Wow, can we now called devs+publisher whining, entitled weiners? Your budgets are high coz you want them high so you can feel like big boys, but it's just so you can have lots of money to play with. You can't blame the customer for your egos. Assassin creed may have thousands working on it but that's their fault. Bigger is not better.
CliffyB Thinks Used Games Are Bad, Sony is "Playing Us"
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
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Not every game has to be filled to the brim with graphic power. The gaming industry did well enough and survived before the ps3 and 360 came along. I would argue this past gen alone had many a bad title in spite of technological edges.
Maybe if he spent more time crafting a rich story and less time on Marcus's bandana I'd take him more seriously. That guy is a douche
Maybe if he spent more time crafting a rich story and less time on Marcus's bandana I'd take him more seriously. That guy is a douche
There´s a very easy solution for the AAA industris problems... Don´t spend a billion creating small inconsequential details that no one ever notices. Smaller Dev teams and smaller budgets, that´s the way to go. If they can´t afford to make insane stuff like Assassins Creed 4, then don´t, do something on a smaller scale or with lesser graphics... It really isn´t that important anyway.
My take on this (and it's incredibly easy to mock Cliffy, but I won't) is that he says "The visual fidelity and feature sets we expect from games now come with sky high costs," but WHY?
Games don't have to cost millions of dollars and take thousands of developers to make. That's one of the things people realized when SquareEnix said that "Tomb Raider" was a commercial failure. FAILURE?!? It got great reviews and sold 3.4 million copies in the first month. That's really, really good. But SquareEnix needed to sell 5 million to make its money back. Why? It could have saved a boat load of money by not putting in the crappy multiplayer that no one asked for.
Why do all these AAA titles need such huge budgets for "life-like" graphics? There is a saying that playing a game for the graphics is like watching porn for the story. It's stupid. Stop spending money uselessly on the latest engine and put some of it into the story and gameplay mechanics. Then you will have a game that most people will gladly pay for new just like Nintendo feels. Stop spending movie blockbuster budgets. If you want to do that, MAKE A MOVIE! Otherwise you sure aren't going to get your money back.
Also, why does it cost so much, Cliffy, for these big AAA titles when all they really are are cut-and-paste copies of the previous iteration? CoD, Battlefield, Gears of War....blah blah blah. They seem the same, year after year, so how can you say you are spending more money if you are being eco-friendly and recycling your games?
Anyway, if game developers would make great games with the gamers in mind and develop them with great story and cool gameplay, they can spend less, make more and stop bitching at the customers.
And Cliffy, to be clear, used games aren't going to cause the next generation to die.....it'll be all the fed up gamers leaving your systems in droves that will.
Games don't have to cost millions of dollars and take thousands of developers to make. That's one of the things people realized when SquareEnix said that "Tomb Raider" was a commercial failure. FAILURE?!? It got great reviews and sold 3.4 million copies in the first month. That's really, really good. But SquareEnix needed to sell 5 million to make its money back. Why? It could have saved a boat load of money by not putting in the crappy multiplayer that no one asked for.
Why do all these AAA titles need such huge budgets for "life-like" graphics? There is a saying that playing a game for the graphics is like watching porn for the story. It's stupid. Stop spending money uselessly on the latest engine and put some of it into the story and gameplay mechanics. Then you will have a game that most people will gladly pay for new just like Nintendo feels. Stop spending movie blockbuster budgets. If you want to do that, MAKE A MOVIE! Otherwise you sure aren't going to get your money back.
Also, why does it cost so much, Cliffy, for these big AAA titles when all they really are are cut-and-paste copies of the previous iteration? CoD, Battlefield, Gears of War....blah blah blah. They seem the same, year after year, so how can you say you are spending more money if you are being eco-friendly and recycling your games?
Anyway, if game developers would make great games with the gamers in mind and develop them with great story and cool gameplay, they can spend less, make more and stop bitching at the customers.
And Cliffy, to be clear, used games aren't going to cause the next generation to die.....it'll be all the fed up gamers leaving your systems in droves that will.
None of this makes sense...and the whole discussion is stupid.
Why?
Used games have been around forever...way back to the original nintendo days there was video stores that would buy and sell used games (this was before gamestop etc). I know, as a kid I worked for one briefly putting fliers up around town. It was the first such store that opened in my town...and it was awesome.
The point though is back then there were FAR less gamers.....a much smaller audience to sell games to, so used sales would obviously take a much larger percentage of possible sales away (especially since games often were much shorter, and didn't have as much replay value then etc).
Now the argument seems to be "We are spending way more money and time on creating these games, so used games are bad".
Well first of all, you are also CHARGING way more for the games then you used to. The price for a new game has gone up and up over the years. Meanwhile, the number of people buying games...that has also gone up and up over the years.
The real solution is to make buying used games obsolete!! How? By reducing the price of the new games constantly after release so that used games can not be purchased for less (or much less).
Also, release as many games as you can in digital format...for a reduced price. This both ensures the game won't be resold...and again ensures that the cost will be less then used games sold in stores. Still offer physical copies, but charge an extra $10 for them (so $60 for physical copies and only $50 for digital).
Then drop the price of new games by about $10 every 2 months until 6 months after release when the price hits $30 (half the original price....digital copies would hit that price in only 4 months).
This would basically mean that used copies of games would have to be sold for $20 to make sense for anyone to purchase them..which would mean places like gamestop wouldn't give you even $5 for them....so almost nobody would bother selling them.
Used game problem would be solved...and people would actually be HAPPY about it...because over all we would still be getting the games, but cheaper...and new!
Meanwhile the companies making the games would actually get all those profits instead of gamestop etc.
The system is broken right now, it's true, but the solution is NOT to remove all ways for gamers to get games at a reduced price.....the cost of games is insane at this point already...and since you can often get digital copies...there is no excuse for not offering digital copies at a reduced price (no cost of creating a disc, no shipping, no instruction booklets, no profit lost to distributers/stores etc).
Digital format should be the new norm, and prices should drop to help motivate people to use it.
Used games would naturally dry up over time if that happened, and nobody would really object if they could still get the games at the same price as before...only they didn't have to get used copies.
As far as actually getting money for trading in your games, well honestly the amount you usually get from gamestop/bestbuy is paltry..and usually not worth it. You could sell it through amazon etc....but I would personally rather save $10 initially, or eventually get new games at half price (only $30), instead of being able to sell my games back.
I have not bought a used game in awhile...mainly due to just having too many games already and only picking up new ones that I'm really waiting for etc (and way to many games on steam). If all the used game stores went poof, I wouldn't even notice. Even so, I don't think forcing people to now buy used games is a good solution at all. There are way better ways to handle the problem, that will make everyone happy.
Why?
Used games have been around forever...way back to the original nintendo days there was video stores that would buy and sell used games (this was before gamestop etc). I know, as a kid I worked for one briefly putting fliers up around town. It was the first such store that opened in my town...and it was awesome.
The point though is back then there were FAR less gamers.....a much smaller audience to sell games to, so used sales would obviously take a much larger percentage of possible sales away (especially since games often were much shorter, and didn't have as much replay value then etc).
Now the argument seems to be "We are spending way more money and time on creating these games, so used games are bad".
Well first of all, you are also CHARGING way more for the games then you used to. The price for a new game has gone up and up over the years. Meanwhile, the number of people buying games...that has also gone up and up over the years.
The real solution is to make buying used games obsolete!! How? By reducing the price of the new games constantly after release so that used games can not be purchased for less (or much less).
Also, release as many games as you can in digital format...for a reduced price. This both ensures the game won't be resold...and again ensures that the cost will be less then used games sold in stores. Still offer physical copies, but charge an extra $10 for them (so $60 for physical copies and only $50 for digital).
Then drop the price of new games by about $10 every 2 months until 6 months after release when the price hits $30 (half the original price....digital copies would hit that price in only 4 months).
This would basically mean that used copies of games would have to be sold for $20 to make sense for anyone to purchase them..which would mean places like gamestop wouldn't give you even $5 for them....so almost nobody would bother selling them.
Used game problem would be solved...and people would actually be HAPPY about it...because over all we would still be getting the games, but cheaper...and new!
Meanwhile the companies making the games would actually get all those profits instead of gamestop etc.
The system is broken right now, it's true, but the solution is NOT to remove all ways for gamers to get games at a reduced price.....the cost of games is insane at this point already...and since you can often get digital copies...there is no excuse for not offering digital copies at a reduced price (no cost of creating a disc, no shipping, no instruction booklets, no profit lost to distributers/stores etc).
Digital format should be the new norm, and prices should drop to help motivate people to use it.
Used games would naturally dry up over time if that happened, and nobody would really object if they could still get the games at the same price as before...only they didn't have to get used copies.
As far as actually getting money for trading in your games, well honestly the amount you usually get from gamestop/bestbuy is paltry..and usually not worth it. You could sell it through amazon etc....but I would personally rather save $10 initially, or eventually get new games at half price (only $30), instead of being able to sell my games back.
I have not bought a used game in awhile...mainly due to just having too many games already and only picking up new ones that I'm really waiting for etc (and way to many games on steam). If all the used game stores went poof, I wouldn't even notice. Even so, I don't think forcing people to now buy used games is a good solution at all. There are way better ways to handle the problem, that will make everyone happy.
Digging their own hole? I guess you can lay blame on both ends of the coin, but I really, really can't blame dev's alone for the expectancy of consumers. Consumers ALWAYS wanted more realistic graphics (not every one, but a lot of them). So dev's delivered.Kamille Bidan said:
I agree with Journalists. They are part of the "problem" as it were.
This is not how it works. The majority of team members go into the art department and programming. And that's not just because developers THINK they need that many people, it's just a matter of how much can one person realistically do. Some of the best games made in whose opinion? Critics? Public? Consumer?
How many games by small teams do you think pull down enough money to break even? How many hundreds of failures for every ONE Minecraft/Braid/Super Meat Boy? And not because the games are bad necessarily, but because they fail to capture the audience. It's just really not seeing the whole picture if you think that AAA Blockbuster titles are a problem that could just be done away with.
And again, I do not doubt independents can make great games with little budget. But they cannot make AAA Blockbuster games. Now you and other people can tell me that that doesn't matter, because all that matters is that the game is good, but that would be silly. If anyone here claims they would never enjoy a good AAA Blockbuster title (and they exist, please don't do that whole, all AAA games are bad anyway thing), they are just trying to simplify the problem.
If such big budgets can't be supported in the same industry as rentals and pre owned games maybe game budgets should be smaller.
Ok then CliffyB, show me the study where they concluded that the number of new purchases would be larger without the additional income from trading in used games. Show that fucking study and I will concede some ground. Until then, I plain don't believe you, and I can do that because you have no fucking evidence. What's more, used games have a right to exist, games are a product, and just like any product if you want one that someone else has used and they're happy to give it to you for a fee, there's nothing wrong with that, and putting systems in place to erase that practise devalues your product when purchased. Free to play and microtransactions are just shittier models for the consumer in most cases. The industry wants to go from single purchase (meaning you can get as much value as you want out of a game and do whatever you want with it) to as subtle subscriptions and microtransactions as possible, because frankly people are less price-sensitive to the latter. Which is why when the stance of making good games that people will want to buy, perhaps at reasonable prices at launch, and do whatever they want with them afterwards, is taken by a company, they should be fucking applauded for it.
And yes, Sony probably isn't morally for used games, and rumours of its own disc-locking system were circulating before it probably caught on to the smart course of action (directly opposing Microsoft). But the consumers have shown that supporting used games will be profitable, and that's what we have to do when we want something. Give money to the suppliers. If you want used games, don't buy an Xbone and grumble about it. Don't buy digital for the same price where there is no system for resale. Buy the things that do what you want, and the people who make them will be happy to keep them that way.
And yes, Sony probably isn't morally for used games, and rumours of its own disc-locking system were circulating before it probably caught on to the smart course of action (directly opposing Microsoft). But the consumers have shown that supporting used games will be profitable, and that's what we have to do when we want something. Give money to the suppliers. If you want used games, don't buy an Xbone and grumble about it. Don't buy digital for the same price where there is no system for resale. Buy the things that do what you want, and the people who make them will be happy to keep them that way.
I guess Cliffy B never learned some basic economics.
The firms with the highest costs are generally the first to leave when shit goes south.
You can only push costs onto demand so hard before demand rejects it outright. (that's what a demand curve describes, literally)
The loss of rentals and used games; that's a cost overall since it costs the consumer more overall.
It's up to those firms to get their costs under control.
The firms with the highest costs are generally the first to leave when shit goes south.
You can only push costs onto demand so hard before demand rejects it outright. (that's what a demand curve describes, literally)
The loss of rentals and used games; that's a cost overall since it costs the consumer more overall.
It's up to those firms to get their costs under control.
Wasnt there a little zombie game with pretty bland graphics for this day and age that sold over 250000 copies in the first day? Just because they tapped into a concept that hadnt been realized like that yet?
Overwhelming success both financial and units sold and that on a comperativly small budged, without any "professional" marketing whatsoever.. just by using LPers and word of mouth? What does cliffy say to that?
"BAH HUMBUG!"
But seriously... Clyffy.. shut your mouth. Theres enough hot air around this time of year as is...
Overwhelming success both financial and units sold and that on a comperativly small budged, without any "professional" marketing whatsoever.. just by using LPers and word of mouth? What does cliffy say to that?
"BAH HUMBUG!"
But seriously... Clyffy.. shut your mouth. Theres enough hot air around this time of year as is...
There's one thing I don't get: How do used games "take the cut"? That's just based on the false assumption that every used game sale would be a new game sale if it wasn't for used games. That's simply not true.
Also, when buying used, the developers/publishers DID ALREADY GET THEIR CUT! Somebody bought it full price for it to even appear on the used games shelf. Every used game out there is a former new sale.
Also, while I do buy most games new, the ones I bought used I bought because I wasn't that interested in them that they warranted full price. I bought Uncharted used because I thought the premise to be not that interesting, but I wanted to have a cheap shooter. But I fell in love with the series, which made me buy UC2 at full price and preorder part 3 and The Last Of Us. Not only did sony and naughty dogs NOT lose anything, as I wouldn't have bought it new, but the guy I bought it from did, they actually gained a new customer, resulting in a revenue of +300% with no investment needed from them whatsoever.
Also, I tend to sell games I played through that don't have any replay value, or that I haven't touched in a year, and use the little money I get to buy one or two new games I wouldn't have bought otherwise. Again, allowing for used games actually increased new sales in my case.
Thus, calling used sales a blight for devs/publishers, let alone outrightly preventing them, is IMHO stupid. There's nothing to gain by it, and a lot to lose, both paradoxically in sales and in image.
Also, when buying used, the developers/publishers DID ALREADY GET THEIR CUT! Somebody bought it full price for it to even appear on the used games shelf. Every used game out there is a former new sale.
Also, while I do buy most games new, the ones I bought used I bought because I wasn't that interested in them that they warranted full price. I bought Uncharted used because I thought the premise to be not that interesting, but I wanted to have a cheap shooter. But I fell in love with the series, which made me buy UC2 at full price and preorder part 3 and The Last Of Us. Not only did sony and naughty dogs NOT lose anything, as I wouldn't have bought it new, but the guy I bought it from did, they actually gained a new customer, resulting in a revenue of +300% with no investment needed from them whatsoever.
Also, I tend to sell games I played through that don't have any replay value, or that I haven't touched in a year, and use the little money I get to buy one or two new games I wouldn't have bought otherwise. Again, allowing for used games actually increased new sales in my case.
Thus, calling used sales a blight for devs/publishers, let alone outrightly preventing them, is IMHO stupid. There's nothing to gain by it, and a lot to lose, both paradoxically in sales and in image.
cliffy, i think your name is trying to tell you something.
Sure, instead of stop wasting money on inflated budgets and utterly retarded marketing mappings that market games to the wrong audience, lets kill something that keeps your game alive for more than the initial 3 months and actually wants people to be interested in sequel.
Sadly, he will still have money for his unreal engine, that isnt THAT great to begin with, and if developers were forced to build their own engines more maybe we wouldnt have ahalf the market look identical....
Sure, instead of stop wasting money on inflated budgets and utterly retarded marketing mappings that market games to the wrong audience, lets kill something that keeps your game alive for more than the initial 3 months and actually wants people to be interested in sequel.
Sadly, he will still have money for his unreal engine, that isnt THAT great to begin with, and if developers were forced to build their own engines more maybe we wouldnt have ahalf the market look identical....
People have pretty much said everything there is to say on this matter, and I have to agree with the general consensus. Perhaps developers and publishers ought to start learning to use their budget more wisely rather than throwing money at everything. It's not our problem that they are making games so expensive to create, so we shouldn't be the ones having to take the hit.
When you get indie developers making more exciting games than huge developers who throw over one hundred million dollars at a game, claiming you have to keep spending money to make good ones becomes nonsensical. I had more fun playing Mark of the Ninja than I did Dead Space 3, and the difference in the cost to make them is insane.
When you get indie developers making more exciting games than huge developers who throw over one hundred million dollars at a game, claiming you have to keep spending money to make good ones becomes nonsensical. I had more fun playing Mark of the Ninja than I did Dead Space 3, and the difference in the cost to make them is insane.
I see what you did there, and I like it.Ronack said:
