DrunkenMonkey said:
Mimsofthedawg said:
DrunkenMonkey said:
I love how some people are still saying it's not worth 60 and they are waiting for the price drop. Then they wonder where all the new IPs go when they don't support the developer at the months of the release. The irony.... this is how games like RE6 thrive and games like dishonored fail at launch. I just don't get it... ;(
Also to all people giving the animations flak, look at it this way, if they poured money into it like say what id did with Rage, this game wouldn't do so well. I'll take content, creativity, and birth of ideas, over things like life like animations any day of the week, month, year, interdimension, etc.
yea.... or developers could just cut the prices from launch and let more people buy their games.
There really isn't any reason why games are priced at $60. I know I know, all the little details of licensing for consoles, marketing, blah blah blah. But if somethings cheap, more people will buy it. I haven't seen any marketing research done on game prices, but if steam has taught us anything, it's that cheap prices make people impulsively buy games, even if they're not sure they'd like it.
Plus, I can think of VERY few critically acclaimed games that have failed. Ever. I know they're out there (like Bulletstorm), but it hardly EVER happens. So I really don't think that's going to happen just because some people want to wait for a price cut.
the 60 bucks debate isn't going to go anywhere because developers will charge it because they can, and because there is no reason to price their games lower on the market for the work that they put into. If you gave the developer videos a try you will see that the work they supposedly put into it, well justifies the price. The things you mention like marketing, licensing aren't little things, they are neither little things in number nor impact when making a game (phrased it badly) Developers have to make a profit, they can't just work on small returns that can barely pay their own freaking bills. But yes you're right cheap games are a good way of buying things asap for most if not all consumers. Then again 65-66 (US, not Aussie. prices) bucks a month isn't going to break you, if it does then I'm sorry to say that you shouldn't really be in this hobby specifically mainstream gaming. Especially since it's not like deviant games come out every month. I forgot the point I was trying to make, so oh well. Besides games were always expensive whether they were 40-50-60 that situation has not changed, nor for better or worse.
I'm not saying that developers shouldn't try to make a profit for their game. I'm not getting into specifics, but I think you can make profits other ways than charging $60, ESPECIALLY if your game doesn't have many hours of entertainment. I want the bring "mainstream" gaming to as many people as possible, and lowering the price would help a lot. It's also not about "breaking the wallet". It's about value. It makes no sense to buy a game for $60 when they'll just drop the price in a year anyways. Mature, frugal minded people have the patience to wait. If their waiting hurts the developer so much that there is no new sequels or the studio is shut down, my hope would be that publishers get the picture and start cutting prices.
You also can't argue that my idea is far from reality. Many developers are beginning to question to current model. EA's beginning to create more play-for-free content. The entire indie game movement is partially based on high quality, cheap games.
There's also other solutions too. For example, you could have advertisements shipped in game. Or you could set up services like Steam and Xbox Live where you pay a yearly fee (or monthly) and get the games from that developer.
I'm also not talking about a MASSIVE price cut to $10 or something. I'm more talking about $40-$50. You'd probably get a lot more early subscribers that way and each new game would still be making some profit. If you cut prices by a third but increase sales 50%, you've already made a larger profit than having them ramped up all the way to $60.
But I have no idea if this will work. Why? Because I haven't seen any reliable data suggesting it could. I haven't even seen reliable data suggesting $60 is the most efficient either. It's as though the industry is living in a little bubble without innovation (though this isn't entirely true because, as I said in my original post, Steam, Indie games, etc. are proving the logic of these concepts on their own).
So understand my real point here is not to provide any sort of solution, but instead is to question is there an alternate solution at all. It's a question I see no one seriously asking. You can disagree with every one of my points. That's fine. I don't care to defend them. I myself can see faults in almost everything I say. That's not my point. My point is that I feel like there may be a better solution - but who's asking that question? No one.
So if you're going to argue something, don't argue, "Selling a game for $40 is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!" Don't even argue any of my specifics. Discuss possible solutions, or say why you think a solution isn't even needed. Because that's the point here.
