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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

If all of the anti-hype (the FUD?) about not just Zynga but companies that pump out AAA games in general, video games in general is heading for a crash not seen since the days of Atari. Fortunately, with the advent of Kickstarter, indie and Eastern European (and other non-American) studios, there will still be plenty of cult classics that will appeal to more hardcore and niche gamers.

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I still don't see how people can equate Zynga with the game market as a whole.

The "Ville" products are not games. They don't reward skill, you can't win them, and they don't offer any fulfilling multiplayer experience. Most real games fit one or more of these attributes.

Zynga products have more in common with cigarettes than something like Starcraft. Both of the former offer a not-terribly-fun experience that has been thoroughly optimized to provide maximum compulsion and habit. The other is made for entertainment and draws its value from people enjoying this entertainment.

And it is worth noting that, unlike FarmVille, Starcraft has created a pretty involved tournament scene. Many people enjoy being spectators, there are screencasts with commentators, and top players can make a living winning tournaments.

I don't think well-crafted, interesting games will crash.

I'm not saying Zynga is the same as EA, though the impending implosion of mobile/Facebook-based social games seems to match the possible implosion of the console game market as well [1]. It's a separate phenomenon, but they seem to be coincidentally happening at the same time.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/7/2/3125866/the-state-of...

MMOs don't seem immune from this either: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/03/activision-blizzard-t...

http://www.examiner.com/article/star-wars-the-old-republic-s...

Seems like the gaming industry is all over the place right now.

It's interesting that Blizzard/Activision doesn't ever get labeled as a social gaming company, even though they've created three of the the best social games in the last 10 years with World of Warcraft, the Call of Duty franchise and Starcraft.

"Social game" is a bit of a misnomer and refers specifically to the mechanic of leveraging social networks to gain more users through explicit in-game benefits of doing so. It doesn't really have anything to do with "being social"; it's just iterated word misuse.

Why is this being down voted? I agree. In fact it's happening right now. Every large AAA studio in Australia has already closed. There are so few big console games in development right now.

As AAA games get more expensive to make there has to be less in order for each to sell enough units to make a return on the massive investment.

This opens up more space for small studios and indie games, which I think is a good thing.

You may be right in general, but Australia is an extremely poor example.

The economy is booming from mining right now and the dollar is very strong, meaning the cost of living in USD dollars has nearly tripled since its low point in the mid '00s.

Having spent 7 years in the games industry, I am really interested to see how the kickstarter projects work out. TBH, I don't think some of the more high profile ones raised nearly enough money to make a game to the level of what people are expecting. Also, the timeline. What happens when a year goes by and there's no game. 2 years? 5 years? Some of the people raising money are known for taking a long, long, long time to develop a game. Do you want to pay $100 now to seed a game you won't see until 2018?

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