Discussion Forums > Gaming
The End of $60 Games?
costi:
--- Quote from: vicious796 on April 24, 2012, 03:15:16 PM ---I also look at ArenaNet. Granted, I'm a GW2 fanboy, but to come out with a next-gen MMORPG and not charge a monthly subscription fee (instead, use the in-game shop model for cosmetics) shows promise. It's cementing that industry's move away from monthly subscription fees, IMO, and it's a good thing for the consumer.
--- End quote ---
Right, now everyone is moving towards microtransactions, aka pay-to-win model.
AceHigh:
Not entirely correct, a lot of revenue comes from one time sale of the game itself. That was their original business plan after all. For example the original game was sold in 2005, then when the developers needed more money, they released Factions just one year later. Then Nightfall was released the same year as Factions and they were all sold for a full price. Another year later Eye of the north was released.
In total they sold 6,5 million copies. A revenue from that should be enough to run servers for a long time without subscriptions or pay-to-win models. The in-game shop in GW1 has never been the "big thing", especially since most prestigious stuff was not something you could buy there anyway.
metro.:
NCSoft isn't going to a pay-to-win model, they've done a good job with it so far, which is quite surprising actually. It's nice though, I hope they keep it up.
Pay-To-Win drives away business. Pay-To-Look-Cool is a much better system.
FlyinPenguin:
Uh, so many posts in this thread seem to view the price of video games as price gouging. I am well aware of of how they more than recoup their investment between sales of the game and expansions. But in all fairness, we have gone from a time when one programmer could make a kick ass game to a a time when it takes millions of dollars and a full development team to make even a sub par game.
Another thing that bothers me is how the gaming community tends to "over" criticize games for their glitches. I remember a time when the game you bought was the game you got (at least as far as console games were concerned). We have become completely spoiled with today's games. PC games used to get patches to fix problems but console games were shit out of luck. Now, if a game has a glitch, it generally gets patched regardless of the platform.
Seriously, $60 is a bargain for today's video games. A brand new Blu-ray movie is at least $20, even more for a blockbuster. A movie only nets you a maximum (generally speaking) of 1 1/2 to 3 hours of viewing vs a minimum of 5 hours single player and countless hours of multilayer for $60. Do the math.
vicious796:
--- Quote from: costi on April 24, 2012, 04:36:50 PM ---
--- Quote from: vicious796 on April 24, 2012, 03:15:16 PM ---I also look at ArenaNet. Granted, I'm a GW2 fanboy, but to come out with a next-gen MMORPG and not charge a monthly subscription fee (instead, use the in-game shop model for cosmetics) shows promise. It's cementing that industry's move away from monthly subscription fees, IMO, and it's a good thing for the consumer.
--- End quote ---
Right, now everyone is moving towards microtransactions, aka pay-to-win model.
--- End quote ---
This, as Ace and metro pointed out, is incorrect. Look at the major microtransaction MMORPGs out there now and almost none of them sell stats - only flair. People will buy flair. Space donkey, anyone?
--- Quote from: FlyinPenguin on April 25, 2012, 11:23:25 AM ---Uh, so many posts in this thread seem to view the price of video games as price gouging. I am well aware of of how they more than recoup their investment between sales of the game and expansions. But in all fairness, we have gone from a time when one programmer could make a kick ass game to a a time when it takes millions of dollars and a full development team to make even a sub par game.
Another thing that bothers me is how the gaming community tends to "over" criticize games for their glitches. I remember a time when the game you bought was the game you got (at least as far as console games were concerned). We have become completely spoiled with today's games. PC games used to get patches to fix problems but console games were shit out of luck. Now, if a game has a glitch, it generally gets patched regardless of the platform.
Seriously, $60 is a bargain for today's video games. A brand new Blu-ray movie is at least $20, even more for a blockbuster. A movie only nets you a maximum (generally speaking) of 1 1/2 to 3 hours of viewing vs a minimum of 5 hours single player and countless hours of multilayer for $60. Do the math.
--- End quote ---
However, the price of creating the game has gone up with the profit margin involved with the business. As games sold more and more, companies grew more and more. What used to be a 50k/year position has grown to 100k/year position and instead of 3 of them there are seven. As companies grow, so do overhead costs. However, it's only natural in the business cycle for overhead costs to require too expensive a product and a smaller company with much lower overhead costs takes over.
When you look at the grand scheme of things and throw smartphones and tablets into the mix with "consoles" that's exactly what we're currently seeing. As I said before, I feel it's only a matter of time until this translates to the consoles. Some small developer isn't going to let EA distribute their game and they're going to sell it for $40 as opposed to $60. If they see success we should see a flood.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version