What would happen if the game industry crashes?

I have heard Boogie2988 talk about that a lot but I don't exactly know what would happen if it were to crash.

I imagine you could look at the first crash after Atari blew itself up. Companies going bankrupt left and right - hopefully with people actually taking notice this time - as well as scrambling to develop SOMETHING that could salvage what was left. But on a much, much larger scale. Think whatever the 21st century equivalent of an Atari 5200 is; from like, five different companies. If something worthy of being called a "crash" were to happen (and as many have said, I don't think one will anytime soon), we'd probably need more than just one Super Mario Brothers equivalent to walk it back. I think the industry's influence is just too far-reaching at this point. Of course, we could end up only saving a fraction of the total conglomerate and return to something akin to the 90s or turn-of-the-century influence, but that would mean a Hell of a lot of people left jobless, with some major corporations monopolizing all the talent. Or just mobile games. Mobile games as far as the eye could see.

As for the after-effects, I am even less knowledgable to talk about the economics and world impact than I am the above - all that's obviously speculation up there. I would imagine some sort of chain reaction would occur that would end up taking jobs from people in weird, tangential careers like television and general technology.

That said, the reason why it would be that big is because it's so unlikely. Video games aren't just a hobby that people will shrug their shoulders at and walk away from when someone releases an "E.T." (If that was the state of it, AC Unity and Master Chief Collection should have brought down the whole damn industry). It's a legitimate part of the world economy now.

Phew, that was fun. I should say again, don't take any of this to heart. I just thought it was good fun to imagine and mind-map this nightmare scenario. All of this could be horseshit. Some of it surely is.

Kickstarters, as far as the eye can see.

What would happen with the world you mean? No idea. I don't think it could happen really.
But what would I do if it happened? I would probably replay everything I love, play a lot of the games I still haven't touched on Steam, and maybe read even more than I do now.
Honestly, if no new games would ever come out after the end of this year, I still would have enough "new" games to play for a long time.

Indies would become even more prevalent than they are now cos they need less cash to be sustainable. It might even deter the the get-rich-quick indies who pump out bad fps's and minecraft clones. Bring it on I guess.

You mean the western games industry? I'd continue playing my Japanese developed games that always give me the feeling of value for every last penny of my $60. You guys continue climbing towers in your reskinned western rehashes, I'm fine.

Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. Just like last time.

People would start doing things outside again. It would be terrible.

Exactly. Media that a large number of people want to consume doesn't "crash", it's just the companies that have become too huge and expensive to remain sustainable that may fail.

Few people know about the film industry "crash" of the early 60s. At that time, studios were in a destructive pattern of trying to make films more "epic" than their competitors and raising the budgets to do so. It got to the point where Fox's much touted Cleopatra brought in a crazy for that time half a billion dollars (adjusted for inflation), but was considered a business failure because they had spent more than that to make the film. (Sound familiar, Square Enix?) That one film, despite its success, almost bankrupted Fox singlehandedly.

The studios had become unsustainable, but films didn't stop getting made. They simply made room and gave creative control to many then indie filmmakers to work with slightly bigger budgets. John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, Dennis Hopper, Sydney Pollack, Roman Polanski, Peter Bogdanovich, Gordon Parks, and tons of others helped bring artistic excellence and innovation to the medium that had been stagnating for decades. And the "crash" is what allowed it all to happen.

Video games aren't going anywhere. EA, Activision, Ubi, and others might crumble and take their devs out with them, but the games won't stop getting made. They'll just come from other sources that just might be even better than the monolithic companies were ever able to make.

Commadore reboot. There'd just be a power vacuum more than anything. One that Nintendo would probably be in the best position to fill.

I could finally catch up on my backlog.

Obama would buy up all the american game publishers so all the blue collar video game developer employed there wouldn't lose their jobs. It's the only way we all can avoid F2P phone games taking over the world, right?

I'm just kidding. It would dramatically increase crime and drug rates across western civilization until everything descended into anarchy or fascism.

As I see it, the thing about words like "crash" is that they can be a little misleading. I don't think a crash means there is going to be an apocalyptic event and video games will die. That's pretty much impossible at this point, too many people enjoy games. The trick is that realizing that nothing happens in a vacuum. One can argue video games have actually already gone through a recent crash (or at least a fender bender).

Over the last 10 years, mid range studios have closed left and right, leaving only small team and big AAA teams. This is a result of increasing costs of making games which doesn't really match with increasing sales. Today in the AAA space, we see a limited selection of games. And the few games we do see are designed to appeal to as many people as possible to take it as safe as possible. This is a direct result of the market shrinking (or at least not growing).

You can also look at social games as a video game crash. When F2P social games first came out, it was a gold rush. People were printing money! And investors took notice. They starting throwing money at social game start ups, hoping they would get a hit. Companies that already had hits scaled up as high and as fast as they could. And all was good, but eventually it all bounced back. Lots of places closed shop or had massive layoffs. Even the market leaders in the space are pretty much just one hot wonders. That's a lot like the video game crash of the 80s.

One thing that is important to note is that the health of a market isn't just what is selling or making money. It's also what investors are willing to put money INTO. Investors are starting to steer away from F2P because they don't think the potential is there anymore. Also, a sign that the space is inflated is that there will be SHIT-TONS of games out there, mostly of meddling quality. That's not exactly an awesome time for gamers either. If that's not happening (and it isn't in the AAA) space, I don't know if we have to worry about any 'crashes'

Now the indie space on the other hand... there are a LOT of indie games... and lots of them are great. Only so much money to go around though....

@joshwent: yep. I think it's important to note that games aren't going anywhere. Unless you're the type of person who's only into big budget AAA stuff, in which case maybe start buying all those season passes and coin doublers and character skins that we all hate so much, coz that's probably the only thing propping that section of the market up right now.

Is it really only the AAA studios tbat can take advantage of bleeding-edge technology? From an absolute layman's view it seems like it's never been easier or closer in reach for small studios to make phenomenal looking games. (With free unreal 4 engine and all)

Gaming is too big and diverse now to crash completely, but I could totally see a big crash in the AAA space. Those big publishers are out of control in a number of ways.

Bigger games would go away for a little while and "indie" games would continue on without them.

Just like it did before.

You would only be able to get 8 bit rogue lites and only on steam and mobile.

We'd be free

To be honest I can see some real shit going down in the next two years. In many ways it feels like gaming has been coasting on past glories in the last few years, and it is unsustainable.

This. Although honestly I'm still not sure I'd manage it.

If that day ever comes, I will find "the football" brief case with the nuclear launch codes, activate ALL OF THEM, and press the big red button.

other than that, tears will be shed, maybe ill pick up a book or something?

I'd play all the old games I've never played

Amiibos would somehow be less useful.

Well I would have a lot more money, With that money I would buy more alcohol and become a drunk and loose my job and everyone I love and be homeless. I write this while a little drunk.

Well, the one thing I think we can be fairly certain of is that there won't be another crash like the big one. After that, there was a genuine (and justified) belief in some quarters that videogames were a thing that people had had an interest in, and then moved on, and the industry was "over". Nowadays, that's not going to happen. Just like a crash in the music or movie industry won't stop people from recording and filming, a crash in the games industry won't stop people from developing games. Whether those games are will always be AAA blockbusters costing 8 and 9 figure sums, or even appear on consoles or PCs, well, that's very hard to say.

I'd experience the sun once again!

Then again games from independent developers would still be around and they can be pretty addictive.

I think something like the crash of 83 is necessary for all this bullshit currently going on in the AAA market to go away.

It's not possible for the market to crash anymore. Gaming has expanded and diversified too much. You honestly think there will be a large enough crash that will sink the mobile market, the browser market, the indie market, the AAA market, the PC market, the F2P market, the handheld market, the console market, the Korean market, the Chinese market, the Russian market and so forth? If you want to bring up Atari, then I have to bring up Steam. The majority of games released onto Steam these days are complete and total shovelware garbage. We live in the information age with the internet now. Shovelware and parasites flooding the market are not enough to crash any market by itself now. The iOS store has the exact same issue.

Now, most people are taking aim at publishers and their DLC/microtransaction practices when they bring up the market crashing. That or the rise of F2P gaming. It seems like F2P games have only exploded and many of them started off with THE WORST kinds of microtransactions possible. Clearly, that wasn't enough to stop them, but I really think publishers are what is being targeted in 95% of "market crash" claims.

So what does that leave us with causing a market crash? Annual sequels, DRM, DLC, microtransactions, social interconnectivity, online driven experiences, mandatory MMO inspired time-consuming features, rehashing the same kinds of games, etc, etc. All that with the possibility of DRM consoles in a future generation where you own nothing, not even the consoles.

The worst case scenario is that the console market crashes, which isn't impossible. Most publishers/developers from last generation are gone and half of the genres are dead while 95% of sub-genres within popular genres are dead, too. Kids aren't catered to on consoles and yeah, the rapidly expanding schemes to get more money out of full priced games is certainly off putting. Meanwhile, publishers still refuse to lower their production or marketing budgets to realistic levels, negating the need to nickel and dime consumers, often reducing the quality of their games with time-consuming MMO grinding of XP, currency or equipment in the process. Now they can't even release finish products. This generation has been an absolute mess with broken or unfinished games. So yeah, the console market and possibly the handheld market eventually are the only markets that have anything to worry about, but the entire industry can not crash anymore.

At this point it'd be like asking "What would happen if the movie industry crashes?".

It's not going to. It might change, and certain things (I.E consoles) might change drastically or go away, but the industry won't. It's too large now.

You will never see a crash like the previous one again. AAA games can go down the tube, but gaming in general will continue. It's just way to easy to create and sell games on the internet.

Ew, gross, then I'd have to go outside.

Giant Jon Romero's head popping out of the earth's crust.

Giant Jon Romero's head popping out of the earth's crust.

Giant Jon Romero's head popping out of the earth's crust.

It would be nearly impossible for it to crash in the same way it did in the 80s. The only reason it crashed in the 80s is because Atari was the only dominant console seller and video game publisher back then. In order for a similar crash to happen today, every major company would have to pull out of the console business. Even if that happened, PC and mobile gaming would still thrive and most console gamers would most likely switch to PC or mobile gaming.

It's hard to see how on earth it could crash again at this point. It's almost like saying "what if we have another dark ages?". Information, developing talent and money are so widely spread that it's incredibly hard to see what could bring it all down. I guess a massive economic crash could have an impact. Not sure what else.

yeah i think if gaming fails in a massive way it's probably a casuality of much more important and dire circumstances in the world. gaming won't go anywhere now; it'll just change.

I would cry...a lot.

@somejerk: Coin doublers in F2P games usually don't cost $60, duder.