Games and the recession

[nshady]

Put some thoughts into a blog post about how the economy is going to affect the current gaming landscape.

http://www.slicedgaming.com/blogs/blog160.html

[G-Train]

I disagree.

As economic gloom and doom approaches, I think more ppl will be looking for escapism to deal with it, and one of the best ways to escape is gaming.

Yes, prices may go up - but no more then anything else. If anything, the gaming industry will see less of a price hike due to two factors:
A) You're right and less ppl will buy, meaning the companies can't afford to charge crazy prices as even less ppl will buy them.
B) The recession has come on pretty fast, and if as you say less ppl are already buying games, then the sellers are going to be over stocked and looking for a way to make money off a slowing industry, which means big sales.


IMO, The gaming industry is going to be fine. The worse the recession gets, the more ppl that will be looking to gaming to maintain their sanity.

[Batman]

Entertainment is very, very rarely bothered by economic issues.

[RJG]

Entertainment is very, very rarely bothered by economic issues.

Truth. In fact, the last great depression saw the rise of Hollywood because films were cheaper to go to than plays or music things. And now with gaming offering more value for money than Hollywood, and better product, I think gaming will do better than people expect.

[admeister]

Right on guys, I totally agree. Entertainment is a very solid industry, as it's an important part of people's lives today. With games becoming a larger and larger part of that with every passing year, sales will continue to stay as high as usual since the price of games won't change, and neither will people's want for entertainment.

[Predator]

in hard economic times companies take on less risk, therefore less innovative titles, less choice, more boring derivatives.

I think the end of 2008 was the golden era, and we'll have a more barren environment for quite a few more years. Already we've seen a few titles been canned, and the major studios laying off hundreds of staff.

"casual gaming" and the success off the wii console will also discourage the type of titles we've seen in the past.

In the US major game chains have closed, and sales are now starting to slide on DVD's, which is also "entertainment".

It's not going to be as rosy as you guys are painting. This is the worst recession since the 30's.. Australia is one of the better off countries, but we are pretty small in the scheme of the total market.

[nshady]

The industry will make it through, but it's the quality of the titles that they'll make that worries me.

[Master Chief]

"casual gaming" and the success off the wii console will also discourage the type of titles we've seen in the past.

It's sad because it's true. Customers that buy Fallout 3, return it the next day because it's too complicated, swap it for Far Cry 2, come back because they "don't like the whole malaria thing", swap it for Dead Space, come back the next day and say "its crap", and then ask me "What good games have come out recently?" make me want to punch them in the face.

[Dr Julz]

What I want to know is, if our economy here isn't as bad as others why is our dollar so worthless right now?

The industry will make it through, but it's the quality of the titles that they'll make that worries me.

That worries me too. 

[Batman]

It's sad because it's true. Customers that buy Fallout 3, return it the next day because it's too complicated

I recommended Fallout 3 to five of my friends. Four of them said "it was ! It was too complicated. I took it back."

Worst thing is Fallout 3 really isn't THAT complicated...

[admeister]

It's sad because it's true. Customers that buy Fallout 3, return it the next day because it's too complicated

I recommended Fallout 3 to five of my friends. Four of them said "it was sh*t! It was too complicated. I took it back."

Worst thing is Fallout 3 really isn't THAT complicated...

That worries me. Perhaps the amazing sales of the Wii are making more sense now...

[jango]

expect alot of smaller gaming companies to go to the wall...even EA shares plunged in the US over a write down on future projections and theres no denying Sony is in the sh*t...even Microsoft downgraded earnings dramatically...as unemployment continues to rise overseas (what happens in Australia isnt going to effect the games industry at all) expect massive cutbacks (EA has already announced mass redundancies) which has to effect the quality of titles coming through. Good point in the article- expect alot of sequels to be churned out.

[Napoleon Insists]

I wouldn't be surprised if you see more games at a lower price point. Stuff like Dead Space and Mirror's edge seems unreasonable to people at 90 to 99, but now they're set at about 60 each they're enjoying pretty good sales.

[G-Train]

What I want to know is, if our economy here isn't as bad as others why is our dollar so worthless right now?

The industry will make it through, but it's the quality of the titles that they'll make that worries me.

That worries me too. 

Our Dollar isn't that bad dude, it's at about what 65 US cents? I recall it being down to 50-45 cents a few years back. It's not that it is doing poorly now, only that it isn't doing as strongly - I know that sounds like I symantic but my point is it was doing great, now its doing ok, not it was doing ok, now its doing badly.

Speaking of which, while trying to find the current AU-US exchange I found wiki, which states the Au dollar is the 6th most traded currency in the world (Impressive I thought), yet it makes up for 6% of the total foreign exchange transactions =\ 6th and yet is only used 6%, how much is the US / Euro / Yen used then!?

Anyway, I can see how that would be annoying MC. The EB down here doesn't take that sh*t from ppl, I bought something and it wasn't as though I just didn't like it, the game was basically broken, took it back for Halo 3, was disappointed so took it back and simply asked for store credit and they got pissy with me, telling me they weren't a rental shop (despite the fact I had each game a total of 3 days), angry buggers. They don't exchange PC games, full stop, though I think thats an EB in general rule.

Really, their philosophy of "If you don't like it bring it back in a week" is flawed, cos ppl are always going to exploit it, and even those who don't get treated like they do.

[Master Chief]

Depends on the store you go to with PC games, some managers don't care and will return basically anything as long as its in the original packaging. There are all sorts of seedy people that shop in GAME stores though, the ones that abuse the 7 day return policy just to make copies of the game are the worst IMO. They're not only ruining game sales, but they're ruining the very industry that they supposedly like. At least have the decency to download the games instead of "borrowing" brand new ones from stores.

What's the worst though is when you know they're going to return it, but they get a new copy instead of a pre-owned even after you show it to them. Had one lady who was getting Beijing 2008 as a gift - an obvious return - and I showed her the pre-owned disc, it was completely clean until she stuck her thumb on it, then she goes "oh, no, i don't want to take the risk" .... I wanted to punch her in her knee-cap.

[RJG]

One little kid came in the other day to look at a pre-owned copy. Grabbed the disc is his little dirty hands and went to show his dad who was standing outside the store with the trolley. It was covered in the kid's fingerprints so the dad said "no because the disc isn't in good condition".

[Predator]

Here is an article on the decline of DVD. Part of that may be in fact due to the Internet and video games, but it's quite a change:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/And-the-loser-is--$pd20090220-PF8Y9?OpenDocument&src=sph

[Predator]

You have to wonder though if the stores have helped encourage this policy by accepting refunds at all? I know it is the law to take exchanges for faulty or unopened packages, but if somebody bought a game, they could simply get a key, scratch it, and take it back and say "but it came with a bit scratch", when really they just didn't want it. Pretty hard to stop, and it's not helping the industry.

Even though people get shirty about it, the game store having to open the game to inspect the disc to see if it works is probably only protecting against people claiming faulty discs when they are absolutely fine.

Of course, for PC, 360 and wii games, even though it's pretty low, there would be many teenagers that would buy a game, copy it, and then bring it back in exchange for another.

Lots of shifty little kids with no morals out there, encouraged by bad parents.

[G-Train]

It's certainly not as bad as it used to be though.

I admit back in my hay-day I never bought games / movies / music - I'd just go to a local LAN and load up 10s of gigs worth of the stuff. I felt bad for copying games but not movies/music - $40 for a music CD? Eat sh*t and die music industry. Anyway, back then it was easy as hell to pirate a CD, it was as simple as downloading a cracked .exe.

Now, theres so much mroe security on gaming, which is great, I wouldn't know where to begin to get past things like sec-rom etc. While there may still be ppl out there with the ability to pirate games, they are far more few in numbers. I don't think piracy will ever die, but I think we're going to see the day where it's so damn hard most ppl won't even bother.