CliffyB Thinks Used Games Are Bad, Sony is "Playing Us"
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Can someone send Cliffy a link to about the half-dozen or so Jimquisition episodes Jim Sterling did on this very subject? Must be depressing for Jim to find out the type of people who need to hear his message the most clearly haven't.
I'm totally alright with calling Cliffy B "Dude Huge."
I only buy games I'm going to want to play more than once. If I knew I would buy a game and trade it in after only a single playthrough I just wouldn't bother with such a purchase. So you better make damn good games, that's all I'm sayin'
Oh, by the way? I never played any of the Gears games more than once. Go figure.
I only buy games I'm going to want to play more than once. If I knew I would buy a game and trade it in after only a single playthrough I just wouldn't bother with such a purchase. So you better make damn good games, that's all I'm sayin'
Oh, by the way? I never played any of the Gears games more than once. Go figure.
The word "big" isn't exactly the right word to use for AAA games. The word you're looking for, Cliffy: Bloated.
But don't think I haven't considered the possibility that a large corporation isn't being honest or doesn't have the consumer's best interest in mind. To the contrary, that's assumption number one, but at least Sony is putting on a show, being nice about things... Microsoft employees have been nothing but massive dicks about the whole thing.
Oh, and Cliffy B can go die in a fire. I've never liked the man personally and he just LOVES telling us to put up with bad business practices so corporate asshats can get the most profit out of bloated second-rate mediocre farces. Sure, he can develop a popular game, but that doesn't mean he knows everything about the business.
But don't think I haven't considered the possibility that a large corporation isn't being honest or doesn't have the consumer's best interest in mind. To the contrary, that's assumption number one, but at least Sony is putting on a show, being nice about things... Microsoft employees have been nothing but massive dicks about the whole thing.
Oh, and Cliffy B can go die in a fire. I've never liked the man personally and he just LOVES telling us to put up with bad business practices so corporate asshats can get the most profit out of bloated second-rate mediocre farces. Sure, he can develop a popular game, but that doesn't mean he knows everything about the business.
You know, I'm old enough to remember a time when a new release movie on home video was $79.95 (or more). In fact, a quick googling shows that the first movie to be deliberately priced for consumer purchase (rather than selling to, yes, rental stores) was $39.95 in 1983 (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). In inflation-adjusted dollars, that's $90.66 in 2012. And if you also adjust the price of the machine to play it on for inflation, it comes out comparable to the upcoming generation of consoles.
And then the prices started dropping, and profits kept going up, because more and more people would buy movies at $40, or $30, or $20, than ever did at $80. Note that they didn't even need to reduce the budgets of the films, or even their advertising budgets. All they did was drop the price.
Now, that's not really fair as a direct comparison, for any number of reasons: Movies do still have larger audiences, so perhaps volume pricing can be more effective. There's a theatrical release period (though at this point, home video is an increasingly large share of most films' profits). They make a lot of their money on overseas releases, and localizing a videogame is presumably more effort (i.e. more costly) than adding subtitles to a DVD.
Even so: Rentals, used DVDs, bloated blockbuster budgets, and even rampant piracy have all somehow failed to cause the utter collapse of the film industry. Perhaps there is *some* useful lesson that can be learned from them?
And then the prices started dropping, and profits kept going up, because more and more people would buy movies at $40, or $30, or $20, than ever did at $80. Note that they didn't even need to reduce the budgets of the films, or even their advertising budgets. All they did was drop the price.
Now, that's not really fair as a direct comparison, for any number of reasons: Movies do still have larger audiences, so perhaps volume pricing can be more effective. There's a theatrical release period (though at this point, home video is an increasingly large share of most films' profits). They make a lot of their money on overseas releases, and localizing a videogame is presumably more effort (i.e. more costly) than adding subtitles to a DVD.
Even so: Rentals, used DVDs, bloated blockbuster budgets, and even rampant piracy have all somehow failed to cause the utter collapse of the film industry. Perhaps there is *some* useful lesson that can be learned from them?
Awesome... Cliff B thinks the industry needs more Stupid PR campaings like sendig fake body parts around or forcing people to "commit sins" or simply making their PR campaing in a sleazy strip club... cause that model has success and sustainability written all over it!
Lets not forget that most of the more expensive games are being blasted by games with MUCH smaller budgets and sometimes only word-of-mouth as the main engine of their PR campaign...
Dude made 1 game whose prowess was "it looked really good for it's time" and then remade the exact same game 3 more times. What was his contribution to better gaming? Chest High Walls and cover based shooting? Fuck off!!
I'll trade the entire gaming legacy of Cliff b for Telltale's walking dead, Striker Suit Zero and Super House of Dead Ninja and i would still feel like i came out on top on that trade.
Lets not forget that most of the more expensive games are being blasted by games with MUCH smaller budgets and sometimes only word-of-mouth as the main engine of their PR campaign...
Dude made 1 game whose prowess was "it looked really good for it's time" and then remade the exact same game 3 more times. What was his contribution to better gaming? Chest High Walls and cover based shooting? Fuck off!!
I'll trade the entire gaming legacy of Cliff b for Telltale's walking dead, Striker Suit Zero and Super House of Dead Ninja and i would still feel like i came out on top on that trade.
'cause I'm sure Cliffy B knows all about how the numbers work and in no way has a personal bias towards Microsoft.
Used games are the market's way of telling you that your prices are too high. If that means your business model is unsustainable, then perhaps you should address that instead of trying to shoot the messenger.
Cliffy B is the sort of person who would probably solve a fuse constantly blowing by swapping it out for a piece of fencing wire.
Cliffy B is the sort of person who would probably solve a fuse constantly blowing by swapping it out for a piece of fencing wire.
Cliffyb here sounds like a man trying to fix a leaky tap on a sinking ship, kind of missing the more obvious problem. It sounds like the budgets of AAA games are the problem to me.
So the message is, "We want more moneyz to make our bloated, linear rollercoaster rides. So you can all just suffer under our iron fist and like it."
Fuck you, Cliffy , and the horse you rode in on.
As has been said already, these multi-million dollar budgets can't be sustained NOT because of used games, but because of... THE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUDGETS AND MARKETING
Fuck you, Cliffy , and the horse you rode in on.
As has been said already, these multi-million dollar budgets can't be sustained NOT because of used games, but because of... THE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUDGETS AND MARKETING
Lets say he's right, and Sony are secretly going to screw us with DRM wise, consumers will cry out with rage that Sony where lying and switch over to Xbox one as they where a least honest about screwing us.
That being said I think that's unlikely and the guy who's game credits are for multi-platform/Xbox exclusive games is scared all his business is going onto the rival console. (barring fat princess which if not mistaken was next to unheard before PlayStation all-stars)
But you know what, I did play gears of war 1&2, multiple times, and I bought those games.
But then you get a game like remember me, with I completed on it's hardest difficulty 2 days after getting it, and you expect me to pay £42 for it at blockbusters.
Na-na-na-na never gonna happen.
I actually like my blockbusters attitude towards rentals though, if I like the game and can buy it full price minus the cost of the rental.
Did that with ratchet and clank: full frontal assault (Q-Force to us Brits) and I now own the game with paid dlc netting them even more cash.
That being said I think that's unlikely and the guy who's game credits are for multi-platform/Xbox exclusive games is scared all his business is going onto the rival console. (barring fat princess which if not mistaken was next to unheard before PlayStation all-stars)
Also this^^^Proverbial Jon said:
But you know what, I did play gears of war 1&2, multiple times, and I bought those games.
But then you get a game like remember me, with I completed on it's hardest difficulty 2 days after getting it, and you expect me to pay £42 for it at blockbusters.
Na-na-na-na never gonna happen.
I actually like my blockbusters attitude towards rentals though, if I like the game and can buy it full price minus the cost of the rental.
Did that with ratchet and clank: full frontal assault (Q-Force to us Brits) and I now own the game with paid dlc netting them even more cash.
I love it when dumb people try to explain business economics to us poor unwashed masses who just don't give fuck. Seriously, there was all this talking and all I heard was "BLAH BLAH BLAH WE WANT ALL YER MONEY, GUYS!". Hey genius, we don't care about your numbers. You want us to support your industry? Try selling something that ain't crap or do a little dance or SOMETHING! But don't just stand there, telling us we have to give more money to your organ grinder already. It's embarassing.
Well then make some better games cheaper like the indies do instead of spending all your budget and polygons on loving modeling the crotch on a space marine's power armor.
If it's a choice between cheaper games and your games, Cliffy, I'll take the cheaper games, because a Gears of War game has never been worth $60, and I've never paid that much for one.
WHile I don't fully agree with Mr. B here, I think some people are a bit ignorant when it comes to the whole budgets thing.
The budgets for games have not exploded just because dev studios want to do that or because they don't know different. There are a lot of factors, including, the people buying the games, who expect high end graphics. Yes, the Escapist may go ahead and tell me that no, graphics are not a seller, but anyone who says that is fooling themselves in regards to the mass market and the mass market is where the money is.
Fact is, to make a AAA Core Blockbuster game these days, you need a massive amount of people. With the industry being made a better place to work at, these massive people require a lot of money to be payed. That's not even going into middleware, which you need unless you want to stretch development time and thus costs again.
Cliffy B is, IMHO wrong, that used game sales don't have a place in the industry at all. But saying huge dev budgets are only the fault of developers/publishers is ridiculous. Do realize that the market expects standards and those standards have become increasingly expensive to meet.
The budgets for games have not exploded just because dev studios want to do that or because they don't know different. There are a lot of factors, including, the people buying the games, who expect high end graphics. Yes, the Escapist may go ahead and tell me that no, graphics are not a seller, but anyone who says that is fooling themselves in regards to the mass market and the mass market is where the money is.
Fact is, to make a AAA Core Blockbuster game these days, you need a massive amount of people. With the industry being made a better place to work at, these massive people require a lot of money to be payed. That's not even going into middleware, which you need unless you want to stretch development time and thus costs again.
Cliffy B is, IMHO wrong, that used game sales don't have a place in the industry at all. But saying huge dev budgets are only the fault of developers/publishers is ridiculous. Do realize that the market expects standards and those standards have become increasingly expensive to meet.
If this is such a problem (Personally I think they're just being whiney bitches) then I'm happy to pay more at release for games so long as I can demo them first, have access to all future content (don't lazy out because I already paid) and actually produce good games with reasonable length single player content then sure.
Until that time, they neeed to stop being such pricks. If they can't make that kind of game for a 60 dollar price point then stop making them. They seem to assume people want 80 dollar games for 60 dollars. Well that's true of everything, everyone wants a 200k Ferrari for 10k. Doesn't mean it's happening because it's a market they have found they can opperate in. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.
Until that time, they neeed to stop being such pricks. If they can't make that kind of game for a 60 dollar price point then stop making them. They seem to assume people want 80 dollar games for 60 dollars. Well that's true of everything, everyone wants a 200k Ferrari for 10k. Doesn't mean it's happening because it's a market they have found they can opperate in. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.
Guy who made microsoft's biggest (second biggest?) exclusive franchise spewing crap on Sony. I see no bias here!
S'far as used games go, I can't say much for it. Gamestop here abouts ends to give you basically a non-discount on them anyways (I had them massively confused why I wouldn't buy their used New Vegas for 5 bucks less then the full one once). We've already seen publishers doing their damndest to try and curb the used market, so the console maker jumping behind it is just a poor marketing move for them.
S'far as used games go, I can't say much for it. Gamestop here abouts ends to give you basically a non-discount on them anyways (I had them massively confused why I wouldn't buy their used New Vegas for 5 bucks less then the full one once). We've already seen publishers doing their damndest to try and curb the used market, so the console maker jumping behind it is just a poor marketing move for them.
"Dude Huge claims that it is impossible for used games and game rentals to co-exist in this world of massive marketing and production budgets."
all i got from this is "we dont know how to budget our games so everything else is the problem"
I mean the Witcher 2 isnt exactly a break away blockbuster selling game yet with so few sales (in comparison to AAA games) they managed to give away a FREE expansion and still call the whole thing profitable. Dark Souls only recently sold 2 million copies over the course of a couple of years and they got a profit long before that.
also
all i got from this is "we dont know how to budget our games so everything else is the problem"
I mean the Witcher 2 isnt exactly a break away blockbuster selling game yet with so few sales (in comparison to AAA games) they managed to give away a FREE expansion and still call the whole thing profitable. Dark Souls only recently sold 2 million copies over the course of a couple of years and they got a profit long before that.
also
this, while this is obviously difficult to do its not impossible, in the area i live all shops that stock used games have so far never seen someone turn in a copy of Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword... ok thats an exaggeration according to a manager of one of the stores 2 have been traded indragongit said:
Ya know, there is a reason why Nintendo can say that while pretty much no other developer/publisher can say the same. Nintendo knows how to keep the game budget in normal numbers while their games keep selling 3+ millions even if they are considered as "bad" by Nintendo's standard. Well, there are also exceptions where Nintendo give an unlimited budged to a team (Retro and Miyamoto when they were making Metroid Prime).Steven Bogos said:
I wrote this quite a few times and people ridiculed me for this, but I will repeat it.
Nintendo using current gen tech for their consoles is the healthiest business practice for gaming. I LOVE seeing a beautiful game. I LOVE hearing the huge numbers for the hardware power. However, making high end consoles and selling them at a loss is a cancerous business practice that is killing the console manufacturer and the industry.
Game budgets keep rising while you can't justify a game looking like a PS3 game on the PS4.
Investing in marketing huge amounts is bad because you need to sell more and earn it back, but you can't justify a small marketing campaign if you invested 5M in making the game.
Currently at work, will probably edit this post or write another one to clarify if anything isn't clear.