How Much is Alan Wake Worth?
- Thread starter Susan Arendt
- Start date
While there's ALOT of games I pick up and play again purely for the story even years later, Bioware games usually being first among them, I have to agree with you here, and this is alot of what dissapointed me about Heavy Rain.Susan Arendt said:
Before it came out, Heavy Rain was pitched as having a highly branching storyline that would encourage replay value. Which sounds great, until you realize that the game is a murder mystery at its heart, and the identity of the killer never changes. Other then perhaps wanting to see a specific scene play out differently then, which you can do by way of a DVD esque chapter selection that is unlocked as you play, what possible motivation is there to play through again?
So that was a bit of a letdown, and I admit, I'm considering trading it in when Alpha Protocol comes out on the first. But then games like Knights of the Old Republic are like picking up an old novel, I can't even count how many times I've played through it at this point.
Again, it depends entirely on the book/game/movie in question. If there's a big twist, reveal, or something along those lines, the chances are very slim I'll go through it a second time. I pay a great deal of attention the first time through, and if the entire point of the story is to be learning some truth or revealing a secret, I simply don't have the same experience with it the second time through.ThrashJazzAssassin said:
Take the above poster's example of Heavy Rain. The killer's identity never changes. A large part of what keeps you driving forward in that game is not only finding out who it is, but also seeing what challenge Ethan will be forced to do next. Once you know all of that, there's really not much to keep you going.
How much is it worth? well, since its an xbox360 exclusive, id say about £1.99, two jammie dodgers and a length of string.
I agree with that entirely. Being a big fan of (real) horror flicks, I find that re-watching them loses a little appeal because I already know the story, and the mystery is part of the fun in them. The Ring? Sure it was a good movie (though they over-hyped what was only a marginally scary movie), but I've watched it once and I will probably never do-so again unless I'm showing it to a friend. Sure it still has the chills, but they just don't grab you as well when you know why the ghost is doing what it's doing.Susan Arendt said:
Unless it has a fair amount of replayability, I wouldn't buy it. Imagine if MW2 came out with just campaign. It'd be a pretty good campaign (for those who liked it), but its short and has no replayability what-so-ever. Except for higher difficulties and intel, but thats not really much fun.
If a games story, which is supposed to be a good one, can also end in about 6 hours, I don't think I'll get attached to any of the characters. I don't knot though. If its a single player experience, its got to at least last 10 hours minimum.
If a games story, which is supposed to be a good one, can also end in about 6 hours, I don't think I'll get attached to any of the characters. I don't knot though. If its a single player experience, its got to at least last 10 hours minimum.
On the other side, I don't buy games that are based around multiplayer, and I almost never play multiplayer modes in the games that I do buy. I've played through dozens of RTS's and only a handful of multiplayer matches. If I'm playing an MMO, I inevitably spend 90% of my playing time solo.Mcface said:
To me, a video game is like a book or a movie. I consider playing with other people online to be primarily a waste of my time. It's something I want to experience on my own time, at my own pace, and mixing other people into it will either ruin the experience entirely at worst, or just be a hassle at best. I'll talk about the game with my friends afterward, and I'll definitely play with a small circle of people on occasion, but they're mostly the kind of people that also keep odd hours and play games solo as well.
And this is the primary reason why. I consider my time to be valuable, so I'm not going to play the same game for a long time. A multiplayer game that consists of doing the exact same thing over and over again for "points" or "stats" quickly becomes pointless to me - there are other, better things I could move on to.Frybird said:
I'm picking up Alan Wake, and if it keeps being entertaining, I'll probably grab the episodic releases as well. $5 an hour for solid, non-repetitive entertainment sounds like a good deal to me.
Very rarely for me, unless there's a good incentive. I'll usually run through Bioware games twice, using different classes and choosing different solutions to problems, but that's only because I know it'll be worth it. Other than that, I might run through a game again several years later if it was really good, but I usually prefer to devote that time to playing something I've never gone through before.ThrashJazzAssassin said:
True to an extent, but the one thing movies, books, tv, and games all have in common is story. Just like all other forms of entertainment I personally like going back to the source, glowing shiny waterfall source, once in a while to absorb it all over again and remind myself why I loved it, or to find some other subtle moments that I might have missed before. Hell, I've been watching Ghostbusters since I was a baby and I'm still finding new little things in it.Susan Arendt said:
How much is Alan Wake Worth?
Well, certainly not as much as the Twin Peaks DVD Box Set:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Twin-Peaks-...ef=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1273842341&sr=8-2
If you want a story, read a Novel, watch TV, go to the Cinema, visit the Theatre, or treat yourself to a night at the Opera.
Don't play a dumb-ass videogame whose developers are all frustrated film-directors.
I'm sick of how Pac-man and Robotron 64 are seen as inferior to these uninspired poorly lip-synced overly-linear interactive stories. The last game I bought that represented real value for money gave me well over 1000 hours of consistently rewarding, challenging, entertaining, varied and fun gameplay - and that is only counting the Multiplayer experience. Did any of those games have a story? Did they suffer from not having an objective other than "plant the bomb in the enemy base" (or similar)?
I really want developers to snap out of the delusion that they have been in since they decided that the average gamer wants (weak) characters and a (lame) plot at the expense of limiting player freedom due to the necessity of story requiring linearity.
Yes, yes... I know there are supposed to be exceptions to this, where games such as Deus Ex have non-linear narratives and alternative endings, but how common are they? How many joyously replayable 'choose-your-own-adventure-style' games have been made?
I reckon I can count them on the fingers of one finger.
I managed this once, but the Banshee was flying towards our base. Fun memories.
Well, certainly not as much as the Twin Peaks DVD Box Set:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Twin-Peaks-...ef=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1273842341&sr=8-2
If you want a story, read a Novel, watch TV, go to the Cinema, visit the Theatre, or treat yourself to a night at the Opera.
Don't play a dumb-ass videogame whose developers are all frustrated film-directors.
I'm sick of how Pac-man and Robotron 64 are seen as inferior to these uninspired poorly lip-synced overly-linear interactive stories. The last game I bought that represented real value for money gave me well over 1000 hours of consistently rewarding, challenging, entertaining, varied and fun gameplay - and that is only counting the Multiplayer experience. Did any of those games have a story? Did they suffer from not having an objective other than "plant the bomb in the enemy base" (or similar)?
I really want developers to snap out of the delusion that they have been in since they decided that the average gamer wants (weak) characters and a (lame) plot at the expense of limiting player freedom due to the necessity of story requiring linearity.
Yes, yes... I know there are supposed to be exceptions to this, where games such as Deus Ex have non-linear narratives and alternative endings, but how common are they? How many joyously replayable 'choose-your-own-adventure-style' games have been made?
I reckon I can count them on the fingers of one finger.
I managed this once, but the Banshee was flying towards our base. Fun memories.
That explains why my work PC started mumbling things about 'dividing by zero' and wondering what I'd be doing with my soul when the Old Ones awaken from their eternal sleep when I had it compute that formula.Uncompetative said:
OT: Great article, Susan. I think that some stories are worth replaying even after the "gee whiz" factor of their big reveals. I know Xenogears is plagued with some gameplay and graphics problems, but it's still a good story that I enjoy replaying now and again.
Don't tell me you bought all 4 versions of Nintendogs.Susan Arendt said:
Seriously though, I've only bought the same game twice: I liked San Andreas and Fallout 3 so much on the consoles, I got the PC versions too. Are we talking something like that, or are we talking Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory" buying a new copy of 'Catcher in the Rye' every time he thinks of it.
When do we get to know what these alluring titles were?
I already told ya. Just gotta read the whole thread.GonzoGamer said:
For the record, I bought the version of Nintendogs with the Corgi. I freakin' love those little dogs, with their stubbular legs and huge bat ears. SO CUTE.
Personally, I know I've bought Arcanum four times. Each time was worth it.
Oh yes, and Alan Wake is the first game I've pre-ordered since um? the first 360 came out and I pre-ordered Oblivion (a disappointment compared to Morrowind).
I bought Morrowind PC, and GOTY.
And PSO for DC and XBox, but I gotta disagree there?it bored me. Mostly becuase I'm not a big MMOer.
Oh yes, and Alan Wake is the first game I've pre-ordered since um? the first 360 came out and I pre-ordered Oblivion (a disappointment compared to Morrowind).
I bought Morrowind PC, and GOTY.
And PSO for DC and XBox, but I gotta disagree there?it bored me. Mostly becuase I'm not a big MMOer.
I know! I hated that fight so much. You had to fight him three times with each time not regaining health and he gets more deadly each time. So many terrible memories associated with that game.HandfulofWolf said:
For me deciding to buy/pre-order Alan Wake with my limited funds was a hard desician. In general I decided to in order to support development of the horror genere. You wouldn't believe some of the movies I've bought/seen as part of a sort of warped genere loyalty.
To be entirely honest there is no way to justify a 12 hour game costing $60 nowadays. This is where I come from when I'm constantly talking about cartel behavior and price fixing. While there are exceptions (I will mention one below) by and large the industry has set a policy that a new game costs $60, the playtime, development budget, and other factors are totally irrelevent. What's more there seems to be a general agreement to avoid competition, at least within the same genere. An example of this was the number of titles that good pushed up during the release of Modern Warfare 2, as opposed to any kind of price lowering competition.
One of the big defenses of the game industry is that they provide the best bang for your entertainment dollar. While at one time this might have been true with games that clocked in on an average of 40 hours it seemed, with the proliferation of short games I feel that this is rapidly ceasing the be the case. Especially when you consider that even with some short games you see people argueing "well they start off slow". I pretty much maintain "Heavy Rain" is not a game, but for whatever reason it's being considered one. Along with it's short play time, people have commented on the amount of time wasting that takes place in it, waiting for things to happen.
What's more, the $60.00 price tag is deceptive with the way DLC is being exploited. It's impossible to tell whether your even getting access to everything on the disc you buy. Heck, despite protests to the contrary it seems a common practice now is to take a complete game, slice pieces off of it, and then sell them later as DLC. Thus to get the entire experience you might very well be paying another $20 to $30 on top of what you dished out to begin with.
Looking at Alan Wake for example I notice that it began development as a "Sandbox" game which probably would have had a lot more playtime and things to do. The workable cars, which serve no real apparent purpose, are however still left in the game. While I'm not psychic things like this tend to make me wonder if there will be additional content released like "Alan Wake racing" add ons (given that racing is a side activity shared by pretty much all sandbox games), or perhaps a multiplayer mode similar to Left 4 Dead with a handfull of flashlight wielding survivors taking on hordes of those possesed people (some of whom might be other players). I can't predict things specifically, but Alan Wake despite it's short length seems to be jumping on the DLC bandwagon with both feet and it's not even released yet. Take a look at how many Avatar accessories and the like are already on XBL... most games don't even have that much DLC in general (even if it is Avatar wear). Granted I do not "know" anything, and the above features are just for the sake of making an arguement (what kinds of things there might be), but right now Alan Wake seems like a game with a lot more content waiting for piecemeal release.
People constantly talk about the $60 price tag being "fair" due to the amount of money being spent on development, but at the same time most games never release their budgets. What's more when they do, there are big questions as to where all that money went. Generally speaking as purtyful as the graphics in a game might be, if someone is throwing 40 million dollars to human resources to produce 12 hours of content that's probably a bit much. Although this gets into arguements between sources like "Maxim Magazine" (talking about how much these dudes get paid), those claiming friends in the industry who are not making good money, and of course simple math. Not to mention of course the amount of work that is actually done and at what pace. I look at games that allegedly spent years in development, eating up millions and millions on human resources, and yet needed to see a massive crunch when the producer cracked the whip because people more or less weren't working. The key point here is that all of these costs get passed back to YOU the consumer.
On top of this you have rather expensive advertising campaigns like ARGs (for various games), and the current "Bright Falls" webisode set for Alan Wake. As cool as those things are, again the cost is arguably what they are using to justify charging you $60 (which I still feel is fairly excessive), plus whatever DLC they feel like releasing, which may or may not be developed along with the game, or simply be pieces of the game chopped off to be sold seperatly by the marketing people.
To put things into perspective, what I'm saying is that the $60.00 price tag is too high. While I feel games in general are overpriced (and yes, I've read some statements on the amount of profits made after expenses). What's more I think $60.00 should be the absolute limit for what a game should cost, with shorter games of this sort going for the $20-$30 price range if that. As a few articles, including some on The Escapist go, it's been shown a LOT of money can be made simply by selling games for $5.00 a pop. If a criminal syndicate in Brazil can build shopping malls financed by pirating games for that much, I'd imagine a game company/producer could still make a reasonable profit... and honestly I'm not suggesting anyone lower their prices that much officially, just using it as a counter point.
Okay now for the "exception" I pointed out, let's look at a recent game of the same genere as Alan Wake, that was going for the same vibe. It's called "Deadly Premonition". DP is a mixed bag overall, it posseses a number of workable game systems, a huge sandbox world to explore, excellent voice acting... and well, some pretty bad graphics by current standards (mid-range PS-2 level). The thing is though that the game sold for $20, and included a lot
of the aspects that were cut out of Alan Wake.
Now, I suppose Alan Wake's price tag would be less shocking IF it was a sandbox game like "Deadly Premonition" (which proved what they set out to do originally is possible), and yet had Alan Wake's graphics quality. I can't speak for the gameplay elements, because I haven't handled AW's yet, all I can say is the DP's are fairly old school, and while they might seem bad at first to people used to more current games, are actually pretty solid. Give Alan Wake three or four times the playtime due to side missions and such, and well...
Of course I could eat this, and be screaming "OMG the best $60 I've ever spent". See for all of my comments, I've already committed to buying AW due to the genere, forgoing other games. I put a lot of thought into it though. But then again if I didn't eat my hat with some frequency I probably wouldn't be gaming much at all... which I guess is what the game companies are relying on. Though I admit there are a lot of games I specifically have not purchused for very similar reasons.
To be entirely honest there is no way to justify a 12 hour game costing $60 nowadays. This is where I come from when I'm constantly talking about cartel behavior and price fixing. While there are exceptions (I will mention one below) by and large the industry has set a policy that a new game costs $60, the playtime, development budget, and other factors are totally irrelevent. What's more there seems to be a general agreement to avoid competition, at least within the same genere. An example of this was the number of titles that good pushed up during the release of Modern Warfare 2, as opposed to any kind of price lowering competition.
One of the big defenses of the game industry is that they provide the best bang for your entertainment dollar. While at one time this might have been true with games that clocked in on an average of 40 hours it seemed, with the proliferation of short games I feel that this is rapidly ceasing the be the case. Especially when you consider that even with some short games you see people argueing "well they start off slow". I pretty much maintain "Heavy Rain" is not a game, but for whatever reason it's being considered one. Along with it's short play time, people have commented on the amount of time wasting that takes place in it, waiting for things to happen.
What's more, the $60.00 price tag is deceptive with the way DLC is being exploited. It's impossible to tell whether your even getting access to everything on the disc you buy. Heck, despite protests to the contrary it seems a common practice now is to take a complete game, slice pieces off of it, and then sell them later as DLC. Thus to get the entire experience you might very well be paying another $20 to $30 on top of what you dished out to begin with.
Looking at Alan Wake for example I notice that it began development as a "Sandbox" game which probably would have had a lot more playtime and things to do. The workable cars, which serve no real apparent purpose, are however still left in the game. While I'm not psychic things like this tend to make me wonder if there will be additional content released like "Alan Wake racing" add ons (given that racing is a side activity shared by pretty much all sandbox games), or perhaps a multiplayer mode similar to Left 4 Dead with a handfull of flashlight wielding survivors taking on hordes of those possesed people (some of whom might be other players). I can't predict things specifically, but Alan Wake despite it's short length seems to be jumping on the DLC bandwagon with both feet and it's not even released yet. Take a look at how many Avatar accessories and the like are already on XBL... most games don't even have that much DLC in general (even if it is Avatar wear). Granted I do not "know" anything, and the above features are just for the sake of making an arguement (what kinds of things there might be), but right now Alan Wake seems like a game with a lot more content waiting for piecemeal release.
People constantly talk about the $60 price tag being "fair" due to the amount of money being spent on development, but at the same time most games never release their budgets. What's more when they do, there are big questions as to where all that money went. Generally speaking as purtyful as the graphics in a game might be, if someone is throwing 40 million dollars to human resources to produce 12 hours of content that's probably a bit much. Although this gets into arguements between sources like "Maxim Magazine" (talking about how much these dudes get paid), those claiming friends in the industry who are not making good money, and of course simple math. Not to mention of course the amount of work that is actually done and at what pace. I look at games that allegedly spent years in development, eating up millions and millions on human resources, and yet needed to see a massive crunch when the producer cracked the whip because people more or less weren't working. The key point here is that all of these costs get passed back to YOU the consumer.
On top of this you have rather expensive advertising campaigns like ARGs (for various games), and the current "Bright Falls" webisode set for Alan Wake. As cool as those things are, again the cost is arguably what they are using to justify charging you $60 (which I still feel is fairly excessive), plus whatever DLC they feel like releasing, which may or may not be developed along with the game, or simply be pieces of the game chopped off to be sold seperatly by the marketing people.
To put things into perspective, what I'm saying is that the $60.00 price tag is too high. While I feel games in general are overpriced (and yes, I've read some statements on the amount of profits made after expenses). What's more I think $60.00 should be the absolute limit for what a game should cost, with shorter games of this sort going for the $20-$30 price range if that. As a few articles, including some on The Escapist go, it's been shown a LOT of money can be made simply by selling games for $5.00 a pop. If a criminal syndicate in Brazil can build shopping malls financed by pirating games for that much, I'd imagine a game company/producer could still make a reasonable profit... and honestly I'm not suggesting anyone lower their prices that much officially, just using it as a counter point.
Okay now for the "exception" I pointed out, let's look at a recent game of the same genere as Alan Wake, that was going for the same vibe. It's called "Deadly Premonition". DP is a mixed bag overall, it posseses a number of workable game systems, a huge sandbox world to explore, excellent voice acting... and well, some pretty bad graphics by current standards (mid-range PS-2 level). The thing is though that the game sold for $20, and included a lot
of the aspects that were cut out of Alan Wake.
Now, I suppose Alan Wake's price tag would be less shocking IF it was a sandbox game like "Deadly Premonition" (which proved what they set out to do originally is possible), and yet had Alan Wake's graphics quality. I can't speak for the gameplay elements, because I haven't handled AW's yet, all I can say is the DP's are fairly old school, and while they might seem bad at first to people used to more current games, are actually pretty solid. Give Alan Wake three or four times the playtime due to side missions and such, and well...
Of course I could eat this, and be screaming "OMG the best $60 I've ever spent". See for all of my comments, I've already committed to buying AW due to the genere, forgoing other games. I put a lot of thought into it though. But then again if I didn't eat my hat with some frequency I probably wouldn't be gaming much at all... which I guess is what the game companies are relying on. Though I admit there are a lot of games I specifically have not purchused for very similar reasons.
I still don't understand this notion of playing a story-driven game only once and then never again. Story-driven games are my favourite and if I've finished one that I loved, I dive straight back in for another playthrough. Maybe I'm the weirdo here, but if I love the gameplay, the story and the characters, then that's more enough replay value for me.
I'm guessing Street Fighter 2 and Resident Evil 5.Susan Arendt said:
EDIT: Oops... 4... I meant Resi 4.