Incline The Second Video Game Crash.

[Young_Hollow]

For those confused, Young_Hollow is responding to his former claims which I tagged as

a few posts ago. I'd like to begin by thanking him for responding, as I was curious to know more.

1. What you're mostly describing is the 'barrier of entry' for developers to get their game published. That most certainly has lowered, it's much easier to develop and release a game now than then. Game design kits ('dev kits') and game engines with user editors have existed since at least the mid-1980s, but they were almost exclusively kept in-house, and some were made commercially available once their lifespans had ended.

But you specifically mentioned the cost, and that's where things get murkier. High-profile games with large development and marketing costs were a thing in the 1980s (both before and after the crash) but even then the numbers were all much lower than we've come to expect today. Adjusting for inflation (something I'm not very good at) could probably give us a greater insight into this, but then we'd need to find a game from back then where all the dollar figures are available for number crunching. But the thing is, low-cost studios offering 'budget publishing deals' also existed. Firebird Software in Britain is a terrific example of this, their motto was simply "Submit a game to us, and if we can get it running we'll sign you up and publish the game!" Firebird released a lot of garbage-tier shovelware titles (at one point they even released a 'worst-of' compilation called Don't Buy This) but they also released the occasional gem and/or smash hit (Olli & Lissa, Booty and The Sentinel for example) so they certainly weren't a failed venture.

And that's before we get to the so-called 'bedroom coders' who spent long nights beavering away at their homes and sold games personally to game stores or at conventions. They pocketed almost all of the money for each copy sold, but in order to sell their game they had to get out there and do all the promotional work themsleves. In the U.S. this happened pre-video game crash, but in Britain it lived on for a few years more.

Which adds one point of note: Almost everything I've described here applies to things that came after the video game crash, and in some cases just weeks later. That may also have a say in things.

The bottom line on this claim is that while I can't say that your words are outright false, I can say that they're not as crystal-clear as you'd like them to be.

2. Anecdotal evidence is not always acceptable evidence. That said, "There's a sucker born every minute" is a quote that's been going around for 150+ years, and for good reason, so there'll always be a steady supply of gullible people that have latched on to a gaming platform or series and won't see reason. (Though in today's modern ultra-fast society, that quote should be updated to say that there's a sucker born every second.)

To get the best answer here we'd have to compare game markets based on nationality and/or world region. Consumer habits tend to be different between those lines, especially if games don't get localized much.

But again, I can't say that your statement is false, but I can poke holes into it so it doesn't seem so solid.

3.Fair enough. All I know for certain is that 'nature running its course' will involve one of the big publishers biting the dust, and whatever will happen to the Indie scene will be different from that. Most of the rest is just me putting for theories and possible predictions. It's just amazing to see so many Indie devs struggling to make their game, get it released on Steam... and no one shows any interest in the game at all. They appear and disappear without us even noticing.

1. I see what you're saying. You're arguing that the lower barrier to entry doesn't make a crash impossible, because low-barrier to entry projects also existed back then and the crash still happened. But I'd say that the crash didn't happen only to them, ie that they were an exception and not the norm because the crash did get big enough to be called an industry crash. Relative cost is very much an important factor (or the most important factor in the lower cost of development argument) but that has been talked about in youtube videos(ie extra credits vs jim sterling) a lot but no conclusion reached. But looking at other factors like income from DLCs and MTs, saved costs from outsourcing as JIM above pointed out, I doubt the cost of making+distributing a game is NOT much cheaper to the level that it would be hard to break even for a AAA publisher at least. Obviously indie is more luck based because breaking in can take luck and promotion and they won't have a marketing budget. But otherwise, I'd say AAAs with established names can always at least turn a profit.

2. It may be anecdotal but the fact that more of our glorious species gets on the internet every day means that it has become profitable in the minds of companies to cater to the ''emerging demographic''. We can look at PUBG and Fortnite and say their playerbase of millions were players they stole away from other games. It seems there is a boom every few years where a particular genre becomes popular and its almost unquestionably profitable to make those games. You can see products of those booms still staying afloat and making money(although much lesser) today. Eg indie horror games from the pewdiepie horror LP era, the survival games from the survival games era (Rust, The Forest, etc), Minecraft, etc. I don't know about consumer behaviour but what I see personally is seemingly common across the world and that is people who would otherwise never play games playing the current season's favourites.

3. Depending on your definition of crash, we could be in an indie crash right now. I do agree that its entirely possible to release a good game and not have be seen by a single soul.

It also depends on what your and my definitions of crash are, which should have been discussed earlier. Correct me if I'm wrong but a crash is a phenomenon / state of the market where consumers aren't confident to spend and developers aren't confident to make, which leads to a stoppage of growth in the market and industry right?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/...-are-feeling-the-impact-of-peaking-attention/

Peaking attention OR the shit-show has finally gotten old? You decide!

 

[Baron Dupek]

A Second Atari Shock? The Decline of the 16-Bit Console Era

I have previously written about the sudden decline of Sega’s 16-bit business in North America and Europe beginning in 1993. Below, I translate an article from the February 29, 1996 edition of the Japanese newspaper Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun that goes into more detail about the 16-bit market crash that occurred in North America and Europe beginning in 1993 and negatively affected all of Japan’s software publishers.

Understanding this post-1993 decline is essential to understanding why Sega felt the need to rush to market its next-generation hardware. One of the more common “Sega should have” statements to be found on the internet is that Sega should have followed Nintendo’s lead and waited until 1996 to release its next-generation hardware. Nintendo, however, was also in a desperate situation due to unexpected delays with its release of the N64, and it too rushed to market a piece of hardware in 1995 that did not end well: the Virtual Boy. As noted in the below article, Sega and Nintendo were not the only companies to be losing money in North America and Europe; Capcom and Konami also suffered heavy losses.

It should be noted that Sega’s 1995 losses were not for want of trying. In 1995, Sega of America published about 20 games on the Genesis, around the same number that it published in the peak year of 1993. These included Comix Zone, Phantasy Star IV, and Vectorman, and Vectorman in particular received a huge marketing campaign. Despite still selling a decent number of now budget-priced Genesis consoles, the games were just not selling.

Enjoy the article!

Sega Clears Debts of European Subsidiary, Caused by Aggressive Price War, With No Clear Strategy or Rules in Sight for Its Overseas Businesses
Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, February 29, 1996

Sega Enterprises is preparing to take a massive extraordinary loss brought on by the restructuring of its overseas businesses to clear debts and dispose of excess inventory. At one point, Sega’s 16-bit game console grew to surpass Nintendo’s in North America, but it is now paying the price for a rapid expansion built through the disregard for profits. Almost all Japanese game companies are reporting heavy losses in both North America and Europe due to uncontrolled underselling. Sega, which has been considered one of the favorites in the new multimedia era, is now planning drastic revisions to its home console business.

“It’s almost like a return of the 1982 Atari Shock,” said one expert in the game industry. The Atari Shock was caused when the North American company Atari undersold a huge volume of software, and within one year of reaching its peak, the entire market collapsed.

“The wave that brought us here was huge, but the tide has turned very quickly,” said Sega director Shunichi Nakamura in reference to the state of the 16-bit console market in Europe. At its peak in 1993, Sega’s revenue in Europe was about ¥60 billion, but now it has shrunk to one-third of that, around ¥20 billion.

The game industry has always been characterized as unstable, but just after a large growth phase that involved a rapid increase in the number of personnel and branch offices, the degree to which the market has now shrunk has caught everyone off guard and has left the company holding a huge quantity of unsold inventory.

Sega has not been the only company to suffer. One large software company stated, “There is not a single company that has been able to turn a profit in the European market.”

In the fiscal period ending in March 1995, Konami took an extraordinary loss of ¥11.6 billion due to clearing out unsold inventory. During the same period, Capcom took a loss of ¥7.5 billion after writing down the value of its American subsidiary, and in the mid-year period ending in September 1995, Nintendo also took a loss of ¥9.8 billion after doing the same with its American subsidiary. This fiscal year, Sega is taking an extraordinary loss of ¥26 billion due to the downsizing of its American and European subsidiaries and due to the disposal of unsold inventory.

Since 1991, Sega has been fighting in the North American and European markets to dethrone Nintendo via the aggressive marketing of its 16-bit game console, the Genesis (Mega Drive). Nintendo, in response, has conventionalized the practice of including multiple free games as pack-ins with the purchase of a console. As a result, although Sega has been able to top Nintendo in North America, the problem of underselling has become severe.

Seeing 2-3 free games included with a console has become common. There were even stores in Europe that included 10 free games. Hudson, which established a branch office in London in the hopes of expanding more into Europe, postponed their expansion with the statement, “Based on the conditions of the market, there is just no way for a software company to make a profit.”

As in Europe, the decline of the 16-bit market in North America has been very rapid. On December 26 of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the previous generation of 16-bit consoles still commands the sales battle.” Nintendo and Sega’s 16-bit consoles were reported to have sold more than four times as much as Sony and Sega’s 32-bit consoles.

“It’s true that 16-bit consoles sold quite well and we were able to sell off a good portion of our inventory, but the games did not sell at all,” said Sega director Shunichi Nakamura. The best-selling game charts for the past few weeks in North America reveal that almost all of the top titles are for Sony’s PlayStation console. Games for Nintendo’s SNES console, which has sold over 30 million units—far more than the PlayStation—have disappeared from the best-selling charts.

“The market has been flooded with low-quality software,” said Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Consumers in North America who want to buy 16-bit games are rapidly disappearing.

According to Sega’s Nakamura, “Through large-scale mass production, Sega has been able to reduce the manufacturing costs of its 16-bit console to the point where we aren’t losing money on production. However, we can’t earn a profit because the software—the most essential part—is just not selling.”

The problem now is how Sega will advance its business through its new 32-bit console, the Saturn.

As a result of downsizing its operations, Sega has reduced its personnel in Europe from 480 people in 1993 to just 120 people now, and in North America from 900 people in 1993 to just 350 people now. Furthermore, in Europe, Sega has reorganized its branches in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria and switched over to a proxy system. “Our business scale will shrink, but our losses will also be reduced,” said Nakamura.

Sega president Hayao Nakayama announced at the beginning of the year, “We are planning to increase our arcade game division by a factor of three to a revenue scale of ¥350 billion.” The plan is to greatly increase the relatively stable income of the arcade division in order to absorb the risk of the home console division.

By cleansing itself through the extraordinary loss, Sega’s overseas console division will be starting over from zero. Sega’s policy now is to focus on establishing the Saturn, and also on expanding into PC game software in the North American market. “The question now is how much our profits from the arcade market will be able to turn around the console market,” said Nakayama, whose words will be put to the test this year.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Is this the third video game crash going on right now? I mean the sales are still strong, but the amount of pure shit being pushed out is staggering...

 

[Fedora Master]

The industry doesn't need a crash, it needs a Soviet style purge.

 

[Young_Hollow]

More people are spending more money than ever, but thanks to crypto-sheep and coof-induced silicon shortage, more and more people play and spend on trashy mobile games rather than PC games. Considering that today's players are the future's game-developers, gaming will experience a substantial decline once they're the ones making the games.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

You can't physically substantially decline from the shit that's being developed in 2020s...

 

[Young_Hollow]

You can't physically substantially decline from the shit that's being developed in 2020s...

Look on the Playstore. Or think what games kids who watched only Cocomelon, Marvel and played only PUBG Mobile or Robolox would develop.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

The industry doesn't need a crash, it needs a Soviet style purge.

The soviet purges involved massively firing people from the army for incompetence/alcoholism/petty theft, etc. But in this day and age, if we fire everyone who's shit, we'll have no one left.

What we need is state censorship. If they can't release sjw propaganda or generally speaking shit, if they get rebuked by the censoring multiple times, they'll return like a beaten dog with something decent. They'll have to, or the market will eat them up.

The western liberalism went too far and is the cause of the overall civilizational and cultural decline.

 

[Young_Hollow]

The industry doesn't need a crash, it needs a Soviet style purge.

The soviet purges involved massively firing people from the army for incompetence/alcoholism/petty theft, etc. But in this day and age, if we fire everyone who's shit, we'll have no one left.

What we need is state censorship. If they can't release sjw propaganda or generally speaking shit, if they get rebuked by the censoring multiple times, they'll return like a beaten dog with something decent. They'll have to, or the market will eat them up.

The western liberalism went too far and is the cause of the overall civilizational and cultural decline.

I don't trust the state (any state) to know what's good or have good taste in games. Just look at the actions of existing nanny departments like the ones in Australia or China. All they'll do is add another layer of BS to getting a game out and reduce the open-ness that easily available and usable engines have created.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I don't trust the state (any state) to know what's good or have good taste in games. Just look at the actions of existing nanny departments like the ones in Australia or China. All they'll do is add another layer of BS to getting a game out and reduce the open-ness that easily available and usable engines have created.

During the last rehearsal of Tolsoy's play "On the Rack", Stalin himself paid a visit.

At the end of the performance, when Peter the Great was dying, Stalin got up and walked out.

The main director of the theater and the director of the play Ivan Bersenev ran after him. They talked in the foyer, then Stalin left.

The leader's early departure was understood by everyone as a failure of the play. At the end of the performance, a table was installed on the stage and the proceedings began. About forty professors signed up to speak. The speakers unanimously demanded to ban the play and bring to justice the members of the commission who allowed the production. Bersenev was accused of glorifying Peter and promoting monarchism. They admired the wisdom of Comrade Stalin, who immediately saw the counter-revolutionary nature of the performance.

After the eleventh speaker, Bersenev asked if he could say a few words himself. Without going up to the podium, he said that he was glad to be criticized, because truth is born in a dispute, and he had no doubt that at least someone might have liked the play; at least he knows of one person who did:

"An hour ago, Comrade Stalin, in a conversation with me, expressed this opinion about the play: "A wonderful play. It's just a pity that Peter was not shown heroically enough.""

Censorship is hard. But no censorship leads to the death of the medium.

Also, Australia is capitalist. The goal of their state is to defend the interests of the capitalists who brought them to power. Whatever else they do is imitation of care for the people.

 

[J1M]

We are certainly in the middle of a crash in game quality.

I wonder if the size of the industry has now grown to a point where substandard products are sustained solely by curiousity sales. Money that flows in as a search cost paid by people looking for a new game.

 

[Falksi]

The industry doesn't need a crash, it needs a Soviet style purge.

I'd sooner have a strong, successful purge than a Soviet style one.

 

[Young_Hollow]

I don't trust the state (any state) to know what's good or have good taste in games. Just look at the actions of existing nanny departments like the ones in Australia or China. All they'll do is add another layer of BS to getting a game out and reduce the open-ness that easily available and usable engines have created.

Censorship is hard. But no censorship leads to the death of the medium.

Also, Australia is capitalist. The goal of their state is to defend the interests of the capitalists who brought them to power. Whatever else they do is imitation of care for the people.

Death of the medium can result from anything, including censorship. Censorship increases the barriers to release, which prevents creations below certain financial thresholds / social acceptability thresholds from being published / sold. I'm sure you say that because you've never seen games that were prevented from being created because of censorship. Censorship is just a popularity contest at best and a screeching contest at worst, it doesn't guarantee quality and I'm unsure why you think it will. Do you expect governments to hire someone with impeccable taste in games to decide which games get released? Who might that be?

The capitalist vs communist dichotomy is retarded. True communism exists nowhere and neither does true capitalism. IIRC Australia has some form of government subsidized healthcare and unemployment allowance, among other things. Likewise China has publicly traded corporations and North Korea probably has a rat-meat black market that the government doesn't shut down. As the point to this OT tangent, why do you think only capitalist censorship only serves the capitalists? Who do you think commie censorship serve then? What makes one kind of nanny better than the other?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Censorship has two roles. 1- It prevents the socially inacceptable, as you say. That's not all. 2- The state sponsors what IS good for the people: what promotes the eternal values, what stimulates, inspires and elevates the man.

So it's not about "taste". It's about the subtext. As for whether a movie is going to be good or not is as good as anyone's guess. Censorship doesn't censor the bad, it prevents the vapid from being made. In short, it creates conditions for the good stuff to come out.

The capitalist vs communist dichotomy is retarded. True communism exists nowhere and neither does true capitalism. IIRC Australia has some form of government subsidized healthcare and unemployment allowance, among other things. Likewise China has publicly traded corporations

Capitalism, as the old formation, existed in its pure form, but mostly doesn't anymore. Although after the fall of USSR, some countries do display a tendency towards purifying capitalism through liberalism. Communism, as a formation that hasn't been reached, has never existed in its pure form.

Modern capitalism, as you described yourself, often includes ELEMENTS of socialism, such as public funds for free education or medicine, pensions, social security. Chinese socialism includes ELEMENTS of capitalism, such as private ownership of means of production. The difference being that western capitalism has REACHED its final goal - the legality of theft of labor. Chinese socialism is merely a transitional phase towards communism.

China may even be less "socialist" than New Zealand or Sweden on paper due to lesser social benefits, and it allows private ownership of the means of production (as did USSR, Yugoslavia, GDR, Hungary), but it is socialist BECAUSE the private means of production in China aren't even close to being its economic bedrock.

That is why the dichotomy is real and it looks as follows:

In capitalism, the state represents the interests of the capital. Its censorship has no goals other than protecting the status quo. To that end, they need to make people into plants, so they consume and become docile.

In communism, the state represents the interests of the people. Its censorship has the goals of elevating the man. Entertainment must be better than just porn, it mustn't appeal to just the basest of the man's instincts. It must kindle a fire of passion in you, subtly convey ideas that are beneficial for society, instill traditional values.

Currently, all western movies and video games are just as the theory states they should be. Empty, meaningless, soporific, lulling you into being a vegetable ("watch netflix, look how much shit we have to offer, don't do anything else with your life"). And if by chance they convey a message, it's usually an attempt to corrupt your sense of morality ("there is no inherent good or evil", "try drugs/whoring, it shows you're a tormented soul!", etc).

 

[Young_Hollow]

In capitalism, the state represents the interests of the capital. Its censorship has no goals other than protecting the status quo. To that end, they need to make people into plants, so they consume and become docile.

In communism, the state represents the interests of the people. Its censorship has the goals of elevating the man. Entertainment must be better than just porn, it mustn't appeal to just the basest of the man's instincts. It must kindle a fire of passion in you, subtly convey ideas that are beneficial for society, instill traditional values.

Currently, all western movies and video games are just as the theory states they should be. Empty, meaningless, soporific, lulling you into being a vegetable ("watch netflix, look how much shit we have to offer, don't do anything else with your life"). And if by chance they convey a message, it's usually an attempt to corrupt your sense of morality ("there is no inherent good or evil", "try drugs/whoring, it shows you're a tormented soul!", etc).

In communism, the state represents the interests of the state, ie the people in power, not the average guy on the street. In ''capitalism'' or rather, non-communism, the state is ideally supposed to represent the an unbiased law but practically, its always corrupted by special interests like nepotism, money, lobbies, etc. Both have chance to be corrupted but communism has a greater chance because more power is distributed to fewer people and there aren't effective checks and balances; on top of communism restricting all fundamental freedoms.

Regarding the Chinese system being transitional, I don't believe it for a second. To expect a party or a ruler in power to reduce their own power (as would presumably be required for reaching true communism) is utopian. The only direction its heading is to be even worse for the people than it is already.

The current constitutions of most countries also claim to represent the interests of people and they're a much better bet to reach a state of justice than having an overpowered state that's willing to do anything to its people to reach communism.

The biggest assumption you make is that whatever censor is appointed will abide by these lofty goals you say they'll pursue. They won't. No moral principles will be applied when there aren't any consequences for failing to apply them; which will be the state under communism. To think such a thing is possible is no different than advocating for benevolent monarchy or morally aware anarchism. Its like saying ''everything will be perfect when the perfect man's in charge'' which is true except for the fact that the perfect man doesn't exist.

Brining it back to games and their quality decreasing, I don't think any sort of censorship will fix the decline that'll be caused when people who played nothing better than Clash Royale or some P2W mobile RPG starts making strategy games and RPGs.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

In communism, the state represents the interests of the state

In communism, who owns everything? The people. That's whom the state serves.

In capitalism, who owns everything? The international corporations. That's whom the state serves.

What is supposed to be this "interest of the state"? If the functionaries abuse their power to steal something for themselves, it's not a trait of the economic regime, but rather a human trait.

As for the western representative democracy, if you're a fan of it, don't equate it to capitalism. It's just a form of governance that capitalism prefers at this stage. To give the illusion of control to the unwashed masses. Communism could very well do the same, it's just more honest and prefers other systems.

Regarding the Chinese system being transitional, I don't believe it for a second. To expect a party or a ruler in power to reduce their own power

How does the party "lose power" by nationalizing enterprises? It's the opposite. They'll get more control of the economy, not less.
Not that this "power" gives them anything on a personal level. It's just a control lever.

The biggest assumption you make is that whatever censor is appointed will abide by these lofty goals you say they'll pursue. They won't. No moral principles will be applied when there aren't any consequences for failing to apply them; which will be the state under communism.

Do you know how people were appointed in USSR?
Or according to you they just fell from the sky into their jobs?
You work at a factory. You get elected by the factory workers to represent the factory at the city council. The city council then votes for you to represent them at the republic council, etc, and up and up we go, until the son of a construction worker is elected president (Yeltsin).
The opposite was true as well, losing your job was easy, too. If the workers decide to strike because their boss broke some rules, the upper management will hear of this and fire his ass. It also goes all the way up. Khruschev was voted out by the central committee.

I'm guessing you're not familiar with the USSR films that were produced. So many amazing ones. You're making some theoretical claims that weren't supported by reality.