like this

the industry is WAY WAY WAY to large for it to happen. It is even large than the movie industry and I think even the pron industry today. For a crash to happen today they would need to bleed money like hell.

Banks were once "too big to fail" and look what 2008 did to them. Their luck was the government baling them out with taxpayers money, something I think wouldn't happen for the gaming industry.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

The gaming industry is already leaving people without jobs regardless. Game didn't perform very well and gave 100000% profit day 1? Layoffs. Game performed well? Layoffs. I wouldn't advise someone to try to get in a market like this

Very true.

The 'dream' is long dead.

 

[BrawlMan]

The gaming industry is already leaving people without jobs regardless. Game didn't perform very well and gave 100000% profit day 1? Layoffs. Game performed well? Layoffs. I wouldn't advise someone to try to get in a market like this

Very true.

The 'dream' is long dead.

A New Survey Shows How Video Game Developers Are Looking to Leave the Industry Because of its Instability and Mass Layoffs

A new survey shows that close to half of respondents are looking to leave the video game industry because of mass layoffs.

wccftech.com

 

[WokiBakoki]

Lotta great info and opinions here. I never considered the OG crash was an American exclusive fall. The Japanese and Europeans to a lesser extent are way more open to experimental and wacky ideas for fun. Especially in video game form. That's a great thing, I wish Americans were less... Boring XD

Anyways, yeah I think the AAA business has to face an intense fall-off eventually. No one can afford the hardware or software at this pace. I don't know why they're even thinking about PS6 yet because I still feel like the current gen didn't even really happen. With dwindling trust in Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo pushing there luck. The big shift to PC is only gonna keep picking up steam (no pun intended). I, and I think pretty much everyone else agrees that the big corps should just play it safe and make smaller games for the systems that are already out there. Then when (hopefully) the AI chaos dies down they can make the next big console with the beefiest stats they need.

Even still, all it can ever be is the same handful of mass-appeal games with higher resolutions. No matter what way you slice it, it's not looking good for the future of AAA. As for everything under it. I don't know, I don't think I can agree with the indie hype. The few 9/10 indie hits are released and stand tall on a gigantic mountain of 3-6/10 samey crap. It's either dime a dozen 2D pixel art game, or a somewhat original idea, and it's a gimmick that gets old after just and hour or two. Indies are just gonna have to... well, do better if they ever want the A/AA revolution people have been promising for 10 years.

 

[Kovlak]

The crash is happening with the industry downsizing. They're trying to whip AI into shape to take up jobs and make game development cheaper, but it doesn't seem to be as useful as they want it to be and the public doesn't like it.

 

[BrawlMan]

Indies are just gonna have to... well, do better if they ever want the A/AA revolution people have been promising for 10 years.

They already have. Not every single indie, but more than enough, put in more effort and thought into their games than a majority of the AAA companies for more than a decade at this point.

Sturgeon's law does apply to indie and AA games as well. They are not immune to it either.

 

[Neb Lleb]

Um... It's already here.

 

[WokiBakoki]

The crash is happening with the industry downsizing. They're trying to whip AI into shape to take up jobs and make game development cheaper, but it doesn't seem to be as useful as they want it to be and the public doesn't like it.

If we're very lucky. GTA6 will be the last hurrah for AAA games and these larger than life projects. Surely no one will throw billions at trying to top it once it comes out. If it sucks, even better. That'll shatter even the most indifferent of general audiences and bring about some major downsizing. I'm sure it'll be good enough, but oooh if it was a full on disaster. That would surely be the cinder block that breaks the camels back. I don't have anything powerful enough to play it, and have a strict no more buying new games rule after TOTK. So I'm really excited to sit back and see what happens with that.

 

[shaggi]

I think video game crash is inevitable. Companies abuse users more and more. Human patience isn't endless and it must snap at some point.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

I think video game crash is inevitable. Companies abuse users more and more. Human patience isn't endless and it must snap at some point.

like "Paper Mario" and "Luigi"

 

[BrawlMan]