gaming Is the video game industry dying?

[Rainboom Dash 1,056]

It's not dying at all. There are still so many ideas and possibilities for games out there. While the industry has changed a lot over the years, I don't think it'll die for some time.

[Discordian 6,015]

People act like all the past eras in gaming didn't have it's share of clone games. Remember back in the Genesis or SNES games when all there was to play was platformers, brawlers and shmups?

 

There are so many games coming out on so many platforms with so many different variations...you can't just list the stuff that sells most or only the most popular stuff and think that this is the state of gaming in it's entirety.

 

Hardware continues to improve, it changes all the time with the addition of cameras, motion controls, better interfaces, connectivity to other people and so on.

 

Whether people realize it or not most retail games are actually very solidly made. We can argue all day about whether these games are good as there will never be an agreement but you won't find many games that are actually inherently broken these days.

 

Even more niche platforms such as flash games have an amazing amount of creativity in them.

 

One way or the other, the gaming industry can only grow from here. A lot of games will be left on the wayside but the gems will stick out whether through popularity or cult status. That's how games like Final Fantasy became popular, why Dragon Quest stuck around, why you continue to see love for games that were supposedly long-forgotten such as the Ducktales Remastered game that is a remake of an NES title.

 

Gaming will live forever so long as there is no drastic change to our creative freedoms.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Discordian

[CosmicHooves 2,705]

Yes.

Very very very very very slowly.

Everything must come to an end some point in time.

It's the time that is undetermined.

[Megas 27,697]

Not necessarily dying, I think it's just going through a phase right now. Though I do believe another Crash is expected soon, with so many development studios closing their doors and so many publishers bleeding cash, and an oversaturation of samey games left and right. I don't want to sound like a pessimistic douchebag, but I think we need another crash. Though I do see the indie scene rising up from the ashes.

 

Personally I think the problem is less "we need more innovation" and more "we need more variety"

 

 

People act like all the past eras in gaming didn't have it's share of clone games. Remember back in the Genesis or SNES games when all there was to play was platformers, brawlers and shmups? 

 

Honestly back then hardware was more limited, so I can see why developers would stick to similar formulas. But nowadays there's really no excuse, but that's just me

Edited April 5, 2014 by Randy Marsh

[Katana 298]

There's a few things going on.

 

If you are locked into "gaming" as being what you do on your Xbox One or Playstation 4, then yeah, you're going to see stagnation. Buy a PC, or some other device, and see what else is going on.

 

Many game developers are seeing games as a "service" rather than a product. That sounds like a bad, business-related, money-milking thing, but it can actually be a good thing. How many games do us Steam players own that we've played 5 minutes of and don't ever feel like bothering with again? Conversely, how many games do we have that we've played for 300+ hours? Unlike movies, games can grow over time, have a community built around them, be modded and expanded, etc. Borderlands 2 now has some 8 dozen pieces of DLC, and I'm betting its players couldn't be happier.

 

The result of that is that companies may start making fewer games, but making those games individually interesting.

 

In addition, if what you're looking for is "innovation", like the kind Braid had with "time = player's x-position", just keep looking at each new indie game that comes out; on Steam, or on the Humble Store. I promise you, much of the stagnation simply comes from what gets advertised to you - if you're just a little adventurous on your own, you can find plenty of games you never would have thought of. I think there must be a recommendations thread somewhere in this forum...

[Tigerpop198 696]

No it's not dying at all. People are just becoming more negative.

[D1SC0RD 987]

Almost every person I know is a gamer, and it never used to be that way. It feels like everyone is loving it, even the people I least expected to. Last I checked, 16 of the top 100 most subscribed youtube channels revolve around gaming (with a gaming channel taking the #1 spot). I work at an electronics store and when we have midnight releases for games, people start lining up at 8pm. Gaming is incredibly popular and I think it'll just get bigger.

[Brony Number 42 10,069]

There is a lot of complaining about games just being clones of each other. But isn't that true in any art form? People will copy the stuff that is popular. Shooters are a dime a dozen, but more is better than less, in my opinion. I don't want to say "X was the best shooter / rpg / whaterver and they should never try to redo it."

 

You talk about innovation, but the other side of that coin is repetition. It is hard to come out with something new all the time. You have to have 100 clones for every 1 breakthrough game. And new isn't always better. Wii tried to be new with their motion control, but that sucked (in my opinion) and that is why they have traditional controllers again on the WiiU.

[Nerdy Luigi 2,065]

It's heading that way, and there is one group of gamers to blame for this.

The gamers that aren't really "gamers"

 

Let me explain. Video gaming is close to dying because COD is getting so much money. Everyone else wants the same thing so they follow suit. Nintendo is actually dying (oh yes it is!) very much because of this phenomenon. Nintendo is one of the few creative companies left (well, other than Valve, because GabeN.)

 

But everyone else is starting to fail. EVEN EA! EA actually has less money than Valve at the moment, it's bound to collapse next time they release a non-Fifa or Battlefield game. Because they are so popular to THAT KIND OF GAMER.

 

In other words, it's about to explode and completely turn upside down. Soon enough, Few companies will exist because of such a phenomenon.

[Flying Space Badger 84]

Is the game industry dieing? I can only answer that with the two most ambiguous words ever paired together.

 

Goat Simulator.