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EA Boss Says Games Too Expensive
EA's John Riccitiello has been shaking things up at EA lately, with everything from layoffs to the purchase of BioWare. Now he's suggesting the company take some really drastic measures: make their games less expensive. "Riccitiello says the $31 billion gaming industry will suffer if it doesn't start to reevaluate its business model. Game executives at Sony, Microsoft and Activision must answer some tough questions in the coming years, like how long they can expect consumers to pay $59 for a video game. Riccitiello predicts the model will be obsolete in the next decade. 'In the next five years, we're all going to have to deal with this. In China, they're giving games away for free,' he says. 'People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.' As more publishers transition to making games for online distribution, Riccitiello says he expects EA will experiment with different pricing models."
If this is an excuse to release crappier games, count me out. These things are expensive to make and I'd rather own 3 or 4 good games that have been invested in than 10 games that were just pounded out by some off-shore devs.
Yes, I'm sure some troll with mod points will kill my karma by me stating the obvious.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Ah, good thing they're only making free games in China. Imagine the uproar if there were free games available elsewhere!
Ask me about repetitive DNA
And stripping online support of expensive games to force them to buy new versions is a worse tactic. Pot kettle EA!
I only shop for games in the bargain bins. The most I've ever paid for a game was $10. And I save the cost of having to upgrade my machine every, what, six months.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Interestingly the NBA & NHL both allow multiple game franchises and probably each is better for it.
Some games are worth $66 (with tax). Some are not. An MMO might be worth $66, even if you factor in monthly subscriptions. It's hard to justify a button masher with six hours of game play for the same price.
You can see a movie for $5. That's about $2.50 per hour of entertainment. A six hour videogame would be about $11 per hour. I just bought World War Z from Amazon and at $10, that'll give me a lot of reading entertainment at about a buck or so per hour.
Games seem disproportionately expensive. Especially as costs to produce increase and time to beat mysteriously decrease. Whatever happened to games that took forever to beat and still were a lot of fun? I don't want to sit down and beat a $66 game in a single sitting.
EA can afford to distrib their games for less because they just recycle the same crap from last year with a new badge and a few small incremental improvements rather than developing NEW games.
game publishers? I won't spend $60 on a game. I won't spend $40 on a game. You'd be hard pressed to get me to spend $25 to play a game that has a storyline, because it's wasted money after the story is complete. I'll buy used games for far cheaper (if at all) if I'm looking to kill some time. I'm about as casual a gamer as you'll ever find, but the ever rising price of consoles and games means you've lost me as a customer. I bought a PS2 and an Xbox, both of which are gathering dust. I may break them out once a month (or far less frequently in the summer) but don't count on it. I've considered buying a Wii because it's almost affordable, but there's not a whole ton of games for it. Consider this, I would LOVE to be able to buy a console that had games priced between $15 to $20. I don't really give a squat about the graphics, I want to be entertained. You'll have a customer for life if you make that happen, as I'll be able to justify buying a game or two a week. I realize you'd be hard pressed to put out that many quality titles, so chapterize them. Break the content up over a few games and I'll buy 'em one piece at a time, but don't make them updates, each would have to be a standalone title I'd be able to pick up and play for a few hours. At those prices you'd be competing with movies, and have my attention for at least twice as long.
Games truly aren't that expensive because theres no free/open source equivalent of them. Not to mention I would rather pay $60 for a good game that has a solid gameplay rather then a $20 of a movie-rip-off game that has the gameplay of an old NES game. Next, isn't "price wars" that caused the video game market to crash? It seems that EA a main maker of mediocre games in my opinion (Just look at Madden football and the rest of their yearly sports games) could see the quality of games drop dramatically to E.T. levels? It seems that lately there hasn't been hardly any good console based games except for possibly Halo 3, games for the Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (not yet released) that seem to get people to buy them. This is supposed to be the "next generation of games" but are we going back to '83?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Game_Crash
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
1. Release games in increment bundles - you buy basic version and get expansions or pay extra for online content.
Pro: Better revenue stream for game producers. Bug fixes easier to release.
Con: Consumers feel, rightfully, that they're getting ripped off.
2. Release games with in-game ads and product placements - signs in game and t-shirt logos and decals and maybe songs and optional extras are from adversiers.
Pro: Better revenue stream for game producers. Targeted ads from game registration.
Con: Consumers may feel they are oversold.
Note: If done only to level of real world or fantasy world normal experience, without flashing vids and noisy ads, this has higher buy in from consumers and doesn't feel bad to them.
3. Release games at lower cost and take money from CEO/exec pay while not stiffing game developers.
Pro: Investors in game producing firm get same return. Developers feel not as ripped off. Games cheaper.
Con: Fantasy. Game execs will never do this and will fix things so this never happens. Better off shooting the execs dead to practice marksmanship skills for in-game experience.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
wow.....i never expected someone in sales/marketing for the gaming industry to say that their games are too expensive....let alone John Riccitiello.
thats like saying open source products are way too cheap....
With SNES games costing sometimes $70 when they were launched (I have no clue what NES games cost when they were released), I'm surprised video games are as "cheap" as they are. Sure, some games have a rediculously high price now, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band come to mind. But there, you're also paying for new hardware, which doesn't cost *that* much more than a typical controller, and given that they're made in smaller quantities and require more materials, it makes sense that they cost more than a typical controller.
If games cost $60-$70 for the SNES, if video games were subject to inflation, and given a modest 3% inflation rate, they would be costing between $93.48 and $109.06. Yes, I know that not all games cost $60-70 back fifteen years ago, but some very popular ones did.
The consultant solution:
1) Look at the development costs and segment by skills required.
2) Identify those skill that can be done elsewhere for less (art, coding for example)
3) Offshore those jobs
4) Pay CEO big bonus for saving money
5) Decide to ride the gravy train as long as you can with expensive games
6) Bail out of the company stock when it become obvious you are going to start losing money
7) CEO gets new job at another company for more money
8) Consultant pockets hefty fees
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I think some of the comments here are focusing too much on the fact that Mr. Riccitiello works for EA, and not focusing enough on the content of his statement. The fact that he works for EA has no immediate relevance to the content of his statement; a statement which is not far off the mark.
With the emergence of video game markets overseas that offer downloadable content and even entire games for free (not to mention the prevalence of modified consoles playing games downloaded from Bit Torrent), the western games distribution model is going to have to answer some significant questions on how it chooses to continue selling games. People won't shell out $60 forever when torrenting becomes a ubiquitous MO.
Inserting [insert witty signature here] here does not constitute a witty signature.
Actually, I used to love gaming on my pc, but there is no way I am spending that much money for games. Its just not worth it. You can say that its my choice not to game, and you'd be right, but I believe there are a lot of would be casual gamers like me who would buy games if they cost less.
Sigs are for losers.
With the caveat on that, that it has to be a decent game.
Even a decent game with flaws - for example, Neverwinter Nights 2. Is it perfect? No. However it has kept me occupied for probably 100+ hours so far. I think it was about $90 australian (tangent: now the $AU is up >90c US, why the hell are we paying so much?? :D), and if you work out the entertainment cost, it's near enough to $1/hr or less.
Try going to the movies, the pub or renting a new release DVD for that.
Other examples would be baldurs gate 1/2, Falcon: Allied Force, Ghost Recon 2, etc.
If the game will provide a decent duration of entertainment, i have no problem paying for it.
However, if (such as EA often does) they're going to release shitty games with perhaps 20 hours of play/replay value (yes, there are exceptions - eg Battlefield 1942) then I agree.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Surprised they're so 'cheap' now?
Move to the EU.
Here in Ireland, the average video game for a next generation system is 70. That's $101, almost twice the price of the average game in the US. The way I see it, instead of these executives worrying about getting Americans to spend $49 or $39 on games, why not figure out some way to get prices and release dates in the EU to less ridiculous levels? Higher taxation is a factor, true, but the average EU citizen has less spending power than the average US citizen, yet still buys a comparable amount of entertainment products. If you gave them a little more value for once, you may reap rewards greater than you would giving Americans an extra $10
(PS - I split my time between both the EU and the US, so I'm not just some grumpy European. But when people complain about prices in America such as gas, etc, I just laugh. The US is like a fantasy world when it comes to prices thanks to it being on the backs of low minimum wages and outsourcing etc)
Yup...
By the way, that's 70 Euros.
For some reason Slashdot didn't like the Euro sign and omitted it...
Yup...
Yes, it's all just a factor of inflation, there certianly aren't many other factors to consider, and you should always assume the prices you work with were not high and priced fairly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
OK, so I'll admit I have a cruddy memory, but haven't the games for big-name consoles--mostly--been priced at right around $50 since the NES was released? Major commercial PC games, I'm pretty sure, have come up in price--I can't remember any solid figures, unfortunately.
If you ask me, this is a lame attempt to appeal to the "casual" gamer that's cropping up and changing the face of the video game industry. Perhaps these casual gamers, if driven by price alone, are the people who're buying all those DS-es, whose games are priced usually at around $30? If there are really so many casual gamers out there, though, then why do games that fall into the sub-AAA level fail to be wildly popular despite their bargain price point? It is obvious that casual gamers are emerging and/or being recognized more nowadays--however, you'd be hard pressed to convince me that casual gamers have the Wal-mart spendthrift mentality: "entertainment" is a purely luxury item, and I don't think anyone reasonably expects to find valu-priced entertainment that "tastes close enough" to brand-name but costs 60 cents less per 12-pack. Do people buy abridged versions of classic literature in an attempt to save money?
and you should charge for support. No, wait a minute ...
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Well, it's his job to make long-term market predictions. That's why CEOs get paid hundreds of millions of dollars. If they're wrong, the company loses a hell of a lot more.
Golden parachutes when they screw up is an entirely different story, but probably more related to how contract terms run these days to attract good people.
Don't forget that at the time, games were stored on a more expensive rom format. Games are stored on optical media now, so yes, the price should drop
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
If you do the math, those peripherals actually cost less than a new controller. For example, I recently purchased Guitar Hero III for Xbox 360 for $90 (+ tax). If you assume the game by itself would be the usual $60, that means the wireless Les Paul guitar controller is only $30. A wireless controller from Microsoft costs around $40. Similarly with Rock Band, the bundle price for guitar + drums + mic + game is going to be $170. If you take the $60 game out of the equation, you're left with $110 for three peripherals. IMHO the breakdown for that is most likely $20 mic, $30 guitar, and $60 drums (the drums are actually very high quality for a toy). Factoring out the drums, you're paying list price or less for the other components.
You're comparing apples to oranges. The SNES games that cost $60+ were that expensive because of the cartridge technology. They were using bigger memory chips (SF2, Finaly Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger). When consoles moved away from cartridges, games dropped in price significantly. Final Fantasy VII was only $50 (IIRC) even thought it was bigger than FF6, because the CD format was significantly cheaper to produce (also, some of the cost moved elsewhere, since you purchased separate memory cards rather than having on-cartridge writable memory+battery). That's not to say that games shouldn't adjust for inflation, but you can't use the SNES as a starting point because it was not disk-based.
Have you considered downloadable games? I purchased a PS3 this summer because of the PS3 games, and was surprised about the downloadable games you can purchase at low cost from the PlayStation Network store. My fave right now is Super Rub-a-Dub - I'm 35, but I love this game. But I tell people I got it for my wife. :-)
Seriously, we will sometimes play this game for a few hours at a time. Lots of fun! Most fun you can have for only $7.
They have a ton of other games on PSN that are about the same cost. Very cheap, and fun! Especially for a casual gamer like you.
And I know it's an oldie, but Spyro the Dragon just appeared for sale on PSN. I bought my copy! Yeah, it's a PS1 game, but the PS3 upscales it really well - looks great on my 40" HD TV. You can play it on PS3 or PSP, and it's only $6. And it's still lots of fun!
Back then, games were pretty far from their optimal price point because it was pretty much impossible to sell a good game for a good price. No, it had nothing to do with development costs, but with manufacturing costs.
A SNES era cartridge was created with custom made ROM chips that held the game, not unlike ancient arcade cabinets. The more you put on the game, the more chips you needed, and the more expensive it got. It was easy to notice by just weight! Some games also carried extra processors in them, which also increased costs. Only as CDs became the main distribution media and manufacturing costs plummeted did the game development cost even started to matter.
yeah can be annoying if they just railroad you into one type of play. Deus Ex on the other hand... multiple options and I've just finished playing it again for the umpteenth time. best money i've ever spent on a game
Bad Idea + Throw lots of $$$$ at it = PROFIT!
Good Idea + Throw a little bit of $$$$ at it = MORE PROFIT!
Get it? Start with a good idea for a game, for a change. That way, you don't have to sink $50M into lighting effects and marketing, just to get people to play it.
Tetris is one of the best selling games of all time, Lumines did extremely well too. You don't have to throw millions at something just for it to be good. Obviously for more epic gameplay, you need more time and money, but even then, do you think Skies of Arcadia had 1/4 the budget the average Final Fantasy had? Honestly, SoA is a great game, and did well enough that a sequel is in the works.
EAs problem is that "throw $$$$ at bad product" is there answer to everything. Maybe they're starting to realize that, which is why we're seeing so much cynicism from them these days, but until they truly aknowledge that, no amount of bitching is going to help their profit margin.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The folks at EA just don't get that a crap game will get crap sales. Everything they do appears to drive to mediocrity or down right apathy to what they produce. The golden ticket is to change their business model to produce great games.
I don't remember paying $60-70 for SNES games... more like $30. I was a teenager buying a handful of games a year off allowance money at the time. There may have been a couple in that ballpark, but if they were all up there, I wouldn't have owned as many as I did (ActRaiser was my most expensive game and that was about $35 if memory serves).
Soon thereafter, I switched all my gaming to the PC and I can remember firing off some emails in the mid-90s complaining about games moving from the $30 to the $40 price point. I'll usually wait for games to drop under $30 before I buy now (usually buying games for $20 a year or two after they came out) unless there's something I really want. After 15 years, the Wii finally sucked me back into the console market too... I cringe a little at paying $50 for games but all of the games I've bought have been worth it (and Resident Evil 4 felt like a pretty good deal at $30). The 360 and PS3 hardware is overpriced (I just bought an Athlon 64 X2 4400, motherboard. 7600GT and 1GB RAM for less than the price of a 360, much less the PS3's price tag). I'm certainly not going to pay $60 (plus possible online fees) for the typical game for those consoles.
($50? whatever happened to the $30 game? Blah!)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Keep in mind though that Euro prices have VAT (that's sales tax for those unfamiliar with it) built IN to the price, and VAT can easily be 20% of the game's price or more. US prices are all quoted without tax. Some states add 5% to what you see, some add 7%, and some add zero.
A gaming executive telling the booming games industry that it's overpricing games?
Ha ha!
This is a trap. He's up to something.
I believe the current pricing for games is accurate... you can compare it with movies, I think it's a very just analogy when you pick out the differences. The cost to develop some games is about the same as for some movies. Give or take, I've been told that before so of course correct me if I'm wrong. The sale price for a game is much higher than the ticket price for a movie, or a DVD sale. So we should probably assume that a movie will get more DVD sales/ticket sales than a game will... a pretty good assumption, despite the booming games industry, lots of people buy DVD's and go to the cinema. Some heavy assumptions, yes, but we can see how it probably all fits together.
So, why is the EA guy saying games cost too much? He is seeking to commoditise them. Of course the flagship games from EA are generally very little in terms of new cost...incremental updates to the same engine with different datafiles in the case of most of the sports titles. Imagine if you could do that with movies! Well, apart from George Lucas anyway. I can't wait for the next Star Wars re-release to see who shoots first. Perhaps EA is hunting for a price war with competitors, being the big fish in the pond, perhaps they want to loss lead some titles to gutpunch the competition before christmas.
Perhaps they're just horribly envious of Blizzard's cash cow.
Perhaps they want to make cash gouging schemes like in game ads seem more legitimate... going for the free-to-air TV model instead of the home DVD sales model.
Who knows what it could be that he's really planning? One thing is for sure, it's a trap!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Yes, SNES and N64 carts cost more to manufacture than Disc based games do. It wasn't just this though- nintendo had some pretty draconian royalty policies in place as well. New games could and did cost up to $30 more than comparable PS1 games back in the day, and you can't tell me that was all just the cost of the cart itself.
But that's besides the point. What the OP was trying to point out is that since the advent of disc based games (say, 1995 or so) the cost of a AAA game has only risen 20%, from about $49.99 to $59.99.
I'll say that again. that's TWENTY PERCENT in about 12 years. Less than two percent a year- it's barely tracking the rate of inflation. Hell, it's probably LESS than the rate of inflation. Up until "next gen" the cost of gaming hadn't budged at all, and if you're still gaming on a PS2, GC, or Xbox1 it STILL hasn't.
People, the dollar is tanking. It's currently worth less than Canadian money. Imported goods are skyrocketing in cost, and even basic staples such as gas and food have doubled in cost or more. There's almost no other product you can point at that hasn't had a substantial price increase in the past twelve years, and yet somehow gamers expect the price of games to not move at all in twelve years? Seriously?
I believe they also follow that model in Sweden
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
This comment is so delayed that I doubt many people will read it, but I am going to post it anyway. I stopped buying video games years ago when I was a teenager. I don't have a console anymore. The last computer game I bought only runs on Windows 95/98. So what games do I play? Scrabble, Chess, Uno, Skipbo, Phase 10, Monopoly, Risk, Battleship, and the list keeps going. Do you want epic single player games? A good book or just some time day-dreaming. What do these cost? Depends on where you get them but the most I have spent is $20 for a very nice edition of Stratego. Some day I may break down and fork out the cash for Settlers of Catan or Princes of Florence. Books (from the library) and day-dreaming are free. I enjoy playing video games when I get the chance; I just don't think the enjoyment return on investment is worth the little bit of cash I have.
On another note: My last roommate had his NES and a bunch of games. I think it is amazing how much good game-play you could get out of it with so little graphics. Even though we had an xbox (or was it a play station?) available we spent much more of our time playing head-to-head Tetris II on the NES.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
I assembled my current box from parts of the old with a few upgrades - new proc and mobo, 1.5 gig of ram, and a new video card. I remember looking at this seething pile of power with a wistful sorrow - because I was leaving for a year in Europe a month later, and my box was staying home - and would be useless when I returned. When I got back - my specs were still above the recomended minimums.. fast forward another year - I'm just starting to think I may need more ram and a new graphics card - to stay way above spec.
I'll admit, I don't vigourously pursue the newest graphics card - those come out with trivial upgrades much more often - but the performance growth isn't significant. (IM~HO).
Anyway - the point is the upgrade cycle is the same as a console about 1x every 2.5 years.
-GiH
> People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.
... more ... more ... That would be a great new revenue model -- for EA. It's only the same model used by drug dealers :)
It's far more insidious than that. This is EA, the company known for (among other things) taking things that used to be standard features -- stripping them out -- then trying to sell them to you via micropayments. That is a "new revenue model". Sell the game cheap. Only it isn't the whole game. Most of the cool parts aren't there. Then you get nickeled and dimed to death buying the game that was supposed to be the game you just bought. Getting in is so easy, then you need more
Or how about charging people annual fees? Instead of 'buying' the game, you're only ever renting it. Want to put 150 hours on Disgaea 7? Well, gee, that gets kind of expensive. You should have played the 30 free hours that come with it, then bought the next one. Duh!
I for one do NOT welcome our new revenue model overlords. Call me crazy, but I'll stick with the devil I know. Here is my money -- now get out of my face and let me play *my* game. I have no interest in playing a "lower" price to be allowed to rent from you. You don't get to tell me how many times I can install the game, you don't get to tell me the game's not allowed to run because I haven't paid my subscription. And take those in-game ads and shove em where the sun don't shine (anyplace in your corporate headquarters should do fine, I suspect, what with all the blood-sucking vampires working out of the facility). *
* -- Note the presence of a teensy bit of exaggeration. In-game ads make sense in some instances -- but if I ever have to eat a Whopper to heal in Final Fantasy, I'll have to break out the can o' whup-ass.
Us Canadians are expected to pay $64.99 for games, and routinely have been expected to pay $69.99 as of this generation until very recently. PS2/X-Box/GCN generation consoles routinely sold games for $59.99 and no cheaper, and it looks like very soon they may actually drop us to parity with the USA on game prices, if we're lucky.
And our dollar is worth $1.05 US. Stop complaining, seriously.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I love it that he's finally realizing the huge budget over producerized games are too expensive. That's good for me, the small developer. As soon as EA stops thinking that a game has to be massive to be a success, little dev houses will start getting deals from EA again. That's a good thing. For me ;)
Play more games.
Aside from development costs, there's economics of scale. Compare the size of the game market today to what it was in the 80's. There are also a lot more games being made - Half Life 2 might have been a good shooter, but if Valve's asking price was $80, it would have given people second thoughts about where to spend their money.
They could start by allowing Aussies using EA direct download to download the US version of hellgate. Obviously with the Aussie dollar at 92 USC they get payed nearly twice at 89.95 AUD.
These people who are proud they don't spend over $2 are lairs, or are missing out. It is an awesome feeling to have the newest stuff. To play through a game knowing very few others have done the same thing is incredible. One of the best parts of getting something is the anticipation of getting it, aka release date (for some, Christmas). The other part is playing, the next perfection playing if it is a good game. I agree with this EA guy. It is harder to buy release day games now that they are more expensive. By the time they drop in price, I have lost interest. There are other games out by then. Too many game, not enough time. Might as well spend the time with the newest, greatest game and graphics.
I bought all these.
Rainbow Six: Vegas $50
Test Drive Unlimited $50
Arma: Combat Operations $50
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. $50
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars $60
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 $50
Bioshock $50
World in Conflict $50
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars $50
The Orange Box $45
Crysis Collector's Edition $60
that's $565 dollars excluding taxes and shipping for games that I bought this year.
That's money that really was meant for other things like food. As a PC gamer, I need to pay for upgrades to my computer to even play some of these.
And, I did. I spent over $700 this year for upgrades. next year, I plan to spend another $600.
Games really are expensive. eight games is the whole cost of a high-end console these days.
I can only hope that EA isn't thinking about cutting quality or jobs in the US. The money really needs to come out of the advertising budget.
EA should invest more in the G4 network to people who don't have it. It seems like a paradox though.
I'm a gamer. I know how to download games from Internet sources. I choose to buy games instead because I want to support them. I want more games.
That said, games used to be a much better value.
You would pay $30 for a game that would include over 60 hours of epic gameplay.
EA's latest SP/MP game, though multi-player, included 6 hours of single player content.
Here, EA is my brilliant idea. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST:
take a game like MOH:Airborne. Separate it.
Offer a single-player only version. Offer a multiplayer-only version. Offer a collectors edition with both and added content. Charge the $50 for it you were going to charge.
Charge $25 for the single-player only version. Charge $35 for the multiplayer-only version due to the associated costs of services.
Everyone gets what they want. You still get paid.
I buy some EA games every year. It's not about delivering everything to everyone.
Also, get your online distribution system geared up. I prefer buying games like that. Steam is the perfect model.
I don't need to worry about discs or keys. Steam handles it all for me. And, I don't have to keep the game installed. I can uninstall it and reinstall it when I want.
I always wanted to go back and re-play old games. I never had the disc or keys after so many years. Steam has me covered.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Believe it or not, I recall getting my mother to fork over $54 for Super Mario Brothers 3 (NES, 1990). I have no idea how I did that. But the important thing is that I got it 1 day before my friend!
That's about 90 bucks in today's worthless dollars.
$20, maybe 5-10 hours of gameplay.
So good I've played through (all the way) probably two and a half times in one weekend. Spend $50 on Orange Box, haven't played the rest of it (Ep 2), but Portal alone makes it worth it.
However, this is HARD to do, especially hard to do consistently. Event harder to make it fit in with a plot -- how many plots can a handheld portal-making device really fit into?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I don't know whether anyone has made a mention of this yet, but in Australia we pay a flat $100-$120AUD ($92-$110USD on Nov 02) for new games that come out which, frankly, sucks. When new games are announced, the first thing we find out is whether or not they are planning to release on Steam, or if we can buy them from overseas (not always legally). If the answers to both of those is "no", then we seriously reconsider the need to buy the game. Steam has made a huge difference to the accessibility of games to people in Australia, so yay for Valve, too. $60 for the OrangeBox is fantastic value by anyone's measure, and we'd all like to see more of it.
Voice actors are paid not too much more than an entry-level programmer or artist on an hourly basis, and the number of hours you need them relative to the number of *man-years* you will be chucking into getting your graphics up to snuff is insignificant. WoW's crazy-refined zones are the products of close to a thousand man years of development. The voices, by comparison, are a tacked-on joke. (Which, in WoW, is actually pretty funny. /funny)
Marketing costs as much or more than development, incidentally. It is a vicious cycle -- if you spend $40 million on development and need to sell about 2 million units to break even on that, then you're going to have TV advertisements and an advertising campaign and incentives to retailers and... to break even on that. Those cost money.
Oh, incidentally, about half of the sale price of every game is captured by the retailer. If you want my opinion, procedural content isn't the wave of the future. The wave of the future is cutting the retailer out of the transaction -- boom, the number of copies that you need to sell to break even just got halved. Similarly, online subscription (WoW: pay us a pittance for the retail box, then we'll extract a few hundred out of you over the next two years and you'll be happy to pay it) and "Play For Free" (Puzzle Pirates: surely unlocking that lovely ship is worth a buck to you) are going to be bigger than we can even conceive of right now.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
So um, in Australia, games are usually $100. That's around $90 US. So if you have a problem with a $60 game, you can pretty much shut the fuck up. kthnxbi.
I totally agree. Games, to me at least, seem to be cheaper than when I was a young whipper snapper.
I still remember buying Phantasy Star for the Master System for $110 (Canadian) after the taxes etc. (if I recall correctly, the price was due to the battery backup mechanism in the cart). I was happy to pay it mind you because: a) I was a kid and really didn't have my priorities straight. b) I was so excited about that game.
I got a tonne of hours out of that game though so, to me, it was worth it.
Oh wait, $110 Canadian after taxes...so maybe that was like $8 before taxes...
Note: I scammed or anything by paying that much (well, at least not by the retailer). That was the price of that game in Canada when it was released...actually I picked it up at Consumers Distributing so I probably got it a bit cheaper than on average (a moment of silence if you please for Consumers Distributing...).
Over here in the UK, new games for the 360 and PS3 can retail at up to £49 on the high street - that's around $100!
:(
Even taking salaries, cost of living, etc into account, the average next-gen video game costs plenty more over here
It's rarely more than 20% and since 1€ ~ 1.4$ there's really no good reason for the number on the pricetag being 10 higher here than in the US (this holds pretty much across all systems except the PC: last gen console: 60&euro, handheld 40€ Wii 50€ for games that cost 40$ in the US, PS3 and 360 70€). The effective price increase is between 50% and 100%, depending on the game.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Ireland has 21% VAT.
Yup...
I got that game too. No clue on how much it cost at the time or the exact year though.
I do know though that the Christmas after it was released, my mom payed around $70 for Street Fighter II Turbo (and an SNES to play it on which I think was either $149 or $199 at the time).
That was probably the most excited I've ever been to receive a game.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
"would LOVE to be able to buy a console that had games priced between $15 to $20. " :)
Buy a PS2 and hit the used game rack
I know you said that you already do that. If you don't have to have the latest and greatest then getting a console late in life and buying used is the way to go.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There, that's better.
I guess I'm one of the few people willing to spend more money on games, IF those games are large, fun, and expansive. Take, for example, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. A huge game with lots of content, easily worth it's $60 price tag. I personally would have split the game up into 2 parts, with a cliffhanger in the middle, making the total $120. I think this would have been more than fair.
Or MMORPGs, which cost $20 a month. Lots of people paying for those. Likewise, I could easily see an FPS like Battlefield 2 charging a monthly fee IF there was new content on regular basis.
What this guy is talking about amounts to abandoning the "hardcore" in favor of more casual gaming, and I think that's a serious mistake in the long run. Consoles can't compete on "free", and that's where the casual market is going.