Topic: The only two explanations for the state of the Game Industry...

Either our beloved game developers have actually run out of creative juices and they refuse to bring in new blood, thus all the sequels, remakes, games you've played before, etc. Or, our favorite companies have fired all employees and now solely consist of marketing graduates. Please discuss.

Game companies are businesses, so it's all about the money. Sequels can generate a lot of money and aren't as expensive as a completely new game to create.

Games are impossibly expensive and publishers are dumb. Dumb companies + actual justification for games being a risk = lack of creativity.

Honestly, I'm much more worried about the older Japanese companies, which aside from Nintendo, SE and bizarrely Namco, don't actually release new video games anymore. Konami committed suicide, Sega's development side doesn't actually exist anymore I'm convinced and Capcom uses 20 re-releases to fund each new release.

Though I do feel at this point, you're kinda dumb (or just don't care) if you're still focusing on AAA publishers. Yes, the 20 or so games that sold a billion copies weren't too creative, how about you try the 20 billion other games! It's like the people that complain about modern music yet don't know anyone less popular than Taylor Swift. You did not try to even have an opinion in this medium.

Generation 7 saw the lost of A LOT of mid-size developers that made their bets with the PS3 and Xbox 360...it was a blood bath of studios having to close up shop. Here is a link compiled by a neogaf user: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=459131

Third option: creativity doesn't sell and games are not about gameplay, but more about load of sh... I mean immersion and "art".
Back then it was for fun.

@Zizzy: Or maybe you have just got burned out on video games and need a break! Games are still fun.

That's probably the reason there.

Seriously though it has nothing to do with the developers but the consumers. Consumers say they want something new and fresh but they don't shown it. You get something new and fresh game wise it usually ends up doing real bad sale wise but when they bring another Assassin's Creed or CoD and it sells like hotcakes. Companies need to make money they are a business bottomline. They go with what makes the money. So don't blame the companies look into the mirror and at all of your follow consumers that's what dictates what the companies do. Don't be to quick to pass up that fresh new game for another CoD.

Cheap/free mobile games playing against the high price of consoles is the problem. Consumers were spoiled by cheap, passive and throw away-able Wii, DS and phone or facebook games and now they people can't turn back to $59.99 games unless it's going to produce 100+ hours of gameplay.
Ran out of ideas? Possibly to a point. I mean, unless I've forgotten something, there hasn't been any sort of "new genre" of game come out that isn't ultimately a hybrid of two other genres. There hasn't been any big changers for a while. Nothing to really cause a splash in what feels like maybe 7-8 years.
Me sounding like an old man: games when I was a kid were new an innovative, we're running on the same old things now for 15-25 years just with upgraded graphics and online play. It's sort of like we got pushed into a corner with innovation, what more can we do now? Is VR all that we've come up with that we can implement that hasn't been implemented? Holodeck?

@Tasuki The thing is I like new experiences, but the overall quality of games has gone down the proverbial toilet. I'm not willing to shell out big $$$$ until I know the game is good. That said, existing franchises "even Nintendo ones" are starting to go downhill in-terms of quality. As good as MK8 is, I feel it's the only franchise that improved over last generation's entries. Since Galaxy 2 I feel the 3D Mario titles have gone downhill, and every Zelda title since Twilight Princess has gotten progressively worse, though the latest Tri Force Heroes is the only one that is flat-out abysmal. Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash was pathetic in-terms of content. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival was a Roman tragedy. And Nintendo's abuse of on-disc DLC keeps getting worse and worse...

Bottom line the industry will probably collapse soon and the indies of today will be the AAA developers in the future.

I feel like improvement is true, but everything we're getting now from Nintendo and most others is an awkward sidestep. Everything looks nicer but isn't doing anything different for us.

plenty of weird and wild indy games on the steam stores coming out weekly.

I'd say stop paying attention to Ubi/EA/Bethesda and the rest of the big name developer/publishers.

4 of the top 5 selling games on the PS4 are CoD and FIFA, games that are released annually.

You really can't blame developers. They're making what sells. Your mistake it to assume everyone cares about media being experimental and trying new interesting things. They don't. A lot of people just care about getting their money's worth on something they already have a fairly good understanding of.

The gaming industry is better than it has ever been generally. It just has a lack of really good all-around AAA games right now. Because Nintendo was the only one who ever really made those, and they've been calling in sick consecutively for a while now.

I was going to say that it's a bit different because it's possible to make a fantastic album with a limited budget. But I guess these days that's also true with games to an extent. Though I'm still not expecting something like Zelda to come out of someone's basement. The biggest games are always going to be pretty high profile, the most polished and technical albums are generally not.

@Haru17:

Nintendo was never the "only ones who ever made really good all around AAA games". That doesn't even make sense.

A game does not have to be creative for it to be good. If someone creates yet another 2D platformer, but have just slightly better gameplay than all other 2D platformers, accompanied by great level design, art, soundtrack, etc. then it will be the best 2D platformer so far. It doesn't matter if it is the 2nd 2D platformer ever or the 1000th. A good game is good regardless of how many times the tropes have been done before.

On the other hand, you might not be interested in playing the 1000th 2D platformer no matter how good it is, because you've grown tiered of the genre. And that is totally okay, it still doesn't make the game bad. Also a very creative game might not be any good.

It seems to me that we've come to a point in gaming where the industry has used its creativity to figure out what is good and what is not, and now they make games by fine-tuning the mechanics of what they've done before. This goes for a lot of Nintendo titles, like New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8, Yoshi's Woolly World, etc.

People need to take the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses off and look back at how many sequels got churned out way back in the NES and SNES days. They'd pump out a new Mega Man far more often than a new Assassins Creed or Call of Duty does today. At least these days there's three different development teams working on the games so they get 3 years to make them. Back then they'd churn out a sequel in 8 months development time. Yet people LOVE Mega Man.

The games industry has ALWAYS been about making money, and about pumping out what sells and discarding what does not. It's the same as the movie industry. Apart from small indie projects, you cannot make a game without a publisher to fund it, and a publisher is a business. The point of a business is to make money.

@Peach64 You don't necesssarily need a publisher. A company could find investors to back the company.

Well the industry is in as much of a rot as it has ever been in regards to 'innovation.' It just depends on what side you take in the brilliantly mature console wars as to who is to blame for it, with your Marios and Assassin's Creeds and CODs being the obvious and easy targets. In reality, a main problem occurs when these companies become so inept that they start copying each other and when EA's next big 'new' project is an open world game directed by one of the main people behind the rise of Assassin's Creed, there lies the problem. They're not even trying to be original and create generation defining games.

To be honest, from PONG to Star Wars Battlefront (recent game is all, don't start a debate!) in less than half a century I think is miraculous. How anyone can say the game industry is getting dry is jaded. What with VR, motion controls and 3D recently I wonder what we will be playing in another 50 years. Seriously, don't hold a grudge for folk out there wanting to make money, don't hold a grudge for people trying something new and failing. This has always been the way of ANY industry.