Games industry “pandered to hardcore gamer for far too long” – Ian Livingstone
Simon Williams July 11, 2012 - 11:52 amNews: Eidos Life President Ian Livingstone OBE believes that the games industry lost its way from its family-friendly origins in the 1970s by focusing on the hardcore market, but that the proliferation of games that appeal to people of all ages and interests in the last few years has redressed the balance.
Ian Livingstone OBE feels that while games started off as a pursuit the family could all enjoy, the industry chased after the “hardcore” market to the exclusion of all else for several decades after, and it’s only now in the last few years that videogames are once again achieving their potential for the last few years.
Livingstone was talking during his keynote talk at Develop 2012, when he noted that in the 1970s “Over 40% of American households were playing games together in the front room” on the early home consoles like the Atari 2600.
But following this, “there was a lot of pandering to the hardcore gamer for far too long – yes they were spending up to $1000 a year on games but the wider market was neglected, which was a mistake.”
Over the last few years games have started to once again return to a media that anyone can enjoy : “There’s so much more content diversity now, there’s something for everyone, male and female. And while “blockbuster games are never going to go away, because we want graphically intense experiences”, the sheer volume of available material for gamers on an increasing amount of platforms has led to a situation where 70% of people play games in the UK.
Even so, Livingstone says, quality content will remain king: ”You will always buy a game with great gameplay and rubbish graphics over beautiful graphics and no gameplay.”
Keep up with all the latest news from Develop Conference 2012 here at BeefJack.
