I'd argue that the second half of the 1990's was actually something of a bubble. 3D-ness and CD-ROM's were the hot new thing, and everyone tried to make their games 3D, increase polygon counts and texture resolutions, add cutscenes, fill an entire CD with assets -- which meant bloated art and development budgets, and a loss of focus on innovation.
In short, new 3D and storage technology, dotcom-era funding of big publishing conglomerates, those conglomerates' control of retail channels, and a lack of alternative distribution for smaller developers, led to an unusually large number of big-budget games.
IMHO gaming's "natural" state is more similar to the era c. 1975-1995, where small studios and innovative gameplay were a big part of the industry.
There's still a market segment today for big-budget "A" titles, but c. 1997-2005 was the heyday.
Anyone in the world who can make a game now has affordable access to a number of digital distribution and payment channels like Steam, Gamersgate, Android/Apple Apps, Facebook, HTML5, or plain old downloads on a website with payment provided by Paypal/Stripe/Dwolla/Amazon/Google Checkout/Bitcoin [1]. There are plenty of open-source and commercial tools and libraries for developing games. This means individual developers and startups can enter the industry relatively freely, with minimal upfront costs, can restore innovation to its rightful place, and can exert downward price pressure with their small costs.
I believe the number of games/developers/publishers in the ecosystem is larger than it ever was [citation needed], as is the revenue of the industry as a whole [citation needed], but A-list console and PC titles have given up a fair amount of ground to the "long tail" of modestly successful indie games.
[1] 1990's connection speeds, and the pesky business of tying up telephone lines for hours or days during long downloads, made yesterday's Internet an unappealing distribution platform.
> The PC gaming market has simply become smaller
I'd argue that the second half of the 1990's was actually something of a bubble. 3D-ness and CD-ROM's were the hot new thing, and everyone tried to make their games 3D, increase polygon counts and texture resolutions, add cutscenes, fill an entire CD with assets -- which meant bloated art and development budgets, and a loss of focus on innovation.
In short, new 3D and storage technology, dotcom-era funding of big publishing conglomerates, those conglomerates' control of retail channels, and a lack of alternative distribution for smaller developers, led to an unusually large number of big-budget games.
IMHO gaming's "natural" state is more similar to the era c. 1975-1995, where small studios and innovative gameplay were a big part of the industry.
There's still a market segment today for big-budget "A" titles, but c. 1997-2005 was the heyday.
Anyone in the world who can make a game now has affordable access to a number of digital distribution and payment channels like Steam, Gamersgate, Android/Apple Apps, Facebook, HTML5, or plain old downloads on a website with payment provided by Paypal/Stripe/Dwolla/Amazon/Google Checkout/Bitcoin [1]. There are plenty of open-source and commercial tools and libraries for developing games. This means individual developers and startups can enter the industry relatively freely, with minimal upfront costs, can restore innovation to its rightful place, and can exert downward price pressure with their small costs.
I believe the number of games/developers/publishers in the ecosystem is larger than it ever was [citation needed], as is the revenue of the industry as a whole [citation needed], but A-list console and PC titles have given up a fair amount of ground to the "long tail" of modestly successful indie games.
[1] 1990's connection speeds, and the pesky business of tying up telephone lines for hours or days during long downloads, made yesterday's Internet an unappealing distribution platform.