In the modern world, video games is one of the largest segments of the entertainment industry. The scale of the gaming industry is certainly comparable with the film industry. In terms of its growth rate over the past five years, the video game industry was significantly ahead of it.
The gaming industry, which has a great degree of involvement with its consumers, has long been different from other forms of entertainment.
Pelham Smithers, an expert in finance, is confident that this year the games market
is expecting a one percent decline. If the total turnover of this industry exceeds $138 billion, the loss of just two billion may seem insignificant, but the expert believes that this is a canary in the mine. He also stressed that such a decline could trigger a gradual financial loss to the market. It is noteworthy that, if the financier's forecast proves correct, this will be the first decline in the games market since 1995.
The gaming industry is not so old, namely, about 50. However, let’s not forget that in the world of computer technology, the speed of development of any sphere changes exponentially. As a result, it is very difficult to predict the future with such rapid rates of development.
Here are the main problems facing the modern gaming industry:
1. Pay-to-loot
Pay-to-loot is a relatively new microtransaction system, borrowed from applications for smartphones and tablets. The idea is that the user purchases small in-game rewards, such as bundles of mystery boxes, that can drop items when opened. The microtransaction system in free or low-cost applications has already become a business model. The bottom line is that in this ecosystem, the user is motivated to spend money, and some of them spend thousands, or even much more.
2. It’s because of progress
The next problem, weirdly enough, is technological progress. Every year, developers try to recreate complex graphics, face physics, and so on in games. In short, they are trying to make the game more lifelike and closer to reality. Also, for this, you need to write a new graphics engine, a costly and time-consuming business because it requires expensive equipment, powerful hardware that will pull off any task, highly qualified programmers and very expensive licensed software. Ultimately, all these costs directly affect the value of the final product.
3. No changes
Like a deadly blight consuming video games, is that game franchises, including popular ones commercially held for decades, do not want to change. Players from year to year get the same gaming experience, and developers from year to year build on the same game mechanics, improving the graphics(We’re looking at you Megaman). Enthusiasm for the game dwindles as a result.
4.The artificial increase in the time of the game
In modern gaming clients (such as Steam), game time is recorded. For gaming publications, it has long been mainstream for every article to write about how long it takes an average player to complete. The statistics show that the more game hours a game provides, the more willing players are to buy it. However, naive developers, guided by this data, instead of adding more interesting puzzles, plot twists and concepts to the game, blunder into delaying the game with optional side quests.
5. DLC content restriction and preorders
This phenomenon has quietly survived until today and continues to annoy gamers. In some games, publishers intentionally restrict some of the content until gamers purchase add-ons. In other cases, a pre-order trick is used: players get complete access to the game only after they pay for it in advance, even before its release. Not a very elaborate scheme, no. However, in some cases, it becomes a powerful irritant, threatening the harmonious atmosphere of the gaming community. Gamers sometimes boycott such projects out of protest, and many similar cases are known throughout recent history.
6. Gameplay has lost priority
We have a lot of games that can not boast a whole lot of things except great graphics. And you start to wonder - “How can graphics have a negative effect on interest in the game? Should it, on the contrary, create a glossy screen and attract new players?” And you will be right on the money there - graphics should decorate any project, but modern developers often forget about it. The old games attracted their elaboration, plot, and cozy atmosphere, but were inconvenient to manage and often had a low graphic component. The games of this new world were beautiful and comfortable, but empty and boring on the inside.
Developers devote more time to providing the game with beautiful graphics than the gameplay.
The gaming industry is developing at a rapid pace, having turned into a multi-billion dollar business over the past few decades. Obviously, for the time being we are only seeing progress, no recession. But this does not mean that there are no more problems with games. On the contrary, the further the concept of gaming expands, the more it has problems, sometimes even more serious than those that were before, at the dawn of the industry.
Despite all the shortcomings we just described. Consumer's demand is growing, they need more and more innovative technology. Will the game industry be able to make the needed qualitative revolutionary leap in its development?