An Industry Doomed...

[TornadoCreator]

As it's difficult to mulitiquote using the Wii U, I'm going to address individual points in order.

 

Eh. I used to be one of the doomsayers years back and if anything the industry is getting stronger and stronger as a whole. There's probably more studios now than there ever has been in the history of gaming, the little guys are managing to hold thier own against the big guys, and the big guys are so big that for the past few years games have have been the highest entertainment earners.

 

Sony issues is entirely down to non-gaming side of things. They've had absofuckinglyutely awful box office performance the past few years, fucked up in the electronics front with trying to go down the 3-D route a bit too hard (they weren't the only ones hurt) and like most non-Apple/Samsung phone makers is barely eeking out an existence on the phone front (which is also the cause of most lay-offs at MS the past few days). Should the SCE and Xbox Divisions be absolutely terrible, lacking in even bringing in tertiary business (e.g Sony Music, Skype, Blu-Ray, Kinect, etc) given the nature of their businesses they'd be carved off and pushed out on a boat. Xbox has managed to make a fair amount of money out of charging users $60 a year to use thier servers, and other peoples servers, which the Office side is only just having a crack at trying out. 

 

On the Atari front they haven't existed for a very very very long time. It's a trademark that passes around the industry like some kind of desired VD. THQs failures were pretty much set in stone long before, and mostly amounted down to the uDraw product which is similar to Activision with Guitar Hero though they were able to dump it before it took them under.

 

Also we're 9 months into PS4 and Xbox One sales, 2008 is 24-36 months into sales, so quite the gap in comparison. Atm PS4 is at 9 million units, at 9 months PS3 was at 4.3 and Xbox 360 at 5 million. Which means PS4 alone is selling almost as much as Xbox 360 and PS3 combined. It's probably worth noting that in the 9 month figure for 7th gen consoles is at a time where iOS and Android wasn't a thing, Steam was only a couple years old, "free to play" meant you had chipped your console. If you wanted to play games, you mostly had the big three. These days the main console makers compete with a vastly different landscape (which as we all know Nintendo is really really struggling with). As you said, it's 2014, shouldn't really be just looking at a handful of consoles.

 

As for the 40 million thing, not sure where that's coming from. There's currently about 200million 7th gen consoles out in homes, with about 25million or so 8th gen consoles, and then on top of that hundreds of millions, of other gaming devices such as PC, phone and tablet. I know some gamers with a rod up their bum like to dismiss them, but in a discussion of the health of the industry at large it's unwise to ignore the multi-billion dollar elephants in the room. Yes consoles aren't doing as well as they had done in the past, and unable to coast along, but they are not the industry and the industry as a whole is better for that. In fact it's led to consoles changing a fair amount between generations. PS4 has seen a healthy rise of indie games where normally you'd have just the big publishers on stage.

 

While I'm not sure on the actual sales and revenue of most games, I would assume that given games continue to be made that most games released do actually return a profit (though not always the desired amount). End of the day publishers are businesses, if games weren't a money making venture then they wouldn't be in it. As for certain genres being a lynchpin for the industry, that's just pure bullcrap. The musical instrument gnre was huge for several years, and then vanished. We're still standing. The space genre dropped off the face of the earth ( ) and here we are with Star Citizen being one of the largest crowd funded games around, with No Mans Sky and Elite also being big names joining the roster. DOTA has gone from a mod for Warcraft to a genre in its own right in a very sudden space of time. Fuck we even have a genre of stupid "simulator" games, and even legitimate simulators are doing quite well. In fact a lot of seemingly "niche" genres have been doing gang busters. Heck 2014 is the year where Minecraft became the third best selling video game of all time, all others being either Nintendo, COD or GTA (wiuth 17 spot taken by Kinect and then Sims, BF3, Skyrim and such at 26 onwards). If that doesn't show the industry is stronger than ever I'm not sure what is. The industry can support a game created by one man, becoming the 3rd best selling of all time.

 

All that's "doomed" is AAA games, and publishers aren't blind to this. For example Ubisoft is dippings its toes in the smaller games such as Valient Hearts and Child of Light. EA is pouring a fair amount of money into mobile (though also getting slaps on wrist by EU). Activision is playing it a bit dangerous with mostly sticking to COD/WoW, and 2K is somewhat coasting with GTA as well. But it's unlikely that those will fail anytime soon, and EA's stumbles with BF4 are likely to only shore up CODs future success. COD and GTA are the only series' able to rub shoulders with 7th gen Nintendo. It would require everyone decided to stop buying COD/GTA all at once for those to stumble and it's highly doubtful such a coordinated effort would be possible. As far as costs for making a game goes, they've never been lower. I'm bummed I never really fully flung myself at it at the time, but my "Game Maker" series was trying to show folks a world of "hey, you have a computer? For the price of next to zero dollars you can become a game designer!". Which is quite amazing really. The cost of creating content across all forms of entertainment has nose dived. of late. Really the only major issue now is discoverablity, which is where the AAA guys still have the upper hand for the most part. The marketing networks that got them sales for the last 30 years are still around. Indie joe isn't going to be able to push out TV and bus stop adverts or make a hotel sized Dovakhin, but on the other hand those cost millions which he hasn't had to spend.

 

Industry has never been better. Just it's not the industry that was around in 2006. or 1984. Or any year previous really.

 

 

Xbox may well be carved out and set out on it's own but I can't see Sony allowing Playstation to be seperated from it's brand. They're trying too hard to intergrate it into everything with Playstation Now and Playstation TV. Microsoft is most likely to simply sell off the Xbox brand if they feel it's not lucrative enough.

 

Your dismissing of Atari and THQ is intellectually dishonest. You're trivialising them because they're the clearest and most damning piece of evidence I've presented. Let me guess, is Capcom unimportant now too? The creator of Street Fighter, Mega Man, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry... so circling the drain that the ENTIRE COMPANY is worth less than the development costs of GTA V. That's sad.

 

You mention the release dates but that's a false dichotomy, I'm not comparing release to release, I'm comparing 2008 to 2014. The 7th gen release dates where hugely staggered, what was 9 months into the cycle for USA or Japan wasn't for Europe, Australia, Russia, or the Asian territories. You're also heavily skewing this argument towards PS4/XBO like everyone always does. Wii U, Vita, and 3DS are all well into their second years. The fact is though, software and hardware sales in 2008, where more than double what they are today, and that's INCLUDING 7th gen consoles in todays statistics. Notice the 2008 statistics ignore PS2/Xbox/GC/GBA sales. The sales for this year, however way you slice it, are abysmal across the board; especially as video games are supposedly reaching a wider audience as the games industry is apparently becoming more mainstream.

 

The 40 million figure is my own estimate, it's an educated evaluation based on the various factors in the industry as to what boundary the consoles must reach to be successful; nothing more than that. Now if people want to dispute my figures fine, but that's arguing minutiae at best. If someones going to ridicule my estimation without providing a counter argument, they're at that point little more than parading their stupidity. The number doesn't matter, what matters is the consoles aren't close to being ecconomically viable in the current gaming environment, with their current sales. If indie gaming takes over as the predominant force, they could be ecconomically viable with half that or less; but that would require a fundamental change in the industry.

 

"As for certain genres being a lynchpin for the industry, that's just pure bullcrap" - No it's fucking not! And that's not what I said anyway. The entire bloody industry is built on the multiplayer FPS craze, to deny that is to lie to my face. Go on, tell me the First Person Shooter isn't the only thing powering this bloody industry because the second you do that you lose all credibility. Every game, if not a first person shooter itself, at least emulates elements from the genre with multiplayer modes crowbarred into everything. The only thing even remotely close to the FPS craze in dominance is Open World Sandbox, and with the notable exception of GTA V nothing there comes close to the sales and prominance FPS games have.

 

Minecraft is an exceptional circumstance, basing your arguments on that is intellectually dishonest and you know it. Like I said in the first post, a crash does not mean lack of product or lack of profitable product. Hell the crash of '83 directly contributed to a boom period for the Commodore 64. Individual games are not good enough, especially not No Mans Sky, a game yet to even release. You're arguing on hope and hype, just like how three months ago the internet collectively agreed that Titanfall was a smash hit that put the XBO and PS4 on even footing, despite it not being out. Now look, it's a flash in the pan multiplayer FPS launched at a time of oversaturation for the genre, and now it's online lobby's are fucking ghost-towns. Looking at upcoming games tells you little about the industries health.

 

You claim the industry is fine, only the AAA industry is suffering but you fail to realise that IS the industry. Indie games cannot sustain the industry. Most are digital distribution and that's simply not being adopted fast enough. The mainstream are already revolting against the AAA mainstays such as COD/GTA and soon there will be the big flop that shows the disenfranchised masses. It's already in motion with the shocking number of people who flocked back to Black Ops 2 after Titanfall... not Ghosts, BO2. The CoD generation are getting older and are realising they're paying too much for almost no upgrade. The teenagers that got hooked on the first Modern Warfare are in their mid-20s now. They have jobs, kids, responsibilities... they're buying less games. The new generation isn't adopting gaming fast enough, instead they're all on mobile apps. If the consoles lose that demographic, and they are losing it, they lose the selling power. No-one will buy a PS4 to play Octodad, Resogun, and Guacamelee. Indie games are distractions at best, and at worse a regurgitation of SNES/Mega Drive games and no sensible person will buy a whole new system for that nowadays. I reiterate. when the multiplayer FPS bubble bursts it takes the entire industry with it...

 

Sure Android/iOS will still exist. Gaming will continue. It won't even noticeably hurt Nintendo which is the one I expect to still be around in 10 years... but will gaming be recogniseable to us anymore? I don't care about indie crap and mobile microtransaction vehicles; do you? Them replacing the AAA industry, that in my book is the death of gaming. It's like saying pizza still exists because you can still get cheese on toast... it's not even close.

 

Even still though, and this is the true tragedy. Even that isn't going to help. Let's be honest here, in 2012 the American video game industry made aprox. $15 Billion, more than half, $8 Billion was made in brick and mortor retailers. That's a drop of 22% in total sales since 2011, a drop mirrored last year when the industry fell another 19%. The 2012 drop was echoed in Europe which saw a 17% decreace in overall sales which is pretty massive. Now to go back, how much of that $15 Billion is attributed to digital distribution, including both AAA and indie games, on all platforms (consoles, mobile and PC)? Less than $5 Billion, increasing by less than $400 million in 2013. A respectable amount sure, but with a meagre year-over-year increase of less than 8% it's simple mathematics.

 

Digital distribution and indie gaming cannot bear the weight this industry is placing on it. This industry is losing money at a rate that's almost twice the growth rate of the entire digital distribution sector. The industries profit model isn't even close to sustainable based on digital purchases, flash sales, and microtransactions; especially as there's every indication that that bubble itself may be due to burst with bad press concerning rip-off apps and a weary public cautious about spending $0.99 on a scam.

 

Do people honestly think that, if retail released AAA gaming falls by the wayside that people will all gravitate to digital games; namely indie games because they'll "have no other choice", because that's not going to happen. Instead a falloff of new games would more likely see a resurgence in retro-gaming as people start scanning through the unplayed games of the 6th and 7th gen consoles at far reduced prices, whilst those who played predominantly online multiplayer games will simply stop playing.

 

We're still in a global recession and as with other smaller industries, hobbies only remain as such so long as they're convienient. When the specialist comic market collapsed in 2007 people didn't sign up in droves to Marvel Direct. No, the market just disappeared. When WCW was bought out by WWF, in 2001 Vince McMann was quoted as saying, "Now the WCW is gone, their fans will have no choice but to watch our product". But they didn't did they? No, as viewing numbers clearly show, they just stopped watching wrestling.

 

You see video games, much like comics and wrestling, are nothing more than entertainment; while highly enjoyable to their audience sure, in the eyes of the mass market they're an unnecessary expense and an easy thing to cut from the monthly budget. Things that are neither necessary nor, with the impending collapse of retail in this scenario, particularly easy to obtain; are always the first to go if money is tight. That doesn't mean they'll stop gaming outright, but a $5 used game on eBay once every few weeks is hardly sustaining the industry now is it, and there's always the option of piracy.

 

Digital has never yet replaced physical media in any area without taking a broadsword to the userbase first and reducing them significantly in size and video games are no different. Unless a niche side hobby is your vision of the future of video games, indie games are not it's saviour.

 

Given all that, are you still maintaining that the industry has "never been better", when it's clearly been dropping in profitability for the last 5 years, hitting what may be an all time low for the industry since the height of the 16-bit era; yet has higher cost on entry than ever before.

[TornadoCreator]

I'm going to throw out some numbers (USA only because the staggered launches makes wordwide numbers extremely difficult to compare):

 

Week ending July 5, 2014 (roughly 6.5 mos after PS4/Xbone launches):

• Xbox One: 39,025
• PS4: 38,044

 

July 6, 2013 (6.5 mos after WiiU launch):

• Wii U: 7,707

 

July 7, 2007 (6.5 mos after PS3/Wii launch):

• PS3: 20,834
• Wii: 87,288

 

July 8, 2006 (6.5 mos after Xbox 360 launch):

• Xbox 360: 48,289

 

Which of these things are not like the other, amirite?  Obviously both the Wii and the Wii U are outliers, in opposite directions.  The PS3 had a rough start but was by no means a failure overall, and yet 6.5 months after launch it was selling half of what PS4/Xbone currently are.  PS4 and Xbone aren't doing as well as the 360, but they're definitely in the comfortable range.

 

Source for all numbers is VGChartz, which I have heard plenty of complaining about but that you said in a previous post you thought was accurate for retail hardware, so there we go.

 

That's only comparing a single snapshot with another single snapshot. Yes by that specific point, the sales of those consoles would indicate that the current generation is doing really well. But we know this insn't the case. Overall, the averages are dropping. I wish I was on a PC so I could post graphs....

 

VGChartz allows for a comparison in hardware sales and software sales to be displayed in graph form. Take a look at sales over the last 5 years. There is a consistant drop across all platforms. Wider statistics show that this industry is losing more than 15% of it's profits worldwide, every year consistently since 2010.

 

I'm not arguing the merits of any single system, or their profitability individually. I'm arguing that the industry is in a tailspin and I don't see it recovering before everything I like in gaming is lost or warped in a way that makes it unrecognisable.

 

As I've said, if you accept that the crash of '83 happened, you must accept that a similar crash is underway right now.

[TheMightyEthan]

I agree snapshots are a bad comparison, which is why after writing that I made these charts (again, all USA data to get rid of noise caused by different launch dates throughout the world):

 

Sales by weeks-after-launch:

 

 

Same chart but on a 4-week moving average to lessen the noise:

 

 

Total sales to date, by weeks-after-launch:

 

 

As the data clearly shows, this console generation is starting out much more strongly than the previous one, in every reasonable measure.  The WiiU is the only exception, and even then its performance is comparable to the PS3.  And again I'm only counting data from the US, so there's no adjustments needed for different numbers of markets or anything like that.  There is nothing to suggest that the console market is anything but booming.

 

The last 5 years is a bad measurement, because you're looking at the second half of a console generation, where they've already largely reached market saturation.  If you look at the last 10 years you'll see that sales increase for the first several years, plateau, and then start to fall off.  We're at the beginning, where sales are normally low.

 

*Edit* - Basically I'm saying that due to the console system the industry is inherently cyclical, so you're looking at the down half of a cycle and extrapolating it to say it's going to continue down, which is just not reasonable.

 

*Edit 2* - Here's a screenshot of the last 10 years if you're interested in better data:

 

Edited July 18, 2014 by TheMightyEthan

[TornadoCreator]

The problem is Ethan, you're looking at tne wrong statistics. First of all, looking at just USA is extremely biased towards Microsoft and against Nintendo, but you're not paying attention to software sales or profitability. Differences in funding for games changes the meaning of sales figures, for a games to sell 3 million units in 2007 is good, in 2014 it's an outright failure.

 

That final graph is terrible. You have it showing a bell curve from 2004-2014 but fail to mention that VGChartz tracks nothing before the 7th generation, in short their numbers for 2004-2007 are very much incomplete which is why I compare the figures with 2008 and onwards. Did you not find it suspect that the figures where so low in 2004?

 

As for the other graphs, launch window statistics are irrelevant as I included 7th gen statistics in my analysis. I'm analysing the industry now compared with the industry as it was over the last 6 years. I'm not on a fanboy tirade trying to prove the PS4 or Xbox One is a failure. I notice you conveniently leave off the handheld systems for example.

 

Now if you believe this lul in sales is normal, fine. Without more complete data, which I'd have difficulty sourcing I can't show you otherwise. But, I'm not just using sales to justify my position. Stock market standings, studio closure, and publisher bankruptcies are also supporting my claim that the industry is in collapse... and those thing are hard to dispute.

Edited July 18, 2014 by TornadoCreator

[TheMightyEthan]

I was responding to your claims that this console cycle is failing.  I've demonstrated it is doing better than the previous one at the same point in its lifetime.  You have not provided any solid data to back up a single one of your claims, despite numerous statements that your data is irrefutable.  I provide a detailed analysis of data to support my point, but you say I'm looking at the wrong data, and then again provide nothing but generalizations that you're right.  Now who's ignoring the hard data because you find it inconvenient?

 

I only threw in that last thing as an afterthought in response to the comment you posted while I was doing my analysis.  I'm not going to put in any more work refuting your ridiculous claims until you actually provide some data to back them up.

[TCP]

Clearly, TC doesn't need "data" or "real things". His opinions are facts, and the PS4 is dying. RIP gaming. I've attached a photo of the PS5.

 

[Strangelove]

PS6 is quite the upgrade to PS5.

 

[TornadoCreator]

I was responding to your claims that this console cycle is failing.  I've demonstrated it is doing better than the previous one at the same point in its lifetime.  You have not provided any solid data to back up a single one of your claims, despite numerous statements that your data is irrefutable.  I provide a detailed analysis of data to support my point, but you say I'm looking at the wrong data, and then again provide nothing but generalizations that you're right.  Now who's ignoring the hard data because you find it inconvenient?

 

I only threw in that last thing as an afterthought in response to the comment you posted while I was doing my analysis.  I'm not going to put in any more work refuting your ridiculous claims until you actually provide some data to back them up.

 

You're having an argument with yourself then... my premise is that the games industry is failing, NOT as you seem to think, that the PS4/Xbox One are doing worse in USA than the PS3/360 where doing in USA at this point in their lifecycle.

 

We call this a strawman, rather than argue against my actual points you fabricate something I didn't say and prove it wrong, then claim you proved me wrong. At no point did I say last gen consoles outsold this gens consoles at launch; why are you focusing on this?

 

My position is that the games industry is a bloated mess that cannot sustain itself in it's current form and that the current console generation is entering into a market where they cannot be successful without beating some rather extreme odds. I've sited sales data, profit statistics, and industry events as my reasoning, as well as basing much of my opinion on the observed buying habbits of modern gamers and some basic psychology and economics. This isn't difficult stuff to check... just google it, you can see everything I'm saying is true, or do you expect every conclusion I reach to have a hyperlink directing you to someone else saying the same thing?

 

Having a source for you data, posting pretty graphs, links to new articles, etc. means nothing if you don't know how to interpret these things and reach a conclusion. All you've demonstrated here Ethan is that the PS4 and XBO sold better than last gens consoles did in there opening months in USA, (but not the Wii U, Vita, or 3DS)... this says nothing. So what? Does this fact prevent the gaming industry from going into financial collapse? No, it doesn't. It doesn't make a jot of a difference one way or the other. All you've proven is there was a heavy adoption rate followed by a steep decline of interest in those two consoles, in that one region, in that isolated time frame... which I'll point out was Christmas 2013, so sales being high is hardly a massive shock.

 

Go to this page and do nothing more than extend the page to show 2008-Now and you'll see there's a steady and constant decline in sales across all platforms.

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php

 

Infuriatingly I can't post an image from the Wii U, but this shows what I've been talking about, and thats just hardware... software is just as bad if not worse.

 

Reread my arguments if you have to, but please argue my points, not your strawman.

[deanb]

pre-face: I started writing this then was dragged away for a bit, so there's a bit of a gap between when I started and when I posted. Just in case anything crops up in-between.

 

PlayStation Now is a streaming service specifically for the PlayStation, and PS TV is jsut a Vita in a box. They're not really tied in with Sony Corp as a whole, compared to the likes of Blu-Ray, Music Unlimited, etc. Similar with MS and Xbox. Both have the devices tied into their exosystem, but both could be easily cast off as separate companies. On the SCE front it practically already is. Xbox is a division which'd be a fair bit harder.

 

Atari has been dead for around 20-30 years, mostly existing as a name owned, used and abused by several companies over the last few decades, which for the most part is currently with Infogrammes and Warner Bros. I'll be honest I thought the fact that Atari as an actual company not existing for a few decades now was part of Video Game History 101. THQ were quite clear that it was the gamble with uDraw that fucked them over. Also THQ bring a minor highlight to this all: Publishers collapsing means others fill in the void. Sega is doing very well of late (especially with it's PC wing buffed by THQ acquistions), and Koch Media (aka Deep Silver) have been doing very well since THQs death.

 

Also I know you're not comparing release dates, that's why your figures are a bit fucked up. If you're wanting to compare sales of this gen with last gen it's only fair to go for life-to-date sales, which as Xbox One and PS4 only just launched last November they're barely a year into the current life cycle of around 5-10 years. It's a bit like comparing the language skills of a 3 year old against a 9 month old. Or any other stats between the two really. By 2008 the consoles will have been out around 2-3 years, with 2-3 years worth of games behind them, the snowballing userbase.

I'm only going with the PlayStation and Xbox cos they're easiest to compare, the Wii and Wii U are huge anomalies against each other. I can't remember the thread I put these in (which means it's missing a lot of the flavour text) but here's my graphs showing the Wii being a major anomaly against all other generations of Nintendo hardware.

If you have any stats on software sales between 2008 and 2014 then those would be welcome (by like everyone, they're nigh impossible to get given that for one a large amount of sales pass through Steam which discloses nothing, and most bodies that measure software sales don't track digital which is ever growing, and afaik no one tracks mobile sales, though Apple and Google both do tend to throw out raw revenue now and then).

TIGA, the UK trade body, does have stats on the UK games industry and everything is rather rosy http://www.tiga.org/news/the-uk-video-game-development-sector-is-back-on-track. Revenue up, employment up, investment up etc etc. In fact it specifically states it has reached levels on par with 2008, making it a 5 year high.

 

But there is no boundary or bare minimum to be a successful console. Heck as noted in the "Nintendo is fucked" thread the Wii U has sold less than the Dreamcast and yet Nintendo are still continuing on with it.

 

I deny that the entire industry is built on the Multiplayer FPS craze. COD4:MW was the COD that changed it all and that was released only 7 years ago, which means the industry pre-dates COD by a good 30+ years. And it's the only MP FPS title that's gained any major traction, as I mentioned up top the best selling games are all Nintendo, GTA or COD. Though actually TF2 might be on-par/exceed it but I guess since it's free it's hard to track "sale numbers". Star Citizen has $48million in funding, that's not "hope & hype" that's cold hard cash. Space games were an genre thought dead years ago, and here we have millions being poured into them again. Given the exclusivity to Xbox One of course it's a ghost town. Though I would point out should the industry be built on FPS games then it wouldn't be.

 

AAA isn't the industry. If there was purely AAA then we would be fucked, without indie there's no bottom, there's no variety to the industry. You've made your disdain towards indies known in the past, but that doesn't change the fact that over the course of the past generation they've gone from few and far between to being major playing forces within the industry to the point where they're invited on stage at console announcements, long established studios are having key people leave to forge new studios, and yes the massive carrot on a stick for them all that is Minecraft. The likes of Kickstarter and digital distribution has broken the traditional chains of control and allowed studios to bloom without the need for AAA. And it's all certainly much better than the old days of mostly shovelware AA games, which you've failed to mention their disappearance, that we used to get for the cheap scale of things.

 

Just because you personally don't care for "indie crap" or mobile gaming doesn't make them not part of the industry. Also you'd have to be completely blind not to realise that indie is putting out some great quality games on-par with AAA in many cases. The race to the bottom on gaming tools, and the dearth of experience talent looking to break from the rigours of publisher work means that the indie of today can be very accomplished and highly polished work.

 

Wait, how is $400million increase "meagre". I'd sure like a meagre amount of money like that. Also all you've quoted is 2012 figures, which incidentally means it predates most of 8th gen by nearly 2 years and also means all it covers the the final years of 7th gen which we all know was stalling, hence 8th gen. As you noted yourself most of the drop is in physical sales, with digital increasing 8%, which also as already mentioned that won't even cover most of the digital sales because Steam keep their sales figures under lock and key. That's probably just purely console digital sales, which 8% increase in just 2012 is pretty damn good, we're 2 years on since then. It would also likely tend to be just "retail software" which won't include the likes of F2P and subscription income.

 

Why can't digital distribution "bear the weight". Steam has more users active users than there were 360s or PS3s sold. If it was going to collapse it would have done ages back. Also most games sold on digital, at least the AA ones that are supposedly going to collapse , are sold at the same as the physical copies, and yet carry none of the extra costs in pressing discs, distribution, shelf space etc, so therefore even more profitable than physical. Seems a pretty sustainable profit model to me. Also Dota 2 is free, yet Valve made $10million off it with the "compedium" let alone all the extra mumph they have on top. We know from IO that 98% of the Play stores revenue is derived from freemium products (though I'm sure that includes unlockers for other apps, not just games), which would be a pretty huge bubble to burst, but it shows signs of only further growth.

 

AAA games are released via digital methods too, and I wouldn't see folks going and booting up the PS2 if suddenly new AAA games were to stop coming out. As you have rightly observed there is a growth in mobile gaming, that's where people would more than likely gravitate to get thier gaming fix should several billion dollars worth of companies all go boom in the next 4 and a half months. Or PC gaming, which as I have noted several times has at least a userbase of 70million+ people (that's more folks than there are in the UK, not a small number and far in excess of 8th gen combined)

 

The global recession ended several years ago. Many nations are still recovering, the but the recession itself has ended.

 

I maybe spend my time in the company of the wrong people, but seems the specialist comic book market is doing pretty well of late, and much like gaming (and all other entertainment mediums) is helped by the ease and simplicity of digital distribution. Amazon didn't buy Comixoligy because they saw a doomed and failing business model. And I would really like to see some facts and figures on digital diminishing the overall userbase. I'm pretty sure music shows otherwise in the biggest way, and it wouldn't surprise me if eBooks have helped book sales over the years.

 

Also highest ever entry cost? On both the consumer and developer side it has never been cheaper. Especially given the PS3 was six hundred fucking pound. That's a high entry cost. PS4 is much cheaper at £300. Alongside that many modern computer systems are perfectly capable of chewing through a vast dearth of games due to APUs and the like. Similar with phones and tablets. The Hudl is £50 iirc, that's pretty cheap. On the dev front middleware companies are practically begging you to use their shiny engine for fuck all (cos they then slice off some later on). Also on the "profitability at all time low"; revenue =/= profits.

 

 

In the 1984 video game crash all that played games were specialist consoles and highly expensive "PCs". For video games to crash now would require the much more problematic issue of something happening where by we all stop making use of computers and phones. And it'd have to do it all within the next 5.5 months. And probably 5.5 months this time next year, and this time in 2016 and so on. (since you already admitted should your vision of doom fail to pass you'd revise it to collapsing in 2015. That's how Nostradamus and Harold Camping worked. Yeah eventually the industry will die, but likely with the sun scorching the surface of the earth, or in the rain of nuclear hellfire, or fuck even with the final swirling particle being sucked into the gnab gib. Since we're being hyperbolic.)

[TornadoCreator]

Also I know you're not comparing release dates, that's why your figures are a bit fucked up. If you're wanting to compare sales of this gen with last gen it's only fair to go for life-to-date sales, which as Xbox One and PS4 only just launched last November they're barely a year into the current life cycle of around 5-10 years. It's a bit like comparing the language skills of a 3 year old against a 9 month old. Or any other stats between the two really. By 2008 the consoles will have been out around 2-3 years, with 2-3 years worth of games behind them, the snowballing userbase.

 

In what universe did the PS3 come out in 2005, because it came out in March 2007 over here and November 2006 in USA, so how is using 2008 figures so bad? I want to see you compare the July 2006 PS3 figures with todays PS4s, that'll be fucking hilarious. 2-3 years?! It's 1.5 years from the US launch and only 15 months from the PAL launch. How can I take you guys seriously when you act like the PS3 was released in mid-2005? Sure the 360 was out, in December 2005 in USA and Japan (ha!), but the rest of the world got a staggered release over the next 2.5 years. Then there's the Wii, which released December 2006, so 18 months before my chosen date.

 

Now considering the Wii U has been out for a little under 2 years, the Vita almost 2.5 years, and the 3DS 2 years 8 months... I think it's pretty even really. Naturally people are only counting the PS4/XBO though because that supports their point. Which is incidental anyway.

 

The point remains, I DON'T want to compare this gen with last gen, I want to compare the industry today with the last six years ie. since the international banking crisis. If you like I'll make the same arguments for July 2008 vs July 2013... before the current generation was even in full swing, and before the PS3/XBO release. You're all focusing on the wrong bit.

[TheMightyEthan]

Comparing the begging of this gen to the middle of last been doesn't make any goddamn sense. You keep saying you want to do that, but doing so is stupid and meaningless.

[TornadoCreator]

I deny that the entire industry is built on the Multiplayer FPS craze. COD4:MW was the COD that changed it all and that was released only 7 years ago, which means the industry pre-dates COD by a good 30+ years. And it's the only MP FPS title that's gained any major traction, as I mentioned up top the best selling games are all Nintendo, GTA or COD. Though actually TF2 might be on-par/exceed it but I guess since it's free it's hard to track "sale numbers". Star Citizen has $48million in funding, that's not "hope & hype" that's cold hard cash. Space games were an genre thought dead years ago, and here we have millions being poured into them again. Given the exclusivity to Xbox One of course it's a ghost town. Though I would point out should the industry be built on FPS games then it wouldn't be.

 

I swear I'm never going to finish your post...

 

Way to misquote me there. The industry IS built on th multiplayer FPS craze... notice the word IS! As in, currently. The overwhelming majority of AAA games are FPS games almost all of which have multiplayer, whether they need it or not. This means that the current prevailing trend, or industry bubble if you will indulge me, is the multiplayer FPS. How did you fail to understand that statement and instead take it to mean, "the industry has always been based on multiplayer FPSs"? 

 

I've not even heard of Star Citizen, therefor it's unimportant. If a game can pass me by without me knowing it exists, when I actively take part in multiple online gaming communities and follow gaming news; it simply doesn't matter. After googling it, I find the game hasn't even fucking released yet... hell, it may never release for all we know; after all Yogscast game got cancelled.

 

So a crowdfunded project has some money; big woop, what does that prove exactly? Nothing. Just that people are such fools they'll pay for the promise of a game some time in the future, rather than buying finished, decent, and complete games. It's the natural extension of the pre-order/early access culture we have now. Besides at that funding level, assuming a standard $60 price point, it sold the equivalent of only 70,000 copies. Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2 sold more than that and that bombed. Even Psychonauts sold more than 200,000 copies and that's famous for being the game no sod bought. If this is your big example of a change in the wind, it's little more than a stale fart. The games industry is two orders of magnitude bigger than Star Citizen, as I thought, it's insignificant.

 

I don't like this fact, hell I hate it. I've never yet actually enjoyed First Person Shooters; but facts remain, the FPS bubble is still where AAA is firmly seated, just look at the PS4 retail lineup. CoD: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, Killzone: Shadowfall, Sniper Elite 3, Wolfenstein, and the upcoming Destiny, and CoD: Advanced Warfare. Thief is basically an FPS with a crossbow (it's certainly not  the Thief of old). Even Watch_Dogs, Tomb Raider and The Last Of Us have FPS inspired multiplayer shoehorned in. That leaves erm... Assassin's Creed IV and Knack... YAY...

 

Seriously, FPS games make up half the games released at retail nowadays, and you're saying the industry isn't reliant on this genre.

[TornadoCreator]

AAA isn't the industry. If there was purely AAA then we would be fucked, without indie there's no bottom, there's no variety to the industry. You've made your disdain towards indies known in the past, but that doesn't change the fact that over the course of the past generation they've gone from few and far between to being major playing forces within the industry to the point where they're invited on stage at console announcements, long established studios are having key people leave to forge new studios, and yes the massive carrot on a stick for them all that is Minecraft. The likes of Kickstarter and digital distribution has broken the traditional chains of control and allowed studios to bloom without the need for AAA. And it's all certainly much better than the old days of mostly shovelware AA games, which you've failed to mention their disappearance, that we used to get for the cheap scale of things.

 

Just because you personally don't care for "indie crap" or mobile gaming doesn't make them not part of the industry. Also you'd have to be completely blind not to realise that indie is putting out some great quality games on-par with AAA in many cases. The race to the bottom on gaming tools, and the dearth of experience talent looking to break from the rigours of publisher work means that the indie of today can be very accomplished and highly polished work.

 

I'm not impressed by indie games. Back in the 90s and early 2000s small devs existed. Hell some big franchises today started out as indie games. My issue is that most of them are crap, they're largely lacking in quality control, and they rely far too heavily on nostalgia or baiting YouTubers (thank you PewDiePie you prick*).  Show me an indie game worth getting and I'll get it, once they give it a physical release ie. Minecraft, Journey, Super Meat Boy etc. I occasional relent and get the digital if I know there's no chance of a physical release; and it's heavily discounted. The vast majority though are awful. Sure budget shovelware was bad, but was it really Air Control, Flappy Bird, Slender or Goat Simulator levels of bad? I think not. The day indie takes over is the day I go full retro.

 

*I have nothing against PewDiePie, he's actually a cool guy who's helped out a lot of charities etc. but his videos are utter shit and his fanbase moronic.

[TornadoCreator]

Wait, how is $400million increase "meagre". I'd sure like a meagre amount of money like that. Also all you've quoted is 2012 figures, which incidentally means it predates most of 8th gen by nearly 2 years and also means all it covers the the final years of 7th gen which we all know was stalling, hence 8th gen. As you noted yourself most of the drop is in physical sales, with digital increasing 8%, which also as already mentioned that won't even cover most of the digital sales because Steam keep their sales figures under lock and key. That's probably just purely console digital sales, which 8% increase in just 2012 is pretty damn good, we're 2 years on since then. It would also likely tend to be just "retail software" which won't include the likes of F2P and subscription income.

 

Why can't digital distribution "bear the weight". Steam has more users active users than there were 360s or PS3s sold. If it was going to collapse it would have done ages back. Also most games sold on digital, at least the AA ones that are supposedly going to collapse , are sold at the same as the physical copies, and yet carry none of the extra costs in pressing discs, distribution, shelf space etc, so therefore even more profitable than physical. Seems a pretty sustainable profit model to me. Also Dota 2 is free, yet Valve made $10million off it with the "compedium" let alone all the extra mumph they have on top. We know from IO that 98% of the Play stores revenue is derived from freemium products (though I'm sure that includes unlockers for other apps, not just games), which would be a pretty huge bubble to burst, but it shows signs of only further growth.

 

That's an 8% increase from 2012 to 2013. I couldn't find profits statistics for 2014 so that's the most recent data we have; and yes, in global business terms $400 million is meagre, it's nothing really. I'm using statistics from NDP in case you're wondering and they do include sales from Steam and mobile devices.

 

If Steam is so great, with the prices as they are, if they where ever going to dominate the market they'd have done it already. The fact is, the public at large don't embrace digital media especially outside USA.  Valve making $10 million is truly irrelevant... it's pocket change on the global scale. A standard release game selling a mere 1 million units at retail would make around $35 million, and that's just on one game. Most publishers release a dozen or more games per month, and most aim for far greater sales than that.

 

With the rate that the industry is losing money, digital market can't support it all. It's making money at less than half the rate the industry as a whole is losing it. This means more studio closures and yet more unemployed designers and programmers. That's my point.

[TornadoCreator]

The global recession ended several years ago. Many nations are still recovering, the but the recession itself has ended.

 

I maybe spend my time in the company of the wrong people, but seems the specialist comic book market is doing pretty well of late, and much like gaming (and all other entertainment mediums) is helped by the ease and simplicity of digital distribution. Amazon didn't buy Comixoligy because they saw a doomed and failing business model. And I would really like to see some facts and figures on digital diminishing the overall userbase. I'm pretty sure music shows otherwise in the biggest way, and it wouldn't surprise me if eBooks have helped book sales over the years.

 

Also highest ever entry cost? On both the consumer and developer side it has never been cheaper. Especially given the PS3 was six hundred fucking pound. That's a high entry cost. PS4 is much cheaper at £300. Alongside that many modern computer systems are perfectly capable of chewing through a vast dearth of games due to APUs and the like. Similar with phones and tablets. The Hudl is £50 iirc, that's pretty cheap. On the dev front middleware companies are practically begging you to use their shiny engine for fuck all (cos they then slice off some later on). Also on the "profitability at all time low"; revenue =/= profits.

 

In the 1984 video game crash all that played games were specialist consoles and highly expensive "PCs". For video games to crash now would require the much more problematic issue of something happening where by we all stop making use of computers and phones. And it'd have to do it all within the next 5.5 months. And probably 5.5 months this time next year, and this time in 2016 and so on. (since you already admitted should your vision of doom fail to pass you'd revise it to collapsing in 2015. That's how Nostradamus and Harold Camping worked. Yeah eventually the industry will die, but likely with the sun scorching the surface of the earth, or in the rain of nuclear hellfire, or fuck even with the final swirling particle being sucked into the gnab gib. Since we're being hyperbolic.)

 

The recession is still biting pretty hard here in Europe. There's a massive housing crisis, inflation issues, and a massive issue with cost of living in metro areas. Some countries are really suffering like Romania, Poland, Russia, and Latvia. It may be over for USA, but it's the issue for the EU and as a disabled person, the social cuts have hurt severely for me... and they're still ongoing.

 

By higher cost of entry, I meant both as a developer and consumer of AAA games. Consoles may be cheaper but the cost of living has risen, budgets are tighter, etc. and the difference isn't much. PS3 launched at £425 which was the equivalent of $850 ($600 = £300, and ¥60,000 = £250 at the time, but we were fucked because the industry hates Europe). PS4 launched at £350 which is $600 because fuck Europe. That's not a massive difference when you consider the PS3 came with a game, the PS4 doesn't.

 

With tighter money though, the cost of entry is higher, especially as DLC, special editions, season passes and microtransactions up  the average game from the old £35 to £60-80 or more is you're buying new.

 

As for devs, the difference between indie and AAA is getting bigger every year, does that need further explanation?

 

The last point you make fails to see this industry as I see it. If mobile gaming is stronger than ever but consoles die off... that's the industry dead. How many times must I say that mobile doesn't fucking count?! It's not even close to similar. The Last Of Us has more in common with a good film than it does to Flappy Bird or Candy Crush... these things are not part of the industry I'm talking about any more than a Snickers commercial is part of Hollywood.

[TCP]

[toxicitizen]

I've not even heard of Star Citizen, therefor it's unimportant. If a game can pass me by without me knowing it exists, when I actively take part in multiple online gaming communities and follow gaming news; it simply doesn't matter. After googling it, I find the game hasn't even fucking released yet... hell, it may never release for all we know; after all Yogscast game got cancelled.

If you haven't heard of Star Citizen then not many news source must reach that rock you live under. I have zero interest in it and yet I hear about it all the goddamned time. It's hardly unimportant or irrelevant, it's the most massively successful video game crowd-funding campaign. It just doesn't stop raking in the millions.

 

So yeah, I think you're full of shit!

 

So a crowdfunded project has some money; big woop, what does that prove exactly? Nothing. Just that people are such fools they'll pay for the promise of a game some time in the future, rather than buying finished, decent, and complete games.

I just love how you accuse others of ignoring evidence yet keep doing exactly that yourself. What it proves is that there's massive interest in the space sim genre. This is a project that is nearing 50 millions when its initial kickstarter goal was 500 thousands.

[Vecha]

 

The global recession ended several years ago. Many nations are still recovering, the but the recession itself has ended.

 

I maybe spend my time in the company of the wrong people, but seems the specialist comic book market is doing pretty well of late, and much like gaming (and all other entertainment mediums) is helped by the ease and simplicity of digital distribution. Amazon didn't buy Comixoligy because they saw a doomed and failing business model. And I would really like to see some facts and figures on digital diminishing the overall userbase. I'm pretty sure music shows otherwise in the biggest way, and it wouldn't surprise me if eBooks have helped book sales over the years.

 

Also highest ever entry cost? On both the consumer and developer side it has never been cheaper. Especially given the PS3 was six hundred fucking pound. That's a high entry cost. PS4 is much cheaper at £300. Alongside that many modern computer systems are perfectly capable of chewing through a vast dearth of games due to APUs and the like. Similar with phones and tablets. The Hudl is £50 iirc, that's pretty cheap. On the dev front middleware companies are practically begging you to use their shiny engine for fuck all (cos they then slice off some later on). Also on the "profitability at all time low"; revenue =/= profits.

 

In the 1984 video game crash all that played games were specialist consoles and highly expensive "PCs". For video games to crash now would require the much more problematic issue of something happening where by we all stop making use of computers and phones. And it'd have to do it all within the next 5.5 months. And probably 5.5 months this time next year, and this time in 2016 and so on. (since you already admitted should your vision of doom fail to pass you'd revise it to collapsing in 2015. That's how Nostradamus and Harold Camping worked. Yeah eventually the industry will die, but likely with the sun scorching the surface of the earth, or in the rain of nuclear hellfire, or fuck even with the final swirling particle being sucked into the gnab gib. Since we're being hyperbolic.)

 

 

 

The last point you make fails to see this industry as I see it. If mobile gaming is stronger than ever but consoles die off... that's the industry dead. How many times must I say that mobile doesn't fucking count?

 

What about PC? I read an article that PC hardware is selling even more than console hardware(let me find the link) http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/04/28/as-global-pc-game-revenue-surpasses-consoles-how-long-should-console-makers-keep-fighting/ There we go. So, let's say...all of the sudden Sony goes belly up, because their departments all of the sudden start doing extremely worse. I feel...PC gaming would be there to pick up the pieces.

 

It seems you don't like Kickstarter(from what you thought of StarCitezen). But, there have been quite a few games that have released from that pretty damn good. 

 

Then there is the steam box..

 

Yeah...I don't see all of gaming going away. Maybe, maybe consoles will one day be obsolete(maybe they'll become a storefront like Steam...what with PlaystationNow coming out here so)..dunno.. 

[TornadoCreator]

 

I've not even heard of Star Citizen, therefor it's unimportant. If a game can pass me by without me knowing it exists, when I actively take part in multiple online gaming communities and follow gaming news; it simply doesn't matter. After googling it, I find the game hasn't even fucking released yet... hell, it may never release for all we know; after all Yogscast game got cancelled.

If you haven't heard of Star Citizen then not many news source must reach that rock you live under. I have zero interest in it and yet I hear about it all the goddamned time. It's hardly unimportant or irrelevant, it's the most massively successful video game crowd-funding campaign. It just doesn't stop raking in the millions.

 

So yeah, I think you're full of shit!

 

So a crowdfunded project has some money; big woop, what does that prove exactly? Nothing. Just that people are such fools they'll pay for the promise of a game some time in the future, rather than buying finished, decent, and complete games.

I just love how you accuse others of ignoring evidence yet keep doing exactly that yourself. What it proves is that there's massive interest in the space sim genre. This is a project that is nearing 50 millions when its initial kickstarter goal was 500 thousands.

 

 

Your definition of "massive interest" is not the same as mine. There's interest sure, even a viable and possibly sustainable market for the genre... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. If the game actually comes out, and manages reasonable sales; around 1-2 million units solds then sure. Until then it's little more than the promise of a game; hell on Kickstarter they're not even required to compensate the backers if the project goes bust; as I'm sure you've heard with the game Yogscast was making.

 

Also, it wasn't $50 million, it was $2.1 which is a hell of a lot less. Considering most AAA games cost well over $100 million, and even the average big-hit indie game can put it's costs at around $1.5 million, I do wonder what the hell they though they could accomplish with only $500,000.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen - See $2.1 million, hardly that impressive really.

 

When talking about the video game industry at large, it seems this forum has a real problem with scale. 

Edited July 19, 2014 by TornadoCreator

[toxicitizen]

Your definition of "massive interest" is not the same as mine. There's interest sure, even a viable and possibly sustainable market for the genre... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. If the game actually comes out, and manages reasonable sales; around 1-2 million units solds then sure. Until then it's little more than the promise of a game; hell on Kickstarter they're not even required to compensate the backers if the project goes bust; as I'm sure you've heard with the game Yogscast was making.

 

Also, it wasn't $50 million, it was $2.1 which is a hell of a lot less. Considering most AAA games cost well over $100 million, and even the average big-hit indie game can put it's costs at around $1.5 million, I do wonder what the hell they though they could accomplish with only $500,000.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen - See $2.1 million, hardly that impressive really.

 

When talking about the video game industry at large, it seems this forum has a real problem with scale.

Unlike you, I try not to talk out of my ass. That's just the initial kickstarter, do your research right. They're still taking donations.

 

Notice how it says accomplished next to the 48 millions stretch goal? And they're already 34% of the way towards 49. If fans are willing to throw AAA-levels of money to fund a project then yeah, I'd say that qualifies as massive interest. What's your definition?

[TCP]

2.1 million dollars for a Kickstarter is hardly impressive? Do you even read the shit that you post? Mighty No 9 got 3.8 million and that was with Inafune. For someone who brags about how smart he is, you sure are stupid.

[toxicitizen]

Cowboy, show some respect! The man has a genius-level IQ and has studied at not one, not two but three universities! (I mean, it's not four but, you know...)

He is clearly our intellectual superior and we should consider ourselves lucky that he even deems us worth of receiving his wisdom. Now apologize to Elder TC!

[TornadoCreator]

What about PC? I read an article that PC hardware is selling even more than console hardware(let me find the link) http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/04/28/as-global-pc-game-revenue-surpasses-consoles-how-long-should-console-makers-keep-fighting/ There we go. So, let's say...all of the sudden Sony goes belly up, because their departments all of the sudden start doing extremely worse. I feel...PC gaming would be there to pick up the pieces.

 

It seems you don't like Kickstarter(from what you thought of StarCitezen). But, there have been quite a few games that have released from that pretty damn good. 

 

Then there is the steam box..

 

Yeah...I don't see all of gaming going away. Maybe, maybe consoles will one day be obsolete(maybe they'll become a storefront like Steam...what with PlaystationNow coming out here so)..dunno.. 

 

I have no issue with Kickstarter, I've backed a few projects there myself; though I'd back far more if they included a physical release as a stretch goal... I can't collect digital games after all. This must be how vinyl collectors feel about iTunes. When it comes to Kickstarter I just know not to get taken in by the hype. Sure a website says Star Citizen is popular but actually only 31,000 people thought it was good enough to back for the full $30 and actually get the "free" copy when it's finished... even if twice that bought it on release it'd still struggle to top 100,000 sales, which is sad by anyones estimation. It's certainly not "massively popular", and it's all because Kickstarter blows all this hype everywhere.

 

The problem with predicting PC is that not all PC users are gamers, Secondly, PC gaming is much more of a niche than people realise. Even massive mainstays of PC gaming like the Civilization series, sells only around 4-5 million copies on PC. Console ports do much worse rarely topping 1-2 million, when they're selling twice or three times that on consoles. While PC will be unlikely to go anywhere as a medium, if anything PC gaming may experience a boom period if this crash continues; I still doubt it'll hold the line. Physical media on PC is difficult to come by with so few retailers stocking decent selections, and as we've established digital just doesn't attract a massive sub-set of gamers (just look at the anti-XBO rhetoric of last year).

 

 PC is a wildcard as always, but unlikely to be the industry saviour... though it may help reboot the industry.

[TornadoCreator]

 

Your definition of "massive interest" is not the same as mine. There's interest sure, even a viable and possibly sustainable market for the genre... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. If the game actually comes out, and manages reasonable sales; around 1-2 million units solds then sure. Until then it's little more than the promise of a game; hell on Kickstarter they're not even required to compensate the backers if the project goes bust; as I'm sure you've heard with the game Yogscast was making.

 

Also, it wasn't $50 million, it was $2.1 which is a hell of a lot less. Considering most AAA games cost well over $100 million, and even the average big-hit indie game can put it's costs at around $1.5 million, I do wonder what the hell they though they could accomplish with only $500,000.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen - See $2.1 million, hardly that impressive really.

 

When talking about the video game industry at large, it seems this forum has a real problem with scale.

Unlike you, I try not to talk out of my ass. That's just the initial kickstarter, do your research right. They're still taking donations.

 

Notice how it says accomplished next to the 48 millions stretch goal? And they're already 34% of the way towards 49. If fans are willing to throw AAA-levels of money to fund a project then yeah, I'd say that qualifies as massive interest. What's your definition?

 

 

Wikipedia is very much out of date. It claimed it had £6.2 million in a mix of crowdfunding and private investment. I then looked up the Kickstarter... fair enough, my mistake. I was only looking it up on the fly though.

 

Admittedly that's a decent budget. It's still a little lacking for AAA but it won't need a marketing budget. Still it will need to sell a decent amount to be successful as it's own profits funded its creation, therefore it needs twice the profit margin of a standard AAA game to sustain it's developer... which, if self published it could manage.

 

I still wouldn't say "massive interest" just yet as the project isn't finished; anyone who's been waiting for The Last Guardian knows that a game doesn't exist until it's in you hand. I am admittedly quite impressed though. I doubt it's an industry saver, but as I've said, a crash doesn't necessitate a lack of product or even a lack of profitable product... who knows thought, this could admittedly make a difference.

[TCP]

Cowboy, show some respect! The man has a genius-level IQ and has studied at not one, not two but three universities! (I mean, it's not four but, you know...)

 

He is clearly our intellectual superior and we should consider ourselves lucky that he even deems us worth of receiving his wisdom. Now apologize to Elder TC!

 

You're right! How could I be so foolish. Thank goodness he is here to show us the light and inform us of his misguided opinions the truth. I certainly would miss him if he left and went back to where he came from, the IGN message boards.