Are there too many Games Released?

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Spaceman
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@Equityarcade Matthew Loffhagen looks at the videogame industry and asks the question "Are there too many video games being released?"

To track the number of games released each year, analysts have turned to Wikipedia for a list of all game releases of note, with the justification that if a game is relevant enough, it'll have an entry. Using this method for a rough estimate as to how many games of note come out every year, it's interesting to learn that, according to Wikipedia, the number of notable games releases peaked in 2008.

While 2015 saw 437 games gain their own spot on Wikipedia, 2008 saw the release of more than double that number, 986 titles which warranted their own entry in the online encyclopedia. While this method of measurement is anything but scientific, these results suggest that if anything the number of noteworthy games has dropped in recent years.

At the same time, it's important to note that the games industry isn't exactly in a financial slump. Total revenue for games in the US rose by 5% in 2015, meaning that, rather than being stretched thin, the games market has more money than ever to split between a relatively small selection of high profile big releases.
More information.
 
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Yes there are too many games released indeed.
Which in a perfect world wouldn't be a problem. Imagine if every game out there was so great where it doesn't matter which one you buy, all are fun.

Sadly, the industry is spamming enormous amount of avoidware so bad sometimes it shouldn't be called a game at all.
And because of so much junk, just searching and finding great games became a work of it's own. Thanks to RPGwatch there is no much need to spend much time to weed out at least one genre garbage.

But then again many people are lazy and instead of reading others' impressions before buying they instabuy whatever is currently hyped. Saw somewhere yesterday a line about Ubisoft's Division hypesell "phenomenon": as long as there is sheep, wool shortage won't happen.
 
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Some of those 2008 were probably added years later. The same will be true for the 2015 list as people edit it.

As for the question. Yes, there are too many games being released and no there isn't. The problem is more that publishers/devs always jump in popular bandwagon or sequel-o-rama instead of trying to create new stuff. So over periods of 6-10 years you get an influx of game in the same genre none-stop.

Just take the space sim genre. It was dead since ~2006 outside of a few indie creation and EVE. Then end of 2012 Star Citizen raise lots of $$ through crowd-funding. The end results: bazillion of space sim games in the making.
 
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To take the counterpoint, no there are not too many games being released. It's wildly optimistic to think that if we had less games we'd have a higher percentage of quality. I think the opposite is true. Lot's of games is a result of the current ease of entry into the market, and with out that ease we'd have a lot less creativity and originality. Small markets don't take as many risks. And the occasional upstart success like Minecraft can have a profound effect on the industry which is good. And that same ease of entry keeps a new trend, like those games Minecraft inspired, from dominating the field which is also good. If the market supported less games things like Divinity and Pillars of Eternity would be the first to loose out.
 
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No. Choices and options are always a great thing, I say the more the merrier we'll all be.

I agree. It's not like you have to play every game under the sun. Curation is a thing for a reason.
 
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It's better than the RPG drought we went through in the 2000s. I'll probably never give my current backlog justice, but I remember the other side--playing a lot of only so-so games because there was nothing nice and new.
 
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any market driven cycle has periods of overdevelopment and underdevelopment. right now, some might say it is at the end of a long period of underdevelopment and getting closer to the financially profitable middle ground. it is at this stage where games are common enough to be demanding on the AAA's, and not so glutted to not notice well done indies. i think right now is the "sweet spot" of gaming, myself.
 
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Thanks to RPGwatch there is no much need to spend much time to weed out at least one genre garbage.

Saw somewhere yesterday a line about Ubisoft's Division hypesell "phenomenon": as long as there is sheep, wool shortage won't happen.

That is right! RPGWatch is a good place to be.

And, you mean Ubisoft's Diversion? :)
 
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To take the counterpoint, no there are not too many games being released. It's wildly optimistic to think that if we had less games we'd have a higher percentage of quality. I think the opposite is true. Lot's of games is a result of the current ease of entry into the market, and with out that ease we'd have a lot less creativity and originality. Small markets don't take as many risks. And the occasional upstart success like Minecraft can have a profound effect on the industry which is good. And that same ease of entry keeps a new trend, like those games Minecraft inspired, from dominating the field which is also good. If the market supported less games things like Divinity and Pillars of Eternity would be the first to loose out.

I tend to disagree with more the better or more = higher chance of good games. That's the simple probability but what if you want A but developers are aiming to make B (subpar product of A) each time because of 99% of consumers would by B without much complaints? We've had our golden age of RPG before (I consider around year 2000 was one) with less number of games in market but overall better quality of games then.
 
I don't mean to say more equals better games or that more improves the odds of getting better games. I mean to say the conditions that promote creativity and risk taking are the same ones that allow endless low quality dreck. That is to say ease of access to the market. It's not causal, it symptomatic. Without that access we'd have less bad and no good, they'd all be AAA big budget titles with no risk taken. With it we have more bad games than we know what to do with and some good ones.

Edit: Removed indie form sentence that made it sound like I only meant indies.
 
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I tend to disagree with more the better or more = higher chance of good games. That's the simple probability but what if you want A but developers are aiming to make B (subpar product of A) each time because of 99% of consumers would by B without much complaints? We've had our golden age of RPG before (I consider around year 2000 was one) with less number of games in market but overall better quality of games then.

Film industry has been for decades a good example of massive trash production with few quality products. But this is a situation entirely different of current PC game industry. In the first case we have very few great corporations making tons of low quality clone films. In the second case we have lots of little devs making few games each, but a lot of them overall. The result is an overwhelming and wonderful variety of games. If you are fan of an specific sub-sub genre of RPG games you probable have at least a pair of games per year of this specific niche.
For instance, Infinity Engine - style games are probably your type of RPG. Ok. Now you have some of them released and others in development. That was unimaginable ten years before.
Yesterday we was talking here about how good is to have again a bunch of good TB combat games. Ten years ago, TB combat was considered commercially unviable by publishers -even when a lot of thirsty players like myself would pay gladly for any TB game, even for a bad one.
IMO NOW is the golden age of PC games.
 
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In many ways, I'm sure things are better these days. Having said that, I do miss the simplicity of the days before digital distribution was ubiquitous, and there weren't quite so many projects. These days, there are so many games, many mediocre, most in state of flux through major patches, DLC, etc, that it almost becomes stressful choosing something to play. I used to enjoy reading a monthly review magazine, and then popping down to the computer shop to have look at which shiny game boxes were on the shelves!
 
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I disagree that game supply is cyclical at this point. The availability of easy-to-use tools is a secular change and I doubt we'll see a drought of genre games as long as the indie and Kickstarter phenomenons roll on. There might be a decrease in the volume or quality of a genre, but I doubt a true drought any longer.
 
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I believe in Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap. The barrier to entry is lower than it has ever been, with both Unreal and Unity free until you want to make a commercial product, or a program like RPG Maker where you can make a game with a minimal amount of coding experience.

If you only take into account AAA games, I think the number released have decreased. With greater production costs, less risks are taken, and less titles are released.
 
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I think it is generally healthy overall!

But I do think there are too many poor games produced! To my mind, it would be better to see more effort and money poured into fewer games, than all this effort and time poured into hundreds of poor games!

There is a lot of creativity around!

What would be good is to see more availability of game engines or creation kits for creating superior quality games (both in graphics, performance, sound, and gameplay), and a good way of distributing such creations even if made by non-developers.
 
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Are there too many brands of cereal? Are there too many wine labels? Are there too many shades of hair dye? Too many brands of soft drink? Too many types of coffee at Starbucks?

Yes. Yes there are.
 
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