Aurgelmir said:
Savagezion said:
No game should cost over $40. Want to know why?
A movie blockbuster movie costs $100-200m to make. A AAA game currently costs ~30m. L.A. Noire was toted as a big freakin deal for costing 60m. GTA4 had a big hoopla made about how it cost 100m but most of it was for music contracts.
Movies on the other hand, charge $9 for a theatre ticket and $20 for the DvD. So for $30 bucks you can go to the theatre and see the movie and own it on DvD. This not only recoups the cost of the budget but most often, dips into profit.
This would effectively have more people buying games simply because they are affordable. As well, it would cut down the mark-up on used games the industry acts like they care so much about.
Well, games and movies aren't 100% comparable. Movies have more venues to sell on than games.
Game publishers are little by little screwing themselves over on this. First they shifted off PC and went console because "too much piracy is on PC". Now, used games are being attacked by the next generation. (Project $10 obviously isn't good
enough for them.) Which means whoever doesn't buy a console exclusive next generation is going to have to wait for a re-release if they ever want to play it. (Assuming it never gets cracked.)
A movie will fist be shown in the theater, where it makes a lot of money because a lot more people go to the movies than play video games.
Because its $10. $13 if you want to see it in 3D. And they recoup hundreds of millions doing that in weeks, sometimes 1 week! You want me to risk $10 bucks? I'm game. You want me to risk $60? Hell no.
You guys are failing to read that my argument is there are more people that go to the movies than play games
because its a cheaper habit.
The point still stands that studios have made back $200m dollar shelling out $10 tickets to a movie.
So by the time you get to the DVD and Blu Ray release you have earned most of your money back, and the sales will be more or less pure profit. Then the movie will be sold to TV stations etc.
Every time a new movie format comes out, all those movies will be resold in better quality.
A game is:
Released, sold for a few months and forgotten, until someone maybe does an HD remake or put it on GoG...
Not to mention a video game gives you at least 4 times the entertainment time...
First, games expect their budget back in a month so that any future sales are pure profit. You can look at month 1 as their "theatrical release" it isn't sometimes, they expect it back in 3 months. That is not a ridiculous comparison. The games industry models themselves after the movie industry heavily so the comparison is about 80-90% accurate.
Second, buying the Mary Poppins on Blue Ray isn't gonna mean shit but a higher resolution, which means little in terms of actual video quality. Unless it gets "remastered" for HD release, you may as well have the DvD and your blue ray player will push the resolution up for you. Only movies made in for HD are going to benefit from Blue Ray. Buying a color television didn't change I love Lucy into a color TV show.
Third, movie being sold to TV will never happen for games being sold to similar outlet. Can you imagine if on Feb 12-20 you could log into Steam/PSN/XBLA and play Assassin's Creed 1&2 with commercial breaks worked in? Completely free though... well, for PS3 and Steam users.
Finally, games aren't forgotten after a few months, the press just has to roll with the times. Also, games entertainment time is irrelevant when discussing cost vs. revenue and we are also in a time when fans are complaining games are getting shorter thanks to voiced dialogue and graphics technology.
bahumat42 said:
Modern warfare cost more than that.
More than what? Right now, MW3 has a bogus number of $200m floating out there that can't be justified. Considering it used the same engine and recycled assets from previous CoD games what exactly did they spend $200m on? Again, don't believe everything you read. The fact is no one can say where this number comes from other than Activision's mouth. Google "Hollywood accounting."
It is the reason that there is no Forrest Gump sequel. Hollywood claims that Forrest Gump didn't make ANY money, but rather took a loss. All so that they didn't have to pay the creator more than $200,000. Companies will lie on their books. MW3 probably cost between 50-60 million considering that is what MW2 and MW:BO cost also using the same engine and not recycling previous assets.
If you include building the engine bf3 probably cost more that too.
First, if they made a new engine for the game you can guarantee they ain't going to NOT include that in their budget. They try to include everything they can in a budget. So far, it has been proposed Battelfield 3's budget is around $100m. Considering that game devs constantly try to lease out engine rights from other devs, there is a good chance that a sizable chunk of that 100m went for the engine.
And aside from those points films have 3 (4) forms of income. Ticket sales, television repeats, dvd/blu ray sales(the 4th is merchandise but thats only SOME films).
And comparing it to movies is a bit silly given the entirety of a film experience is 2-3 hours, a full price game is expected to be 3 times more than that. So the price should be higher.
Bear in mind i don't think all games should be at the pricepoint they are, but solid long well made games deserve that high price point.
I already covered these points a couple times already in this thread as well as in this same post. In regards to your last sentence, that is a matter of opinion. You may think it deserves it but someone else may not. The market is made up of a lot of someone elses. You forget that I am arguing that reducing the price will actually make MORE money through volume. Just because I think the Mass Effect trilogy is worth $200 doesn't mean the market thinks that.
Wal-mart has proven year after year that volume generates sales. All of us buying it at $60 WILL also buy it at $40. However, now you have to consider how many other people will get on board at $40.
Assume the casual player for a moment. This generation alone has proven they outnumber us in the market. Look at all the Wii sales and sales on crap Wii games by people who are a bit ignorant about the game industry. The fact is more sub-par games exist than good one across ALL platforms so the chance of you buying a shitty game for $60 is higher than the chance of you buying a good one. Considering casuals are drawn to movie based games and other pop culture games, they get burned a lot. They are attracted by the deceptive marketing that is known as shovelware. When people buy shitty games for $60, they tend to get a bit more skeptical of how much games are worth in general. Now imagine this casual gamer has kids. At $60 a pop they can pretty much only afford the games their kids want. Granted going to the movies with a family of 4 will cost you $40-50, you can split up and meet back together after the movie and everyone gets to see what they want. With games it is $60 and everybody better freakin' like it. If that price point were to lower maybe mom and dad will shop for a game they want while Billy looks for one he wants. As is, Billy gets the game and Mom and Dad, the responsible people with the wallet, opt out of getting anything they can't afford. If they were $40, suddenly two games is only $80 and not $120. More people would be a bit less tight with their checkbook.
I bet if you look real hard in the subtext of that, you can find why games have the stigma of "for kids". Their too damn expensive for an adult who hasn't experienced games much to try without depriving their kids of Mario.