Game Industry Spiral of Death

[Zoo]

Games are getting more expensive because game production costs are rising because games are becoming more complex because consumers want more from their games because games are getting more expensive because game production costs are rising because games are becoming more complex because consumers want more from their games because games are getting more expensive because game production costs are rising because games are becoming more complex because consumers want more from their games because games are getting more expensive because game production costs are rising because games are becoming more complex because consumers want more from their games bec--

BUT: I have a plan: buy indie games and use Steam sales until Valve fords the storm and revolutionizes the gaming industry again (or some other company that doesn't just want your money, but wants you to love them) or the industry crashes until some new company rises from the ashes for a new golden age of gaming, like a beautiful phoenix. Or maybe the first person shooter genre will get stale and the majority will move on to a genre with a lower production cost, but that isn't likely to happen very soon.

Something's gonna happen.

[Gan]

The app store also isn't helping, mobile games are super cheap so people expect cheaper games and aren't willing to spend more.

(1) Too many games
(2) Not enough people who plays games
(3) Too expensive

If games were made cheaper, there would be more people who would buy them.

[GMG Kurt]

Its a non-sustainable growth pattern that most industries encounter when growing so rapidly.

It is interesting that you mention only buying from the companies that 'doesn't just want your money'.   I recently read this article about Capitalism and Voluntaryism. Heres an excerpt before I explain further my point.

Capitalism is a system of *voluntary exchange*, where the means of production are privately owned. A system where (IDEALLY) both parties benefit from the exchange. Coercion/force/aggression have no place in capitalism - if you expect it to thrive and increase the standard of living for the people. People need to be free = free markets. People need to be able to rise up out of their poverty -- they can't succeed at this when the government is crippling them with regulations/taxation -and has a hand & camera at every crevice of your existence. A free market won't be the epitome of a perfect world, as long as humans are imperfect then life itself will remain imperfect. But it is believed to be a vastly more appealing concept than a life with the state. Government is good at taking problems in our lives such as stealing, lying, counterfeiting, fraud and violence - and it makes them worse, perpetuates them further (globally), and colors them as being 'legal' - simply because they are the actions of the state. Without the government around to offer favor via legislation, to there snake-oil salesman corporate acquaintances - then those corporations wouldn't have any leg up on the competition, and they wouldn't have such ability to devastate small/individually owned family businesses. In a free market - the consumer has the power.

You may believe that some state ownership of land is more beneficial, you may prefer some group collective over individual property methods. . .that's fine. In a society centered around free markets/non-aggression, you would be free to gather with other like minded individuals and set up whatever utopic system of exchange you envision. But the key to this society, is that you will never be justified in forcing any other free human being, against their will, to adhere to the system which you* believe is best. People should be free to live how they want to live.

[Tl;Dr: the consumer controls the market (sort of that is super generalizing the idea))

essentially I'm saying that you always have a choice of what the market should offer. As gamer we have an obligation to draw a line in the sand and say we are fed up with marketing technique t₁, and by not buying t₁ we are no longer supporting and proliferating a system in which t₁ is upheld. If given the choice of t₁ and t₂, t₁ being a high-budget (perceivabley) overpriced game and t₂ being the low-budget low-cost (possibly indy) game that we consider desirable, we can only endorse and proliferate t₂ by buying thoes games and advertising them to friends and starve t₁ of our wallet warmers.

Pirating puts us in a unique place were we can say 'hey these High-budget games are bad for the industry but i want to play them anyways' and we are able to play them with out proliferating their creation in a economic framework of Voluntaryism. Are paying is the same as saying 'yes please, I want more of this'

But that brings to issue the point of are high budget games bad for the industry? I'm not about to google for charts and graphs, (mostly cause I'm behind on reading and need to finish 'Lord of the Ring' and research Libertarian critiques on Compulsory Voting and critiques on that and then write a paper that meta-critiques them. #thestruggleisreal)
non-sequiturs aside why are expensive games bad? Isn't "The Game Industry" ruled and dictated by the big companies, and don't we pay for their name? Part of the reason why indy games are so cheap is that the names of the developers aren't as prolific and nobody would buy the unheard of indy games for the rates big companies charge.

its worth noting that the way our (American) economy functions it isn't capitalism or voluntaryism.

[NOTE] As of writting this i'm very tired and may have made sense or been completely incoherent. Plz ask me to clarify if something I wrote didn't make sense. Chance is I missed a word :p
EDIT: more expensive projects more jobs made; just sayin.æ

[Connors]

I'm comfortable in the idea that, even if there was some kind of "crash", I'm good at finding games that I personally enjoy, I'm not interested in a lot of Triple-A titles anyways, and I'll be more than capable of finding something to do... I did read your posts and it's an interesting thing to think about, but it probably won't be a problem for me.

However, you should consider that if prices are rising and people still buy games then there probably IS a demand. I'm just not that interested in really expensive games.