In my opinion, the article raises some legitimate gripes about the industry (and perhaps a little too obviously from the point of view of a jaded freelance programmer), but the idea that any of these things could cause a crash is a little too extreme. The video game crash of 1983 was actually caused by a combination of factors that tend to be the [i]opposite[/i] of what we see today. Namely: 1. Due to limited hardware and (relatively) primitive software, games were [i]too easy[/i] and too fast to develop. 2. Similarly, the simplicity of hardware in 1983 made CONSOLES too easy and too fast to develop. 3. Everybody trying to horn in on the success of Atari and Commodore in the first- and second- console generations resulted in a glut of consoles and game cartridges on the market. 4. Lack of digital downloads and the huge size of both consoles and game cartridges meant that toy/game stores had limited space to hold inventory. 5. Too many clones/copycat games in stores and the lack of widespread, unbiased media/press coverage of video games resulted in loss of consumer confidence, and they stopped buying games. 6. Retail tried to return unsold inventory, but game developers weren't making any money and couldn't afford buybacks. 7. Burned by this, retail exited the video game sales industry and game consumers moved on to PCs (remember that this was still 2 years before NES). 8. Industry crashes. Looking at the above list, and today's video game industry, we can see a number of factors that would prevent a crash: - Digital downloads and platform ecosystems mean that game devs and publishers no longer have to rely on 3rd party retail (though, obviously, console manufacturers still do to some extent) - Big AAA games today require years of development, huge teams, and millions of dollars. You can't make a AAA game with two dudes in a garage anymore. While this may still result in "genre clones" (see: military first-person shooters), this tends to disadvantage unoriginal individual game developers rather than the industry as a whole. - Large gaming platforms have content curation systems in place [i]specifically[/i] to prevent clones and buggy games. See: Xbox's policies for indie games as compared to the Apple iOS Store, and compare the overall quality and quantity of games on each. - Console platforms are moving toward an "entertainment-based" ecosystem rather than pure gaming (TV, video, music, apps, internet browsing, etc.). Perhaps Microsoft more than Sony at this point, but the hope for both is that a bump in the video game industry would not result in the end of the console -- thus providing a buffer for game devs and publishers themselves as well. While I'm sure that there might eventually be some consumer backlash against individual devs/publishers/platforms based on some of the author's gripes, I see his article as, on the whole, entirely unpersuasive. The legitimate points that the author brought up are likely to be corrected by individual companies with innovative and successful business models -- not a crash of the entire industry.