Tobold's Blog: Life After the Video Game Crash

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Life After the Video Game Crash

Alan directed my attention towards the Pointless Waste of Time blog, where there is a very interesting article about Life After the Video Game Crash (Post E3 2006 Edition). Only that the article doesn't in fact speak at all about the "life after" part, but only why there could be a crash of the video game market in the not so far future. Interesting read, with a style based on first listing counter-arguments, and then dismissing them.

Now I don't believe in an imminent video game crash, but the author, David Wong, makes some good points that I'd like to quote.

Luke's X-Wing approaches the surface of the Death Star.
"Red Five, begin your attack run."
Luke swoops down into the trench. "It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back ho-"
Turret laser bolts tear his X-Wing apart.

----------------------------

Luke's X-Wing approaches the surface of the Death Star.
"Red Five, begin your attack run."
Luke swoops down into the trench. "It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!"
Turret laser bolts miss by inches. He skims along the trench.
A Tie Fighter drops in behind him and blows his ship to ten thousand flaming pieces.

----------------------------

Luke's X-Wing approaches the surface of the Death Star.
"Red Five, begin your attack run."
Luke swoops down into the trench. "It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!"
Turret laser bolts miss by inches. He skims along the trench.
A Tie Fighter drops in behind him, shoots and misses. Luke approaches the exhaust shaft... fires a photon torpedo...
...and misses. The Death Star destroys the rebel base.

----------------------------

Luke's X-Wing approaches the surface of the Death Star.
"Red Five, begin your attack run."
Luke swoops down into the trench. "It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon ba-"
Turret laser bolts tear his X-Wing apart.

---------------------------

And:

The first time you play a level, the monster around the first corner is a surprise. After that, it's homework. It's memorizing, via pure repetition, bad guy placement and ammunition deposits and card keys. "Okay, kill the mutant behind the crate. Duck behind the dual doors. Wait for guard to walk out. Kill him, take his key. There's two Hellgoats in this next hall. Pick up the rockets."

And:

We Original Gamers, the hard core, bought every machine that came on the market for two decades. But for most of us OG's, the game consoles we own now will be the last we'll ever buy. There are millions of us, and it's just a matter of time. Literally. I'll pop in a DVD because a movie only requires two hours from my busy schedule of work and home repairs and chasing kids off my lawn. Getting to the end of a video game, however, requires hours upon hours of play. Not because the story is hours long, mind you, but because getting through each scene requires practice and repetition and repetition and repetition, all in the hopes of seeing that exploding Death Star cutscene at the end.

Replace the scene from Rogue Squadron with the last time you got wiped several times when tackling a new World of Warcraft raid boss, and you'll see how the author is a soul mate of mine. Game content taking too much time due to endless repetition is exactly what bugs me about raiding and other WoW endgame content.

The reason why I don't believe that this will cause a video game market crash is ironically World of Warcraft as well. Because the reason why WoW has over 6 million subscribers is that a large part of the content, leveling up from 1 to 59, is *not* too repetitive, and can be done in 2-hour chunks instead of watching a DVD. With one such example on the market, sooner or later other game developers will find this secret formula, and simply make more games for the 2-hour crowd.

And these games might well be MMORPGs. Even David Wong believes that online gaming will change the future. Although some of his arguments for this are more cynical than realistic in the current political climate:

Just think of how porn changes when the user also gets to go in with the toned body of an underwear model. It'll make our current online porn look like just the tip of the assberg.

While the "assberg" made me laugh, I think the political opposition to massively multiperson online porn will be hard to overcome.
- posted by Tobold @ 4:52 PM Permanent Link

Comments:

There already is MMO "porn" (more like an interactive social adult MMO). I forget the titles and I only vaguely recall reading about this, I think there's a post on TerraNova somewhere (within the past 6 months - I know, not very helpful).

# posted by

Anonymous : 18/5/06 18:59

I know, I think it's called Socialtron or something. Has about 3 active subscribers. :)

But think what happens when a games sells hundreds of thousands of copies, like GTA San Andreas, and then is discovered containing relatively primitive sex scenes. Can you imagine a virtual world with subscription numbers like WoW, and MMO interactive porn being sold in the USA, without massive protests and politicians trying to shut it down?

# posted by

Tobold : 19/5/06 08:12

The reason why I don't believe that this will cause a video game market crash is ironically World of Warcraft as well. Because the reason why WoW has over 6 million subscribers is that a large part of the content, leveling up from 1 to 59, is *not* too repetitive, and can be done in 2-hour chunks instead of watching a DVD. With one such example on the market, sooner or later other game developers will find this secret formula, and simply make more games for the 2-hour crowd.

This online "thing" will be the safety belt for the majority of the big AAA studios/publisher. Take an ancient game idea and mix it with the online component.

The big thing to come is the shifting of the target audience on a whole industry. WoW works perfect, cause it does not cater to a niche audience anymore. The "crash" so to speak, will happen to project/studios, who build the next Ridge Racer 22 for a console that costs so much money, that only people who played Ridge Racer 1-21, can afford.

I could not stand this years e3 with again only sequels and ripoffs getting the most attention. I did not see any new stuff - besides the 2nd invention of the wheel i mean wii. The games this years e3 got me most excited about, are freakin 2D nintendo DS games. I do not know how the gazillionth Sci-Fi FPS can cheer up the crowds, like for example Gears of War did. These things have huge budgets and should fail but they dont. I do curse technical progress for that, cause still grapics develop at a pace, that the mass market is willing to adept e.g. buy the next overpriced platform.

I do not see any serious crash situation though, cause the market is so huge right now, that even the most crappy games will sell good enough. We do have "a movie" situation here, where straight to DVD films, can make good numbers, cause DVDs are cheap and everyone has a player now. Same things could be said about the gaming market today.

To sum things up, the 2-hour-rule is correct, but it does not sell millions of copies for the next ten years, eye candy still will, so will big IPs and the flavor of the month (Nintendogs/WoW). Even if we ("OGs") do not play these games back to back anymore, like we did years ago, some other ones will. There once was some hundread guys playing Meridian, those dudes today do not touch any MMO now, but WoW still has gained than 6 million other players.

# posted by

Anonymous : 19/5/06 09:53

Not to dovetail too much from the main focus of the OP...

The problem with GTA:VC wasn't so much that it contained porn as it was directed/marketed to a young audience (& contained hidden porn). If a game/MMO is up front about it, marketing to and restricting sales to those of age, then it will be fine. Oh sure, mothers will rail and fundamentalists will decry its existence amidst protests, but legally it'd be fine and would have to be allowed. (Yay 1st Amendment!) The politicians really can't forbid it entirely - just limit sales to those of age, which is fine.

The realistic problem is getting the near-WoW-like subscription numbers.

See these Dork Tower Comics:

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1122

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1123

# posted by

Anonymous : 19/5/06 19:54

A little off topic, Guys... I have a question. Today I saw this site:
[url=http://www.rivalspot.com]Rivalspot.com - Xbox Live Tournaments[/url]
They say you can play online NCAA Basketball game tournaments on any console for cash... had anyone tried that before? Looks like a cool idea...
Are there any other sites where you can play sports games for real moneys? I Googled and found only Bringit.com and Worldgaming.com but it looks these guys don't specialize in sport gamez. Any suggestions?

# posted by

Anonymous : 1/12/09 07:48

A little off topic, Guys... I have a question. Last weekend I saw this site:
[url=http://www.rivalspot.com]Rivalspot.com - Wii Live Tournaments[/url]
They say you can play online Nhl2k game tournaments on any console for cash... had anyone tried that before? Looks like a cool idea...
Are there any other sites where you can play sports games for real moneys? I Googled and found only Bringit.com and Worldgaming.com but it looks these guys don't specialize in sport gamez. Any suggestions?

# posted by

Anonymous : 1/12/09 07:48