The Rise of Costs, The Fall of Gaming

[Diff-chan]

Minecraft sold 10 million copies.

Instead of trying to compete with Call of Duty or WoW, they should just make good games.

Max Payne 3 is a good game, though.

[dave is ok]

I'm sure it is. But it wasn't a very popular franchise to begin with - completely ignoring the 10 year wait between installments. Not to mention it was up against Diablo 3

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

120 Studios that have closed between 2006 and now:
3D Realms – 2009
7 Studios (Activision) – 2011
ACES Studio (Microsoft) – 2009
Action Forms – 2009

Artech Studios – 2011
Ascaron – 2009
Atomic Elbow – 2008
Backbone Vancouver
Beam Software/Melbourne House – 2010
BigBig (Sony) – 2012
Bizarre Creations (Activision) – 2010/2011
Black Rock (Disney) – 2011
Blue Fang Games - 2011
Blue Tongue (THQ) – 2011
BottleRocket – 2009
Brash Entertainment – 2008
Budcat (Activision) – 2010
Carbonated Games – 2008
Castaway Entertainment – 2008
Cheyenne Mountain – 2010
Cing – 2010
Clover Studios (Capcom) – 2006
Codemasters Guildford – 2011
Cohort Studios – 2011
Concrete Games – 2008

Dark Energy Digital – 2012
Deep Silver Vienna – 2010
DICE Canada – 2006
Digital Anvil – 2006
EA Chicago – 2007
EA Bright Light – 2011/2012
EA Japan – 2007
Eidos Manchester – 2009
Eidos Hungary – 2010
Empire Interactive – 2009
Ensemble Studios (Microsoft) – 2008
Factor 5 – 2009
FASA (Microsoft) – 2007
Fizz Factor – 2009
Flagship Studios – 2008
Flight Plan – 2010
Frozen North Productions
FuzzyEyes – 2009
Gamelab – 2009
Game Republic – 2011
GRIN – 2009
Groove Games – 2010
Helixe (THQ) – 2008
Hudson Entertainment – 2011
Humannature Studio (Nexon Vancouver) – 2009
Ignition London – 2010
Ignition Florida – 2010
Incognito Entertainment (Sony) – 2009
Indie Built (Take-Two) – 2006
Iron Lore – 2008
Juice Games (THQ) – 2011
Kaos Studios (THQ) – 2011
Killaware – 2011
Killspace Entertainment – 2011
KMM Brisbane – 2011
Krome Studios (might still be operating on skeleton crew) – 2010
Kuju Manila – 2009
Kuju Chemistry – 2009
Kush Games – 2008
Locomotive Games (THQ) – 2010
Loose Cannon Studios – 2010
Luxoflux – 2010
Mass Media (THQ) – 2008
Monte Cristo – 2010
Monumental Games – 2012
Midway Austin – 2009
Midway Newcastle – 2009
MTV Games – 2011
Multiverse – 2012
NetDevil – 2011
Ninja Studio – 2009
Nihon Telenet – 2007
Outerlight – 2010
PAM Development (Take-Two) – 2008
Pandemic Australia (EA) – 2009
Pandemic LA (EA) – 2009
Paradigm Entertainment – 2008
Pi Studios – 2011
Pivotal Games (Take-Two) – 2008
Propaganda Games (Disney) – 2011
Pseudo Interactive – 2008

Radical Entertainment – 2012
Rainbow Studios (THQ) – 2011
Razorworks – 2009
Realtime Worlds – 2010

Reakktor Media – 2012
Rebellion Derby – 2010
Red Octane – 2010
Redtribe – 2008
Rockstar Vienna – 2006
Sandblast Games (THQ) – 2008
SEGA San Francisco – 2010
Sensory Sweep Studios – 2010
Seta – 2008
Shaba Games (Activision) – 2009
SideCar Studios – 2007
Sierra Online – 2008
Snapdragon Games – 2009
SOE Denver – 2011
SOE Seattle – 2011
SOE Tuscon – 2011
Stormfront Studios – 2008
Straylight Studios – 2009
Team Bondi – 2011
The Code Monkeys – 2011
Titan Studios – 2009
THQ Studio Australia – 2009
THQ Digital Warrington – 2009
Transmission Games/IR Gurus – 2009
Ubisoft Brazil – 2010

Ubisoft Vancouver – 2012
Underground Development/Z-Axis (Activision) – 2010
Universomo (THQ) – 2009
Venom Games (Take Two) – 2008
Vicarious Visions California – 2007
Visceral Australia (EA) – 2011
Wolfpack Studios – 2006
Yuke’s Company Of America – 2010
Zoe Mode London - 2009
Zoonami – 2011

I don't recognize a lot of those names, but holy smoly! There are a lot here that I knew had closed, but had forgotten. What a shame.

[MechDeus]

At least some of those were folded into other companies or made new companies. There's only a few off the top of my head but it's not like all those companies are gone.

[Diff-chan]

Well, yea, because the people got new jobs, as people are wont to do when they lose their job. It doesn't mean that the companies aren't gone.

[MechDeus]

I'm not talking about people getting fired and getting a new job somewhere else, I'm talking about Clover basically remaining the same except they aren't under Capcom anymore or when a division gets folded into other departments. To say Clover is gone only applies to the name, not the development group.

[Shin Johnpv]

Bingo. I'd love to see single player games drop to $40-50 and save the development cost of shit I'm never going to play anyway.

Holy shit. Something I actually fully agree with Yoshi on.

So few games do I actually ever tough the multiplayer, or Co-op stuff on them.

[Shin Johnpv]

The one paragraph that was a quote from someone else regarding wasteful spending had a good point. The rest of it was mostly nonsense that wasn't taking long term factors into account.

There were multiple grossly uninformed statements about the Wii U sprinkled throughout, things like:The Wii U is using current gen tech, not next gen. The install base is catching up to seven years ago, not next year.

You might want to get your info up to date if you're going to make comments like that. It's been all but confirmed that the Wii-U GPU is going to be a GPGPU with compute shaders. Which is definitely not current gen console wise. It seems they're going for a CPU that isn't balls to the wall the way the Cell was and plan on doing more on the GPGPU, which it seems MS and Sony plan on doing with the PS4/720 as well. Specially Sony, with the PS4 rumored to be using Jaguar cores instead of Steamroller ones. No I'm not saying the Wii-U will be as powerful as the PS4/720, but it will be closer in design and feature set to the PS4/720 than it is to the 360/PS3.

Besides the fact that a console's generation isn't determined by the hardware in the machine but by when the console is released.

[MechDeus]

So what you're trying to say is that my point is even more valid than I made it out to be. Thanks.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

PS4 is going to be 64bit?