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2009: The Road Ahead
Free Games
Free, rich Internet applications have been touted as the future for gaming for at least 10 years. As yet, a sustainable business model has failed to materialize, with advertising and paid-extras offering much, much less cheer than proponents had hoped. A recession is not likely to change the prospects for this business in 2009. However, individual free games are making their mark; services offering free games proliferate, buoyed by investment dollars that look extremely speculative. Sites like Kongregate prompted Time to state that “the Web is a gamer’s paradise” and although the vast majority of Kongregate’s 5,000 titles are awful, it’s only the good ones that really get traction on the front page, or are sent to you by excited friends as a link-you-really-must-play. It’s likely that we will all spend more time with these games in the year ahead, even those of us who spent way too much time playing Desktop Tower Defense games in 2008.
God of War III
Set for release at the tail-end of 2009, God of War III is a bona fide big-brand platform exclusive for PlayStation 3 that has the potential to sufficiently excite the market. With PS3 price-cuts likely in the middle of 2009, Sony will be making this one of its standard bearers for a year in which it absolutely must outstrip Xbox 360 in hardware sales.
Hollywood
There are currently over a dozen movies announced, based on game franchises. Anything from Bioshock to The Sims is fodder for an industry evidently bereft of original ideas, clinging to sad demographic profiles of young males. The opportunity for gaming is not so much in monetizing our own IP, as in recognizing that cinema is on the losing side of a pan-entertainment industry war for consumers’ dollars and time. While box office stats are up, ticket-sales are declining. Such is the quality of most game-movies that you’d be forgiven for thinking that Hollywood is attempting to delegitimize gaming in the eyes of cinema goers. The reality is simply that cinema is in decline. Did you see the Indiana Jones movie? That refrigerator holds all you need to know.
iPhone
Despite a shaky start, iPhone is coming into its own as a games platform, with a very small number of games offering a fleeting illusion of competition to DS and PSP. However, the market has been flooded by lots of sub-par games, and many that are buggy, hard to control, or too short. Truly great value games are difficult to find or, frankly, are derivative. But iPhone is a great device for gaming – way better than any other mobile phone - with a massive base of willing consumers. iPhone games will get better in 2009 and we’ll begin to see some genuine must-have games emerge. The dangers facing this market are Apple’s pricing strategy and piracy; evils that are both the outcome of greed and selfishness.
Jobs
Lay-offs these past few months are proof that the game industry is feeling the pinch. Fear is ever the dish du jour for financial planners, lawyers and accountants, and these are days of plenty for the beancounters. These lay-offs are certain to get worse in 2009 with significant numbers of people losing their jobs. This will have a knock-on effect in all areas of game industry employment including average salaries and the prospects for graduates. It’s going to be a tough, bloody year. But those companies who listen too keenly to the unimaginative economics of cost-cutting will pay a high price in the longer term. Prudence is good, but it’s talent that really makes the numbers; not spreadsheets.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
im suprised that 3 of the exclusive ps3 titles have been singled out as some of the potential key moments of 2009, but am also highly anticipating all of these titles (killzone2, God of War 3, and quantic dream) and many more for that matter. They will most likely boost ps3 sales, and along with the inevitable price cut, sony will probably pull back a fair amount of ground in the sales and respectable titles war.
anyway heres to a fruitful 2009, its looking good so far!
Retro remakes/sequels:
With the critical and commercial success of remakes and retro games like Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Mega Man 9, and Square/Enix's DS Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy JRPGs, and with the relative low cost of their development, studios will expand their libraries of retro remakes to complement their XBLA and Virtual Console offerings targeted toward nostalgic gamers.
Games are amazing value for money when you think about it.......
Average film 3 hours and about $7 or £7
Average game 15-30 hours about $30 or £30
Your value for money = purchase cost / time spend enjoying it
The cinema costs you about twice as much, if not more! You don’t get anywhere near as much value for money from any other entertainment. Game prices could go up really, we have it very good at the moment.
What, no the last month for the 360 to outsell the PS3 ever like last year? Boo hoo. With that said instead of that happening last year like you all called the opposite happened and the 360 lead went from 5 million to 8 million WW. Amazing, and yet you guys say that somehow this year it will lose share. Haha, awesome. The lead could very well be 9/10 million before a price cut even happens. As for SW the PS3 looks a little better at this point, but like last year that was everyones argument as well. That didn't turn out to well because MS like last year had plenty more to announce. Hmm, wonder if were in for repeat. Magic 8 ball says, likley. Don't ever doubt the price advantage that MS has put in place for the rest of this gen, and yea they still have plenty of wiggle room in that department.
*anxiously awaits the obvious PS3 price cut*
I have a question. If movies can coast millions upon millions to make yet a dvd is still usually under 20 or 25 dollars. Games generally coast less, but are 60 dollars. I think they just have to realize that these games are not worth what they are asking. If they had a cheaper price point then they would sell more and make used game less attractive.
I personally hate buying used games. I do everything I can to avoid it, but sometimes it is the only option.
Most big movies make the majority of their revenue at the cinema.
sorry i didn't meant or eply directly to you, but whatever.
Again with the hate on used games. They do serve a purpose and that's to keep game prices from reaching insane amounts and balance the market. And Gamestop is the last place I would buy a game used, or even new for that matter. They take advantage of the consumer in either situation, that much I completely agree with.
I think heroes is pretty good and family guy is hilarious... you just lost me.
I quite like the Heroes TV show. Shame on you, Good article otherwise though.
I have a good vibe about 2009. Once we have all the studio closures out of the way and the dust settles we'll begin to see a new industry grow, bigger and stronger. There are some great games on the horizon. I'm personally looking forward to Killzone 2, RE5, GoW 3 and am hugely excited about finding out more about Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2. So it's a good year for Sony at least. I'm sure MS and Nintendo will have some interesting things up their sleeves too... maybe
To state that cinema is in decline due to the quality of movies is nonsense. However, if you only have the fourth Indiana Jones flick to back you up, I can imagine you might think so. A lot of the higher quality movies do not make for very interesting games though - and since the marketing department of certain movies knows damn well that a game will sell on its license alone, crappy games continue to get made. But even with potentially interesting titles, the game industry didn't exactly maintain the quality of the movies. While Ironman, which in my opinion was very enjoyable, got a crappy game - (as a consequence) I was actually happy to see The Dark Knight not receiving a game make-over at all.
The quality of certain TV series is the one thing TV still has going for it as it's been actually gone up a lot, in my opinion. You might think a lot of these series are shit but compare them to their 80ies or 90ies equivalents and you'll see that they're attempting to deliver a little more than just 40 or 50 minute short stories - instead, they are extended movies in which characters are explored and story lines are spread out over entire seasons. I'll take the new Battlestar Galactica over the old one any time and both Californication and Dexter could not have been made 10 years ago... and although the truly great ones you mention are definitely good, they're not alone. It's just the fact of the matter that there's just a lot more of both shitty series and good ones.
God of War 3 and Killzone 2 are probably going to sell well but I'd preferrably put my money on Heavy Rain. I'm really curious if that title will live up to what its makers have been stating in press reports and interviews. If it does, it could be a very interesting title for the PS3 as well. With regards to originality and innovation, I don't think things will ever change though. I still remember Vagrant Story coming out - probably the best RPG next to Chronotrigger. It got great reviews yet sold poorly.
While its more clear what Sony has planned for this year, I also wonder what Microsoft and Nintendo have up their sleeves. Zelda would be nice - but it has to be very good to win back those who chose the 360 or PS3 as their new system of choice for RPGs. Since Microsoft is still dominating the online console market, I think they'll focus on that - and while they can't really cut the price of the machine anymore, they can cut the price of their online services.