It seems to me that the games industry is in danger of becoming like the old bingo industry.\u00a0 That may seem like an outrageous claim, so I’ll explain my thinking…<\/p>\n
Some years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I worked for Mecca Bingo for two years.\u00a0 I started out as a trainee manager and moved up to assistant in due course.\u00a0 I worked in a number of clubs in the south west (Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Swindon, Bridgwater) and it wasn’t particularly well paid for the hours I put in.\u00a0 I had a lot of fun along the way and met lots of people from all walks of life, which is always a benefit to a writer.\u00a0 But I became increasingly unhappy in the job.<\/p>\n
In the end I quit the job because I didn’t like the way that the business method was based on taking advantage of their customers’ weakness for gambling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now I wasn’t moralising or saying that bingo halls should be banned.\u00a0 Lots of people got a great deal of pleasure from a night at the bingo and many of them managed their spending to specific limits.\u00a0 But there were lots of bingo players who would be easily convinced to buy extra books or to spend more than they could afford on prize bingo or the slot machines.\u00a0 I wasn’t comfortable with my role in this aspect of the business.<\/p>\n
Now I see similar business practices emerging in the video games industry and I worry that, as an industry, we’re turning into exploiters of our players instead of treating them as the valued customers they are.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year I attended the State of Independence conference in York.\u00a0 Although it was well put together and many of the speakers were very good, all the emphasis was on the business side of things.\u00a0 There was nothing relating to content or trends in gamplay.\u00a0 It was like the business model was far more important than the games themselves or the gameplay.<\/p>\n
Now it may be that this was the intention of the conference and they didn’t put this over properly, but I’ve been looking at other games conferences in recent months and for the next few months.\u00a0 The vast majority are either completely dedicated to the business side of things or it takes up the majority of the schedule with only a nod to content related subjects.<\/p>\n
Of course, it’s not all bad.\u00a0 Yet.\u00a0 There are the various GDCs and Develop that always appear to have a good balance and earlier this year I was over at the Games Forum Germany which had a great spread of talks covering all aspects of the industry.\u00a0 However, it does feel that the concentration on business is increasing at the expense of content overall.<\/p>\n