Recession

The economy is in the toilet. People are losing their houses. People are losing their jobs. Video games are still selling. 2008 was one of their best years ever. Why? You can take a date to see a movie and spend $30 in two hours, or you can buy Fallout 3 for $60 and play it for months. Which is the better investment? Face it, she's not going to sleep with you anyway. Might as well save your money and have some real fun.

Still, the media is painting the game industry as "recession-proof." Is that why THQ just laid off 600 employees? Is that why Pandemic and Eidos are also suffering from the layoff bug? Sure, games are doing better than other industries, but that's like being the tallest guy in Japan - it's really not that impressive. Will this trend continue into the new year?

The only good thing to come out of all this is that people are, in general, more focused on buying better games. The deluge of $20 Wii Crap that pooped onto store shelves right before Christmas was pretty much ignored (as well as Wii Music. HA!). When people have less money, they actually take half a second before they buy something now. Will Americans be more thrifty in the future? Probably not, but we can hope. Maybe someday games like Mirror's Edge will be given the commercial success they deserve and we won't even have to ignore Chicken Shoot, because there won't even be a spot on the shelf for it.