Game industry - Is it going up, or is it going down?

The Game industry is massive and fairly lucrative industry with people spending a millions on digital entertainment, makes you think that the industry is fairly healthy, but you would be both right and wrong.

The industry as a whole is fairly healthy, but individual companies are at risk of becoming bankrupt, thanks to our current economy, the average Joe is far more interested in keeping his wad of cash in the wallet, than spending it, which thanks to the sheer number of video games out there, means that a lot of developers either have to make something that dwarfs the 2nd coming of Jesus, or go under the wing of a fellow games developer and have them help. Video Game Piracy is certainly far more prevalent than before as well, since if you can get a game for free, why bother spending money on them!

And so developers like Bioware are forced to team up with other companies (EA) just to ensure that the company itself doesnt go under and to have them shoulder some of the costs. And how do the employees feel about this? For most it seems to be a case of “Don’t complain and hope you don’t get sacked!” For it seems that while they might be getting more money into their pockets, the people who develop games are finding that there are less jobs to go around than before.

And because of all of this developers are less likely to develop new ips, (and if they are new ips, they are likely going to be clones of successful games) due to the high risk of not turning a profit and so more sequels are being churned out. And in an attempt to combat piracy, games are being sold with Downloadable Content (DLC), which you can only aquire through buying the product, this forces people to buy the game if they want the content.

So is it going up, or is it going down?