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

[Lee__Kanker]

I recently found out about https://gaminglayoffs.com/ hehe

I like how the industry became so unlikeable I'm not the only one cheering for its demise. It looks reeally bloated isnt it? Maybe a good crash will forces studios to stop making 80-120 milion dollar slop. Id like games that are more unique, and made in a cheaper manner so they can be more experimental

Id love if I could go back to a time where capcom's new release was Viewtiful Joe, an industry where a game like Haunting Ground could exist, where Devil May Cry demanding you get the basics of the game or you cant get past phantom wasnt unthinkablw bad level design/only for dark soul clones

And Id love a brutal stop to remakeslop and nostalgiabaiting :P

And narrative consulting firms and DEI to crash and burn while we're at it

 

[JustLooking456]

Oh, don't mind me guys, just dropping in.

 

[Deleted member 913503]

Oh, don't mind me guys, just dropping in.

i don't get it.

 

[Don Patch]

I'll raise you one more and say we're in the middle of it already and it's due time it became a niche medium for weirdos again, lol.

Realistically, it's three/four different industries that label themselves "video games" and they al lseem to be in flux.

 

[JustLooking456]

Despite everything, I still like Nintendo. And SEGA, and Square Enix, and Capcom, and Konami.

But I don't love em.

 

[Princess Viola]

I legitimately do not believe there will be a second crash. Even putting aside how the 1983 crash was just in the US (and Canada to a lesser extent) the industry nowadays is just too damn large to crash again, especially on the level of the 1983 crash.

Y'all gotta remember - the '83 crash resulted in revenue from the sale of video games dropping something like 97% in two years. That's a massive drop and nowadays the game industry is far too large and spread out for something like that to happen again. It'd be like asking if you think the movie industry or the music industry will collapse. Only way something like that could happen again is if the entire economy collapsed which I mean if that were to happen, we'd have bigger issues than 'the game industry collapsing'.

I definitely do think that we'll see a contraction and there will be massive changes (changes that people who are used to how the video game industry 'should be' may dislike because it will likely end up with the industry looking different) but a second crash, especially a second '83-style one? Nah, it is literally impossible to recreate the situation that resulted in that in the modern day. The gaming industry is one of the largest entertainment industries in the entire world (I believe in terms of revenue it's bigger than movies and music combined) with interest in the industry from some of the largest corporations on the planet.

We're a far cry from the 1983 crash where the industry (in North America) was basically dominated by just one company (Atari) that controlled 90% of the home console industry. Just speaking for the current home consoles: no company nowadays even comes remotely close to that level of market dominance. Nintendo is massively successful with over 155 million Switches and over 17 million Switch 2s sold, Sony is massively successful with over 117 million PS4s and over 92 million PS5s, Microsoft...the point I'm making is even with how successful these companies are, none of them control anywhere near 90% of the home market. (Closest you've had since Atari's 90% dominance pre-crash was Nintendo in the late 80s where the NES had 90% market share in North America but that was when, y'know, Nintendo's licensing policies made the Master System and Atari 7800 'literally who?' to most North American consumers).

Shit, I'd go so far and say we should start calling the '83 crash the 'Atari crash' and not the 'video crash' just to make it clear that it was one company that had one platform that dominated the entire market in one country and the 'crash' was because said company completely mismanaged their business and drove it into the ground and this resulted in, for a few years, disinterest in what was basically nothing more than the latest fad at the time in one country.

 

[BrawlMan]

Despite everything, I still like Nintendo. And SEGA, and Square Enix, and Capcom, and Konami.

But I don't love em.

I love most of these companies to DEATH!!!

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

I would say it's impossible since the '83 one happenned under way different circumstances

 

[Bakuma1997]

*Soyjack pointing at "Nothing ever happens".JPG

As mentioned already, the Indie Market while not keeping all gaming afloat, would be a nice safety net once the AAA (Or the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA market as they are trying to call it) finally pop the gaming bubble, that said considering how things are going, the crisis that would happen is likelier to be the RAM market