7 Deadly Gaming Sins - ENVY

As mentioned before, chasing trends can spell the death of a single publisher as they struggle to join in on a crowded market, but the more this keeps happening, the more it becomes apparent that if such markets and genres bust and die out, what's to stop this spreading throughout the entire industry?

An individual genre like the rhythm-action Guitar Hero and Rock Band-centric one dying out hampered interest in that market for years and it took the likes of Beat Sabre to pull what was left of it back into the mainstream. Saturation kills development as if everyone is chasing the same idea then as Syndrome from The Incredibles would put it "If everyone is super, no one is".

Homogeneity of video game markets is a real threat to industry growth, as new ideas are often deemed too risky in the face of what developers and publishers perceive as what "works". One need only look at the teetering house of cards that is the Fifa and 2K sports franchises, which each year face rising licencing costs and respond in a rather foolish manner with cutting corners wherever possible. In one fell swoop the entire market, that relies so heavily on microtransactions could fall apart and likely would take a fair few with it.

Envy brings people to a market, but Envy doesn't preach innovation, only imitation, and if unique ideas keep getting drowned out by overwhelming mediocrity then it might be a slow march to the grave for everyone involved.