There has always been a huge casual audience, at least since computer technology finished integrating itself into people's lives. The only difference today is that delivery and monetization have improved immensely; it's easier for people who play games casually to work them into their lifestyles and it's easier for companies that make these games to extract money for them.
The casual market latches on to a few very popular games and largely ignores everything else. You can't predict it outside of the current fad, thus you can not predictably make money off it outside the current fad. I don't think you can build a sustainable industry off the back of something so unpredictable.
The idea that there's this fragile market that's only been preserved by carefully-timed hits is nonsense. There is no time in the last decade where there haven't been major casual game success stories. The hits aren't what's keeping people around; games are becoming hits because there are people who want to buy them.
The word I would use is "momentum". I don't think casual gamers are becoming gamers. I think that the momentum generated by these fads is artificially increasing the presence and power of the casual segment, which I believe have the numbers but are unpredictable and stingy.
I think there are a bunch of companies that are being formed or that are changing course to take a piece of this casual pie, but they are misguided in what this casual audience actually is, and most of them will crash and burn. I don't think casual gamers are a fad. I think this current casual gaming movement is a fad. I think it is creating the appearance of a rich, untapped audience where one doesn't exist.
Again, it comes down to the industry putting too many of its eggs in one basket. Rather than diversifying, you've got everybody trying to make Facebook games. If that market should happen to falter, regardless of whether we agree on why, the results could be bad. If it happens at the same time as another fad ending, the industry could be teetering on the edge of a crash.
Err... what? MMOs were an ultra-niche genre in the "early 2000s," kicking along with 300k subscriber numbers.
At the time, that represented a HUGE number given how few people had internet, much less high speed internet. Plus the appearance of huge profits due to the subscription model caused everybody in the entire industry to start making MMOs, despite being stupidly expensive and resource intensive. It is not surprising that almost all of them failed to make it to market, or died out shortly thereafter. It's not that the MMO bubble had burst, but rather that the creators of MMOs misunderstood the audience. They saw a gold rush where none was to be had.
The teenage market has been a consistent moneymaker for home videogames for going on 20 years. The exact genres certainly do shift, but they don't just disappear, they shift over time the same way trends do in all media.
I thought this thread was about the video game crash in 1983. Twenty years ago, teenagers DID abandon video games for other forms of entertainment. When the NES was first showed off, the kids all wrote it off as a kiddy game machine like the Atari. It seems unfathomable, but for a few years there, video games weren't cool.
The argument, I guess, is that video games are like movies and music - a fundamental part of entertainment. I think video games are probably closer to comic books. They can be replaced. And I think that if the industry continues along this current path, it will become easier and easier for this to happen.
Like, your position here is basically like saying "I'm pretty sure the next batch of teenagers won't listen to music, because music is what all the teens are into today." That's crazy-go-nuts.
That's not what I said. I said that there is no guarantee that the next batch of teenagers will approach video games in the same way, or with the same fervor. It's possible, if unlikely, that the next generation may have something else to become fascinated with. I grew up with computers, but my parents didn't. I didn't grow up with the internet, but my kids will. Who knows what societal changes may appear that could fundamentally change how they look at entertainment. For all we know, due to the bad economy, the $60 video game could be seen as a luxury, and there are other, cheaper forms of entertainment that can be just as enticing.
Assuming that video games are an untouchable part of entertainment is a bit misguided. Too big to fail? The industry has a centralized power structure of a few large corporations, is facing a fundamental change in distribution and monetization (of which it seems to be erring on the side of stupidity), and is losing face daily due to security threats, oppressive DRM policies, and nickel and diming through DLC color swaps. I don't think the industry is big enough that it can make the sheer volume of mistakes it seems poised to.
