Amadeo Plaza of Gamer 2.0 writes:
"The 2008 NPD figures came out yesterday, and it's clear that the gaming industry has no intentions of slowing down its tremendous rate of growth. With sales up 19 percent from last year, it's no surprise that people are starting to look up and take notice of an industry that has long resisted the downturn of the economy. The Wii is largely responsible for the amount of growth that the industry has seen, and as a result of that, there has been a dramatic shift of focus to an emerging audience within the community: "casual" gamers."
Skewed and Reviewed have written an Opinion Piece covering issues in the gaming industry, how current issues were issues years ago, and what can be done to help restore consumer trust.
Nothing. It's up to the gamers to stop consuming content from companies that they don't agree with.
How do you know if you agree with it or not unless you play it? Which without conventions forces gamers to rely on trailers. Perhaps Demos should be made more frequently. But companies need to do better as well.
But is that not what they have now? Tons of gameplay or are you talking about watching actual gamers play it versus the trailers and streams? The big issue is that some companies pay streamers and influencers and they create content but for me; that is hardly a fair, unbiased, and factual look at a game.
They usually are attached to the money sadly. It would be nice to have gamers in charge but you have so much money invested that business people are needed. Hence the issue; you need people who know business but are also gamers who know have an eye to the community. It sounds simple in theory that if you give gamers quality games that they want to play; money will be made. But that is not always so.
Marie Dealessandri speaks to Borislav Slavov and Gustavo Santaolalla about “the new golden age of games music”.
A famous actor from Starship Troopers has showered praise on Helldivers 2 and said he is open to the idea of playing General Brasch.
I really enjoyed working on this one. I keep reading about how hardcore gamers are feeling as though they're being shafted, and I think to some degree they may have a reason to feel left out in the cold. Developing games that are more involved take a lot more money than developing say Boom Blox. But I'd personally choose Gears of War over Boom Blox any day; and I'm not even a hardcore gamer. I really do hope that the pendulum swings back. There are so many crappy casual games flooding the market at too fast of a rate. Companies are only digging themselves graves if they think they can pump out so-so casual games and expect to continue to do well. A bad game is a bad game by anyone's standards.
Key point from the article:
"IT administrator and avid gamer, Jefferson Scott, believes that “casual” gamers pose no threat to the gaming industry, “As they bring new people into the hobby they also help to bring new development dollars.” He continued, “’Hardcore’ gamers will get the games they want as long as they keep buying them, and the attention paid to the portable and “casual” gaming crowds only help to make sure that money keeps flowing into the developers’ pockets.”"
The terminology is a little difficult to play with. When I think of something like Gears of War, that might be something that the hardcore will love, but I don't think it's a hardcore game. A hardcore game probably isn't one that will sell a whole lot because by definition it's appealing to a smaller segment of the market. Conceptually it's a little more difficult to grasp, and not everybody has the time or the skill to conquer it. Those kinds of games will always be around because the developer in question knows that he's working with something a little headier and is okay with that.
The biggest problem this generation I think is that the market is divided. It's not a huge problem because people know that they still need to buy an Xbox for Halo and GTA and Madden and the Wii for different games. But developers can no longer put a game on the PS2, let's say, by default and expect everything to come together. Each console has a very different fanbase, and there has to be a careful choice of which console to put a game on.
By the way, I think it was Nintendo's intention to fracture the market a little insofar that there are vastly different experiences out there. They forced gamers and developers to choose, and most gamers chose Nintendo.
I really think all of this was blown into full force with the Wii. I agree with mgoblue on that--Nintendo made a very clear market, and for some developers, it's their intention to cater to that casual, play once a week fanbase.
Sadly, some of the games I love the most could be considered "hardcore" in the sense that only a crazy person would commit to them for love of something more than simple entertainment--Jet Set Radio, Ico, Rez, Ikaruga, etc.
But there's also this chasm of massively popular games--the blockbusters, so to speak--that cater to both the casual and hardcore gamers: Halo, GTA, Gears. These are the games that are simply fun to pick up and play, but have enough depth (or achievements) to keep the vets playing, too.
The more I think about this, though, the more depressed I get. Gaming is growing up, and we're a business. And the casuals are where the cabbage is at.
Well the gaming industry is going downhill for who wants real games.
Commerical = always bad quality wise.
Next Gen I am going retro. Its too late for gaming industry to get back to what it was.