I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the recent problems that a number of game developers were having over the last several months. First we saw the end of Telltale Games, and then we heard about Nintendo's sales slowing down due to a [possible] lack of interest in the Switch (as well as Nintendo's failed attempt with their online platform), and then we heard that Square-Enix was having problems (cancelled DLC's and main director leaving), and now we're hearing more issues with Blizzard/Activision and their change of direction. Do you think these recent developments are a sign of things to come in the gaming industry, or are they simply the result of a natural progression of how things are changing in the gaming world? What are your thoughts?

Trouble? We need a complete crash. Industry crashes are like wars. Thins out the bad blood, brings in new blood and new ideas. I've been gaming since the early 80s and PC gaming since the mid 90s. I've never seen such a horrible time creatively than right now. The entire gaming world has become one giant vending machine, spitting out the same garbage over and over again, with little in the way of innovation or imagination.

DLCs, loot crates, online only, restrictive DRM, hyped features never realized, politics seeping into game development, social media having way too much influence on dev opinions, early access shovelware, games and mods promised but never finished, the list goes on and on. Trouble? We need a damn hurricane to come and wash it all away. How could what replaces it be any worse? Wait. I might regret saying that.

Doesn't sound like any of these cases are connected to each other, probably just the result of individual mismanagements, companies banking on what they think will be profitable and investing lots of money in it, only to find out that this isn't really what everyone has been waiting for.

I agree that we've never had it better when it comes to choice, but perhaps that could also be a bad thing (here me out!). I tend to think of Steam when I think of the bloated gaming marketplace, which makes me wonder if the gaming industry is getting a little watered down. I can't help reminding me of what happened in 1983 at the height of the gaming crash. I still remain optimistic, but I'm starting to wonder if history may be repeating itself. That being said, I'm extremely thankful to have so many choices.

Emob78 is right. Whatever can be said about the state of the video game industry today, it is not good for quality games and the people who love them.

Addressing Mr.Mumbles: You may be fine playing only "Indie" games and believe that the same type of problems don't apply, but that doesn't constitute an argument against Emob78's assertions; you're simply saying that you don't understand why people are complaining about the auto industry when you're having fun tooling around your neighborhood in a go-kart. Well, I'm sure that is fun, but it's also apples and oranges.

"We've never had it this good especially where choice is concerned."

Quantity over quality? "Indie" games are not a substitute for the quality standard that video game players have been accustomed to since the 1970s. Your opinion that "we've never had it this good" could not be any further removed from my conception of reality. I'm just throwing this out as an example: Let's say you enjoy playing HOG/Casual games, which I occasionally enjoy, and that is in fact all that you play. From one isolated perspective, you could profess that there is nothing wrong with the video game industry, when in fact it is only that you are not aware of the problems.

I didn't build my first gaming PC until the end of 2008, but within just a few years it became clear to me that a profound change occurred in the AAA industry almost exactly when I started PC gaming, which I now refer to as the Great Consolization of 2008**. At first, I didn't understand why there was such a marked difference in quality between the games that induced me to build a gaming PC in the first place--Half Life 2, F.E.A.R., The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Crysis, BioShock, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic--and those that started releasing afterward. I eventually realized one fact: that from 2008 onward, all AAA games, with certain rare exceptions, were conceived, designed, and coded for console hardware, and for the sensibilities of the console market.

Another change that I understand now is that 2008 is around the time that the last of the AAA studios were being sold to the publisher giants. Before then, many AAA games were made by studios who worked with publishers rather than being wholly-owned subsidiaries of a publisher. The people who were responsible for making the games were actual gamers. Today, the publisher IS the developer. He who holds the gold makes the rules, and he who makes the rules is the developer. In fact, the term 'publisher' is now entirely inaccurate and anachronistic.

Anyway, Emob78 listed at least six things that are indefensible from the perspective of one who loves great video games. I suppose I should add my opinion that a large factor in the degradation of the industry is the general corruption of the video game media.

** I place it thus, as 2007 was the last year in which a game conceived, designed, and coded for PC was released, unless you count Crysis: Warhead and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, both released in 2008.

But the whole point of 1983 crash was that most of the games were produced basically by the single company (Atari). So when this company's game quality dropped and lead to its crisis, that crisis of one company lead to the crisis of the whole industry.

Today it's the opposite - not only there a several huge companies like EA, Ubisoft or Blizzard, but also scores of small indie devs and a fair amount of teams in between. So even if all major AAA companies go to hell (which is not necessarily a bad thing) game developing industry will remain intact and probably rather vibrant.

If there is trouble, I can't really say it bothers me, as my sphere of interest in games thins out to a stopping point some time in the 2000s except for indie titles. As honestly aside from TW3, I'm having trouble finding a 'AAA' game in my catalog. If the giants tumble to their knees, that won't really change much for me, and it might free many good developers from the shackles of their overlords.

I haven't owned a console since the Wii, or a handheld since the Vita. (I don't count the 3DS since it was naff and I didn't like it.)

Addendum: As to the troubles you specifically spotlight, I'll go though them: Nintendo did this to themselves. They've always done this to themselves. If you came to Nintendo not expecting a plateau or drought, you've been living in a strange world. Nothing can or will change Nintendo unless the senior management and senior citizens were to leave the company. Some of them actually are, surprisingly. Everyone who wants a Switch already has it, or is waiting on the Osborne Effect of a revised edition of the platform.

Telltale Games was a simple case of incompetent management. It wasn't due to dwindling interest or failed product (a contributing factor, merely that), but more that some idiot took a buzzsaw though the entire finances and then parachuted out.

Square-Enix is a simple case of gross incompetence. I have no idea what organization is like over there, but it is very clear that things had gone horribly wrong years ago and yogurt wasn't the end product. FF15 was already a disaster in the making. With 3 bloated projects that had been in development, (FF7R, FF15, KH3) and tepid reception from other titles (Whichever is the newest Tomb Raider), it is understandable how Square might be bleeding money. This is their problem, and not indicative of anything larger.

Actizard: The merger was a mistake in the first place. What you are seeing now is that the parasite Activision is assuming full control of the host Blizzard. Do not expect things to improve. Anyone who made Blizzard what it was has now moved to other pastures.

I high-rate this post ^.

I see it as a few things coming to a head.

1) Companies too big for their britches.
Companies think people will buy a game because it's a big name so they can do whatever they want. They are forgetting a simple truth: What is good for the consumer is good for the company as it encourages more sales and loyalty. Many companies aren't treating customers right in various ways leading to people walking away from them (and rightly so).

2) The indie scene is bloated and huge.
There are more games than ever! Also more crap than ever. For every indie darling there's a few thousand junk titles (probably more). It's a confusing time to be a gamer. Good games go under the radar. Bad games get promoted thanks to advertising budgets or word of mouth (ex: Youtube people ranting that it's terrible). Finding gems in the junk heap is a pain. On the flip side, good luck getting noticed you hardy bedroom devs!

3) Mobile gaming is the indie scene only worse.
Take everything about the indie scene and make it want your money so bad they are willing to practically steal from you to get it. It's basically a garbage fire where it's refreshing to see someone not milking players like cash cows. Also, mobile devices are the most common "gaming device" as everyone has a cell phone. The low quality of the mobile scene only makes the rest of the gaming world look bad to folks who otherwise might have been interested in games.

4) You can't trust gaming media.
Many big name "gaming media" companies that do reporting on games have vested interests that color what they publish. This can vary from politics tinting reviews to straight up reviewing bad games highly to keep their makers paying them for ad space and more. This isn't new, but it's widespread now which makes #2 and #3 even worse for gamers.

In my mind, only the honest who treat people well will have any chance at survival. Being a good honest creator with a decent game may not be enough for a bedroom dev on a shoestring budget with no way to let people know they exist to survive. Expect casualties at all levels, not just the obvious big players.

I see no problems. We have tons of good indie games these days...

Haven't noticed but maybe they cant get any modders to fix up their games,anymore.

This is how I feel too.
Now there are some cases where I might be interested in trying some AAA releases, like possibly some latest Formula 1 games, but those are not available DRM-free. Also apart from better graphics and updated driver list, you can pretty much still have a session with Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2, and have just as good races as with a couple of decades newer titles.

Otherwise I enjoy games which are not even close to mainstream, and are often "too niche" for GOG too.

I play mostly Indie's & replays of older games and am generally unaffected too. However, even though we still have modern Indie's, it's not been remotely healthy to rely solely on those and for the AAA's to go from being merely uncreative (oh look, another Tomb Raider, Call of Duty, Hitman, Far Cry, etc, 1997-2004 era IP game in 2018) to post-2015 games almost completely falling through the floor in terms of the "direction" they're heading in (micro-transactions, lootboxes, pay2win, grind2unlock being ramped up to extremes to "highlight" pay2win DLC, the return of multi-layered DRM, per-play DLC, trying to kill off / monetize / platform-lock community modding, more consolization, more dumbing down, more politicisation, remake-itis even worse than Hollywood's, etc).

Indie's aren't perfect either simply for being Indie's. From games abandoned with bugs / unfixed issues (even on GOG), to poor optimization to Early Access / Kickstarter Hell to similar platform-locking of modding into Steam-Workshop only, etc.

A few decent modern Indies aside, PC gaming has been going downhill for years and is long past its Golden Era peak on an industry whole. 20 years ago everyone was excited about the future of gaming. 20 years on, people just shaking their head in disbelief at the "direction" we're heading in, and amusingly re-playing 20 year old games a lot more than late 1990's gamers were playing 70-80s games at the time. Example articles:-

Eidos Montreal dedicates itself to producing online-games now:-
https://www.techspot.com/news/72368-eidos-montral-dedicates-itself-producing-online-games-now.html

EA patents system that deliberately mis-matches gamers in MP shooters to encourage the weaker one to buy pay2win:-
https://www.pcgamesn.com/ea-matchmaking-microtransactions-eomm-engagement-patent

Ubisoft marketing guy Tony Key, Senior explains how Ubisoft wants to force micro-transactions to make every $60 consumer into a $200 consumer:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fY5L95BOQTg

Perfect World Entertainment closes Runic Games due to focus on online games as a service:-
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/59744/torchlight-dev-runic-games-shuttered/index.html

Ex Bioware dev says EA wants Micro-Transactions in absolutely everything:-
https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/ex-bioware-dev-says-ea-is-turning-to-multiplayer-games-for-the-microtransactions.241821/
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microtransactions-will-be-in-every-game-says-ea-exec/1100-6383445/

Assassins Creed Producer says optimising for PC not important:-
http://games.on.net/2013/11/assassins-creed-4-producer-says-pc-optimisation-isnt-really-important-gamers-will-just-upgrade-their-hardware/

Take-Two CEO plans to have MT's in all future games:-
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/11/08/gta-publisher-plans-to-have-microtransactions-in-all-future-games

Future gaming AI will deliberately tamper with your gameplay to 'steer' you towards more micro-transactions:-
https://www.techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-ai-powered-game-revenue-model-paper-foretells-a-dystopian-nightmare

As Emob78 said in post 2, what we really need is one giant boycott-related crash to knock the floor from under AAA studio's for 1-2 years. Sadly the sheep & the whales are too dumb to "see the forest for the trees" to take part.

Personally, I've already "bunkered down" with mostly replaying my existing collection + unfinished backlog + future Indie's. But even though I'm happy to make do with that, there's no question 2016-2018 PC gaming isn't remotely where it should be vs previous decades, and that consolization and mobilization has had a massive negative impact on almost everything PC-gaming related, and that the future planned direction seems we're nowhere near the bottom which feels like we're going to end up with the video gaming equivalent of how the future of TV was portrayed in the movie Idiocracy.

Instead of repeating what has already been said, I'll just +1 those replies and only say that it's not that the industry is in trouble, but that the industry IS the trouble.