The End of $60 Games?

[zherok]

Yeah, I'd love a deeper Skyrim combat system. I'm hoping mods get there eventually. There are a couple out that might start the ball rolling, but some mods get updated so frequently I've had a hard time just sitting down before needing to restart.

[Nikkoru]

I remember when you could play games for a quarter, and felt something like immense pride to see your high score.

If given the choice now, I'd rather spend the 60 dollars on PSN/IOS games or marked down DS or PSP games than pre-order or early purchase a single new game. Sure that game may be worth all the money, but chances are far better that I will like at least some of that smaller downloadable content or those tried and tested older handheld games, while being guaranteed a variety of gaming experiences to boot. 

[TMRNetShark]

I remember when you could play games for a quarter, and felt something like immense pride to see your high score.

If given the choice now, I'd rather spend the 60 dollars on PSN/IOS games or marked down DS or PSP games than pre-order or early purchase a single new game. Sure that game may be worth all the money, but chances are far better that I will like at least some of that smaller downloadable content or those tried and tested older handheld games, while being guaranteed a variety of gaming experiences to boot.

I think that's why the gaming industry is gonna be in trouble (the vast majority of it at least). Instead of spending $60 + taxes on one game that may or may not be good, or you can spend $60 (+ taxes) on 10-60 games on the iPhone/Android platform or 3-4 older handheld games or PSN/XBLA games.

[Nikkoru]

I remember when you could play games for a quarter, and felt something like immense pride to see your high score.

If given the choice now, I'd rather spend the 60 dollars on PSN/IOS games or marked down DS or PSP games than pre-order or early purchase a single new game. Sure that game may be worth all the money, but chances are far better that I will like at least some of that smaller downloadable content or those tried and tested older handheld games, while being guaranteed a variety of gaming experiences to boot.

I think that's why the gaming industry is gonna be in trouble (the vast majority of it at least). Instead of spending $60 + taxes on one game that may or may not be good, or you can spend $60 (+ taxes) on 10-60 games on the iPhone/Android platform or 3-4 older handheld games or PSN/XBLA games.

It's my hope, rather than simply lowering the general cost and quality of gaming to some acceptable mediocrity, that the prevalence of quality online content for under 20 dollars will make those game companies who want to charge that much actually put the effort into making it worth it. Those who are producing the lower quality products will simply have to charge less to begin with, because they're competing with a whole discount online market. I suspect at this point most gamers expend some time to read reviews or know people who have and don't just uncritically throw money down whenever they see something shiny.

Independent designers also have an easily accessible market to start with so they can develop their ideas and skills to create something more innovative in the future.

[vicious796]

I look at 2 studios for inspiration on the upcoming recession to the gaming industry. First, 38 Studios. Curt Schilling bought out Big Huge Games and finished the development of Kingdoms of Amalur. Sure, it was produced by EA but the fact that a no-name company can pop up like they did and put out a slam dunk of a game shows great promise.

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.

I think it's only a matter of time until a small, no-name company develops a masterpiece and does whatever they need to in order to release it themselves. What will they do? Lower the price. Instead of $60 to cover all the overhead, they'll go $50 and still have a higher level of profit.

[costi]

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.

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]

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.

Right, now everyone is moving towards microtransactions, aka pay-to-win model.

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?

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.

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.

[FlyinPenguin]

^^^^^
Generally speaking, agreed. However, I really don't feel tablet games come into the mix whatsoever. They in no way can compete with the quality and depth of PC/console games. The best way a tablet can complete with the consoles/pc (in terms of gaming) is to emulate/virtualize their games.

[vicious796]

^^^^^
Generally speaking, agreed. However, I really don't feel tablet games come into the mix whatsoever. They in no way can compete with the quality and depth of PC/console games. The best way a tablet can complete with the consoles/pc (in terms of gaming) is to emulate/virtualize their games.

The quality and depth? No, not at all. But the playability? You bet they can.

It was mentioned earlier that it was only 25 years ago that video games cost 25 cents and the arcade was full of options. Granted, a day in the arcade could cost you two pockets of quarters but the enjoyment was still there. I don't know anyone who would argue against the notion that the stories in RPGs have declined over the years and have been replaced with shiny graphics and overly complicated battle systems, also. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule but, generally speaking, I feel RPGs were stronger in the late 90s and early 2000s than they are today. That takes a plug out of depth.

For the conscious consumer, if you're going to get 40 hours of a game that is mostly replay (honestly, all first person shooters are replay of previous missions with different settings) would you rather spend a couple bucks or 60? While 60 is still top dog right now, smartphone and tablet games are growing in popularity for their affordability and mobility. As that market grows it takes small pieces of the major market with it, leading to the decline of 60 dollar games.

[Nikkoru]

I think part and parcel of the 60 dollar game is the sense by game producers that they have to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. People such as myself were playing video games before they were cool, when game producers were interested in getting the most out of their geeky audience. I remember having a hell of a lot of fun with text-based adventures on DOS, tricky to play and requiring a lot of pen & paper work, but these were born from D&D fanatics who knew the score. The same goes with early JRPGs, they weren't designed for happy well adjusted people, they were all about finding secrets and the unreasonably giddy feeling you got from earning a new class or crushing some nearly impossible enemy. Arcade games were made specifically to make sure you lose early and often, they wanted your quarter and that was that, but they also wanted you to play again and again regardless of how unlikely you'll succeed. What would be the point of making them easy? A story if there was one, was there just to fuel your imagination. The people who would create those games were the ones who were likely to play them, and they wanted to impress their friends.

We're a fringe market now, the new target market doesn't want to be lifeless and pasty magnificent bastards.

This is why independent game developers have me all hot and bothered.

[AceHigh]

This is also the reason why indie developers now have the market without competing with big AAA titles. For example not long ago a small inde studio released a game about modern naval combat putting strategy and scale above graphics and simplicity. Last week it was one of the most selling games on Steam and they got a good profit on it.

I think this is an exciting age where us old-school nerds will have our needs covered because more small dev studios realize that there are more money to be earned here than competing with big titles in the mainstream market.

[zherok]

I have to agree, digital distribution has really done wonders for indie games, both in even allowing them a distribution channel, as well as allowing for games that don't fit within the full price model.

[costi]

And that's probably the only benefit of digital distribution...

[Havoc10K]

I think the OP is right, the 60$ games is coming to an end, we should welcome the 70$+ games now that will look better but will be much more crap.

All hail HD Games!
They look High Definition, the highly define the looks are more important than actual gameplay and plot!

WE WANT MORE CRAP!

[zherok]

And that's probably the only benefit of digital distribution...

Nah, even full price games tend to have more flexible prices on Steam. Though Amazon often matches their sale prices. But traditional retailers retain high price points a lot longer usually, and have sales far less frequently.

[vicious796]

And that's probably the only benefit of digital distribution...

I don't know about that. Not having a clutter of boxes to move everywhere is usually a good thing for me. Granted, I haven't moved in a few years and I seem to be more stable now, but historically I used to have to lug those things everywhere.

[Nikkoru]

The biggest benefit to digital distribution, outside of greater democratization of the industry, is that you're guaranteed access. For instance, I had the physical copy of FF7 stolen from me 3 or 4 years ago along with all my other PSX game. The chances of me reacquiring a physical copy, without incurring some absurd expense with an online retailer, well -- holy grails are more ubiquitous -- but a few minutes on PSN and there it is.

I'm hoping digital distribution will ultimately lead to increased access to rare or regional content. As someone who's enjoyed quite a number of Japanese exclusive releases and waited painstakingly for certain titles to enter the North American market, this appeals to me.