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 Member 1399 Level 25.03 Mar 2006 
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Video Gaming During Recessions
It seems like the gaming industry has been going great guns. The next-gen platforms all have a growing user-base, the PS3 is finally catching up in sales, the Wii still flies off shelves before it's even stocked, etc. However, now we are facing/are in a recession. In other areas of the economy, there are price increases (milk is up 13% for example), or slow-downs in manufacturing and sales.
What will the video game industry do, if anything, do you think to adjust to the recession? If the recession continues for most of the year, will we see less games in development, price drops in systems and games, etc.? How elastic will demand be for entertainment items like video games in a recession? Will this recession affect your personal purchases? I think that we have already seen some effects of the economic state we're in with mergers of publishers/developers rather than devs staying independent. (In fact, EA has discussed their plan to have some level of "independence" for the devs under their umbrella, which further shows how large they have grown.) So, for titles in development, or titles soon to be in development, I think we will continue to see a 3-tier striation: old games for sale again (Arcade, VC, etc.), cheap games by no-name 3rd-party publishers (I'm looking at you Wii), and A-list huge-budget titles that are a safe bet. For me personally, if the economy were going great guns I would be purchasing a HDTV and PS3 soon. However, there is no way to know if the money I have now will be worth 20% less in 6 months or not. This makes it all the more important that I save everything I can for the time being. If I'm going to be paying $5/gallon for gas this summer, and 10%-20% more for groceries and other items, that's a big change in expenses. This year, I will maybe purchase 1 or 2 PC games that my rig can handle that have high replayability (such as UT3 or the Orange Box), and not many more video games. This is my plan until the economy turns around. Jam it back in, in the dark.
"We are all the sum of our tears. Too little, and the ground is not fertile and nothing can grow there. Too much – the best of us is washed away…" - G'Kar
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Member 1399 Level 25.03 Mar 2006
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Just saw this article on analyst's take on the recession over at Gamespot: Analysts: Recession can't keep game industry down - PlayStation 3 News at GameSpot
There's nowhere I can't reach.
"We are all the sum of our tears. Too little, and the ground is not fertile and nothing can grow there. Too much – the best of us is washed away…" - G'Kar
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speculative