The Epic Games President believes that 99-cent apps could be killing the industry.
Epic’s Mike Capps recently spoke out about the changing landscape of the gaming industry and he thinks it’s a pretty scary time to be making traditional games.
“We have not been this uncertain about what’s coming next in the games industry since Epic’s been around for 20 years,” said Capps. “We’re at such an inflection point. Will there be physical distribution in 10 years or even five? Will anyone care about the next console generation? What’s going on in PC? Can you make money on PC if it’s not a connected game? What’s going on in mobile?”
For Capps, 99-cent apps are the biggest threat to AAA gaming, even though his own company capitalized on the app trend with the releases of Infinity Blade and a specialized iOS SDK.
“If there’s anything that’s killing us [in the traditional games business] it’s dollar apps,” he continued. “How do you sell someone a $60 game that’s really worth it … They’re used to 99 cents. As I said, it’s an uncertain time in the industry. But it’s an exciting time for whoever picks the right path and wins.”
Despite the uncertainty, Capps hopes that there will still be a place for consoles and AAA developers in the future.
“It used to be, ‘Well, of course PlayStation 3 will be successful because PS2 was amazingly successful.’ But can you say for sure that you know everyone’s going to jump to the next generation? I sure hope so – I’m going to try to make some great tech that will make everyone want to. But it’s scary.”
Source: Industry Gamers
