Just Cause Creator: $60 Games Don't Make Sense Anymore

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Cautiously optimistic about their Mad Max game that has nothing to do with Australia. Yeah...good luck, I suppose.

We've seen a lot of what I'm about to say, but how about stop focussing on graphics and start focussing on content? There are lots of ways to improve a game without the huge money sink that is next gen graphics. I can hardly tell the difference, personally.

Lastly, I don't know what he's getting at. Should they be $70? Should there be more $10 games instead? Should they put more microtransactions and DLC in? (Hint: no)

 

[Strazdas]

"Games have evolved, technology has evolved but as businesses we're still stuck where we were 15 years ago."

how i wish he was right in this one. Imagine game business like it was 15 years ago.
quality content.
free DLC
respect for your audience
no or minimal DRM
meaningful expansion packs
no locking content on disc
you owned games you bought
no mandatory multiplayer to get the "Best" ending.
cheat codes you didnt have to pay for
mods you didnt have to pay for
official add-on support

game business got worse now.

While I agree with the idea, most people would rather not pay a penny for a AAA game if they could get away with it, and sadly, this is a money making business so there will and should be a tug of war when it comes to pricing.

This is not true. EVERY SINGLE AAA game can be pirated for free. yet people still pay money.

What's more when I read this and he acts like we're actually expecting a lot in getting a 5-8 hour game, it demonstrates how utterly detached from reality he is. A 5-8 hour game is a complete rip off for 60 bucks, especially if your loading it with DLC and microtransactions as well. 20 hours should be the minimum, and 40 hours should be roughly average, with many games clocking over 100 hours. If you think a 5-8 hour game is generous and we're expecting too much, no wonder your noticing the companies you work for failing, your screwing people over and they probably stopped buying your products. Your that guy whose game comes out, people ask the first adopters how it was and get "well, it was okay but I finished it already, took me about 5 hours" congrats, you just ensured your game is on people's "I'll get it used" list of relegated to things people might try if they see it for 75% off on STEAM.

i agree with you (altrough 40 hour average may be pushing it a bit), but in the developers defence, his flagship title - Just Cause - is a game great many people spent hundreds of hours in having fun, its praised as one of the largest game worlds ever (Just Cause 2 gets into top 10, and some of those above it are basically 90% inreachable or prodecurically generated, neither of which is a thing in Just Cause) and people still play the game many years after its release to the point of buying a multiplayer option for it and enjoying it. He really does deliver on the "long games" front.

 

[Lovesfool]

How would they know? They never tried it... Just Cause games have been on bargain bins almost as soon they as are released. I don't remember seeing any of them in any price above 5-10 euros, regardless of whether it is Steam or retail.

It would be nice for everyone if AAA games were 2$ a pop, but I strongly suspect that the math simply doesn't work out. The fact that this particular studios games were published by a bankrupt publisher to begin with, should speak volumes.

No matter how modern and complex we think things are, it all comes down to John Lock and "offer vs demand". The truth is that Just Cause games didn't have a demand unless they were offered in under 10$, while other AAA games like Starcraft, Call of Duty or Mario titles are much more "resilient", since there is ample demand for them for a long time after their release, even with a 50-60$ price tag.

 

[Cognimancer]

While I agree with the idea, most people would rather not pay a penny for a AAA game if they could get away with it, and sadly, this is a money making business so there will and should be a tug of war when it comes to pricing.

This is not true. EVERY SINGLE AAA game can be pirated for free. yet people still pay money.

Yeah, but I don't refer to piracy, I only said that if we could get them for free, we're most likely all up for it. Piracy doesn't count to me because piracy affects us as consumers and getting a pirate copy will remove features like Multiplayer or even tech support, so we pay because it's a win-win for all of us. That's another different case to me.

Now, people will always try to get the lowest price possible, while the industry will try to rip as much as it can get away with. That's the tug of war I mentioned that should exist for mutual benefit.

 

[SecondPrize]

The 'throw darts at the wall and see what sticks' business plan doesn't really work with darts costing tens of millions of dollars.

 

[Strazdas]

While I agree with the idea, most people would rather not pay a penny for a AAA game if they could get away with it, and sadly, this is a money making business so there will and should be a tug of war when it comes to pricing.

This is not true. EVERY SINGLE AAA game can be pirated for free. yet people still pay money.

Yeah, but I don't refer to piracy, I only said that if we could get them for free, we're most likely all up for it. Piracy doesn't count to me because piracy affects us as consumers and getting a pirate copy will remove features like Multiplayer or even tech support, so we pay because it's a win-win for all of us. That's another different case to me.

Now, people will always try to get the lowest price possible, while the industry will try to rip as much as it can get away with. That's the tug of war I mentioned that should exist for mutual benefit.

Getting all games for free would affect us as a consumers as well.
Multiplayer is avaliable in almost every pirated game, granted its not as easy as just clicking multiplayer in a menu. you are corect about tech support, but most tech support is done by modders anyway.
People pay for games because they want to support the developers as well. Just look at developer tips in bundles or the "pay anything you want" events.
People may be shortsighted in some events, but they realize that developers need to be supported to continue making games and as such they would pay for them. The only exception would be is that they would pay based on their enjoyment of the game instead of "pay 60 dollars and then see how we can fuck you up" type of deals (like sim city or diablo 3).

 

[Foolery]

This is probably why I enjoy so many 3DS games. 39.99 is a passable price point, and every title I've bought so far has a decent amount of content. Especially the RPGs for the system.

 

[KazeAizen]

Not a matter of cheaper just a matter of.. well.. Games need to be sold at a price that people are comfortable paying.

Here's what I don't understand about the whole thing. Is it the publishers setting the prices for the games or is retailers setting the prices? If its retailers then the problem is that there is no legitimate competition for Gamestop. Department stores like Target and Wal-mart don't have a chance in hell. If there was a rival that could actually put games on sale and not have them be used games then we might actually see something. If its the publishers setting the prices though....I don't know what to do.

Well let's put it thi way. If you're a merchant and you by apples at a dollar a piece from the farmer, do you sell it for 75cents? No, because that would mean a loss, you can't even sell for a dollar since you have your own expenses to cover. So you see the retailers have to sell at a particular price to make their own profit...


Point is though depending on where you are 60 dollars ain't chicken feed. Heck for many folks where I am, that's their monthly food bill. So the question one must ask... is this game worth 1 months worth of food? The answer will usually be no... but a 30 dollar game might be worth considering..and a 154 dollaqr game might certainly be worth a spin.

Its logical sure and I will never pretend to be an economist. That is a game that will forever be above and beyond me besides the basics. I just think there has to some kind a secret. Some way to keep retail game prices from going beyond $60 and maybe even dropping it back down to $50.

 

[Shim3d]

We NEED to focus on making current graphical technology cheaper & easier to access for developers rather than "improving" it and ending up with everything else sacrificed for the sake of wonderful lighting.

This should be obvious; I'm sick of games these days being essentially long walks down very pretty corridors. If Square Enix couldn't practically make Final Fantasy VII with today's "superior" technology, it's obviously NOT superior technology and no amount of particle effects will convince me otherwise.

 

[Shuu]

We need clarification. Is he saying that games are too expensive or not expensive enough?
The fact that he has a point either way speaks volumes to the dangerous place the AAA industry is looking at right now, that companies can't reasonably be expected to keep selling their current product at this price, while consumers can't reasonably be expected to keep buying said product at the current price in large enough numbers to sustain them.
...I am quite fearful for the new generation.

 

[Mikeyfell]

In my opinion (FLAME SHIELD ON!) I don't think it would be so great of a loss for the industry if developers stopped making AAA games all together.

Now hold on, put your torch and pitchfork down. with the cost of development so high nobody can afford to make a game that's good, or if they do make a game that's good they'll never break even.

Tomb Raider sold over 5 million copies and was "disappointing"
And that game was good

Resident Evil 6 sold over 6 million copies and didn't live up to expectations.
And that game was a steaming pile of shit

And even the Triple A games that do sell well and are good barely stand up to the really good Indi games like Paper's Please or Minecraft.


So maybe if the whole industry just dialed it back a little (Maybe make a couple double A titles?) that would be good for everyone.

 

[Mikeyfell]

The 'throw darts at the wall and see what sticks' business plan doesn't really work with darts costing tens of millions of dollars.

I wish I could just "Thumbs up" this post, but you basically hit the nail on the head.


The choice turns into: Play follow the leader and copy the last popular thing, or gamble millions of dollars and possibly the whole company's future

 

[mrjoe94]

Yea, we need more multiplayer F2P's which require either 100 hours to get anywhere or massive amount of money, way more than $60.

Alternatively, more $1 mobile and facebook crappy games!

If that fails, just make a indie physics puzzle platformer and act all pretentious about it!

Because who needs proper lengthy, story-driven single player experiences these days!

:/

Play Loadout, you can't actually progress directly by using money in that game.

 

[Funyahns]

Could always cut back a bit on the graphics? Photo realism graphics are not always the best choice for gaming

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

How about game publishers stop spending millions on massive budgets for marketing? How about instead of holding events that the majority of people cannot get to due to proximity/happens during work hours/etc, stop spending money on Billboards and posters, signs, TV commercials and other old forms of marketing. How about we instead utilize the internet for marketing on a cheaper scale and getting more attention from the wider internet using audience than the dwindling TV audience.

I hope then that you will be happy when games start making Platinum Games levels of sales since they are reliant on Internet and word of mouth as advertising. That is assuming that people also don't use adblockers and other such software thus blocking what adds Platinum puts out. I'm sorry but TV, Conventions, billboards are still the best way to get your name out.

How many games in the past years have sold millions by word of mouth alone? From Demon/Dark Souls to Just Cause 2 to Pokemon in its early day. That's right, even Pokemon got popular in North America due to word of mouth.

The Witcher is another case.

Point is, viral marketing and word of mouth do more per dollar than the TV, Conventions and Billboards you think are still the best way to sell games. Look, Cable TV ratings are down to the lowest they've been across the board in 20 years thanks to on demand television and YouTube. And Cable TV's audience is aging rapidly so they aren't even in the target demographic for gaming. Conventions only reach the die hard fans who probably knew of the product already, and Billboards only seem to be utilized by the major usual releases. Most of the games I mentioned sold 1+ million due to word of mouth and online gaming media.

Like I said before, the marketing budget is killing the profits of major game franchises. 2013's Tomb Raider sold 4.5 million and couldn't generate a profit for Square Enix because they spent so much on marketing in useless areas.

Platinum Games is also not the best example if you want to look at a company with low sales. Most games they make for Nintendo exclusively flop due to PG's niche game direction clashing with Nintendo's appeal to the masses marketing as of late. Otherwise Bayonetta sold 1 million+, Vanquish sold 1 million, and Metal Gear Rising sold over 1 million. The first 2 due mainly to word of mouth and the gaming media. The rest of their library are Nintendo exclusives, or in the case of Anarchy Reigns, a successor to a Wii title that had no business being on the Wii in the first place due to its content alone.