Game Industry Collapse Imminent

A) Alec, Plz stop headline trolling, thx.

B) I think all of Dvorak's points are ridiculous.

C) There IS going to be a struggle ahead with the next gen consoles, as content becomes more and more the central part of games, and the growth of the audience remaining uncertain. In this generation, a team of 40-50 people is usually enough to make a AAA game, and in rare cases, smaller teams can pull it off. In the next generation, the team sizes are going to have to grow a good deal, while the install base is going to be MUCH SMALLER, at least for a while.

So how can we make games with the expected "next gen" level of content and detail, when the next gen consoles don't have the expected install base?

We'll just have to see.

Some of today's games are ridiculously hard to play - unless gaming is your so-called life - and so daunting to casual players that they will quickly reject them. Who needs to devote themselves to a game just to play it once in a while? I'll take Spider Solitaire instead."

Somebody sucks at video games! Nah nah nah nah nah!

Hey, Dvorak. STFU.

Paging Sam Fisher....

Funny that stale and uninnovative games seem to sell the best. I mean, they put out like 10 new versions of the same football games every year, just with new players, and people buy them. And that's just football.

pfft. tired words from an old man. Hey, the movie industry is even worse off, right? They're so out of ideas that they have to keep remaking classics and crappy TV shows. And isn't it time that the music industry died? they're still using guitars and shit?

As someone who has less and less time - I do have to agree with at least this part,.......

"If that doesn't flatten the market, the never-ending need to satisfy the demanding full-time game-player should do it. Some of today's games are ridiculously hard to play - unless gaming is your so-called life - and so daunting to casual players that they will quickly reject them. Who needs to devote themselves to a game just to play it once in a while? I'll take Spider Solitaire instead."

give me a new fps game. with ninjas!

What's wrong with Starship Troopers?

Isn't this like the second article in the last 12 months fromt his blowhard predicting doom and gloom? I predict a collapse in the ill-researched, truth stretching, "pulling it out of my ass" article market.

it's John Dvorak. his saying this virtually guarantees that the game industry will last at least another 20 years as-is!

just look at his predictions about the mouse back when it was new (he couldn't see anyone wanting to use it).

Did anybody else notice that Dvorak seemed to rely almost completely on his children as the sources for this article? Maybe if his kids didn't have such shitty taste in games, or if he stopped buying them shitty games, this article would have read differently. I would really love to get a job where I can say whatever I want so long as I cite my children, nephews, cousins, etc...

And what the fuck is a guy who's favorite game is Spider-Solitaire doing writing an article about next gen gaming? If Dvorak tried playing Half-Life 2, he wouldn't bitch so much about difficult controls or over-complicated gameplay. That is like me, a 19 year old childless male, writing about shit that pisses me off about infant delivery rooms in hospitals.

that was the most absurd article I have EVER READ.

I thought Dvorak was just a giant computer in Manhattan, though???

Online FPS, and RTS games are the only ones which require any ammount of hardcore mentality. MMO's require a minor ammount of this mindset but the newer ones are vastly more user friendly than older generations were and no MMO requires any skills of any great depth.

Oh well it has been kind of chilly around here lately, I guess a blast of hot air isn't unwelcome.

According to a recent editorial by technology pundit John C. Dvorak

ERROR: Line 1, Col 54: invalid source "John C. Dvorak"

Every so often the natural buildup of gases within the typical John C. Dvorak becomes too great for his burgeoning mass to support. As it is released it is channeled through the various resonant cavities and spiracles throughout his carapace, creating an audible emissions such as "No one will want to use a mouse!", "Apple will fall!", or the occasional "The games industry is on the verge of collapse!" As this often attracts predators to his flimsy arguments and poorly defended reasoning, he quickly retreats into his lair, the dumpster outside the PC Magazine offices.

Few points...

"all I see are tweaks and weirder, mostly stupid weapons."
Hey, I get tired of first person Doom Clones too. Where does he mention Multiplayer?

I think he vagely referenced strategy/sim... "Some of today's games are ridiculously hard to play—unless gaming is your so-called life—and so daunting to casual players that they will quickly reject them."
First off, what magezine does this guy publish in? Is there anything simple about coding anything? 'This car stuff is way to hard to drive safely, I'm gonna walk...'
Secondly, when you create something with the intent of it seeming real, sometimes it must be complicated. Sorry, but operating a Submarine or an F-16 is not simple, it takes lots of people to keep them running and years to master. Neither does a governor sit in his office, sign a bill, and suddenly a bridge is built. Unfortunatly there are supplies needed, and man-power, and design, and construction and .....

"Most of today's hottest games are combinations of two or three of these categories"
Water was here before us and swimming was a good way to get around a river. Running was probably the first response to a threat man had. The Ball was invented THOUSANDS of years ago, a goal to put it in, almost as long. 'Most of today's hottest sports are combinations of two or three of these categories'

This guy mentions A MOVIE in comparision with Video games. "If you want to see exactly how inane this is, go out and rent the brain-dead Paul Verhoeven film, Starship Troopers..... It's essentially a video game turned into a movie"
Sure there are alot of Single-line plot driven games, where creative thinking has little or no impact on the outcome of the game, but Me-thinks this guy hasn't played a game since the $.25 Arcade days.

The movie industry by % makes far less than it did in the hay-day 30's-40's. Alot of this is because of a new technological advance called the Tele-vision, giving citizens "Movies at home!" Then came Video.

"But once we get to photorealism, what is going to sustain growth?"
Well thats a good question Old Man. Photo realism is still a few years away, and not to be too far thinking, then comes Wet-ware!!

With software created on the spot by the Human-mind, the only limit is our colective imaginations. Then, maybe, you can call video games dead, though Video Camera's exist and not everyone makes their own movies... and some that do suck at it...

To be honest the loss of some of the Industry Giant domination in the market might not be such a bad thing. Most of the really cool games I've played started with guys who had no contract with any developer.
Maybe we don't have to put up with super-bugged releases just to see them before the holiday's..cough,BFME,cough,cough
Are video games gonna disappear? Not likely. As long as people desire to entertain themselves, there will be a game played somewhere. Why limit ourselves, the computer offers the ability to explore a world where anything is possible.

I think this guy is sore he invested in the XFL.
sorry bout the length, and if i covered your topic.

I think the oposite is going to happen, video gaming is going to take off and get more popular than ever before. It's actually getting mroe mainstream, not more hardcore. If that is good or bad it's up to you guys.

I'll parapharse.

"I'm old and cranky and I need to meet my word count before deadline. I'll say almost anything to do so."

Considering 2004 was possibly the best year for gaming ever, I think its safe to say this guy is a total fuckwad.

i do agree with him on at least one point...


Nintendogs?!?

hahahahaha - fuckin lame.

I like Dvorak's writings usually (though compared to Spolsky and others I read, he's lame) but does anyone remember the article he wrote circa 2001 where he said that MS was going to release software to basically make the Xbox a PC? Like a keyboard, versions of Excel, etc.?

He has an element - the PC world, the MS world, etc. The Gaming world is not his element. His predictions are usually wrong in this area.

I think the title of this Shack post is to get people posting :)

OK, I don't get it. Reading through a few other columns I was suprised by his use of the collapse. It appears quite a lot, but words like evolve don't appear too often. The man is like a lot of columnist, he is a paid troll.

I guess he got tired of waiting for Apple to collapse.

Hummm, maybe we ought to put this up against a thread about how EA is single-handedly killing gaming and see which one wins! :-D

Dvorak has consistently been the biggest asshat in tech journalism that I have ever seen. He's a joke and I have no idea how he continues to have a job. Is there NOONE else available to make ridiculous generalizations that are completely off base about the industry? He's fucking ALWAYS wrong. I wish I still had that link of Dvorak quotes, but the one about the Mouse posted above is a good example.

What a clown.

Sounds like he's a very Casual gamer, and not a hardcore gamer. Casual gamers maybe play games 2-4 hours per week, and they don't like their games very deep or difficult to play.

But as long as there are hardcore gamers (who play WAY more hours than casual gamers), the gaming market isn't going crash and die. These types of gamers thrive and difficult to master games, and enjoy investing many hours into them.

In short: Dvorak doesn't know shit.

I think if anything, the current business model of the game industry will be the demise, not the lack of ideas.

The fact is, for next generation and this current generation really, publishers aren't paying developers enough money to properly staff projects. So in turn, the devs mandate a work schedule that harkens back to the day of sewing factories. This is the only way they can survive.

The next wave of consoles, which are going to require larger teams will only magnify this effect.

I'm convinced that game development must contain an intimacy that can not be found in a factory setting - especially when the workers want to burn the factory down.

I agree conceptually it's not what it was 10 or 15 years ago, and there's an ASSLOAD of sequels and retreads. That won't make it fall apart though, anymore than Spiderman 2 and 3 or 4 would hurt a movie studio.

Clearly someone that attacks Nintendo of all companies for not being innovative is an idiot and doesn't know what he is talking about.

10 bucks say he doesn't know shit about the gaming industry and doesn't even play games himself.

With Mr. Dvorak's logic the movie industry should have fallen years ago.

sounds like he's hoping that the industry would collapse

Clearly he's not paying attention, he should sit down with EA and chat for awhile.

Titor's Dvorak's War is coming! Peak Oil! Terrorists!

gun

Haha, this is a joke right? Please get this shit off the front page.

The guy needs to learn to stop boiling things down to their basic common denominators. "OMG Bentleys have 4 wheels and so does a Ford, they must be the same!!!1111one". "OMG The gourmet restaurant I went to last week was serving food with meat in it! Don't they know they serve that stuff to school kids too?? LOL!"

I've never read something so badly written linked as a front page article.

If only George could release DNF... He could SAVE THE INDUSTRY!! or run it into the ground. :)