We are in a video games crash

Genesis5 - 337 days 14 hours ago

Might be a little easier for Sony and Nintedno to weather the storm they both make a lot of 1st party games.

As far as Lair and Haze dragging those studios down. Those games were pretty bad. If you are only putting out a couple of games a year, you better make sure they are good. With so many games coming out these days most people won't by crap.

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TIKUP - 337 days 13 hours ago

EA BLACKBOX is not shut down, they have just moved location!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And its stated that in this article it is, what rubbish this article is

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Kigmal - 337 days 12 hours ago

Wow, are they really comparing this to the crash of 83'? What a joke. Nothing like that. Gears 2 sold 3 million in a week last month. Crash my ass. Basically the companies that are crashing are companies that made games not worth a damn. Lair, Haze, Need for Speed Undercover, etc. Companies like Insomniac, Epic, Blizzard, etc. who pump out good game after good game will not crash.

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lena - 337 days 11 hours ago

its hard to say we have a crash when we have a console selling 2m in ONE MONTH and lots of games selling millions (Gears, Fable etc) seriously some developers are closing yes but that have more to do with their recent failure than current economy. Good games are still selling as much as they used to in the past.

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DeathroW22 - 337 days 11 hours ago

Don't expect anymore unique titles like Mirrors edge or littlebigplanet for the next few years, developers can't afford to take the gamble.

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MaximusPaynicus - 337 days 11 hours ago

Are video games being hit by the worldwide recession? Of course. They're a business -- all businesses (save for maybe Campbell's Soup and Winchester Rifles) are suffering.

But this is no '83. Not by a long shot.

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Foxgod - 337 days 11 hours ago

Ugh, i smell BS.
I dont like BS.

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Red_Eye - 337 days 11 hours ago

This article is slightly too early.

I don't there's gonna be a crash, the game economy is just suffering like EVERY OTHER ECONOMY, so there's really no reason to worry unless you publish half assed games *cough*Wii*cough*.

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ultimolu - 337 days 11 hours ago

Rough times for everyone, not just the gaming industry. I don't think it will get THAT bad though.

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Mutley416 - 337 days 11 hours ago

I doubt it as well...
There is big money to be generated by making a "good game"...The Devs are churning them as fast as they can...The business model for poorly marketed and "lame games|" is always gonna be in trouble-

every business is facing a hit right now- it`s a recession...

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Jason 360 - 337 days 11 hours ago

You maybe in a crash EA, but most others are doing just fine.

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Death - 337 days 11 hours ago

If you look at the actual data, games and console sales in 2008 are up compared to 2007. Yes, the World is in a recession and this has affected many companies. Video games are not recession proof by any means, but the impact on them is hard to measure since we don't know how much we would have seen sold. What we do know though is the industry is still going strong and growing.

Lair and Haze were not bad games. Neither deserved the negative backlash that they got. This was the result of gamers bashing a product before it was even released. Out of all the people I have talked to that said how bad Lair and Haze were, not one of them actually played either game. They just knew. I own both games and had alot of fun with them When I would show the game to a friend who just knew how bad they sucked, they were shocked to see they were wrong.

I've said this a few times now, the system is broken and we are to blame. The hardcore gamers who used to promote games and spread the word to friends are now killing them instead. This is the result of the internet and unregulated gamer/journalists. The balance between reviewers and developers is gone. The professional reviews are now dismissed in favor of biased reviews that we want to see instead of the truth. These gamer reviews are not being done responsibly and many are done without even playing the game being reviewed.

If you want to blame someone for these studios closing, blame yourselves. Ultimately we are the ones that turned the tide for these developers in our quest to be on the winning team of the console wars. Pat yourselves on the back and buy a Wii. That will be the only profitable console for developers at the rate we are going.

-Death

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TheTwelve - 337 days 10 hours ago

I suppose if this Nintendo-based writer ONLY had a Wii, and not a 360 or a PS3, it would certainly feel as if good and unique videogames are hard to come by.

As a PS3 owner, I know we're not hurting in terms of great games constantly coming our way.

12

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Raoh - 337 days 10 hours ago

sony has been known to weather the storm. with so many studios under their belt they can continue to keep the ps3 owners stocked with games.

nintendo has been known to weather the storm. with many franchises they can continue to keep the nintendo owners stocked with games.

Microsoft is a first timer in the video gaming business. i know its their second console and its successful but they dont have the experience. what they do have as a company is spending cash. they usually allocate spending per division. with tough economic times and a new OS in the works, stiff competition outside of gaming. their new budget will be big but not as big as before, they are also spending money on buying back their stock so that's the companies first priority.

how does a gaming crash hurt microsoft? they count on third party support. third parties are seeing their crap games failing. so they are shutting down studios and shelving games. this hurts microsoft more than it does sony and nintendo.

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a game crash is great for gamers too. no more crap games released back to back and overhyped.

in the past week i've downloaded about 15 games for the 360. from gears 2 (that i bought), to many many third party games, left 4 dead, etc..

the only two games worth a damn are lost odyssey and left 4 dead. the rest are crap.

a few new ms titles are in the works but like all new titles, we have to wait and see if they will be any good..

_________________________

back to my original comment about pirating. times were hard too around the time the dreamcast was out. while the dreamcast saw a modest clime in sales. ultimately it was piracy that killed it. developers moved not only to the dvd format on the ps2 but saw a sales slump due to piracy on the dreamcast.

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here is the final outlook on sales. nintendo makes its biggest software sales in japan. thats good cause the company is in japan. its a huge win.

sony is loosing money because although their sales have more than doubled for the year, its all been overseas sales. the hurting economy has dropped the dollar conversion back to japan. so poor economy in the us, when you transfer the dollar to yen you loose on the dollar.

microsoft see's its highest sales in the U.S. but we are seeing a dropping economy and job loss so the U.S. is tough to predict once Obama is in office and it will be a while before we see if his plans will work for our economy (i feel very positive about obama helping the economy but it will be a while before we see the turnaround).

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omodis420 - 337 days 10 hours ago

This is a forum post. Hardly the insiders news that one would use to say that the VG market has been hit by recession. The theory just doesn't hold up. Look at all the great titles in 09 (for all systems) Look at the fact that we have seen articles on N4G the past few weeks talking about how great game sales were. The only one being hit by all of this is the PS3 and ONLY because of the price. Even with that said they are still selling a good number of consoles. One look at the video game market and software sales will show anyone that videogames are doing just fine. Most people see games as a value during economic hardships. They provide a great return on a $60 investment. Far better than going to a movie, buying movies, etc.

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ReBurn - 337 days 7 hours ago

If there's a crash do you know how many games we're gonna be able to pick up on the cheap?

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Zinc - 337 days 6 hours ago

They need to figure out how to make these so called 'AAA' titles without spending 30 million dollars. It's really that simple and it's something they should have figured out a few years back. I'm sorry if that's too blunt for some people, but that's the way it is.

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Vizion26 - 337 days 4 hours ago

The days of developers catering to "hardcore" gamers which make up a small percentage of the gaming population is over. Well, there are still going to cater to hardcore gamers but much less so in the future.

Companies that have concentrated on big bugdet games to target a very narrow graphic of 14 - 25 males has put them in financial trouble. For instance, Midway (Midway closes Austin studio, reduces total workforce by 25%.) , Atari/Infogrames (Atari ousts board of directors, lays of 20% of workforce.), SCi/Eidos (Eidos cuts workforce by 25%, cans 14 projects.), THQ ((THQ closes 5 studios, reduces workforce in 2 others.), Electronic Arts (Electronic Arts warns of further losses, likely more job cuts) and likely LucasArts (Lucasarts lays off 100 workers). Free Radical just went bust, and (though it is not confirmed) Factor just went bust as well. The latest financial reports of Take 2 shows that even though their revenues are up they made less profit despite the success of GTA IV.

I see companies have NO CHOICE but to support the Wii (even more so) and stop or reduce making high budget games which carries a lot of financial risks. The fact is the "core" gaming market has contracted or stayed the same, while cost of games have increased greatly which means lower profit margins or no profits at all.

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outlawlife - 337 days 3 hours ago

just as i said in the factor 5 thread, you need to make hits to succeed

when i company like factor 5 puts all of its resources into a game like lair and it doesn't do well then you will ahve a ahrd time convincing people to invest in future product

in the case of fact 5 they did not have a real hit in over 5 years, their last hit came on gamecube which was not an outrageously successful platform to begin with

in this industry you have to be able to compete and do it on a consistant basis and when you don't you fold

studios fold everyday, but you never hear about it because they can't even get a game out the door

if a studio gets games out and is actually lucky enough to have a successful game or franchise then they are extremely lucky

no matter how many indie studios fold, there will be one that pops up to take their place, the video game industry is not really working any different than it ever has people are just magnifying it and trying to link it to the current economic state

no matter the state of the economy the industry works the same, you put out a commercially viable and technologically acceptable product and you have a chance to succeed and continue onto something else

if your game tanks and you have no cushion to fall back on, you have to close

that is just how it is

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ReBurn - 337 days ago

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TEC...

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Mahr - 337 days ago

"We are in a video games crash."

Could this title be more melodramatic? Why not 'We. Are Going. To Die. :('?

And then you could include this gif.

http://i111.photobucket.com...

Look, anyone who thinks that this current situation bears any more than a passing similarity to the crash of 83 doesn't know what the term "Videogame crash" entails in the first place, which is why 'articles' like these are relegated to forum posts and stuff.

Are we seeing millions of units worth of merchandise being returned to stores? No.

Are game prices taking a massive dive to the point where stores are selling them for practically nothing? No.

Are toy/electronic stores massively downsizing their videogame sections? No.

Are any of them doing away with their videogame sections entirely for years to come? No.

Are 99% of our games now coming from Japan? No.

Have any of the major console manufacturers gone bust? No.

A sum total of three (actually only two) studios closing their doors does not a Crash make.

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fmjpower - 336 days 16 hours ago

sounds like BS to me......EA is just making excuses for the investors. video game developers are one of the few publicly traded stocks that are doubling and quadrupling each year......EA just cant keep up because they keep rushing out half assed games.

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bigjclassic - 336 days 15 hours ago

alot of the companies that are failing are the companies that choose
only to make games on the expensive HD consoles and then neglect the
less powerful consoles. Every game developer cannot afford to make
HD era games (hince why they are all so similar). Suda 51 and other
devs had hinted on this months ago.

If devs want a quick cash in, make games for the Wii,PS2,DS, and PSP,
because thats is what most people have and the devs have a better chance to make a profit.

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indysurfn - 336 days ago

people that make exclusives for the PS3 or that make crap for both have money problems. I remember Namco and Konami both saying they would need to sell half a million JUST TO BREAK EVEN. That was do to exclusives on the PS3.

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jack who - 337 days 9 hours ago

am sorry this is bs EA spent almost if not over a mili buying ppl up what they think was gona happen

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