Is The Core Audience For These Big Budget Games Decreasing

Do you guys believe that us the core audience is shrinking to much that big budget games will go to the wayside or can the big games and these indies live along together even with the new consoles. Contrary to alot of people I still enjoy the big blockbusters and would hate to see them go away.

I think that people are just tired of the same game being remade with different maps, graphics, and a slightly different story.

The industry wouldn't get much needed mainstream press and awareness without big budget games, they won't be going anywhere.

Is there any real evidence stating the core audience is shrinking for big-budget titles? Some games (Dead Space 3) are not hitting their sales marks due to the ridiculously high ceilings set by publishers, but I don't see the heavy hitting titles going away. I've got a little bit of ennui going myself these days after finishing BioInfinite. I haven't played DmC, Tomb Raider and a few other big guns and don't have much of a desire to right now, perhaps reflecting what @living4theday258 said about the same game being remade but with a different name on the box. These days I'm playing the remastered KOTOR2 (excellente) and want to get back into Dragon's Dogma after putting it down months ago. Dead Space 3 is sitting on my shelf staring at me, too, so maybe I'll dive into that again. I'm in no rush.

The industry has crashed a couple of times from flooding the market with high priced crap. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again by the end of the next generation. What EA, Activision and Ubisoft are doing now might make them a quick buck but it just isn't sustainable, especially if they end up running off all of the major designers and try to keep pumping out the same franchises with whoever they can keep on staff to crunch for months with little reward.

I don't know if the market is decreasing so much as it is being spread around. At the same time sales expectations are still sky high and rarely hit targets. I think a big part of it is the long console cycle, I'm really interested to see if something changes with the new systems.

I worry that the industry expects most of their sales from games to come at full price within the first couple of months after release. Buying one full price game a month makes this hobby a minimum $720 USD investment per annum. Over a seven year generation? That's unrealistic and totally unsustainable.

The number of hardware owners has actually increased. Google it suckas! This generation is on track to outsell the last, both in consoles and games. As we just found out, Sony games division didn't perform well in regard to Vita, PSP, etc, but they sold more consoles and games than they did last year. Not bad for being 7 years out of a totally bungled launch.

Like ye old Southern Dandy said, the market is being spread around. The reason sales expectations are failing is becomes companies are banking on games to support more than their own cost, and that practice needs to stop. There are more gamers and they are buying more games but they are buying a large variety of games rather than the same 10 we all used to buy years ago.

I completely agree.

No. Because now its the indie games that are doing the good stuff. All we get to see from AAA releases is the same stuff over and over. Look at COD and battlefield. Ya they are fun but its the same stuff over and over. People are starting to get tired of it.

I don't think the audience is shrinking, I think the expectations on the part of publishers has just gotten completely fucked. Look at capcom with Tomb Raider, they think it was a failure but it sold really well.

I think there's a place for the B tier "big game" if the price point was about 25 -30 bucks. Smaller teams with smaller sales expectations can still produce a really good game for a more niche market. Everyone is chasing fucking COD numbers which is rediculous. You think they would have learned something by chasing WOW for ten years and turning out a hundred shitty fucking mmo's (sorry I hate MMO's, they tried to murder my beloved RPGs :)).

i have no idea. all i know is i wish something would change, because you get all this great work going into big budget games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite, in all departments, EXCEPT gameplay, which i feel tends to be mostly - for casuals / boring / shite.

@hh: something will happen in the market that may shift to indie focused creation. In a world where 5 millions sales is almost breaking even, something isn't right.

I think it's possible that we'll hit a point into the not so distant future where game budgets have become so bloated that companies start having to dial it back a little, but there's no way big budget games are going away any time soon. There have been some that have cited certain recent declines in sales as proof that the games industry is in trouble, but I'm not really seeing any evidence that suggests that's more than the current console cycle winding down, and even then, a huge amount of money is still being made from AAA games. With current Wii U sales and the decline of companies like Zynga, it's arguable that certain parts of the casual market are in trouble, but your Call of Dutys and Maddens aren't going anywhere any time soon.

This -- We're in a pretty shitty time for gaming (and well frankly, most forms of entertainment) where publishers don't want to risk money on something new and innovative. The thing is, people are clearly getting bored of the same game year after year. The indie scene is a breath of fresh air and proves many things about gaming, you don't need a big budget, you need a good idea, you don't have to charge a ridiculous amount for a 5 hour campaign that looks nice when gamers can get games that last longer and are much more fun for $15, and that a lot of people clearly don't care that much about graphics. I still don't see publishers realizing how they're slowly killing themselves and they're coming up with excuses (ie piracy) instead of admitting their own flaws.

Really, what do they expect when we don't want to pay $60 for Call of Duty 4: 7th Edition? Go through all the big name games of the past couple years and you'll have a hard time finding a game that doesn't end in a number... Gamers are getting bored with all the same crap the AAA companies pump out.