potatohead's Blog

I think there will always be a market for traditional solitaire and 2 player games (i.e 2 player, not multiplayer)

 

It will probably follow the same market as per the various emulation/roms sites (i.e, you will have lots of sites where you will be able to download non hacked/cracked modern games and well as classic games) using the itunes concept (i.e paid for downloads)

 

Also, there will also be a market for non online (offline) distribultion of gaming content (i.e actual physical product you hold in your hands, not just some file or group of files held on a hard disk)

 

The success of online distribultion of games largely depends whether the game has longetivity and is interesting enough to play, unfortunately online gaming seems to be having the same issues as per traditional boxed product, namely that developers/publishers are shovelling out just another variant of this game/genre or that game/genre and that isn't so interesting for consumers

 

 

The other issue with must online games is that they rely on too much cut scenes/fmv/movies to fill game content, i.e you seem to be immersed more into the inbuilt movie/streaming video then you actually get to play anything of the game (sort of reminds me of those asian/japanese RPG's for the GBA, namely that your subjected to about 30 minutes of game intro (if you can understand the japanese/chinese text) before you are actually allowed to partake in the game (anywhere from 5 seconds to two minutes) and then the process repeats itself)

It could be argued that many downloadable games have already hit the $5-$10 price point. The real question is whether the price of AAA games, in a downloadable/online format, will also follow this trend. I don't think so unless developers & publishers find ways to dramatically reduce the costs to create & market (not just distribute) a game. The question then becomes whether high cost AAA games can continue to exist in a world of cheaper games.

 

And, on a personal note, my limiting resource is not money but time. I could easily buy another game with my discretionary spending. But I don't because I don't have the discretionary time to play it.

 

There are also numerous ways people can play games at very low costs (emulation/homebrew, "free-to-play", older used games) that cost isn't a factor if you set your expectations properly.

Heh, I just realized I have a second limiting resource: the big screen TV. Guess who wins between me playing a game and my wife watching Brothers and Sisters?

Yeah, I'm constrained in much the same ways.

 

Time is always at issue. Sometimes I can ignore the TV, depending on what gaming I'm gonna do.

 

Good comment on whether or not big production games will survive. I personally think they will, may remain on media, and will be fewer in number.

One interesting datapoint: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep by Square Enix for the PSP will not be available for download on the PSP Go. (I don't know the logic.)

That's a interesting one. On one hand, the more you show, the more you sell. Seems short sighted to not have the download as an option.

 

Then again, perhaps there is some exclusivity, or manufactured scarcity, or even elitism in play, all of which might add to the longer term value proposition Square may be cultivating.

The only logic I can see is somehow the cost (to Square Enix) to offer the download option is higher than their sales estimates. In particular, I believe that Sony doesn't provide the server infrastructure for online games and this may extend to PSPGo downloads too. I don't think the testing would cost much more, given once the game is downloaded the game should play the same. (Unless Square Enix was doing some UMD-only I/O which didn't have a drop-in PSPGo equivalent.)

 

There also may be piracy concerns, although I'm not sure whether UMD is any more secure.