What the hell is happening with the video-game market?

[Cæli]

capitalism has its flaws
only possible solution is a coordinated mass action aiming to kill "bad" companies profits and forcing them to do quality, but not enough persons care

also I believe the generation who created video games said what they had to say, now the newer generation of programmers struggle to keep up and create franchises that compete with what created video games such as mario, zelda, warcraft, final fantasy, etc.

[SLSAMG]

Inflation.

Games cost far more to make than ever before, yet we expect them to cost the same as they did 10-15 years ago. Even big companies are starting to feel the effect of this and when they dare to do even a single thing to generate more income, everyone freaks out.

It's not the main cause.

EA's market cap is 37 billion. Fifa 17 alone generated over 1b dollars in profit last year. Trust me when I say this; the big corporations like EA won't be feeling the effects if a title flops. Please gain some perspective before running your mouth.

[Qucodia]

I agree on many of your points. Its so rare to see demo or trials these days, and thats something I miss alot, I never buy a game before I see some reviews and Mass Effect Andromeda and No Mans Sky are great examples of that.

[Faroth]

It's not the main cause.

EA's market cap is 37 billion. Fifa 17 alone generated over 1b dollars in profit last year. Trust me when I say this; the big corporations like EA won't be feeling the effects if a title flops. Please gain some perspective before running your mouth.

The publisher is not always the developer, though. The studio has to make money, not just the publisher. In the case of FIFA, it's EA and EA Canada, but others are not in the same boat. That's why you see companies accept becoming part of a larger publisher. It gives them more cushion rather than carry the risk themselves.

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I agree on many of your points. Its so rare to see demo or trials these days, and thats something I miss alot, I never buy a game before I see some reviews and Mass Effect Andromeda and No Mans Sky are great examples of that.

Remember when we got multiple demos on a disc in print magazines?

Man, we let the Internet ruin everything!

[therealstegblob]

Everytime i see this i wonder if people are underage and forget that SNES games could reach over 80 dollars in price at retail. The 'little guy AAA dev needing a handout' narrative really lacks weight when the majority of their costs are spent on marketing not production.

"Could reach" and "did usually reach" are two different things. There's outrage these days if a 40 dollar title doesn't live up to a consumer standard. I'm not giving developers or producers an excuse to be lazy or anything, just that their work sells for less in today's world.

[McNeil]

Gaming has gotten a lot more popular over time and companies try to appeal to a wider audience. You'll get a lot of uneducated customers who buy everything without knowing there are shady practices behind the games. I'd say its mostly parents who buy games for their kids while they have no idea what is all included that bumps the price tag by a lot. They end up buying a lot of extra content like DLC, skins, maybe even a currency used in-game which end up way to overpriced for what its worth.

Companies get away by being ''scumbags'', but its the people that allow these practices to happen. The educated buyers end up being a very small minority that don't make a game succeed/fail at all. Its actually the mainstream audience that just look at a title, look at how pretty the cover looks and buys it. Maybe the games they buy are from a franchise they loved in the past which is their main reason to buy it without even knowing what the actual game offers.

I'm very careful with what I buy and I usually wait for discounts whenever a game interest me. I don't support any businesses that brings these shady practices, when I see one of them being used its often a no-buy for me unless I find it very cheap somewhere.

[therealstegblob]

It's not the main cause.

EA's market cap is 37 billion. Fifa 17 alone generated over 1b dollars in profit last year. Trust me when I say this; the big corporations like EA won't be feeling the effects if a title flops. Please gain some perspective before running your mouth.

It's the main cause. Just because EA and other meglo-devs can release their tried-and-true money printers doesn't mean there aren't plenty of AAA developers that are seeing profits fall every year. EA and Activision-Blizzard aren't the only AAA studios around.

But based on your attitude and your signature, I think I'll pass up on baiting this any further.

[Qucodia]

Remember when we got multiple demos on a disc in print magazines?

Man, we let the Internet ruin everything!

God I miss thoese days. You could get a nice view of the game and the companies went a great lenght to create some awesome campaigns and maps on the disc to get some fantastic first impressions.

[SLSAMG]

It's the main cause. Just because EA and other meglo-devs can release their tried-and-true money printers doesn't mean there aren't plenty of AAA developers that are seeing profits fall every year. EA and Activision-Blizzard aren't the only AAA studios around.

But based on your attitude and your signature, I think I'll pass up on baiting this any further.

Did I say differently? I'm well aware of who the heavy hitters are. I absolutely love it when people assume and flake out at the slightest sign of losing a debate. Trust me, you're better off passing up on it.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Fair point, MN9 didn't get the NMS level of attention on the big stage.

And I've been a mod for a couple years now. Started over in the Off Topic forum (heavy mod work there, much respect to the mods in that subforum) until I got a new job and needed to lighten the load. I'm a mod in the FFXIV forum now. Here in the Video Game Discussion forum, I'm just a poster like everyone else.... except that @Remilia You gotta watch that one! @_@

Remilia is a spooky, confirmed.

[TheFirstOnes]

Wanna know what happened? EA Sports, and console "gaming" happened.

Easy.

[Faroth]

Wanna know what happened? EA Sports, and console "gaming" happened.

Easy.

Again, please elaborate how PC gaming would have been immune to the effect of massive profits companies saw from the PC based F2P microtransaction games and the F2P microtransaction mobile games if consoles never had Internet access.

Or is your only claim "PC master race, consoles are garbage" and therefore you'll just blame consoles for everything?

Note: Don't derail the thread into a PC vs Console debate. I'm specifically asking you how PC would be immune from Game Studios and Publishers seeking higher profitability after seeing that profitiability first hand on mobile and PC markets in other genres.

[TheFirstOnes]

Again, please elaborate how PC gaming would have been immune to the effect of massive profits companies saw from the PC based F2P microtransaction games and the F2P microtransaction mobile games if consoles never had Internet access.

Not talking about payments though. Talking about 12 year old kids that grew up, and are now intoxicating the Video Game community with their bullshit.

For example: Five Nights at Freddy's. A good Indie game that has been ultimately ruined by the childish fanbase. Similar story with Undertale.

Another prime example is Call of Duty: A once alright FPS game, ultimately ruined by the fanbase, with their fan-service, their trolling, and their smug attitudes.

Must I go on? I still have Madden to go over, and others.

[Orby]

People pay for it. Publishers get away with it. Won't stop until people vote with their wallet.

And game developers know we wont, so what a few people on the internet gonna boycott our game, thousands of people that dont pay attention to that sort of drama have just brought into it, and that's the market these big companies are falling into sadly. See that controversy with Warner Brother I know alot of people in my social circle who are going to boycott, be included, but thing is how many people don't care about this sort of thing, they just wanna play the game, there are many mor eof these minded people. And the game is still going to sell well promoting thae fact that these shady practices are okay.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's and remember when you could buy games and it had everything with it. if there was additional content but they were called Expansions which came usually with quite a bit of new content to enjoy

Buying a video game (or most video games ) nowadays is like buying a car with loads of missing parts. Remember when you had to play to unlock, now day it's pay to unlock. To unlock skins back in the day or characters you had to play to unlock,. now days it's buy 400 lootboxes.

I actually blame mobile gaming for this.

[Jtbrig7390]

Not talking about payments though. Talking about 12 year old kids that grew up, and are now intoxicating the Video Game community with their bullshit.

For example: Five Nights at Freddy's. A good Indie game that has been ultimately ruined by the childish fanbase. Similar story with Undertale.

You do realize this example has one PC game that is exclusive and another that just recently hit PS4/Vita? So how again is it consoles fault? You do realize 12 year old kids can also game on PC right?

Your argument makes zero sense and is just console bashing. Also....DLC was on PC first then console.

[potis]

Its not the companies fault only, people are stupid, i see it everyday, i talk to them everyday.

Many countries still had sub-par internet up to 2007-2009, even the first world countries many random cities/villages did not have decent internet infastructure.

I will use my country, Greece as example.

Greece had out of 10-11 million people in 2007, around to 110.000 internet ADSL connections.

Facebook got introduced and bloomed around then also, in the next 6 months those internet connections became 700.000.

Because of Facebook, Internet in my country saw a bloom of 600% in less than a year, the second year it doubled over at about 1.3mil connections, all because of Facebook.

Those same people that had no interest in the Internet are the same people that make the Greek gaming world since 2009.

I can guess many other countries are the same, i can only speak about Greece but its the same mentality people.

They will buy every Fifa, every Pro, every CoD, every Assassins Creed, etc.

[Faroth]

Not talking about payments though. Talking about 12 year old kids that grew up, and are now intoxicating the Video Game community with their bullshit.

You'll have to clarify - which 12 year olds that grew up? There's more than one generations of once-12 year olds that grew up and are still gaming. Are you saying the people who were 12 during the PS1 era, the PS2 era, PS3 era, or current 12 year olds here?

For example: Five Nights at Freddy's. A good Indie game that has been ultimately ruined by the childish fanbase. Similar story with Undertale.

How have those two fanbases affected gaming? Particularly as Undertale hasn't gone beyond Undertale in terms of game. It's still its own thing. Sure there are fandoms, and creepy aspects of fandoms, and crazy aspects of the fandom on the Internet, but how are those fandoms directly affecting the gaming industry in terms of the OP's points of marketing and profiting with DLC, etc.

Is it the consumption of everything related to their fandom you're noting? That they'll buy anything related to it, thus they're more prone to "whale" the games via DLC, etc?

Another prime example is Call of Duty: A once alright FPS game, ultimately ruined by the fanbase, with their fan-service, their trolling, and their smug attitudes.

Same question, which generation of Call of Duty did it go off the rails due to "console gamers" that PC would have not been affected by?

Must I go on? I still have Madden to go over, and others.

Honestly....sports games always been sports games. I don't notice a big difference in the sports game crowd today vs the SNES Madden crowd.

[SLSAMG]

Not talking about payments though. Talking about 12 year old kids that grew up, and are now intoxicating the Video Game community with their bullshit.

For example: Five Nights at Freddy's. A good Indie game that has been ultimately ruined by the childish fanbase. Similar story with Undertale.

Another prime example is Call of Duty: A once alright FPS game, ultimately ruined by the fanbase, with their fan-service, their trolling, and their smug attitudes.

Must I go on? I still have Madden to go over, and others.

Fail to see the correlation here.

[Jtbrig7390]

Buying a video game (or most video games ) nowadays is like buying a car with loads of missing parts. Remember when you had to play to unlock, now day it's pay to unlock. To unlock skins back in the day or characters you had to play to unlock,. now days it's buy 400 lootboxes.

I actually blame mobile gaming for this.

And games cost more to develop these day's compared to the 80's/90's and yet the price of games has stayed the same for nearly 25 years.

Would you rather games cost $100+ and not have optional DLC?

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I didn't buy Breath of the Wild's "expansion pass".

I didn't purchase Destiny 2.

All the games I've gotten within the past year have not been pre-orders.

Can I has cookie now? :3

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And games cost more to develop these day's compared to the 80's/90's and yet the price of games has stayed the same for nearly 25 years.

Would you rather games cost $100+ and not have optional DLC?

The problem with this theory is when indie-developers come out and make a "triple aaaaaaaay game" that costs half the price it does from a major publisher for arguably the same quality if not better and similar content amount.