The Next AAA Publisher Crash May Already be Here

[5150Joker]

Game industry is going through a cycle and this time they believe they can make games with micro-transactions with grindy game mechanics that basically push you to buy crap for a game you paid for. It obviously doesn't work anymore and the industry doesn't want to admit it. Blizzard doesn't want to go back to making AAA single player games and wants to move into the mobile market. It needs to crash cause that's what makes the industry go back to making good games.

Maybe go back to the days of user created content (custom maps) , community supported dedicated servers and no loot boxes.

People <20 years old have no idea what you're talking about or most won't anyway. Those were the golden times of PC gaming.

 

[Reimu]

Wow. Read about 5 comments and realized some people will believe anything that emotionally aligns with their current feelings. The absolute last place I would ever venture for marketplace analysis is some kid on a YouTube video. To actually believe any of the garbage spewed to try to make my own further statement without looking at the financial makeup of the organizations or knowledge of asset health is silly. I honestly laughed this was a headline on [H]. Where have we dipped to?

Edit: and I know many posters dont have business backgrounds, especially from reading the posts, but large organizations are capable of shifting strategy. They wouldn't be attempting to hold on to the current business model if it wasnt what they believe will generate the greatest outcome. It seems like you actually believe it's a bunch of slack jawed yokels in the board room. It's not. Its strategy whether you agree with it or not.

I do agree that businesses can and do pivot, but what I am seriously peeved with is that EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Bethesda ought to have known better about biting the hands that feed all of them in the unbridled display of arrogance of these last years.
For one, the consumers who wield disposable income on discretionary spending aren't all the same strata that would be naive.
To dare rationalize that the customer base would not erode enough when the millennial and the gen-Xers form the backbone of the video game consumer market, a consumer base that are educated about the products is a tragic and infuriating turn of event for the shareholders to these enterprises.
To even think that they are too large to fail is utter pretension when the likes of Atari and SEGA crumbled away.

I am not merely disappointed with these companies as a general consumer. I don't think it's merely their business strategy that deserve to be scrutinized. I feel that their entire operational mentality will chart a course to the iceberg dead ahead, passengers be damned, since greed never changes.

 

[M76]

AAA publishers felt the consumers were ripping them off when they were playing older multiplayer for free for months and years after the initial $60 purchase.

Yeah, I know some people ripping off their fridge manufacturer, they have the audacity to use the product they paid for for years, YEARS! The nerve of some people.

 

[Jagger100]

Being there during the history of video games, they kind of always had a cycle. You had the first 8-bit consoles and they flamed out, then 16-bit, then 32/64-bit. PC game was technically post Console but the last cycle has been a long one of PC gaming bleeding into console gaming and console bleeding back into PC's and console/PC gaming being relatively viable (despite PC's deliberately getting the short end of the stick) for a cycle as long or longer than all the prior cycles put together. I guess that's because gaming got huge this last time. So it took longer to peak and longer to inevitably crash. If gaming needs a reset, so be it.

 

[Zuul]

$60, $80, or even $120 for some of a game.

Nah, thanks.

Fuck, I have paid valve at least 4 times for the same fucking game. Don't underestimate the stupidity of humans.

 

[Reimu]

Fuck, I have paid valve at least 4 times for the same fucking game. Don't underestimate the stupidity of humans.

I think that's how Todd Howard came to realize that he can make people Skyrim again and again.

 

[rigurat]

An opportunity for the rise of independent developers who hopefully won't allow themselves to be bought out by companies like EA.

 

[NickJames]

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People <20 years old have no idea what you're talking about or most won't anyway. Those were the golden times of PC gaming.

Good old days of de_simpsons and cs_crackhouse. Custom maps would just download immediately and on demand without requiring you to access a different website and then fuck with the game directory.

 

[Patton187]

People make the mistake of thinking gamers matter to a gaming company bottom line. Just like credit scores, this hasn't been true for years. It shifted to investor money a long time ago because there are always enough idiots to fill a budget.
Hell, you even see this in the marketing wank. If a game has poor sales its marketings fault not the quality of their product. Marketing failed in selling their garbage. They know its garbage. They only plan to sell to 6 million idiots.

This is nonsense. At the end of the day they must sell product to keep the money flowing.

 

[harbingerofdoom]

Wow. Read about 5 comments and realized some people will believe anything that emotionally aligns with their current feelings. The absolute last place I would ever venture for marketplace analysis is some kid on a YouTube video. To actually believe any of the garbage spewed to try to make my own further statement without looking at the financial makeup of the organizations or knowledge of asset health is silly. I honestly laughed this was a headline on [H]. Where have we dipped to?

Edit: and I know many posters dont have business backgrounds, especially from reading the posts, but large organizations are capable of shifting strategy. They wouldn't be attempting to hold on to the current business model if it wasnt what they believe will generate the greatest outcome. It seems like you actually believe it's a bunch of slack jawed yokels in the board room. It's not. Its strategy whether you agree with it or not.

and they have done what exactly to make anyone think they are capable of such strategy?
oh yeah. exactly nothing.

the plain truth you are ignoring is that no one thinks they CANT shift... everyone is realizing they WONT. and that is the point that i think you are totally missing.

as for marketplace analysis, its a dude with an opinion. nothing more. stop being threatened by people who have opinions.

 

[Uvaman2]

If they keep making billions, we will keep getting lootboxes and garbage games.
There is not going to be a great waking up morning of masses of people 'giving up on' or 'stop buying this' or 'voting with your wallets'.. there never is, there NEVER WILL BE.
You know who can 'vote with your wallets' and get things done?.. BIG corporations, that is who.
This bullshit about voting with wallets people tell each other, its getting to be a sad thing some believe that non-sense.
You have a better chance in congress passing a law to make good games, than with any 'voting with wallets' non-sensical bullshit!.

 

[Dekoth-E-]

On one hand I really miss being able to buy launch day games. Some of my fondest gaming memories revolved around the fun of midnight launches and trying to be the first in the world to hit certain milestones. On the other, my wallet isn't complaining about all the money I'm saving.

 

[1Nocturnal101]

Fallout 76 is a failure because it is from a studio(BGS) that has built up a fanatical Fan base around single player FPS RPG experiences, and that fan base Forgives, Fixes, and puts up with the nuances of the Studios faults, where as the crowd base they were selling Fallout 76 to has none of that will or whim they expect a working experience with no excuses, it was a huge mistake on Bethesda's part to assume they could capitalize on a market they fail to understand, on top of that they released a game with bugs and issues that were 100% known and fixed by modders with Fallout 4, so in many ways they failed, by failure in marketing, and by failure in technical development, as well as the failure at paying attention to the actual people who cared to buy their products let alone caring to fix issues they themselves would not....

The writing on the wall has been there for so long with Blizzard that they are in a complete decline,

Warcraft RTS successful stopping after 3 evolving it into an MMO thus killing the fanbase

WoW Classic- was a buggy mess with 2 servers on release, fixed and a miracle it spawned into what it did.
Burning Crusade - Built a fanbase and a rabid hardcore crowd that laid the bricks for its pinnacle.
WotLK - the pinnacle and height of Blizzards success a balance of Casual/Hardcore, with evolution of the Engine/Servers
and the game itself.
Cataclysm - A complete upheaval and reinventing the wheel with a mass exodus of player base over a confused target
audience. Took away the RPG aspects of the game and pigeon holed specs classes into what they wanted
you to play and how they wanted you to play them.
Pandaria - an April fools joke turned a part of the game, no one took it seriously with grindfest mechanics that provided no
to little real benefit with no respect for the players time invested. Somehow started turning WoW and Blizzard
Franchises in general into Cartoony art style slap dash child humor punchlines.
WoD - A complete stop gap with no real story nor real content and grindfest mechanics that pissed players off for really
not respecting their time, also showed they were putting in game content in the cash shop to supplement the loss of
players.
Legion - Seemed decent with a build up reclaiming Illadin's storyline to try and build up returning players, turning "you are
not prepared" into a joke of a tagline from something that was actually meaningful.
Battle for Azeroth - Story makes zero real sense, grindfest mechanics. No real benefit to the overarching story other than
every badguy is just a misguided hero, Still can't balance a game that was for the better part out a
decade or more

StarCraft - Other than the decade in between releases there is no real complaints.
Heroes of the storm - Failure of a Dota ripoff.
Overwatch - Success, then a failure because they fail to expand the game other that its few mechanics and a continual
release of misbalance with no real addressing of the competitive scene that leads players to be penalized for
not 6 stack queing. Instead of personal achievement you are simply punished for others not playing as a team

Diablo - ARPG
Diablo 2 - Even better ARPG
Diablo 3- ?????? not a RPG/ shares little in common with previous installments from mood, design, artistically,
mechanically, started as an economy simulator with actual limited if any real choices to developers telling you
how to play the game in the way they want you to play the game, with no actual choice or thought, but
instead a button mashing mindless drone of repeatedly pressing the same combination of buttons over and over again
despite the situation as more an arcade game like goldenaxe than a PC game that was a marriage between
Strategic RPGs and Action games...…...I wonder how they went wrong? Financial success based on how it sold
due to the Diablo name to in no way a critical success which they needed.
Most ignored franchise.
Mismarketed cell phone game to an entire PC/Console enthusiast crowd...

EA??? not even going to touch on them, they have burned more people over the years and torched studios with their outlandish sent. of how PC gaming needs the least effort on their part and gamers should just fork over their cash for digital scraps......and they talk about entitled gamers..shit, these people are 10x more toxic and act more entitled than anyone.

These companies are losing money because the perception of the market is falling out, the stock market is a scam, it always will be, people trade stacks based on perception rather than facts,

oh Apple ...looks good.....Lawsuits, defective products, tax sheltering, patent abuses, insulting clients, insulting business partners, defective engineering, lying about said product capabilities, % markup beyond what should sell based on the product sold...who sees this as an investment opportunity? Its a bubble waiting to pop, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if eventually they are arrested on false sales numbers, 10% of the OS PC marketshare yet they are in the green in their computer division...….kiss my ass this is fishy.

This is merely a bubble popping, investors seen the gaming industry revenuing double of what Hollywood does, with smaller investments, in some cases you could make a AAA game for the cost of 1 AAA big name actor/actress, and it went really well for a while until you get the antics of someone like EA's CEO that just wants to milk the industry for more and larger slices of the Pie.

Honestly If you couldn't see this happening you were in all likelihood clueless, Investors have moved from 1 industry to the next pulling this crap and in a lot of cases it crumbles.

 

[Nafensoriel]

This is nonsense. At the end of the day they must sell product to keep the money flowing.

Yes, they must keep the money flowing. The question isn't that money must flow but from where it must flow from.

A company is planning to sell(and most likely will sell) a unicorn that shits glitter slime. Not only are they planning to sell this they are planning to sell over half a million of them for over 50 dollars USD each. Designing a gaming product to make you spend money without actually providing you with full value for that money is childsplay next to selling a glitter shitting unicorn. The global market made the idiot buyer slice of pie far more massive than people imagine.

 

[katanaD]

gamers have no one but themselves to blame for the current state of the gaming industry

loot boxes.. would not exist unless there were enough people BUYING them

beta quality games... would not exist if people were not pre-ordering in mass.. and.. LOL. purposefully paying for incomplete games AKA.. "early access"

remember there used to be a time when games had a DEMO you could try first.

 

[/dev/null]

I think the only game I've pre-ordered was Diablo2 and in hindsight, I realize how lucky I was to get a decent/fun game. I definitely got my $40 out of it.

After picking up Shadow of Mordor @ sub $5 and putting 58 hours into it & 98%'ing it, I was super excited about shadow of war. Then I read about the editions. $120 for the "full" game? Are they insane? This was back in 2017...

Fast forward, Dec 2018 -- I pick up the $120 edition for like $15 & change.

I have enough steam backlog to last me, probably 5+ years, so don't see any reason to pay anywhere near retail for any new game.

 

[oROEchimaru]

I miss bitching about diablo 3's auction house

 

[Reimu]

If they keep making billions, we will keep getting lootboxes and garbage games.
There is not going to be a great waking up morning of masses of people 'giving up on' or 'stop buying this' or 'voting with your wallets'.. there never is, there NEVER WILL BE.
You know who can 'vote with your wallets' and get things done?.. BIG corporations, that is who.
This bullshit about voting with wallets people tell each other, its getting to be a sad thing some believe that non-sense.
You have a better chance in congress passing a law to make good games, than with any 'voting with wallets' non-sensical bullshit!.

Legislations don't make for good games. They only limit what can or cannot be done with games. And yes, voting with wallet is exactly what lobbying is about.
The only answer to customer not buying a game is if the game genuinely stinks without any redeeming quality or not. The sales figure of Fallout 76, No Man's Sky at launch, BFV speak for themselves.