The Industry Needs a Crash

[AmishSamurai]

A Second Crash would be far more catastrophic than the last one. At that time, the video game industry was much smaller, and video games were seen as a novelty or niche hobby. Now you have it as a cornerstone of popular culture, with several industries attempting to specifically market and cater towards gamers, billions of dollars running through it, and professional competitive gaming being a thing. Many more people beyond the big evil companies like EA, Activison, and Capcom would be hurting if the industry died.

[3DSStrider]

A Second Crash would be far more catastrophic than the last one. .

Third actually. There was a smaller one in the 70's due to the overwhelming amount of Pong consoles.

[Jrecee]

His topic name was declarative but the actual post seemed open to different takes from the first sentence:

Probably A LOT of people will disagree with me, and they may be right

and then he used language like

but I believe

which is always a no no in school writing assignments when they tell you to speak your opinion as fact. He then went on with:

"but I think it is plausible.

Definitely not an argument that he's 100% right

and finished with

What do you guys think?

leaving the discussion open to debate.

But moving on to the actual discussion. A crash? I don't know. I feel like your interest in change is simply to turn back the clocks to the way things used to be. While I'd love that, I don't know how good or practical it would be for the industry. The reason the games industry has grown is because so many more people have started playing games. Much of that due to the fact that things have changed.

The indie scene has allowed ideas to flourish. While the mainstream part of the industry may be focused on fps, online multiplayer, and other "new" concepts, there's probably more good games coming out than there ever have been. Quality games such as Clash Force, by Spicy Gyro Games, and their upcoming release, Polyroll.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I've pretty much skipped on this gen, actually. I have a PS3, but I usually sell those games when I'm done with them. There are definitely some good games coming out - I sure hope we get Tokitowa - but I'm just lot happier with a PS2 and a Game Boy Advance than anything that came out lately.

I don't want a crash, that would be pretty bad. But if there is one, I probably won't notice.

[Bikeage]

If a crash occurs the huge backlog of 30+ years in my modest collection will get me through until the next big innovation in gaming. Which will probably be 3D motion virtual smell-o-vision or you inject the controller and download games into your brain or something.

[o.pwuaioc]

Found this pic of OP:

Is that really necessary?

[sabrage]

Is that really necessary?

Do you want me to extrapolate on why I find "the modern game industry is shit" attitudes like OP's irritating and ridiculous, or will a simple "Yes." suffice?

[Yancakes]

I think we can all agree that the OP is a lazy slob, but I'm actually vaguely interested in this topic (EDIT: What the hell has gotten in to me? I'M supposed to be the troll...)

But moving on to the actual discussion. A crash? I don't know. I feel like your interest in change is simply to turn back the clocks to the way things used to be.

I also get this impression from the OP. I don't think he realizes how much things CHANGE when they come back from a crash. Things wouldn't revert, they would be completely new and different and we can't even imagine what it would be like if home consoles took a break for a few years. The only way to recover from something like a crash is to come up with something entirely new.

A Second Crash would be far more catastrophic than the last one. At that time, the video game industry was much smaller, and video games were seen as a novelty or niche hobby. Now you have it as a cornerstone of popular culture, with several industries attempting to specifically market and cater towards gamers, billions of dollars running through it, and professional competitive gaming being a thing. Many more people beyond the big evil companies like EA, Activison, and Capcom would be hurting if the industry died.

There has been more than one crash. But I assume you're talking about "the big one" in the mid 80's.

I'm not sure that you appreciate that that crash, or any others, ONLY affected the console industry, and even then only particularly in North America. PC gaming kept on plugging through that era, SEGA in Japan actually got their hardware start during that era with the SG-100, and it obviously didn't kill arcades (it was consoles that killed arcades, eventually, when their quality improved enough to compare to arcades).

Obviously that industry has changed to really become, as you say, a cultural cornerstone for our generation, but a crash doesn't mean that all of the video games will die. I'd imagine Steam and Origin would keep on plugging away, doing what they're doing, the smaller, more flexible indie houses would simply transfer their focus toward those platforms.

For one things the last few Sonic games were good and well made, so I do not see where is sonic crap is coming from.

Sonic 4 received mixed reviews but was generally pretty well received- I think it was OK but really didn't bring anything new. But then, I don't really like the newer Megaman games for the same reason. The thing is, there's just no innovation there, and while not EVERYTHING needs to be innovative, I wouldn't call it saving Sega. Sonic Generations I, admittedly, didn't play.

But basically up until this last couple of years, most of the sonic games were just re-hashes, racing games, spin-offs (lol) about sports or racing or whatever, and I honestly have never been able to stand any of the 3D games (again, though, I haven't played all of them).

Or maybe I'm just bitter that I'll never get a Comix Zone sequel

[o.pwuaioc]

Is that really necessary?

Do you want me to extrapolate on why I find "the modern game industry is shit" attitudes like OP's irritating and ridiculous, or will a simple "Yes." suffice?

No, I'd rather you explain why you thought a simple image mocking op would actually contribute to the discussion and make you not look like some trolling dick.

Also, you need to look up what the word extrapolate. I think you mean explicate.

[Yancakes]

So far the two of you are about on par for contributing to the thread.