Is the games industry recession proof?

An economic recession is one of those occurences that strikes a great deal of confusion and discomfort into the minds of business owers, and employees alike. And while Australia isn’t in an official recession, there has been some pretty hefty action taken in order to try to prevent the economic situation from worsening, and joining the countries that have officially slipped into a recessive state. This situation raises the topic of this entry, the question of whether the games industry is can outlast the recession.

Cheap entertainment has always been a popular course of action in times where less affordable entertainment becomes even less accessible. Games are, in this case, a popular choice because even though they may be hideously expensive new here, still seem to have this aura of worthiness regardless of the price. The great thing about games is that they can be purchased, and played, providing in surplus of 15+ hours of gameplay, engaging the player in a much more interactive and gratifying experience, then say going to a theme park for a day, which while may still be as fun in the short run, provides less value for longevity of entertainment. This is something that develpers have realised, and are marketing to by producing more complex games which incidentally take longer to finish, instilling a positive sense of fulfillment in the player, most likely encouraging them to go out and buy another. Conversly, on the development side, developers are still spending huge amounts of money in order to continue working on the titles that they work so hard to produce, often ending in merely scraping by in these times, thus why it would seem more profitable to become independent and cut out publishing costs.

It would seem that this question has reached an interesting conclusing, gamers will most often feel obliged to go out and purchase games, regardless of the economic situation, while companies will often range from struggling to doing reasonably well in these times, if not occasionally better because of the increased purchases on the “affordable entertainment” from. It would seem like the game industry is not necessarily recession proof, due to high costs of production, but recession resistant because of the large portion of gamers that may, or will not changing their purchasing habits, along side the people who believe that games are a good cheap alternative entertainment.