Every Sunday, NowGamer will be posting an opinion piece about that which we all love: games.
Are you a gamer? The games industry hates you. Sorry. But as the music business proved, big publishers and console makers can still turn things around – before it’s too late.
This week, the music industry showed growth for the first time since 1999, while piracy has dropped, according to the NPD Group’s Annual Music Study 2012.
At the same time, the games industry is shrinking at an alarming rate, new releases selling less every year and overall cumulative spend weakening seemingly every week.
Proof lies in Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot. The game topped the Japanese charts, selling 116,000 copies in week one according to Media Create. That’s compared to Devil May Cry 4, which sold 245,000 when it topped the charts five years before.
NPD also revealed that the US games market has been shrinking 5% year-on-year, while the ERA states UK games sales plunged by 17.4% in 2012.
That’s the result of a generation that’s dragged on too long, people say. Partly.
But it’s also because, over the course of the past seven years, the games industry has shifted – against the consumer. Against the players.
Games used to cost £40 and had unlockable content you’d be given for doing well; beating the game or collecting collectibles.
Now, you’re given a meaningless virtual e-peen sticker (sorry, Achievement or Trophy) and locked out of some of the best content, even though it’s on-disc, unless you turn out your wallet.
Even then, DLC models are greedy. You can buy Forza Horizon (or Forza 4’s) VIP DLC pass for about £40 (the price of the game, again), but you’ll still miss out on some of the new cars released on top of the VIP content. Super VIP content? It’s diabolical.
Then there’s network passes, asking us to pay £5-10 to play online just because we dared to buy used. Are these passes, by the way, still going to be maintained even when games are no longer in print? What happens when buying used is the only option? Answer: you still stump up.
It’s the industry’s answer to everything.
Imagine if Blu-ray discs locked out the commentaries and deleted scenes to those without codes, or second-hand cars refused to drive unless you paid Ford cash to unlock the steering wheel.
The games industry is not the first to go through volcanic shits and a period of quick, cataclysmic – often destructive – change triggered by the rise of digital.
No industry has gone through such a painful metamorphosis as the music industry – and we’re not just talking about the popularity of Justin Bieber.
In the space of a few short years, we’ve gone from huge CD sales to Napster piracy, the rise and fall of Myspace, iTunes’ sudden ascendancy, to the re-rise of gigs, the emergence of Spotify and the change of power from record labels to the power of the people (example: Rage Against The Machine topping the Christmas chart).
But here in 2013, piracy has dropped 17% (NPD), while music sales are up, off the back of streaming via YouTube, Spotify and other legal channels which the industry bigwigs have finally fully embraced.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that accelerating digital music sales had caused a 0.3% rise in global revenues, its first tiny boost in over a decade.
As IFPI chief executive Frances Moore told the BBC: “”These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade.
“They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace.”
The music industry has woken up to a stern realisation: its consumers ultimately dictate to the men in suits – not the other way around. We don’t expect everything for nothing – but we don’t expect the industry not to change with the times, either.
With rumours flying of Xbox 720 and PS4 blocking out second-hand games entirely (no more lending FIFA to your mates) or requiring a constant net connection (sorry, non-fibreoptic users – upgrade your modems already), it seems the games industry is perfectly placed for this same struggle between what publishers want and what gamers – the games buyers – are prepared to accept. We spoke to Sony’s Fergal Gara, who seemed to suggest Sony might well do it.
Even this week, EA revealed it plans to introduce more micro-transactions because gamers ‘enjoy and demand’ them.
We don’t.
The entire situation is akin to an unstoppable force meeting a (potentially) unmovable object. It’s going to get ugly.
If Sony and Microsoft – or the publishers like EA and Activision forcing their hand – do go down a ruthlessly anti-consumer route next-gen, they will only quicken their own decline, forcing their own consoles into irrelevance, replaced by free-to-play models and cheap Steam fire-sales.
Learn to love the loyal fans, use new technologies like streaming to provide near-limitless content legally, perhaps on a subscription, and positively encourage sharing (yes, even with discs), and marry that freedom with compelling worlds without the need to spend extra cash and the gamers will flock in – bringing their dollars and telling their friends to join them.
PS4 and Xbox 720’s releases could be married with a glorious rebirth for an industry in need of an injection of life.
Just don’t suffocate the lifeblood – the gamers.
Disagree? Let us know in the comments or tweet @NowGamer_Feed