Are AAA+ games hurting the industry? (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, November 26, 2016, 17:23 (2726 days ago)

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-25-weak-aaa-launches-are-a-precursor-to-industry-transition

Interesting assessment of the games industry. In summary:

1. People are buying Digital now, so brick and mortar stores are going, or will be going under, or shifting focus.
2. Games like Destiny and other MMOs like FF XIV, which are meant to played continuously, are keeping people from buying other games.
3. Young people are still doing poorly economically overall, and so prefer games mentioned above.
4. These AAA+ games will squeeze out the AAA market.

That investment isn't necessarily an appealing one. While Blizzard, Bungie and their ilk have a track record with this kind of game, few others studios can say the same. Given the investment required to create a game with such long-term appeal, and the requirement to sustain that investment on an ongoing basis post-launch, the financial burden is huge; and since success requires pulling players away from dominant titles in the market, the risks are vastly higher than they were in conventional AAA publishing, itself not a field for the risk-averse in the first place. In summary, the dominance of these titles and the damage they are doing to sales of AAA games threatens to ratchet risk and competition in the games business up yet another notch, launching the bar to entry skyward. We would be left with an industry that looks uncomfortably like the present status quo in mobile gaming; dominated by a handful of increasingly long-in-the-tooth games whose enormous revenue is funnelled into high-cost marketing for player acquisition, while new games struggle to pick up scraps from the tables of the giants and innovation, for the most part, falls by the wayside.

It's not an appealing future, and I may be painting it a little more bleakly than it deserves. If this year's tough climate for AAA launches does not recover as we move into 2017, though, we are most likely looking at an inflection point where the business model of console and PC gaming follows mobile in abandoning its boxed-game roots. That would be the death knell of physical retail and would signal a transition that would likely pull the rug out from under many studios and even publishers. Follow the data; it's not just a few tough launches, it's a major change of market climate whose impact will be far-reaching indeed.

There's a scene in LA LA Land where Sebastian is lamenting the fact that Jazz is dying, and he's trying his best to bring it back. His friend says that to save it means to change it. To move forward and re-invent it. The musicians he idolized were once revolutionaries, and it will take another evolution to save Jazz. Of course for Sebastian, changing it isn't saving it.

I kind of feel like Sebastian in a way. I don't really like the fact that traditional AAA gaming is on the decline. I'm all for progress, but not when it means ruining the core of the thing. I'm sure it will somehow work out, but it's a bit unfortunate that Bungie is ultimately helping to usher in the decline of the AAA game according to this thesis.