What's wrong with the video game industry?

Writing every day is often the only way to get better at it. So sometimes this blog is going to drift from what the description labels it as. Today I wanted to talk about big game companies that are having difficulty and what has been bothering me about it.

Who the hell comes up with the estimates for sales?

Square Enix predicted that they would sell over 5 million copies of the new Tomb Raider title in the first month. That is absurd. There are no statistics I can look to that make me think that number was likely.

Ok, it's one thing to estimate sales that high. Maybe they were just hoping they had a hit on their hands? They couldn't have possibly put their financial future at risk with those expectations could they?

The quick replacement of their CEO in April and then again in May makes me think that they did in fact budget for sales that reached that high. All this while video game sales have slumped overall in a significantly noticed fashion.

Meanwhile, one of the most bungled launches ever occurred when Maxis/EA proceeded to sell a version of Simcity that couldn't be played. It may not seem related to the Square Enix debacle, but I see an underlying connection between these two news items happening so close together.

Software companies that make video games have grown to massive sizes in the last decade. I used to think it was for the betterment of the industry. I remember days when I looked at the purchasing of developers by large corporations as a sign that bigger and better games would come the consumer's way. What I see now, with the recent troubles in these huge companies, is the downside of a capitalist system.

Big corporations exist to make money.

When a large publisher like EA acquires Maxis, it isn't doing so because they think Maxis is super cool and they are fans. Companies like EA buy Maxis, because they think they can produce a product that will sell well and make EA even more money.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. In a properly functioning organization, the desire to make profits often leads to excellent products. The problem comes when companies don't put quality first. No CEO will ever admit to it, but I think that games like Simcity are pushed out without regard to their level of detail. It gets reflected at Square Enix with sales goals that aren't based in any sort of reality.

Compare these massive failures with the successes of the indie game market. Specifically look at platforms like steam or the Xbox arcade. Games with smaller budgets and sometimes singular staffs are producing buzz that big companies dream of.

I can't help but look at the larger companies and wonder how long they can sustain themselves with such lack of direction.