Kevin Caseyon gaming in a recession
From ham sandwiches to three-beds, generally speaking, prices fall back during a recession. Not so with games. Even when you shop around, new mainstream releases are still floating at €69.99 or more, with few discounts on the horizon. In the cruel world of the credit crunch, games still live in their own la-la land, at one remove from economic reality.
Forecasts for the games industry predict no significant downturn ahead. While lavish discretionary spending like travel or interior design will be seriously curtailed, games revenues will be trimmed by no more than 5 per cent over 2007, which is about normal for consumer goods in a recession economy.
Bolstering this buoyant prediction are the hackneyed arguments that games deliver hours of entertainment for the money spent and that prices must be kept high because studios spend tens of millions in production.
Well, more fool they. More fool we for supporting them.
Consumer sentiment is such that, in a recession, when everything costs an arm and a leg, anything you buy had better deliver true value. Good games, for example like those in the witty Marioseries, with great core game play repeated endlessly, potentially offering years of fun for several players. But a bad game is not worth keeping even as a paperweight.
The truth is, as games become more formulaic and dull, games publishers are relying on their PR machines to create demand from nothing.
One recent example is EA's Spore, the evolutionary game from Simscreator Will Wright, released in September. Hyped on the high-concept of "Sim everything" Sporeshot to No 1 in PC games charts.
The backlash began almost immediately. Gamers flooded websites with negative comments such as " Spore sucks" because it's "shallow", "short", has poor graphics and is "nothing special". Bitter about falling for the hype and feeling the sting in their wallets more than ever, many gamers longed for their money back.
The mob turned on Sporebecause they said it wasn't good enough.
Instead of cutting prices or developing great games, the industry plans to push even weak games harder. Like movies, most revenue is derived from the first few weeks of a release, before word of mouth has time to overtake the pre-publicity hype. The games press often plays along by simply taking the PR feed and sending it back out.
The lesson to learn from the debacle of Sporeis, wait a week to see what the community reaction is. Save yourself some tears by trawling through the comments on a games blog or website.
Meanwhile, reduce your overheads and have some fun with a fiendishly clever free web game about bubbles, goo or whatever, designed by a bored student with no PR machine or business model at all.
