TimeShift Dev Says $60 Price Tag is Holding Games Back

[Yosarian2]

I honestly don't remember people complaining as much back in 2003 when PS2 games cost $50. Taking inflation into account, games probably cost just as much now as they did back then.

I never paid $50 for a PS2 game, and I've got a pretty good collection of them. I never would have have. I bought them used, or I waited until the price game down, or I got them when they re-released it as a "greatest hit" for $20. Honestly, at $20 a pop, I still regretted at least half of my game purchases. Games these days, even from good publishers, are just so hit and miss, I'm unlikely to ever spend $60 on a game.

Them eliminating used game sales isn't going to make me more likely to buy one of their games at $60; if anything, knowing that I can never even trade it in is going to make me less likely to pay anything close to that.

 

[uguito-93]

Living in australia, all I can say is that i WISH games costed me $60. Last i checked a 360 and ps3 new release cost about $110 AUD (which is currently valued at around 97 US cents)

 

[ryo02]

maybe he should make a smaller cheaper timeshift 2? time shift was actually a really good game.

 

[rainbowunicorns]

Also, I'm pretty sure artificially keeping your price low if your demand allows you to go much higher is illegal.

Keeping your price at a level that is unprofitable because you can afford to lose money can be illegal if you are determined to have a monopoly and are using it to hurt your competitors; this is called predatory pricing
Example: You and I both sell product A, it costs us both $10 to purchase A from its manufacturer, and you're an established business whereas I am a newcomer. I sell A for $12 because I want to make a profit, you see the price I've set and decide to sell A for $8. You are losing money on every single unit of A you sell, but if you have cash reserves or other sources of income (more diversity), you may be able to sustain the price until such time as I go out of business; then you can charge whatever you want for A.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but inflation has changed things since 2000-2001. SO. Since video games are probably 8 bajillion times more expensive (hyperbole) than they were before, and developers are still selling the brand-new ones at 60 bucks a pop, I'm guessing they're losing money.

It isn't necessarily the case that price needs to go up to match inflation. Walmart is an interesting case: rather than increase price with inflation, it will approach suppliers and ask them why the price has not gone down for the product, expecting the supplier to find efficiencies over time. Now, you can argue that Walmart is evil or that it bullies its suppliers, but they have found a way to allow prices to stagnate despite inflation.
If this seems unrelated to gaming, consider a developer who releases sequels to their games. There are costs from the first release that simply do not exist in the second, and there are efficiencies to be gained by using the the same engine and modelling tools again for the second game. Much the same can be said for new IP for which you use the same tools as old IP.



As for the developer's example of $60 games only appealing to hardcore fans, I would tend to agree. My personal cutoff is $50 (also known as $49.99), unless it is a game I so desire that no price would deter me from pre-ordering. I'm a huge fan of The Witcher, am unreasonably excited about SW:TOR, and enthusiastic about Mass Effect 3 (I can't say huge fan of Bioware anymore after ME2 (kind of annoyed about the poor story), DA:O - Awakening (very upset), and DA2 (which I will not purchase until it's on a crazy Steam sale)); for these, price isn't a consideration. However, I am unwilling to risk more than $50 on something that is unknown, or is so similar to everything else that I question its purpose (I'm looking at you, generic shooter #47 of the year).
If I'm really looking forward to a game, I'll pay whatever is asked of me. If I'm kind of looking forward to a game or its premise seems interesting when it pops up on Steam, I'll pay $50 once I see enough positive reviews. Otherwise, I will either never buy it, or wait for the ridiculous Steam sale where it costs as much as an indie game. Thanks to Steam's sales, I've got more quality games than I will ever have time to play, let alone finish, so good luck with your $60 price point, publishers, maybe I'll see you in the bargain bin.

 

[joshuaayt]

Wow, 60$? Holy shit, you mean I'd be able to buy *two* new games for the price of a single one? Yeah, take the price down!...

Oh, hang on, misread.

Anyway, market inequalities aside, I agree with this person- instead of treating us as the assailant, we should be the emotionally fragile teenager. Don't do dickish restraining things with preowned games, try and make us happy. People like games- if they weren't so goddamn expensive, they'd all go a lot further.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

You know what the problem here really is?

That it takes ten times the budget that it used to to produce a 20 hour game. Having your product become more and more expensive to make without a comparable increase in market size simply isn't sustainable.

We don't need "cheaper, shorter" games, we need games that put their budgets to better use. Giving us half the content for half the price is still going to leave your core audience with having to trade in games to get their money's worth. Instead of springing for top-of-the-line graphics for every game, go for a simpler, more stylized look and give us some content. Back off on the full voice acting and give us some nice, deep, beefy dialog trees.

Also, stop balancing your games' difficulty so that the average player won't die more than once every two hours or so. Games are being made too much "button mash your way through the levels to see all of our scenery porn, cutscenes, and special effects" and too little "try to master our gaming systems to overcome a challenge". Actual gameplay is becoming filler instead of being the point of the game. This doesn't exactly encourage replaying the game instead of trading it in to buttonmash your way through some new scenery.

Games don't really need to innovate from where they are now as much as they need to take a look back to last generation and consider what they used to offer players that they're not anymore.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Reminds me of the Extra Credits team's opinion on Project Ten Dollar. Reduce prices at retail, recoup in online cost. Consumers pay the same overall, devs get more greenbacks. And it's in our $60 wallet drop that we expect replayability to be quite high. Though the quandry is clear: AAA games get the most attention, and therefore the most attention from the consumer base. But, in order to hold up, they cost more to make and spread word to people. A AAA game that doesn't hold up for the public hurts the dev, and soon the dev cannot deliver AAA games.

 

[ENKC]

*Obligatory comment about Australians paying up to $120 for a new release game when our currency is worth more than the USD*

 

[brumley53]

I think what alot of people have to realize is that they are getting ripped of, specifically in Australia. Retail games in Aus cost upwards of $80 the thing is the australian dollar is worth loads more now and the games can be sold for a decent profit at prices like 40-50 dollars, but because we're used to paying alot they just left it and hoped we didn't notice... and we didn't.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

There will always be a place for the "long" campaign, but short innovative titles are excellent too.

 

[Jurian]

or buy a jrpg which will last you a million hours just for the main quest, another million if all sidequests are taken in.

 

[elricik]

I hate short games, so shallow most of the time. I love to delve into 100+ hour long RPGs with great characters, better than real life.

 

[Anah'ya]

I'm afraid I don't see the logic in this. I spend, easily, $40 on lunch with my wife. Make that $60 if we have a couple of drinks. Going out to the movies easily sets you back $20.

Dragon Age 2 has already provided me with over 50 hours of gameplay, and I am replaying it a second time. What other form of entertainment offers a value of $1/hour (or less) for an engaging story? Reading books, perhaps, but writing a book requires one person where writing a game requires a game studio and the paychecks of many people to be paid.

I'd actually gladly pay MORE than $60 for a new game if the game was quality, if the developers took time to release it with the content and bug-free design I expect; etc.

I see people all the time who don't balk at dropping more than that at a night out at a bar but ask them to pay for IP (intellectual property) that offers countless more hours of entertainment and they suddenly become defensive.

I wonder if it is part of the age-old societal disrespect of artists or gamers/games in general. I know when I was younger I paid $30 or $40 for a new game, and that was 20 years ago. Accounting for inflation, $60 doesn't seem like a steep price *at all* for a game now. Especially if we want gaming developers to 1) make a profit and 2) continue to be able to make great games.

Seriously, what other form of entertainment in life provides as much fun for us at such a value as gaming? And I'm asking this on a website devoted to gaming! I have a serious D&D/tabletop game hobby, too and I usually pay at least $30 for a game book. Considering the man-hours that go into a digital game as opposed to a book, I can't see the hue and outcry over this; except that people right now in this economy are (rightly so) holding on more tightly to their dollars.

I couldn't make myself delete that post in the quote. It needed to be said again, though knowing the general age bracket of people here it will fall on deaf ears.

Anyway.

There's something I would like to add here, for all its worth. Folks are agreeing with the statement of shorter, cheaper games being "the way to go", but on the other hand their enraged outcries at the audacity of DLC that costs money existing pummels the whole concept back into the fetal position.

And what is DLC? Shorter, episodic game content costing less than a full product would, with the pricing adjusted to fit the stand alone titles of the same monetary worth.

In all honesty I would rather see my favourite game studios continue to churn out "triple A" titles (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Metro), than have to rely on short, cheap games that keep me entertained for 2 hours and then lie forgotten.

 

[Ashenrook]

I do not think it is as much the price tag that is "holding back" games, but the quality behind them. I have played plenty of games, freshly released, at that price and they were hardly worth the box that was holding them.

Honestly, my console systems have been sitting and collecting dust for more than a year. Why? My disenchantment with the game industry is directly parallel to my dislike of what has been released in Hollywood over the past few years. Everything just seems so?same-same.

It could be due to me looking through rose-tinted glasses at my youth where many games seemed much more innovative and engrossing than they are now, but I really do feel that ever since gaming has become more mainstream and broadly accepted outside of its former geek-based groups that more and more companies (I'm looking at you, Activision) are trying to jump on the gravy train and milk it for all it is worth. That whole "sucking the fun out of games" quote that Kotick said? I think he, and like-minded sorts, are succeeding at that...

Sure, I know fully well that there were franchises (Ex: Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, and so on), movie-based games, unneeded sequels, and blatant company tie-ins (Ex: 7up's "Cool Spot", Domino's "Yo Noid!", and so on) before, but it even seems to be greater in amount in the recent years. Well...maybe not so much for the latter.

Perhaps I have become just that jaded... Perhaps not. Though I do whole-heartedly agree with the Timeshift dev that most signature titles being produced take an ungodly amount of money to make, people are following designated "safe" pathways due to it ? same for non-independent movies, too, when you think of it. People want spectacle and eye-candy, often at the sacrifice of good acting and story.

Also, let's not forget this other related tragedy that has been plaguing the gaming world? That reading text is a chore and that unless a shiny voiceacted cut scene happens, they are not going to pay attention.

Anyway. I do feel that this surge of independent game developers might shift the balance eventually, though? It's just a matter of when.

 

[MrGalactus]

There's no strict rules. You can price your game how you want, Time Shift Guy.

 

[D Moness]

I'd kill for new realeses to be $60
The Australian Dollar is Almost equal to the USA Dollar, Yet I Pay At least $100 For a base version of a new release... I understand Were far away from the westen world. But still... your all lucky...

Yep i say this also again america should look beyond their country with pricing. If they think they have it bad i would invite them to go to europe or australia. Well at least europe doesn't get as shafted with prices as australia. Our releases are only 50 to 60 euro that is about 80 or so dollars. Yeah europe would also kill for a 60 dollar new game release.