In the case of Todd Howard saying Skyrim is an exception that is worth sixty bucks, I agree completely. Not so much for Twisted Metal.
Jimquisition: Videogames Are A Luxury
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
As much as anyone here might like to think there will be a "crash", or that the greedy game publishers will suddenly come to their senses and see the err of their ways, the truth is, Diablo III just broke the record of pre-ordered sales, so NO, game sales are not in the slightest bit hurt by high prices. Maybe there haven't been as many "must-have" releases as of late compared to the Skyrim and ME3 launches, but the ones that are supposedly hype-worthy will still sell at prices deemed appropriate.
What other market environment, other than rabid fandom, would a company be daring enough to try the crazy DRM implementation, DLC bullsh!t and everything else they are doing if they had the slightest doubt in success. So, nice call guys, but I have the feeling gaming will go further into the "luxury" category rather than come out of it.
What other market environment, other than rabid fandom, would a company be daring enough to try the crazy DRM implementation, DLC bullsh!t and everything else they are doing if they had the slightest doubt in success. So, nice call guys, but I have the feeling gaming will go further into the "luxury" category rather than come out of it.
I don't think so. What we are seeing now is a larger range of price tags appearing in the market. AAA titles are down, but a large amount of smaller companies seem to be grabbing dough and making a decent profit in this new era. This is just me observing the PC market, but there has been an increase in cheaper, high quality titles on Steam and other distributors as of late. It seems that 20 dollars is the new 60, by making a decent budget game with most people are perfectly fine about, much like how movies are produced now.JohnnyDelRay said:
AAA titles may indeed go into more of a luxary model, but I am theorizing that the rest of the market will go and appeal to a broader customer range with leaner price tags.
Sorry, what? I'm too busy playing the dozen RPGs I purchased a week ago for about $20 to have been paying attention.
Buy PC games, problem solved. Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony are the people pushing up console prices. How can a company jusitify charging $60 for an Xbox/ PS3 game when the PC version cost $30. The reason, overhead charges for developing games for consoles.
Yes, PC's are expensive but so is next gen consoles, the PS3 cost just as much as my current rig, but I save $30 every time I buy a game for it. In some cases Iget loads of free DLC (mods) because I have the PC version.
It's not developers or publishers that are screwing you over, it is the consoles themselves.
Disclaimer: No I am NOT a PC supremist, I just can't afford console games or pay a huge sum for a machine that can do only two things.
Yes, PC's are expensive but so is next gen consoles, the PS3 cost just as much as my current rig, but I save $30 every time I buy a game for it. In some cases Iget loads of free DLC (mods) because I have the PC version.
It's not developers or publishers that are screwing you over, it is the consoles themselves.
Disclaimer: No I am NOT a PC supremist, I just can't afford console games or pay a huge sum for a machine that can do only two things.
Well, reduced pricing can probably only really taken be out of two pools: Production costs(/values) and/or income pr. title sold. Assuming consumers want production values to stay the same, that leaves income pr. title sold as the main category. Is it then a good idea to reduce pricing?
Nothing general can really be said on whether price cuts are a good idea, since it all largely depends on what the percentage cut off the current profit margin would be for each title, and whether that's outweighed by the potential market for it you can reach by doing so. If you ultimately earn 50 % less pr. title you'll have to sell twice the number of games, which is feasible enough, if it's 90 % less you'll have to sell ten times the number of games, which isn't so feasible. With the cost of making a AAA title these days, I doubt there's all that much excess fat to cut for developers, whereas some digital retailers might have quite a bit to cut from (...which might explain the frequent Steam sales).
Also, if most consumers didn't demand ever better graphics which cost a fortune to constantly develop and implement, pricing would probably fall too. But they do, and that keeps the price high.
Nothing general can really be said on whether price cuts are a good idea, since it all largely depends on what the percentage cut off the current profit margin would be for each title, and whether that's outweighed by the potential market for it you can reach by doing so. If you ultimately earn 50 % less pr. title you'll have to sell twice the number of games, which is feasible enough, if it's 90 % less you'll have to sell ten times the number of games, which isn't so feasible. With the cost of making a AAA title these days, I doubt there's all that much excess fat to cut for developers, whereas some digital retailers might have quite a bit to cut from (...which might explain the frequent Steam sales).
Also, if most consumers didn't demand ever better graphics which cost a fortune to constantly develop and implement, pricing would probably fall too. But they do, and that keeps the price high.
Battlenet is by far the best of all of them, their updates are the smallest, the DRM does not secretly use up your bandwitdh like Steam and it allowes you to play offline.Shjade said:
You will most likely be able to play Diablo3 offline, just with out muliplayer functions.
Referencing lord snooty for the win.
Anyways, does it seem like publishers are getting more and more entitled these days? Everyone keeps saying it's the gamers, but really? The publishers go around crying about piracy and used games, both issues other industries have to cope with, and issues for which no other industry has screwed over it's customers as much. Hell, the most that film annoys me about piracy? Those damn adverts. And now, they've realised guilt trips don't work, so they're saying a literal "Thank you" to people for buying legitimate DVDs or going to the cinema. Personally, I'd go the route of saying it straight; What's in it for them (namedly by buying legit, you're effectively casting a vote on what sort of media you want in the future) but that's because I did a project on it a while back.
Used stuff isn't even treated like an issue for other industries, and gaming publishers feel they can attempt to screw people over to stop people buying them.
The picture to sum up the gaming industry right now is a fat, crying child demanding more pocket money on top of an already ridiculous amount.
Anyways, does it seem like publishers are getting more and more entitled these days? Everyone keeps saying it's the gamers, but really? The publishers go around crying about piracy and used games, both issues other industries have to cope with, and issues for which no other industry has screwed over it's customers as much. Hell, the most that film annoys me about piracy? Those damn adverts. And now, they've realised guilt trips don't work, so they're saying a literal "Thank you" to people for buying legitimate DVDs or going to the cinema. Personally, I'd go the route of saying it straight; What's in it for them (namedly by buying legit, you're effectively casting a vote on what sort of media you want in the future) but that's because I did a project on it a while back.
Used stuff isn't even treated like an issue for other industries, and gaming publishers feel they can attempt to screw people over to stop people buying them.
The picture to sum up the gaming industry right now is a fat, crying child demanding more pocket money on top of an already ridiculous amount.
If budgets keep rising the way the gaming industry is just to look like a pack of wolves fighting over a carcass. People aren't magically generating more and more money out of nowhere over time and they're going to have to face up to that eventually.
Not to mention that each person who can't afford a $60 game is another person who isn't telling his friends about this awesome game he found.
Publishers don't care about selling more copies later though, they want to make all their sales in the first week, make a shit-ton of money and then have it forgotten about. A high price stops that plan dead in it's tracks.mfeff said:
Not to mention that each person who can't afford a $60 game is another person who isn't telling his friends about this awesome game he found.
Maybe after seeing this video, those corporate apologists on The Escapist will stop with their nonsense.
Games are about the only luxury I have, and even then I've only got nine or ten at any given time. All of them were bought on special deals and I spent a long time deciding which ones to spend my cash on. I don't even have television because the licence fee isn't worth it. Once again I agree 100% with the great Jim Sterling! I even felt nostalgic about sleeping on other people's floors!
So true. Wouldnt it be better to sell 300,000 games at $40 than 100,000 at $60? Also, looking to the future, you need these people buying games now as they may well be buying the sequels in the future. It maybe a luxury but then so are tvs, dvds and every other form of entertainment. So luxury, in that sense, is different to say a $200 bottle of champagne or a Bugatti.
I've often wondered what the margins are like to have everything set to $60. If they allowed a triple-A title to be sold at $40, wouldn't it sell more copies than the sixty dollar games and thus make up for the lower price point? Maybe that's just wishful thinking.
You ninja'd the shit out of me.SonOfVoorhees said:
Modern Warfare 1, 2 and 3 sells world record amounts on release and games aren't selling? Angry Birds makes millions of dollars every week and games aren't selling? Skyrim becomes one of the biggest single player games in years and games aren't selling? Minecraft makes one man a multi-millionaire in the space of a few months and video games aren't selling? More people than ever in history play video games and fewer people are buying them?
Anyone who thinks games are too expensive has never heard of anything other than AAA and wants every big title the day of release.
Anyone who refuses to play anything but the next big budget game is an entitled prat. News flash: you don't get to demand sports cars be cheaper because you don't want to drive a Ford Falcon.
Anyone who thinks games are too expensive has never heard of anything other than AAA and wants every big title the day of release.
Anyone who refuses to play anything but the next big budget game is an entitled prat. News flash: you don't get to demand sports cars be cheaper because you don't want to drive a Ford Falcon.
The only problem I see with the argument of "wait for the price to go down" is that if everyone does that, or even the majority of people, it's a sign that the prices are, in fact, too high. If there are a lot of people willing to wait until the price drops instead of rushing out to get the game, it's a sign that the game wasn't exciting enough or was overpriced. In the end, it's the consumers who set the prices on non-necessities, by buying or not buying at various price points. The mere fact that the used game industry exists and thrives the way it does is proof enough that the current price point is just too damned high for a lot of consumers.Sober Thal said:
I don't even buy most AAA games on day one any longer, and I have the impulse control of a squirrel on crack. Too expensive for the potential of them sucking eggs. On the other hand, I'll be willing to entertain buying a $20 or $30 game on day one with minimal reviews, because it's just a lot less money to risk. That's something the publishers need to look at carefully, unless a AAA game is part of a very anticipated franchise, it's a hell of a risk to ask people to take.