We’ve all heard the word “revolution” being shouted left and right – it’s a term that market prophets and marketing salesmen equally love to use. All the time. Most of the time it’s just a way for those people to say “hey! look at me – I’m saying something I myself think is important”. It usually isn’t.

However, having highly respected game developers and market analysts say pretty much the same thing sorta ties the message back to the earth. Very good video. I was kind of scared on behalf of the industry.

On topic though, I think I have to disagree somewhat with what Pacther said – just taking money from online services is NOT the way out of this situation, and I fear that big corps like EA and Activision/Blizzard is going to milk that cow.

AAA-titles not profitable? Then maybe you’re doing it WRONG. Why does a 6 hour game *coughmodernwarfarecough* cost 40-50 MILLION DOLLARS to produce?
It seems to me that a large part of the industry focuses on the wrong aspects of gaming… but then again, I’m sure they have their reasons and a professional opinion which I would listen to more than I would listen to me, if I were in their shoes…

The real issue is a lot of the talented developers in the industry have been recruited by huge companies to work with code monkeys rather than to really draw out their own ideas in their entirety.

The industry puts so much pressure on mass marketing and audio/visual benchmarks that the time, effort, and focus spent on creating fun, engaging, and memorable story and gameplay is no where near what it used to be.

During the next generation of consoles you will probably find yourself looking back at this generation of games and will be troubled to think of any games that really stand out (a lot of sequels and rehashes).

Where most the talent has moved over the years:
1970-1985: PC/Atari 2600 (The Original Boom and Crash of Video Games)
1985-1989: NES (Resurrection of the Videogame Industry)
1989-1995: SNES/Genesis (Golden Age of Cartridge Games)
1995-2000: Playstation/Saturn/Dreamcast (Compact Disc Games Boom)
2000-2006: Playstation2/GameCube (Cost rising but still stable enough for innovative games)
2006-2010: Developers are spread thin across many platforms (to appeal to more markets) with high costs (Trading innovation for sequels, ports, remakes, and “production value”)

The developers need to get their finances in line and start making cuts where they are actually effective and needed. Many have noticed they have been cutting content and selling its as DLC – this is the wrong place to cut cost as it also cuts value.

Some ways to cut costs:
-use no name voice actors or no voice acting at all
-program for a lower native resolution and just have the hardware upscale it
-manage a marketing budget proportional to the actual cost of development of the game
-Cut FMVs out or use in game engine to produce cinematics
-downsize teams and redundant management
-use a stylized approach to cut cost further

Example: Demon’s Souls broke even on costs after selling only 75,000 units in the U.S. and the game looks and plays pretty nice.

Following this, you would have the original gameplay, story, probably more content since it is less costly, and the development cost would PLUMMET! You could have sales figures half as large and make MORE profit!

*Sigh* Sometimes I think common sense is the least common of all the senses…

This industry, like every other industry, is primarily driven by the consumer, and the consumer now has extremely high expectations. Indie games can be profitable, but the average gamer loves to play AAA blockbuster releases with complex storyline and realistic graphics (even I love to play them).

There is definitely a room for the Independent developer, especially as people get tired of playing FPSs and traditional genres that can’t risk trying out new innovations in gameplay because it costs too much money to make a mistake. But the state of the industry as it is now will probably persist. I have the feeling that there will be fewer blockbuster titles every year, with development teams of hundreds of people, and we’ll see smaller companies flourish with the evolution of development tools, as well as smaller platforms with hardware constraints (3DS, iPhone).

It is an exciting time to be in the games busines…

Instead of making a sequel every year, make it 2 years, it gives you a better chance to actually get a better product out, which increases potential sales and hype (hype sells a lot, you all know that). The trick here is that you actually need to have a good product and care about it past the $ sign.

I for once would like to see a realistic depiction of were the money goes to when making a videogame. We hear it all the time that it is very expensive to make videogames, but thats it.

I hate to bring Hollywood back again, but it sure looks like everything gaming wise is going in that direction and i cant see for the life of me, why would someone base the evolution of an industry in a already proven faulty module.

Are you saying Chris Taylor, Will Wright, Cliff Blezenski, Richard Garriot etc. are not gamers? Or did you mean your average gamer who has small grasp if that on how the industry works. This isn’t an industry that they just worked in, they created it. So I’ll trust their opinions and insights well before I ask the average gamer what they think.

Trust me, this is caused by throwing TOO MUCH money at overzealous cutters and editors. It’s certainly not caused by limited budget or hiring a merely crappy editor. After all, it’s not as if the video editor has the final say regarding what transitions to use.