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The good times are coming to an end.
iconians
Member Posts: 6,987 Arc User
Forewarning: This is a Doom thread. But a Doom thread unlike any I have ever posted. Indeed, this transcends PWE, Cryptic, and STO entirely. It's bigger than any of us.
For those who have paid attention to some of the things I've said over the past few years, one of the biggest things I've mentioned is that the current MMO and indeed the entire video game market is unsustainable. It has been unsustainable -- and it's only getting worse.
But this transcends the video game industry too. This is effecting the entire tech industry. From Silicon Valley to Japan, in truth? It is affecting the entire globe. But most of it is felt and observed in Silicon Valley. For those of you not in America, that is the South Bay portion of San Francisco. The same approximate area as Cryptic Studios (in Los Gatos), and PWE (Redwood City).
We are living in a bubble. All of us. From the ones at PWE, to the Cryptic devs, to us -- the players.
Some of us have observed what we erronously believe to be isolated incidents regarding technology as a whole. Perhaps those of you in Silicon Valley have noticed that dinner reservations at the hottest restaurants are getting harder to come by. Perhaps you've been offered stock deals in a tech company before it is even going public.
When you're living in a bubble, you aren't going to notice these things as part of a larger problem. but it is.
Paid Beta access (when it used to be free and by invitation-only) has paved the way for paid Alpha access. We have companies on Steam and Kickstarter who will gladly take your money for a product that's only in the very beginning stages of development. We are seeing more 'founder' packages at high prices before games are launched.
We are seeing ethics and moral obligation being thrown to the wind without any sense of retribution from the market. Money is being thrown around haphazardly in the tech industry. This isn't just the case for PWE, but many companies. From the biggest conglomerates, to the small start-up companies who are getting fed money when they haven't even produced anything yet by investors who want a piece of a pie that is shrinking and shrinking as years go on.
For those of you who survived the dot-com bubble burst, these are the same signs you may or may not have seen then.
And the stress fractures of this bubble are becoming more and more apparent as software companies (including video game companies) are becoming and more more obsessed with trying to survive the eventual 'pop' of that bubble.
Yes, this is doom. But this is something that can not be stopped, altered, or reversed. This bubble is beyond the control of anyone. Not me, not you, not Cryptic, not PWE.
We are going to see things get worse in the industry before things get better. Something is going to start the pin-prick of the bubble. I can't say what it is, or when it is going to happen. But I can say that it is going to be soon.
This unsustainable market in software is going to end quicker than any of us think. We are going to see many development studios out of work. We are going to see games cancelled. We are going to see lay-offs. We are going to see companies scuttling their flagships in order to simply pay the bills during the recovery. We are going to see unemployment in Silicon Valley at an unwelcome level when the tech bubble pops.
For those of us who are customers, we're going to see doors close. Not just one or two companies. We're going to see companies shuttered in extremely large amounts in an extremely small amount of time as faith in tech diminishes from investors who were feeding them.
Shares will begin to lose value. Some shares will end up toxic. Worthless.
Games and other projects in alpha and beta will simply be suspended indefinately. In some cases, they will never be finished.
Dinner reservations in San Francisco will once again be easier to acquire. Companies will no longer be holding as many expensive meals there.
I can't say which companies will live and which will die, but if they want to survive, they are going to need to be flexible and adapt in a big way. Sacrifices must be made. Sometimes very hard sacrifices.
To those of you in PWE and Cryptic, brace yourselves. To those of us gamers? Proceed as normal.
There is nothing we can do to stop it, but be mindful where you start sticking your money when it comes to uncompleted projects. Enjoy the good times while they last, I know I am. Because eventually it's going to come crashing down and only the strongest companies, developers, and games will survive the tech bubble pop.
For those who have paid attention to some of the things I've said over the past few years, one of the biggest things I've mentioned is that the current MMO and indeed the entire video game market is unsustainable. It has been unsustainable -- and it's only getting worse.
But this transcends the video game industry too. This is effecting the entire tech industry. From Silicon Valley to Japan, in truth? It is affecting the entire globe. But most of it is felt and observed in Silicon Valley. For those of you not in America, that is the South Bay portion of San Francisco. The same approximate area as Cryptic Studios (in Los Gatos), and PWE (Redwood City).
We are living in a bubble. All of us. From the ones at PWE, to the Cryptic devs, to us -- the players.
Some of us have observed what we erronously believe to be isolated incidents regarding technology as a whole. Perhaps those of you in Silicon Valley have noticed that dinner reservations at the hottest restaurants are getting harder to come by. Perhaps you've been offered stock deals in a tech company before it is even going public.
When you're living in a bubble, you aren't going to notice these things as part of a larger problem. but it is.
Paid Beta access (when it used to be free and by invitation-only) has paved the way for paid Alpha access. We have companies on Steam and Kickstarter who will gladly take your money for a product that's only in the very beginning stages of development. We are seeing more 'founder' packages at high prices before games are launched.
We are seeing ethics and moral obligation being thrown to the wind without any sense of retribution from the market. Money is being thrown around haphazardly in the tech industry. This isn't just the case for PWE, but many companies. From the biggest conglomerates, to the small start-up companies who are getting fed money when they haven't even produced anything yet by investors who want a piece of a pie that is shrinking and shrinking as years go on.
For those of you who survived the dot-com bubble burst, these are the same signs you may or may not have seen then.
And the stress fractures of this bubble are becoming more and more apparent as software companies (including video game companies) are becoming and more more obsessed with trying to survive the eventual 'pop' of that bubble.
Yes, this is doom. But this is something that can not be stopped, altered, or reversed. This bubble is beyond the control of anyone. Not me, not you, not Cryptic, not PWE.
We are going to see things get worse in the industry before things get better. Something is going to start the pin-prick of the bubble. I can't say what it is, or when it is going to happen. But I can say that it is going to be soon.
This unsustainable market in software is going to end quicker than any of us think. We are going to see many development studios out of work. We are going to see games cancelled. We are going to see lay-offs. We are going to see companies scuttling their flagships in order to simply pay the bills during the recovery. We are going to see unemployment in Silicon Valley at an unwelcome level when the tech bubble pops.
For those of us who are customers, we're going to see doors close. Not just one or two companies. We're going to see companies shuttered in extremely large amounts in an extremely small amount of time as faith in tech diminishes from investors who were feeding them.
Shares will begin to lose value. Some shares will end up toxic. Worthless.
Games and other projects in alpha and beta will simply be suspended indefinately. In some cases, they will never be finished.
Dinner reservations in San Francisco will once again be easier to acquire. Companies will no longer be holding as many expensive meals there.
I can't say which companies will live and which will die, but if they want to survive, they are going to need to be flexible and adapt in a big way. Sacrifices must be made. Sometimes very hard sacrifices.
To those of you in PWE and Cryptic, brace yourselves. To those of us gamers? Proceed as normal.
There is nothing we can do to stop it, but be mindful where you start sticking your money when it comes to uncompleted projects. Enjoy the good times while they last, I know I am. Because eventually it's going to come crashing down and only the strongest companies, developers, and games will survive the tech bubble pop.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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i may not see this type of thing in the same detail as you but generally i can see stuff like this coming years ahead of where its expected to fail. some people think i have no idea but thats their presumption to fail with.
as far as this silicon valley, it was never expected to last and recent news from out in that direction has led me to believe that silicon valley is bankrupt, lack any sort of imagination from the next generation of leaders, creative artists and such, its all the same rip from a previous version, just slightly altered and such. with technological advancements coming, china has been picking up the slack like taiwan and a few others and they just get on with it, not putting all this jazz on how these people in this company are great at what they do, lets employ them for extortionate prices... so on. eventually they all get so used to being in this bubble, they forget there is a world outside their valley. this type of attitude has never worked before, it still wont, arrogance and these early beta and alpha paid thing is just another like the smells up here type of idea. so while silicon valley turns into a cesspit, china is building its own technology structures up, and eventually become the world leading technology leaders without the additional fuss. its expected to happen anyway.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
AAA games produce billions in revenue. Everybody wants to be a gaming developer. Suddenly there are a lot of games, and not enough players with $$ to go around. F2P, crowd-funding, micro-aggressions I mean micro-transactions, everything is about scraping the bottom of the jar. next step: Tumbleweeds
I suspect any bubble here & now will have similar effect. Companies like PWE that specialize in acquiring properties from others might find several tasty acquisitions. Activision will still be the 227 kilogram gorilla, just on another diet. The real losers would likely be the indy shops. Innovation will still be around, but rather than focus on a new skin for the next elf-dwarf-orc saga, of necessity, innovation will give us something we've not encountered before. I see functional gameplay of Everquest Next and Landmark as pointing in that direction (though it still clings to the elves).
i.e., MMO developers in particular, having lost the USP of MMOs in pursuing them as primarily single-player games with a multiplayer addons, and a weak persistent virtual world context, have made something that's only got a limited shelf-life (easy to dip in and out of f2p MMOs). Contrast this with how MMOs ought to have developed - in the direction of making the persistent virtual world illusion deeper and better, and facilitating social gameplay ever more easily in that context.
But it's the same with consoles - e.g. the ongoing cover shooter fad.
Basically, it's lack of creativity and blind pursuit of paths that seem profitable (but were only accidental); plus also a good deal of mismanagement in the rush to gold.
It's just the way the market self-adjusts over time. In this case, when videogames get boring and uninspired, people stop playing them and do something else with their leisure time. It's as simple as that, really.
And the main cause? Listening to players. Players are the very last people developers should ever listen to. What people think they want isn't necessarily what's good for them. Design by focus group or committee is the death of design. Here's the classic essay by Richard Bartle on this point, specifically wrt MMOs: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed by Newbies.
(e.g., people think they want God mode, but when they get it, 9/10 they find it's really boring.)
P.S. I ought to clarify the above somewhat: of course developers need to listen to players when players tell them what their subjective experience is like of playing the game. That's absolute and sacrosanct. But developers must never listen to players when players tell them how they think a game ought to be designed to please them.
We can only hope that creative and franchise destroying entities like EA become obsolete like the RIAA, and that those entities get turned into such massive flaming wrecks that such exploitive entities never exist again.
This is more similar to the dot-com bubble burst of the mid-90's to 2000, rather than other bubbles such as the recent housing bubble burst.
The main reason is that tech bubbles can leave valuable things behind. Amazon.com stock was somewhere around $7 a share when there was that burst. Google was near that area too. If you picked up 'worthless' stock in Amazon and Google then, you could be a millionaire today.
The housing bubble, on the other hand, did not leave much in the way of viable things to salvage. There was not much innovation there as there was when the dot-com bubble burst.
What we are seeing today is also being addressed differently. Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen has shown signs that she is aware of the unsustainable tech industry, by saying that the stocks and projections of smaller tech companies have 'unjustified valuations', and the SEC has halted the trading of Cynk Technologies, who created a non-existant social networking platform called InfoBiz, but had a stock value that was being pumped into unlikely prices in regards to a 'product' that has unclear earning potential.
What's clear is that unlike the Housing bubble, the tech industry is known to many economists as being in trouble. The main problem is not enough people know, and even less people think we're even in a bubble.
However, as I continue to see tech companies, developer studios, and publishers asking for money in regards to projects of theirs that look uncertain in terms of viability, I see that the SEC has barely scratched the surface of the bubble (probably for good reason), and is trying a lighter touch at trying to reign in this unsuspected economic growth in the tech sector.
But don't mistake that for a solution. Any number of incidents can occur to cause a chain reaction.
The dot-com bubble burst had the court case against Microsoft's 'monopoly' status to thank for helping start that chain reaction.
Will we see something similar soon? I think we will. I think the SEC will not be able to stop it in time, but at least we can say they're aware of it and are trying to do something about it.
END TIMES ARE NEAR!!!!
but I refuse to repent.
The proximate cause of those kinds of bubbles bursting is the same: sooner or later you run out of greater fools. Bubbles start when somebody gets the idea that prices are likely to rise, therefore buy at high price now in the theory that a greater fool will buy it at even higher prices. Its a theory of buy-high, sell-higher. That is what happened with tech stocks last time and what hppened with houses (people buying 3-4 properties just to flip to other flippers). Sooner or later you run out of greater fools, last guy holding the bag loses.
Gaming is one of the few segments where there is actual consumers spending actual money and not just speculation on eyeballs that might spend money one day. Which is why there has been a lot of development in rich titles. Things like Skyrim would not have been done a decade earlier in the last investment drought, when most of the $$ titles were a dozen or so run-through missions. This is separate from the overall bubble. People arent going to stop gaming, it is just that new titles are going to have a really hard time getting any traction in the crowd, investors are going to lose money, and a new drought.
We are certainly living in interesting times! :-)
If anything is an indicator of his capacity for truth, look at his footer. I'm serious on SO MANY levels.
*adjusts the tin foil hat*
Having said that, You can take all the the above comments and change the dates to 1982, 1988, 1992 and again in 1998, and lets not forget 2008. We're still feeling that pain in the pocketbook.
And those are the 'bad times' I can adequately remember.
Regardless of the root cause, 'cause we don't learn from our mistakes, we will manage just fine. You and I will help bail out the big business mistakes in the bad times, while they (big business) and only they will profit in the good times.
Unless we change the rules. Like back to the good days of Bill Clinton. Surpluses. High economic growth for the middle class. Lets convert them with our movies, and bankrupt them with our overheated economy.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
*re-adjusts the tin foil hat*
I feel I should clarify. The current video game industry is one facet of the tech bubble. But the entire tech bubble is not based on the actions taken in the video game industry.
What was seen as unorthodox trends, are developing into marketing patterns.
What we saw as unethical business, has become the rallying cry for investors.
This is affecting the entire tech bubble, and we've seen it and we can see it plainly before us if we choose to look for the signs. This isn't conspiracy theory -- economists know the warning signs, and they are present.
You'll find various stock brokers saying this is a 'special time' for investments in technology, such as mobile apps, social media, and yes, even video games.
When you hear the words 'special time' from a stockbroker, it should immediately send up a red flag that maybe this market isn't entirely justified with its hype.
We see money getting spent on public relations in order to improve their image and making a start-up company appear to be the next Amazon or Google, even if they haven't produced anything yet.
We're seeing net profit returns on products (not just video games) in Alpha and Early Beta stages, and using that as a projection for future growth -- regardless of whether or not the earning potential is there.
Take a look at the NASDAQ Composites. The warning signs are there to some, but even moderate economists will yield that there is 'some concern' with the tech industry, where it would only take one major incident to start the domino effect of investors wanting to get out of the market.
But this isn't all doom and gloom. If you want a bubble to burst, you want it to be in an area of the market where potential gains can be made. But the SEC is likely not wanting to make the bubble burst -- they're simply trying to deflate it slowly.
My concern is that the SEC won't be able to deflate it slowly enough before it bursts. And the tech industry itself has shown no signs of slowing down -- if anything they know the bubble is going to burst and they want to be one of the companies who can stay afloat when it does. Thus, the problem only worsens as companies grab what capital they can before panic mode sets in.
hmmm.. subscriptions... what a good idea. maybe online games should use this brave "new" model.
So i read "most" of what you said but the wall of text kinda put me off also with no factual articles to back up your claims kind of makes it hard to actually take your claims at the value you wanted them to be.
The games market grows naturally, and it can grow artifically. I am presenting that it is growing artificially.
But here is an article.
And here's another.
And another.
And another.
... and yet another.
... and this one, this time with references to Candy Crush and the speculation of the true value of Oculus.
"Once again, like in 1999, were in an age where many businesses see growth as more important than profit. And the companies that are driving the prices for services lower are forcing others to match their strategies."
"The trick, with any bubble, is to not get caught holding the bag." -- this is where context comes in. At this present moment, I think we are seeing companies in a race to not get caught holding the bag.
Should I go on?
I do think the use of the word "tech" is too broad here. Your big-boy companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) will survive, merely because they have enough sustained cash on hand to die a slow, painful death.
But, that doesn't sound like the "tech" you're referring to... and, yes, the social media/mobile/gaming bubble is a real thing. Facebook is in a steady decline, and could be another MySpace in five years (or less). Twitter could suffer a similar fate, since they decided to go the IPO route, instead of making their product an infrastructure or standard that could be used by multiple apps. Mobile is quickly being driven into the ground, because of the money grab and the "fool's gold" that is mobile advertising.
Gaming will be particularly interesting to watch, since some are taking queues from the mobile industry. I would not be shocked if Electronic Arts crashes and burns... that company seems to have nothing but problems, and their titles are all slowly shifting towards the micro-transaction/mobile business model. EA probably sees the dollar signs, but I think it will spell their doom.
But, my only question is... can I still save up for my JHAS?
It's too broad because this bubble is broad. We're seeing start-up (or in some cases, non-existant) companies using the right buzzwords and flaunting the right hype for capital, as a type of pump-and-dump strategy. Investors are buying into it after seeing the publicity for things like Facebook, Oculus, and even crowdfunded games on Kickstarter and the amount of money that simply pours in. It affects everything, and that includes video games. It affects PWE, Cryptic, and the customers.
You can, and should. As I stated, there is nothing we can do about this bubble. And even though I think the probability is high it'll pop violently, I can also concede that it may deflate slowly. I just think it's improbable that it will.
If we can't do anything about it, then all we can do is proceed as normally in our lives as we can -- but I caution people not to throw their cash around too easily, because the good times are going to come to an end sooner than we think.
But that doesn't mean don't enjoy the good times while they're still here. By all means, continue saving up for your JHAS.
Does anyone remember Legends of Pegasus? A 4X game which - had it not been a complete and utter disaster - would, in my opinion, have been a worthy successor to games like Space Empires 5 or Galactic Civilizations 2?
Do you remember the way it launched?
It was rushed out into the open years ahead of schedule, resulting in an extremely buggy game that was unstable even when it actually ran, which, even if you weren't running certain malware protection software, wasn't exactly guaranteed. Now it's dead, but it managed to get a nice group of people to spend within the realm of 50 on it before it went out.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
My character Tsin'xing
I don't think the main cause is listening to players. I think the main cause is risk aversion. They see what has been profitable in the past, what is profitable now, and try to gauge what will be profitable in the future based on past success. It's that type of business that limits creativity and change.
But as has been stated in other articles, they really have no choice. The gaming industry has miniscule profit margins compared to other industries. They have to spend 100 million to make 6-7 million. So it's the massive bloated budgets and huge teams that are needed to make a AAA game that are not sustainable with current margins.
I don't imagine gaming companies want to crowd source, and push micro transactions, offer paid beta access. If every MMO could match WoWs success and have the number of people they have paying a sub they wouldn't need micro transactions.
But in the end, meh. It doesn't really affect me. As long as I have something fun to play I'll be happy. I can go back and play playstation 1 games and have fun so whatever.
Or the kind of shenanigans that happened to KOTOR2, with Lucasfilm saying they could push back the release date by a year and Obsidian neglecting to get it in writing. Rookie contracting mistake.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The reason they have minuscule profit margins is because of idiots throwing big budgets at things without knowing what they're doing. That's not how creative output works. Just because it's big budget doesn't mean it's any good.
You see this when you compare work environments at places like EA, versus places like Google, Valve, or even early Microsoft. (One story from a programmer at MS was that his manager would even move large pieces of furniture for him to ensure he was comfortable, and in the proper frame of mind for creating the best code possible. The manager's job was explicitly to get the best work possible out of the coders, and that included moving heavy furniture if necessary.)
The suits want big numbers and throw money at something that ultimately is creative and talent based, resulting in tiny profit margins. They ignore small projects with high profit margins in favor of trying to get the Next Big Thing that will have huge returns - worse yet, they do it by imitating the Last Big Thing instead of actually trying to figure out the Next Big Thing.
You're just talking about investments here, which have always been kind of stupid.
I watched Northern Telecom (now known as Nortel) stock soar, and was on the ground floor when it split in the late 90s. The people investing there were (to put it bluntly) utterly ignorant. They weren't tracking what the business actually did, or what it was actually worth - they were just sinking money into it because other people were sinking money into it. I can't have been the only one utterly unsurprised at the crash, given how relatively worthless the company actually was.
If you're an investor it's different, but I assumed the perspective here is that of gamers, of consumers. From that perspective, there's no real concern. The people who would be concerned are the very people that drive down the quality of our games, so who cares if they crash and burn?
Heck.. I can buy that there will be another crash.. Because look at what else emerged Mobile Games..
The two are tied together. What affects investor faith in a particular company (or in this case an entire market) affects the consumer. Some of the things we blame PWE/Cryptic on, we should be pointing to the industry. For forcing their hand to sink to their level in order to compete. Basically, due to the unscrupulous and unethical practices of other companies, they drag their competition down to their level.
It sucks, but that's business.
It's the same reason why I read market websites/articles/blogs for market news, and gaming websites/articles/blogs for gamer news. Gamers seldomly know about how the market works, even if their favorite games and companies are intrinsically tied to that very market.
The people who care if they crash or burn? Probably the players who play those games, the employees who work on them, and their families who need a steady paycheck.
I agree that we shouldn't care if it crashes and burns from an ethical standpoint. The tech industry planted their seeds, now they have to reap the fruit from that labor.
However, there are some games I really enjoy playing and I'd really be appreciative if they could survive the bubble pop, and more importantly... adapt to these changes and go with the deflation of the bubble rather than trying to make the situation worse.
And even though I know most gamers don't care about the stock market in regards to the tech bubble, I feel I should at least provide ample warning that the tech bubble is going to pop.
I'd rather say something than nothing at all when it comes to genuine doom, and not fabricated doom. However, with so much fabricated doom, I don't blame people for being skeptical of my predictions.
At least then the hyperbolic comments we see on the forums in regards to thinking Cryptic should function just like a government entity could at least be partially anchored in fact.
Since you are looking at the broader picture, I can appreciate the logic behind the thread's concept.
Prior to the information technology revolution of the late 1990s, the game and computer industry went through a twenty year lull. Even though computers and games existed, the market fell into a long period of decline. We are living through something similar.
Hardware for personal computers is exponentially advancing; however, the software we are making for them is not evolving. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the industry was suffering from a similar problem. While we were making great advances in technology, the software we developed didn't use all of its capability. So, what does this mean? Current computers have hit a 'its good enough for what does' moment. Other words, the function of personal computers, as well as tablets, have reached their current maximum potential. Regardless about how much further we advance information technologies, the 'reasons' why we use them has finally hit a wall. Computers are as common as phones, cars, and pens. Once you go out and buy a car, you will not purchase another one for a long time.
So, how does this affect pc and console games. Do you know that lull I talked about? As a direct result of falling pc game sales, the production and sales of console games also fell. Why? PC games use to drive the sales of computers and consoles. 1980s and 1990s nerds drove both markets. Since information technologies have hit that 'good enough' moment, people are no longer steadily upgrading computers. Tablet sales are not driving pc sales down. Its the lack of advanced software. Personal computers are still decades ahead of tablets. If the market for pc games continues to fall, the software that is used to create them will evolve slowly. Why is this a problem? Software that is used to create pc games pushes advances in console games and technology. Its all interconnected.
According to a few articles I have read, the tablet industry has also hit the same 'good enough' wall.
How do we solve this issue? Give it another twenty to forty years.
We just entered the 'automation technological revolution'. Unlike the 'information technological revolution', the 'automated technological revolution' only affects the industrial sector.
Do you know those great 3-D printers, which were going to take over the world? 3-D printers pulled a LaserDisc. Since there is no practical use for 3-D printers, they will have to take twenty to thirty years to evolve. Video phones were also going to be a craze; however, they ended up only finding a very small place in the corporate sector.
Personal computers are good enough for what they do.
Tablets are good enough for what they do.
Unless we find other reasons for using computers and tablets, outside of practical application, the sales for all 'information technologies' will continue to fall.
Development for the 64bit processor stared in 1998/1999.
We are barely pushing out 64bit software.
Quantum computing is still a good fifty years away.
We have the hardware.
We don't have the software.
We also do not have other practical uses for information technologies.
We are waiting for the next technological revolution to occur. Will it be in the transportation sector? Will it be in the development of transporters? Who knows? *shrugs*
While we may have advanced the information technology sector, the other aspects in our lives have not gone through a revolution. What is next? Who knows.
'Information technologies' are not coming to an end, but they are hitting their 'current' maximum potential and usefulness. Its time to evolve another sector.
Cell-Phones/iPhones = Information Technology
Tablets/iPads = Information Technology
Computers/Laptops = Information Technology
Televisions = Information Technology
Game Consoles = Information Technology
We are not as advanced as we feel.
The only parts of the video game market in trouble are big budget, Triple-A titles and dedicated home consoles. The latter cost millions to produce, but aren't a guaranteed hit. This is why we get so many sequels and *ahem* rehased IP's. Consoles are shaky at the moment, but that's because Microsoft and Sony are spending ridiculous amounts of money to maintain their footholds in the market. Nintendo runs a video game only business, but must compete with the two Mega Corporations running their video gaming divisions at a loss while they simultaneously ruin gaming journalism, turning it into a mouthpiece to bash the competition with fanboys.
Gaming is super popular. People will continue to play. The market won't settle while technology continues to advance and provide new ways to interact, and game developers re-remember what makes games fun, not just pretty. Compared to Movies, Video Games are still in their infancy. The true scope of what is to come will dwarf the past.