Console Gamers - State of the Industry

FrozenInferno

FrozenInferno

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Folks,

I've been hearing the rumors about next-generation consoles as well as banter about the state of the industry and it got me thinking about a few key issues that are going to make-or-break console gaming as we know it. I'm curious to know what other gamers think about these points.

1) Developers vs Retailers: The Used Games Debate
One of the most glaring rumors about the next generation of consoles is the attempt to combat the issue of used game sales by linking each game to one user account, making the copy pretty much useless to anyone else (unless there is a system similar to EA Sports "Online Pass" in place where a new owner has to pay a fee to make full use of the game, which is pretty much a given). This makes perfect sense because the trading of used games is cannabalizing the industry. Developers want (and deserve) their fair share of each copy sold and retailers like GameStop want to continue making money on the markups they reap when customers trade their games in. If developers, at least the smaller ones, are going to stay afloat with development budgets getting higher and higher all the time they need your $60 more than GameStop needs a quick buck. I support this model because I think it's best for the industry, then again I only buy two or three new games a year so with roughly $200 a year going into gaming it's not as costly as the gamer that buys a lot more than that. Some are suggesting the retailers might even go as far as to refuse selling next-generation games because they would no longer be able to sell a game twice and rip money out of the hands of developers, don't they realize they're biting the hand that's feeding them?

2) The Move To All-Digital Content
This is already starting in other industries, examples being iTunes music downloads or movie streaming services, and is bound to happen to console games at some point as well. Personally I don't care for this approach, when I buy a game I want to have a physical copy. Any sense of ownership is gone when a game only exists as a series of 1's and 0's on a hard drive. When the day comes I can no longer walk into a store and walk out with a disc that would probably be the end of my gaming career.

3) Free-to-Play/Mobile Games
This is a booming industry thanks to the rise of the smartphone but it will never replace console gaming, at least for me. Yeah I throw a buck down for an iPhone game every now and then to kill time but I would much rather sit down in front of the PS3 and do some serious gaming. Developers of mobile games are trying to say the days of consoles and $60 games are coming to an end, I certainly hope they're wrong.

4) Speaking of Pricing...
It's getting more and more expensive to be a gamer, and with development costs expected to go even higher on the next-generation consoles I wouldn't be surprised if the average price of a game crept up another $10. Maybe if developers get their way and used games are taken out of the equation the increased revenues can result in lower costs for consumers but let's face it, greed is a powerful thing. I for one am fine with spending $60 on a quality game because of the hours I will get out of it, any more than that and I would have to put a lot more thought into what I buy.

So what do you think? Would you support a system that doesn't allow used games? Would you be comfortable with the idea of buying a digital copy of a game without really "owning" a physical copy? Do you think games are too expensive or of fair value? Discuss :)
 
If you look at the cost of games nowadays vs the late 80's and early 90's, the cost of gaming has gone down considerably. It was nothing for an old NES title to cost $70 or $80 new on the shelf, plus several hundred for the system itself. Now you can buy shovelware for $10 new at Walmart, and new systems for $110- $150.....

As for the idea of blocking the game stores from selling used games, it will hurt the developers a lot more than anybody seems to think. I can tell you that right now my gaming budget is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1.5-2K per year I own at least one of every system that's been released in the last 5 years, and in some cases multiples of the same system. If the developers decide that I no longer have the right to do what I please with an item that I've bought, then I will no longer support that developer. Not to mention the fact that if I have to invest full cost into something that I am not sure I am going to enjoy, then I will err on the side of caution, and not spend my money. Right now, if there is a game that I'm on the fence about, I'll wait for a few weeks after launch and pick it up used to save myself some money, and if I don't like it, I'll immediately flip it for something that I do like. If the developers take that ability away from me, then I'm just not going to risk it, and won't buy it at all. In turn, I may not buy future titles in a series or from a developer, because I won't know if the games they put out are any good. That's a whole lot of potential revenue that could go down the toilet. By allowing me to buy used, if I like the game, then I am that much more likely to spend my hard earned money and purchase the next game at launch....so the developer may not be getting my money the first time around, but they get it from there on out.

As for the idea of digital content, I'm with you. I like to have the hard copy in my hands, and until I trust technology enough to know that the games I purchase are not going to be subject to hacking, data loss or complete erasure due to a glitch or a system crash, then I will continue to bypass digital content.
 
You make a good point about the risk one would take buying a game they can't flip if they don't like it, without that safety net many won't take the chance. However there is something to be said for being smart consumers who do their research before buying as opposed to the ones who run out and buy the newest FPS at the midnight launch then complain that it's the same game as last time. The ONLY games I tend to buy on release day are the Assassins Creed games because I thoroughly enjoy them, anything else is after at least a month on the market and plenty of research on my part. I'm very fussy about the games I buy and when I do take the plunge it's because I'm confident I will enjoy it, so far it's worked and I have enjoyed pretty much all of the games I've bought without having played them previously.

Because of my current buying habits I wouldn't really be effected by a "no used games" system but I can understand why those who build large collections would be concerned.
 
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FrozenInferno said:
However there is something to be said for smart consumers who do their research before buying as opposed to the ones who run out and buy the newest FPS at the midnight launch then complain that it's the same game as last time..
Click to expand...

This is all I've got to say about current console gaming.

generic-fps-portada.jpg


To me it seems consumers don't think before they buy the newest version of game X, they just go out and gobble it up because its the new "cool" game to get even before they know anything about it or if it is even any good.
 
The day developers tell me what I can and can't do with a game I've purchased is the day I go out and buy a pinball machine.
 
hockeyguy2006 said:
To me it seems consumers don't think before they buy the newest version of game X, they just go out and gobble it up because its the new "cool" game to get even before they know anything about it or if it is even any good.
Click to expand...

This is nothing new to me. Tons of popular franchises stripped down to the core are pretty much the same thing. There are some some in-game differences between, say, Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, but they're both side scrolling adventure games where the heroes can obtain powerups and are attempting to save someone or something.

Honestly, to me, gaming is largely who puts out the best ball to run with and nothing else. Squaresoft shut everybody else out of the RPG market at one point because they made Atlus, Hi-Tec Expressions, and all the other RPG game companies' games look like ****. EA started to close in on the sports gaming market until they got too complacent and let everybody else catch up, so they had to kick themselves back in gear and start putting out really good sports games again. They've gone cold in a few sports again (like basketball) and have to begin the cycle again.

Kevin, please hang onto your thoughts because I like these discussion points...I co-host n3rdgazm's Gaming Podcast, and would love to have you on for a panel chat of some of these topics one night, though it may not be for a couple weeks yet.
 
FrozenInferno said:
However there is something to be said for being smart consumers who do their research before buying as opposed to the ones who run out and buy the newest FPS at the midnight launch then complain that it's the same game as last time.
Click to expand...

The problem is, how do you do your research? You can't rent games anymore to try before you buy. Do you read review sites? Those are pretty much a joke for the most part (sorry Matt, no disrespect to you), populated by fanboi's who have nothing better to do than slag on whatever system they don't own. I can't remember the last time I read an unbiased review, or one who's word review seemed to match up with their numeric score. For every guy like Matt who does up a good review (except he reviews sports and music games, both of which I generally avoid like the plague), there is 3 clowns like the fools at IGN who think that MW3 or Mass Effect 3 is the pinnacle of gaming.
 
TanguayFan said:
The problem is, how do you do your research? You can't rent games anymore to try before you buy. Do you read review sites? Those are pretty much a joke for the most part (sorry Matt, no disrespect to you), populated by fanboi's who have nothing better to do than slag on whatever system they don't own. I can't remember the last time I read an unbiased review, or one who's word review seemed to match up with their numeric score. For every guy like Matt who does up a good review (except he reviews sports and music games, both of which I generally avoid like the plague), there is 3 clowns like the fools at IGN who think that MW3 or Mass Effect 3 is the pinnacle of gaming.
Click to expand...

You're right about IGN and the other big gaming sites, they are too afraid of losing advertising dollars to write an honest review about a big market game. Some developers will also stop sending advance copies of games to sites like IGN if a previous release got a less-than-flattering review. Can you imagine if they crapped on MW3 for being the same cookie-cutter game as the others? Maybe they don't get an early copy of MW4 and GameSpot gets their review out quicker, that's a big deal for them. Those big sites are merely puppets for the industry.

I read reviews to get a general idea then usually turn to a good online forum to get opinions from real players, once you sort through the fanboy BS you can find plenty of coherant, honest opinions. I also watch gameplay videos, play a demo if there's one available, or if a friend has it I'll try it out. I certainly don't let IGN (and by extension the developers who manipulate them with advertising money) tell me which games to buy. I would trust your opinion of a game before that of a big gaming site any day.

And about the podcast Matt, it sounds like it could be fun but by no means am I an expert on any of this :)
 
There is a valid point at the heart of the used games debate:

Many (if not all) of those games have a "link online" component, and part of your purchase price is a piece of money to buy your slice of that infrastructure. They actually DO need to see some revenue to cover that whenever the game changes hands. Now, please understand, I don't for one moment support the numbers they throw out there as "cost recovery" - if it really costs them $10 per user, they have some serious restructuring ahead of them.

Moving on to mobile gaming:
Mobile gaming is exposing the console gaming industry for the horsecrap story they are. Angry Birds space sold ten million copies in three days - $30 M in revenue. They paid no publishing or distribution costs beyond their tithe to the app stores. Honestly, if something like CoD were to go the same route, at $15 or $20 a copy they'd still make a ruinously large packet - and not be faced with the shovelware problems 3 months after release. Or the used game debate.

The biggest problem the industry has is the same problem as all manner of media publishers: The insistence on clinging to a dying model.
 
Rob, the biggest problem with the review racket is the idea that kickbacks need to lead to kickbacks in return. Just because a gaming company sends you a game, or sends you for one of their press junkets, you need to give them a good review.

I've told the owner of XBoxAddict I won't/don't sell out to this theory, and I'd sooner quit than give a game undue praise when it clearly doesn't deserve it. IGN is allowed to do what they want because they're the big fish, so they can (but don't really) take a lot of liberties in their reviews.

Let me give you an example of how this whole "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" business has affected my reviews. I went to Florida last October to attend a preview junket for WWE '12. Everything was great. THQ are fantastic people, they put on a great event, and so on. The devs/PR had found out that I had played '11 nonstop, and played all versions previous (via a survey we filled out on the way to the event) and were picking my brain a LOT throughout, especially since I was being honest about problems I saw with the game.

A month later, I received the game in the mail to review. I wasn't surprised to see nothing was changed (since it was too game-changing without delaying the release for months) and I pointed the main problem out (the controls wrecked the experience, and as the end user, I was sick and tired of THQ changing the controls every year.) I had regular contact with people in PR after that, and with the exception of one, (who I got to know a bit outside of the WWE event since we have similar hobbies,) I didn't ever hear back from any of them again. They've now all moved on due to THQ's layoffs, but the point still stands.

Another fairly large gaming company wouldn't give us the time of day for years because of bad reviews they received from other games. They've now eased up a bit, but I have a feeling the cycle will begin again after reviews I've done.

Gaming development companies don't want to be told what they're doing wrong, and so many get defensive if they don't like what you have to say. The WWE guys especially...once I talked to Cory Ledesma, and Bryan Williams and others are bit touchy because these games are their lifeblood. This is what they do for a living, and I understand that spending a year of your life doing something and being told it isn't good enough, or you've done better must be devastating.

You end up with another problem as well for readers -- The large gaming sites can be nothing more than giant advertising machines because the very games they're reviewing purchase advertising space for the games. So it's almost a double dip of sorts. Who would be willing to bite the hand that feeds them? The medium sized (us) to smaller (ShogunGamer) gaming sites, where you can often find honest and inciteful reviews are plagued with poor writers...people who couldn't string together a proper sentence if their life depended on it. Us, for example...the only sponsorship I'm aware of is Wal-Mart, and they only pay enough to keep the proverbial lights on. I'm not financially compensated for what I do. I just keep the games I've been sent and nothing more, and may get to go on the odd trip, but it's paid for by the gaming company themselves, not us. I had an invite to go to E3 this year with media accreditation, but would have to pay my own way down and pay for my accommodations. Thanks but no thanks :)

TanguayFan said:
The problem is, how do you do your research? You can't rent games anymore to try before you buy. Do you read review sites? Those are pretty much a joke for the most part (sorry Matt, no disrespect to you), populated by fanboi's who have nothing better to do than slag on whatever system they don't own. I can't remember the last time I read an unbiased review, or one who's word review seemed to match up with their numeric score. For every guy like Matt who does up a good review (except he reviews sports and music games, both of which I generally avoid like the plague), there is 3 clowns like the fools at IGN who think that MW3 or Mass Effect 3 is the pinnacle of gaming.
Click to expand...
 
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By the way Kev...by being a concerned gamer that took the time to write out his thoughts, I'd say you're qualified enough to have a discussion about it. If you're interested in shooting the **** for a bit about it, let me talk to the other host and see when we could get it going. It might be next week since we're finalizing our topic this week.
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation Matt. I knew that some kickbacks were involved, although I had no idea it was as prevalent as it is. Good on ya for stickin' to your guns.
 
No problem Rob. I realize I had a half-thought that I left unfinished...check my last paragraph again because I've expanded it a bit.
 
Bump this up -- We're running with a lot of these topics tonight when we record the Podcast. Anybody available to join in is encouraged. Kevin, I'm sending you a PM shortly.
 
My take on the used games industry is what was stated earlier I will wait and purchase if I am not completely sold on it. Only the AC series and Fallout series will I buy without hesitation for full price. I have a decent sized gaming budget but I prefer RPGs over FPS so I spend mostly on special editions etc. If they go to all pay for play formats where you have to get a new copy and used games are not possible they will lose a lot of money. Most people do not have 60 bucks to take a chance on a game being decent with no away to recoup anything. The economy is wayyy to weak for them to try this at this point in time. They really should go all digital instead of eliminating a way to sell your game weeks after purchase.

I personally think digital is the way of the future but I prefer having a hard disk on hand then just a digital download makes me feel like I am actually getting something for my money. If the industry goes all digital they will be pushing out a lot of the older gamers who grew up with cartridges and discs. I would likely stop gaming altogether if this occurs. I am actually content with the state of the industry as a whole. I only play maybe 5 new games a year and that is it. I do not need change even if thats the way its going.

Mobile games are fun but they can never replace consoles completely. There are too many old school console gamers(myself included) that I would prefer playing with a controller in hand than just my iphone or droid phone. There is money to be made but I personally do not enjoy these games.

Pricing has been outrageous since the earliest consoles but the way I see it is if you are buying every game out there you should already have the income to support it. I only purchase a few games a year and I get my moneys worth from each one. I will extra for the little knick knacks or statues but for me the pricing is ok.
 

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