G-pinions

While I think that Mr. Wong's article that Tom brought up (required reading for this post) makes some good points and is intelligently written and fairly humorous, I think it ultimately misses it's mark. It feels like it's written by a jaded gamer, trying to come to terms with their waning interest in gaming by putting together an argument against the industry and against the fans. My main two points of disagreement are these:

First of all, the videogame industry "crash" of the mid-eighties was mostly a result of the market being flooded. No matter how big of a fad game systems were at the time, the market couldn't evenly support the flood of software that occurred. I mean, christ, they buried thousands of copies of E.T. in the desert to get rid of them. Games today, well, it's a different story. Usually the worst that happens nowadays is that a good game will get lost in the holiday shuffle (BG&E, for instance), which will force the price down. Companies rarely pump out total crap prolifically - you just can't do it, it's too expensive. You have to have good graphics or a big name to sell a game, and that takes money. Atari games could easily make their development costs back even if the game didn't sell too well, to a point (the point when consumers stopped buying the crap altogether). But if a game doesn't sell well today...well, don't expect a sequel, or another game from that company for a while. I'm not saying that the overall quality of games released is higher now than ever (although that's a whole separate argument), I'm saying that the same company can't afford to suck regularly, because the market won't afford them to. Games were a fad back then, and an industry can only grow so much based on a fad. But with 90 million current generation systems sold, as he mentions, videogames are most certainly not a fad anymore. So as far as an industry-killing software flood goes, forget about it.

Secondly, his statement about "original gamers," late twenty-somethings growing up and out of gaming, well, that might be true. But you know what else is true? Kids are playing games, and in very large numbers. And guess what? More children are born every day. I know, I was shocked to hear that too. So for every OG that loses interest, five more eager young rapscallions are there waiting to take his place. And with videogames only a couple more years away from officially being a "cool" hobby, I don't think adult gamers of the future are going to get the same disrespect they get now. They'll be the ones running the country, because hey, "How many non-Amish friends do you have under age 30 who don't have a game console in the house?", right? And besides, the average gamer is 24, so there's that whole argument out the window already.

I have a lot more issues with the article, but between Tom and I it's safe to say we don't agree with it, and that's good enough for me, unless I feel like spouting off some more later. Hoorah for videogames!