The end of the Games Industry?

[SAS]

Could the Games Industry die? Satoru Iwata president of Nintendo has warned that the industry must innovate or die:

"Unless things changed people would get tired of games".

"Looking at the past 20 years, as long as we could beef up the processing power, as long as we could make computer graphics approach realism, then people were excited about the result. "Some of the people in the industry still believe we can simply beef up the current technology in order to provide a constant supply of games to people." "We don't agree with that."

Many of us, dare I say it older gamers, grew up on the likes of the C64, Spectrum, Gameboy, Sega Mega Drive... we had a small game pad with a few buttons to press or a joystick with one fire button which allowed us to slowly ease ourselves into the world of gaming. This exposure allowed us to learn the basic rules of gaming which underline the games of today. Then we found online gaming...

Younger gamers are thrown into a world of advance graphics and console control pads loaded with 101 buttons and multiple areas of the screen to keep an eye on. Game designers constantly add more to games, increasing the interactivity available and options for gamers with multiple ways to complete a task.

This is a whole different ball game compared to the old 2D Sonic and Mario games which had basic routes and puzzles hooking players world wide. Many younger gamers buy a game, play it, then head online, but what portions of them are put off by the complexity of gaming?

The full article can be read on the BBC here.

What are your views? Post away…

 

[Louster]

I haven't really read the BBC article, but just wanted to reply to this:

This is a whole different ball game compared to the old 2D Sonic and Mario games which had basic routes and puzzles hooking players world wide. Many younger gamers buy a game, play it, then head online, but what portions of them are put off by the complexity of gaming?

To be honest, I don't think games have gotten "more complex". As I see it, what's happened is that what complexity games do have has shifted from being subtle and emergent, to arbitrary and designed. The old style games had repetitive, recursive formulas, that, as they say, were "simple to learn but hard to master". More recently games are being over-thought, with no "simple complexity", and more "features".

It is ABSOLUTELY analogous to the difference between a transparent poem, transparent in the sense that the words work seamlessly in creating imagery, or emotion, or whatever, and an inexperienced writer's pretentious, self-conscious prose.

Obviously there'll be exceptions to this, where people manage to recreate ye olden wayes, or are able to combine styles reasonably well, but uhm, yeah.

 

[Morchaoron]

The end??

no, its just the beginning...

 

[Cask]

Well I can't see the games industry dying anytime soon. Cinema is still going strong and that has been around for much longer than games, and is far more restrictive in terms of how your audience can involve themselves with the story.

But a bit of innovation would be nice. It has been a while since we've seen a new genre defining game. There have been plenty of rehashes on existing ideas but they don't provide that newness that makes games exciting.


We're only just breaking into the online games department so we should at least give them a few years to come up with some gems. Games involving thousands of simultaneous players were virtually unprecedented until a few years ago. Considering how long popular sports have had to evolve, I don't see why in a hundred years or so computer games can't reach the same sort of popularity as televised sports like tennis or snooker.

 

[Sharma]

Could the Games Industry die? Satoru Iwata president of Nintendo has warned that the industry must innovate or die:

Heh, I dont know how Nintendo can talk about decent games because for the most part they made quite a load of shite games unless they had a lot collaboration from other companies who had a clue.

That said the Gamecube is a right gem.

I however don't see games dieing out for a very long time, however I do see that it is hard to make a game now that doesn't already fall into one of the genres that we all know, just that some companies are too scared to go out on a limb to make a new genre for fears of it completely flopping and losing a large amount of cash from it.

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Hardware aside, there's some irony in Nintendo, who almost rely on rereleasing or rehashing old (classic if you prefer ) games for each and every device they create stating that the industry must innovate or die.

 

[Cyfr]

There will always be shit games, those companys will die, the ones that produce good games will live forever and ever and ever and ever...

 

[Doomy]

I dont think the industry will die, i just think that eventually people like Jonathon Ross will be reviewing 'games' in say the next 10 years.

 

[Gengi]

Games won't die, they will evolve. As the technology becomes better and cheaper you will start to get waldos for hands and feet and vr head sets will become less like full face motorbike helmets and more like slightly bulky sunglasses, games will evolve to meet these emergent technologies.
The headsets are not far off now I imagine, if you find yourself in Alton Towers over the summer, in one of the 'spend all your cash here' bits, there is an attraction, basically a bunch of people sit on bleachers with this contraption on their heads and you stand and watch them, laughing your socks off as they do the actions to a story that is being played to them inside their little VR world, my kids did it last year and my dughter is little so the headwear was not tooo heavy.
Ultimately, it will be a jack in the back of your head, or a total body suit putting you into whatever game your playing and making you feel some of it. (yes I have read too many sci-fi novels, this being from Otherland, well some of it, but the technology is catching up, people are having chips put in their bodies to stimulate and simulate nerve impulses.)

Later

 

[Driwen]

even if the demands of hardware that games demand dont improve there is always the storyline that can change. Off course for multiplayer fps games this might be not important, but for singplayer games and rpg's it means that as long as they can dream up a new story (with the same gfx and game mechanics) there will still be people who will buy it. Baldurs gate series never really improved their graphics, but still sold well and the same probably goes for GTA aswell (allthough they improve the graphics the new storyline is more important).
So I really doubt game industry will die, but some genres are gonna be harder to sell in than others, I think (unless the prediction that we cant beef up the game is premature and that we will always be able to add something extra to the game).

 

[Louster]

Uhm. The BG games at least just became more refined, in terms of both gameplay mechanics and graphical engine. Anyway, there's a quote I like from PA, recently:

As technology has improved, and has gamers have gotten older, the games have gotten a lot more complex. This is not something I have a problem with, really. Stories have become of greater importance, again, this isn't something I'm going to complain about. But to play a game for the game's sake, because it's fun to actually play it, because it is made up of tiny, valid choices in a context which rewards the classic gaming virtues of timing and focus - that's where Nintendo excels.

Reading this I have to agree, and to resolve my earlier post, realise that the definition of "complexity" that I was using was obviously different to what was meant. The point is that games don't really have to change, as long as they present a good, fun, simple core of a game in, perhaps, a novel way. What I was saying is that the "fun, simple core" has generally disappeared and we're left with "novel ways" of playing non-novel, not terribly fun games. Or that's how I see it, at least.

 

[SAS]

At present the games industry is bigger than the movie industry. I can't see it dying out. Gaming appears to move on with the times, and if some gamers don't want to sit and play games like Half-Life 2, then mobile gaming is moving onto offer attractive, simple, fun games to play. There are games out there for all types of people on many platforms.

Life is one big game, and imagine a world without computer games?