WIRED: Gaming's Fall season ain't what it used to be.

menace-uk- said:
1. Crytek - lol. Understatement.

2. Halo/Destiny - How on earth did you come to that conclusion?

3. Actally, a lot of the studios that have closed have been AA devs, not AAA devs. Also, there have been news devs come in too...like Playground games and The Coalition.

4. Your purchases have gone down, fine, but other factors could be at play here...like shifting interests, lack of creativity, etc.
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You think more people want to play Halo over Destiny? Has Halo 5 even broke Halo 3's top user numbers? Last I heard, Destiny had something like 30 million users https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/05/ac...30m-players-online-player-community-hits-55m/

AA, & AAA Devs have been closing by the butt load last Gen, and this Gen... I haven't heard of near as many high end Devs being created this Gen. All I ever hear about is how AAA Devs are going under, or in trouble due to huge budgets, and poor sales.

That's possible, but I usually collect most AAA games regardless of interest... The shift to online only/unfinished games probably hurt the numbers somewhat.
 
Plus, don't forget the fact that it takes far longer to develop a AAA game now than 10+ years ago... How would it be possible to have more high end games now with only 4 years into this Gen?

[EDIT] Maybe that's why so many games come out incomplete

Hasn't Sony & Microsoft closed more high end studios during the last two Gens than created?
 
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menace-uk- said:
So none of those over 70 were bought in a sale or are indie or more niche games or medium budget titles?
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I have a few games I bought on sale yes but those aren't included in that 70 number nor are the PS+ games, if only I still had all the money I've spent on games...help me I have a problem lol.
 
Cuphead, Shadow of War, Battlefront II, Assassins Creed Origins (I personally dislike the series), Super Mario Odyssey, SNES Classic. It's been a decent Fall.
 
menace-uk- said:
If cost is to blame for the diminshing fall lineup then why are the big companies, who make billions from other revenues, produce some of the most lackluster and uncreative games?
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Because whenever your budget is a bazillion dollars, you've got to make sure your game appeals to everyone, most especially the lowest common denominators -- the Joe Gamers of the world, whose main interests are guns, explosions, action, and boobs, not necessarily in that order, who don't tend to be aware of or value creativity, beauty, character, theme, innovative design, etc..

So, that is not a recipe for creativity. Any creativity you get is going to be limited, typically to visual/technical sheen/style.
 
I think Ive probably bought less than 50 full fledged retail games between all three consoles, and I feel content.

The big issue this Gen for me is having to play the waiting game. We get all these super hyped announcements of games that are years way from release.

So I've gradually shifted to an indie focus because those are the games that are announced then released in a timely manner.
 
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Don't really see much of a difference this year as other years. Still plenty of great games out and coming out. Nintendo and Sony are carrying the load as usual but Cuphead was great. It will be a miracle if i play every big game that comes out this fall.
 
Mike O'War said:
You think more people want to play Halo over Destiny? Has Halo 5 even broke Halo 3's top user numbers? Last I heard, Destiny had something like 30 million users https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/05/ac...30m-players-online-player-community-hits-55m/

AA, & AAA Devs have been closing by the butt load last Gen, and this Gen... I haven't heard of near as many high end Devs being created this Gen. All I ever hear about is how AAA Devs are going under, or in trouble due to huge budgets, and poor sales.

That's possible, but I usually collect most AAA games regardless of interest... The shift to online only/unfinished games probably hurt the numbers somewhat.
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So your basis for your statemment is user numbers for a multi platform game vs a single platform game. lol. You might as well have used sales.
 
menace-uk- said:
So your basis for your statemment is user numbers for a multi platform game vs a single platform game. lol. You might as well have used sales.
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Regardless... If gamers want to play Halo more than Destiny, they can make it happen if they wanted to.

I just doubt the want is there like it use to be
 
Andy said:
Because whenever your budget is a bazillion dollars, you've got to make sure your game appeals to everyone, most especially the lowest common denominators -- the Joe Gamers of the world, whose main interests are guns, explosions, action, and boobs, not necessarily in that order, who don't tend to be aware of or value creativity, beauty, character, theme, innovative design, etc..

So, that is not a recipe for creativity. Any creativity you get is going to be limited, typically to visual/technical sheen/style.
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Who says you can't have all that? We used to get all that...which is why I call bulls***.

The whole thing just sounds like a poor excuse.
 
Mike O'War said:
You think more people want to play Halo over Destiny? Has Halo 5 even broke Halo 3's top user numbers?
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Single platform vs. multiple? That said, the only thing we know about Halo 5 numbers of active players:

HALO 5 HAS SERIES' HIGHEST NUMBER OF ACTIVE PLAYERS SINCE HALO 3
The army grows

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/07...-since-halo-3?abthid=577fced0f571300a19000005

Halo 5: Guardians has outstripped every Halo game since 2007 in monthly active users - even before offering the full game as a free trial.

Halo community manager Andy Dudynsky, known on Reddit as bravo343, revealed the fact when responding to a thread about Halo's position in the Xbox One most-played charts.

"This isn't something we've talked about yet," he said, "but I am rather happy to share that even before the free play period, Halo 5 has had the highest monthly active players for a Halo title since Halo 3."

On top of that, the game itself seems to be growing in popularity as time goes on. "Also exciting," explained Dudynsky, "is the increase that H5 has seen in players each month over the past few months (we just got done looking at June numbers, which are once again higher than the previous month). As you can imagine this is pretty darn exciting to see."
 
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menace-uk- said:
Who says you can't have all that? We used to get all that...which is why I call bulls***.

The whole thing just sounds like a poor excuse.
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I don't know, man. Seems to me, that's how it works in all art/entertainment -- the bigger your budget, the more you have to cater to mainstream tastes. And the more you have to cater to mainstream tastes, the less creative/experimental you can be.

There are some exceptions of course (e.g., the latest Mario), but that seems to be the general rule. Big budget = mainstreaming = less creativity.
 
Mike O'War said:
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May make sense.... due to one key point....

..... there's too many game makers out there.

No doubt gaming sales have increased a lot over the decades, and cost of making a game has gone up too. BUT, the actual cost of manufacture the game (digital download or a DVD/BR disc) is a lot cheaper than old gens. So the profit margin should be there.

Problem is people buy up the key hits in the millions (good for those big studios), but for all the tier 2 and tier 3 kinds of games, it's rolling the dice who wins and who fades away. There are so many games now compared to old gens that had traditional releases to a store where a platform might get a few games per week.

Now with digital storefronts, you can get 10 games released in a single day. Check the indie sections and that 5% good/95% crap XBLIG section last gen, you can get swarms of small scale games made by no-name basement game makers.

Then you have people spending coin on mobile games and the whole gaming pie is only so big. It's grown a lot, but the pie is getting chopped up into so many pieces, most party goers are getting a spoonful of cake instead of a good sized slice.
 
No, he's talking about a total catastrophe

There are far less high-end Dev houses now than last Gen
 
Yea and the big publishers trying to lock people into their games by making everything games as a service isn't helping.

It would be more sustainable if the pipelines didn't seem to be so bad. It just takes too long to make games and when you have a change of direction in the middle because of bad management it just makes the games profitability drop. As middle ware tools become better along with pc's/consoles becoming stronger so that you don't need to tweak the hell out of the code to make a good looking game perform the industry will be more stable and sustainable but there is going to be a rough patch that its heading for at the moment.
 
People only see two options. Success or failure. The industry will shift. I believe that MS and Sony will develop their on demand services as will EA and some other publishers. We will buy less games and more game service subscriptions. Gaming will look more like net flicks in the years to come.

Right now the industry is creating this weird catch 22 for themselves. You have to make a big game with legs and DLC to keep gamers playing your game and not trading it in. However as games get bigger and have more content, gamers need to buy less games. Which means publishers have to make the games bigger and add more revenue streams, which means that gamers need to buy less games.

GTA is the model. It is a top selling game, because they continue to add content, which means gamers can buy less other games.
 
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