Why Games Will Only Get Cheaper

[Chris Rio]

Why Games Will Only Get Cheaper

Do you remember how much games used to cost? No? Well, they're only getting cheaper.

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[Lightknight]

My only dissent here is that current network infrastructure does not allow rapid installs of games and the actual size of video games are skyrocketing to multiple tens of GBs per game (Uncharted 3 was 40GB and that's on a current gen console). Steam is seriously helping this with a persistent library that allows uninstalling and reinstalling but the fact remains that US internet speeds are too slow and foreign data caps are too low to make this kind of thing viable or convenient. It will be and on that day I'll be cool with it. Until then, this is significantly less convenient for me than driving to a store, buying a disk, driving back, and slapping it into the system to play.

I feel like the ps4 and XBO have helped with this to allow background installs and installs overnight when my console would usually be off. So maybe it's not as bad.

Regardless, even though I buy my games new or digitally and never sell them/trade them anyways (so this will benefit me), i'm not willing to shove other's rights aside and say that it's ok to take away the right of first sale. I believe a major problem with the industry is that they over budget and then blame pirates for raking in less. I don't think the answer is to impose anti-consumer practices on us just because they think their little RPG should make COD money if they just shove enough in it. That's not our fault. Their forecasting/market research department was doing meth and that can't be our responsibility. You produce a product within a reasonable budget that gives you the desired amount of profit if possible. If you cannot do so then you don't make the product. It's market driven, not company driven like they try to make it be.

So I think the answer shouldn't be making everyone buy retail. We're just creating a perpetually inflating system like insurance causes in other markets. If companies don't understand budgeting then they don't deserve to remain companies.

 

[Stinovitch]

Nice read. You've made some interesting remarks in the article and although I don't really like DRM and games saved in cloud, it's true that it's going to happen eventually, no matter what happens. The only thing the industry has to keep in mind is that if these kind of practices are introduced, it has to have some kind of benefit. I personally like steam because at the cost of that all my games are DRM protected, I get a hub where I can join discussions in the community section, chat and play with friends and find games I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

Everything is always in motion and change is the natural way of life. We can't do much about. All we can do is just accept it and hope it turns out for the best.

 

[Covarr]

The growing popularity of middleware engines has also helped keep development costs in check, but not enough to compensate for other skyrocketing costs involved in game development.

More and more I think indie devs are going to force big gaming's hand. Games like Super Meat Boy and Minecraft were made on astonishingly low budgets, and yet still manage to make far more money than high-budget games like Tomb Raider, which sold amazingly and still lost money. I think devs are pretty much going to have to start doing two things:

1. Scaling back their games to save money
2. Finding ways to make the most of the money they do spend

So much goes into things like environments and assets, and I'm sure this could be made more efficient. It baffles me that developers are hardly looking into ways to more quickly and cheaply create assets. Black mesa had a really nifty Face Creation System [http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System] which "allows there to be a wide variety of faces with very little work but high visual fidelity." It saved the developers a significant amount of time, and is exactly the sort of tool bigger companies should be looking into making in order to keep development costs from ballooning out of control. The fact of the matter is, so much of the cost of AAA games comes not from the amount of content, but the inefficiency with which that content was made.

P.S. Thanks

 

[saxman234]

My problem is that console online stores have no competition. At least with computer games you can go to steam, or amazon, or origins, or get games directly from developers, or get them in humble indie bundles etc. Same thing with movies and music, you have itunes, pandora, netflix, amazon blah blah etc. On consoles you only have one marketplace where you can buy stuff. With one marketplace you have no competition (except for buying the other console) which is not enough to keep prices low and in check.

 

[brazuca]

Stop sayng digital is the salvation. Can I buy games digital through other store that is not PSN or Xbox Live on console? I don't think so. Then tell me how a monopoly per platform will make the market drop prices?!

Also games did not got cheaper they got more content. Even if these means repetition (Boderlands, CoD, GoW both). Also this is why a mildly succesful game gets a sequel you can diminish cost in a second iteration as a great deal of what was developed in the previous title can and will be used again.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

It'll suck at first, but so did Steam. Let's find the silver lining here. Sure we might not be swapping games with friends the same way in 10 years, but you should be glad GTA V isn't gonna cost you a Benjamin-and-a-half.

This right here. Everything has growing pains, but since it is inevitable we need to change the discussion from "This is going to suck" to the flipside of "Let's see how we can make it better." Better yet, if we work really hard at this discussion IN A TACTFUL, USEFUL MANNER, then when it finally does arrive perhaps we can skip/avoid those first years of everything stinking in the first place.

 

[jericu]

If it's between giving up ownership of games, or making publishers have more realistic ideas of how well their games will sell in a market where people are capable of doing what they want with a product they sell, then I don't see why I have to be the one to compromise. Just because iTunes exists doesn't mean that CD's don't exist anymore. Just because Netflix exists doesn't mean DVD's are gone. A digital option is fine, but I don't see the appeal in forgoing all physical media just so that publishers can stop people from selling their games when they get tired of them, or the game turns out to be crap.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Actually you made a fundamental error in your comparison: Sonic 2 may have cost $75 but keep in mind Sonic 2 was a cartridge with integrated memory, and stuff that actually had a an assemble process and shipping of said packaged unit was naturally more expensive. As opposed to say these days where at best games are stamped onto $1 discs. and charged $60.

Games will get cheaper when people stop buying games for $60 or $50 nuff said. What about development costs? what about them. See this is the downside of upping technology. The more high end the console the more specialized labour you need and the more time you need to pay the specialized labour for.

The growing popularity of middleware engines has also helped keep development costs in check, but not enough to compensate for other skyrocketing costs involved in game development.

More and more I think indie devs are going to force big gaming's hand. Games like Super Meat Boy and Minecraft were made on astonishingly low budgets, and yet still manage to make far more money than high-budget games like Tomb Raider, which sold amazingly and still lost money. I think devs are pretty much going to have to start doing two things:

This is true, and keep in mind, there's also the ressurgence of older titles for earlier eras. GoG has mad an impressive business model based on giving people access to bygone classics. Gaming options are widening.

So much goes into things like environments and assets, and I'm sure this could be made more efficient. It baffles me that developers are hardly looking into ways to more quickly and cheaply create assets. Black mesa had a really nifty Face Creation System [http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System] which "allows there to be a wide variety of faces with very little work but high visual fidelity." It saved the developers a significant amount of time, and is exactly the sort of tool bigger companies should be looking into making in order to keep development costs from ballooning out of control. The fact of the matter is, so much of the cost of AAA games comes not from the amount of content, but the inefficiency with which that content was made.

Actually that's not as easy as you'd think. See assets aren't always portable between engines and it's not feasible to base all your games on the same engine. There is actually a lot of efficiency but a lot of the time is literally in the polish required. In short, making HD games with motion capture animation and realistic face bump shaders you amd scatter diffuse lighting reqauires money. More or less each feature/layer of tech requires at least 1 extra person and another set of billable man hours.

This is why games are big on DLC these days since it allows thm to scrape cash and reuse the same assets they used in the original.

STill it boils down to. The companies will charge as much as they think they can get away with. if people buy games for $60 on launch day they have no reason to sell in for $40 on launch day. Do they?

Thank you. I couldn't even get past the first page of this article, because the old "games are cheap because inflation hurr durr" BS really pisses me off. Not only are individual copies cheaper to make than they were back then by an order of magnitude, not only are more people buying than ever before -- also by an order of magnitude -- but wages are down compared to inflation. $60 today may buy a smaller amount of goods than it did 20 years ago, but it also accounts for /more/ of an average person's money. We're in the middle of a recession (really it's a depression but nobody is willing to admit it), these aren't the boom years of the 90's anymore.

And you know what? Game budgets are low for what they are. An average blockbuster movie costs between 2 and 4 times what an /expensive/ AAA game costs. Yet they make their money back and then some on much smaller increments of cash, because they're priced low enough that pretty much anyone can afford to buy a DVD or go to the movies. That's how games should be. People occasionally try to excuse it by saying they're a luxury product, but we're not talking a caviar and champagne luxury, we're talking beer and pretzels.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I hate this notion of "Hey everything is switching over to downloads and DRM but at least its cheaper!" I would rather pay more for physical content that doesn't need to be stored on a hard drive and can be passed around with ease than pay less for a convenient but ultimately limited format. Unless more games and services go the way of GoG, then I'll be changing my tone

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Benjamin Disraeli (1804?1881)

True words. Don't listen to a statistic unless you understand the sauce source material

 

[Orekoya]

Take a look at this old ad. Although I would totally pay $75 for Sonic 2 even today, our generation is spoiled. We are getting way better games for way less money. Despite what some say, our favorite hobby is cheaper now than it's ever been in history.

You know what? No.

I'm sick and tired of people incorrectly referring to inflation adjustment because the major problem with using inflation rates to make statements about average consumer costs is even if real-world dollars 20 years ago were worth more than real-world dollars today, that doesn't mean real-world income has grown at the same rate.

According to the CBO [http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42537], growth in real after-tax income was less than 50% for about 80% of Americans from 1979 to 2007. That means inflation is driving down the value of the dollar faster than income has increased to compensate, and this is just based on income growth prior to the recession of 2008 that is still affecting global growth to this day.

Think about that before you call the current generation spoiled based off an arbitrary set of statistics.

 

[Xzavion]

The games are indeed getting cheaper, correct.

Though if you try to compare playtime / money you will get quite different results. I don't know if it's just me, but for most newer games I'm totally satisfied with a single playthrough.
Yet I am still digging up some of my good old games to play them again, and that's meaning like the 3rd, 4th, 5th time.

In addition to that, so many newer games are said to have a playtime of maybe 10-20 hours (for single player stuffs). Being someone who is playing for >20years by now, and even considering I always try to play at least at above medium difficulty, I have yet to see a game where I actually manage to reach the said time. Might be just a feeling there, but I'd say that older games used to occupy me just for more time. Difficulty is just too low for most games so you never have to play anything multiple times until you make it...

Just as example, compare Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2. (Multiplayer excluded, same for both)
First part had 3 full campaigns, Broodwar had another 3 full campaigns.
Starcraft 2 has 1 campaign for each part. Which is, if you are positive, maybe half.

So I would have to double the price for SC2 to be on par with SC1 and then it's not cheaper any more.

Just one example, but from my point of view this can be transfered to really many games...

 

[shirkbot]

Take a look at this old ad. Although I would totally pay $75 for Sonic 2 even today, our generation is spoiled. We are getting way better games for way less money. Despite what some say, our favorite hobby is cheaper now than it's ever been in history.

According to the CBO [http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42537], growth in real after-tax income was less than 50% for about 80% of Americans between 1979 and 2007. That means inflation is driving down the value of the dollar faster than income has increased to compensate, and this is just based on income growth before the recession.

Think about that before you call the current generation spoiled.

Seconded. People keep making this weird claim that game prices haven't kept up with inflation, while ignoring the fact that neither have wages. Inflation is only a general metric, but it doesn't account for situational factors.

Also, on what basis does the author make the claim that prices will actually go down if the First Sale concept is removed? Last time I checked, Steam sells games, especially new releases, for roughly the same price as physical copies, despite having all the advantages of digital distribution. They do some pretty awesome sales regularly, but that's not consistently lower prices by any means.

In conclusion, the day gaming is based on subscription services is the day I stop playing games. Also, can we stop using analogies involving cars? They're not comparable products.

 

[medv4380]

Do you remember how much games used to cost? No? Well, they're only getting cheaper.

Do you remember the last time Wages Increased for the Middle and Lower Class? Oh wait that wasn't even in your life time. They've been flat for a long time now.

You remember when gas cost 1.50? I do, but that was a long time ago.

Game prices have gone up, not down. Games aren't apart of the inflation calculation. Stop abusing basic economics to justify #$%ing the consumer.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

So many problems here...

Consumers demand more substance from the newest games, but aren't willing to pay more for the base product.

Substance is not what we're getting from all of that extra money being spent. What we're getting is "cinematic" gameplay, which is the reliance on scripted sequences, voice acting, motion capture, and constant cutscenes over substantive mechanics and gameplay.

Baldur's Gate had more substance than a dozen Call of Dutys and cost far, far less to make.

For example, it's assumed that when you buy a brand new car, you will be able to recoup some of that money later when you sell it used, unless you're the type to buy a new car and then drive it until it melts into a pile of rusty goo. Because of that understanding, the dealership is able to charge you more without ripping you off. Well, they probably still rip you off, but you get what I mean. A used game is an asset the same as a used car.

Car dealerships aren't charging people any extra because of the car's resale value. Prices in a competitive market are driven lower until the point where the profits being made by the competitors is no longer enticing enough to bring new competitors to the market, and where the existing competitors start valuing profit margins per sale over trying to grab more market share.

So think about it this way: If you didn't care about keeping a collection and had the spare time, you could easily play brand new games for a fraction of the cost. Buy it new for $60, sell it used for $30 in a couple weeks. Even Gamestop will pay you that much, or more, soon after release, and they once offered me a quarter for the one sports game I ever bought. As the "new" price of the game goes down, so does the proportional "used" price, because the used amount is always included in the price. There's an assumed value that's getting tacked on.

Again, that's not how pricing works at all. Publishers seek to place themselves on the most advantageous spot on the demand curve, where the increased margin for raising the price no longer offsets the decreased number of sales, and the increased number of sales would no longer offset the decrease in margins for lowering the price. How used game sales interact with that demand curve is far more complex than you seem to understand.

Having used copies for sale puts new copies into competition with them. The higher the industry prices its games, the more likely people are to go for used for a discount, and the more likely they are to re-sell them in order to recoup costs. People who are willing to pay $60 for a game but who buy used because they value the extra $5 they save over having a new copy would be forced to buy new if used game sales went away.

Meanwhile, used games existing isn't holding publishers back from lowering prices to try to increase volume. Used game sales are limited by two things- availability of used copies, and people's desire to simply have a new copy. Reducing new prices would decrease used prices, therefore allowing people who weren't buying at the higher price to absorb the stock of used games. People who buy new would but didn't want to buy at the higher price will now buy at the lower price.

Used games affect the publisher's current chosen spot on the demand curve in both negative and positive ways. You can't just subtract the resale value from the price of a new game, call it the new spot on the curve, and have any idea what you're talking about.

So we have no more used games, and the prices go down. What if we go all digital? Well, we can look at the PC market to see that this has already resulted in huge price cuts. Without boxes and shipping, publishers have the freedom to cut out a lot of the middleman costs and provide the savings to you. Obviously, Steam represents the epitome of the "I'll just buy this because it's so cheap, even though I'll never play it" style of marketing. But we are starting to see the fruition of new download services like Gamefly and Origin, whose competition will further reduce prices. Since you can't really resell digital games, the resale value is also eliminated from the price

Low prices on Steam are the result of something called "Price Discrimination". Publishers want to sell each copy of their game for the highest price that each buyer is willing to pay. Since they can't read minds, they resort to lowering prices as the game gets older. People who really wanted the game buy when the game is released, since they're willing to pay $60. People who don't care much about the game wait until it's $5 on Steam. There's a good reason they're not starting off at $5- they'd be leaving too much money on the table, and wouldn't be making enough revenue to keep the lights on.

The important thing here is that there's nothing stopping digital versions from being sold for $5 while boxed copies are still on the shelf selling for $30. Retail can only go so low, but its existence -along with the existence of used games that come along with it- aren't holding back publishers from going to those prices for digital. In fact, they make it easier- since some people value box copies, it's a perfect discriminator to get some people to pay $30 for a game while others are only paying $5.

Eliminating boxed copies would only hamper publishers' ability to engage in price discrimination, therefore lessening the chance you'll see a game for sale for $5 on Steam nearly as fast.

 

[balfore]

In my honest opinion gamers are the worst kind of conservatives, one day there will be a better cheaper way of producing and distributing games at a better price, and it will still take us forever to adapt to it because we feel too entitled for what is essentially a luxury hobby.

 

[silverhawk100]

The one thing running through my head throughout the article:

You're being naive. Your logic only works in magical christmas land where your logic is the only one that exists.

Games haven't gotten cheaper. I still remember when new AAA PC games went up by 10$ to match the console's price-point. It wasn't that long ago. Citing rising development costs, they said that 50$ was untenable. The only ways new AAA games as a whole will get cheaper is if either the industry conspired to make them cheaper on the console, thus forcing the PC to follow suit (as much as it hurts my PC-gamer heart to say that); or if there becomes some wide-spread bridge between indie and AAA with price-points around 35-40$.