Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > General > General Gaming Discussion > Uh, game crash? What?

[ReloadPsi]

Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪ ^

We'll all be witness to the next Game Crash soon enough...well no...not quite soon enough. But it'll happen.

I AM GOING TO CRY.

Could someone elaborate on this please? I've heard the odd whisper of "gaming's dead in Japan" and stuff like that but what's the actual story? I don't keep up with the gaming scene anymore and wouldn't know where to begin looking.

[Kentarou]

The Gaming Crash is when a gigantic planet that has a bunch of Nintendo stuff on it crashes into the moon. Then, it rains down on us from above, and lands in store shelves.

Edit: Seriously though, the Gaming Crash they're referring to is when Gaming just hits a stand-still. No one likes it, it doesn't do well, gaming companies don't have enough money to do well, and the fad of gaming ends. This happened once before, and people use it nowadays to express over-excitement.

[Roto13]

In short, the video game industry crashed in 1983 for several reasons, perhaps the most important of which being a market saturated with poor-quality non-licensed drivel (games didn't need to be licensed by console manufacturers back then) and even some genuinely awful licensed games. It lasted until the NES was released and spurred a new interest in gaming. I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article if you want more details.

On a side note, the odds of it happening again are about the same as the film industry crashing.

[ReloadPsi]

Yeah, I read about the 1983 game crash, mostly caused by E.T., Atari 2600 Pac Man and Atari 2600 porn, if memory serves.

[Roto13]

That hits all of the more important points, yep. xP

[Hsu]

I don't really see it happening. Even a crappy economy hasn't slowed the industry down - there's been reports of video games so far being recession proof.

Graphically, we'll hit a wall eventually, but I don't think that a lack of graphical improvements will hinder anything. Developers will just have to use more unique art directions to keep interest.

[Big D]

Things are different now due to the overlap between gaming, Hollywood, and that kind of thing. There are still plenty of bad games, sure, but bad movies and TV haven't killed those media.

In fact, a bit of a slump in the gaming industry might even be a good thing - if it weeds out the cheap, crummy developers who've got nothing going for them, then it might be a bit of positive natural selection for games as a whole.

[The EoFF Phantom]

As others have said, gaming isn't a niche industry anymore. The chances of another crash like the 1983 one are slim to none.