Is there about to be a great shake up in the gaming industry ?

krudler wrote: »

Indeed, every month on the psn+ thread people complain the indie games are crap, when many of the psn titles are some of the best games on the consoles. Velocity X2 is absolute brilliant, and it looks gorgeous to boot.

It's the equivalent of people complaining there's no good movies being made anymore, when all they watch is whatevers on at the local cinema, and wont go near subtitled films or anything that isnt a Hollywood blockbuster, branch out a bit ffs.

gizmo wrote: »

You mean development costs here, right?

As for the availability of indie games on the respective platforms, there's a number of factors at play here. The indie game resurgence happened fairly early through the last console cycle, it evidently wasn't foreseen by each of the major platform holders and I think their varying response to it over the processing years demonstrates that rather well. As an aside from that, MS did, despite their more (or overly, if you will) corporate approach to developer relations, hit the ground running and managed to successfully get a number of stand out titles on their platform. For the only company requiring a subscription to their online service, this proved rather smart as many people pointed to the availability of these games, often available at a discount, as positives to the service.

Towards the end of the generation, Sony not only revamped their indie relations policies but also released PSN+ and used some of these games in catalogue of included "free" titles each month, also bolstering the popularity of the service. You also have the simple fact that these games were helping to give digital distribution services such as Steam a lot of positive press and the other platform holders wanted a piece of that pie. Finally, the actual development process of these titles has also become easier as more developer-friendly engines have been released which allow you to build to a variety of targets without many of the massive headaches generally attributed to multi-platform development. This has lead to more games and, as a result, more variety in the kinds of experiences offered. Enticing a wider demographic of gamer with these titles is also in the best interests of the platform holders.

In general, however, I'd see such availability as having absolutely nothing to do with their AAA efforts. In fact, the handling of these titles is generally dealt with completely separate teams internally.



It's worth noting that I've never seen an indie dev say they've shipped a game onto a console while only working on it in their spare time. Sure they may have begun work as a side project but in order to complete the hardest part of any project, finishing it, they generally go full time. That being said, that point is largely separate from Nintendo's old policy on requiring a "secure" location for development materials. Dan Alderman talks about it a bit in his interview with Gamasutra here.



When it comes to distribution, they're no more hush hush than any of the other platforms out there, whether it's on console or PC. Actual publishing agreements have always been hush hush so the only new variable in this equation is the amount of money the developer gets when their game is made available for free on PSN+ and Games for Gold.



Here's the thing though, opinions aside I can't see how anyone could say any of these games are "very poor". They may be disappointing given the press build up before release or they may be average or above average based upon their own merits but actually calling them poor isn't going to be conducive to reasonable debate on this particular subject.

Aside from this, the large advertising budgets behind these games is certainly worthy of discussion. Personally I think it's perfectly understandable given the nature of these games. Destiny is a big budget follow up from the creators of Halo. Activision have invested a hell of a lot of money in both development and promotion and see it as their next big franchise. Does that mean it's automatically going to be fantastic though? Of course not. Similarly, Watch_Dogs was the next big IP from Ubisoft and yet while ultimately disappointing many, if the AC series is anything to go by, it's sequel should hopefully develop the core concept better in the sequel which is almost guaranteed to happen given the sales figures of the original.

Yet, none of the above facts are going to make me rush out to pre-order or buy them without waiting to see how it reviews upon release. Despite being from established developers they're new IPs focusing on new mechanics, some of which aren't even really my thing. I don't want to get into the blame game here but if people had a bit more patience and spent a little more time looking into what they're buying not only would they be less disappointed with their purchases but they'd also slowly see the industry change around them.



I don't really see anything wrong with them calling it a CoD-killer though, primarily because it was their precise intention for it to be their answer to that franchise. Their lack of success in that regard doesn't really change that fact. As for backtracking on that point after release, EA are a public company, they're not going to admit their chances of tackling the gargantuan sales of CoD are slim with such a new release. The fact that they didn't actually use those numbers as sales targets is testament to that fact.



I don't think they'll walk away but hopefully they'll just think about their purchase a little harder, maybe waiting a week after launch to see how reviews pan out before settling on it.



As to your general point, no one knows what the future is going to hold exactly yet. The only thing that is for certain is that it's going to be different. Look at how we consume games on not only the PC but consoles now.

For instance, if you asked me back in 1998, as I furiously clawed the cellophane off my copy of Half Life, that I would require an internet connection and an account on an online service in order to activate its sequel, I would have laughed you out of the room. If you asked me back in 2004 as I furiously shouted at Steam for its failure to correctly authenticate my copy of Half Life 2 whether I'd go on to own over 450 games on the service, I would have again laughed you out of the room. In the present or near future, on the other hand, when Half Life 3 is eventually released there's a chance I would have the game already purchased and pre-loaded via Steam, ready to go on the day of release. When it comes to playing it I even have the option of doing so at my desk in front of my PC or in front of the TV downstairs while sitting on my couch while it streamed across my network onto a small form factor PC from my main rig.

As for the console platform holders, they're not going anywhere for now at least. The rumours of MS selling off the XBox division were put to rest when Nadella reiterated his support for them earlier in the Summer. Sony, on the other hand, may be hurting in the consumer devices arena but their entertainment division is still extremely strong. Regardless though, even if one were to fall there would always be another platform there who would only benefit from such an event.

Consoles aside, the PC will always be a viable platform for development. It may not be actually cheaper as you suggest but due to the flexibility of the hardware, it can be adapted to fit something more suitable to home gaming. We've already seen the software advances in that area such as Steam Big Picture Mode, the hardware advances as small form factor becomes more popular and more more peripherals are being planned and/or released which cater to this crowd and the platforms advances as digital distribution services across a variety of companies continue to grow and expand their offerings.

So yes, different times ahead. Different, but not necessarily dark.