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Boombox On · May 5, 2015

Going by the worlds greatest source whose validity shall never be questioned:

Games EA published in 2006, the year after the Xbox 360 was released.

2006 FIFA World Cup, Battlefield 2142, Black, Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods, Command & Conquer: The First Decade, Cricket 2007, Def Jam Fight for NY: The Takeover, EA Replay, EA Sports Arena Football, FIFA 07, FIFA Manager 07, FIFA Online 2, FIFA Street 2, Fight Night: Round 3, The Godfather: The Game, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, Madden NFL 07, Medal of Honor: Heroes, Mutant League Football, MVP 06: NCAA Baseball, NASCAR 07, NBA Live 07, NCAA Football 07, Need for Speed: Carbon, Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City, NFL Head Coach, NFL Street 3, NHL 07, Rugby 06, The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff, The Sims 2: Seasons, The Sims 2: Open for Business, The Sims 2: Pets, SiN Episodes, Superman Returns, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (total: 36)

Games EA published in 2014, the year after the Xbox One was released.

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, Dawngate, Dragon Age: Inquisition, EA Sports UFC, FIFA 15, FIFA World, Madden NFL 15, NBA Live 15, NHL 15, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, The Sims 4, Titanfall (Total: 12)

Including Sims expansions, EA released roughly 1/3rd the number of titles in 2014 as they did 2006.
EA released 9 titles not available on consoles in 2006. In 2014, they only released 2 (Dawngate + The Sims 4).
Around half of the games EA released in 2006 were available on handheld. In 2014, only FIFA 15 was. Before you mention handheld being killed by mobile, that same one game is the only mobile game EA published in 2014.
Despite that, EA was the #7 biggest publisher for mobile worldwide last year in terms of revenue, and #3 in downloads. (source)
The proportion of sports titles is exactly the same (21/36 vs 7/12)

I highlight EA, but Is anyone else getting the music-industry in the mid 2000s feeling with this? Are development/advertising costs too high for this company to output a large amount of games anymore?

oldmario · May 5, 2015

i guess cause either games cost more to make or cause they closed down a lot of their dev teams

Massa · May 5, 2015

That's the industry trend, yes. Have 10 times fewer games but spend 10 times more on each.

NIN90 · May 5, 2015

EA publishing SiN Episodes is blowing my mind right now.

Coxswain · May 5, 2015

This is pretty close to an industry-wide trend among the big players, not just EA.

And yes, it's just one of the many results of the trend toward more and more expensive game development in the retail-console space.

QaaQer · May 5, 2015

EA has always sought hits, like Activision. They are getting better at knowing what will sell big, or in the case of phones, what will get users to dl and get 1% to spend. You don't need to fund a bunch of interesting/different games, you just need better analytics.

CypherSignal · May 5, 2015

Part of it is that it's more worth it to focus on fewer products ("we can spend $5M on product A, and $5M on product B, and they'll get $15M of revenue combined, OR we can spend that $10M on product C, which will make $20M of revenue!").

Part of it is a greater focus on DLC (if you include every map pack/expansions, and other additions and service management, what does the product slate look like?)

There could be other parts, but that's a large part of it, I'm sure.

Tobor · May 5, 2015

Congratulations! You've discovered the slow inevitable death of retail AAA gaming!

We have a t-shirt and several prizes for you, including this thread with even more detail:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=978113

thebloo · May 5, 2015

Most of the stuff released in 2006 was pretty forgettable (or even bad) while the 2014 line-up is pretty much good or great games. I also bet they all made a profit.

Paganmoon · May 5, 2015

2006: 4 FIFA Soccer games (5 with the manager)
4 American Football games
4 The sims (expansions)
1 C&C compilation
And a few other expansions

Are you suggesting it was better in 2006 with so much fluff shoveled at us?

Nirolak · May 5, 2015

Yes, almost every major publisher has scaled down to incredibly few AAA retail titles.

That's why we have so few announcements anymore.

They went on about "Bigger, Fewer" for a long time and so did most other publishers.

If you go back to 2008 there was a quarter where EA and Activision released a combined 50 retail games. That would take like four years of their combined output now.

CosmicQueso had a great thread about it: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=978113

CosmicQueso said:
Publisher Count - Looks like about half the publishers that made games in 2009 have gone away.

Title Count - This one surprised me. Almost 800 titles released in 2009, last year it was just over 200.

Physical Sales vs Title Count - 96% of the variability in sales between years can be explained by the change in Title Count.

(Sales in millions)

shinobi602 · May 5, 2015

I'd take 2014 EA any day of the week over 2006 EA going by that.

Par Score · May 5, 2015

AAA is condensing in an extremely unhealthy way, it's going to make any failures ever more costly and spectacular.

Shining Sunshine · May 5, 2015

They are going for quality over quantity. Longer dev cycles and DLC support over more disc release titles.

QaaQer · May 5, 2015

Tobor said:
Congratulations! You've discovered the slow inevitable death of retail AAA gaming!

We have a t-shirt and several prizes for you, including this thread with even more detail:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=978113

I don't think so. The industry can survive on the 12-35 y.o. market that buys retail as long as there is enough 12 y.o.s attracted to violent power fantasy gameplay each year to replace those who grow tired of it.

Sure, the era of true mass market consoles is gone, but there is a profitable core who will buy 30 million GTAVs and 20 million BLOPS or whatever. Enough to keep the whole thing chugging for a while longer.

Garrett Hawke · May 5, 2015

This kind of scares me tbh. I liked the shovelware because you had the 10/10s and the 7.5/10s and then the 5/10s that most wouldn't consider but a few loved because there was something really cool about them etc.

Now I feel like everything is an 8.

Tobor · May 5, 2015

By the end of this generation, the vast majority of games will be services, F2P, or just plain vanilla digital releases. Regardless of platform.

Only the top 10 franchises each year, give or take, will bother with disc releases.

Coxswain · May 5, 2015

Untalkative_Bunny said:
I don't think so. The industry can survive on the 12-35 y.o. market that buys retail as long as there is enough 12 y.o.s attracted to violent power fantasy gameplay each year to replace those who grow tired of it.

Sure, the era of true mass market consoles is gone, but there is a profitable core who will buy 30 million GTAVs and 20 million BLOPS or whatever. Enough to keep the whole thing chugging for a while longer.

That's the same sort of attitude that lead to the comic book market chugging along for a couple decades, drilling down further and further into their existing core audience, until the whole enterprise was so irrelevant and rotten through that it had to sell itself to gigantic multimedia conglomerates just to secure its stable, continued existence.

Probably not a great thing to pin your future on, basically.

QaaQer · May 5, 2015

anyone know off hand how many discs the top ten sold last year WW? or per NPD?

Boombox On · May 5, 2015

Tobor said:
Congratulations! You've discovered the slow inevitable death of retail AAA gaming!

Thanks for the link.

The way console and mobile contrast each other is the really interesting part; EA is straight up printing new money from old games with mobile, but If you check out the source listed in my post, no EA game is a top ten seller in almost any region (except UK).

Then I look at Konami and Sega and Nintendo and... eesh. Not a grim look.

CTLance · May 5, 2015

Tobor said:
By the end of this generation, the vast majority of games will be services, F2P, or just plain vanilla digital releases. Regardless of platform.

Only the top 10 franchises each year, give or take, will bother with disc releases.

Also, having this thread and this one

on the same page is just fucking with my head. :lol

Lakitu · May 5, 2015

Tobor said:
By the end of this generation, the vast majority of games will be services, F2P, or just plain vanilla digital releases. Regardless of platform.

Only the top 10 franchises each year, give or take, will bother with disc releases.

If that happens, there goes my gaming habit I guess.

Mr. Mister · May 5, 2015

The much scarier trend is the complete lack of investment in new, original AAA IP by nearly everyone outside of first party studios - though I suspect they'll also throttle back on new IP investment.

Let's look at non-sequel or licensed new IP this gen.

Titan Fall
Watch Dogs
Destiny
The Crew
The Division (Clancy based but feels fresh)

I don't think there are any others and of those only one is "next-gen" exclusive.

This does not show a trend of a growing, healthy, and diverse industry.

Kureransu · May 5, 2015

Yeah I was talking about this last year. Each developer releases 5-10 games a year now, with almost half being yearly updates.

I do find it quite unfortunate, because new IP's are pretty much put out to die. It's so much risk reward now, that new stuff isn't seen as much, and if it is, it's released under a familiar name to try and pull in sales.

I wish there was still a place where companies could invest in newer smaller ips where the sell through wouldn't have to be in the millions for it to considered successful. I miss the vast variety of games in the ps2/xbox/gc era. I almost wish that would ahve been the extended gen and we got HD 3-4 later (costs of production may have been a little cheaper, and I believe more companies would have much more Money going into Gen 7, as well there being more companies still around).

I think gen 7, while great for us games, was too soon for the industry in terms of sustainability going forward,

Durante · May 5, 2015

Mr. Mister said:
The much scarier trend is the complete lack of investment in new, original AAA IP by nearly everyone outside of first party studios - though I suspect they'll also throttle back on new IP investment.

Let's look at non-sequel or licensed new IP this gen.

Titan Fall
Watch Dogs
Destiny
The Crew
The Division (Clancy based but feels fresh)

I don't think there are any others and of those only one is "next-gen" exclusive.

This does not show a trend of a growing, healthy, and diverse industry.

Well, I don't think many people would call the AAA industry healthy, growing or diverse.

Kureransu said:
I wish there was still a place where companies could invest in newer smaller ips where the sell through wouldn't have to be in the millions for it to considered successful.

There is such a place. It's not retail releases on consoles.

Mr. Mister · May 5, 2015

Durante said:
Well, I don't think many people would call the AAA industry healthy, growing or diverse.

Agreed and it is shocking for me to see so few people, including executives in these companies, not understanding that they are looking at an extinction level event.

Future · May 5, 2015

Games are expensive to make. Customers seem to want lower prices overall. Cost isn't growing with the cost of development. Used game market is strong which affects profit forecasts

Now people need to supplement the cost draining endeavors with money making ones. That EA list, for example, doesn't include the shitloads of mobile apps they have

Overside · May 5, 2015

Die.... DIE!!!!! DIEEEEEEEE!!!!

The sooner the incumbent conglomerates die, the sooner recovery can begin.

Stilton Disco · May 5, 2015

I also think it's also a reflection of changing consumer tastes.

In decades past, gaming was a far more niche market, with very few titles that would capture the attention a huge chunk of any systems audience. A wide range of genres all enjoyed a profitable slice of a smaller pie, and the wasn't overwhelmingly big bucks to be made with any one genre or franchise

Today, with increased mainstream appeal, games can cater to a huge audience with very broad, mainstream tastes, just like the majority of the output from other mainstream media. Thus, annualised mega franchises become the cash cows that take huge resources, but garner massive profits. With the industry having expanded, there's also far more pressure from market analysts and accountants to take fewer risks and to focus only on what will make the most money.

Thankfully, the rise of indies, low cost of entry with digital distribution, the post apocalyptic nightmare that is the Japanese market keeping their games mostly less ambitious, the success of Steam and PS4 allowing a huge audience on a single platform to sell to, and up porting from mobile, does counteract this shift in the big publishers somewhat.

Boombox On · May 5, 2015

Mr. Mister said:
The much scarier trend is the complete lack of investment in new, original AAA IP by nearly everyone outside of first party studios - though I suspect they'll also throttle back on new IP investment.

Let's look at non-sequel or licensed new IP this gen.

Titan Fall
Watch Dogs
Destiny
The Crew
The Division (Clancy based but feels fresh)

I don't think there are any others and of those only one is "next-gen" exclusive.

This does not show a trend of a growing, healthy, and diverse industry.

You missed out on... quite a few.

Sunset Overdrive
Dying Light
Evolve
The Order: 1886
DriveClub
The Evil Within

A new generation of consoles always starts with a lot of new IPs. Now compare that to the number of New IPs in 2013, I'm pretty sure it's just The Last Of Us.

Kureransu · May 5, 2015

Durante said:
Well, I don't think many people would call the AAA industry healthy, growing or diverse.

There is such a place. It's not retail releases on consoles.

Well I know we have the digital/indie scene, I was more referring to retail releases. Working at EB Games/Gamestop back in the day, I can't tell you how many of the 20-40 dollar games were purchased on impulse. I know you can online as well. but having all the games laid out in front with their cover art to entice you and actually touching the product goes a lot further in my opinion.

Mr. Mister · May 5, 2015

Boombox On said:
You missed out on... quite a few.

Sunset Overdrive
Dying Light
Evolve
The Order: 1886
DriveClub
The Evil Within

A new generation of consoles always starts with a lot of new IPs. Now compare that to the number of New IPs in 2013, I'm pretty sure it's just The Last Of Us.

Fair enough - I did miss Dying Light, Evil Within, and Evolve. The others are first party which I don't really count as they are the most incentivized to fund new IP.

Kureransu · May 5, 2015

Mr. Mister said:
The much scarier trend is the complete lack of investment in new, original AAA IP by nearly everyone outside of first party studios - though I suspect they'll also throttle back on new IP investment.

Boombox On said:
You missed out on... quite a few.

Sunset Overdrive
Dying Light
Evolve
The Order: 1886
DriveClub
The Evil Within

A new generation of consoles always starts with a lot of new IPs. Now compare that to the number of New IPs in 2013, I'm pretty sure it's just The Last Of Us.

so he still missed 3

and shadow of mordor.

EDIT: Beaten by poster lol

Mr. Mister · May 5, 2015

Kureransu said:
so he still missed 3

and shadow of mordor.

Mordor is a licensed game.

Muscle Wizard · May 5, 2015

Can Dying Light really be called original?

Kureransu · May 5, 2015

Mr. Mister said:
Mordor is a licensed game.

lol i forgot that was LOTR... Shows how much i follow that series.

Boombox On · May 5, 2015

Future said:
Now people need to supplement the cost draining endeavors with money making ones. That EA list, for example, doesn't include the shitloads of mobile apps they have

I did put the mobile games EA put out last year: It's just FIFA 15.

Mr. Mister said:
Fair enough - I did miss Dying Light, Evil Within, and Evolve. The others are first party which I don't really count as they are the most incentivized to fund new IP.

My mistake, didn't know you were only including third party

Circinus · May 5, 2015

I think it makes a lot of sense what they did? Streamlining their line-up around a small, but quality number of tentpole game releases that are highly profitable.

I wouldn't say their 2006 was that much better, I'd definitely prefer EA 2014 personally.

Tobor said:
Congratulations! You've discovered the slow inevitable death of retail AAA gaming!

Err no, that isn't going to happen.

Game Guru · May 5, 2015

Coxswain said:
That's the same sort of attitude that lead to the comic book market chugging along for a couple decades, drilling down further and further into their existing core audience, until the whole enterprise was so irrelevant and rotten through that it had to sell itself to gigantic multimedia conglomerates just to secure its stable, continued existence.

Probably not a great thing to pin your future on, basically.

Actually, DC Comics has been a part of Warner Bros, since the Silver Age. In 1967, Kinney National Company bought National Periodical Publications, the latter being the official name for what fans at the time referred to as DC Comics. In 1970, Kinney National Company bought ailing film studio Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. The company would divest itself of any non-entertainment properties and name itself Warner Communications in 1971, meaning yes, this was when DC Comics became a Warner Bros. property essentially.

Conversely, until their purchase by Disney, Marvel Comics has never been part of a multimedia conglomerate and that purchase happened not because Marvel was unsuccessful with their comic books, but because their movies ended up being so damn popular. Marvel was bought by Disney for Marvel Studios, not Marvel Comics.

Tobor said:
By the end of this generation, the vast majority of games will be services, F2P, or just plain vanilla digital releases. Regardless of platform.

Only the top 10 franchises each year, give or take, will bother with disc releases.

Nice dream, but if things got any close to that point, the market would counteract it as it would become worth it for smaller publishers to have a physical release if you are only competing with one of the dozen or so physical games released that year than being one of hundreds released digitally that year.

The AAA PC developers leaving for consoles is exactly how Valve was able to eventually claim most of the PC gaming pie despite only being 5 years old at the launch of Steam.

As we see in so many media industries, when the major studios decline because of unrealistic expectations, the indies take over until they become the new major studios or the old major studios follow the trends the indies started.

BrendanSinclair · May 5, 2015

This is sad. When I saw the Sega news earlier I was just thinking how their E3 booth was a highlight for me around 2001-2002. They had so many games. All the publishers did. There were only a couple kiosks for each one, and it was so easy to miss something. These days the third-party publisher booths are sad. Sega had three games last year: Sonic Boom, Alien, and Hatsune Miku (and a couple mobile game afterthoughts, according to their blog). Activision had Skylanders, CoD, and Destiny. All the variety and novelty I used to love about the show is now shoehorned into the first party booths' indie showcases. I guess I should be happy it's at least still there in any form at all.

Nirolak · May 5, 2015

Boombox On said:
You missed out on... quite a few.

Sunset Overdrive
Dying Light
Evolve
The Order: 1886
DriveClub
The Evil Within

A new generation of consoles always starts with a lot of new IPs. Now compare that to the number of New IPs in 2013, I'm pretty sure it's just The Last Of Us.

While I agree those are new IPs, how many of those are really all that original?

Paganmoon · May 5, 2015

Nirolak said:
While I agree those are new IPs, how many of those are really all that original?

How many of the 2006 lineup are original though? I just don't see it as showing the difference between game output from 2006 to now as a sign that the industry is in trouble. Big publishers are releasing fewer games yes, but a part of the multitude of release back then were shovelware, and another part of it has been replaced with indies.

tokilamockingbrd · May 5, 2015

Many of those titles in 06 were rehash or shovelware. Also DLC plays a role in this. Then we got by FIFA games now we get one or 2 with DLC to expand it rather than a smaller rehash game. I would rather them make fewer games a year if all of them are pretty good to great. Also not because able to reskin their pro sports games to NCAA games anymore drops the total amount of games.

For instance I would take Dragon Age last year over every game from 06 combined. There are plenty of good games to be played right now.

thebloo · May 5, 2015

Nirolak said:
While I agree those are new IPs, how many of those are really all that original?

How many new IPs (in any environment) are really original?

Mr. Mister · May 5, 2015

tokilamockingbrd said:
Many of those titles in 06 were rehash or shovelware. Also DLC plays a role in this. Then we got by FIFA games now we get one or 2 with DLC to expand it rather than a smaller rehash game. I would rather them make fewer games a year if all of them are pretty good to great. Also not because able to reskin their pro sports games to NCAA games anymore drops the total amount of games.

For instance I would take Dragon Age last year over every game from 06 combined. There are plenty of good games to be played right now.

Don't focus on just 06.

They released:

Dead Space
Mirrors Edge
Mass Effect
Dragon Age
Army of Two
Bullet Storm
Dante's Inferno

Sure not all of them are great but there is solid new IP in that list.

What if any new IP are they working on now? I'd expect one new IP from Bioware and that's it. Otherwise it is annualized sports, Battlefield and its associated Star Wars skins, some existing franchise Bioware RPGs, maybe a need for speed mixed in, and if we are lucky a Mirrors Edge 2.

To be fair it is a great business strategy but it doesn't inspire confidence in the long term creative growth of the industry. You wouldn't have last years Dragon Age without them investing in the IP years ago.

adamantypants · May 5, 2015

Shining Sunshine said:
They are going for quality over quantity. Longer dev cycles and DLC support over more disc release titles.

They seem to have forgotten about the quality part

Tobor · May 5, 2015

Game Guru said:
Nice dream, but if things got any close to that point, the market would counteract it as it would become worth it for smaller publishers to have a physical release if you are only competing with one of the dozen or so physical games released that year than being one of hundreds released digitally that year.

The AAA PC developers leaving for consoles is exactly how Valve was able to eventually claim most of the PC gaming pie despite only being 5 years old at the launch of Steam.

As we see in so many media industries, when the major studios decline because of unrealistic expectations, the indies take over until they become the new major studios or the old major studios follow the trends the indies started.

That's not what happened in the PC space. The discs went away as digital distribution became the standard, and there are no indie devs creating a new renaissance of disc based publishing to fill the void. Why would console be any different?

This isn't a dream, it's changing consumer habits and publisher attrition.

CTLance · May 5, 2015

thebloo said:
How many new IPs (in any environment) are really original?

Since in this specific instance we're talking about 2006 when Wii charged into the mainstream and left many a gamer dazzled and confused in its wake, while the DS continued to run circles around the competition... I dare say in this particular case, we do have quite a few original titles when compared to today.

We have stuff like Drill Dozer, Elektroplankton, Brain Age, Gears of War, Nintendogs, Rub Rabbits, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Chromehounds, Prey, Dead Rising, Saints Row 1, LocoRoco, Okami, DEFCON, Bully, Lumines, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Elite Beat Agents, Excite Truck, Wii Sports, Rayman Raving Rabbids, ...

Some of those are admittedly old games with a different spin (e.g. Okami, Saints Row), but there's plenty of stuff to be found that didnt exist in this form before.

Again, specifically contrasting 2015 and 2006. 'twas a magical time...

Klossen · May 5, 2015

The AAA model is utterly disgusting and has been nothing but detrimental on games in terms of diversity and quality. This industry has turned into an oligopoly of a select few publishers with the resources to rehash the same annual games over and over again and market it so hard that your now-deceased grandmother will know about it.

The AAA model is the free market falling on its face. Imagine if those 50 million GTAV buyers were spread out on 50 other games instead? We'd have a much more diverse and healthy industry. But the consumer would rather buy what's already popular on the basis of it being popular and ignoring the niche on the basis of it being niche. It's a self-defeating circle that ultimately leads to stagnation. The consumer has chosen over and over again that it would choose what's marketed over anything else. Social pressure is the most efficient method of ensuring a buy.

What disgusts me the most about AAA games isn't primarily that they suck out resources for other games, it's the fact that the AAA games themselves are made without soul and passion. It's assembly-line production. It's turning a creative medium into a calculated industry through careful focus testing and extensive marketing. It's entertainment at its absolute lowest levels, engineered entirely after a template constructed after careful market research.

I made a thread earlier celebrating Japan's focus on AA which has thus lead to a more diverse line-up from Japan in 2015. And on PC there's a growing interest for mid-tier games. So there are some semblances of hope here and there. On the whole, industry outlook is very negative from my point of view.

Steel · May 5, 2015

It's all AAA publishers. Hell, I'd imagine Activision's releases during that time compared to now would be more depressing.

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