Is there another Video Game Crash coming?
Are we headed towards another major Video Game Crash similar to the Video Game Crash of 1983? It was mostly due to a huge over-saturation of the market and financial failures, such as the E.T: The
extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600, but there has been a lot of worry about the status of the current Video Game Industry. I will list the reasons on why I believe another Video Game crash is already here or in the beginning steps of a huge crash.
Over-saturation of Shooters
Over the past years there has been a massive influx of shooter games out on the market, creating an over-saturation of nothing but shooters, with the occasional other genres being released but overshadowed by game releases such as Call of Duty games, Halo games, Battlefield, and others on the market. This oversaturation also follows up on another subject coming up, the sequelization of big names, usually offering little to the tables. There have been some great games in other genres, but its hard to focus on them when all the advertisements you see on the internet and tv are all shooter based gaming.
Sequelization of games
With the annual releases of the Call of Duty games, Battlefields, they tend to offer little in the way of advancement over the previous games, and a good example would be the annual Madden releases, either offering nothing new, or even being a downgrade over previous releases. It is a guarantee that you see will a new Call of Duty or Battlefield out every year, and a lot of gamers are getting tired of the same old game, much in the way during the big over-saturation of World War 2 shooters back in the day. Seeing a World War 2 shooter all the time got old fast, and now the Shooter genre is becoming the same old game with a different coat of paint every year. Major problems with sequelization is the decay of new ideas, and rarely getting into new territory, but for a few exceptions of fresh gaming.
Companies treating customers like trash
I don't understand how companies think treating customers like garbage is a good business strategy, but companies such as Electronic Arts and Gearbox are great examples. One of the best examples I can remember is when Randy Pitchford called his customers "E-terrorists", and other derogatory names, very unbecoming of a CEO of a game development company. Another great source very recently has been the Microsoft Executive, Adam Orth, who insulted worried gamers asking about the always on DRM rumors, basically telling them to "Deal with it". We will never forget the massive backlash over the Mass Effect 3 ending as well. Gamers have been getting very angry with gaming businesses treating them like garbage, and they are quite vocal over their dissatisfaction!
Day 1 DLC and On-disc DLC
This is the one that gets under my skin, and Capcom is a major offender of this, as well as other companies. I can understand nice little pre-order bonuses, because Gamestop, Amazon, and others have to sweeten the pot, but when they have games that been cut up to be sold as DLC later, then I have a problem. A lot of companies love to chop off parts of their game and sell it later for 5 to 10 dollars or more, making it where you receive a less than full product, unless you fork over additional money to get the full game. I can understand paying for expansion DLC when they are released, but when you have to pay 10 to 30 dollars to get all the content for your 60 dollar game, then that's horrible.
Season Passes and Online Passes
Season Passes seems to be a crap shoot to get you to spend additional money to get your content you should of already had in your game at a discounted price. Activision's Season Pass for Black Ops 2 is like 50 or 60 dollars for very minimal content, you can go buy another game for the price of a DLC pass from that. Online Passes are a different beast entirely, forcing anyone who bought the game used to fork over 5 or 10 dollars to play online with it, and Electronic Arts is one of the worst offenders of the Online Passes. This is basically another way of trying to squeeze more money out of gamers, who are already on a budget from our economic situation. Online Passes should never be part of the gaming industry, and is another nail in the coffin towards the video game Crash.
I really hope the Video Game Industry doesn't crash, but with all the things I have listed, it seems to be pretty relevant, and the upcoming consoles might be the final nail in the coffin for the Console market, but I may make an article for what I think would succeed and straight out fail if/when a video game crash occur. So feel free to share your thoughts about the Video Game Crash and let your voice be heard!
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