Economists have looked at the
gaming niche, and many experts claim that it's almost a "recession-proof"
market. The interesting thing is, this
is HALF true. Back in the late 1920s
when something called The Great Depression happened, many individuals lost their
jobs and the economy slumped even worse then it is today. Now looking back, amusingly, there was one
industry that really rose out of it. Can
anyone guess what it was? No, not
video games, but the movie industry. As
it turned out, many people used the movies as an escape, much like video games do
for today's audiences during our recession. As a result, much of Hollywood grew as did the industry as a whole. Now flash back forward to the present, and we have the new entertainment heavyweight, Gaming (20 some-odd years is still pretty new and only in recent years has it marketed to a larger crowd - see Wii). Console and accessory sales are booming, the online distribution
markets like Xbox Live and PSN are doing fairly well (albeit, more so Xbox Live), AND we've
been getting some great triple A games that haven't been really hurt by all
this nonsense. The market, however, isn't
playing fair to everyone.
In fact, the market has been extremely tense in some cases. Due to globalization of the gaming market, and even westernization, the Japanese are losing a lot of their market share and influence (which – technically speaking- is a good thing). Japanese are shocked by their sales diminishing but it's really easy to see when Western developers (see EA, Activision-Blizzard, etc.) from both America and Europe are really coming into their financial quarters swinging with Triple A games. The market is also really tight and only the strong are truly surviving it (relatively) unscathed. Crystal Dynamics has been losing it and despite a significantly strong sale on their Tomb Raider Underworld have diminished stock. They projected 2 million sales but only ended up selling over the holiday season 1.3 million copies (Keep in mind thats still a highly impressive number). Sony is posting their first loses in 14 years of 1.1 billion US Dollars, which is strongly opposed to their original projections for 2008 – a profit of 2 billion.
If you read the paper a lot of these other companies are suffering too. Midway is in the tank with a bleak outlook, Ensemble Studios (maker of Halo Wars) are closing their doors once the game releases, and many other cases just like it. The real winners at the moment? Nintendo and Xbox for bringing affordable gaming during a turbulent time and options therein. Sony has taken a big hit with their expensive PS3, and the casual crowd looking for that sweet release of gaming is simply overlooking it as an option. The result? Sony is clawing for anything, and looking to "restructure" their company, which is code for layoffs, and their marketing has re branded the PS3 as a downloadable movie center too - just take a looksee at their latest commercials. Some companies are taking on new leafs as well; Square-Enix is branching out more to western audiences, and also eying other companies to absorb.
Don't take this all to heart though reader, because this is what capitalism is really all about. I'll be sad to see how things go, some companies are going to be crashing and burning, and some will rise again. The point is though is that once the dust settles, we're going to be left with the best of the best, and a lot of new upstarts may occur which really jumpstart gaming for ourselves and future generations. My best wishes go out to anyone that loses their job during this time, 'cause it really does suck. Let's look forward to 2009/2010 and see where it all takes us.
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