Of course, We knew it all.
Third-party games not selling well on Nintendo consoles? Check. Always has been the case. I think it’s terrible because I’d still buy a Wii now (especially with NetFlix coming on it!). Innovative and leading console making nobody wealthy but Nintendo…
Nice couch!
Budgets getting ridiculous? Check. The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is now around $18-$28 million, according to new data. When you think that a MGS 4 is around $80 million just in dev costs maybe more. And it’s still the same fucking gameplay: Gran Turismo whatever the beauty of the cars will always be a driving game. The experience doesn’t change as much as the budget exploded.
People being fired and studios closing because of the complexity of changing and re-building tools for the current-gen consoles? Check. It has been said so much these years and last year we really saw the effect. Not just the manufacturers fault though, a lot of people in this industry just don’t really get it: look at Duke Nukem Forever. 12 years of development, no finished game at the end. All because of this crazy fast mutation of game machines and bad business decisions. Really, really bad. The immaturity on the business side of this industry is painful to watch.
Work abuse in the game industry? Check. Bo-ring. Six years ago it was exactly the same with Electronic Arts and I guess it’s the same in every big studios. Nothing has really changed, people get hired on the passion they have for making computer games which means to work until you starve in front of your screen, which means a mob mentality that makes you a soulless game developer clone. This is not a life I want. When I see Rockstar San Diego problems, all of that for a GTA-in-the-far-west game, it’s just sad.
Dissed Digital Distribution? Check. Yeah right, NPD says 90% of games during holiday seasons were purchased on retail. Of course they don’t track digital distribution because between the main services like Steam and the fact that it’s the default way to get apps on smartphones, their tracking doesn’t mean anything about trends: digital distribution is growing faster than any distribution scheme. It’s alive and kicking Gamestop in the balls. The number one game retailer lost almost 9% of sales during this holidays despite the fact that they multiplied stores across the US. They have plenty of cash and want to open 200 stores in 2010 *facepalm* They fail to understand that the switch is going to be brutal, they don’t understand the exponentiality side of it. 2009 was a huge start in this aspect.
Nice rope!
Look at the iPhone and games like Zen Bound, totally weird and original, totally successful because EVERYBODY can find it on a digital distribution model, effortlessly. Word of mouth is working very well if the availability is a no-brainer. Zack and Wiki would have done better without the retail problem, like so many good games. As publishers are big business partners with brick and mortar retailers, they’re now in a really weird position where developers, creators of the products they publish, can reach their audience and make more by minimizing the publisher’s role.
Publishers bad results like EA? All of them are announcing reduced revenues and earnings. It’s not the worldwide crisis fault first because on that decade overall computer games sales are up (except Japan I think), and december 2009 has been the best sales month ever in the US. So how do they do? They all are bleeding because of wrong strategic decisions except for Activision which relies on two milk cows: WoW and Modern Warfare. Yeah, it’s called being Fucking Lucky. For the rest it’s le big fail (DJ Hero, Guitar Hero going down, Tony Hawk board joke). Even a franchise like Rock Band isn’t profitable, even a big launch and game like RB: The Beatles has not break even yet.
Dylan Cuthbert says that game funding model is "fundamentally broken" and he’s totally right. It was already the case when I started in this industry and ten years later this problem is still not solved.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the future of computer games, even if it seems pretty bright on the creator-side of it (more platforms, more inputs, easier distribution).
I’ll be honest, watching things moving that slow on the biz part while at the same time I could not imagine that in 2010 I could be able to stream about anything to my computer (*possibilities*) is fucking me up real hard.