An introduction to the Game Industry

The games industry at present is a bit of a turbulent place with the global recession finally beginning to show its weary head to even the highest earning companies. In the last few weeks we have see the amount of redundancies grow from the hundreds to the thousands and now even those who 12 months ago though they were easily secured in their jobs are now in the firing line. A few independent developers and publishers have sadly closed their doors and some have had the good fortune to have been saved by outside backers or been bought and absorbed into the portfolios of some of the bigger companies such as EA and Activision. Thankfully given the time this is happening it could have been a lot worse as most games companies save their biggest releases for the winter with the prospect of Christmas sales accounting for at least half of their annually sales totals but I have a feeling when we get into the slow period of releases which is usually from late January to early June the future of peoples jobs and companies future will grow more into doubt. Sadly cost cutting measures are having to be taken to ensure company’s survival until this recession blows over and with the new consoles power increasing the production costs and development time up even further the casualties will begin to grow and we may see before 2009 is out some of the bigger names in the games industry closing their doors for the last time. My view is that those who do have security in their jobs for the time being still enjoy what they do and the freedom they have in expressing ideas must be a refreshing feeling. The game industry has always and will always be about the creation and devilment of new ideas that can become franchises that makes the company money and I’ve always wanted to be a part of something where my ideas can help make something great or useful and that one day someone will same that something I came up with was worthwhile in moving a game forward. I may be over romanticizing the business a nit but to be honest I don’t care, I’ve been a fan of the business my whole life, it shaped my childhood and drove my ambitions as a result and even if the best thing I can achieve is just one small credit on a game then it will be all worth it, I think there’s more to games than just the business side, passion will go a long way into shaping the future of the business, Just ask Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto.