• 3Jul 08

  2008 is set to overthrow the almighty 2007. Can it be!?

  After the fall of 2007, the gaming industry proved to be the best form of entertainment. Movies are still on top, but they suffer from heavy criticism, and large numbers of reviews. Books are still good to, enlivening the imagination, but to be honest, how many people read books to use their imagination? Not a lot, people prefer to just drift through a game, with doing any effort at all. So that leaves gaming, the last possible market... And it's booming!

  Looking at sales figures for 2007, it seems to be the case that developers/publishers who released game in the year of 2007 had huge profits. This was largely evident at companies such as Valve (Orange Box), Activision (Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4) and EA (every-f*****g-thing), to only name a few. Analysts were all saying the same thing, the gaming industry profited billions, yes, "billions" at the amount of good quality games sold last year. Although it is true to admit that most were sold solely on blind belief of the fat that hype was feeding gamers (need I mention Halo 3?). This showed that as technology is computing advanced, so did console and PC power, meaning developers could create very intriguing gaming and physics engines, and this, in turn, led to an amazing array of great value and extremely goodquality games. For example, the felexibility of the source engine meant that Valve could use that to create Half-Life 2: Episode 2 with it's great physics and visuals, Portal with it's premier use of portal technology in gaming, and finally Team Fortress 2 with it's hilarious, cartoon style. You see what I mean?

  Unfortunately, because of this advance in technology, some developers thought "Hey, let's absorb ALL this power!!!" and, concordently (yes, I'm inspired by the unique vocabulary of the Matrix Revolutions' Architecht...), became sopower hungry, they almost destroyed themselves, the company. Well, not that far. The prime suspect, Crysis. While the game is, obciously, visually and graphically stunning, the story among other aspects lacks wow factor. Also, they focused on the hard-hardcore market with the gargantuan PCs, and thus, left a huge amount of gamers behind. This game had no hope in hell of outselling the main contenders. Other games, like Armed Assaut (ArmA) suffered the same problem, but recent patches helped make the game run efficiently.

  With the Credit Crunch and the economic problems in 2007/08, taxes have risen etc. but gaming seems to be growing ever faste. Infact, it's possible that the Gaming market is helping things a little. The gaming market continues to rise into 2008, and more great quality games are being released, such as Metal Gear Solid 4 and Battlefield: Bad Company. While these aren't the big hitters of 2008, they are the dawn of what's to come. It's all happening on the PS3, with Little Big Planet, Resistance 2 and Killzone 2. Also, not to forget Gran Turismo 5, which will take the Racing Sim Market by storm. On the PC, there's Fallout 3, STALKER Clear Sky and Spore. The Xbox360, Gears of war II and HaloWars... That's it really. The Wii, a good few mediocre kids brain games. On the Multi-platform front, the main contender is Call of Duty 5, could it take the crown from it's older brother?? 2008 could be a year to surpass 2007, if very slightly, but after seeing a completely unexpected preview of Quantum of Solace, I realised how many surprises in games I've had this year. It will be no surprise to me if 2008 exceeds 2007...

  Mark

  • Posted Jul 3, 2008 4:23 am PT
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