Gaming Companies = Titanic

It is no surprise to myself that these gaming companies are suffering major loses just based on their track record for games. You then take that and factor in over-hyping and over advertising terrible games and you lose millions of dollars with every game release.
This obviously being posted after hearing that now Sony is cutting 10,000 jobs and "refocusing". Which we have heard on dozens of occasions the last couple months from gaming companies cutting jobs and shutting down studios. Sony has suffered four years of losses now, losing about 6.4 billion dollars. THQ is another company that seems to be sinking fast, and these are just two of the major companies going down. To help I will once again post things that people should seriously consider.

1. NO MORE MOVIE GAMES!!!

Sure some movie games have been moderately successful, but the ratio has to be around 1/1000. Sega knows this pretty well sinking money into Iron Man games that flopped in almost every aspect.


2. Short Games Are Not Worth 50+ Dollars

People are suckers no doubt, but with the economy taking a nose dive everywhere some people are starting to wise up. Nobody wants to buy a sixty dollar game with 10 hours of single player campaign, minimal multiplayer, and no replayability.

3. Too Many Children Games

A lesson learned by THQ I am sure as they have a whole bunch of non-selling children games under their belt. Parents are usually not going to spend 40 dollars on a DS game that their kid will not appreciate or even enjoy. I mean how many Nintendog games do we really freaking need?

4. Games Developers Need More Focus

Clearly game testers do not really exist I mean have you seen some of the obvious bugs that even a trained monkey could report? Not every game needs multiplayer and not every game needs single player. Sometimes having only one is enough like Final Fantasy XIII-2 or any NIS game ever played. Granted even these games were not perfect, but the idea is to have enough gameplay to not be bored in a day. Mag and Rift are great examples of multiplayer only games.

5. Don't Blow So Much Money On Useless Marketing

The internet offers a cheap or even free way to advertise to target audiences for any game, even kids have Facebook nowadays. Spending 50 million on television advertising in a day and age when TVs have the capability of skipping commercials or better yet watching TV on the internet with no advertising. Instead use that money to make the best games possible.

6. Utilize DLC Properly

Patching a console game is not cheap costing somewhere around $50,000 for each console. Instead release a steady stream of content after the game launches and squeeze those last minute bug fixes in. That way even if people don't buy the DLC they are getting to experience the required fixes and companies save money instead of releasing everything separately.

7. Smarter Decisions As A Whole

There have been some terrible video game ideas over the past couple years cringe worthy in fact. There are companies making games for millions of dollars while indie developers make remarkably better games for a fraction of the price. New ideas are great, but companies should stick to core game mechanics instead of constantly changing a game until it is a shell of what it once was.

8. Motion Control And 3D Were A Great Gimmick

Nobody is denying that a change of pace is need for consoles, but somehow everything got turned around. If companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo focused more of making solid consoles and less on selling unwanted gimmicks they wouldn't be closing studios and firing people. PS3 and 360 both have serious frame rate issues for most games that need to addressed in the upcoming consoles. So needless to say I do not give a damn about my 360 avatar or my Playstation Home, I just want my games to function how they should for the large chunk of money I shell out for them. I mean Nintendo has some great titles, but they are released on a system that still uses 480p...and Xbox 360's break down more than your favorite female celebrities. HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW STAR WARS KINECT GAME?!...enough said.

9. The PC Misses You Game Developers...

The PC is a overwhelmingly difficult system to publish games on, not just because of system specifications. Piracy is a huge issue that has yet to be evaded by anybody, and nobody will ever be safe. Game companies know this and that is why they usually ignore PC gamers...EA!!! This does not mean we are all pirates, there is obviously a demand what with Binary Domain and Dark Souls getting ported over after fans could no longer be ignored. I personally love my PC it allows me the best control over my game along with much more stability.

I'm not sure if there is anything else at the moment, give it time...my rage bar needs a recharge. Too all the people that have lost their jobs I am deeply sorry your companies are useless and that a 23 year old with no college degree understands their problems more than they do. Perhaps all the fired people will get together and form a company called " U fire me Y?"

Article by: Larry Harris