Interesting question: is the triple-A era of gaming over? Is it all going to be casual games eventually?

[Underseer]

Starting at 5:50, you get the last question of this video, which raises an interesting point, although I personally don't agree with it.



OK, so the argument is that the video game industry is now going through something similar to what Holywood went through in the 1970s.

• Originally, Hollywood was dominated by a studio system where everything revolved around big blockbusters. The old style blockbusters started making less and less money, which lead to the studio system falling apart, which led to[ent]hellip[/ent]
• A bunch of baby boomer auteurs more or less taking over the system because desperate Hollywood executives were willing to take big risks. Movies were genuinely new and different and interesting and things revolved around auteur directors instead of Hollywood executives. This was supposed to be the new normal except[ent]hellip[/ent]
• It led right back to a studio system built around cranking out formulaic blockbusters just as things were before the shakeup. In the end, the only thing the daring auteur directors of the 70s accomplished was to change the formula of the blockbusters.

The argument is that in the beginning, the gaming industry was built around arcades: relatively simple games that expected you to keep spending small amounts of money on a regular basis exploiting similar psychology to casino gambling.

Then games became available on home consoles and personal computers, which led to all the arcades going out of business, and now we're in the AAA era.

Except now casual games played on mobile devices and web browsers are taking things over. The casual games are relatively simple games that ask you to spend relatively small amounts of money on a regular basis exploiting similar psychology to casino gambling. In other words, we've basically returned to the arcade era, just without the arcade.

The argument is that the AAA era was just an aberration and this is the norm for the gaming industry and we'd better get used to it.

It's an interesting argument, but to be honest, I've had a number of bad experiences with micro-transactions that soured me on the whole idea of casual games. There was a time when I more or less stopped playing games on my PC and my Android devices became my gaming platform of choice. Not anymore.

Anyway, what do you think? Is the rise of casual games a reversion to the norm? Or are big AAA games here to stay?

 

[marc]

I think casual games can reach a larger audience, causing a perceived rise. I love games, but haven't had the time to sit down and play any console games in over a year. It can be hard to find the time to sit down for a AAA game. Mobile games I can access anywhere, and can make advances in a couple minutes, like in the store waiting for my wife to make a decision. Mobile games have appeal to non big gamers. People who have never owned a console or played a PC game may have a couple on their phone.

But AAA games are likely here to stay. Some of the biggest games can have openings that rival or surpass movies. Call of Duty: Black Ops supposedly made $360 million on its first day.

Oh, and the old arcades still have a lot of appeal for me. We found an arcade/bar nearby, lot of fun there. And have been considering saving up for either a bartop Rasberry PI unit, or a 1 Up Arcade when they come out.

 

[marc]

Side topic. One thing I've been wondering about is the future of retro-gaming. At conventions and some stores you can get cartridges and disks for the old game systems. Or you can get emulators on your PC, or even retro systems like the Nintendo Classic, Super Nintendo Classic, Atari 2600, Sega, and so on. All these let us enjoy the games that we enjoyed as kids. Revisiting the classics.

But what about the current generation? A lot of the big games are online ones, all the shooters and MMOs. Once those servers are shut down for good, then those games are done. Even if someone could set up their own server, it wouldn't be the same. So what will it be like for today's kids when they get nostalgic for their favorite games?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I thought Indie games like Undertale were becoming more popular, especially as a result of the popularity of Minecraft.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Casual gaming is great for casual gamers. But based on the number of Nintendo Switches sold, I'm guessing that AAA is safe for quite a while.

One hitch with casual gaming is that cheap games are difficult to make different. There are only so many iterations, where as larger games allow for innovation or at least a much larger scope. Yes, there are still formulas, but they are much longer. So while Candy Crush might make people play it as an addiction, there can only be so many Candy Crushes, and there are plenty of people looking elsewhere.

And with the unfortunate growth of e"sports", I find it very unlikely that AAA games are doomed. Yes, Indies continue to grow even within consoles, but even those games are much more involved than the casual game scene.

 

[Patooka]

I watch TV for the same reason I play video games in my downtime; to escape. And most of my favourite shows are episodic in nature and not stand alone ventures. The same for most of my "go to" games like Fallout, Dragonage, XCOM etc. I don't think I'm unique in that attitude either, so I reckon there will always be a market for the next Mass Effect type game that's in development. I think "AAA" games will have an ebb and flow in terms of popularity, but an end to such types of games? That's grossly unrealistic. I forget whether MovieBob was refering to Power Rangers or TMNT, but in another video he argued that anything created post 80's is now forever destined to be in popular culture in some way shape or form and thus can't ever possibly be gone for good. How many iterations of Transformers or Ghostbusters have there been? Certainly not all have been successful, but I don't think that those franchises are going to fade in the public eye anytime soon. The same can't be said about Crusader Rabbit or Tom and Jerry.
Simply put, "AAA" games are here to stay, it's their popularity that's up for debate.

 

[prideandfall]

Anyway, what do you think? Is the rise of casual games a reversion to the norm? Or are big AAA games here to stay?

"casual games" are like rom-coms, the same way FPS games are like super hero movies, the same way RTS games are like cowboy movies.
EA is warner brothers, blizzard is disney, tim schafer is guillermo del toro... etc etc.

when a thing makes little money it's very niche and niche audience fucking love it.
when a thing makes a bit of money it's a bit more accessible and a lot of people quite like it.
when a thing makes a ton of money it becomes a self-devouring dumpster fire that everyone bitches about.

these things are cyclical, because all forms of creative expression (that are both targeted to and accessed by "the mainstream") are in an eternal war between artistry and money grubbing, so there will always be a steady rise followed by a bubble bursting followed by cries that it's the End Times followed by an industry collapse followed by a steady rise.

 

[Patooka]

Bullshit. EA is evil and everything it touches devolves into sexually transmitted diseases. The uncomfortable ones. I liked Gremlins 2. Comparing Warner Bros with EA is disappointingly obscene.

 

[Underseer]

Casual gaming is great for casual gamers. But based on the number of Nintendo Switches sold, I'm guessing that AAA is safe for quite a while.

One hitch with casual gaming is that cheap games are difficult to make different. There are only so many iterations, where as larger games allow for innovation or at least a much larger scope. Yes, there are still formulas, but they are much longer. So while Candy Crush might make people play it as an addiction, there can only be so many Candy Crushes, and there are plenty of people looking elsewhere.

And with the unfortunate growth of e"sports", I find it very unlikely that AAA games are doomed. Yes, Indies continue to grow even within consoles, but even those games are much more involved than the casual game scene.

Larger games allow for more innovation?

Uh, no.

The larger the budget, the fewer risks the suits are willing to make. That's how we ended up with the Grey And Brown era where every game followed a handful of basic designs and everyone was using basically the same color palette. The bigger risks generally happen when the budget is smaller.

Heck, Blizzard's entire business model is to wait for someone else to work out all the formulas before they make a game in a given genre. They take genres that are regarded as "hard core," closely follow existing formulas, but tweak things so that casual gamers can play it, then polish the hell out of the result. Blizzard deserves all the money they make, but I don't think they're ever going to innovate in the sense of creating a major new genre or reinvigorate a dying genre with an outlandish new game mechanic.

And sometimes (I'm looking at you, Heroes of the Storm), they follow someone else's formula in a way that shows they don't understand at all why the existing formula is so popular.

 

[Underseer]

I watch TV for the same reason I play video games in my downtime; to escape. And most of my favourite shows are episodic in nature and not stand alone ventures. The same for most of my "go to" games like Fallout, Dragonage, XCOM etc. I don't think I'm unique in that attitude either, so I reckon there will always be a market for the next Mass Effect type game that's in development. I think "AAA" games will have an ebb and flow in terms of popularity, but an end to such types of games? That's grossly unrealistic. I forget whether MovieBob was refering to Power Rangers or TMNT, but in another video he argued that anything created post 80's is now forever destined to be in popular culture in some way shape or form and thus can't ever possibly be gone for good. How many iterations of Transformers or Ghostbusters have there been? Certainly not all have been successful, but I don't think that those franchises are going to fade in the public eye anytime soon. The same can't be said about Crusader Rabbit or Tom and Jerry.
Simply put, "AAA" games are here to stay, it's their popularity that's up for debate.

If the popularity of AAA games falls below a certain threshhold, none of the suits will be willing to front the staggering amount of money needed to make one of those things. Loss of popularity could kill off AAA games altogether.

 

[Mumbles]

First, I think this is confusing a 1-2-1 cycle with any sort of long-term trend. Is there really any reason to watch most types of movies in a theater at all, when you could just stream them? Industries tend to jump from one paradigm to the next as it becomes impossible to escape the simple idea that the paradigm they're leaving is just unreasonable now - we went from the music industry fighting tooth and nail against anything being available for download, to the iTunes Store selling singles for 99 cents, to streaming services like Spotify, and they adapt each time, to look at a third entertainment industry. This is in addition to shifting between "artistry" and "money-grubbing", and to be honest, many AAA publishers are way into "money-grubbing" at the moment.

Which brings us to certain issues in "AAA" games, and I'm sure you'll recognize the guy in this video if you're up on this argument:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dwr69T5a5s[/YOUTUBE]

It's fine to say that games where you can play the base level free, but pay for particular enhancements, work out well. And games like Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Spider Man, God of War, and the like also seem to do great. The big problem is that some developers have decided that you should pay $60 for the initial game, or even more for some premium edition, and then pay even more to unlock some powerful character, or some outfit, or whatever.

There are only so many games that can pull this off. And eventually, your entire company becomes painfully repetitive, because everyone figures out that you're designing your games specifically so that you're either paying microtransactions, or you're grinding for 40+ hours before you get anything decent.

SW Battlefront is a perfect example of this. Um, you could have made a pretty great, story-driven Star Wars game (seriously, what part of Star Wars suggests that the fans would hate this!?), instead of the gambling mess that they delivered twice in a row, thus drawing the ire of quite a few governments.

If anything, I'd say the problem is that far too many developers refuse to make mid-tier games to take a risk. Most of the specific AAA games I mentioned above are part of long-running sequels - Spider Man plays a lot like the Arkham Knight series, in truth. The big exception is Splatoon 2 - the first was a breakout hit last generation, nothing incredible, your characters vary by what they wear and what weapon they have, and both follow certain basic formulae. There's different sniper rifles, certain short range guns, cover as much ground as you can, have fun. And then Splatoon 2 also sold incredibly well, and the Squidkids are now going to be in Smash Bros, the end, it's a new series, Nintendo has an online competitive game now.

The thing is, I can buy an Amazon Fire now, and play the truly casual games on my tv, easily. It's clear that there are tens on millions of people who don't just want that - and they're willing to pay a premium to get access to the experiences they want Could that change, if "AAA" stagnate, completely ignore the mid-tier games? Sure, for a while, but that won't be permanent either, anymore than Black Panther is going to just run all over Won't you be my Neighbor.

(Now, want to see a market that's ripe for problems? It's retro gaming, especially 8-16 bit games. Prices are already dropping hard there, and if these companies woulg offer a serious streaming service, they could more or less demolish the entire market.)

 

[Patooka]

If the popularity of AAA games falls below a certain threshhold, none of the suits will be willing to front the staggering amount of money needed to make one of those things. Loss of popularity could kill off AAA games altogether.

There I disagree. Lack of popularity might diminish return of investment in such games, but eliminate them entirely? That's very unrealistic. I can't think of a single AAA game that was manufactured via committee - there was always a spark of passion that motivated the creativity process. People like Roberta Williams and David Braben would still have made their projects regardless of a cost benefit analysis and that type of creativity is still in the industry today.

 

[steve_bank]

I take issue with the OP.

The arcade games Asteroids and Space Invaders and PONG required a high level of skill.

 

[Underseer]

If the popularity of AAA games falls below a certain threshhold, none of the suits will be willing to front the staggering amount of money needed to make one of those things. Loss of popularity could kill off AAA games altogether.

There I disagree. Lack of popularity might diminish return of investment in such games, but eliminate them entirely? That's very unrealistic. I can't think of a single AAA game that was manufactured via committee - there was always a spark of passion that motivated the creativity process. People like Roberta Williams and David Braben would still have made their projects regardless of a cost benefit analysis and that type of creativity is still in the industry today.

AAA games are expensive to make. If investors don't expect the game to at least make as much money as it costs to make, then they won't invest in the project. Investors only invest when they expect to make money.

 

[Underseer]

First, I think this is confusing a 1-2-1 cycle with any sort of long-term trend. Is there really any reason to watch most types of movies in a theater at all, when you could just stream them? Industries tend to jump from one paradigm to the next as it becomes impossible to escape the simple idea that the paradigm they're leaving is just unreasonable now - we went from the music industry fighting tooth and nail against anything being available for download, to the iTunes Store selling singles for 99 cents, to streaming services like Spotify, and they adapt each time, to look at a third entertainment industry. This is in addition to shifting between "artistry" and "money-grubbing", and to be honest, many AAA publishers are way into "money-grubbing" at the moment.

Which brings us to certain issues in "AAA" games, and I'm sure you'll recognize the guy in this video if you're up on this argument:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dwr69T5a5s[/YOUTUBE]

It's fine to say that games where you can play the base level free, but pay for particular enhancements, work out well. And games like Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Spider Man, God of War, and the like also seem to do great. The big problem is that some developers have decided that you should pay $60 for the initial game, or even more for some premium edition, and then pay even more to unlock some powerful character, or some outfit, or whatever.

There are only so many games that can pull this off. And eventually, your entire company becomes painfully repetitive, because everyone figures out that you're designing your games specifically so that you're either paying microtransactions, or you're grinding for 40+ hours before you get anything decent.

SW Battlefront is a perfect example of this. Um, you could have made a pretty great, story-driven Star Wars game (seriously, what part of Star Wars suggests that the fans would hate this!?), instead of the gambling mess that they delivered twice in a row, thus drawing the ire of quite a few governments.

If anything, I'd say the problem is that far too many developers refuse to make mid-tier games to take a risk. Most of the specific AAA games I mentioned above are part of long-running sequels - Spider Man plays a lot like the Arkham Knight series, in truth. The big exception is Splatoon 2 - the first was a breakout hit last generation, nothing incredible, your characters vary by what they wear and what weapon they have, and both follow certain basic formulae. There's different sniper rifles, certain short range guns, cover as much ground as you can, have fun. And then Splatoon 2 also sold incredibly well, and the Squidkids are now going to be in Smash Bros, the end, it's a new series, Nintendo has an online competitive game now.

The thing is, I can buy an Amazon Fire now, and play the truly casual games on my tv, easily. It's clear that there are tens on millions of people who don't just want that - and they're willing to pay a premium to get access to the experiences they want Could that change, if "AAA" stagnate, completely ignore the mid-tier games? Sure, for a while, but that won't be permanent either, anymore than Black Panther is going to just run all over Won't you be my Neighbor.

(Now, want to see a market that's ripe for problems? It's retro gaming, especially 8-16 bit games. Prices are already dropping hard there, and if these companies woulg offer a serious streaming service, they could more or less demolish the entire market.)

Good video, thanks for posting it. I haven't seen Jimquisition in a while.

Thank goodness those ass trumpets at 2K haven't yet figured out how to crowbar microtransactions into Civilization.

 

[KeepTalking]

Thank goodness those ass trumpets at 2K haven't yet figured out how to crowbar microtransactions into Civilization.

The Civilization series avoids it my doing a boatload of macro transactions. It consistently offers more DLCs than any other game. So long as they keep making money off of selling a constant stream of low priced civilization DLCs, along with the occasional higher priced feature DLC, the publishers don't need to lean on them to include micro transactions.

 

[Underseer]

Thank goodness those ass trumpets at 2K haven't yet figured out how to crowbar microtransactions into Civilization.

The Civilization series avoids it my doing a boatload of macro transactions. It consistently offers more DLCs than any other game. So long as they keep making money off of selling a constant stream of low priced civilization DLCs, along with the occasional higher priced feature DLC, the publishers don't need to lean on them to include micro transactions.

Should I be worried that they haven't had any DLC in a while?

Or does that mean they're working on another expansion?

Anyway, I think the difference between the rise of casual games now and the "inmates taking over the asylum" in Hollywood in the 1970s is timing. Those 1970s wiz kids produced major blockbuster hits right away, and that saved the ailing studio system. By contrast, the arcades practically dried up and blew away for decades until casual games started to arise on mobile devices.

I still maintain that it is possible for waning popularity to utterly kill off the AAA market, but to be honest, I just can't see that happening.