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Game Theory: Are gamers killing video games?

This video fails based on the fact it ignores the reality of the situation. The people begging for innovation and new ideas are very small audience in the grand scheme of things. They are the more core audience. The audience that makes Mario Party and Call of Duty sell insane are the more casual audience.

He's implying the two audiences are the same. Sure there is a small crossover where this video's situation might be correct, but it'd be a very small group of people.
 
Welp...
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There is something curious about the sequel thing and why companies are banking so much on them. I know there have always been tons of sequels but I do feel that today it's worse than ever.

Not only in gaming but also when it comes to movies. What makes me curious about this is that this used to be a lot different back in the 80-90s where companies would invest less in sequels than in original IPs. Wonder what caused the extreme change.
 
MisterHero said:
Wii reminded the other 2 manufacturers that people will buy games that are cheap and fun. They revised their consoles to be cheaper and made more casual software. Kinect was a notable boost for 360. Overall Move and Kinect didn't work because they were cynical imitations of Wii and didn't have the right games to support them.

"Sixaxis/Move software not compelling? It must be a fad."

Don't worry about Nintendo bias. The Wii U pad lives and dies by the same logic.
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Cheap and fun is very true. I'm not sure why, but even though I have much more disposable income now than I did in my teens and early 20s, I don't like paying $60 for a game unless I'm going to play it a LOT. And considering inflation, $60 for a game now is way cheaper than $60 for a game 15 or 20 years ago, yet I'm hestitant to buy most games "day one retail". I think it largely boils down, for me at least, to the sheer quantity of games I play now versus back then. Back then I would only play two or three games a year. Now I'm playing upwards of 50 or 60 games a year.

I'm more than willing to pop on games like Max, Strider, and Killer Instinct (the last being nostalgia) day one because they're cheap. If it weren't free I would've gladly paid $10 or $15 for Resogun on PS4. And I'm more than willing to pick up a bargain title for $10 or $15 on the 3DS.

It's weird too because I'm willing to spend $15 to go to the movies with my wife, and that's only a couple of hours of entertainment that ends and I have nothing to show for it. So why am I not willing to spend $60 on a game that will provide (on average) at least 10, and often 20 or 30 hours of enjoyment? That $50 barrier is a difficult thing to pass, even though by now with inflation new "day one retail" games ought to be costing over $100 each compared to their prices 15 or 20 years ago had they kept up with inflation. I think if I were still in the old mannerism of only playing a few select games each year, I'd gladly pay $60 at retail and think it was a steal for the amount of entertainment hours I get. But since I'm playing so many games, I'm not willing to spend that kind of money.

And perhaps THAT is the real danger to the video games industry. Not gamers, but games themselves, or rather the glut in the market of title after title. If you actually sat down and tried to keep track of the multitudes of games being released constantly it would make your head spin! Are we headed for another crash? I dunno. I tend to think not. Maybe a retraction, but not a crash. But there are definitely way too many players on the field currently.
 
Certainly. Developers have to walk on eggshells when dealing with the hardcore fanbase, as any little weakness in a reveal or gameplay trailer will be under the microscope. If gamers find any fault they will rip it to shreds, and doom the title before it's even on store shelves.
Heaven forbid you're releasing an update of an old franchise because it's even worse. Thief is a perfect example of a game that was DOA with gamers despite being a pretty competent release.
 
Some of his sales data is cherry picked and out dated to prove his point, Madden in particular. But he makes a solid overall argument. Ultimately we are to blame since we are the ones buying games and voting with our wallets. However, people like us ( enthusiasts/ hardcore) are the minority.
 
sjay1994 said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q&feature=share

Summary Points:

-Gamers complain for innovation, yet reiterative franchises sell more

-Nintendos more creative ventures (Pikmin, Wind Waker) don't do as well, but their reiterative games (2D mario, Pokemon Smash and Kart) sell gangbusters

-Gamers will buy something familiar, rather than something totally new

-Mario Party 8 sold as much as both Portal games/ both Bioshock 1 and Infinite/ Half Life 2

-Video Maker praises Nintendo for pursuing innovation, and claims games like Pikmin need a Smash Bros to be funded
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They got the definition of a gamer wrong. there are so many usual players who buy games, and they are the ones who only got their console for the same games over and over again (CoD, EA Sports titles, etc).
The real gamers, who are really interested in games as a hobby, are always complaining about the things mentioned here.
 
hard to argue against such a simple fact, but it's also a very futile discussion to be had. Mass market products sell, always been that way in any media: Marvel movies are the ones that sell more tickets nowadays, Justin Bieber sells more than Jack Savoretti and of course the same happens in the videogame market
 
CadetMahoney said:
Are casual mobile button mashers "gamers"?
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Yes. That's just it. In order for the industry to thrive and expand, it had to cater to a wider audience. Take fewer risks and sacrifice innovation in order to make products casual and non gaming folks could comprehend. The video fails to admit that, as a whole, the gaming market is more than just enthusiast. It isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. It's not a niche market anymore. So all of the blame can't be on us. But some.
 
I think some of the more outspoken gamers ruin the scene for new comers. Heck, when a developer speaks his or her mind, sometimes gamers want their head on a pike. I remember one time with Bioware where a writer admitted she did not play much video games and gamers fumed at her saying she was ruining the company. I mean take a chill pill.
 
If you divide the market into three with the huge budget massive sellers, middle budget good sellers and low budget could do anything then time after time we have seen that it is the middle budget games that suffer the most. And the range of what is "middle budget" is always expanding upwards. Although with things like indie games and kickstarter we are seeing positive trends to reclaim the lower end of the middle which is also the higher end of what the middle used to be and so on.

The relevance of this is that people who complain most about lack of innovation are normally pretty naive in that they desperately still want games with the highest and most expensive production values but no longer want safe mass market appeal. This is the main reason why the middle is so treacherous when it falls to convince these people that their budget was top tier or even worse for the long term when their budget is top tier but their market is only ever middling.
 
Prototype said:
Motion control will be an integral part of VR. You will eat your words.

edit: also, it was a video, not an article.
I don't believe you watched it
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Yes I did watch it, my quote about motion controls changing gaming controls forever is about 3/4 of the way into the video.

Motion controls were a Fad, I have wii and Kinect 1.0 and 2 move wands....

Move was close to being good, it kept loosing its calibration / its reference point. Lag / slow input and waggle killed motion control

VR is a different beast altogether, but even here the issue with move was it loosing its reference point and calibration.

Now, if Sony could get Move right it would be a good VR input...
 
lifeexpectancy said:
Cheap and fun is very true. I'm not sure why, but even though I have much more disposable income now than I did in my teens and early 20s, I don't like paying $60 for a game unless I'm going to play it a LOT. And considering inflation, $60 for a game now is way cheaper than $60 for a game 15 or 20 years ago, yet I'm hestitant to buy most games "day one retail". I think it largely boils down, for me at least, to the sheer quantity of games I play now versus back then. Back then I would only play two or three games a year. Now I'm playing upwards of 50 or 60 games a year.

I'm more than willing to pop on games like Max, Strider, and Killer Instinct (the last being nostalgia) day one because they're cheap. If it weren't free I would've gladly paid $10 or $15 for Resogun on PS4. And I'm more than willing to pick up a bargain title for $10 or $15 on the 3DS.

It's weird too because I'm willing to spend $15 to go to the movies with my wife, and that's only a couple of hours of entertainment that ends and I have nothing to show for it. So why am I not willing to spend $60 on a game that will provide (on average) at least 10, and often 20 or 30 hours of enjoyment? That $50 barrier is a difficult thing to pass, even though by now with inflation new "day one retail" games ought to be costing over $100 each compared to their prices 15 or 20 years ago had they kept up with inflation. I think if I were still in the old mannerism of only playing a few select games each year, I'd gladly pay $60 at retail and think it was a steal for the amount of entertainment hours I get. But since I'm playing so many games, I'm not willing to spend that kind of money.

And perhaps THAT is the real danger to the video games industry. Not gamers, but games themselves, or rather the glut in the market of title after title. If you actually sat down and tried to keep track of the multitudes of games being released constantly it would make your head spin! Are we headed for another crash? I dunno. I tend to think not. Maybe a retraction, but not a crash. But there are definitely way too many players on the field currently.
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Wow, what a great post. :)

Even $60 today might not be enough. There's DLC. There's Collector's Editions which might cost twice as much. Some of it is complimentary to the game experience and some of it is publisher abuse. In any case, they're not happy with customers forking over just $60 anymore. Whatever is causing them to think $60 isn't enough is not good for games.

Wii U is still technically cheaper, and (well, technically because it's cheaper) game prices have to remain at $60. Wii U could've still worked if it had the right software at launch, including some of the Touch Generations-style games Wii and DS featured. They were both cheap and wildly successful. We'll never know, but Nintendo can still salvage the generation.

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Lol. It's unfortunate that reselling/waiting for pricedrops is becoming more popular. It's good for gamers but it kinda erodes the model for retail games.
 
Wait, did he suggest Bioshock Infinite was innovative and Melee was some lame rehash?

The intro makes it sound like he's about to disprove the idea that casuals are buying bad games, then that ends up being his point. What exactly was I meant to take away from this?
 
samurai1226 said:
They got the definition of a gamer wrong. there are so many usual players who buy games, and they are the ones who only got their console for the same games over and over again (CoD, EA Sports titles, etc).
The real gamers, who are really interested in games as a hobby, are always complaining about the things mentioned here.
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There is no definition of gamer. This community thrives off of non-definitions. The fact is that "hardcore" gamers are by and large buying the same games as the "casuals." So why bother differentiating?

However, I am of the opinion that the major publishers deserve a large share of the blame because they are manufacturing the hype that informs the purchases of all gamers. Naturally, there are exceptions, but as with any other industry, consumers are consuming largely what the marketing teams are telling them to.

Do you give responsibility to the sheep or the shepherd?
 
For me Nintendo is about originality within franchises, that's why I still play Zelda and Mario games since the NES. Even a so called rehashed title like NSMB 2 had a unique level design direction due to the coin collection focus. ALBW is a straight forward top down Zelda, but the addition of wall merging changes how I approach exploration and puzzles, it makes you think in new ways. Mario Kart 8's anti gravity mechanic or the cat suit in 3D World achieve the same thing.

On the other hand, in games like GTA and AC, the element of surprise is the setting and characters, not the underlying gameplay mechanics. Sure Mario has been in the Mushroom Kingdom, space and in a tropical island, but it's the gameplay implications of a region I'm interested in. Namely playing with gravitational effects and water packs. That's why I play video games, not to visit tropical beaches, but to experience new gameplay concepts.
 
I don't think that is the entire case, but looking at those numbers of game sales for the games many of us consider classics (Psychonutts, Okami) and having those classics get pitiful sales kinda paints a VERY clear picture that creative games just don't sell nearly as well as the 'blockbusters' of gaming like the COD and AC.

That being said, back in those times gaming was a very different place with smaller games still being sold at retail alongside the 'bigger' games. Granted tittles like Beyond Good and Evil and Okami are HUGE games, but most of the time creative games like Katamari and Stretch Panic are games that today would have been the new indie game. Now in days, I would say that the gaming market is better than it has ever been, with frequent sales on home consoles/handhelds and indie games becoming better and better (Hotline Maimi, Fez, SteamWorld Dig, Sound Shapes, Guacamelee were all games that felt and played better than any of the bigger games I got from PS+ last year).

I will say that people complaining of the lack of innovation are just...misguided to say the least. There is PLENTY of innovation in the gaming of today, but instead of looking for the new game box in your local GameStop to find it, it is now resided in the large digital stores in XBLA, Steam and PSN. Its not bad that is the case, as it is easier than ever before to find great games (and finding great recommendations here on Gaf and other forums great helps as well :)), but that just how it is now.
 
I stopped watching around 3 and a half minutes. I hate this guy's condescending tone in all of his videos. Also, that Call of Duty sales chart is the first Google image result when you search for "Call of Duty sales", and he didn't even bother trying to find a more up to date one, because the fact that Black Ops 2 and Ghosts have sold worse year over year disputes his "point" of rehashes selling better each year.

Not to mention when he was throwing up box art for yearly sequels, he put up many non-yearly franchises, including God of War 3, inFamous 2, Rainbow Six Vegas, and the weirdest one, Painkiller: Hell and Damnation. None of his videos are original, they're just copy and pasting people's over-speculation on games (Link dead in Majora's Mask, Mario a sociopath, etc.) or hacking together his own shitty ideas like this.
 
Honestly, my time here on NeoGAF has showed me that gamers don't really know what they want.

When a reiterative title comes out, the boards are filled with people complaining that it's the exact same thing as the last game.

When a game series tries something different, there's post after post of people complaining that the series isn't the same anymore.

Perhaps the solution is for developers and publishers to simply ignore internet feedback and follow the numbers.
 
MaximoffZero said:
Honestly, my time here on NeoGAF has showed me that gamers don't really know what they want.

When a reiterative title comes out, the boards are filled with people complaining that it's the exact same thing as the last game.

When a game series tries something different, there's post after post of people complaining that the series isn't the same anymore.

Perhaps the solution is for developers and publishers to simply ignore internet feedback and follow the numbers.
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I think that is basically what they do. For example, they aren´t reworking the watchdogs graphics and IQ because the internet backlash, because the internet vocal minority of enthusiast gamers don´t make the biggest part of their sales numbers.

And even so, this kind of gamer eventually buy the game just to see what the fuss is about, at least, i kind of do that sometimes: buy a game who got controversial changes and eventual criticisms by games just to see if i really agree the criticism or don´t.
 
MaximoffZero said:
Honestly, my time here on NeoGAF has showed me that gamers don't really know what they want.
Click to expand...

I think there is a small, but over-represented group of players that have grown completely bored of playing some genres of videogames, but keep buying them for pure peer pressure, marketing push, or because they simply repeat the yearly motion of getting the token release.

They can't stop expressing apathy and inertia toward the medium, and sometimes it's very easy to spot them reading between the lines.

I think some gamers would benefit if, every 5 hours or so, they stopped playing, put the pad down for 2 minutes, and questioned their gut feelings: "Am i really having fun with this?"
 
Feep said:
Nothing can be *completely* new, 'natch. ;)
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Didn't mean it that way at all. Papers Please has gameplay that I've never seen before, but it didn't really catch fire with the masses. One of my favorite games right now is One Finger Death Punch, but I don't expect it to get many imitators. It seems like the genres that explode in popularity come from a place that's set and familiar. Others are fads that fizzle out.
 
U-R said:
I think there is a small, but over-represented group of players that have grown completely bored of playing some genres of videogames, but keep buying them for pure peer pressure, marketing push, or because they simply repeat the yearly motion of getting the token release.

They can't stop expressing apathy and inertia toward the medium, and sometimes it's very easy to spot them reading between the lines.

I think some gamers would benefit if, every 5 hours or so, they stopped playing, put the pad down for 2 minutes, and questioned their gut feelings: "Am i really having fun with this?"
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I tend to agree with you. And if they're truly just bored with a particular genre they should simply start experimenting with different genres. I've tried to do so over the years and it has been very rewarding.
 
I'd love to know where he got his sales numbers for Half-Life 2 and Portal titles seeing as how Valve doesn't actually release sales figures for its PC titles.
 
-Gamers complain for innovation, yet reiterative franchises sell more
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There's no evidence to me that a significant number of "gamers" are "complaining for innovation". People need to kill this bubble thinking where they go to GAF, Reddit, comments sections on YouTube personalities, or whatever other web source and say "Well, this is representative of gamers". The vast majority of people buying anything, original or derivative, are not participating in this kind of conversation.
 
The problem is that too many people care that reiterative franchises sell better than the more niche innovative games.

It wouldn't kill us to make the B-tier of videogames a thing again. Something doesn't have to sell CoD numbers in order to be successful or validated. Most of what gets released now is either AAA or super niche since the middle ground of game production has been rapidly falling apart since last gen.
 
Triggerhappytel said:
We are not killing the videogame industry, but publishers need to understand that if they're making a game outside the norm and aimed specifically at the mainstream mass market it needs to be budgeted to turn a profit on 2-3 million sales. Publishers need to stop chasing the Call of Duty dollar; that's what's killing the industry. Not every game needs to sell 10+ million copies.
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this is all that needs to be said
 
he makes some good points, and generally he's right. people buy things that are familiar
but he also makes a lot of stupid comparisons
ff13 sales vs ff6?
that's apples to oranges, in a way, because gaming as a whole is SO MUCH bigger than it was in the snes era. there's just so many more potential customers. you can't compare those sales figures
 
Stumpokapow said:
There's no evidence to me that a significant number of "gamers" are "complaining for innovation". People need to kill this bubble thinking where they go to GAF, Reddit, comments sections on YouTube personalities, or whatever other web source and say "Well, this is representative of gamers". The vast majority of people buying anything, original or derivative, are not participating in this kind of conversation.
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Exactly, I don't think the points made are wrong, just irrelevant. They're just not the same people.

I know I don't ask for innovation, I just want good games, so if I buy Persona 5 over any new IP I'll be acused of ruining gaming because I ask for innovation but buy more of the same? What kind of logic is that?

The people I see saying they're tired of Assassin's Creed are really tired of Assassin's Creed and don't even bother reading about the games anymore. You can't take people from two different crowds and compare their habits like they're the same.
 
Valjean Lafitte said:
Thank you for this content-filled post.

I think Game Theory is spot-on. Gamers whine for innovation, but the demand more of the same old thing
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It sounds an awful lot like that dumb hypocrisy fallacy by making the assumption that this group of people that are "whining" for innovation are the exact same people who line up to buy the most derivative titles on the market. He needs to make a much more convincing case that its gamers that are hurting the industry.
 
This game theory is correct on correlation but doesn't actually look into what's causing it. Assuming anyone who buys a game is a "gamer", there are a number of factors including that gamers can't fully trust new and untried stuff for a quality game, level of presentation and marketing (see Dead Island), there is a level of accessibility often in these top selling games and the general appeal the game holds
 
What's the point of even comparing two groups of gamers and having basically no data on demographics to backup his point that they buy the same stuff?
 
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