Uh, game crash? What?

[ReloadPsi]

We'll all be witness to the next Game Crash soon enough...well no...not quite soon enough. But it'll happen.

I AM GOING TO CRY.

Could someone elaborate on this please? I've heard the odd whisper of "gaming's dead in Japan" and stuff like that but what's the actual story? I don't keep up with the gaming scene anymore and wouldn't know where to begin looking.

[KentaRawr!]

The Gaming Crash is when a gigantic planet that has a bunch of Nintendo stuff on it crashes into the moon. Then, it rains down on us from above, and lands in store shelves.

Edit: Seriously though, the Gaming Crash they're referring to is when Gaming just hits a stand-still. No one likes it, it doesn't do well, gaming companies don't have enough money to do well, and the fad of gaming ends. This happened once before, and people use it nowadays to express over-excitement.

[Roto13]

In short, the video game industry crashed in 1983 for several reasons, perhaps the most important of which being a market saturated with poor-quality non-licensed drivel (games didn't need to be licensed by console manufacturers back then) and even some genuinely awful licensed games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_%28Atari_2600%29). It lasted until the NES was released and spurred a new interest in gaming. I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article if you want more details.

On a side note, the odds of it happening again are about the same as the film industry crashing.

[ReloadPsi]

Yeah, I read about the 1983 game crash, mostly caused by E.T., Atari 2600 Pac Man and Atari 2600 porn, if memory serves.

[Roto13]

That hits all of the more important points, yep. xP

[Shoeberto]

I don't really see it happening. Even a crappy economy hasn't slowed the industry down - there's been reports of video games so far being recession proof.

Graphically, we'll hit a wall eventually, but I don't think that a lack of graphical improvements will hinder anything. Developers will just have to use more unique art directions to keep interest.

[Big D]

Things are different now due to the overlap between gaming, Hollywood, and that kind of thing. There are still plenty of bad games, sure, but bad movies and TV haven't killed those media.

In fact, a bit of a slump in the gaming industry might even be a good thing - if it weeds out the cheap, crummy developers who've got nothing going for them, then it might be a bit of positive natural selection for games as a whole.

[Gogo]

As others have said, gaming isn't a niche industry anymore. The chances of another crash like the 1983 one are slim to none.

[Jessweeee♪]

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

[JKTrix]

It's true that in Japan, gaming was going through a sharp decline. In general, the only games being notably successful were well established franchises. This is kind of the whole reason Nintendo went the way they did with both the DS and Wii, to expand the audience beyond the closed-minded core gamers of Japan. And for the most part, it's worked over there.

However, I feel Nintendo is still kind of a wild card. Perhaps they 'saved' gaming over there, but they could also be the cause of a different kind of 'crash'. It's been true for a long time that 'Nintendo games sell the best on Nintendo systems'. I still don't think that has changed. That links back to the old 'closed-minded core gamer' attitude of old that was sapping the industry before. Sure, there are hits now and then from 3rd parties (and mostly from the larger 3rd party companies), but worthy, smaller games often get lost in the flood of Mario branding and oodles of shovelware.

As things are now, smaller Japanese developers' best options for making a fresh game lie on the Wii and/or the PS2. PS3 isn't nearly as ubiquitous as its older brother, I imagine the price (and lack of Final Fantasy) is still holding it back but it has been steadily gaining steam. Xbox 360 is almost a non-issue over there. If developers want to make a big budget, graphically powerful game for the 'big systems', it needs to sell a lot (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155564) in order for them to make money. (that link is old, but the point is there) As it stands in Japan, outside of a few 'sure shot' franchises, the audience to make that kind of game profitable is not there.

So if companies can't make games for the Wii because it isn't branded by Mario, and they can't make games for PS360 because development is expensive and a potential small audience, they might just stop making games. Or contribute to the Wii shovelware. Or stick with the PS2, which while still great, may not leave much room for exploring new things. So if all we end up seeing are the same old franchises, gaming will stagnate. Which would be a different kind of 'crash' than the industry just dying out entirely.

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mawile break

However, the mere existence of 'the rest of the world' counters the idea of the 'gaming crash'. While 'gaming as we knew it' may still be on its way out in Japan, it's thriving better than ever everywhere else. Japan is no longer the center of the gaming world, and even Japan's biggest game companies recognize this. More and more, companies are emphasizing getting major games out in the west as close as possible to the Japanese release. In some cases, things are released in the US before Japan. Did you guys know that the DS came out in the US almost 2 weeks before it came out in Japan? There are 3 soon-coming releases that I know of that are coming out in the US before they come out in Japan (Naruto (http://www.ultimateninjastorm.com/), DBZ (http://www.atari.com/dragonballz/flash.html), Trauma Center 2 (http://www.atlus.com/tcutk2/)). Japanese developers are even making games specifically (http://na.square-enix.com/remnant/) aimed (http://www.capcom.com/deadrising/) at westerners. Particularly with this generation of expensive, high-powered consoles and inflated development costs, Japanese developers need the support of rest of the world.

And it's not just the international consumer power, it's the western developers as well that are going toe-to-toe with the best of the east. Miyamoto recently expressed (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/05/for-wiiware-nin.html) his thoughts about how he thinks "America has always been better at creating unique products" when talking about independent games and WiiWare. Kojima admits (http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6190827.html) that western companies have "surpassed" Japanese developers, particularly in the abundance of funding and skill. (might want to read the whole article, or at least the paragraph that contains the quote for more context)

So, as it has been mentioned before, 'gaming' as a whole is not going to crash the same way it did in '83. If anything, I can see the potential of stagnation in the industry. It's already happening. With the market practically overflowing with both shovelware and high-profile sequels, the fresh, unique, original and less well-known gems are often overlooked if they don't spend a million dollars on advertising. 'Video Games' is an industry, a business, after all. Businesses are about making money, and if a product doesn't make money they don't make that product anymore. Personally, I'm the kind of guy who looks at everything and tries to at least try anything that looks interesting, and if I think it's worth supporting I will make noise about it. One of my peeves is when people pass on something worthwhile just because it's different. If these fresh games continue to be overlooked and underappreciated, we won't get anymore of them.

That would be 'the death of gaming' to me.

[Dreddz]

Considering the game industry is stronger than ever I think its kind of stupid to say there will be another video game crash. But the success of the Wii could lead both Sony and Microsoft in a similer direction in the future. And we'll have libraries of games all aimed at the casual market. A video game crash wont happen but gaming will be dead to alot of gamers. Including me.

[leilei]

I think there will be a gaming crash. There's so many generic 'core' games out there along with a zillion of zumas/bejeweleds/dinerdashes in the casual market.

[Bolivar]

JKTrix, that's very on point, and a good final thought you left us with.

Unfortunately, in our market system, stagnation is inevitable, and there will be a slow "crisis" period for games inevitably.



On a side note, the odds of it happening again are about the same as the film industry crashing.

Actually, due to the astonishing amount of recycled properties and lack of moviegoing due to competing entertainment forms and high ticket prices, the film industry actually is a little worried right now. The growth of the film industry has actually been less than games, and many film studios are now in-house producing their video game equivalents to try to carve out a piece of the pie.

There is alot of cause for concern in the game industry. Many developers are aware that the costs of producing a game for the PS3/360 are so high that you need tremendous support to recoup. With so many titles/studios competing for the spotlight and the higher price of games from the last generation, it may be hard to do just that.

At the same time, you have Grand Theft Auto IV being the best selling video game, and best entertainment anything of all time, as far as 24-hour and 1-week sales go.