SimplyMonk wrote on Jul 11, 2012, 15:53:
ASeven wrote on Jul 11, 2012, 15:45:
Did you get to read the other 5-6 pieces about the industry?
Yeah. I'll give the other articles a read later, but your are correct on gaming journalism, but even that could be said for today's journalism as a whole. Too much opinion thrown in to make a story more "interesting" and too much of the author trying to bend it to their view.
From reading that one article though, I didn't get the impression that they though some big crash was going to happen. What I got from it is basically that the industry needs to change as the costs are beginning to outweigh the profits and growth is starting to slow. But we knew that already. The industry knows that already. Why do we see such a big push for DLC? Because they need to keep making money and that is a solid way to do it and you are only going to see more of it in different shapes and forms.
The only way it is going to crash is if you see the industry try to move too fast in the wrong direction or resist change completely like some companies have, but I see no evidence of that.
Well, the difference in our opinions is that I believe the crash will happen because the industry didn't move to where it needed and moved too fast to where it needed not. DLC, which you consider a good thing, is in my view one of the factors of the crash, a wrong direction altogether.
In the end industries live or die if they satisfy their customers. The gaming industry is doing everything but that and people are getting fed up of the consumer abuse, of the same retreads, of no innovation, of DLCs everywhere, etc. The result is simple, gamers stop buying altogether and move to other forms of entertainment. It is in that that publishers are blind, they live to satisfy the shareholders forgetting that that brings no profit. Satisfying their own customers, keep them happy and loyal and treat them with respect though, that's what brings profits.
The gaming industry is slowly becoming a study case of consumer abuse and its long-term consequences. There's only so much shit a consumer can put up to, even rabid fanboys, before they say Fuck it and leave to other pastures and that's what's been happening in gaming for years and years and it's now coming to a boiling, dangerous point where the very own existence of the industry now lies at stake.