150,000's a Crowd
Developers may wring their hands over visibility - but you can never have too much content
There has been much hand-wringing over the past few years about the idea of overcrowding on digital distribution platforms. The theory goes something like this; since these platforms have, in theory, an infinite amount of shelf space and incredibly low barriers to entry, the volume of games being released on an ongoing basis will be impossible for consumers to keep up with - and that's even before taking the back catalogue into consideration.
The result? If we listen to some of the industry's prophets of doom (most recently, God of War creator David Jaffe at the DICE Summit), this oversaturation of new products will result in a lack of visibility for everyone involved, reduced average sales for the titles on the service and commercial failure all round. Or something along those lines, at least.
It's a compelling argument, on the surface, yet it's hard to escape the idea that it's also one which could only come from an established, successful developer. It presupposes that the products worth actually caring about are those which would have sold a large number of copies in the first place, and that the proliferation of new, perhaps less "commercial" software is detracting from the visibility of those titles.
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