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Crazes don’t last. They never have. I challenge you to find me children still perplexed by the awesome puzzle that is the ‘80s Rubik’s Cube or another the same age still spinning his ‘90s yo-yo. The truth about how these markets become so successful in their day and age is the tactics the big companies use in exploiting the mind of youngsters through very obvious channels such as shop advertisements, television and other forms of media, but also in more subtle manners like encouraging children to spread the news of the latest invention. Of course children aren’t the only members of society to be susceptible to the lure of the larger markets in the grand scheme of things. Just take the pyramid scheme – thousands of vulnerable adults all around the country signed up to these get rich quick schemes, only to find that 88% of them were losing out all along, leaving some devastated. How is any of this appropriate in a gaming topic you might ask? Consider this; could video games just be the latest craze? Nothing more? It’s hard to imagine a world without them: but are video games only here for a limited time only?
Well according to the pattern of crazes, their days are numbered. Having said that computers were becoming big in the ’70s and today they provide a bigger impact on our economy than ever before. Television is another example of the industry continually growing and becoming ever more influential on our next generation, with no signs of its potential slowing down. Games are different though, they so heavily depend upon critics who rate the products well and enthusiastic responses from the public. An attractive garment for arguments sake will sell well regardless of what a few critics say; however there is less freedom for the select few big developers. In order to ship out the goods, developers are forced to make titles that both please critics and fans alike. For some manufactures the pressure ceaselessly builds. EA were once heralded as great developers in their specialist field of sport, but now in most areas of former grasp, their control has slipped. The same fate is true for many other big name developers as the market intensifies, but also stretches out. Too much competition could prove bad for the market as a whole, as gamers are left confused about which way to turn next and what defines a title worth parting thirty odd quid for. Some of these points may all sound very cliché but the possible problem remains; could overspending and over advertising cost the market dear? In the wonderful world of football – a craze which thankfully still lives on well past its hundredth birthday, money was being recklessly splashed about for years with financial experts and managers alike warning of an impeding football cash crisis if the current situation wasn’t reversed. While most of the world of football still stood oblivious to the shame to come, ITV Digital cost many of England’s football teams much wealth, resulting in a meltdown in the lower tiers. Clubs went into liquidation, were forced to sell their ground and others came near to closure, all because of an inconsistent and overspent market. With the current risks being run by gaming firms such as Activision who recently released Spider-Man so close to the cinema opening, with much being gambled on advertising; how much of a sure fire bet is it that the gaming market will too experience an economical meltdown?
Perhaps a clearer way of assessing the situation would be to decide upon the odds of such a travesty and how if at all such a diversion could be made. Firstly – for a large enough impact to take place that would forever change the gaming market, there must be one swift knock-on effect involving money. It’s hard to imagine the current sums of money circulating around computer games decreasing, but as soon as we the fans start becoming restless with what we are being offered, problems could arise and will. The most dissatisfying thing to find in a game from a personal perspective and many gamers alike is where you purchase what you are led to believe by the company and appearance of the game is a ‘classic’, only to find you have in fact bought a slightly revamped patch on a game in the series past, with minor adjustments. Three hours after booting up the game as well, you find you have discovered all there is that this game will ‘enlighten’ you with and are left with a box that will for the most part gather dust for the next couple of years, before you pluck up enough courage to sell your vastly disappointing and annoying rip-off for a few measly pounds. So how long before we will really declare enough and stop backing the great companies of the past?
All smaller game businesses and independent developers will look towards the legendary developing prowess of Nintendo and the so far short-lived and yet impressively constructed Sony empire. Microsoft recently entered the high profile affray with their X-Box, but is it really fair to assume that this trio will battle it out for x amount of years at the top, with reported prices for the full version of PS3 reaching a staggering three or four hundred pounds at its prior release? If games don’t start making the kinds of leaps and bounds forward that we’ve all anticipated for so long; the market leaders may struggle. Squaresoft provide the best possible illustration of what can go wrong as the consoles progress. Their legendary Final Fantasy 7 was without a doubt the greatest Playstation role player to grace our screens and if we’re honest with ourselves nothing on the PS2 has come close either. Of course graphically FF7 is beaten hands down by FF10, but is that really what we look for a game? Absolutely not, and the sooner the developers realise this, the brighter our gaming future will be. Tactically FF7 provided the gamer with three disks worth of carefully thought out, strategic gameplay while FF10 while pretty on the outside, was a hollow reflecting of what Squaresoft were really capable of achieving in such a high prolific title. The crunch will come however when buying video games is no longer considered the ‘in thing’ to do and like so many crazes of the past is put down into the nostalgic category.
Video games through your television celebrate their thirty second birthday this year, so all we can do is hope they live long enough to be singing their sixty fourth birthday celebrations. If icons like Sonic and Mario can survive for a few more years yet, then our favourite plumber and hedgehog might just show the way for long term gaming of the future. Nintendo have survived the decades unscathed – now let’s just hope that gaming as a whole can survive for a few more years at least.
Well according to the pattern of crazes, their days are numbered. Having said that computers were becoming big in the ’70s and today they provide a bigger impact on our economy than ever before. Television is another example of the industry continually growing and becoming ever more influential on our next generation, with no signs of its potential slowing down. Games are different though, they so heavily depend upon critics who rate the products well and enthusiastic responses from the public. An attractive garment for arguments sake will sell well regardless of what a few critics say; however there is less freedom for the select few big developers. In order to ship out the goods, developers are forced to make titles that both please critics and fans alike. For some manufactures the pressure ceaselessly builds. EA were once heralded as great developers in their specialist field of sport, but now in most areas of former grasp, their control has slipped. The same fate is true for many other big name developers as the market intensifies, but also stretches out. Too much competition could prove bad for the market as a whole, as gamers are left confused about which way to turn next and what defines a title worth parting thirty odd quid for. Some of these points may all sound very cliché but the possible problem remains; could overspending and over advertising cost the market dear? In the wonderful world of football – a craze which thankfully still lives on well past its hundredth birthday, money was being recklessly splashed about for years with financial experts and managers alike warning of an impeding football cash crisis if the current situation wasn’t reversed. While most of the world of football still stood oblivious to the shame to come, ITV Digital cost many of England’s football teams much wealth, resulting in a meltdown in the lower tiers. Clubs went into liquidation, were forced to sell their ground and others came near to closure, all because of an inconsistent and overspent market. With the current risks being run by gaming firms such as Activision who recently released Spider-Man so close to the cinema opening, with much being gambled on advertising; how much of a sure fire bet is it that the gaming market will too experience an economical meltdown?
Perhaps a clearer way of assessing the situation would be to decide upon the odds of such a travesty and how if at all such a diversion could be made. Firstly – for a large enough impact to take place that would forever change the gaming market, there must be one swift knock-on effect involving money. It’s hard to imagine the current sums of money circulating around computer games decreasing, but as soon as we the fans start becoming restless with what we are being offered, problems could arise and will. The most dissatisfying thing to find in a game from a personal perspective and many gamers alike is where you purchase what you are led to believe by the company and appearance of the game is a ‘classic’, only to find you have in fact bought a slightly revamped patch on a game in the series past, with minor adjustments. Three hours after booting up the game as well, you find you have discovered all there is that this game will ‘enlighten’ you with and are left with a box that will for the most part gather dust for the next couple of years, before you pluck up enough courage to sell your vastly disappointing and annoying rip-off for a few measly pounds. So how long before we will really declare enough and stop backing the great companies of the past?
All smaller game businesses and independent developers will look towards the legendary developing prowess of Nintendo and the so far short-lived and yet impressively constructed Sony empire. Microsoft recently entered the high profile affray with their X-Box, but is it really fair to assume that this trio will battle it out for x amount of years at the top, with reported prices for the full version of PS3 reaching a staggering three or four hundred pounds at its prior release? If games don’t start making the kinds of leaps and bounds forward that we’ve all anticipated for so long; the market leaders may struggle. Squaresoft provide the best possible illustration of what can go wrong as the consoles progress. Their legendary Final Fantasy 7 was without a doubt the greatest Playstation role player to grace our screens and if we’re honest with ourselves nothing on the PS2 has come close either. Of course graphically FF7 is beaten hands down by FF10, but is that really what we look for a game? Absolutely not, and the sooner the developers realise this, the brighter our gaming future will be. Tactically FF7 provided the gamer with three disks worth of carefully thought out, strategic gameplay while FF10 while pretty on the outside, was a hollow reflecting of what Squaresoft were really capable of achieving in such a high prolific title. The crunch will come however when buying video games is no longer considered the ‘in thing’ to do and like so many crazes of the past is put down into the nostalgic category.
Video games through your television celebrate their thirty second birthday this year, so all we can do is hope they live long enough to be singing their sixty fourth birthday celebrations. If icons like Sonic and Mario can survive for a few more years yet, then our favourite plumber and hedgehog might just show the way for long term gaming of the future. Nintendo have survived the decades unscathed – now let’s just hope that gaming as a whole can survive for a few more years at least.
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Crazes don’t last. They never have. I challenge you to find me children still perplexed by the awesome puzzle that is the ‘80s Rubik’s Cube or another the same age still spinning his ‘90s yo-yo. The truth about how these markets become so successful in their day and age is the tactics the big companies use in exploiting the mind of youngsters through very obvious channels such as shop advertisements, television and other forms of media, but also in more subtle manners like encouraging children to spread the news of the latest invention. Of course children aren’t the only members of society to be susceptible to the lure of the larger markets in the grand scheme of things. Just take the pyramid scheme – thousands of vulnerable adults all around the country signed up to these get rich quick schemes, only to find that 88% of them were losing out all along, leaving some devastated. How is any of this appropriate in a gaming topic you might ask? Consider this; could video games just be the latest craze? Nothing more? It’s hard to imagine a world without them: but are video games only here for a limited time only?
Well according to the pattern of crazes, their days are numbered. Having said that computers were becoming big in the ’70s and today they provide a bigger impact on our economy than ever before. Television is another example of the industry continually growing and becoming ever more influential on our next generation, with no signs of its potential slowing down. Games are different though, they so heavily depend upon critics who rate the products well and enthusiastic responses from the public. An attractive garment for arguments sake will sell well regardless of what a few critics say; however there is less freedom for the select few big developers. In order to ship out the goods, developers are forced to make titles that both please critics and fans alike. For some manufactures the pressure ceaselessly builds. EA were once heralded as great developers in their specialist field of sport, but now in most areas of former grasp, their control has slipped. The same fate is true for many other big name developers as the market intensifies, but also stretches out. Too much competition could prove bad for the market as a whole, as gamers are left confused about which way to turn next and what defines a title worth parting thirty odd quid for. Some of these points may all sound very cliché but the possible problem remains; could overspending and over advertising cost the market dear? In the wonderful world of football – a craze which thankfully still lives on well past its hundredth birthday, money was being recklessly splashed about for years with financial experts and managers alike warning of an impeding football cash crisis if the current situation wasn’t reversed. While most of the world of football still stood oblivious to the shame to come, ITV Digital cost many of England’s football teams much wealth, resulting in a meltdown in the lower tiers. Clubs went into liquidation, were forced to sell their ground and others came near to closure, all because of an inconsistent and overspent market. With the current risks being run by gaming firms such as Activision who recently released Spider-Man so close to the cinema opening, with much being gambled on advertising; how much of a sure fire bet is it that the gaming market will too experience an economical meltdown?
Perhaps a clearer way of assessing the situation would be to decide upon the odds of such a travesty and how if at all such a diversion could be made. Firstly – for a large enough impact to take place that would forever change the gaming market, there must be one swift knock-on effect involving money. It’s hard to imagine the current sums of money circulating around computer games decreasing, but as soon as we the fans start becoming restless with what we are being offered, problems could arise and will. The most dissatisfying thing to find in a game from a personal perspective and many gamers alike is where you purchase what you are led to believe by the company and appearance of the game is a ‘classic’, only to find you have in fact bought a slightly revamped patch on a game in the series past, with minor adjustments. Three hours after booting up the game as well, you find you have discovered all there is that this game will ‘enlighten’ you with and are left with a box that will for the most part gather dust for the next couple of years, before you pluck up enough courage to sell your vastly disappointing and annoying rip-off for a few measly pounds. So how long before we will really declare enough and stop backing the great companies of the past?
All smaller game businesses and independent developers will look towards the legendary developing prowess of Nintendo and the so far short-lived and yet impressively constructed Sony empire. Microsoft recently entered the high profile affray with their X-Box, but is it really fair to assume that this trio will battle it out for x amount of years at the top, with reported prices for the full version of PS3 reaching a staggering three or four hundred pounds at its prior release? If games don’t start making the kinds of leaps and bounds forward that we’ve all anticipated for so long; the market leaders may struggle. Squaresoft provide the best possible illustration of what can go wrong as the consoles progress. Their legendary Final Fantasy 7 was without a doubt the greatest Playstation role player to grace our screens and if we’re honest with ourselves nothing on the PS2 has come close either. Of course graphically FF7 is beaten hands down by FF10, but is that really what we look for a game? Absolutely not, and the sooner the developers realise this, the brighter our gaming future will be. Tactically FF7 provided the gamer with three disks worth of carefully thought out, strategic gameplay while FF10 while pretty on the outside, was a hollow reflecting of what Squaresoft were really capable of achieving in such a high prolific title. The crunch will come however when buying video games is no longer considered the ‘in thing’ to do and like so many crazes of the past is put down into the nostalgic category.
Video games through your television celebrate their thirty second birthday this year, so all we can do is hope they live long enough to be singing their sixty fourth birthday celebrations. If icons like Sonic and Mario can survive for a few more years yet, then our favourite plumber and hedgehog might just show the way for long term gaming of the future. Nintendo have survived the decades unscathed – now let’s just hope that gaming as a whole can survive for a few more years at least.
Well according to the pattern of crazes, their days are numbered. Having said that computers were becoming big in the ’70s and today they provide a bigger impact on our economy than ever before. Television is another example of the industry continually growing and becoming ever more influential on our next generation, with no signs of its potential slowing down. Games are different though, they so heavily depend upon critics who rate the products well and enthusiastic responses from the public. An attractive garment for arguments sake will sell well regardless of what a few critics say; however there is less freedom for the select few big developers. In order to ship out the goods, developers are forced to make titles that both please critics and fans alike. For some manufactures the pressure ceaselessly builds. EA were once heralded as great developers in their specialist field of sport, but now in most areas of former grasp, their control has slipped. The same fate is true for many other big name developers as the market intensifies, but also stretches out. Too much competition could prove bad for the market as a whole, as gamers are left confused about which way to turn next and what defines a title worth parting thirty odd quid for. Some of these points may all sound very cliché but the possible problem remains; could overspending and over advertising cost the market dear? In the wonderful world of football – a craze which thankfully still lives on well past its hundredth birthday, money was being recklessly splashed about for years with financial experts and managers alike warning of an impeding football cash crisis if the current situation wasn’t reversed. While most of the world of football still stood oblivious to the shame to come, ITV Digital cost many of England’s football teams much wealth, resulting in a meltdown in the lower tiers. Clubs went into liquidation, were forced to sell their ground and others came near to closure, all because of an inconsistent and overspent market. With the current risks being run by gaming firms such as Activision who recently released Spider-Man so close to the cinema opening, with much being gambled on advertising; how much of a sure fire bet is it that the gaming market will too experience an economical meltdown?
Perhaps a clearer way of assessing the situation would be to decide upon the odds of such a travesty and how if at all such a diversion could be made. Firstly – for a large enough impact to take place that would forever change the gaming market, there must be one swift knock-on effect involving money. It’s hard to imagine the current sums of money circulating around computer games decreasing, but as soon as we the fans start becoming restless with what we are being offered, problems could arise and will. The most dissatisfying thing to find in a game from a personal perspective and many gamers alike is where you purchase what you are led to believe by the company and appearance of the game is a ‘classic’, only to find you have in fact bought a slightly revamped patch on a game in the series past, with minor adjustments. Three hours after booting up the game as well, you find you have discovered all there is that this game will ‘enlighten’ you with and are left with a box that will for the most part gather dust for the next couple of years, before you pluck up enough courage to sell your vastly disappointing and annoying rip-off for a few measly pounds. So how long before we will really declare enough and stop backing the great companies of the past?
All smaller game businesses and independent developers will look towards the legendary developing prowess of Nintendo and the so far short-lived and yet impressively constructed Sony empire. Microsoft recently entered the high profile affray with their X-Box, but is it really fair to assume that this trio will battle it out for x amount of years at the top, with reported prices for the full version of PS3 reaching a staggering three or four hundred pounds at its prior release? If games don’t start making the kinds of leaps and bounds forward that we’ve all anticipated for so long; the market leaders may struggle. Squaresoft provide the best possible illustration of what can go wrong as the consoles progress. Their legendary Final Fantasy 7 was without a doubt the greatest Playstation role player to grace our screens and if we’re honest with ourselves nothing on the PS2 has come close either. Of course graphically FF7 is beaten hands down by FF10, but is that really what we look for a game? Absolutely not, and the sooner the developers realise this, the brighter our gaming future will be. Tactically FF7 provided the gamer with three disks worth of carefully thought out, strategic gameplay while FF10 while pretty on the outside, was a hollow reflecting of what Squaresoft were really capable of achieving in such a high prolific title. The crunch will come however when buying video games is no longer considered the ‘in thing’ to do and like so many crazes of the past is put down into the nostalgic category.
Video games through your television celebrate their thirty second birthday this year, so all we can do is hope they live long enough to be singing their sixty fourth birthday celebrations. If icons like Sonic and Mario can survive for a few more years yet, then our favourite plumber and hedgehog might just show the way for long term gaming of the future. Nintendo have survived the decades unscathed – now let’s just hope that gaming as a whole can survive for a few more years at least.
Page: