AAA Games Could Lead To Mainstream Crash - Polidicks

[QUOTE]The Verge posted up a very detailed article about the state of the gaming industry. A lot of information regarding AAA games points to something many core gamers are hoping will happen: Mainstream AAA games from top tier publishers will result in a crash. [B]This is mainly because the biggest issue in the gaming industry is that it has nothing to do with video games, but instead bottom lines.[/B] According to Russ Pitts from The Verge's Polygon, he starts connecting the dots with what a lot of core gamers have been clamoring on about for a while: the AAA video game market cannot and is not sustaining itself. Sales are down for each month compared to the past few years, obviously due to less-than-stellar releases and a piss poor economy. Nevertheless, games still cost far less to produce than the average Hollywood movie and AAA titles are labeled as such once the production budget hits $20 million or higher. However, according to Polygon's article, this is starting to take a toll on the likes of companies such as Activision-Blizzard, Electronic Arts and THQ. The latter of which is reeling at the moment. You don't really need to be a financial expert to know that EA is punch-drunk in both public image and their market value. And while Mass Effect 3 managed to sell more than 3 million copies their executives still didn't consider it to be enough. There was also the long-rumored belief that the higher-ups also weren't very pleased with the numbers for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which eventually turned out to be true. The last bit is Dead Space 3, which EA claimed needs to sell 5 million for the franchise to continue to be viable. But enough on EA's front, there's also Activision who competes with EA when it comes to mass marketing AAA games, spending up to $100 million to promote games like Call of Duty. Oftentimes all this over-promotion doesn't actually pay off and we end up with moderate-selling games like Prototype 2, which looked all right but not really worth $60 as a price of entry, which actually caused Radical Entertainment to go bust. And then there are games like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which barely moved 75,000 copies out of the gate even with a Metacritic score of 81, as reported by the Guardian. Then we have games like Neverdead, Spec Ops: The Line, Knights Contract and a dozen and one other generic Hollywood-wannabe AAA blockbuster games that come and go and barely do much to boost profits for the company. We have also seen plenty of this during the lackluster E3 2012 tradeshow, which was basically a lot of executives on stage trying to sell us games we've played a thousand and one times already. It's also quite obvious that not all of those AAA titles at E3 will go on to sell big numbers...some will flop, some are guaranteed to flop. The article at Verge also coincides with what Vivendi Universal is trying to do: Get out of the mainstream AAA electronic entertainment sector before it goes belly up. Vivendi is trying to sell Activision-Blizzard for $8.1 billion because they don't see anymore growth from the division. It's true, Activision has milked as much as they can with little to no innovation and stagnation is starting to kick in with falling World of Warcraft numbers and telling signs of a slight drop in year-to-year sales for Call of Duty. There are a few things that the article gets wrong, though, and it's that the AAA market can't take hold in the PC arena because 90% of gamers pirate PC games, which was actually discussed in an article we ran here last year. But the data was inconclusive to even suggest that such a number was accurate or relative to affecting PC game sales, and it's become officially apparent that the PC market is highly profitable given that in 2011 the PC games market racked in $18 billion which was just a few billion shy from the entire home console market. Steam is currently leading the way in digital PC sales, and according to Forbes has an estimated worth at $3 billion dollars. But the real catch is that many of the PC games appeal to niche core gamers and the sales are reflective of the community's desire to play a variety of specific games rather than an attachment to demographic market data that dictates what gamers play on their consoles. [B]In other words, a majority of PC gamers put money into games they think are fun, not necessarily because it had a $50 million dollar budget or a $100 million dollar marketing campaign. [/B] The other problem with Polygon's article is that they fall into the trap of thinking that the fall of the AAA market directly ties into the emerging mobile market, especially thinking that this is a lucrative alternative. Publishers are making the same mistakes thinking that because millions of people have mobile phones that such a scenario instantaneously creates millions of potential gamers. In reality, only a few mobile games out of the thousands that flood the market are actually highly profitable, and sales data from PricewaterhouseCooper from last year as well as forecasts for the next few years indicate that the mobile market's revenue is far too small to cannibalize the home console or gaming PC market, and the revenue is also too small to compensate for what a publisher would lose by abandoning the home console market for a mobile only venture. But in the end, what does this mean? It means that the AAA mainstream market is losing some of its "flash in the pan" panache. It also means that many gamers see that the AAA market is composed of factory-made blockbusters and not necessarily creatively made video games. Even Ubisoft's own creative director for Assassin's Creed 3, Alex Hutchinson, acquiesced that the AAA market is on the verge of imploding and labeled them as a cancerous growth. In some ways, these games keep getting bigger without actually getting better. [B]The Verge's Polygon article points to consumers having to eat the cost "margins" at some point, and that things will change where smaller experiences will sell for higher prices, similar to what Crytek's CEO Cevat Yerli mentioned in an interview with CVG, where he says all games will eventually be free-to-play, or rather, pay-to-win or pay-to-progress.[/B] I think I'm more of the pessimistic core gamer, where I'm hoping all the old, tired, executive-ran gaming publishers will burn and fade to dust, and the real talent of the gaming industry -- developers who actually have a clue -- will emerge and re-invent gaming once more. Regardless, the gaming industry is still growing hand-over-foot and getting bigger each year, it may just get to a point where it swallows up the mainstream AAA players and we'll just get stuck with a lot of cool indie titles. A gamer can dream. [/QUOTE] [url]http://www.cinemablend.com/games/AAA-Games-Could-Lead-Mainstream-Crash-44200.html[/url] I agree with this, the only AAA game I have played recently was Batman: AC. All the other games are constantly updated sequeless games like TF2, Super MNC, Killing Floor, etc

good.

Come to think of it, there was quite an indie boom recently/now.

All this mainstreaming with games and AAA titles has ended up making me result to just playing Free-to-play and Indie games. I just can't bring myself to play and enjoy the bigger games anymore, it's the same rehashed thing with a couple of new features and nothing to really pull me in. If others feel this way, then yes, I wouldn't be surprised when/if it happens.

[QUOTE=Stonecycle;36599668]Come to think of it, there was quite an indie boom recently/now.[/QUOTE] Remember that only a handful of indie games are actually good though.

The only AAA game I lately played was Max Payne 3, so yeah indie games have been pretty strong.

It seems pretty logical considering not many would want to pay 60 bucks for the same shit every year.

The issue here is that companies keep putting huge amounts of money into the development and marketing of these games that not only must they sell at the relatively steep price of $60 but they must also sell a huge amount of copies. This means they don't take risks, and therefore there's no innovation. Don't tell me nobody saw this coming?

[QUOTE=MightyMax;36599663]good.[/QUOTE] Not good when in September I'm supposed to be starting a Game Design and Programming course. I want to perhaps have some future prospects :(

It's probably for the best.

Games are lacking innovation these days, hence the sequels and reliance on FPS clones of Call of Duty.

[QUOTE=icemaz;36599741]Not good when in September I'm supposed to be starting a Game Design and Programming course. I want to perhaps have some future prospects :([/QUOTE] Maybe once you pass you could pull together people you met during the course and make your own indie company. That's what I want to do. I realize how much that sounds like a pipe dream, but I've decided to take some basic computer art and creative writing courses anyways.

[QUOTE=JustGman;36599679]Remember that only a handful of indie games are actually good though.[/QUOTE] They also typically have demos, open alphas, devs who don't mind demopiracy, etc so that you can spend your money on what you actually want to play

Hoping for an economic crash of an industry feels like I am some corny villain.

[QUOTE=EliteGuy;36599790]Games are lacking innovation these days, hence the sequels and reliance on FPS clones of Call of Duty.[/QUOTE] Stuff like Quantum Conundrum or Dishonored is good, but otherwise it really is more of the same.

The last game I bought was Batman: AC. Other than that I've just been playing old, fun games like Fallout 3 and Minecraft. I really don't buy games anymore because nothing but shit has been coming out for the past few years.

[QUOTE=Ekalektik_1;36599853]Stuff like Quantum Conundrum or Dishonored is good, but otherwise it really is more of the same.[/QUOTE] Games like those don't appeal to the masses because they actually require thought and strategy, and not just mindless button-mashing and trigger-holding.

[QUOTE=EliteGuy;36599790]Games are lacking innovation these days, hence the sequels and reliance on FPS clones of Call of Duty.[/QUOTE] They rely on them for the same reason as Hollywood formulaic blockbusters; less risk, and they're more likely to sell. For the same reason as blockbusters, it's starting to wear off.

Its nice that maybe devs and execs of these massive game companies are starting to realise that people like games that are actually fun and not brown modern action muscle gun 4.

I've been able to find joy in some of the more recent AAA titles, but I think said games are the exception, not the rule, when it comes to being good. The problem is that the actions of most AAA-developing companies are usually dictated by graphs and shareholders, instead of human feedback. There are people out there with great ideas for what they want in a video game, you just need people who are actually talented to look at those ideas and say "I think we can try that".

Back in the early 80s there was a console crash. The market was flooded with crap games and then on top of that people's attention was diverted from videogames to PCs. I think the same thing is happening to consoles now and PC games now. Even big, previously heralded companies like Nintendo, id, and Blizzard are not attacting gamers like they used to. And although the mobile game market still is in its infancy, it cannot be denied that mobile devices and apps in general are the current fascination and distraction for today's tech demographic. So what I think will happen is there will be a shake out, like in the 80s. Many developers and publishers will go out of business, the rest will consolidate into a small group of survivors. The ones that survive will be the ones who can get lean and mean and figure out how to make good games with less development time and lower budgets.

[QUOTE=JustGman;36599679]Remember that only a handful of indie games are actually good though.[/QUOTE] Only a handful of big corporation games are actually good too, though

ARMA III is the only new AAA game I plan on buying this year, 2012's games don't really appeal to me.

[QUOTE=icemaz;36599741]Not good when in September I'm supposed to be starting a Game Design and Programming course. I want to perhaps have some future prospects :([/QUOTE] You will, but the industry might have a different focus than it does now. Creative, independent projects are receiving more and more attention nowadays, making it easier for small developers to make their way into the industry. Matter of fact, I daresay it would be [B]better[/B] for your future prospects if the AAA market suffers a crash. Hell, think about it like this: Many publishers won't give your idea a second glance if they don't think it will be a huge seller, which greatly limits the games that actually get made, let alone the attention they need to thrive. If the AAA market crashes and independent developers start sprouting up like crazy, you'll have a much better chance at making an impact.

They've stopped trying to come up with creative, new ideas and instead just keep releasing the next installment of the same tired franchises. Or even if they aren't in the same franchise or series, they release several games that are so similar that if you play one, you've pretty much played all the others. I mean, they keep trying to make and market these massive, epic war games like Black Ops 2 and Medal of Honor, but there is really nothing that actually stands out about them. And quite honestly, gamers are just becoming jaded and tired with seeing "War shooter 17" and similar dime-a-dozen titles. We'd like to see creative new IPs and revivals of old, good series that haven't seen light recently. If you do a good job and make innovate, solid titles, you'll be rewarded heavily by an open and welcoming market. [editline]2nd July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=THATCAKEISASPY;36599943]ARMA III is the only new AAA game I plan on buying this year, 2012's games don't really appeal to me.[/QUOTE]ArmA 3 is considered AAA? I didn't think it had that big of a budget. Good for them though.

break it down and build something better on top of it i say, as long as ARMA 3 survives.

[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;36599965] ArmA 3 is considered AAA? I didn't think it had that big of a budget. Good for them though.[/QUOTE] I would assume so, but correct me if I'm wrong on that. Theres a lot of factors on why I could assume it's a AAA game but I could be very very wrong.

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;36599919]Its nice that maybe devs and execs of these massive game companies are starting to realise that people like games that are actually fun and not brown modern action muscle gun 4.[/QUOTE]Unfortunately, they likely aren't. They aren't trying to change their image or focus, just do damage control and mitigate failure. Its like having a hole in a boat, and they're just trying to bail water out as it slowly sinks instead of trying to actually repair the damage. They've taken up the practice of people like Bobby Kotick, who frankly doesn't give a shit about the players and only sees games as just another commodity to milk, and has admitted so himself. [editline]2nd July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=THATCAKEISASPY;36599994]I would assume so, but correct me if I'm wrong on that. Theres a lot of factors on why I could assume it's a AAA game but I could be very very wrong.[/QUOTE]Like the article says, a game is only considered AAA once it has a production budget of greater than $20 million.

At least we have Valve

[QUOTE=thisispain;36599992]break it down and build something better on top of it i say, as long as ARMA 3 survives.[/QUOTE]It may be an over-repeated trope, but the saying "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants." really is fitting. Perhaps the idea of a phoenix rising from the ashes would be a more befitting comparison though.