Researchers: gaming industry may need a retune

A small glimpse into the gaming industry, how current gaming business models today are structured, and how they can be improved,  for hopeful game entrepreneurs to finally hit the bigtime in the gaming scene.

Many may have been mislead, thinking that the gaming industry is just all fun and games. In truth, it’s more fast paced and very demanding, especially from the consumer base. But researchers have looked into the progress of the game development business, and they’ve got some interesting finds.

According to recent report from Playing for Keeps, it seems that the present model of the gaming industry has been reshaped to prioritize market expansion and consolidation. This may sound good at first, but according to research submitted to UKTi and Tiga, these present business models have actually become conditionally problematic.

If one aims to put up a game studio to hopefully strike big in the gaming industry, that person should first look into current popular business trends to ensure that one gains the most out of this lucrative industry. After all, relearning lessons of the past would help in building futures.

Lets start of with market expansion. Although market expansion is beneficial for a budding game studio for it gives the possibility to be able to reach a wider audience, excess of it may actually lead to crippling even veteran gaming studios.

Let’s say that a certain game studio aims to expand their present portfolio to anticipate the height of the current platform cycle. If done in moderation, this is all well and good. But if done excessively, game developers may lack the time to produce quality games. This in itself introduces a debatable issue. If the current business model of gaming ends up with game publishers rolling out low quality games, sales will suffer due to a decrease in consumer patronage.

On the other hand, consolidation is also important to the gaming industry for veteran gaming studios are able to pool their efforts and expertise to come up with games that far exceeds what they could’ve came up with if they worked independently.

But, what about small, independent game outfits? Already looked over in favor of more well known publishers and developers, these micro level game outfits relinquish themselves to coming up with substandard due to unfair competition and simply a lack of resources and man power with the right level of expertise to get the job done.

At the moment, the current game industry is still going strong. But, if we wish to take it to the next level and allow it further to grow, maybe we should allow the playing field to “ease up” up a bit and upon ourselves up to other possibilities out there just waiting to be discovered and utilized.