Anti-GMS: Computer Games on the Wane, RPG sales up.

[Sunseeker]

Not surprised, the PC/Console gaming market is ATM unforunately dominated by a few large games and their equally large developers. This leads to smaller developers playing copy-pasta and making even original games dull and boring because they copied the combat/build/theme of X popular game because they develoeprrs went "ooooo, it's popular! lets do that and make lots of money!"

It's also dominated by an excessive number of sequals. how many Halo games are we up to? We've now on what, the 3rd expansion to WoW? We've got Dragon Age getting a sequal which has more recons than a superman comic, and we're up to Mass Effect 3 where your immortal-cyborg character is about to take on an army of god-robots.

So it's not surprising that amid all the unoriginality and the repition, that players are going: "Hey, I can do better than this." or "Ooo, good idea, but now I want to add this, or remove that and make it better."

 

[ggroy]

Not surprised, the PC/Console gaming market is ATM unforunately dominated by a few large games and their equally large developers. This leads to smaller developers playing copy-pasta and making even original games dull and boring because they copied the combat/build/theme of X popular game because they develoeprrs went "ooooo, it's popular! lets do that and make lots of money!"

It's also dominated by an excessive number of sequals. how many Halo games are we up to? We've now on what, the 3rd expansion to WoW? We've got Dragon Age getting a sequal which has more recons than a superman comic, and we're up to Mass Effect 3 where your immortal-cyborg character is about to take on an army of god-robots.

So it's not surprising that amid all the unoriginality and the repition, that players are going: "Hey, I can do better than this." or "Ooo, good idea, but now I want to add this, or remove that and make it better."

Hollywood movie studios have been doing this for ages.

 

[webrunner]

As for White Wolf, I am not positive but I think their print books have dropped off rather precipitously and that they mainly do PDFs now. They're in a bit of a rut because it would be too soon to release a "Newer World of Darkness" (NWoD came out only six year ago) and the line as a whole might not have the umph anymore to reboot successfully anyhow. Maybe it is just "so 90s."

Ironic, considering the recent popularity of vampires and werewolves.

Of course, those vampires and werewolves are a lot different then the "90 to early 2000s" style that WoD has.

AFAIK, Exalted has been their bread-earner over the last decade, but its popularity has waned as well, at least if RPG.Net Open Forum posts are any indication . I don't play Exalted, but from what I understand the 2ed was a bit of a clunker and may not have been as successful as they hoped. I think Exalted still has some life in it, but it may need a system re-vamping.

if V:tM doesn't sell, then adding vampires to Exalted isn't going to help

 

[Sunseeker]

Hollywood movie studios have been doing this for ages.

True, and it's gotten worse in recent years, more endless sequels and more prequels and so on.

But at the same time, with the average PC or Console game weighing in at 40-60usd per game(and many expansions requiring their predecessors, making games like WoW cost nearly $200 to get int), and adding the growth of pay-to-play MMOs with monthly fees, you're averaging easily $100 per game. In comaprison to even a $10 per viewing of a movie and $20-30 for a new-release film you can watch forever.

The point is, why should I invest $100 in a game that I can play a hundred times the same way, when I can invest $50 in a game system, that I can run a hundred different games in a hundred different ways, that can be equally enjoyed with friends and not over the internet?

Referencing my previous point, why should I invest $100 in a supposed "new" game, that's really the game I've already invested $100 in?

Sure, some tabletop systems get really pricey too. But in order to play WoW: Cataclysm, you need 3 other games(about $100), and then pay a monthly fee. To play 4e, you really only need 3 books, about $100, and no monthly fee. Heck, you could subscribe your entire group to DDI(say 5-6 people) for half the cost, and get access to what would normally be nearly a thousand dollars in manuals.

 

[Tiitha]

I expect sales to be down for a lot of things right now. Many countries are suffering from USA's debt and China's low yuan rate, so of course people will be buying less luxury items like games.

I think it would do Atari some good (and possibly WotC) if they re-released all the D&D games on Steam and other digital sellers: Baldur's Gate, Icewindale, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape: Torment, and other games.

 

[FriarRosing]

I think it would do Atari some good (and possibly WotC) if they re-released all the D&D games on Steam and other digital sellers: Baldur's Gate, Icewindale, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape: Torment, and other games.

GOG.com

 

[prosfilaes]

I think it would do Atari some good (and possibly WotC) if they re-released all the D&D games on Steam and other digital sellers: Baldur's Gate, Icewindale, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape: Torment, and other games.

Some of them are coming out places, like Temple of Elemental Evil, The - GOG.com .

 

[nedjer]

One of the areas RPG firms haven't picked up on is that most don't need or want to pander to the vanilla dark, we're a bit edgy, TRPGs are evil mantras.

Many TRPGs, including AD&D, offer a great deal more 'family friendly' marketing buttons than are ever pushed, e.g. make real friends, learn to communicate and resolve differences f2f, encourage kids to be creative and imaginative.

The Pathfinder dragon cover is a good example, to me, as it says 'exciting', 'adventurous', 'crisis management'; instead of 'I'm trying really hard to be cool'.

 

[humble minion]

I'm not sure about the methodology of the survey, but I'd speculate that just because video game sales are down doesn't mean fewer people are ... acquiring new video games.

A huge part of total video game sales would be the second hand market, and I don't know whether the survey would cover that. There's also the piracy issue of course, which comprises huge numbers. While pirated or second-hand games sales are worthless from the point of view of the games studios, they still represent a sizeable part of the participation rate in the hobby as a whole.

And yeah, the fall of White Wolf has been unbelievable. I wonder if, going back in time, they'd still do the 'Time of Judgement' OWoD->NWoD transition, or whether they'd be a bit more careful of the goose that lays the golden egg and just release a '3e' revised ruleset in the original OWoD world? I'm far from finger on the pulse when it comes to WW any more, but it certainly seems to me that this was when things started to go downhill for them.

 

[MerricB]

And yeah, the fall of White Wolf has been unbelievable. I wonder if, going back in time, they'd still do the 'Time of Judgement' OWoD->NWoD transition, or whether they'd be a bit more careful of the goose that lays the golden egg and just release a '3e' revised ruleset in the original OWoD world? I'm far from finger on the pulse when it comes to WW any more, but it certainly seems to me that this was when things started to go downhill for them.

I wonder if it had started to go noticeably downhill before then?

Cheers!