Could Videogame Fatigue Give Rise To Another Videogame Crash?

Are the videogame industries desires for more money putting gamers off, and ultimately harming the industry beyond repair?

[uth11]

Videogames crashed in the 1980s because it was a fad started by Pac-man. Fads have a limited shelf life, so by the end of 1982, everyone moved onto Rubiks Cubes or something and only diehards were still playing videogames.

The only way a crash happens now is if a big chunk of gamers suddenly stop playing games at once. I can't see that happening, because it's been a fairly established stable market for a long time and not showing signs of a fad.. Maybe mobile or VR could crash for those reasons. Or a crowd-funding crash.

Sure we'll see studios fail, but they are generally replaced by other studios.

[iceman06]

While part of the crash was due to the "fad" nature of gaming, I don't see that as the main reason for the actual crash. That came about because of rapid expansion of the market, and the rush by companies to get there, leading to a severe lack of quality. Companies literally were willing to put anything on the shelves. Why? Lack of publishing control by console makers. The market was flooded with crap. Add to this that there was well over 10 different consoles to choose from. People got confused and frustrated and consumer confidence in the industry pretty much went down the toilet. It was just too much success too fast and too many people trying to take advantage.

[uth11]

Yes that happened too, but we see the same thing now on mobile, on PC, in the indie game scene. Lots of crap games get released and there's no real quality control or publishing control,. Yet those platforms don't crash. Instead consumers learn how to avoid the crap after getting burned once or twice.

Same thing should've happened in the early 80s too. The crap games were mostly released on the Atari 2600. So why then did people stop buying Colecovision or Intellivision games too just because games like "Chase the Chuckwagon" or "ET" existed on the 2600? The "too many publishers" explanation isn't sufficient to explain the complete collapse of console gaming in that period. The market should have just shaken them out like it has everytime since.

The difference was games were a fad then, just waiting for the bubble to burst. They are a lifestyle now.

[Godmars290]

No. The home console market crashed while arcades generally thrived. Consoles crashed, lingered until Nintendo revived them, because publishers got both greedy and cheap. Wanted games out as quickly as possible, didn't want to invest effort much less creativity, and to a large degree nothing has really changed.

A general crash will happen again similarly to how it happened last time: publishers will flood the market with more and more crap exhausting the attention of the market and people will just stop buying games. The only possible major differences will be because license have become so possessive of IPs, not much of a post market is going to survive to keep interest up.

[uth11]

Arcades crashed too. I remember there were a few arcades within a mile of my house at the height of the 80s videogame craze. They all shut down by 1985. The only ones that survived were the ones at the malls and beaches

[Segata]

The crash happened because of what we see on mobile games now. Atari on store shelves had a Quaker Oats game and a major brand Dog Food game and Atari had no control over who made games on their systems. It became so crowded with these garbage games that good games were pushed out. When NES rolled out it had an uphill battle and one thing it had to change is it mad the Nintendo Seal which was officially licensed carts and approved to be released on the system. Had nothing to do with if a game was good or not. Just went through Nintendo to develop games on their system. They also did something silly but sort of made sense then. Limited developers to a certain amount of games they could release each year. (yeah also gave us fake studios like Ultra from Konami). In any case people still wanted to play video games but the market was chaos and no control or regulation or structure.

[uth11]

While it's true that happened mostly to the 2600, it doesn't explain why people stopped buying Intellivision and Colecovision games too. They didn't have nearly as much crap on their systems.

Also if gaming required tight platform control from the platform holder, PC would be a dead gaming platform by now since anyone can publish there and often do.

Also to put the "too many games" theory in perspective. The 2600 only had 470 games total! Most modern systems have far more than that without negative effects. Generally the publishers who put out the crap get hurt while people still buy quality

[Godmars290]

Arcades didn't go into decline until the PS2 came onto the scene. That's a large span of time from the Atari 2600.

[uth11]

From 1981 until around 1984, there were arcades everywhere. Every strip mall seemed to have one, supermarkets had games, laudromats had games, etc. There was definitely a crash in arcades around 1984-85, maybe not as dramatic, but those strip mall arcades disappeared-- we kids stopped hanging out there after school. Games started disappearing from supermarkets. They survived in malls, beaches, amusement parks and Chuck E Cheese, but gone everywhere else that had them in the early 80s

[blawren4]

If too many companies put too many of their eggs in the VR basket and it doesn't actually take off, could be the catalyst we are looking for that ultimately hurt gaming.

[iceman06]

The BIG difference was simply that in 1980, the industry was new. There were no statistics to truthfully support any theories about growth and support potential. So, it was literally force fed and grew way too fast for it's true potential at the time. Now, because the industry is much more mature, there isn't the same worry. Larger markets can support larger risks...including "crap" games. What it can't support is the majority of the investment being put into crap games. It wasn't just too many publishers, it was lack of control of what and when by console manufacturers.
They killed the confidence that consumers had in a brand new market.
So once again, imo, it wasn't just that it was a "fad". It was that it was a poorly managed attempt to quickly establish it as a market. The number of consumers wasn't there and the market didn't help by putting out tons of crappy cartridges, over several different consoles, all before there was a true audience for them. Atari was the default leader and carried the mantle of home consoles. The fact that they couldn't make it, and they stuck it out longer than the rest, pretty much signaled the death of the other two major players.

[uth11]

That's all true, but even if the industry had managed the growth better, and if the console makers had exerted control (and Atari tried. They sued Activision, the first 3rd party publisher over this issue and lost. Atari wanted to have sole publishing rights to the 2600). Even if they had done all that- it still was a fad and would have inevitably crashed. There were too many people caught up in the frenzy who just weren't natural gamers, they were doing it because everyone else was, and they were the first to lose interest. Video games went from being cool to distinctly uncool for awhile.

There's one other factor that hasn't been mentioned. There was this message in the media at the time that you should buy your kid a computer instead of a game console. Many of the computers of that era were glorified consoles, just with keyboards, built-in Basic, and peripherals. The Atari 400/800 computers had practically the same internals as the Atari 5200 console. The Commodore 64 was being dumped on the market at console prices. Anyone still interested in videogames in 1983/84 was getting a home computer instead of a new console-- That would have still happened no matter what the console space did.

[iceman06]

While I agree with the overall sentiments, I just stop short of calling it a fad because it continued in other forms. As you pointed out, the PC market started to try to take off roughly around the time that consoles were losing steam. Their edge? They weren't marketed as toys. (though they had plenty of gaming software) They had a decidedly more "serious" vibe to the marketing. Hell, that's how I conned my mom into getting me a Commodore...and rarely did more than game on it.
Anyway, good points all around. We seem to be saying similar things. I just stop short of calling gaming a fad. It was less like the pet rock (indeed a fad) and more like the Betamax (a new, untapped market) imo.

[uth11]

yeah, it's not quite the pet rock level, but the reason I feel it was at least "fad like" was because videogames were a national obsession after Pac-man. In school we constantly talked about the latest games. Then suddenly nobody was talking about them. The 'cool kids' wouldn't have anything to do with them anymore. Arcades started closing, and the people who were still gamers became quiet about their hobby-- It just felt distinctly uncool to be into gaming or computers at the time. That lasted until the NES started selling, then the regular people started playing games again.

So I think the crash was in large part a social phenomenon that Atari could not have prevented no matter how carefully they managed things. Whenever something gets hugely popular, there's an inevitable backlash.

I just think most crash explanations ignore the social aspect completely and just look for technical explanations. The worst narrative IMO is that "ET was so bad it killed the industry". That can't be true simply because ET failed to sell in the first place! So most people didn't even know if it was a bad game. I see it as the symptom, not the cause. The game should have sold on the marketing alone, but people were already losing interest by Christmas 82. That's why there were so many ET cartridges to bury in the landfill.

So that's why I believe people are constantly expecting another crash which never comes. The social factors aren't there, even if it looks like the technical factors are setting themselves up for a repeat.

[Cy]

No. No matter how many hipsters wanna see "evil" AAA publishers fail the fact is hundreds of millions of people spend billions of dollars on video games every year--and that's just in the US. All the things that gamers hate--microtransactions, yearly sports franchises that barely change, derivative yearly FPSs, DLC--are what rake in the bulk of that money, too. The video game industry is here to stay unless the worldwide economy collapses to the point where we can barely afford to feed ourselves. The worst that will happen is that innovative titles and new IPs will die out to be replaced by Call of Duty and mobile shovelware, which, honestly, would still pull in billions every year.

[iceman06]

I agree. I don't see a time where the 1980's repeats itself again. However, there will likely become a time where it does face retraction. It's been expanding for decades now and more and more investors are hopping on the bandwagon. There will be a time where, due to economic pressures outside of the industry, investment will slow down and those that were only along for the ride (not really invested in growing the industry) will hop off.

[uth11]

But most likely this happens because a new form of entertainment comes along that starts claiming the money people were spending on gaming.

[NotEvenMyFinalForm]

The industry is too big at this point for a crash to ever happen. Right now gaming makes even more money than hollywood or any other entertainment focused industry.

[Segata]

The industry is already crashing but no it will never hard crash again. The stock market crashed worse in 1988 than 1929 but there was no depression. It's a different kind. Froma creative one as AAA companies are selling the same kinds of games and many of them yearly. Other things like the bad DLC practices is causing some games to fail hard like Evolve. Over promising and not delivering like The Order or Unity. Rushed to market glitch filled messed of release it now patch it later. When these huge games don't sell the 4-5 million they need to make even to balance out the massive budgets we have seen many MANY studios even large studios close in the past decade. More than we ever had like that happen before. Industry is in a soft crash and it's much to large to let a hard one happen but it is crashing.

[senorfartcushion]

No but selling consoles like mobile phones e.g. one every two years will crash it.

[DoubleTTB22]

I doubt it. Since they are simply releasing different versions of machines for the same generation of consoles. Even if it doesn't sell all that well it doesn't really matter since its a part of the same ecosystem and relies on the same pool of games with the same install base as before. At worst the top line versions of consoles mid gen will become something niche like buying an elite controller. It will just be a convenience for those who want to pay for a better experience in their PS4 and Xbox One games. People are really overeacting to it. his is really closer to console makers releasing extra attachments for consoles mid gen like they pretty much always have done for the last 30 years than a shift towards a mobile like market. They aren't releasing the PS5 two years in or anything, just a new PS4.

[senorfartcushion]

The specs of The Scorpio (and now The Neo after the delay) are going to be more than what was predicted for the sequel consoles of this gen.

That is not being in the same generation, you can't use words like "monster" for that.

[FallenAngel1984]

There ain't gonna be a crash. Gaming is more diverse and accessible now than it has ever been, that will grow more and more each day.

I don't see how any industry that now makes more than the movie & music industry ever has a chance of crashing in the near future

[zoopub]

The answer to the title of the article is "no"

[ZeekQuattro]

Lets put it this way. If it becomes the norm to have more powerful versions of consoles come out a few years after the original than yes there will be a crash as that is one of the reasons some gamers avoid PC. The need to pay for expensive upgrades or just flat out having to buy a new rig in hopes that the latest games will work on it. There will be games that perform much better on the Scorpio and Neo than on the originals where the game will be noticeable gimped in some way to accommodate the weaker specs of the base console. As for the videogame crash of the 80's that was due to so many companies having game divisions and producing their own consoles and releasing shovel ware. There were way too many consoles in the early 80's and most died out rather quickly. Plus the E.T game didn't do the industry any favors. I think that was one of the big reasons why it was cool to hate on video-games back then. No one wanted to defend that thing. Bury it in the desert. lol

[DoubleTTB22]

There isn't a need to pay for an expensive upgrade in PC gaming, It is like this, just because and expensive elite controller released for the Xbox mid gen, did that mean that everyone satisfied with the base controller had to rush out and buy it because their controller was supposedly "obsolete". Of course not. You know why. Because the controllers are apart of the same ecosystem and support the same games. This is the same situation with mid gen consoles and the current PC market. There is nobody who actually needs to buy new GPu's every year just because they exist. Older hardware can play the same games at similar levels of fidelity within the same generational window. You could easily purchase a gaming PC in 20013 and have it last until 2020, just like a console. You just won't have the tip top in resolution,framerate, etc. by the end of the gen, just like it has been on consoles as well. Sure your might not be able to do max settings on the latest Triple A release five years after you get your PC but Consoles themselves don't get max setings anyway. Just matching or exceeding their quality is't really a concern. And the game being able to run isn't a concern either if your PC is close to the strength of whatever console the game is being developed for primarily. It isn't like a system that is 5 times more powerful than a PS4 will suddenly struggle to play the latest Triple A multiplat at the end of the gen. It would still perform much better than the PS4. Actually even PC's slightly weaker than the PS4 would be able to play the game just fine as long as you play on settings similar to or slightly below that of the console version.

Anyways these mid gen upgrades are made so that the game is guaranteed to work on both versions of the console so it is a non issue. It isn't like the Elite version of the Xbox One controller made it so the base model no longer worked. They both play the same games and are part of the same gen even if one is superior. They have already confirmed that both consoles will have the same games so this is a non issue.

Anyways there are already games that performed noticeably better on PC, where certain aspects were gimped to support the 360 and PS3. Heck, there are already games that perform better on PC's than on PS4 and Xbox One right now and the disparity would have only widened over the course of the gen no matter what. This is already common, and would have happened towards the end of this generation regardless. This simply means that Console owners will have the option of making their PS4/Xbox One Libraries slightly less gimped by owning a more powerful console. That isn't bad. Or they can stick with the base version where the most sacrifices would have always had to be made even if they were the only gaming devices in existence. If I could have bought a better 360 last gen and made it so Fallout and GTA V both were able to stick to 30fps consistently and had shorter load times than I probably would have. Not having the option to do so really doesn't benefit anyone.

[ChickenOfTheCaveMan]

Could fatigue articles fatigue means the end of those stupid articles?