In Fairness, the Recession did Manage to Actually Kill Duke Nukem: Forever
When the economic recession first hit, famous writers swore up and down that video game industry was recession proof. Several months and a couple highly publicized studio closings later, writers seem to have taken the opposite stance and now think that the industry is headed for a meltdown that would make the Great Crash of '83 look like a slow after-Christmas sales quarter.
A video was recently posted that interviewed a lot of developers about whether they thought the industry was headed for a crash. I am not posting said video, because I feel the whole matter can be summed up in two words: so what?
So what if the video game industry crashes tomorrow? It's not like anyone's going to say, "Oh well, it took over thirty years, but it looks like video games were just a fad after all. Time to put away the controllers and figure out how to socially interact with normal human beings. I wonder what I can do to fill all that time I spent arguing about video games online?" Video games will still exist even if the industry somehow disappears, and as long as games exist there will be people who will play them.
While I highly doubt an actual industry crash is going to happen anytime soon (especially considering the last one had less to do with economics and more with the fact the industry was really dumb back then), but even in the event of an unlikely scenario where the video game industry spontaneously combusts I think video games and the people who play them will still get by. Personally, I own enough unplayed games that if I stopped getting new ones I wouldn't have to repeat titles for at least a decade. Probably more, given how long it takes me to play through games.
So in summary, there are plenty of good things to be worried about in this economic depression. Things like whether or not you'll have a job tomorrow, or whether the entire health care industry will somehow explode. Don't bother worrying about gaming though. It's no going away anytime soon.
A video was recently posted that interviewed a lot of developers about whether they thought the industry was headed for a crash. I am not posting said video, because I feel the whole matter can be summed up in two words: so what?
So what if the video game industry crashes tomorrow? It's not like anyone's going to say, "Oh well, it took over thirty years, but it looks like video games were just a fad after all. Time to put away the controllers and figure out how to socially interact with normal human beings. I wonder what I can do to fill all that time I spent arguing about video games online?" Video games will still exist even if the industry somehow disappears, and as long as games exist there will be people who will play them.
While I highly doubt an actual industry crash is going to happen anytime soon (especially considering the last one had less to do with economics and more with the fact the industry was really dumb back then), but even in the event of an unlikely scenario where the video game industry spontaneously combusts I think video games and the people who play them will still get by. Personally, I own enough unplayed games that if I stopped getting new ones I wouldn't have to repeat titles for at least a decade. Probably more, given how long it takes me to play through games.
So in summary, there are plenty of good things to be worried about in this economic depression. Things like whether or not you'll have a job tomorrow, or whether the entire health care industry will somehow explode. Don't bother worrying about gaming though. It's no going away anytime soon.