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Well, the depression did wonders for the gaming industry in the UK. I believe it was that success that helped reignite things elsewhere.
The future will not be the same as the past, mostly because gaming is not as stigmatised as it once was; it's mainstream now. There is an imminent explosion of bedroom developers (kinda like it was during the "great depression"), but also in the casuals (phones, tablets, Facebook, Zynga), and then there's that whole fascinating realm of "gamification" (a quick example being solving protein folding problems, as a game). In the near future, your job may well be enriched with puzzles... for science. Just imagine, a job you can't put down, as addictive as WoW, as compelling as Stalker. Scary.
"Triple A" games will always face the issue of ever-longer, money-hungrier bug-squishing crunch-periods before release. And in the face of inadequate scheduling / over-ambitious games, there will be some nasty bugs that slip through. This won't stop them, much like questionable quality standards haven't stopped the movie and music etc. industries, from sustaining themselves.
Ironically, if you want a "bug-free" game (no such thing), you may be better off with the bedroom developers, whose games are more simple, distilled, easily tested. Assuming you can wade through the inevitable piles of dross to find the gems, of course.
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