Games have been the same price since the 1990’s and even in the 80’s they absolutely should be priced higher. Studios know this as well but are afraid of the backlash involved with raising the price. For those who say they should be cheaper because of micro transactions well why do you think developers started to do this in the first place? To recoup a larger ROI I worked on a project for the PS3 launch and the team thought of releasing it at a $69.99 price point but Sony would not allow it. Saying market baseline is what it is. Saying gamers won’t spend that kind of money on a game. Which the team found funny considering the hardware was so highly priced.
Bullshit!!! Games in 80s-90s you bought them and that was it now every few months you have to buy new expac which is not really an expac is part of the original game cut in purpose to be sold for more money and how about season pass and subscription those didn't exist in the 80s and 90s.
How is DLC a default for cut from the original game? Like Prey? Or Doom? or Horizon Zero Dawn? Or Zelda? or Dishonored? or Persona 5? Or...you know what? nevermind….that is like, your opinion man.
I don't play any of those games I will mention the one I do play Destiny 2 I bought it 99$ client + season pass I was happy thought I was good for as long as Destiny 2 will last when started playing I beat the game in matter of 6-7 hours on 1st day the game was very short and cut but that's not all now the expac I had to purchase it and had to purchase 2nd season pass... I don't know which cave you live but that's reality right there. edit: other games I play CoD same as the above game+season pass + expac+season pass so on. I also play FFXIV game+sub+expac+shop
How about we see a superior quality game EVERY RELEASE before we talk about raising the prices. I see too many games, including MMO's, that I do not feel are even worth the price they are asking let alone saying they "deserve" more. The issue isn't that devs aren't getting the money they deserve but rather that the quality of games is so random that we the customer are not always given what we currently pay for.
Games have been the same price since the 1990’s and even in the 80’s they absolutely should be priced higher. Studios know this as well but are afraid of the backlash involved with raising the price. For those who say they should be cheaper because of micro transactions well why do you think developers started to do this in the first place? To recoup a larger ROI I worked on a project for the PS3 launch and the team thought of releasing it at a $69.99 price point but Sony would not allow it. Saying market baseline is what it is. Saying gamers won’t spend that kind of money on a game. Which the team found funny considering the hardware was so highly priced.
Bullshit!!! Games in 80s-90s you bought them and that was it now every few months you have to buy new expac which is not really an expac is part of the original game cut in purpose to be sold for more money and how about season pass and subscription those didn't exist in the 80s and 90s.
How is DLC a default for cut from the original game? Like Prey? Or Doom? or Horizon Zero Dawn? Or Zelda? or Dishonored? or Persona 5? Or...you know what? nevermind….that is like, your opinion man.
I don't play any of those games I will mention the one I do play Destiny 2 I bought it 99$ client + season pass I was happy thought I was good for as long as Destiny 2 will last when started playing I beat the game in matter of 6-7 hours on 1st day the game was very short and cut but that's not all now the expac I had to purchase it and had to purchase 2nd season pass... I don't know which cave you live but that's reality right there.
I list a whole bunch of games that counter that that you do not play and I am the one living in a cave? Weird. Ok mate, your opinion. No worries! Happy gaming!
I don't like the games you like the cave comment is cause you act like what I said is my opinion when its a well known fact not knowing it makes you ignorant on the subject.
Games have been the same price since the 1990’s and even in the 80’s they absolutely should be priced higher. Studios know this as well but are afraid of the backlash involved with raising the price. For those who say they should be cheaper because of micro transactions well why do you think developers started to do this in the first place? To recoup a larger ROI I worked on a project for the PS3 launch and the team thought of releasing it at a $69.99 price point but Sony would not allow it. Saying market baseline is what it is. Saying gamers won’t spend that kind of money on a game. Which the team found funny considering the hardware was so highly priced.
Bullshit!!! Games in 80s-90s you bought them and that was it now every few months you have to buy new expac which is not really an expac is part of the original game cut in purpose to be sold for more money and how about season pass and subscription those didn't exist in the 80s and 90s.
How is DLC a default for cut from the original game? Like Prey? Or Doom? or Horizon Zero Dawn? Or Zelda? or Dishonored? or Persona 5? Or...you know what? nevermind….that is like, your opinion man.
I don't play any of those games I will mention the one I do play Destiny 2 I bought it 99$ client + season pass I was happy thought I was good for as long as Destiny 2 will last when started playing I beat the game in matter of 6-7 hours on 1st day the game was very short and cut but that's not all now the expac I had to purchase it and had to purchase 2nd season pass... I don't know which cave you live but that's reality right there.
I list a whole bunch of games that counter that that you do not play and I am the one living in a cave? Weird. Ok mate, your opinion. No worries! Happy gaming!
I don't like the games you like the cave comment is cause you act like what I said is my opinion when its a well known fact not knowing it makes you ignorant on the subject.
What is a well known fact? That some games monetize poorly while others do not? Agreed.
Bullshit no game company out there is playing it Mother Theresa they are all after the $$$ shit is actually out of control you forget the EA shitfest lol
You are right games have been the same price for 30 years. Why raise them to allow a better life for the developers. smh
Do you mean the developers or the executives? I've never heard anything about any company making fancy-graphics games using profit-sharing with the people actually making the games.
Most game studios don't have executives.
They all do. That is inarguable. The word doesn't have to be in the title for someone or people to have executive responsibilities.
And can you name some examples of any game that made a big profit, or even more profit, passing that profit on to all the people who made the game? If not, please tell me how a higher box price would enrich anyone but the executives?
Why do people assume games fit the same requirements that they did 10+ years ago? Alot of these titles take a fraction of the manpower to craft a title than they use to at that time. Couple that with a lot more companies just dealing with contracting and outsourcing instead of having specific positions meaning titles cost about the same or cheaper to make than they did 10+ years ago. Its called evolution. Programmers are often the only ones offered full-time positions while artists and voice actors usually work under contract, meaning they have a flat payment for whatever they have to work on for a period of time, not having to worry about paying these guys all the time. Look at the automotive industry if you want a real comparison. Materials have gone up over the years, obviously; however, a large portion of manufacturing positions have become automated, so yes the people that actually work those positions (programmers, some special manufacturers etc) get paid more than they used to but less people are in those positions. Prices should only go up if its proven that the same or more people work in those companies as they did over the period of time, otherwise it makes 0 sense to charge more if it requires less effort. Besides, its not like all new games were always 60$. It feels like I'm the only one who seems to remember about 15 years ago when the new title cost was 50$. Bringing Zelda and stuff, sure you get a base game for the same price, but you dont get the same features. So aren't you already paying the same for less? Meaning you're paying more for less than you used to. I get the base game but I have to pay for addition challenge modes/outfits/cut scenes (in some games) that used to all be baseline that are now sold separately. So isn't the price already going up compared to all those years ago? Just because the baseline price stays the same, doesn't mean the features do.
You are right games have been the same price for 30 years. Why raise them to allow a better life for the developers. smh
Do you mean the developers or the executives? I've never heard anything about any company making fancy-graphics games using profit-sharing with the people actually making the games.
Most game studios don't have executives.
They all do. That is inarguable. The word doesn't have to be in the title for someone or people to have executive responsibilities.
And can you name some examples of any game that made a big profit, or even more profit, passing that profit on to all the people who made the game? If not, please tell me how a higher box price would enrich anyone but the executives?
Two titles I worked on actually. Hellblade and City of the Shroud. It happens more than you might think.
What did those titles sell? The premise of this post was increasing price because games cost more to make. Without checking Steam - City of the Shroud just released (I know because I tried it), and I don't think many people would be willing to pay $140 for it, and I doubt it cost $60 million to make.
Why don't you jack the price up on Steam and for the next chapter and we'll see if sales stay the same. There is tons of evidence showing that sales (lower prices) increase units sold.
I forget the name of it, but when it comes to pricing there is a formula. Without using real examples since I forget the formula - If 100 people will by a product priced at $100, and 500 are willing to by the same product for $50, someone in finance is going to find the best price point for the company. Something like 250 will pay 85 (again, a fake example), which would yield the highest profit. A real example would have other information like cost per unit at various production outputs, etc.
The market, and market forces, are going to determine pricing. Why wasn't City of Shroud sold at $60? Because that isn't a good pricing for it. And until someone can give an example of a AAA game with the latest graphics that cost a fortune to make sharing its profits with the regular people working on the game, even if we accept the theory that games have a release price tag that is for some reason being artificially retarded and this is screwing over people working on games with low salaries - there is still no evidence that increasing the initial price of a game will increase the salaries of the employees.
So you think we undersold Hellblade? Because even at over a million copies sold we were afraid to price it higher than we did. Public backlash is a finicky thing. If just a few complain it snowballs and takes years of hard work down the drain.
I can't think anything about a game I've never heard of. How did they do profit sharing? Straight profit sharing or stock options?
Since you are in the game industry and I am not - do you know an example of a AAA game that made a huge profit and the executives shared that profit with their employees? Or raised their employees salaries?
I would seriously pay $100 for a great MMORPG and $50/month if they had great devs, customer service and actually enforced rules.
I'd pay $10,000 for Tim Caine to make Fallout 3 or ToEE 2. I think Grimoire and Underrail and Age of Decadence were easily worth $500 a piece. But, since tons and tons of people complained loudly about the initial pittance price of all three of those games, and all those games sold like shit compared to shitty fancy-graphics console games, and Tim Caine couldn't keep Troika from closing, I am in a small minority.
Kickstarter has shown us that people are willing to pay ridiculous sums for a game they want. But not many people are.
How many Kickstarters would have been funded, or funded more, if the initial tier buy-in was $140?
We still talking about totally non-essential, entertainment item pricing here?
It has nothing to do with how much potatoes and chickens cost 30 years ago. They charge whatever they think people will pay for it. Some go for volume and some for exclusivity.
Whatever it cost them to make is their gamble and their problem and no one in their right mind will give much of a shit about their increased costs or compare it to the cost of food and shelter when they're deciding to throw their $20 bucks at this or something else. What you get for your $20 bucks is the only thing that matters and what you compare it to is only what else you could throw that $20 at.
Pricing is whatever they think will turn a profit based on sales volume and whatever else is competing with games for our disposable cash. It has its own ebb and flow that is mostly independent of consumer price indexes and the cost of living.
Why are sub prices and B2P costs the same now as 30 years ago? Ease of distribution, volume of sales and competitive market saturation.
I mean, shit... you guys are saying the most important bit yourselves and then ignoring it: 100 million frigging people have downloaded and played Fortnite.... 100 MILLION.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Games have been the same price since the 1990’s and even in the 80’s they absolutely should be priced higher. Studios know this as well but are afraid of the backlash involved with raising the price. For those who say they should be cheaper because of micro transactions well why do you think developers started to do this in the first place? To recoup a larger ROI I worked on a project for the PS3 launch and the team thought of releasing it at a $69.99 price point but Sony would not allow it. Saying market baseline is what it is. Saying gamers won’t spend that kind of money on a game. Which the team found funny considering the hardware was so highly priced.
I fully believe (not a fact) that they use micro-transactions simply because they can and we accept them, as a group, not for any "need" to do so.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Games are digital products that cost basically nothing to produce after the first copy. It's much more profitable to sell such a product to as wide an audience as possible than to sell it as a premium product at 3x the price to far fewer players.
$50 for a game used to be a lot of money, and gaming was a niche market. $60 for a game is now pretty affordable and there are 700 million PC gamers to sell them to. Companies even cut the price lower to sell in poorer countries just to get more box sales. Why? Because $30 for a few pennies worth of bandwidth is a nice profit.
If they raised the price to $150 for a typical new release, PC gaming would be niche again, and they would likely end up losing money. At that price point people are going to buy fewer games and make fewer impulse buys. They're certainly not going to be like most of us with a 100+ unplayed games in our Steam backlog.
If I could add to this, when was the last game you bought on actual media? Skyrim was mine (bought in 2012) and it sent me straight to Steam to download the friggin' game (13+GB). Nothing on the DVD. There go shipping costs along with media and paper costs. It's not much of a cut, but still digital downloads are cheaper than physical media and they throw customers the cost, if one has data caps.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Games are digital products that cost basically nothing to produce after the first copy. It's much more profitable to sell such a product to as wide an audience as possible than to sell it as a premium product at 3x the price to far fewer players.
$50 for a game used to be a lot of money, and gaming was a niche market. $60 for a game is now pretty affordable and there are 700 million PC gamers to sell them to. Companies even cut the price lower to sell in poorer countries just to get more box sales. Why? Because $30 for a few pennies worth of bandwidth is a nice profit.
If they raised the price to $150 for a typical new release, PC gaming would be niche again, and they would likely end up losing money. At that price point people are going to buy fewer games and make fewer impulse buys. They're certainly not going to be like most of us with a 100+ unplayed games in our Steam backlog.
If I could add to this, when was the last game you bought on actual media? Skyrim was mine (bought in 2012) and it sent me straight to Steam to download the friggin' game (13+GB). Nothing on the DVD. There go shipping costs along with media and paper costs. It's not much of a cut, but still digital downloads are cheaper than physical media and they throw customers the cost, if one has data caps.
I just bought 3 physical disks Sat. One PC two console. The vast majority of games release with digital download making it cheaper for a publisher to distribute true, the issue is the developer has to compete with thousands of others doing the same thing to get noticed. If you have a publisher the developers do not see those savings. If you do not have a publisher and release it yourself then the over saturation of the market in today's landscape requires even more money in marketing to even get the smallest blurb about your title.
Were these new or old games? Console media I can see if it was for the XBox 360 with no Wi-Fi connectivity. I'm curious which PC game came on physical media. I thought that was pretty done with now.
Funny thing, though about marketing. If a developer creates a good game, it gets the "free" word of mouth advertisements. I don't rceall PUBG or Fortnite spending a lot on pre-release marketing, though I could be wrong as I don't follow that genre of games. They certainly have stepped their marketing game lately, though
I watch a lot of Twitch TV and the amount streamers are getting paid to stream specific games is outrageous, especially throwing in Twitch's cut. There certainly are many more ways to market a game today then 10 years ago
I feel the need to specify that I stopped following new games and have not bought in quite some time. I think XCom 2 is my most recent game I purchased. I say this because I am certainly no expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I did stay a Holiday Inn... once
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Comments
I don't know which cave you live but that's reality right there.
edit: other games I play CoD same as the above game+season pass + expac+season pass so on.
I also play FFXIV game+sub+expac+shop
Let's party like it is 1863!
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And can you name some examples of any game that made a big profit, or even more profit, passing that profit on to all the people who made the game? If not, please tell me how a higher box price would enrich anyone but the executives?
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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Why don't you jack the price up on Steam and for the next chapter and we'll see if sales stay the same. There is tons of evidence showing that sales (lower prices) increase units sold.
I forget the name of it, but when it comes to pricing there is a formula. Without using real examples since I forget the formula - If 100 people will by a product priced at $100, and 500 are willing to by the same product for $50, someone in finance is going to find the best price point for the company. Something like 250 will pay 85 (again, a fake example), which would yield the highest profit. A real example would have other information like cost per unit at various production outputs, etc.
The market, and market forces, are going to determine pricing. Why wasn't City of Shroud sold at $60? Because that isn't a good pricing for it. And until someone can give an example of a AAA game with the latest graphics that cost a fortune to make sharing its profits with the regular people working on the game, even if we accept the theory that games have a release price tag that is for some reason being artificially retarded and this is screwing over people working on games with low salaries - there is still no evidence that increasing the initial price of a game will increase the salaries of the employees.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Since you are in the game industry and I am not - do you know an example of a AAA game that made a huge profit and the executives shared that profit with their employees? Or raised their employees salaries?
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
I'd pay $10,000 for Tim Caine to make Fallout 3 or ToEE 2. I think Grimoire and Underrail and Age of Decadence were easily worth $500 a piece. But, since tons and tons of people complained loudly about the initial pittance price of all three of those games, and all those games sold like shit compared to shitty fancy-graphics console games, and Tim Caine couldn't keep Troika from closing, I am in a small minority.
Kickstarter has shown us that people are willing to pay ridiculous sums for a game they want. But not many people are.
How many Kickstarters would have been funded, or funded more, if the initial tier buy-in was $140?
We still talking about totally non-essential, entertainment item pricing here?
It has nothing to do with how much potatoes and chickens cost 30 years ago. They charge whatever they think people will pay for it. Some go for volume and some for exclusivity.
Whatever it cost them to make is their gamble and their problem and no one in their right mind will give much of a shit about their increased costs or compare it to the cost of food and shelter when they're deciding to throw their $20 bucks at this or something else. What you get for your $20 bucks is the only thing that matters and what you compare it to is only what else you could throw that $20 at.
Pricing is whatever they think will turn a profit based on sales volume and whatever else is competing with games for our disposable cash. It has its own ebb and flow that is mostly independent of consumer price indexes and the cost of living.
Why are sub prices and B2P costs the same now as 30 years ago? Ease of distribution, volume of sales and competitive market saturation.
I mean, shit... you guys are saying the most important bit yourselves and then ignoring it: 100 million frigging people have downloaded and played Fortnite.... 100 MILLION.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Funny thing, though about marketing. If a developer creates a good game, it gets the "free" word of mouth advertisements. I don't rceall PUBG or Fortnite spending a lot on pre-release marketing, though I could be wrong as I don't follow that genre of games. They certainly have stepped their marketing game lately, though
I watch a lot of Twitch TV and the amount streamers are getting paid to stream specific games is outrageous, especially throwing in Twitch's cut. There certainly are many more ways to market a game today then 10 years ago
I feel the need to specify that I stopped following new games and have not bought in quite some time. I think XCom 2 is my most recent game I purchased. I say this because I am certainly no expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I did stay a Holiday Inn... once
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다