The current industry has survived tons of buggy and terrible games, but what will be the high profile bomb that does an ET and destroys the reputation of the entire industry?
Starfield is insanely hyped, if that bombs, it could have big repercussions.
Other than that, we could have the industry stagnate down to just first-party publishers, considering how Activision has become yet another part of Microsoft.
Maybe it's not possible to have another video game crash, maybe the industry is too established for that to happen again. It's an interesting discussion.
Several big studios will crash and burn, but there will be plenty of small developpers making good, fun, nice-looking games that will find niches.
Big studios rely too much on micro-transactions to fund themselves as the bloated spending monster they turned into.
The abusive, fun-killing nature of microtransactions will lead to either a walk-away of platforms that allow them, or politicians will legislate to limit that commercial practice, crashing the ''IT'S TOTALLY NOT A GAMBLING ADDICTION MONEY SUCKING SCHEME'' studios.
Anyway, the catalog of great games is now so big an industry could just cycle-through remakes and re-releases ( if nothing else, a modest price tag is warranted for the file hosting and new hardware compatibility patching ) that each new generation of gamers wouldn't have the lifetime to explore.
How would you deal with the non-gambling based microtransactions which are just as common? Nothing kills a game for me like having to pay the full release price again to remain competitive.
I go play something else untill they release their "deluxe expansions included multipack bundle value +" blabla the actual full game at a discount.
Or sailing the Seven Seas.
Dosen't work for MMORPGS though.
I doubt there is a legal way out of rip-off "expansions". They will just release those as "Whatever Adventure 2! With compatibility to your progress in W A 1!"