The Fall of Gaming, the Modern Crash

[Ragna]

This is an idea I've had the past recent years, but lately given more thought.
As an outcome from this other topic...

When did the "Videogaming Fall" begin for Konami? It seems the same it happened to other Japanese videogame companies.
They somehow needed to expand themselves on to other markets to survive the future (now) Japanese videogaming crisis.
Reminds me too of the arcade games crisis on Japan everywhere.

Japanese game companies (most except Nintendo and 1 or 2 more) have reduced so much the quantity and quality of the content they try to sell... :-\

The talent, time, and money costs needed to make games now is so extremely huge...
I never saw it coming at the time, so nowadays it makes me both sad & angry.
Not only that, but western companies are probably beginning to face it too, and surely will 5 years from now...

Did any of you see it coming 10/15 years ago?
Do any of you feel the same way about this?

What's more, do you think it is possible a new Videogame Crash happens?
http://tay.kotaku.com/are-we-on-the-cusp-of-another-video-game-industry-crash-1635286847

You think it is possible? Can this mix of ingredients destroy the trust and make a new bomb?

• Rise of costs (talent, time, money).
• Rise of price on each new generation of consoles.
• Relaxation on the indie game barriers (specially through platforms like Steam and PSN).
• Short yet expensive inflated price games.
• Bugs everywhere. Everywhere.
• Abusive DLCs, instead of reasonable expansions.
• Smaller quantity and lower quality of games every new generation.
• Mobile/Tablet/Smartphone games exploiting much of the above points and getting more focus from companies than dedicated gaming handhelds.

At least Nintendo still avoids most of those points. They could end up being clever once again in the end?

What's more...
...Would it be bad or good, to have a new crash, in the long term?

 

[Shard]

The VG market is too big for a crash. EA and several other companies know this well, which is why they release the highest number of incomplete, buggy games and sports re-titles as possible. They know people will buy them at full price on release no matter how bad they are.

Unfortunately, modern "gamers" are too stupid to do their research, and many casual gamers don't know what a good game is.

 

[StickySock]

I don't know if a crash would be good, but I'm not liking the bipolar nature of the industry right now. It's either larger than life, AAA blockbuster games or cheap, artistic games that are interesting but usually end up feeling like a demo to me rather than a complete game. They are an "experience" instead of a game, which to me means they had a good idea or mechanic but lacked the funding to make the full game.

I think the fall of the "middle" happened when gamers, critics, and developers focused way more on the technology presented to them instead of crafting a quality game. Technology is more advanced than ever, and games are now easier to make than ever, so the rising cost is only due to some crazy notion that better graphics is something developers should strive for.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a game looking good, but I value highly stylized art design over super realistic technical graphics. I would take Bloodborne's or Sunset Overdrive's visuals any day over the Order 1886, which looks dull, bland, and boring in every possible way. I also think a minimalist approach to design in every sense of the phrase would be very useful for a modern franchise like Assassin's Creed, where it is all about quantity over quality.

For a good breakdown of how I feel on the topic, the youtuber TheGamingBrit has released a couple videos, the latest of which is this one:

I think in terms of budgeting their games From Software and Atlus do an amazing job creating spectacular games on modest budgets, to where even if their game sells only 500,000 copies or so it is considered a success. Maybe I'm a little biased because my latest passions in video gaming have been the Souls series and the Shin Megami Tensei series, but man do I think the rest of the industry could learn a thing or two from them.