I actually don't agree with very much of what he's said. When it comes to the industry, no I don't agree that even those games he mentioned were actually bad. As a game Mass Effect 3 was extremely good, was it disappointing, yes but the vast majority of the time I played that game was great. Star Wars The Old Republic, again its not a bad game, it did bring something very good to the MMO scene, that being the main storyline. That game's major failing is the lack of re-playability, once you finish your main quest...you're practically done, not that it was too close to WoW. If he wanted an example of a franchise EA almost ruined, C&C4 is a easy one, that game sucked. One reason EA is still a giant is not because they make lousy games, its because they actually make very good games but their business practices are utterly awful.
I don't like how he brought stock prices into the mix either. Yes, every gaming company is suffering, but its not entirely due to making low quality games but more to do with this thing called the global recession. A lot of people have less money than they did before. The core gaming audience being young adults are extremely vulnerable with youth unemployment being very high in general. When you have so few gamers who can actually buy new games, you have to be reasonable to see that releasing any new IP is going to be risky for any company. Launching a new IP is very expensive and has no guarantee of success, again in such bad economic times its pretty obvious that sequels are going to be something they're more eager to do. Fortunately the Indie gaming scene can provide here, they pretty much are forced to make new IPs to even stand a chance so its not all doom and gloom there.
Now, where I do agree is on DLC. However DLC is not the big enemy here but rather its pre-orders which I'm confused at why he left that completely out. Pre-orders do make game companies a lot lazier, and due to this practice people will be buying a game where they may love it...or hate it before knowing or having reviews to at least help them not buy it blindly. If EA releases any game and it gets 5 million pre-orders, that game is an easy success...it could be the worst game ever made but the pre-orders meant that EA will be doing more stuff like that. Most pre-order incentives also suck. Now, as for DLC, yes a lot of it is indeed utter rubbish. The only DLC worth buying is anything that expands on top of the original content. I'm ok with DLC that are primarily skins, that's fine.
I just don't see another game crash, at least not for core games. If there's a rot in core games, I do think its the modern military shooters that suffer the most. Their single player sections are usually pretty terrible, medal of honor warfighter has a utterly lousy one. If they do such a poor effort at single player...just eliminate it, slash the price and just release the multi-player portion on its own. I am in agreement where I do think game publishers and developers should not rush games into the market. Rushing causes two problems, either they're just plain not finished like Mass Effect 3, or they come out technically finished...but a buggy mess like XCOM. I don't like either, if Mass Effect 3 was given another month or so, it could've well been one of the best games ever made. As for buggy games like XCOM, at least patches will eventually fix these, although again I rather they bug test it thoroughly rather than release it early. As for a crash I do see happening...its in casual games. Facebook games and mobile device games, essentially Zynga and similar companies, they release a lot of crap and somehow succeed. I don't know about you, but when I had my old iPhone 3G I was excited about the prospects of gaming on it...but eventually I got bored of all the games on it in about 20 minutes leaving the only games I liked on it, card games. I hate gaming on my phone and gaming on Facebook was utterly dreadful. No, I don't get the Angry Birds craze, I got bored of that one in 5 minutes actually.
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