The Future of Video Games – 1 of 2: Gamers Change, Games Don’t

Recently I’ve been thinking about the future of video games. Nothing bad – as far as I can tell, the industry I work in, write about and have loved for as long as I can remember isn’t in any trouble, despite what Nintendo’s recently reported financial results might suggest.

But one thing does concern me, when you look at what the Big Three have got coming up over the next year. I think there’s a fundamental problem with how things currently are versus how things may become: gamers and their tastes are changing, while the games they play are determined not to.

…gamers and their tastes are changing, while the games they play are determined not to.

I heard an alarming statistic the other day, which is ancient news by now. According to an article published by CNN, quoting figures taken from Raptr, which claims to track in-game achievements of its 18 million users: only 10% of all people who played Red Dead Redemption completed the final mission of the game’s substantial singleplayer component.

When you look at some of the sales figures released by Take-Two, the game’s publisher, it paints an even starker picture. As of the end of 2011, 13 million people worldwide believed in the gameplay quality proclaimed via word of mouth, or in the promises offered by Red Dead Redemption’s marketing campaign enough to have bought the game. Forgetting players who rented it, borrowed it from a friend, bought it second-hand or obtained their copy illegally and – for the sake of argument – disregarding the vast number of players who aren’t signed up to Raptr: if Raptr’s estimates are correct, then potentially 11.7 million of the players who purchased Red Dead Redemption never saw all the content created by the talented Rockstar team.

13 million. That's a little less than the entire population of Tokyo.
13 million. That’s a little less than the entire population of Tokyo.

Let’s continue putting this into perspective. If Wikipedia is to be believed, then including its single player component, multiplayer modes and possibly the full Undead Nightmare expansion, “Red Dead Redemption took over 800 people and nearly six years to complete [development], with a total cost estimated at approximately $80m-$100 million, making it one of the most expensive games ever developed”.

That is an incredible amount of money to spend, of time to commit, and of people to enlist for any endeavour, let alone to create an entertainment product that, with the speed that the games industry can move at, will likely age far quicker than a film of comparable scope.

Okay… so some movies with $100 million budgets might not stand the test of time either.

There was a time, even before achievements and trophies existed, when buying a game meant squeezing every last drop of content out of it. Completing it on every difficulty. Mastering every character, every level. Earning an elusive 100% rating… or 200.6%.

But now that we live in a world saturated with exponentially more media than there is time to consume it, with so much freely available or easily obtainable at any one moment, we have grown accustomed to swiftly selecting that which we wish to experience, discarding anything that doesn’t instantly appeal. It’s why the mainstream games industry is defined by sequels, with new intellectual properties too risky to launch without solid plans for a resulting franchise. Gamers these days are of the YouTube and iTunes generation, and soon, I feel the mainstream games industry will reflect such expectations and buying habits.

In some alternate reality, If they ever combined, would they be iTube or YouTunes?

Aside from the significant labour costs involved in producing digital work – encompassing each and every aspect of pre-production, production, post-production and marketing – there are no other overheads. No cost of manufacturing, of printing discs and packaging, of worldwide distribution to retailers with their own overheads to consider (rent, staff wages, heating and electricity etc.). From my understanding, which might be inaccurate, a cut of what you, the consumer, pay handles the bandwidth and ‘stocking’ the product. For instance, Apple takes 30% of whatever someone pays for an app, song, book or film.

For your money, you get a perfect digital copy that won’t degrade over time, which – until the Apple servers no longer ‘stock’ your purchase – can be re-downloaded should you somehow lose whatever your copy is stored on. It’s a win-win situation for the people who make the content you enjoy and the people who enjoy the content you make. Obviously it’s a less happy outcome for the factories, distributors and retailers.

So, what if games were sold in this way? What would happen if the iTunes model of buying music were applied to video games? Not just games for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches – but all games, from the blockbuster console hits right down to the smallest indie offerings? And what if this direct line from content maker to content consumer, removing all the middle-men, resulted in games that were cheaper, but just as good as the full-price experiences you want to play?

Tune in for the concluding part of ‘The Future of Video Games’, where we’ll see that this particular future isn’t as far away as you might think.


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6 responses to “The Future of Video Games – 1 of 2: Gamers Change, Games Don’t”

  1. seeafish avatar
    seeafish

    10%?!! Seriously?!!!! Only (potentially) a “few” of us actually experienced the beauty that was the very sad ending of one of the best games ever made?! I’m flabbergasted.
    A friend of mine made it near the end, his console blew up and he never bothered to start over, but I thought that was the exception, not the norm.

    I’m worried as to what will become of this dear hobby of mine in the near future. I can see a lotta birds being flung at pigs though… or rocks at castles whatever.

    1. Giles Armstrong avatar
      Giles Armstrong

      Bear in mind though, that particular stat – and my hypothetical ‘what if’ extrapolation – is based only on figures reported by CNN, using data from Raptr. It’s very possible that the actual figure is markedly different.

      But still, even if only 10% of a sub-section of the game’s known audience (and that’s ‘audience’, not ‘purchasers’) – an audience interested in tracking their achievements and, therefore, presumably interested in maxing out their games’ achievements too – well… it surprised me, to be honest.

      These sorts of figures aren’t uncommon though. And I think games development and the business of videogames will soon adapt to accommodate actual player behaviour; but I’ll save that for Part 2 of this blog.

      Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. ^_^

  2. waywardcloud avatar
    waywardcloud

    Man, 90% of people really missed out on one of the best endings in videogame history. But that’s true of a lot of things. I think its quite common for people not to fully experience things even outside of videogames (how many people stopped reading Don Quixote before the end, or even started it – i’m one of those guilty few). The reason its more prevalent in videogames is partly their length and partly the fact that the game resists you all the way (see Dara O’Briain’s amusing stand up routines about games).

    I don’t think i’m one of those gamers that changes too much. Perhaps I’m stuck in my ways but the things i like about games are still broadly the same as when i first started playing them. I think if games only existed in the form of casual games like Angry Birds i’d lock myself away with the backcatalogue of the last three generations of consoles and forsake the world. But at the moment the industry feels quite healthy and diverse, with big narrative experiences, indie experiements and quirky casual games all sharing the space. I hope that’s something that won’t change.

    Thought provoking piece though, i’m looking forward to seeing your conclusion.

    1. Giles Armstrong avatar
      Giles Armstrong

      Thanks, much appreciated. ^_^

      I think you’re right about the length of some games being an issue. My limited time to commit to playing games at home these days is a key factor as to why I’ve not bought many of the classics released over the last few years, let alone played them.

      It’s also why I think we’re seeing so many JRPGs transitioning over to portable systems with their ‘numbered’ releases, e.g. Dragon Quest XI and the recently announced Breath of Fire 6. People with the disposable income to buy games generally work and frequently commute, and that’s often the only ‘me time’ such people have to enjoy games.

      In Part 2, I’ll be looking at how such gamers – and those who have more time to play – are likely to be mutually catered for in the near future.

  3. Giles Armstrong avatar
    Giles Armstrong

    And you’re entitled to it.

    In a spoiler-free fashion, can I ask: what exactly triggered such a strong reaction to the ending? A particular event? The treatment of a certain character?

    And when you say you ‘discovered the end of the game’, but you never finished it yourself – did you see the ending on YouTube, or did a friend tell you what happened?

    (Regarding why I asked for ‘spoiler-free’ – I know the game is a couple of years old by this point, but some people may have Red Dead Redemption on their backlog to play at a later date).

  4. Jay avatar
    Jay

    Interesting blog Giles. I’m one of those people with a copy of ‘Red Dead’ sat on my shelf, waiting to find the time for (it was picked up when found stupidly cheap and added to the ‘Pile’). And I’ve been reticent to start it, knowing that it’s yet another game that will eat up the hours and so will have to be a between-jobs game. (thankyou freelance world…)

    I – perhaps foolishly – have a tendency to play a lot of games that could easily stretch past the 80 hour mark, and I also suffer from the unfortunate ailment of Completionitis… So while I platinumed Skyrim and clocked up near 150 hours of playtime (yikes…), I still didnt see everything the developers spent years toiling away on. Some games, while trying to mop up sidequests, I’ve ended up becoming over-saturated by and have been left by the wayside, possibly with just the last few missions/areas to go. GTA: Vice City never got completed after I spent hours ‘collecting’ all the cars to suddenly realise I was just done with it. FFX-2 suffered a similar fate (though wasn’t worth it anyway…) How many people started Fallout 3 or Disgaea (any of them) and invested hours before realising maybe there was TOO much content. Open world games are amazing, but like real-life, sometimes there can be too many distractions and you lose sight of the original goal. Like I have here. What was my point again?

    Oh yes, so the future of videogames… I dunno… I’m opposed to everything becoming digital as I like to own physical copies (and clog up my shelves…). I don’t want my games collection to end up like my music collection. That swelled when mp3’s came about, but I now don’t listen to albums like I did when I used to buy CDs. Back then, they’d be played on repeat, I’d know the song titles, track numbers… nowadays?? With thousands and thousands of songs on my iTunes, I’m lucky if I even remember which band is which….

    I like to take my time with a game. Now, if only I had the time…

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