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Thread: Video game market could collapse according to this article.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I'm sorry, but where are you getting your information? Microsoft and Sony each sold 2 million of their new consoles within a little over two weeks of launch. In that same period, Nintendo only sold 220K WiiUs. Indeed, this past year, Nintendo has sold less than 1 million WiiUs which means they were outsold by both the Xbox One and the PS4 on their respective launch days. Even great games like Super Mario World 3D only did a little over 100K units in the first week. Those are horrible numbers and a reflection of a failing console, not something to be pointing to as an example of success.

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    Wii U has sold under 4 million consoles worldwide in one year's time, while Sony and Microsoft consoles have reached half that total in less than one month. I compare gaming to movies, neither are going anywhere because the big players are all run down to the penny by lawyers and accountants. They won't get too far out of their element, but that also limits creativity.
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    Thing is, we have to define "collapse." I don't think anyone is arguing that the likely outcome will be as catastrophic as no games ever again! That's not quite what happened during the crash of '83, either. People are just arguing that if things keep going the way they are then at some point it's going to trip over itself enough so that there's going to be a mass cleaning and restructuring that will see more studio closings (seriously, tons have fallen this past generation) and the smart publishers and developers adapting to the changing landscape. This article is about a different but tangentially related issue and makes some great points on the subject.
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-16-2013 at 06:28 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    Thing is, we have to define "collapse." I don't think anyone is arguing that the likely outcome will be as catastrophic as no games ever again! That's not quite what happened during the crash of '83, either. People are just arguing that if things keep going the way they are then at some point it's going to trip over itself enough so that there's going to be a mass cleaning and restructuring that will see more studio closings (seriously, tons have fallen this past generation) and the smart publishers and developers adapting to the changing landscape. This article is about a different but tangentially related issue and makes some great points on the subject.
    In theory though, if the big publishers take the advice of many of these articles and focus on more niche and lower budget approaches to game making, it's possible the large numbers of gamers who like the bigger budget games could become bored and simply move on to some other form of entertainment. The big publishers could in fact face financial collapse by doing the very thing you are advocating as the overall video game market could contract as a result of a lack of compelling big budget content.

    To your other point, I personally see studio closings as a good thing as it tends to weed out those that release mediocre title after mediocre title and the most talented members of those teams go somewhere else, hopefully to create the great games they are capable of creating. Compelling IP ends up getting resold or licensed to others and again the cream rises.

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    Who says it has to be all or nothing? There's no reason why Grand Theft Auto can't be an enormous undertaking. The point of contention is that not every game can do it. And most have proven that they shouldn't. If you want to put up Grand Theft Auto numbers you have to be Grand Theft Auto. We've seen that even popular IPs like Tomb Raider can't hit those numbers. But they don't seem to care. They keep overbudgeting these projects that have no hope of hitting their targets and then, when the games inevitably fall short, instead of looking at the obvious causes for their financial troubles they blame everything else under the sun like piracy and GameStop and look to squeeze out revenue through all kinds of other (arguably abusive) means. And it's causing more problems than its solving.

    Nobody is saying you can't have your GTAs and CoDs. I want them just as much as the next guy. But there has to be some rationality. As much as people say the market is growing, it's not growing enough for games to regularly move 10 million units. Really, the creativity comes in with figuring out how to make a game under a reasonable budget without making it look like it was a reasonable budget. Spend where you need, cut where you can.
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-16-2013 at 07:05 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    Who says it has to be all or nothing? There's no reason why Grand Theft Auto can't be an enormous undertaking. The point of contention is that not every game can do it. And most have proven that they shouldn't. If you want to put up Grand Theft Auto numbers you have to be Grand Theft Auto. We've seen that even popular IPs like Tomb Raider can't hit those numbers. But they don't seem to care. They keep overbudgeting these projects that have no hope of hitting their targets and then, when the games inevitably fall short, instead of looking at the obvious causes for their financial troubles they blame everything else under the sun like piracy and GameStop and look to squeeze out revenue through all kinds of other (arguably abusive) means. And it's causing more problems than its solving.

    Nobody is saying you can't have your GTAs and CoDs. I want them just as much as the next guy. But there has to be some rationality. As much as people say the market is growing, it's not growing enough for games to regularly move 10 million units. Really, the creativity comes in with figuring out how to make a game under a reasonable budget without making it look like it was a reasonable budget. Spend where you need, cut where you can.
    Well, I'm not sure what specific publisher you are talking about in your theoretical examples, but all of the big ones like Activision, Ubisoft, EA and Take Two already take this approach to budgeting. They don't set unrealistic targets and spend crazy amounts of money because they like the risk, they do so because they have some feeling based on data, marketing research and sometimes gut instinct that a particular IP and game will be a massive success. Sometimes they get it wrong. Most of the time they get it right which is why Activision, Ubisoft, EA and Take Two are massively profitable with the occasional bad quarter or year. What you perceive as "overbudgeting" is pure hindsight analysis and what it means is that next time, there either won't be a new Tomb Raider, or it will be a more modest budgeted game. Show me the publisher that repeatedly "overbudgets" the same IP sequel after sequel and I'll concede the point. Frankly, I don't think such a publisher exists.

    As for the DLC and other stuff, I'm not sure what that has to do with some impending market collapse. It's just the same as every other entertainment business where the publishers are looking for one more way to charge the consumer more money and unfortunately, people are only too happy to pay. It's why 3D and IMAX continue to play heavily in marketing materials even for movies where it adds little to the experience and why studios love to sell consumers five different versions of the same movie as a bundle (DVD, Blu Ray, Ultraviolet, etc...) when the reality is that many consumers will just play it on a single format. It's also why cable and satellite continue to be sold as bundles when most consumers only watch a small selection of channels. As much as I dislike DLC and other similar revenue streams, I can understand why publishers continue to pursue it as I know many gamers that eagerly buy it without fail for every new game released.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    In theory though, if the big publishers take the advice of many of these articles and focus on more niche and lower budget approaches to game making, it's possible the large numbers of gamers who like the bigger budget games could become bored and simply move on to some other form of entertainment. The big publishers could in fact face financial collapse by doing the very thing you are advocating as the overall video game market could contract as a result of a lack of compelling big budget content.

    To your other point, I personally see studio closings as a good thing as it tends to weed out those that release mediocre title after mediocre title and the most talented members of those teams go somewhere else, hopefully to create the great games they are capable of creating. Compelling IP ends up getting resold or licensed to others and again the cream rises.
    Then what they need to do is make some of both so everyone gets what they want. I would buy SNES/PS1 style console RPGs every time one comes out.
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    The point isn't that a publisher repeatedly overbudgets the same IP. It's that the culture is such that a game like Tomb Raider would even be expected to move 10 million units in the first place. That Kingdoms of Almur would require 3 million units. We can sit here and think of how crazy that was and how 38 Studios got what it deserved but clearly this isn't just random lunacy. It's something that was contemplated as a calculated risk because apparently that's what was necessary for the game to find a place in an overcrowded market. And when these games fail to perform, publishers make excuses and look for scapegoats.

    What's happening is that the bar keeps going up and there's an increasing lack of a middle ground. Games are produced as either blockbusters or niche because they can't survive otherwise. Well, that's a bad thing. Because that inevitably results in consolidation. Literal consolidation in the form of giant publishers absorbing everything and figurative consolidation in the lack of fresh ideas. New shit is too risky. EA found that out the hard way with Mirror's Edge, which wasn't even a huge game. But it's obvious that developing even an ordinary modern game is too expensive since if an experiment like Mirror's Edge selling a respectable 2.5 million is below expectations then that means what we understand as "normal" is pretty fucked up. It's not really the budgets of GTA and CoD that are the problem. Those are proven blockbusters. It's the inflated cost of ordinary mainstream games that induces the Tomb Raiders and Kingdom of Almurs. The usual shit that isn't breaking any records but at the same time isn't some Nippon Ichi JRPG either. It seems like if we were to envision a "typical" PS3 game, sales need to hover around 3-5 million. And based on what we're seeing, that might simply be too high, where the successful publishers can barely make it work and everyone else has to fail out and/or get absorbed or do iPhone games and hope they hit the next Angry Birds.

    Really, what's the value of games failing? It's one thing to say that Square Enix and 38 Studios got what they deserved. Sure, I agree. But are we really better off in the long run? Is it is a good thing that publishing a mainstream game costs enough that studios and IPs are in active danger if they sell "only" 2 million units?
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-17-2013 at 12:31 AM.

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    That article IMHO was bullshit. Speculations and thats it
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rickstilwell1 View Post
    Then what they need to do is make some of both so everyone gets what they want. I would buy SNES/PS1 style console RPGs every time one comes out.
    Do you have a PSP or Vita? There are tons of SNES/PS1 style RPGs available on both platforms. In fact, that seems to be one niche that is well filled.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    The point isn't that a publisher repeatedly overbudgets the same IP. It's that the culture is such that a game like Tomb Raider would even be expected to move 10 million units in the first place. That Kingdoms of Almur would require 3 million units. We can sit here and think of how crazy that was and how 38 Studios got what it deserved but clearly this isn't just random lunacy. It's something that was contemplated as a calculated risk because apparently that's what was necessary for the game to find a place in an overcrowded market. And when these games fail to perform, publishers make excuses and look for scapegoats.

    What's happening is that the bar keeps going up and there's an increasing lack of a middle ground. Games are produced as either blockbusters or niche because they can't survive otherwise. Well, that's a bad thing. Because that inevitably results in consolidation. Literal consolidation in the form of giant publishers absorbing everything and figurative consolidation in the lack of fresh ideas. New shit is too risky. EA found that out the hard way with Mirror's Edge, which wasn't even a huge game. But it's obvious that developing even an ordinary modern game is too expensive since if an experiment like Mirror's Edge selling a respectable 2.5 million is below expectations then that means what we understand as "normal" is pretty fucked up. It's not really the budgets of GTA and CoD that are the problem. Those are proven blockbusters. It's the inflated cost of ordinary mainstream games that induces the Tomb Raiders and Kingdom of Almurs. The usual shit that isn't breaking any records but at the same time isn't some Nippon Ichi JRPG either. It seems like if we were to envision a "typical" PS3 game, sales need to hover around 3-5 million. And based on what we're seeing, that might simply be too high, where the successful publishers can barely make it work and everyone else has to fail out and/or get absorbed or do iPhone games and hope they hit the next Angry Birds.

    Really, what's the value of games failing? It's one thing to say that Square Enix and 38 Studios got what they deserved. Sure, I agree. But are we really better off in the long run? Is it is a good thing that publishing a mainstream game costs enough that studios and IPs are in active danger if they sell "only" 2 million units?
    Again, you act as though Square Enix sat down and came up with the craziest number of potential buyers and decided that was the target Tomb Raider had to hit. You're forgetting that the Tomb Raider franchise was once one of the biggest sellers in the world and the first game alone sold over 7 million copies in the mid-90s when the video game market was smaller than it is today. Square Enix had no financial or business incentive to set a ridiculous target. In fact, it could have cost them their business if not for the fact that some of their other games sold well. As such, they believed that the sales target was realistic and budgeted the game accordingly. Unfortunately for Square Enix and its investors, they were incorrect on this particular game.

    I just think you're failing to give video game publishers credit for understanding the business environment in which they operate. Activision, Ubisoft, EA and even Square-Enix have all been around a long time and frankly have a much better understanding of the video game market than you or I do. I'm just not sure what your issue really is with the modern gaming business. Are you upset that publishers aren't pumping out some specific type of game? Are you just upset that they are trying to squeeze every dollar out of consumers like every healthy business is supposed to do? Are you upset at the millions of people who buy big budget games and pay for PSN and XBL and for DLC? Frankly, the industry has changed and will continue to change, but it's not going to collapse simply because games are becoming more and more expensive to produce.

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    But, see, you're defending their interests, not yours. Something like the massive anti-used games movement is constantly defended at the consumer level as "It's business! Companies want to make money!" Except that's not the consumer's job to defend a company's business practices. Their job is to set standards and have certain demands while the businesses do what they need to do to succeed. Then both sides meet in the middle at some mutually beneficial compromise. It's an adversarial system for a reason. When it stops being adversarial, when one side starts to make excuses for the other, it becomes outright antagonistic.

    Let's not pretend that there isn't a connection between production costs and all the things that have been pissing people off lately. We didn't pull this out of our asses here. Everywhere you turn there's someone else in the business bitching about how expensive game production is and holding that over our heads. They constantly bring it up to defend whatever DLC or DRM shenanigans that they're looking to employ. The industry seems to love playing the production cost card to elicit some sympathy from consumers despite also being an industry that is notorious for abusing its workforce. Well, they can't have it both ways. They can't use "we're broke" as an excuse but then be immune to any accusations regarding why they don't have their shit together. If they're making the claim that something is wrong then it's on them to fix it, not us.


    http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/07/...h#.UrC0nCKA3cs

    http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/343...s-state-of-aaa

    http://thegamesofchance.blogspot.com...y-defends.html
    Not even an explanation. Just a dismissive "how silly." What this basically says is that publishers are in dire straits and all the sacrifice has to be made on the consumer end...because they say so. They're the ones predicting doom, not us. They're the ones who keep saying "Oh no, if consumers don't accept the things we say we need to do (just say, not prove) then we won't be able to bestow these games upon them. There is no alternative and you're silly for suggesting we're responsible for our situation."

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-of-used-games
    See? More guys on the inside predicting terrible things. "Used games kill the mid-tier publisher." Somehow the lack of a mid-tier (certainly a bad thing) gets spun into our problem by default. We're expected to just accept the current industry standards as an absolute and then make whatever changes on our end are necessary to keep them going as they are instead of anyone asking "Well, why is GameStop automatically the problem? What is the game industry doing wrong that keeps mid-tier publishers from thriving?"

    So, yeah. I'm not the one saying games cost too much to make. They are. I'm just responding to their incessant bitching.
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-17-2013 at 03:02 PM.

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    Interesting. This is a very similar argument to the one that the screen writer of TRON used for the argument between Dillinger and Dr. Gibbs. I'm siding with The Tiger on this one as I'm a strong believer that "User requests are what computers are for."

    A few observations from the posts on this subject:

    First, I don't necessarily think the industry will collapse again. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. The thought that it can't collapse because it's too big is nonsense and was proven wrong in 1984. Don't forget how massive Atari was during the crash. If you want an idea of how insanely big they were at the time, read "The ultimate history of video games" by Steven Kent.

    Second: Never assume the industry knows more about video games than the players. Perhaps the industry better understands the complexities of marketing and distributing a product (or pleasing their investors), but they don't always know what makes a great game or what it is that consumers actually want or will find entertaining. Furthermore, larger organizations do not generally make better decisions than smaller ones. They just absorb the costs of failure more easily.

    Third: The studios that have survived aren't as great as they seem to be. There's almost an undercurrent of 'The big studios won and deserve to have survived because they make such great products and wise decisions.' This can easily be proven wrong by doing historical research into cancelled projects by studios that no longer exist. There are many cancelled games that were looking to be truly great products. So many in fact, that it would make a good thread in and of itself.

    The bigger the budgets get, the less risk that a company can take on its product designs. Talk to a famous film director when s/he was starting out and then ask them if they're in a position to take the same level of risk now that they're famous and established.

    Games are for the players and the players are currently LOSING OUT. There is less variety of gameplay today than there was in 1982 (or even in 1998) and the concept of DLC is something that needs to be checked before we're reduced to the 'try the first two levels and give us your credit card number if you want more' model of gameplay. Maybe there are some who are fine with this. Personally, I'm not.

    I want more gameplay in my games and a wider variety of gameplay types -- all of it in a self-contained and complete package.

    As a consumer, I don't think that's too much to ask.
    Last edited by Neb6; 12-17-2013 at 05:24 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    But, see, you're defending their interests, not yours. Something like the massive anti-used games movement is constantly defended at the consumer level as "It's business! Companies want to make money!" Except that's not the consumer's job to defend a company's business practices. Their job is to set standards and have certain demands while the businesses do what they need to do to succeed. Then both sides meet in the middle at some mutually beneficial compromise. It's an adversarial system for a reason. When it stops being adversarial, when one side starts to make excuses for the other, it becomes outright antagonistic.

    Let's not pretend that there isn't a connection between production costs and all the things that have been pissing people off lately. We didn't pull this out of our asses here. Everywhere you turn there's someone else in the business bitching about how expensive game production is and holding that over our heads. They constantly bring it up to defend whatever DLC or DRM shenanigans that they're looking to employ. The industry seems to love playing the production cost card to elicit some sympathy from consumers despite also being an industry that is notorious for abusing its workforce. Well, they can't have it both ways. They can't use "we're broke" as an excuse but then be immune to any accusations regarding why they don't have their shit together. If they're making the claim that something is wrong then it's on them to fix it, not us.


    http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/07/...h#.UrC0nCKA3cs

    http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/343...s-state-of-aaa

    http://thegamesofchance.blogspot.com...y-defends.html
    Not even an explanation. Just a dismissive "how silly." What this basically says is that publishers are in dire straits and all the sacrifice has to be made on the consumer end...because they say so. They're the ones predicting doom, not us. They're the ones who keep saying "Oh no, if consumers don't accept the things we say we need to do (just say, not prove) then we won't be able to bestow these games upon them. There is no alternative and you're silly for suggesting we're responsible for our situation."

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-of-used-games
    See? More guys on the inside predicting terrible things. "Used games kill the mid-tier publisher." Somehow the lack of a mid-tier (certainly a bad thing) gets spun into our problem by default. We're expected to just accept the current industry standards as an absolute and then make whatever changes on our end are necessary to keep them going as they are instead of anyone asking "Well, why is GameStop automatically the problem? What is the game industry doing wrong that keeps mid-tier publishers from thriving?"

    So, yeah. I'm not the one saying games cost too much to make. They are. I'm just responding to their incessant bitching.
    I'm not defending anyone's interests. I'm simply explaining why your theory that games are too expensive to make is ridiculous and why there is no impending collapse as various pundits have speculated about for the past decade or more. A business is solely in existence for the purpose of making money. If a business has no such interest, there are other avenues they can take such as becoming a non-profit or simply providing their product for free. Nobody is being forced to sell games for a living just like nobody is being forced to buy them.

    Capitalism is not inherently adversarial, at least not when it comes to the relationship between customers and businesses. Businesses that are responsive to consumer demands typically do better than those that don't, but it's not the obligation of any business to be in either a cooperative or an adversarial relationship with its customers or the marketplace.

    I won't dispute that big budget games are becoming more and more expensive to make. I also won't dispute that things like DLC, trying to control used sales, season passes and other means of generating revenue are being used by publishers to offset some of those production costs. That doesn't necessarily mean that games are too expensive to make or that the growth in budgets is a bad thing. It simply means that charging a consumer $60 for a new big budget game may not produce sufficient profit in and of itself to satisfy the investors and shareholders in big publishers. If consumers decide that games are too expensive or that they won't buy DLC, then publishers may be faced with the crisis you seem so concerned about. Until that happens, this is just the same exact speculation that has been happening for the past decade or more.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Neb6 View Post

    Games are for the players and the players are currently LOSING OUT. There is less variety of gameplay today than there was in 1982 (or even in 1998) and the concept of DLC is something that needs to be checked before we're reduced to the 'try the first two levels and give us your credit card number if you want more' model of gameplay. Maybe there are some who are fine with this. Personally, I'm not.

    I want more gameplay in my games and a wider variety of gameplay types -- all of it in a self-contained and complete package.

    As a consumer, I don't think that's too much to ask.
    I strongly disagree. In 1982, unless you had access to very expensive development hardware and a means of distribution, the chances of being able to release a commercially viable cartridge or disc based game was very minimal. In just the past five years, the widescale adoption of broadband, mobile devices and digital distribution has allowed thousands of new voices to enter the gaming industry to create niche games that can appeal to very narrowly targeted markets. There is not only a much larger variety of gameplay types available today than at any point in the past, but also a means for the creators of those games to benefit financially without risking much more than their time. As such, I think the video game industry is more healthy and vibrant than at any previous point in time.
    Last edited by Bojay1997; 12-18-2013 at 12:32 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I'm not defending anyone's interests. I'm simply explaining why your theory that games are too expensive to make is ridiculous and why there is no impending collapse as various pundits have speculated about for the past decade or more. A business is solely in existence for the purpose of making money. If a business has no such interest, there are other avenues they can take such as becoming a non-profit or simply providing their product for free. Nobody is being forced to sell games for a living just like nobody is being forced to buy them.
    But it's not my theory. As you can see, people actually making the games are the ones who keep saying it. I'm not going to claim that I understand the game market better than the people in the industry. But when those people keep complaining that they have no money it makes me wonder just how much they really do understand it. For people who supposedly understand the business so well, they sure do complain about money a lot. Why are their financial woes our problem? That's what it boils down to. They're bitching that the realities of the world (used games being just one example) make their current business model unsustainable but instead of adapting like businesses usually do, decide that they should change reality.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Capitalism is not inherently adversarial, at least not when it comes to the relationship between customers and businesses. Businesses that are responsive to consumer demands typically do better than those that don't, but it's not the obligation of any business to be in either a cooperative or an adversarial relationship with its customers or the marketplace.
    Sure it is. "Adversarial" doesn't have to mean unfriendly. It just means two parties having independent interests and there's a sweet spot where both parties are happy. But that doesn't mean they aren't adversaries within the context of the transaction.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I won't dispute that big budget games are becoming more and more expensive to make. I also won't dispute that things like DLC, trying to control used sales, season passes and other means of generating revenue are being used by publishers to offset some of those production costs. That doesn't necessarily mean that games are too expensive to make or that the growth in budgets is a bad thing. It simply means that charging a consumer $60 for a new big budget game may not produce sufficient profit in and of itself to satisfy the investors and shareholders in big publishers. If consumers decide that games are too expensive or that they won't buy DLC, then publishers may be faced with the crisis you seem so concerned about. Until that happens, this is just the same exact speculation that has been happening for the past decade or more.
    When Cliffy B. goes on Twitter to say that budgets have gone higher than the current state of the market will allow and requires some big change on the consumer end to maintain, that's not me fearing a crisis. That's an industry insider confirming one.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    But it's not my theory. As you can see, people actually making the games are the ones who keep saying it. I'm not going to claim that I understand the game market better than the people in the industry. But when those people keep complaining that they have no money it makes me wonder just how much they really do understand it. For people who supposedly understand the business so well, they sure do complain about money a lot. Why are their financial woes our problem? That's what it boils down to. They're bitching that the realities of the world (used games being just one example) make their current business model unsustainable but instead of adapting like businesses usually do, decide that they should change reality.



    Sure it is. "Adversarial" doesn't have to mean unfriendly. It just means two parties having independent interests and there's a sweet spot where both parties are happy. But that doesn't mean they aren't adversaries within the context of the transaction.



    When Cliffy B. goes on Twitter to say that budgets have gone higher than the current state of the market will allow and requires some big change on the consumer end to maintain, that's not me fearing a crisis. That's an industry insider confirming one.
    Just because a handful of people keep saying something doesn't make it a fact, regardless of who they are or where they work. There's also a difference between "complaining that they have no money" and seeking alternate revenue streams so that a business model that is very profitable can continue to be so. The market has already spoken and while some consumers complain about DLC and other alternate revenue streams, there is a significant percentage of the gaming population that happily embraces the new pricing models.

    I'm not sure what dictionary you are using, but every definition I can find for an adversary is someone who is an enemy or opponent. Having different interests than someone or something else doesn't make you an adversary, it just means that if both sets of needs and desires can't be met, someone may have to compromise. A "sweet spot" may be a nice image, but it's not how the market works in the real world and certainly not in the video game industry.

    I recall all the same predictions about games becoming too expensive to develop back in the roaring 90s on the PC side of things. All I'm saying is that these same dire predictions are made all the time by people who lament that the classic era is gone forever and rather than simply accept that those days will never return, they take some odd pleasure in spreading rumors and speculation about some vague future collapse.

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    "Adversary" is commonly used to mean "opponent" without any kind of negative connotation. It often comes up among lawyers who, outside of being on opposite sides of a case, may have absolutely no bad blood between them. Same with athletes. When the Giants and Broncos play each other, the Manning brothers are adversaries as far as that football game goes. And of course a "sweet spot" is possible. It happens all the time. I'm sure a supermarket would love to be able to charge $100 for a loaf of bread and a buyer would love to get it for free. They find a sweet spot where the store makes a nice profit and the buyer gets it for a fair price. This is the foundation of pretty much every transaction ever.

    And the reason I pointed to all those insiders is twofold. First, to establish that the argument over the industry's health started on their end. They're the ones who complained about money or lack thereof. They started it. So it's not like I just woke up one day and independently decided games cost too much to make. The idea that such is the case was deliberately put in my head by the people on the inside who keep bitching about the struggles they face staying afloat in today's market. Well, if they keep complaining about their difficulties doing business then they should expect people to question if there's something they're doing wrong that's making it so hard for them to do business. I don't recall that ever happening before this past generation where so many people in the industry would air so many grievances regarding the cost factor on their end. It's clearly coming from somewhere. Something is causing them to bring it up so often. If everything really is peachy why are the insiders complaining as much as they are? And if there is something wrong, why are they exempt from being held responsible for their own problems? Why is it on everyone else to change so they can stay afloat? Again, this isn't me pulling anything out of my ass. I'm just responding to what the industry has been telling me.

    And second, to demonstrate that even if you assert that the industry is perfectly fine, it's not a slam dunk. The quotes I linked to may not be 100% dispositive but I think it's good evidence that it's at least controversial. Certainly not something that was made up whole cloth by disgruntled consumers and forum posters. You said it yourself. The business knows what it's doing better than us. Well, if that's the case then the only thing people like us really have to go on are statements from the business or representatives of it. So if Cliffy B. comes out and says that games cost too much to make there are only three options. Either he's correct, he's mistaken, or he's lying. So which is it?
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-18-2013 at 12:42 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
    "Adversary" is commonly used to mean "opponent." It often comes up among lawyers who, outside of being on opposite sides of a case, may have absolutely no bad blood between them. Same with athletes. When the Giants and Broncos play each other, the Manning brothers are adversaries as far as that football game goes. And of course a "sweet spot" is possible. It happens all the time. I'm sure a supermarket would love to be able to charge $100 for a loaf of bread and a buyer would love to get it for free. They find a sweet spot where the store makes a nice profit and the buyer gets it for a fair price. This is the foundation of pretty much every transaction ever.

    And the reason I pointed to all those insiders is twofold. First, to establish that the argument over the industry's health started on their end. They're the ones who complained about money or lack thereof. They started it. So it's not like I just woke up one day and independently decided games cost too much to make. The idea that such is the case was deliberately put in my head by the people on the inside who keep bitching about the struggles they face staying afloat in today's market. Well, if they keep complaining about their difficulties doing business then they should expect people to question if there's something their doing wrong that's making it so hard for them to do business. I don't recall that ever happening before this past generation where so many people in the industry would air so many grievances regarding the cost factor on their end. It's clearly coming from somewhere. Something is causing them to bring it up so often. If everything really is peachy why are the insiders complaining as much as they are? And if there is something wrong, why are they exempt from being held responsible for their own problems? Why is it on everyone else to change so they can stay afloat? Again, this isn't me pulling anything out of my ass. I'm just responding to what the industry has been telling me.

    And second, to demonstrate that even if you assert that the industry is perfectly fine, it's not a slam dunk. The quotes I linked to may not be 100% dispositive but I think it's good evidence that it's at least controversial. Certainly not something that was made up whole cloth by disgruntled consumers and forum posters. You said it yourself. The business knows what it's doing better than us. Well, if that's the case then the only thing people like us really have to go on are statements from the business or representatives of it. So if Cliffy B. comes out and says that games cost too much to make there are only three options. Either he's correct, he's mistaken, or he's lying. So which is it?
    As a lawyer myself, I have never called or thought about someone as an adversary in a case unless there was some kind of negative feeling attached to it. I think when lawyers represent different sides in a dispute and don't have any kind of bitter feelings, they simply call it the "other side" or the plaintiff or defendant rather than an opponent or adversary. As for the sports analogy, it's not a friendly rivalry at all when two teams get together, regardless of the blood relations between the two quarterbacks. I certainly don't think of most businesses as my adversary as a consumer and I don't think that our interests are inherently in conflict. Indeed, just like most video game publishers want to keep making games, I want to keep buying and playing them.

    As for the sweet spot, I believe what you are referring to is really supply and demand and market pricing. It's never a perfect compromise. I often pay more than I think I should for certain goods and I'm certain retailers sell them to me for far less than they think they should be able to. It's not a sweet spot so much as an acceptance on both sides that you can't get everything you want. The use of new revenue streams in video games is exactly the same thing. I personally don't like DLC, but I understand that it helps pay the development costs of the big budget games I love and want. I would love it if games were all $10 or even free, but I know that I am buying products from large publishers that have a certain cost to create and a certain risk to the investors in those companies and therefore, I understand that games will cost more. Heck, I've been paying between $30 and $60 for games since the early 1980s, so adjusted for inflation it really isn't that bad compared to other consumer goods.

    As for the comments from industry insiders, it's certainly true that some of them have complained about spiraling budgets. The same has been true in the film industry and television and every other creative industry. These same complaints cropped up in the 90s with PC gaming and in the early 2000s with the transition to more sandbox gaming and persistent 3D environments. Where I haven't seen these complaints is from successful large companies that make these big budget games. I think what you are really reacting to is that there is just more video game industry coverage available to the general public now than there was before, so the complaints seem stronger and more numerous.

    The fact that some companies are pursuing these alternate revenue streams is not a complaint that games cost too much to develop, it's a recognition of the fact that they understand that as budgets continue to increase, retail prices have less flexibility and they need to seek other means of generating additional profit. You might think that the calls for an end to used sales or season passes and DLC are complaints (and frankly maybe some of the spokespeople for publishers have not been the most adept at explaining why these things are necessary), but in my mind it just shows that the industry is run by smart people who are creative enough to come up with solutions to the realities of the economics. The people financing hundreds of millions of dollars for games like COD and GTA to be developed expect a substantial profit for the risk they are undertaking and frankly, it's not the kind of situation where the public is going to be super receptive to scaled back games at this point, at least not on console platforms. As such, the industry will continue to evolve and while there may be some bumps along the way, I just don't see any signs that the industry is headed for a collapse or that budgets will be reigned in going forward.

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    Heh, that's funny. I'm a lawyer, too, actually. I haven't found it an unusual term at all. One of my professors in school used it constantly and that's probably where I picked it up. Besides, it's called an "adversarial system" isn't it? I never interpreted that as implying anything outright antagonistic. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Suffice to say that I wasn't implying that business transactions can't be friendly. Just that both sides have competing interests.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Indeed, just like most video game publishers want to keep making games, I want to keep buying and playing them.
    There's a bit more too it than that, though, isn't there? We want to keep buying and playing them but we have standards we expect to be met by the people we're buying from. We decidedly don't want to keep buying things that RROD or have catastrophic bugs. So both sides come to agreements. We'll buy what you're selling for a fair price but you better sell us something that is actually worth that price. One problem with consolidation is that these things risk becoming more common when the majority of games fall under three or four giant publishing houses. And if the mid-tier publisher vanishes that's what we'll be stuck with.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    As for the sweet spot, I believe what you are referring to is really supply and demand and market pricing. It's never a perfect compromise. I often pay more than I think I should for certain goods and I'm certain retailers sell them to me for far less than they think they should be able to. It's not a sweet spot so much as an acceptance on both sides that you can't get everything you want. The use of new revenue streams in video games is exactly the same thing. I personally don't like DLC, but I understand that it helps pay the development costs of the big budget games I love and want. I would love it if games were all $10 or even free, but I know that I am buying products from large publishers that have a certain cost to create and a certain risk to the investors in those companies and therefore, I understand that games will cost more. Heck, I've been paying between $30 and $60 for games since the early 1980s, so adjusted for inflation it really isn't that bad compared to other consumer goods.
    Fair enough. I was using "sweet spot" to mean a transaction that both parties can live with, not necessarily one that meets both sides' personal ideal. As long as neither party feels outright cheated I think that qualifies as a "sweet spot." We can imagine a lot of situations where one side does feel cheated. The goal is to avoid that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    As for the comments from industry insiders, it's certainly true that some of them have complained about spiraling budgets. The same has been true in the film industry and television and every other creative industry. These same complaints cropped up in the 90s with PC gaming and in the early 2000s with the transition to more sandbox gaming and persistent 3D environments. Where I haven't seen these complaints is from successful large companies that make these big budget games. I think what you are really reacting to is that there is just more video game industry coverage available to the general public now than there was before, so the complaints seem stronger and more numerous.

    The fact that some companies are pursuing these alternate revenue streams is not a complaint that games cost too much to develop, it's a recognition of the fact that they understand that as budgets continue to increase, retail prices have less flexibility and they need to seek other means of generating additional profit. You might think that the calls for an end to used sales or season passes and DLC are complaints (and frankly maybe some of the spokespeople for publishers have not been the most adept at explaining why these things are necessary), but in my mind it just shows that the industry is run by smart people who are creative enough to come up with solutions to the realities of the economics. The people financing hundreds of millions of dollars for games like COD and GTA to be developed expect a substantial profit for the risk they are undertaking and frankly, it's not the kind of situation where the public is going to be super receptive to scaled back games at this point, at least not on console platforms. As such, the industry will continue to evolve and while there may be some bumps along the way, I just don't see any signs that the industry is headed for a collapse or that budgets will be reigned in going forward.
    It might just be that communication between publishers and consumers is at an all time high. That's true. We're getting a much less filtered view into the business than we did back in the days when EGM was the best news source. But I don't think the complaints about budgets and the alternative revenue streams are separate issues. Reason being, when the insiders do complain about money they usually do it to justify all these things. Cliffy B. brought up publishing costs in order to justify Xbox One's DRM. It always goes something like "games cost too much to make in a world that supports used games." So to me, when a guy like Cliffy B. says something like (I'm paraphrasing here) "we spend too much to publish games in the current market" my thought is "well, adapt to the market so you aren't spending too much." Cliff, on the other hand, has a different idea. He thinks, "we're going to continue spending this much and will just try to eliminate certain market forces like used games to make it viable." I happen to think that's backwards. If the realities of the world are rendering your business unprofitable, are we really better off changing reality instead of changing the business? I'm taking Cliff's word for it as far as production costs being a problem. I have no real reason not to. What I disagree with are the proposed solutions to that problem that are coming out of the industry. It all sounds like "We can't afford to continue doing business like we are. So you change to accommodate us."
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 12-18-2013 at 02:06 PM.

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