The gaming industry, a market in which the entertainment is brought into your home and allows for hours of endless amusement.
In the past 20ish years, the gaming industry has exploded and really found its roots in millions of homes across the globe. Major technological breakthroughs such as online multiplayer and improved standard system hardware has made it possible for everyone to take part and enjoy what the Gaming Industry has to offer. These breakthroughs have dramatically thrust the industry as a whole into a better financial place.
Dating all the way back to the titan that is Pong, the public has enjoyed advancement after advancement. These are ranging from gameplay improvements to graphical overhauls. However, what gamers love about this industry is variety! The options grant a game for every person. The multiple console choices and sheer volume in various games to choose from, there Is something for everyone to enjoy.
However, an issue is beginning to emerge, which I believe to be a warning sign of things to come.
The warning sign that I find most… apparent, is the cycle of copy and pasting that is taking place in the industry these days.
What I am not implying is that there are no new IPs hitting the masses, I am not saying that today’s games have become boring or stagnant. What I am saying, is that through this game style copying, games have become predominantly predictable. We already know what the First Person shooter does or what the Role Playing Open World can and can’t do. This predictability has led to somewhat of a crash in the gaming community. More and more we are seeing gamers discontent with the products they purchase. The lack of ‘new’ content, false promises, disc locked content, microtransactions and other practices have left the industry feeling dry and stretched and is causing eruptions of gamers to argue with one another either against or for the game in fairly massive and heated debates.
I feel that the industry has found itself in a difficult situation. Companies don’t want to change strategies from the ‘winning’ formula. Releasing the first installment, which if successful, will almost guarantee a sequel, followed with another sequel. The issue is very simple with this formula.
Very few of the sequels ever come close to matching , let alone besting there original counterpart.
A number of factors contribute to this, however, in most instances it is the lack of a substantial changes from the gameplay. An excellent example of the sequel sink, is the Far Cry series. Far Cry 2 was a popular game, however, Far Cry 3 was a fantastic achievement. Gameplay was improved exponentially, the gaming visuals and sounds were fantastic and the story (however critically praised and slandered) was a compelling and huge improvement over its predecessor. This new sequel showed that the company was willing to overhaul there formula for success to adjust to a competitive market.
However, on the flip side, Far Cry 4 has not received such feats. It is common belief that the 4th installment is a poor successor to its previous installment. Instead of listening to the players and taking the areas that made Far Cry 3 outstanding (such as iconic characters like Vaas), they attempted to remake Far Cry 3 by implementing a lack luster story, giving the visuals a slight polish and leaving the gameplay almost identical. Although this may seem like nothing to be too concerned about, I feel this is a warning flag of what is to come.
Development has hit a hard and sudden stand still and there is very little variety from the already well established formulae.
Cast yourself back to the transition from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 2. The greatest leap for this transition was the overall performance. Far greater hardware and a hard push in games development made this console appealing. Then we take the transition of PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3. Again a huge leap in performance and games development but also a huge leap in community. We all know PlayStation 2 had online multiplayer functions, but in a country like the UK, where our Internet service was so weak, it was an unexplored feature. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 alike, improved over there previous versions by taking advantage of the now improved Internet community and allowed cooperative, online multiplayer to boom. Now we look at the transition of PlayStation 3/ Xbox 360 to PlayStation 4/ Xbox One. The features these new consoles have to offer are just not as groundbreaking as there ‘outdated’ counterparts. Don’t get me wrong, the impressive boost in both consoles output hardware is impressive but not what the market was demanding. PlayStation 4s lackluster ‘Share’ function or Xbox Ones ‘watch TV and play a game at the same time ‘ feature’s are just not all that fantastic. They do not have the same wow factor as there previous versions did.
This brings me back to the copy and paste warning signal. Developers are running out of ideas. These additions to our experience are novelties at best. They are distractions to attempt to ‘one up’ one another. Actual new and never seen before gameplay is no longer available.
It seems that developers of both, the gaming platforms and of the IP’s have run out of options and are now only being able to release minor improvements. I find this a serious concern for the future of the industry as no new major improvements in quality and content will almost certainly cripple the industry and hope that this deck of get out of jail free cards will run out as soon as possible.
Have you noticed this trend? How do you feel the industry is faring in today’s demanding service requirements? Is there another issue that is causing you concern with the industry?
Please, share your thoughts.
As always, Mmcd