This, so much.

Compare video games to comic books.  Both are niche industries, for whom 99% of the products produced will never, EVER gain mass appeal.

The comic book industry budgets according to its market, and while DC and Marvel have been bought out by larger companies, those companies have done nothing to the comic book arm other than to license out a few movie deals, and both Image and Dark Horse continue on, along with a host of smaller publishers who've embraced the comic book market and dedicated retailers.

By contrast, the gaming industry spends far, far beyond its means and, rather than accept the fact that they can't continue to spend half of Fort Knox on every title, blame everything but their own hubris for the stagnant sales: used games, piracy, Steam sales... They look everywhere but in the mirror and continue to spend amounts of money that would make Hollywood blush, to the point where successful games are called "dissapointing" because they don't single-handedly make up for a company's other, failed development projects.  *GLARES at Square Enix*  They openly try to sabotage the dedicated retailer, as if they expect to suddenly get TOP BILLING at Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which isn't going to happen for 99% of games.

And this is the demise of gaming.  Whereas the last gaming crash was caused because of lost consumer faith in the face of garbage releases, this one will be brought about by games that are too expensive to develop for anyone to make a profit.

And all because a few tech whores valued cutting-edge visuals over gameplay.

I fear that the Souls franchise will become a mediocre and linear shooter in the future, seriously. Like you've said, look at Resident Evil... :/

You know what? I'm sick of ranting about how ****ing stupid publishers are. I'm sick of talking about how utterly retarded it is to throw 500+ people at a game and sink $50 million into marketing, creating a situation where you must sell 6 million copies to break even. I'm tired of *****ing about how this whole bloated mess destroys innovation and forces all AAA games to become a homugoneous mass to increase the chances of hitting the totally obscene and unrealistic expectations of narrow-sighted pubishers only concerned with the here and now.

Just watch this Jimquisition. He puts it better than I think I could of, and frankly I just don't have the energy to write a big rant right now. I'm gonna go play more Reus, a niche title from a small indie studio that realizes they make niche titles and are perfectly happy with that.

Just about every Jimquisition video is pure gold.

Watching Jim Sterling, or reading KingOfOldSkool cover the issue...wait, he chooses not to? Well, still not watching Jim Sterling.

I was so disappointed with New Super Mario Bros U as well.  Another cash cow game that is barely worth 30 dollars.  And of course Call of Duty: Ghosts has been announced for a November release.  Let me guess.  Laggy servers for the first two weeks with 3 overpowered weapons, 4 DLC map packs, and patches that compensate for the OP weapons.  You know what?  If it wasn't for Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate, I wouldn't want a Wii U until Zelda comes out.  If all 3 next gen consoles were released, I'd go with PS4.  

Dark Souls 2 looks okay I didn't get to play Demon Souls', and only played a little of Dark Souls' 1. *rises his glass* goodbye the next game the industry is  going screw up Assassin Creed..

Great, just great...

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls series is one of the last games, if not the last, that I care about, games that I really look forward to playing and that I will buy as soon as there are new releases. If they somehow manage to destroy that wonderful game too, then I guess I will become an exclusive Angry Birds player and I will never be bothered again.

I still can't tell what an AAA game is. I have the suspicion it means a big expensive release with something offensive, excessive and ridiculous about it. At first I thought Dark Souls was a kind of AAA game in the sense that it was an ambitious game, did well in sales, had multi-player arenas and BS like that, had dlc later (it was there from the beginning disk locked..) At least compared to Demon's Souls it was a more popularized game and for that I love the first game more. But compared to other big (empty) games, Dark Souls is an oasis in the middle of the desert.