Sales of video game consoles and video game software are down this year as are sales of DVDs, none of which are supposed to happen in a recession. Hollywood thrived during the Great Depression, remember? And now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control drops a bomb on us that the average U.S. video game player is 35 years old, overweight, and somewhat depressed. This is news? Apparently it is, and looking behind these numbers helps make some sense of the economic picture.
In the entertainment industry video games have provided really significant revenue for more than a decade. If we start with the base movie business the sole revenue source used to be theatrical releases, then in the 1960s came broadcast television distribution of movies. The 1970s brought cable TV distribution and toy merchandising (action figures). The 1980s brought home video distribution through VHS tape sales and rentals, and the 1990s converted those VHS businesses to DVD. In the 2000s the incremental revenue bump was different, coming largely from a new synergy between video games, comic books, and movies augmented by an exploding international market. Many new movies were based on video games and comic books, while many video games were based, in turn, on movies. Simultaneous global releases became the norm.
To a movie producer, then, the decision to invest an average $100 million in making and marketing a major motion picture comes down to planning for all these different lines of businesses right down to and including Happy Meal toys at McDonald’s. With enough lines of ancillary income it didn’t matter so much if the film was a critical or even a box office success: eventually it would make a profit.
Then along came 2009.
The film box office is slightly bigger than in 2008, thanks in large part to higher ticket prices, but most of the other sources of income are lower, some of them dramatically so. DVD sales, for example, are down by 25 percent. Is this the effect of Red Box $1 movie rentals or maybe video piracy? Nope. The $60+ billion domestic entertainment industry we thought was based on teenage boys is in trouble because it was actually based on middle-age men pretending to be teenage boys. And those middle-age men need to support themselves.
That’s what’s going on here: the guys stopped buying games so they could make their car payments, instead. It took an unprecedented recession — the worst in 70 years — to coax-out this effect but it is clear that if things get bad enough even Hollywood hurts.
Economies are cyclical things and a lot of economic recovery is just surviving to play another day. We see that in the game console price cuts that just came from Sony and Microsoft and will surely come shortly from Nintendo, too. These price cuts are intended both to keep the factories running until natural demand can recover and they are supposed to stimulate game sales which in turn pay royalties back to the console makers. And it will work, though at a cost to the companies not just in dollars but also in market positioning. Just as we’ve seen in PCs, there is a downward trend in product price points for games, too. Sony is very unlikely to introduce another $399 game console ever, just as the $2000 PC is pretty much an artifact of history.
This is good, right? Cheaper is better.
It is VERY good for game players and other consumers, I think, for two reasons: 1) in game software there will be an inevitable flight to quality as crappy new titles are killed before they get to market and the game companies put their marketing dollars behind their better games, and; 2) this may be a fantasy on my part, but now that we know the market sweet spot is actually 35, fat, and depressed, maybe the game designers will start to write for their real audience.
We could be about to enter a video game renaissance.
Nah.
Depending on who you’d talk to (yes, I play games, though I think I’m below the average demographic on all three of those data points), gaming has already achieved some measure of “renaissance.” I know Bob’s not big on games but it seems like he’s addressing the design side of the industry as it has been for a few years now.
Independent titles seem to be making more headway into mainstream markets with digital downloads allowing game makers to sidestep production cycles and add to existing games, sometimes greatly improving the value of a single game purchase. Games like Fallout 3 seem to lead the way in digitally-downloaded add-ons in this regard, although I don’t know how tenable it can be for less dedicated game makers who don’t have the staff to spare.
What’s remarkable, though, is that the design philosophies seem to be more and more risky. You see much more adventurous ideas than you would ever have imagined happening during the last generation of consoles, and they are being noticed by game media and users alike. This doesn’t translate into higher sales given the numbers Bob quotes, but when you combine the nearly palpable increase in excitement over the design choices behind some games, combined with the market penetration that the Wii has managed, video games stand to see a real upsurge both in quality and in sales.
But the tentative first steps that the game design houses and smaller developers have already taken are what will help fuel this. They’ve been targeting this hidden demographic in small ways; and as the success of certain adventurous titles, the notoriously skittish producers that survive the economic downturn may continue to reward developers who make waves through novel design. Christmas sales are purposefully being dispersed this year by a lot of developers afraid of the next slew of big releases, by the way, so don’t look at the classic holiday sales numbers for the signs of video game industry recovery. 2010 will be the make-or-break year for many.
The renaissance part isn’t news; it helps to be familiar with how things have changed in this short span of time. That, or maybe your definition is different than mine.
What, Bob, do you think would qualify as a true gaming renaissance for you? I thought you didn’t care for games at all 🙂
I’m not a gamer, it’s true. I lost my entire allowance to pinball one afternoon in 1961 and was a changed boy thereafter. Part of my problem is that I get enough opportunities for exciting non-game experiences. I don’t like flight simulator games, for example, because I’m perfectly capable of scaring my pants off flying in my own plane. Maybe this shows a lack of imagination on my part, or maybe just a lack of free time: I have three small children and a so-called career to look after. Still, as the third or fourth or fifth leg on the cow that’s the entertainment industry (where I work) I think it is important to keep an eye on games.
In the 80’s and 90’s I bought many CD’s. This last decade, having gotten caught up on my CD wish list I have been spending my most of my entertainment money on DVD’s. Now that I’m caught up on DVD’s as well, I am not buying that many each year.
As for video games, there are really only about a dozen original games. The rest are just clones. There really isn’t anything new that interests me. The industry needs to be more creative.
Is the Wii still regularly selling out? I haven’t been keeping up with sales figures.
Don’t know about some stores/chains, but CostCo regularly has them now, usually with the Sports or Fit bundle packages. I’m pretty sure Wii’s days as the reigning TurboMan (or Tickle Me Elmo or Cabbage Patch Doll) are over.
Thats quite surprising. I also expected games sales to stay on the up. They aren’t a massive or partiularly regular expenditure for most of us and the AAA quality titles keep rolling out. I wonder what the year on year figures will look like after Modern Warfare 2 and some of the other big releases appear.
So if I’m the target market (I’m 36, fat, “male”, and who cares anyway, it’s all gonna end); Maybe the flip side of the coin is that the product being produced just isn’t interesting.
Horror, violence for violence’s sake, relationship (chick flicks), children’s animation, and G-rated kids moves I may watch once, or more than once if my 2-year-old likes the show. But in the 12 years I’ve been buying DVD’s there’s probably only 2 out of the 100 or so that I own that I’ve watched more than twice. Buying a DVD just doesn’t make sense any more.
That’s why the online video gaming, especially those where you play against other PEOPLE have such a big draw. It’s entertaining in the same way that TV or DVD’s are, except that it’s different every time, it’s never quite the same experience.
So my buddy just stopped by, and his impression is that DVD has become a pariah. Blue-Ray is out, and higher quality, albeit more expensive. But for most movies, the original film stock wasn’t so great anyway, so either way it’s hard to tell the difference between Blue-Ray and DVD, so why replace your library with Blue-Ray. Plus since we are male, fat and thirty-something, we don’t just collect little-black-shoes. Why replace something that is pretty darn good anyway?
He has a Blue-Ray player, and since buying it hasn’t bought any new DVD’s. He thinks that even if a movie is only on DVD, he won’t buy it because it _may_ come out on Blue-Ray someday, and even then DVD’s are now an “old” technology, and who wants something that’s been replaced.
So between all the movie redux, 30 year old part II’s, lack of marketing, and I’m not OCD about collecting movies, why would I keep buying products that don’t interest me.
I used to buy a lot of DVDs, but then I got married, had kids, and got a dog. So now all the time I used to spend watching my DVD collection is spent playing with the kids, cleaning up after the dog, or spending quality time with my wife.
I finally bought an HDTV last year, and got a Blu Ray player with it. Amazon had some bizarre promotion that actually resulted in the TV bundled with the Blu Ray player costing $4 less than the TV alone. What has shocked me is that most DVDs look almost as good as most Blu Rays. yes, I have Planet Earth, and it looks astonishing in Blu Ray. But for the most part, DVDs get you 80% of the quality of Blu Rays at 60% of the cost ($15 vs. $25).
On top of that, NetFlix and RedBox have removed the need to buy most movies at all. Yes, I still buy PIXAR films, as well as an occasional chick flick for my wife, or SF or action masterpiece for me, but we spend $20 a month for NetFlix, and that’s actually plenty entertainment for us.
We do still buy video games, but we have a Wii, and most of the games we own, we never play. We primarily play De Blob, Lego Star Wars, and Mario Kart.
C’mon Cringe. You know how to work out an average! I’ll bet you might even know what average actaully means.
The data they used in that survey only included ages 19 to 90 so they were never gonna find an average age of 14 were they?
You cannot use that data to compute the AVERAGE age of a US gameplayer as 35. That data suggests 35 as the average age of folk AGED BETWEEN 19 AND 90 who play video games. A different result.
“this may be a fantasy on my part, but now that we know the market sweet spot is actually 35, fat, and depressed, maybe the game designers will start to write for their real audience.”
It’s kind of a chicken and egg statistic… maybe the reason the current audience is 35, plump and pouty because the games that are written appeal to that demographic.
I’m with you. Could also be the that the 35 year old group is “fat and depressed” because they have been playing video games their entire lives.
David W’s comments regarding his purchasing patterns over the past three decades could have been written by me, and his conclusion is dead on the money. I know this will make me sound like a crotchety old man but what passes for video games today doesn’t interest me in the slightest, and I love video games. Everything produced today is either yet another 3D first person shooter or an RPG clone of something that came before (I lost interest in this violent-for-violence’s-sake genre when Doom arrived in 1993) or a tired sports retread (mostly Madden ripoffs every year). For FPSs and RPGs, they are less video games and more interactive movies where dying has no consequence. Who cares if you lose a life because you just respawn in seconds and keep going. And save stating every 10 seconds is cheating and amounts to nothing more than a lazy crutch. This crap is *boring*. It doesn’t reward problem solving, practice, or skill with complexity and balanced game play. It just reinforces the ADD culture we accept as normal today.
I just added up what I’ve spent on video games so far in the last 12 months and it comes to over $6000. Not a penny of that will show up on the balance sheet of any of today’s major video game industry players. That is because my six grand went to collecting arcade coin-ops from the early ’80s, when video games were actually fun. Who wants “old” technology that’s been replaced, Matt? I do. I’m not alone either. I have a couple of dozen friends in my region, all around my age (37) and older, who drop big bucks on this hobby while our Xbox 360s, PS3s, and Wiis collect dust. I know we’re in the minority, but there’s a lesson in there for the video game industry: your audience is skewing older as the first generation to grow up with video games disrupts the comfortable money making paridigm you’ve gotten used to. Many of us are spending our money elsewhere. Maybe the echo boomers coming up behind us will completely overshadow all of that and in time they will have the disposable income the industry so desperately seeks, but right now my friends and I have it, and your “games” suck. Hard.
Same goes for the movie industry who has forgotten how to make a good movie and instead wants to throw $100 million worth of CGI explosions, noise, stilted dialogue, and bad acting on the screen, along with cloying CGI animated films. The writing is fine on some of these, but give me a hand drawn animated film any day. 3D? No thanks. I don’t need the headache.
Matt, you’re right about the social draw of video gaming though. My friends and I just do it in a different way: we gather in each other’s home game rooms, turn on the tunes, grab some beers, and play coin-ops until 2am. Nothing like 2-player Mario Bros. (the original 1983 arcade version) with a buddy.
The video game industry, like the movie and music industries before it, has become a victim of its own success. There is now so much to choose from out there, including older product that many feel is of higher quality than the new stuff, that profits gets sliced and diced finer and finer until they scatter to the winds. Or maybe it’s just that some of us blow off all of the new glitzy stuff in favor of harder-to-find, low tech entertainment with friends, in whatever form that may be. It brings some of the magic back, you know?
For me it’s the problem of time management. I play games that are turn based so if I’m called away for a Honey-Do errand or bathroom break I won’t have to get “back in the groove” mode to play the game. Mostly I watch DVD’s or cable movies WHILE playing games.
Also I don’t do on-line massive multi-player stuff myself since I don’t like paying monthly membership prices for a continued gaming experience. Why someone would continue to pay money each month for a game when they can buy one for one cheap price out of the bargain bin at Walmart and pay once is beyond me.
I also have a life outside of games that is sometimes more important than my indoor life and just as exciting, so my game playing time and buying are way down over the last few years and probably won’t go up much at all in the future.
As for DVD’s, I still buy them but I look for cheap bargains now of movies I don’t have but will pass the “see at least a dozen times in the future test”. If I don’t think I’ll watch the movie at least a dozen or more times in the future (no matter how far out in the future that is) then it isn’t worth buying the movie. So only movies I really like or TV series I like to watch repeatedly get bought. Everything else I’ll wait for cable or do Netflix.
Finally, as you get older, you get wiser, cheaper with your spending habits and more concerned with things like retirement and supporting a family. All things that demand you to be a more discerning consumer and not buy any old title that takes your fancy. None of use make as much money (in real terms) as we used to, and most of us won’t make much more in this developing American age of deficits, layoffs and declining economics. So the money has to stretch more for things we need rather than want. I predict a lessening of price for entertainment in the future by the media industry and more shakeups in their delivery system. It won’t be pretty, fun or nice for those involved.
I don’t know…when will the MMORPGs stop copying WoW and make something excellent and original?
When will there be a Wii RPG that isn’t a clone of an existing game? When will there be a Mario game that doesn’t have you rescue a Princess and battle Bosses?
When will the big companies stop making games by committee so we don’t end up with the blandness of games like Spore?
When will Facebook “games” become games rather than activities?
When will game companies realize that their customers have limited amounts of time and design their interfaces and games accordingly?
Will excellent game design ever return? Or are we doomed to see all improvements in games to be in the graphics area? (It’s been like this for 15 years now.)
This isn’t an extensive list, but it addresses every one I think:
“when will the MMORPGs stop copying WoW and make something excellent and original?”
WoW merely copied many of the existing structures itself. Its success is more a function of branding and tweaks to an existing system.
Many have been different for a while, and although a lot of them use only text. Some alternate examples:
https://www.atriarch.com/
https://www.atitd.com/
“When will there be a Wii RPG that isn’t a clone of an existing game?”
When you say RPG, what sorts of things would you like to have in it? And the word clone tends to mean an exact copy with the branding stripped off. I assume you mean something original.
Little King Story is more strategy, but has a few RPG-style elements and isn’t from an pre-existing brand. It’s made by the Harvest Moon folks. RPGs tend to be a hard sell, as they usually involve more time and energy than a lot of people are willing to spend, no matter the console, so don’t hold your breath if you have very specific desires.
“When will there be a Mario game that doesn’t have you rescue a Princess and battle Bosses?”
I’m not sure hoping for a new Mario game is really breaking new ground, but there’s an action RPG for the DS that has Bowser as the main character.
“When will the big companies stop making games by committee so we don’t end up with the blandness of games like Spore?”
Two words: Brütal Legend
“When will Facebook “games” become games rather than activities?”
How do you define “game” that it’s not merely an activity?
“When will game companies realize that their customers have limited amounts of time and design their interfaces and games accordingly?”
There are many games that don’t take a lot of time or involvement. A good portion of the Wii’s lineup is like that. The Bit Trip games are fun but not terribly deep. If that’s what you mean.
“Will excellent game design ever return? Or are we doomed to see all improvements in games to be in the graphics area? (It’s been like this for 15 years now.)”
It just depends on where you look, and what your tastes are. Check out Derek Yu or Jason Rohrer for some examples.
Both Hollywood AND the game industry are their own worst enemies, and I don’t mean the mismanagement or lack of creativity (though those do count). The number of movies and games that come out every year now is quite high compared to 20 years ago, and as a result the number of “good” games and movies that the average consumer “misses” each year is higher. I don’t play games but I love movies and the backlog of movies that I miss in the cinema due to work and child-raising commitments grows faster than my wife and I can chip away at it. As a result, if I want to see a movie, say, an Oscar-contender from 2004, chances are someone I know already has it on DVD, or downloaded from BitTorrent. I don’t live in the US, so we have no Netflix, but in its absence we tend to pool our DVDs with pals like an informal library. Less and less of our money goes to the actual producers of the movie, fair or not.
Also, let’s not forget the rise of social networks as a free-time consumer, especially among the younger demographic. And YouTube, for all its 95% crappiness, offers many gems that can be consumed in bite-sized pieces. It’s “Cinema” for the new age of fragmentation and its versatility supersedes its quality issues.
Look at a list of the top 100 grossing movies ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION and you’ll see that most of the top ten are all from decades ago, many from before WWII. “Gone With The Wind” sold more tickets than “Dark Night” and “Jurassic Park” combined. Why? Because in 1939 there was no TV, no internet, no home video, no arcade games, no cell phones, almost no magazines even. Most people didn’t even have telephones.
The bottom line is that the very way a consumer approaches the scarce 24 hours in his or her day has changed. Hollywood’s bad year might be more than cyclical; it could be a one-way trend towards a complete restructure, like the music industry appears to be sliding into, or the newspaper industry has drowned in. Technology has cheapened content creation and distribution in all three industries, and the gaming industry will follow. Also isn’t is possible that with gaming that an industry with a limited demographic has simply hit a saturation point? Equating constant growth with success is a way of thinking that should go the way of the 8-track and the Betamax.
I remember reading in the Wall Street Journal that sales of used games are up, and companies such as Game Stop are reaping the rewards,
So I doubt that people are playing fewer games. They are just spending less.
I would be interested if there is a similar trend in books, and whether Amazon has seen an increase in used books sales.
As for gamers in general, how they spend their time and what they spend their money on is really none of my business. Gaming may be a waste of time but so is my hobby of fly fishing. Live and let live.
If it is an activity you enjoy and you aren’t hurting anybody, it is never a waste of time.
Back in the days of yore, video games were special. There were two or three titles that were owned and played by just about every kid in town. Remember Mario Bros. and Zelda? We used to spend hours and hours and hours playing thise games. Even today, most of us can still point out all the little secrets from these games. I bet most people reading this comment can still remember which gravestone to push in Zelda to get to the seventh dungeon.
Today, the world of video gaming is much bigger, and the average title doesn’t come anywhere close to the quality of our old favorites. I could walk into a video game store and easily find 500 titles I’ve never heard of before. Yet I’ve probably already played titles similar to all of them. There are simply too many to keep them strait, and like a previous poster said, most of them are cheap knock offs.
The problem is that the video game industry is filled with tiny companies whose sole focus is to get something – anything – on the shelves by Christmas. They don’t put a whole lot of thought or creativity into the games any more. They just pack them up and ship them. Hopefully this tightening of the market will squeeze out a good portion of the low-quality producers, and the video game industry will experience a rennaisance by returning to its roots of focusing on quality over quantity.
I agree with a lot of the comments here about Blu-Ray’s effect on DVD — it’s not good enough to upgrade or to replace your existing library, but it’s good enough to make you think twice about putting any more money into DVDs. Personally, I won’t buy Blu-Ray discs because I’m not even sure they have a future. I can be sure any future disc player will play DVD and CDs, but not so sure it will play Blu-Ray.
Also empathize with the comments about large libraries. DVD turned out to be a learning experience for me: I don’t watch most of the movies I’ve bought enough to justify having bought them. I won’t be repeating that mistake again in this lifetime. And the people that are now in a position to make the same first mistake are generally underemployed due to the recession.
Some of these companies should be a bit worried about some of the trends going on. More and more quality and sound seem to have no appeal to people that are now into MP3 (worse sound quality than CD) and watching movies on their iPod (no need for higher res), PCs, or YouTube.
In that case, there is no use for the existing business model and it’d probably be worth more to get into a Kindle-like wireless distribution model for movies and music. I don’t welcome this, but the writing is on the wall, and with future US growth prospects, it’s all the next generation will be able to afford, anyway… so it’ll have to be made cool in one face-saving way or another 🙂
From what I can tell personally, the only people that really care about hires, etc. are the audiophiles and videophiles, not the average consumer, and not your teenage audience. So the move to small screen, low-res stuff is not surprising to me at all.
…ow.
…okay, firstly? We’ve known for a long time that the average age of gamers was in the thirties. And, yes, sedentary hobbies do lead to a lot of overweight people (although, overweight is that lovely term that included twenty pounds over average but implies two hundred). Depressed is a new one, though, and probably joins overweight in the accurate-but-misleading category.
Two? The price drop is almost certainly more to do with Moore’s Law (cost of equivalent hardware is halved every 18 months or so) than a desperate attempt to keep pace with demand. Gee, it’s almost like it’s been two years since they were released, and we usually get price drops around now anyway.
Three? “Just as we’ve seen in PCs, there is a downward trend in product price points for games, too.” I really hope he meant “game hardware”, because the price point trend has been increasing for major releases, from $50 last generation to $60 this one.
Oh, and it’s just mildly offensive. You know, the whole “all gamers that are grown men are just pretending to be teenage boys” bit. How dare we have hobbies that aren’t ‘socially acceptable’.
Ugh. Someone send this guy a clue, he clearly does not know what he’s talking about.
The dip in the industry so far likely has more to do with no GTA 4 or MGS 4 coming out outside of winter. Those were massive titles that skewed the numbers a huge amount, and installments in two major series that just about every gamer knows, and there has been nothing remotely similar this year, unless you count Resident Evil 5.
Think “If you build it, they will come.” Well, last year, big stuff came out. This year, not so much. Not yet, at least.
But, no, that would involve doing research into the highest grossing releases in the two years, as well as also using 2007 for comparison purposes, compared to the average revenue from games, potentially including DLC like the 6.5 million sales of Call of Duty: World at War map packs, or the likewise impressive sales of Fallout 3 map packs, or other things like that.
*shudders at the sight of forbidden research*
Can you say iPhone?
One of the things we’re seeing is a change the way games are being played. Most people who buy gaming consoles are not hardcore gamers — just people with some spare time. That’s why I’m not shocked at the fact the average “gamer” is 35 and overweight. Heck, how many 35 year olds are not overweight? Nothing in the story said they’re unmarried, lived in Mom’s basement, and don’t have a job.
These gamers are mainly casual gamers. They remember the fun of Asteroids and Space Invaders. They buy a particular game, play with it for a while, and then grow bored.
Now comes the iPhone and iPod Touch: You buy a game for less than $5, play with it while you wait in line at the grocery store, while sitting on the couch, or on the train. And then after a couple of weeks, you can buy another one for $5. Who needs a $300 console with $60 games? Maybe if you’re a “serious” gamer with 30 or so free hours each week, but most of these older gamers have jobs and other responsibilities.
One of the things the Wii showed is that the gaming industry didn’t even understand their own consumers. They simply assumed they were all boys who wanted the biggest baddest and gaphickest system. What the Wii showed is that most gamers were simply wanting to have fun and the Wii and its various games were simply fun. Of the three main console systems, the Wii was the slowest and least powerful. Yet, it cost less and had a wider variety of games than the other consoles which tend to concentrate on first person shooters and sports games.
I wouldn’t doubt that the new really smart phones like the iPhone and the Android have taken lot of the steam out of the game console industry.
The gaming industry just assumed that what worked for the music and movie industries would work for them: an assembly line of highly polished, shiny turds. No originality, creativity or depth, just like 99.9% of Hollywood offerings this decade, and a similar proportion of music offerings from the major music labels.
I remember when the RIAA screamed that Napster was causing the fall in their product sales and some people actually did some research and found that the studios had slashed their available product portfolio by thousands of titles, while shrinking the number and variety of new releases. Is it really a surprise that many of their former customers wouldn’t buy the pap that was the only stuff they sold?
Same for games. You can only peddle the same overpriced, uninspired, derivative crap for so long before people — even the masses who you’ve hoodwinked into thinking they *need* that crap — get fed up and start looking for alternatives.
I used to be a gamer in my youth and there were all sorts of clever and interesting games in all sorts of genres. Most of them looked like crap visually but it didn’t matter — they were FUN!
Then Doom came out, and it was awesome for a 14 year old me, then Quake came out and it was even better. Since then, virtually every first person shooter has been Quake. Just with newer and prettier graphics engines, and different maps, and different guns — sometimes even with realistic-looking guns, but always with the same type of cartoon physics and cartoon weapon handling and damage (hello Battlefield, unloading an entire assault rifle magazine in someone’s face will turn them to pulp in reality, not nick them) and the same lack of depth or novelty.
Quake was cool in 1996. Quake isn’t cool in 2009 anymore. It’s just old and tired, and it doesn’t matter if it looks like Crysis.
I’m not a fat, depressed 35 year old, but I was a fat, depressed 20 year old 10 years ago and I played a couple of games in a now-extinct genre rather obsessively for the escapism. I got ridiculously good at them — you know you’re good when people accuse you of cheating daily. When those games started dying out and I looked around and saw that there were no new games of that type to latch on to desperately and nothing compelling of the games on the market, I took stock of my life and realized I’d sunk years into mastering a completely useless skill. I mean utterly useless. Not even any social brownie points for knowing something cool-but-useless. So I stopped being a gamer and got a life.
I know a fair number of other players of those games, about my age, did the same.
Frankly, I think that the characterization of hard-core gamers as depressed 30-somethings is spot-on. They’re doing it to escape the miserable realities of their daily lives, just as I did, and are clearly getting sufficient distraction from the product to make it worth their while. Nobody else will put up with that level of repetitive sameness for long.
Enough of the half-assed psychoanalysis. I’ll just conclude by saying that many people, myself included, find more FUN in any number of dinky flash and iphone games than in the latest mega-budget 3D monster that’s either last year’s game redone on this year’s game engine, or requires 30 hours a week just to learn. Just like a lot of people find more enjoyment (and even edification) from short Youtube videos on any of a gazillion topics than the latest formulaic Hollywood mega-release in one of Hollywood’s 5 movie templates.
I think there have been some genuine improvements since Quake, but I agree that they happened a long time ago. For example, the multiplayer aspect has been vastly improved since Quake. Unreal Tournament was a lot of fun for a lot of people solely because it was a rich multiplayer, even though it wasn’t as technically slick as Quake, etc…
Also, if you’re going back to Quake then you might as well go back as far as Wolfenstein 3D, since that was really the one that started the whole first-person-shooter mania.
The old Sierra Online games were fun. One of the founders of Sierra dared to say some time ago (though it was not so daring) that gaming had completely changed because the demographics had changed so much — that it was no longer about affluent enthusiasts with a measurable attention span and was now more about the pacifying the great unwashed (I am paraphrasing). He was criticized for saying that, but as far as I can tell, it’s the truth. The refugees from those days are now playing cheap puzzle games 🙂
To me, there are parallels between rap music and video gaming. In the early 1990s, rap music was creative and had some interesting musicality to it. Today, it’s about growling over an elongated jungle beat with as little travel in your tongue as possible — even when the music is made by the same people who used to do it in the early 90s. It is music-by-numbers that is wallpapered over with marketing. The same has happened to gaming.
I’d like to know what is the average word count for comments to this post? It’s gotta blow away the average. Jeeesh!! Get a life guys!!
Not everyone subscribes to the ADD-afflicted SMS way of communicating. Some of us are interested in having this discussion and can hold our attention spans long enough to read and digest information. Your comment may be short and to the point, but it added nothing to the discourse.
Chris,
My previous comment was a simple observation. I’ve been a long-time reader of Cringely and can’t recall a previous post that garnered such lengthy comments. It is not very encouraging that the topic of video games spurs more thought inspired prose than do previous topics on economics, medical care and so forth. You know, topics that truly impact the lives of each and every American.
By the way I didn’t use a single LOL or BFF so the “ADD-afflicted SMS way of communicating” doesn’t really ring true. I just don’t have much to say about video games.
But here is a little something for especially for you:
^URS GAL L8R
What the long posters fail to realize is that we’ll skip to the end or just read the first few words which give the gist of the comment. It takes thought and skill to be concise and clear. I love that l.a. guy had a short post so that I didn’t miss his “plump and pouty” phrase. He outdid the Cringe with that one!
I’m 29 with four kids, and I know I’m broke! Ahem, anyway. 🙂
While the economy is taking its toll (resulting in more used sales), the biggest reason for the year to year decline is software. Remember, last year, through spring and summer we had beasts like Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, and Grand Theft Auto 4. Wait until after Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Mario games arrive, along with the right on schedule price cuts. It’ll pick up.
Now, to the people that are sick of the monotony, I’m with you. However, there is plenty of new, great stuff too. Coming from an independent developer, that is where you can find plenty of innovation. Games like Blow(XBoxLiveCommunity),the Bit.Trip series(Wiiware),the Art Style series(Wiiware), flOw(PSN), and Flower(PSN) are just a few examples. There are tons more, as well as retro styled games(MegaMan9!), and a number of unique things from the big devs. Just look around. You can do better than poor flash games.
As a 42 year old gamer who can reflect back on at least 30 years of gaming (“I hear a wumpus!”), I’ll chip in my $0.02. Games aren’t much different than everything else (books, films, music) in that 90% of what makes it to market is mediocre or worse. If you have the time and inclination, you can certainly find some really interesting, innovative and immersive games out there.
Safe to say Cringely hasn’t devoted precious hours to playing things like the Total War series, Patrician, Europa Universalis (just to name a few of my favorites). I’ve definitely found even less “sophisticated” games like Knights of the Old Republic and Disciples to be worth my (precious and very limited) free time. And Rock Band/Guitar Hero has been fun enough to cause me to fill up my house with silly plastic instruments, rather to the chagrin of my wife.
While most of the stuff on the shelves will continue to be less-than-impressive, I think games will continue to get more evolving and more interesting as they have become a bit more “respectable.” More smart, creative people will be drawn into the business, the hardware will allow things that were simply unthinkable ten years ago, and I think a more mature market can only be a good thing.
I still don’t understand why shooters sell so many copies, but then I don’t understand why people watch American Idol either.
Sorry, to burst your bubble, but I’m 30 and work in the video game industry. Unfortunately, You’d have to get more mature BOSSES before that would happen. The people in charge have their roots in the DOOM, QUAKE, Laura Croft era. Until that ends, well, breast size will trump narrative….
There really is a lack of good games out there. I fit 2 points in the demography Bob describes – but my game choice is right now influenced by what my kids (below 10) can play. After playing and finishing Super Mario Galaxy – I struggle to find something better. There doesn’t seem to be. And that is the problem more than anything!
That and the creative minds are probably developing small iPhone games giving instant gratification – more to the developer, than the consumer? 😉
43, fit and athletic, video gamer. I play an hour a day probably, usually at night — just to actively veg out. Then I go read a book and/or the news. I walk a few miles everyday and try to bike atleast 60 miles per week.
One either plays video games or not. Just as some watch relentless sitcoms or other pablum. I am very curious about the study and sample.
Games are mostly clones. I happen to like the best of a very cloned genre, usually those which require teamwork.
To dispel a myth: movies did not thrive in the Depression. Most of the major studios went into bankruptcy or changed hands in the 30s. Indeed, of the majors, only MGM managed to hold on without getting into deep trouble financially. Movie houses also saw tough times — the 1930s saw the birth of double features and various incentives like ‘dish night’ to lure in the viewers.
Games, I don’t play them, but I do love the movies, and used to buy the DVDs. Until I found that I wasn’t watching them so much. So now I only rent, using Netflix. If I want to watch a movie again, I hold on to it, no late charges; or later on I rent it again, all on the same flat monthly fee. The studios hate this model. They want to get some cash every time I watch the movie, but they will accept it if I buy the disk, and then buy it again when the next, newest, format comes along. I bet they are just pining away for the day when broadband will ride to the rescue and they can rent downloadable movies to me every time I want to watch them. Only, will telcos and cablecos allow this? They want that money, too.
So many hands outstretched to pick our pockets. And yet American wages have been flat or downtrending for almost 40 years now, I understand.
They have been writing for their REAL audience all along. The gamers are 35, overweight and slightly depressed, but the social skills are not that different from the adolescent boys for whom everyone thought the games were designed.
I am 41 y/o, and I owned a pong style game in the 79’s. You know the one with four games instead of just the one. I have owned a C64/128 , several generations of PC’s and have settled to getting an Xbox 360 because the PC games are always pushing the tech envelope and that is expensive. With a console the hardware stays the same, and now it is all about the game.
Btw I am overweight by the current standards but depressed I am not. And who cares that the average gamer is depressed? Maybe they are depressed that the industry that they keep funded is still treating them like kids who have yet to get a job to pay for the $60 game they are playing.
[…] 作者： Robert Cringely；原文链接；翻译： X5电视游戏机与电视游戏软件的销量同 DVD […]
Just for anecdotal historical purposes. I am 48, proper weight, depressed, with a largeish family in college or finishing high school. I grew up on Wumpus and reversi (othello). Robots on my HP 41C. Splat, and some strange pong games. I played space war on the Plato terminals. I could never recreate it on the systems I had access to program, and after that, trek just didn’t seem like enough.
Today, I play the Civ games. Master of Magic being my favorite. I do [occasionally] boot windowze and run Civ IV, or even Civ III. I like to play some of the Blizzard games that allow local game hosting. I never want to run on a host over the internet somewhere. Still, Battle for Wesnoth and spider solitaire seem to fill my gaming time (and needs) and they work great on linux. I do have NWN setup with a local server, and it can be some fun for a group to play. I never see myself purchasing a console, for any reason. (I don’t have the TV to attach it to anyway. Got rid of the GD Babble Box over a decade ago, and love it!)
Retro games (DOS) that run well under linux are my main diversion. (Word and Math Rescue are good still.) Sim City 2000 is still fun to play, Give me clever game play, a fun format, turn based, runs on linux, has local multiplayer hosting, and I will buy it. (I would love to make an old space war game “begin” [from the Micro Foundry] a multiplayer game. I would love to modify some of the game setup parameters. I still love that game!) I was very proud when I got the babel fish. I can do those, and enjoy them.
FPS’s give me nine kinds of nausea. I want nothing to do with them. What does that leave that is new or compelling?
I’m with you. Could also be the that the 35 year old group is “fat and depressed” because they have been playing video games their entire lives.
Dish TV Packages…
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My son is actually nutty regarding lego in addition to star wars lego – thank you for the insight!
I have both a Wii and a Sony Playstation. And, the Playstation is
the machine I use the most. And, it is mostly for video viewing.
An advantage of poverty your relatives gain nothing by your death.
I like the Mario Kart game because it is more challenging as you get to the next level.*.`
i played the original SimCity in the 90’s and until now i still play the latest version of SimCity***
Mere words do not feed the friars.
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