Every school-aged generation had at least one stupid thing that was the trendy, cool thing to be into, usually with with some collectible aspect designed to make your parents regret having kids. Collectible stickers and trading cards, pogs, spinning tops, Pokemon, tabletop minis… Game publishers have just lucked out that this time, it’s their games and their skins.
Can’t blame them for milking it dry, because just like the other trends, it’s very probable that, at some point, this too will probably die.
My fear is over what it will take with it when it goes.
A lot of companies are so reliant on their current cash cow that… who knows how badly they would get hit to be honest. Like, does Epic have anything very successful going on besides Fortnite? The Epic Store was a clear attempt at creating a safety net in the event Fortnite dried out but that store hasn’t caught on as much as it needed to. Well they have Unreal and the whole stack of game development related platforms, but it would still be a big hit.
But who knows, what comes next may be compatible with the video game industry in a way that it can profit from it.
If I had to guess, what comes next is either an insane evolution of Roblox-esque metaverse user community spaces (fortnite is already heading there after all) or a revolution of short form media that allows user generation, consumption and participation in a manner that we can’t currently fathom.
So either “Roblox 3.0” or “TikTok 2.0 meets those-twitch-AI-shows-that-went-viral-for-a-minute 2.0”.
But I’m probably waaayyyyy off the mark. But whatever it is, it will be setup around the idea that you are only cool if you have X and X costs stupid amounts of money.
My bet is on small indie devs making projects they’re passionate about. The last time I bought a AAA title I was sorely disappointed (yet again). Oh well, at least I don’t have to upgrade my gpu for a bit 😅
Oh indies will always always be there, even if the mainstream part of the industry collapsed on itself. Thank god for that because the independent and AA markets are more and more the only places in which you can find experiences that are substantial either at gameplay or narrative levels.
Every school-aged generation had at least one stupid thing that was the trendy, cool thing to be into, usually with with some collectible aspect designed to make your parents regret having kids. Collectible stickers and trading cards, pogs, spinning tops, Pokemon, tabletop minis… Game publishers have just lucked out that this time, it’s their games and their skins.
Can’t blame them for milking it dry, because just like the other trends, it’s very probable that, at some point, this too will probably die.
My fear is over what it will take with it when it goes.
A lot of companies are so reliant on their current cash cow that… who knows how badly they would get hit to be honest. Like, does Epic have anything very successful going on besides Fortnite? The Epic Store was a clear attempt at creating a safety net in the event Fortnite dried out but that store hasn’t caught on as much as it needed to. Well they have Unreal and the whole stack of game development related platforms, but it would still be a big hit.
But who knows, what comes next may be compatible with the video game industry in a way that it can profit from it.
If I had to guess, what comes next is either an insane evolution of Roblox-esque metaverse user community spaces (fortnite is already heading there after all) or a revolution of short form media that allows user generation, consumption and participation in a manner that we can’t currently fathom.
So either “Roblox 3.0” or “TikTok 2.0 meets those-twitch-AI-shows-that-went-viral-for-a-minute 2.0”.
But I’m probably waaayyyyy off the mark. But whatever it is, it will be setup around the idea that you are only cool if you have X and X costs stupid amounts of money.
My bet is on small indie devs making projects they’re passionate about. The last time I bought a AAA title I was sorely disappointed (yet again). Oh well, at least I don’t have to upgrade my gpu for a bit 😅
Oh indies will always always be there, even if the mainstream part of the industry collapsed on itself. Thank god for that because the independent and AA markets are more and more the only places in which you can find experiences that are substantial either at gameplay or narrative levels.