You know, I’m pretty happy with the fact most of the games I care for are primarily Nintendo, eastern games, games companies like Larian Studios, and indie titles.
And I think that's the biggest problem is that they can't keep coasting by in their own echo chamber anymore. The new gamers of 2006 are now older, more knowledgeable about game design and bad practices, and have more varied interests in games.
It reminds me of Hollywood. Executives get in there to enjoy the payday, notoriety, and power trips while not actually knowing anything or caring about the craft.
I mean Blizzard hires politicians as their execs, for crying out loud.
I am glad you actually acknowledge that a crash, if one happens, won't be some dramatic changing of the guard, because companies like Microsoft and EA are -too- established to ever truly die. They're just gonna fall out of relevance at best.
The biggest companies will survive, albeit in bad shape. Sony and MS both have other revenue streams, Nintendo don't give a fuck, Sega has gambling/arcade machines.
My other prediction is the AA market is about to enter a new golden age
AA tier projects have an entire gap in the market to take advantage of, and I'm surprised that Embracer group/THQ isn't doing more to make themselves the biggest name in said market, since they definitely have the capacity required.
Final thought here but don't buy new games. Its absolutely not worth it anymore. Wait a few months, get it for 30% off with several patches, but never buy new anymore, not until the industry learns
My secret addendum to this is that I have multiple years-old first-party Nintendo titles that have absolutely not needed patches and will "just work" on a fresh system with no extra downloading so maybe they're an exception.
That's my gameplan. I've decided that I'm done spending more than $100 on a single game, ideally I would like to spend no more than $50. Not even because the games I've bought have been shit, I simply can't justify spending that kind of money on something that'll just sit on my shelf for months
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I remember for decades every exec said no one wants turn-based RPGs and people kept repeating that and no one made any by a major studio.
Turned out that was always just based on feels not reality and BG3 proved that.
I mean Blizzard hires politicians as their execs, for crying out loud.
(Fallout 76 is pretty good now, tho, gotta say)
My other prediction is the AA market is about to enter a new golden age
Like how I got that new Avatar game for 40% off two months after it's release.