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Video Gaming Will Take Over

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Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#51

Post by georgeecollins »

vermilingua wrote: post #38
georgeecollins wrote: post #30

I agree with most of this, except that I think comparing video game services to video streaming services is misleading. As the author points out, video game content can have a much longer lifespan than linear content, so people skip around a lot less. If you like crime TV shows you can watch all the episodes of a crime TV show and then try another show and another show and there is an ongoing demand for similar conte…

Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? Most of the people I know that play video games play a wide range, and I highly doubt that steam could have been a fraction as successful as it is if “95% of the people play one game exclusively”.

>> Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play?

I hear your doubts. To be clear: I never said 95% of the people play one game exclusively. I said 95% play two or fewer games. What I should have said was probably 90% of the people play two or fewer games in a year which I think is more accurate.

How can Steam make so much money? Well playing two games doesn't mean you own two games. Many many games are "purchased" on Steam and never played at all. The two games do change over time, though not quickly. Also, there are a lot of people out there with Steam accounts!

Besides my kids as evidence, I can't really link to research I look at. I am a 25 year game industry veteran who runs the interactive division of a small entertainment company. So I guess I can site myself as an expert :) Which you can reject.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#52

Post by Seenso »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #32
sethammons wrote: post #10

While I think games are an underused medium for advertising and promoting, I'm not sure about any claim of it "taking over." Mobile games on the rise and all that, blah blah. From my own experience, as my purchasing power has grown, my gaming time has declined. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild. However, I have another couple of games I'd like to play, but I just don't have the time.

The article is less about how much people play in an absolute sense, but more about how much people play compared to how much time they spend watching television (and streaming services like Netflix) . You say that your gaming time has declined. Has your time watching tv declined comparably? Which of the two - gaming or tv - would you say is more important in your life?

> You say that your gaming time has declined. Has your time watching tv declined comparably? Which of the two - gaming or tv - would you say is more important in your life?

My gaming has declined to zero, and my time watching TV has increased greatly. TV is much easier to make into a shared experience than video games. You can also find informative non-fiction TV, while nearly all games are fiction with relatively simple plots.

I think this article cherrypicks and makes all kinds of wild extrapolations to get to the unwarranted conclusion that gaming will "take over." The most glaring in my mind it doesn't address the kinds of lifestyle changes that happen as people age, that are extremely relevant to the overall uptake of media like video games.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#53

Post by wostusername »

vermilingua wrote: post #38
georgeecollins wrote: post #30

I agree with most of this, except that I think comparing video game services to video streaming services is misleading. As the author points out, video game content can have a much longer lifespan than linear content, so people skip around a lot less. If you like crime TV shows you can watch all the episodes of a crime TV show and then try another show and another show and there is an ongoing demand for similar conte…

Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? Most of the people I know that play video games play a wide range, and I highly doubt that steam could have been a fraction as successful as it is if “95% of the people play one game exclusively”.

Not him, but IIRC back when Steam Spy was a thing it discovered that most accounts on Steam only have one game on it. Usually Dota 2 or CS:GO. That makes sense to some extent since Dota 2 is free and CS:GO is often on sale and a lot of people like to Smurf. Anecdotally both of my CS:GO playing friends have smurf accounts.

Although this is a separate issue to the greater point that most people play one game. My bit of anecdata is that me and all of my friends might try out some flavor of the month game or something that caught our eye on sale, but those tend to be one-and-done playthroughs. However, each of us has a game that they play regularly that has an order of magnitude more hours on it than everything else.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#54

Post by nitwit005 »

If this had been published 20 years ago, I'd totally agree, but we already seem to be entering an era where video gaming is starting to cannibalize itself. There are young people playing mobile games who seem completely uninterested in consoles.

Also perhaps missing some negative trends. Saying user-generated content is important is true, but companies fight against it more than they used to. The more games rely on paid DLC, or cash shops for things like costumes, the less they want to allow things like modding, as it can directly undermine it. I never bought the Skyrim DLC because there were tons of great mods for free.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#55

Post by falcolas »

dublinben wrote: post #36
giancarlostoro wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh right, console gamer problems. I guess cloud gaming will make them happy, I really hope it doesn't bleed over into PC gaming.

Isn't it already a meme that Steam seems to always require updates before you can play anything?

If it is, then the meme is an old one. I haven't had to patch before playing in years. Even new games seem to come patched.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#56

Post by falcolas »

setr wrote: post #43
Hamuko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are technical problems that will get solved. How do you fix the distance between me and Google?

More datacenters

That's not a technical solution, that's a "throw money at the problem" solution which is not financially viable for a good portion of the world.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#57

Post by xmonkee »

This analysis is completely missing out on the auteur angle of media production. Games Are Not Art (Yet). Even if they get immensely popular, they will not be as culturally relevant as movies or books. A mind like Orson Welles will never be compelled to make the Citizen Kane of games.

I think at some point cookie cutter cinema like Marvel will seamlessly blend into the cultural domain of video games. Movies like that are already video games in cinema form, in a sense. OTOH, there is no equivalent of a video game that is an actual piece of art.

(This is all very subjective, I know, but the subjective dimension has to be considered in a discussion about the relevance of a medium)

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#58

Post by ArtWomb »

>>> Unprecedented Content Leverage

The other day I was in the mood for some "Crossy Road". I had deleted it from my Kindle years ago to curb my time suck. Now it's not in the store anymore. Replaced by a new version from the same developer, "Hipster Whale", but re-branded as a tie-in with Disney characters.

The new art is flat and unremarkable. Where the original was really charming. And actual user performance is virtually unplayable. A far cry from the immortal re-playability of the original. Not to mention the ubiquitous promotional dark patters, the pernicious in-app purchase harpings, the auto play trailers with 1x1px cancel buttons that link to a store and thrash game state, loot boxes, and characters from edge IP no one has ever heard of. Instead of the original's unforgettable characters such as "Frankenstein" "Disco Zoo" and "Kimchi".

And yet this version is probably more popular than ever! With a burst of revenue to boot. If the market is speaking it really begs to question. Besides ISVs on zero budgets, who will invest in "pure" action-arcade oriented video games?

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#59

Post by potta_coffee »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #9

For a medium that has growing revenue, the major players and properties are attempting increasingly manipulative, desperate, awful, and addictive mechanisms to squeeze more revenue.

IMO that just makes more opportunity for indies. I didn't really start exploring indie games actively until I started hating the AAA games that were coming out.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#60

Post by DerekL »

ArtWomb wrote: post #58

>>> Unprecedented Content Leverage The other day I was in the mood for some "Crossy Road". I had deleted it from my Kindle years ago to curb my time suck. Now it's not in the store anymore. Replaced by a new version from the same developer, "Hipster Whale", but re-branded as a tie-in with Disney characters. The new art is flat and unremarkable. Where the original was really charming. And actual user performance is vi…

That's weird that you couldn't find the original Crossy Road. The website says it's available from Amazon.

I've played both games on iOS, and I haven't noticed a performance difference between them. Also, the original still gets some new characters every so often, while Disney Crossy Road hasn't gotten new characters in two years.

https://www.crossyroad.com

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