Industry highs and lows of 2009

Colleague Jason Avent picked out Batman: Arkham Asylum as a memorable game of 2009 alongside Killzone 2, Red Faction: Guerrilla and Uncharted 2. "But Demon's Souls beat the lot of them in competition for my gamer's heart," gushed Avent, who's consequent low point was "finding out that it wasn't being published here".

While today we may look back and smile, 2009 was tough year for the entire global economy, even our robust videogame industry. Carlos Bordeau, co-founder of Zeno Clash developer ACE Team, reflected: "The one thing that came to mind as both an initial triumph but then a failure was the industry's reaction to the economic crisis after many had declared us impervious to it," recalled Bordeau.

"A bucket of cold water fell on everyone's head when layoffs began and studios closed. Here in Chile we weren't worried about the recession but eventually it caught us up and hurt us more than anticipated. We, the industry, were arrogant, and that was a failure of 2009," he said.

Antti Ilvessuo watched from a similar position. "At first we thought the games industry would be safe when bad times hit. But that's not been the case. How could it be? Games are part of the wider economy, and the games business is a significant industry. Really big studios have been shut down and talented people have been laid off. That's sad, but that's typical of any industry facing such a reality," rued Ilvessuo.

One of those "really big studios" was EA, where a reported 1500 staff have been cut loose. "Although they're viewed as the big evil empire, I felt bad about EA falling to bits," recalled Jason Avent. Sony also felt the sting following the launch of the PSPgo, which didn't so much make waves as sink. As Avent put it: "PSPgo went." But, as he hastened to add, digital distribution really is the future, and, like Braid last year, 2009 had its indie champions as well.

"This year was a clear success for downloadable and digitally distributed games," said Antti Ilvessuo, who made one of the very best: Trials HD. "All the online console services became more widely known and grew, and Apple showed the world the true potential of mobile games. All in all there were more better quality games downloadable games and a bigger variety of them, and as a result more people played and talked about them.

"For RedLynx specifically Trials HD has been a triumph," he added. "Before launch pretty much nobody knew about the game nor about RedLynx, even though we had been making good smaller games for quite some time. From being an underdog or sorts to success, 2009 has been huge ride to us!"

For video too, thanks to Microsoft's Zune HD movie player and Sony's new PS3 film rental service, business has blossomed. But for media genre that started it all, music (no, not pornography), the future isn't so bright.

"I would say the biggest failure was the precipitous decline of the music genre, likely to be down overall by 50 per cent year-over-year, in spite of the introductions of The Beatles: Rock Band and DJ Hero," analysed Michael Pachter the analyst. "It's really staggering how much the genre tapered off, and the music decline represented over 50 per cent of the overall sales decline for the year."

Oh, and Antti Ilvessuo told us he has decided to ditch downhill skiing for "swim jumping", whatever that is, because he kept injuring himself. "I'll have to face the truth," he sighed. "I'm old. And fat."

As 2010 rolls around the unusually full Q1 calendar is bursting with brilliant games. And as in 2009, Eurogamer will bring you up-to-date, punchy coverage of everything as it happens. Perhaps even when we're asleep. And we're doing some of those other things we mentioned, like a podcast, starting very soon...

We hope you had a lovely Christmas, and do please share your opinion on the highs and lows of 2009 below. Then forget about 2009, because we're back tomorrow. 2010 baby.