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The future of the gaming industry looks bloody bleak. Stores have become so fed up with shovelware thanks to Nintendo's adamant marketing to the casual gamer that they are refusing to stock these garbage titles. The age of digital distribution for gaming is approaching, doing away with the physical ownership of one's games. Waving your arms around like a silly monkey to control games has become the industry trend, the mad dash to finish line to see who can make it work the best. And, videogames are the international scapegoat for all things evil. What's up with that, videogames?
I am most disappointed in Nintendo. Formerly a hardcore gamer powerhouse, Nintendo has become associated with flash minigames. Why spend $199 on a console to play games I can enjoy for free via my web browser? Oh, I can wave my arms around? Oh, neat! That's not to say that the Wii doesn't have its games... the New Super Mario Bros., Smash Bros., Mario Kart, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (but wasn't that also on the GameCube??), Super Mario Galaxy, Wario Land, Mario Party 8... well, these games are all Nintendo games! The third party support for good games on the Wii is severely lacking which is not surprising due to the Wii's lack of technological innovation compared to its competitors. To the core gamer, the future of Nintendo seems bleak. The recently announced Legend of Zelda is a glimmer of hope, although the fact that the Wii's graphics are comparable to the GameCube is rather sad. But, graphics aren't everything! I know that, but in this day and age, outdated graphics are no excuse. Technology moves quick, so please try to keep up! With the beautiful graphics of the PS3 at 1080p, having your maximum resolution at 480p is laughable. Nintendo's hard marketing to the casual crowd has also opened the flood gates for developers to dump any and all ideas for games into the reality bin. Calvin Tucker's redneck games? Carnival games? Barnyard games? Are you kidding? It's garbage, full of garbage that will end up in the mystery dump along with the E.T. cartridges. Sony also let loose their digital distribution machine. The PSPgo was unleashed to...a few sales here and there. However, the move by Sony signaled the newest venture that will undoubtedly take over: digital distribution. The medium has already consumed the music market and it is only a matter of time until it swallows the movie and game market as well. When high speed internet becomes the norm regardless of location, this move will make things easier. However, there are still a large number of people who are stuck in 1992 with their dial up modems and slow DSL. There's just not enough bandwidth to go around for games and movies of gigantic size to be downloaded. Mark my words, though, once this happens, kiss videogame stores goodbye. Digital distribution is especially upsetting because I, personally, cannot for the life of me justify spending money on virtual property. Electronics can be wonky and you can easily lose that $60 game if your five year old cousin Larry likes to play with magnets. Sure, you can just download the game again, but if your internet is lacking, who wants to wait a day to download a 10gb game? I just want to play it! I tried rending a HD movie from the PSN. Yea, it was cheap. Yea, it took me 12 hours to download it. I wanted to watch it now, though. There is also the issue of stores. All digital distribution will mean that videogame stores will cease to exist. As much as we all hate GameStop, it's still nice to be able to trade in unwanted games to help pay for new ones (am I really going to play Madden NFL 2010 once Madden NFL 2011 comes out?) and it is also nice to walk into such a store to find a used game cheap that you may want to play, but not dish out a lot of cash for a brand new copy. I picked up a used copy of Madden NFL 2009 for like $10 a few months ago. I'm not a big fan of football, but I like to occasionally throw the pigskin around, so this was a nice way to satisfy that urge. With all digital distribution, finding old treasures or cheap fixes will also cease to exist. Let's hope for frequent amazing Steam sales? Nintendo, being the powerhouse gaming company it is, has also created a mad flux about motion controls. Project Natal and the Sony Wand are in the works to bring this wacky control scheme opportunity to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and I can't say I am excited. I am loathing this move. Will this open the flood gates for more shovelware? Will we see Willy Wonka's Candyland Minigames on the Xbox 360 in the future? Having one console drowning in a slew of shoddy games is enough, must we enable the filth to spread? The motion control madness is like a mad pestilence on the gaming industry. The only hope is that both Sony and Microsoft have acknowledge that these controls will not replace the normal controller. Of course, video games are also the root of all evil. Germany and Australia are easy targets to show how ridiculous people are behaving in the wake of the videogame culture expanding. Even porn stars are dogging on videogames. The future of the videogame industry is bleak. It's diminishing. Once the fad of the Wii has completely faded out and the other big dogs see that motion controls are a cheap gimmick, hopefully the industry will return to normal, quality games will be made, and the gaming companies will continue to churn out worthwhile experiences rather than barf worthy titles that you can physically buy. P.S. I apologize for the lack of pictures.
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Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Living the dream since March 16, 2006
On the Wii: It isn’t as though, historically speaking, a majority of the games released were good. I’d argue that it’s just modern media that allows us to know more about the crap, and the fact that advertising has become so popular that we get fed the crap much more vigorously now. The fact that the Wii has a lot of lousy games and a handful of good ones is no surprise; the Wii’s a gimmick that Nintendo sold like hotcakes. If the games don’t follow up on that, Nintendo’s going to stop making money, which will hopefully teach them a good lesson about gimmicks, but they’re certainly not leading the industry anywhere because those profit margins are going to drop when the gaming fad crashes.
On Good Games: Look around you, they’re everywhere. Just in the last year we’ve had some amazing games. BlazBlue, Street Fighter IV, Killzone 2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Modern Warfare 2, inFAMOUS, Uncharted 2, Darksiders, Demon’s Souls, take your pick from these and many, many more. It’s not like big (or even small) studios just stopped producing good games. And more are on the way, we’ve practically got game gold for the next few months because of all the releases that were pushed into 2010.
On Digital Distribution: It’s hard to picture the industry going entirely digital. In fact, I think it’s impossible. There’s always going to be a market for it, and some games will be easier to develop for digital distribution. Indie games and the like are going to become a mainstay in terms of digital distribution, but major games and major consoles will always have physical media. Your example of the PSPGo is perfect for demonstrating why the industry won’t go entirely digital; it’s not a jump the market wants to make, and the industry is always going to do what the market wants in the end.
On Games as Scapegoats: I wrote a blog a few days back on some of my thoughts regarding videogames as scapegoats, and the reactions many gamers have to the situation. I don’t think it’s going to stop soon, and frankly maybe it shouldn't. I'd prefer less bullshit on the wire and a more serious discussion, but some people are always going to try to blow something out of proportion so they can hear themselves talk.
When it comes down to it, the future is the future, and it’s always bleak if you can’t see the forest for the trees.
I spun my arguments very negatively on purpose because there's a part of me hating where the industry is going, so I concede that some of these arguments are a bit inflated.
There are amazing games out there and this year is going to be amazing as well, there's no doubt about that, though the frightening aspect in my mind is the motion control is going to turn our ps3/xb360 consoles into the wii.
Anyway, I'm glad to see your response! Maybe tomorrow I'll drink a juice of happiness and write the flipside to this blog! :)
If motion controls are done right, they're amazing. The hard part is finding a company willing to invest the time to do just that.
I don't even mind digital distribution for some games... they suit the ability to quickly download rather than residing on physical media and it's nice to shop from home and buy a game when I'm bored and want to try something different.
But the write-up was a good read. Can't say I agree with you 100%, but you make some good points that give me some food for thought.
My eyes tend to glaze over these kinds of posts. Its just a bunch of stuff I've heard before and most of it exaggerated.
From where I'm standing, Nintendo caters to the hardcore and the casuals pretty evenly. The problem is getting third parties to follows suit - the third parties don't know what the fuck to do no matter how much Nintendo shows them the way. The third parties are set in their ways and their use of the platform is completely halfassed.
Which brings me to Nintendo's hardcore section - they halfass everything too. They do not galvanize the userbase in any way, which is even something that DS users do. The hardcore Nintendo fans really are happy with the status quo.
Oh sure, they say they want big third party titles - they never follow through on that, though. Some of the best third party offerings are merely pearls cast before swine. Nintendo's hardcore base is all talk and no action.
Those two things are why Wii is hurting now. Third parties keep serving up crap and when they do put out something great, Nintendo fans do not make a move to support it. Even Metroid Prime Trilogy and some of the other second party stuff doesn't get the love it should.
And yet you look at the DS and people are all over the good third party stuff. Wii's hardcore is a really strange cult of personality and they're Nintendo's own worst enemy.