How this generation changed Video Game Development – Part 2
Entering the current generation, shooters were the ongoing trend. One of the reasons for the Xbox 360’s success was the fact that the third and final installment in the Halo trilogy was going to be released on the platform with Halo 2 leaving fans hanging
with a frustrating cliff hanger ending on the original Xbox.
Halo fans got the Xbox 360 at launch and kept themselves busy by replaying Halo 2 multiplayer and the third person shooter 360 exclusive Gears of War until the release of Halo 3 in 2007. As expected, the game was a smashing success and managed to break all
sales records at release. It was touted as the largest media launch in the history of entertainment media.
With Halo 3 out it seemed that Xbox 360 had the best exclusive shooter but that claim was smashed shortly after Activision released Call of Duty (COD) 4: Modern Warfare, the game that would go on to change the industry for ever. COD 4, developed by Infinity
Ward, took the World War Military shooter franchise to the modern era with heavy inspiration from James Bond and other summer action blockbuster movies.
Before COD 4, Halo was considered the top FPS game on console which could manage to cross the 5 million mark in sales. COD changed that and went on to become the best selling shooter that year and even managed to outsell Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. The franchise
was even more successful since it was multiplatform which meant that it could generate double the sales of Halo.
The success of COD 4 established the franchise on the top of the shooters list and ever COD sequel after COD 4 went on to break the sales records of the previous game. This changed how developers would approach creating new IPs. After the success of COD
as a franchise, the majority of the developers decided that there was no point in taking risks with new IPs because there was a greater probability that it would not be able to compete with the already established ones.
Another reason for this was also the increase in game development costs. Because of advancements in technology and graphics, more resources were needed to produce a ‘AAA’ title which meant that many developers could not afford to have a game flop or else
they would go bust. This meant that the majority of the developers started taking as little risks as possible and only sticking to the tried and proven formulas which would guarantee sales.
The current generation was also responsible for the closure of many established game development studios and many were taken over by larger publishers. Because of the high development costs to produce a ‘AAA’ title, not every developer could compete with
the already established mega publishers like Activision and Electronic Arts (EA).
This left two publishers dominating the console market with countless sequels to their already established IPs from last generation. Gamers everywhere felt that the industry was slowly stagnating and there were fewer games to choose from when compared to
last generation but the worst was yet to come.
Continued in Part 3
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