GRcade

With all the recent gooseberry fool about loot boxes and the number of developers going out of business do you feel gaming has a bright future or is it all going to go up in flames?

I hope the loot box situation sorts itself as people vote with their wallet and just refuse to buy games with piss taking loot boxes and I feel having such a high profile casualty as a Star Wars game can only be a good thing. I do however think this current obsession with making everything multiplayer online extravaganza's is a bad idea and hope games like Last of Us 2, Mario, Zelda and Days Gone can help convince developers that single player is still viable.

Where are we heading?

Someone somewhere will always be making decent games. Plenty of creators are driven by the desire to create good content, and even if that weren't true, there's clearly a market for them.

Loot boxes are a symptom of an underlying illness -- a reasonable RRP no longer covers the return investors expect to make on a big-budget game. I think the AAA gaming industry as we currently know it might 'crash' in about 10 years once the ever-escalating budgets become truly unsustainable.

Gaming is still massive and you have to remember that you are seeing the loot box saga through the internet amplified hyperbole machine. It's an issue and hopefully this whole thing has taught developers a lesson but maybe gamers also need to be able to adapt to something changing. Games are cheaper now than they were 20 years ago and while the market might have gotten much bigger that's obviously only any good if every release is a massive hit. A Spotify like revolution may be a possible solution but it's hardly renowned for paying the creators of content.

Still, there are a lot of positives at the moment, Nintendo are going through a wonderful spell and are frankly on another level. Hopefully other developers can learn that if you put out products of true quality these games will be popular forever rather than yearly updates or the games as a service style model that is so popular at the moment but only serves to makes games that are disposable.

Another developer and publisher that I think deserves a bit of recognition is Bethesda. They've had a hell of a run with Doom, Wolfenstein, The Evil Within and Dishonoured, none of which have set the charts on fire but they continue to support them and seem happy to ofset the more niche titles their more popular franchises, Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Also, they're supporting lots of new technology from the Switch, VR and 4K which will hopefully prove to be successful. Bethesda have come very close to an EA style scandal in the past so maybe they are a good indication of self regulation and learning from mistakes.

I’m sort of worried what is going to become of single player games. Take Bethesda for example. They released Dishonoured 2, Prey, Wolfenstein and Evil within 2 within the past 12 months and they all didn’t sell very well. I know some of that is down to their silly review policy and lack of advertising.

I’m hoping Rockstar with RDR 2 release a decent sized single player with no micro transactions or any of the other bullshit. The online obviously will have some form of micro transaction due to the success of GTA V cash cards.

Nintendo and Sony are continuing to invest in single player games. Hopefully MS follow suit and get their exclusive line ups sorted out.

Tell Karl his brother is dead wrote:Loot boxes are a symptom of an underlying illness -- a reasonable RRP no longer covers the return investors expect to make on a big-budget game. I think the AAA gaming industry as we currently know it might 'crash' in about 10 years once the ever-escalating budgets become truly unsustainable.

For me that’s personally a cop out about investors and returns. Let’s look at Battlefront 2. The game was going to sell very well anyway. I don’t think it cost a lot to make. The single player isn’t even finished. Just look at all the silly gooseberry fool in UFC 3 which is going to be a reskin of UFC 2 with a few new features. EA are looking for their next UT success. A mode that generates them 800m a year. It’s why they cancelled the Visceral game. They asked the Visceral team what is their version of ultimate team?

I’m sure games like Zelda and Horizon cost a lot to make yet delivered a good amount of profits for their respective publishers.

Nothing has a bright future.

Sony Talks Shift From Hardware to Monthly Active Users; Plans to Explore Microtransactions - Sony Executives talk about the shift of the business model from hardware units to monthly active users, and the possible exploration of microtransactions.

Yoshida-san also talked about former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Andrew House leaving PlayStation and John Kodera stepping in his place. Since Kodera-san is the one who built up the network business, his appointment will lead to further expansion of that segment. Under his direction, Sony can strengthen the direction and improve the recurring revenue business.

We also hear that third-party sales of in-game items and content is very significant for Sony as well. On the first-party side, compared to other companies, the proportion for Sony of in-game sales is still relatively low, but under Kodera-san’s leadership there will be “appropriate exploration and decisions taken in the future.”

https://www.dualshockers.com/sony-microtransactions-ps4

Gonna be real er, interesting to see what route PS5 is taken down.

Tell Karl his brother is dead wrote:Someone somewhere will always be making decent games. Plenty of creators are driven by the desire to create good content, and even if that weren't true, there's clearly a market for them.

Loot boxes are a symptom of an underlying illness -- a reasonable RRP no longer covers the return investors expect to make on a big-budget game. I think the AAA gaming industry as we currently know it might 'crash' in about 10 years once the ever-escalating budgets become truly unsustainable.

I think the VFX industry is a good place to look how things might turn out. A race to the bottom to get contracts from film studios/game publishers, and while those big factories trudge on the development studios can't make ends meet even when part of the biggest success of the year.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+l ... e&ie=UTF-8

Shareholders of EA have a bright future.

The way I look at it, is if the entire industry implodes tomorrow, I've got enough of a backlog and existing to-buy games to keep me going the rest of my life.

There will be some sort of a crash, however, something will come from it there is obviously gaming appetite, however, there may be some need for a kind of "reset" in the way that it is done.

It seems to me that the big big games may become fewer with lots of smaller stuff between rather than being mega game after mega games.

I guess this is where Nintendo have stayed successful is that instead of getting caught up in having "the next big title" they focus on their franchises and bring out consistent versions of the games that aren't big behemoths and have some "big" stuff like Zelda that comes out every so often.

I think the industry probably needs to move more to a Nintendo way of having loads of small stuff that gives a constant stream of income with big hitters every few years that blow people away, it means that the big titles don't get boring and they have proper impact when they hit as they are made with proper care and attention.

2017 has pretty much been the best year ever, the future is very bright

As long as Nintendo, Sony, Platinum, CD Projekt, From Software and Rockstar continue to make great single player games I'm happy.

The direction EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft and Activision are taking doesn't interest me in the slightest.

rinks wrote:The way I look at it, is if the entire industry implodes tomorrow, I've got enough of a backlog and existing to-buy games to keep me going the rest of my life.

This. A videogame crash is the only realistic way I'm ever going to catch up

+ Still plenty of great games arriving
+ Lots of creative and enthusiastic developers out there
+ A variety of platforms that drive competition
- Some of the big publishers are working to direct payment aspects down very unpleasant pathways
- Mobile gaming is a cesspit when it should be great

jawafour wrote:- Mobile gaming is a cesspit when it should be great

Nintendo are changing that, aren't they?

I'm hearing good things about Animal Crossing.

NickSCFC wrote:

jawafour wrote:- Mobile gaming is a cesspit when it should be great

Nintendo are changing that, aren't they?

I'm hearing good things about Animal Crossing.

lmao

NickSCFC wrote:

jawafour wrote:- Mobile gaming is a cesspit when it should be great

Nintendo are changing that, aren't they?

I'm hearing good things about Animal Crossing.

... . Think of it as being the least-worst title on mobile.

I don't think I'd ever finish my backlog, even if all games companies went bust tomorrow and nobody ever made another game.

Christmas CrackErrkal wrote:I think the industry probably needs to move more to a Nintendo way of having loads of small stuff that gives a constant stream of income with big hitters every few years that blow people away, it means that the big titles don't get boring and they have proper impact when they hit as they are made with proper care and attention.

Yeah but Nintendo do this with a huge stable of IPs that have been carefully cultivated over the last 35 odds years. They can make cheaper titles that have their big names attached to them and still make lots of money. It's not really a position you can just easily move into.

Tomous wrote:

Christmas CrackErrkal wrote:I think the industry probably needs to move more to a Nintendo way of having loads of small stuff that gives a constant stream of income with big hitters every few years that blow people away, it means that the big titles don't get boring and they have proper impact when they hit as they are made with proper care and attention.

Yeah but Nintendo do this with a huge stable of IPs that have been carefully cultivated over the last 35 odds years. They can make cheaper titles that have their big names attached to them and still make lots of money. It's not really a position you can just easily move into.

Oh I agree, but diversifying a bit is probably the best way forward, also they need to be less greedy, they need to work to make a return for sure but not aim for a massive return over all else.