Konami moves to the mobile graveyard

[pegboy]

Also, when will 'gamers' understand that overall, mobile gaming blows.

By and large the word 'gamer' has lost its meaning but ever since the influx of mainstream money attention has shifted from the 'game player' to the 'game consumer'.

Since when did Casual gamers become the ONLY audience?

It's a numbers game. Due to the ubiquity of smart devices corporations now have access to a vast number of "consumers" - even if any one "consumer" doesn't spend that much on their type of product, the profits roll in if a sufficiently large number of consumers gives their product a try and don't get too pissed off when they don't like it - not that their taste is that discerning to begin with. Most purchases are treated like a piece of gum - unwrap it, chew it, spit it on the sidewalk, be done with it. "Game players" actually get way too much value out of their purchases as they prefer products that they revisit again and again - can't make money off of people like that. Also the mainstream brought the social aspect to 'gaming' so they consume what everybody else is consuming.

The free-to-play/pay-to-win model is a bit more insidious as it is designed and engineered to prey on people's inclination to get addicted, i.e. to continue playing/paying even though the fun has long gone out of it - basically big tobacco without the second-hand smoke. Ironically the consumers who make a sport out of 'playing-without-paying' aren't helping as they give "the product" increased exposure which helps it to snag even more unsuspecting victims. You could almost say that the 'play-without-pay' crowd is consuming at the expense of the 'paying-addict' who makes the proliferation of these products possible in the first place.

It's getting to the point that 'game-players' will have to rely on the output of individuals who have a passion for making great games that isn't driven by the profit motive. However that tends to severely limit the quantity and scale of those titles.

It will burst.

Even if it does there might not be a lot left to build on anyway. And "at-home-entertainment" will probably be dominated by interactive complete immersion experiences - but even these days most movies are only "consumed" once by their audience.

What a great post. I'm so glad to be 100% done with modern "gaming", it's a fucking joke and a disgrace. It's embarrassing that the people "consuming" (absolutely spot on with the terminology) this garbage are what constitutes a "gamer" these days. Fuck that shit and fuck the "gaming" industry and everyone that ruined it.

[Cata]

Also, when will 'gamers' understand that overall, mobile gaming blows.

By and large the word 'gamer' has lost its meaning but ever since the influx of mainstream money attention has shifted from the 'game player' to the 'game consumer'.

Since when did Casual gamers become the ONLY audience?

It's a numbers game. Due to the ubiquity of smart devices corporations now have access to a vast number of "consumers" - even if any one "consumer" doesn't spend that much on their type of product, the profits roll in if a sufficiently large number of consumers gives their product a try and don't get too pissed off when they don't like it - not that their taste is that discerning to begin with. Most purchases are treated like a piece of gum - unwrap it, chew it, spit it on the sidewalk, be done with it. "Game players" actually get way too much value out of their purchases as they prefer products that they revisit again and again - can't make money off of people like that. Also the mainstream brought the social aspect to 'gaming' so they consume what everybody else is consuming.

The free-to-play/pay-to-win model is a bit more insidious as it is designed and engineered to prey on people's inclination to get addicted, i.e. to continue playing/paying even though the fun has long gone out of it - basically big tobacco without the second-hand smoke. Ironically the consumers who make a sport out of 'playing-without-paying' aren't helping as they give "the product" increased exposure which helps it to snag even more unsuspecting victims. You could almost say that the 'play-without-pay' crowd is consuming at the expense of the 'paying-addict' who makes the proliferation of these products possible in the first place.

It's getting to the point that 'game-players' will have to rely on the output of individuals who have a passion for making great games that isn't driven by the profit motive. However that tends to severely limit the quantity and scale of those titles.

It will burst.

Even if it does there might not be a lot left to build on anyway. And "at-home-entertainment" will probably be dominated by interactive complete immersion experiences - but even these days most movies are only "consumed" once by their audience.

Sure, but the problem is these controllers are not ubiquitous enough for all game developers to have these in mind during development. The only way you could once and for all get past the "mobile sucks" argument is if every phone came with actual controls built in and didn't rely on touch. Unfortunately the mobile market is so diverse and bifurcated that that is long past the point of ever happening so we are stuck now with games becoming more watered down experiences than they once were. It saddens me to think in 5-10 years there will be a generation of people who truly think that this is what gaming is supposed to be.

[ACSeraph]

Spoiler

Also, when will 'gamers' understand that overall, mobile gaming blows.

By and large the word 'gamer' has lost its meaning but ever since the influx of mainstream money attention has shifted from the 'game player' to the 'game consumer'.

Since when did Casual gamers become the ONLY audience?

It's a numbers game. Due to the ubiquity of smart devices corporations now have access to a vast number of "consumers" - even if any one "consumer" doesn't spend that much on their type of product, the profits roll in if a sufficiently large number of consumers gives their product a try and don't get too pissed off when they don't like it - not that their taste is that discerning to begin with. Most purchases are treated like a piece of gum - unwrap it, chew it, spit it on the sidewalk, be done with it. "Game players" actually get way too much value out of their purchases as they prefer products that they revisit again and again - can't make money off of people like that. Also the mainstream brought the social aspect to 'gaming' so they consume what everybody else is consuming.

The free-to-play/pay-to-win model is a bit more insidious as it is designed and engineered to prey on people's inclination to get addicted, i.e. to continue playing/paying even though the fun has long gone out of it - basically big tobacco without the second-hand smoke. Ironically the consumers who make a sport out of 'playing-without-paying' aren't helping as they give "the product" increased exposure which helps it to snag even more unsuspecting victims. You could almost say that the 'play-without-pay' crowd is consuming at the expense of the 'paying-addict' who makes the proliferation of these products possible in the first place.

It's getting to the point that 'game-players' will have to rely on the output of individuals who have a passion for making great games that isn't driven by the profit motive. However that tends to severely limit the quantity and scale of those titles.

It will burst.

Even if it does there might not be a lot left to build on anyway. And "at-home-entertainment" will probably be dominated by interactive complete immersion experiences - but even these days most movies are only "consumed" once by their audience.

What a great post. I'm so glad to be 100% done with modern "gaming", it's a fucking joke and a disgrace. It's embarrassing that the people "consuming" (absolutely spot on with the terminology) this garbage are what constitutes a "gamer" these days. Fuck that shit and fuck the "gaming" industry and everyone that ruined it.

^+1

Get da fuck off my lawn!

It's not 100% dead yet so there are still modern games I play and enjoy, but it's coming. At the very least the companies we grew up with will be gone, and we can only hope that companies like Platinum and M2 are able to survive on in their own niches.

Konami's CEO is 100% correct, that's the saddest point. Mobile is the future, and it's not a bright one. Big companies have found a way to make profit that's much more effective than passionately creating excellent games. Why should we expect them to do otherwise?

I work at a Japanese Junior High School, and my kids all love games. But if you ask them what they play? Monster Strike, Puzzle and Dragons, etc. A few years back it was common to see kids who were aware of and still played primarily "core" games, but these days most kids are only vaguely aware of console games aside from RE, CoD (yes it's big in Japan), Nintendo's stuff. There's no way in hell any of my kids know what Vanquish is, even though it's a modern game. When my kids ask me what I play I tell them RE, because it's the only one they are familiar with. They don't know what STG's are, even the most famous examples. I have a bag with a bunch of Space Invaders on it, and my kids saw it and said "Cool, it's the Groove Coaster Mascot!" This is where gaming is now in Japan.

[Cata]

Everyones a "gamer" now to the point that the real ones lose out.

[KAI]

Bemani is safe. Don't care about the rest of the company cause it's been dead for years. Fuck Konami.

[cave hermit]

Bemani is safe.

Really now?

Spoiler

(see center left)

[Cata]

Those are all from a (apparently trusted but not 100% guaranteed) anonymous source

[Formless God]

Bemani is safe. Don't care about the rest of the company

I came here to post exactly this.

(see center left)

Yeah, because Bemani was never about people "working on multiple games at once". Wait.

[Ed Oscuro]

there isn't a big enough bag of popcorn in the world

More entertainment than I've had out of recent Konami stuff, that's for sure. Though admittedly I have extreme MGS fatigue so I'm taking those as slow as possible - Peace Walker is great now that I've played (half of?) it.

Hilarious to think of Konami being solidly into mobile after the absolute shitfest that were their BREW ports of games, especially the Contra IV...tie in...thing.

[Blinge]

Is MGSV being released? Am I gonna get to play that? That's all I want, I guess.

After it's out, Konami can burn in hell...

Spoiler

[Satan]

My MSX am cry

The Neo Contra gambling machines are particularly depressing.

[pcb_revival]

Konami Silent Scoped itself.

Ah well thanks for the historical legacy.

[copy-paster]

good news from Konami

[Obiwanshinobi]

Something of a non-news, isn't it? What else (console kids care about) than MGS or PES has been announced for months now? I'm gonna be missing Suikoden and Contra most, neither officially in development of late (from what I know).

[gameoverDude]

Time for them to sell out franchises they aren't going to use, and then they can sod off.

As for Contra... I hope WayForward would be interested in buying the franchise. Contra 4 was a good 32-bit version, which would also have looked right at home on Taito F3, Saturn, or PSX hardware.

Let G.Rev or M2 have Gradius & Salamander.

[BryanM]

Time for them to sell out franchises they aren't going to use, and then they can sod off.

But they are still using them.

In pachinko form.

Which, again, makes more profit in a day than their vidya gaming division ever did in ten years.

Capitalism gives the market what it wants~

[Specineff]

For some reason I'm visualizing the president of Konami going crazy the way Mr. Burns did in the casino episode.