Happy Easter!

I will be going to Massachusetts over the Easter break. I will be out of town from the 9th - 13th so next weeks post may be delayed. The holidays for some reason get me thinking about the current industry genre standard. Whats the top genre right now? What sells the best today? What are the predictions for the future of said genre?

A personal analysis would probably have you guessing the MMORPG is still the top genre for games. I don't believe this is so. It does make a lot of money when done correctly and marketed properly, but I don't think it is an industry leading genre. FPS are still high on the totem poll in popularity because they are quick, action packed, and multi player. RTS seem to have tapered off a bit taking a lot of Sim style games with them. RPG is still a popular choice for those of use who like long stories with heavy adventure and extended playability and replayability. You have a new breach of RPG which feels like a FPS would which I personally deem Army Killers. You play a character that can take out dozens upon dozens of enemies in a single swing of his/her sword. So I started digging. There has to be a demographic that can hint to us, the independant developers, what we should be looking at doing.

Believe it or not finding a demographic for game genres is not an easy task at all. After reading several dozen sites I wasn't that surprised to see that Platformers and Fighting games have fallen to almost the bottom of the charts along with vehicle sims (flight/racing/etc.). MMORPG is still high on the charts as are RPG, Action, and Action Adventure games. FPS is pretty close to topping it out from various readings. Puzzle games are hot and get alot of attention. Take advantage of XNA being Windows, XBox, and Zune friendly and you can take advantage of the xna creator club to make some money. All in all this is still my opinion as I couldn't find a true demographic to go by. If anyone has more luck than me in finding something feel free to email me and it will be linked from the site.

Thanks all and have a Happy Easter.