This is probably not new to people who have fully embraced mobile gaming on their iphones. This is also something that is probably written off as lunacy to the so-called hardcore gamer. I once was and still consider myself pretty hardcore. What does that mean exactly? I certainly don't know. It has a multitude of meanings.
Back to my point. Small bite size games are the future. I've played many "small" games and 99% of the time I've been handed sad hack-jobs that could barely pass as a game. This was because developers were trying to replicate full fledged console games in miniature.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":690154,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"gbunfiltered,","session":"D"}']Some games are meant to controlled with a touch pad and your fingers. Sometimes budgets can't always support the huge imaginations of developers. There are tons of examples of this, but Chu Chu Rocket! on iphone/android is the first game to truly convince me that a console game can function better as a "small" game than as a console game. It's not just mobile games either. XBLA and PSN and STEAM are quickly catching……ahem*… steam. They offer the best way to react to the market with the ability to change pricing at the stroke of a key and the upate of a server.
Consoles and big budget games aren't going away soon. I hesitate to say "anytime soon" because, to quote Deus Ex Human Revolution… "This is not the end, but you can see it from here." The future is coming and the gaming space is evolving. Smaller and cheaper games are becoming more commonplace. Now, I doubt we are heading for a market crash– I think we are going through some vast and slow changes to avoid that crash.
…and personally… I dig it. I love the smaller more interesting titles that are starting to come out of this industry. I love that some of the indie greats are starting to get more recognition. I love how it's becoming more and more okay for a game to not launch at $60 dollars (even if it's just retailers offering discount and incentives.)
I feel like the older generation that refuse to sell their game for less than $60 will have to come to terms sooner or later with the fact that not all games can command that pricepoint.