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Post by decafhigh on Mar 15, 2019 21:30:41 GMT
Nothing. If EA tells Bioware to add multi-player they don't really have much choice. Or even if BW just feels like adding it they aren't going to stop just because the fans don't want it.
They only thing you can really do is vote with your wallet and not buy games from them that include MP components.
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Post by decafhigh on Mar 15, 2019 21:42:33 GMT
Pino @ Belvcon @pinotoriousThere are too many things going against a shortish solo experience. Youtube, Let's Plays, twitch streams, piracy, reselling. It's very hard to make money with that stuff in AAA these days. Ha... hahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, phew, that was a good one. Hard for AAA to make money these days.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 15, 2019 23:15:14 GMT
Pino @ Belvcon @pinotoriousThere are too many things going against a shortish solo experience. Youtube, Let's Plays, twitch streams, piracy, reselling. It's very hard to make money with that stuff in AAA these days. Ha... hahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, phew, that was a good one. Hard for AAA to make money these days. Slow down with that blistering take there. In fact there are many ways that video games are at a disadvantage when it comes to making money, traditionally speaking anyways. TV shows force commercials on us, movies are still far more embedded in the culture and tend to make a killing in ticket sales, and then DVD sales, and then merchandizing, and books tend to be fairly cheaper to produce then anything else (as well as the occasional book deal which gets turned into a movie or a tv show which then nets the author millions). For decades games have pretty much only had games themselves to make money off of. And its a one time purchase too. Couple that with the mere idea that video games are also ever growing in terms of budgets, rivaling that of Hollywood movies these days, and you should begin to get a picture of why its not only understandable why game companies are trying to find more revenue streams, but neccessary to the survival of the industry as a whole. I mean sure, yes, there is an obvious market out there for games that are smaller, tighter, more 'movie' like in their story and presentation and take anywhere from 10-20 hours to complete and are reletively cheaper. But it is just as obvious that there is a market out there for these bigger more complicated 'open world' games which feature things like RPG elements, branching storylines, branching choices, and complicated characters that could take anywhere between 50-100 + hours to complete. These games cost money. The whole reason a company exisists is to make money, not only for itself so people can still have jobs doing what they love.
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 15, 2019 23:38:43 GMT
Casey Hudson and Jon Warner, during the IGN interviews, were saying that EA had no claim on the game and 8t was their idea. Therefore, Anthems release state is entirely on them. Less so on Casey Hudson, who wasn't around for most of Anthem's development.
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Post by decafhigh on Mar 16, 2019 0:03:29 GMT
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Post by colfoley on Mar 16, 2019 1:16:10 GMT
Those articles are talking about two entirely different things so its hard to effectively argue against something on such rickety foundations. But I will do so anyways. When it comes to revenue/ sales that specifically was not what I was talking about. What a company makes in sales in fact is quite irrelevant to my argument considering all I am concerned with is profit. This is doubly true since what a company makes in sales has to be weighed against what a company's business costs are, and since I already pointed out that games are getting more and more expensive to make all the time means that, theoretically, a game company could actually be making less...in profit...no matter how much they move in terms of sales based on production costs, what they have to pay their people, and the many, many other costs in making a video game in the modern 21st centure. Complicating the issue still further is that, according to I believe that mojoplays video that has been making the rounds lately, for some reason live service elements and microtransactions are a significant part in video game sales these days. So game companies may be making fewer units overall, but those same companies are actually making more because....apparently...MTs are hot sellers. Secondly, when it comes to profit, I don't care how much a company earns...in profit...a company can make $1 or one billion dollars more then what they have spent, as long as they continue to make products that I want to buy I never begrudge anyone the desire to make money.
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Post by decafhigh on Mar 16, 2019 2:50:32 GMT
When it comes to revenue/ sales that specifically was not what I was talking about. What a company makes in sales in fact is quite irrelevant to my argument considering all I am concerned with is profit. We are all adults here, everyone understands the difference between revenue and profit. You are just trying to avoid admitting these companies are making tons and tons of money. Complicating the issue still further is that, according to I believe that mojoplays video that has been making the rounds lately, for some reason live service elements and microtransactions are a significant part in video game sales these days. According to EA themselves micro-transactions "do not have a material impact on earnings". They have said as much on 2 separate occasions, once in regards to the Battlefront II debacle and again when Belgium outlawed their FIFA loot boxes. www.pcgamer.com/ea-tells-investors-turning-off-battlefront-2s-microtransactions-will-not-affect-earnings/www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/01/29/fifa-ultimate-team-packs-blocked-in-belgium/They can't "not have a material impact on earnings" and "be required for them to make profit" at the same time. In fact that is about as mutually exclusive as you can get. So no, I don't buy for a moment the assertion that these companies "have trouble making money" or that games are just "too expensive to make" without predatory micro-transaction schemes.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 16, 2019 3:04:32 GMT
When it comes to revenue/ sales that specifically was not what I was talking about. What a company makes in sales in fact is quite irrelevant to my argument considering all I am concerned with is profit. We are all adults here, everyone understands the difference between revenue and profit. You are just trying to avoid admitting these companies are making tons and tons of money. Complicating the issue still further is that, according to I believe that mojoplays video that has been making the rounds lately, for some reason live service elements and microtransactions are a significant part in video game sales these days. According to EA themselves micro-transactions "do not have a material impact on earnings". They have said as much on 2 separate occasions, once in regards to the Battlefront II debacle and again when Belgium outlawed their FIFA loot boxes. www.pcgamer.com/ea-tells-investors-turning-off-battlefront-2s-microtransactions-will-not-affect-earnings/www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/01/29/fifa-ultimate-team-packs-blocked-in-belgium/They can't "not have a material impact on earnings" and "be required for them to make profit" at the same time. In fact that is about as mutually exclusive as you can get. So no, I don't buy for a moment the assertion that these companies "have trouble making money" or that games are just "too expensive to make" without predatory micro-transaction schemes. I have had no trouble admitting how much money they are making... Because i don't care how much money they're making. In fact I want them to be making all the money they can because i want them to continue doing well and continue making games that i like playing with hopefully greater quality. Ah. I did not hear them say that. However i must point out that if it didn't make these companies at least some money then they wouldn't be doung them. I'm also really curious to see what a predatory microtransaction looks like. I wonder if they feed on goldfish or just bank accounts.
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Post by decafhigh on Mar 16, 2019 3:14:30 GMT
I'm also really curious to see what a predatory microtransaction looks like. I wonder if they feed on goldfish or just bank accounts. I don't have any issues with these companies making money, but when their desire to get kids hooked on gambling simulators and blatant Skinner Box manipulation schemes starts to drive down the quality of the games they make, well its time to start pushing back. If you are happy with getting games where the only polished part of the game is the cash shop, well more power to you I guess.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 16, 2019 3:33:37 GMT
I'm also really curious to see what a predatory microtransaction looks like. I wonder if they feed on goldfish or just bank accounts. I don't have any issues with these companies making money, but when their desire to get kids hooked on gambling simulators and blatant Skinner Box manipulation schemes starts to drive down the quality of the games they make, well its time to start pushing back. If you are happy with getting games where the only polished part of the game is the cash shop, well more power to you I guess. the issue here is that has not been true of a single game with any MP component/ lootbox scheme I've played. Everything from Mass Effect 3 to Assassins Creed Odyssey and a lot in between from many different genres. I've never felt taken advantage of and I've never felt that these companies are hiding quality content in their lootboxes and it's something game companies are getting better at all the time. If i have an issue with anything i just don't buy it, its that simple. Including never paying a single cent on a microtransaction. Also microtransactions can't target kids since kids, at least in every country that is likely to be a market for video games, don't have buying power. It's their parents that do. And frankly if ma and pa gives little Timmy the credit card number and he blows it on MTs then i hope they learn their lesson. Same if Timmy blows his allowance then wonders where all his money went.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 16, 2019 7:13:16 GMT
I don't have any issues with these companies making money, but when their desire to get kids hooked on gambling simulators and blatant Skinner Box manipulation schemes starts to drive down the quality of the games they make, well its time to start pushing back. If you are happy with getting games where the only polished part of the game is the cash shop, well more power to you I guess. the issue here is that has not been true of a single game with any MP component/ lootbox scheme I've played. Everything from Mass Effect 3 to Assassins Creed Odyssey and a lot in between from many different genres. I've never felt taken advantage of and I've never felt that these companies are hiding quality content in their lootboxes and it's something game companies are getting better at all the time. If i have an issue with anything i just don't buy it, its that simple. Including never paying a single cent on a microtransaction. Also microtransactions can't target kids since kids, at least in every country that is likely to be a market for video games, don't have buying power. It's their parents that do. And frankly if ma and pa gives little Timmy the credit card number and he blows it on MTs then i hope they learn their lesson. Same if Timmy blows his allowance then wonders where all his money went. Children are more resourceful than you think, man. They can steal credit cards. It's easy to blame the parents for every single instance, but the only way to be sure that it never happens is to a) only have one child, and have one parent watching that child every single second. I think that's an unfair ask.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 16, 2019 7:17:43 GMT
the issue here is that has not been true of a single game with any MP component/ lootbox scheme I've played. Everything from Mass Effect 3 to Assassins Creed Odyssey and a lot in between from many different genres. I've never felt taken advantage of and I've never felt that these companies are hiding quality content in their lootboxes and it's something game companies are getting better at all the time. If i have an issue with anything i just don't buy it, its that simple. Including never paying a single cent on a microtransaction. Also microtransactions can't target kids since kids, at least in every country that is likely to be a market for video games, don't have buying power. It's their parents that do. And frankly if ma and pa gives little Timmy the credit card number and he blows it on MTs then i hope they learn their lesson. Same if Timmy blows his allowance then wonders where all his money went. Children are more resourceful than you think, man. They can steal credit cards. It's easy to blame the parents for every single instance, but the only way to be sure that it never happens is to a) only have one child, and have one parent watching that child every single second. I think that's an unfair ask. I didn't say anything about blame but the responsibility for the kid's actions certainly rests with the parent. So, sure, they can certainly steal anything they like but ultimatley it is up to the parent to teach the kid right from wrong and to ensure their kid does not use their resources frivolously.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 16, 2019 15:22:09 GMT
Children are more resourceful than you think, man. They can steal credit cards. It's easy to blame the parents for every single instance, but the only way to be sure that it never happens is to a) only have one child, and have one parent watching that child every single second. I think that's an unfair ask. I didn't say anything about blame but the responsibility for the kid's actions certainly rests with the parent. So, sure, they can certainly steal anything they like but ultimatley it is up to the parent to teach the kid right from wrong and to ensure their kid does not use their resources frivolously. Don't worry about defending this point too hard, it very rarely actually happens with younger kids, and older ones do have some buying power of their own, with allowances and youth jobs and increased awareness of what's actually on offer to them. Young kids are very pragmatic, they usually know by instinct that whining and begging and manipulating mommy and daddy emotionally is a much bigger and more reliable revenue stream than trying to actually go for their money directly. Kind of like little video game companies. Even soft and undisciplined parents tend to crack down hard on their children stealing, because it's such an obviously stupid and self-destructive habit not to discourage. And there's never a time when getting the whole house cleaned top-to-bottom for free wouldn't be nice. But yeah, kids will want to use their money for micro-transactions, or beg their parents to pay for them. There's just no way around that, once your child starts playing games that include them. Fiscal responsibility is almost impossible to teach a kid without literally working them to the bone for the money first, giving them real reason to feel protective of their hard-earned wages. And these days that approach is considered borderline child abuse. And they build shit carports. Because for some reason schools insist on teaching them history they have no chance of understanding yet instead of proper trigonometry early on.
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Post by biggydx on Mar 16, 2019 20:53:36 GMT
Pino @ Belvcon @pinotoriousThere are too many things going against a shortish solo experience. Youtube, Let's Plays, twitch streams, piracy, reselling. It's very hard to make money with that stuff in AAA these days. Ha... hahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, phew, that was a good one. Hard for AAA to make money these days. I happened to come across a destructoid article where Amy Hennig described the climate surrounding singleplayer games, and her struggles with getting a singleplayer, Star Wars game off the ground at EA. In it, she stated the following: I proposed a poll on a gaming forum (GameFAQ's) asking the question: "Would you pay $60 for an 8hr campaign with no additional features?" While a majority of players said that they would, an almost equal number also stated that they wouldn't. gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/691087-playstation-4/77551530This isn't me saying that short story campaigns don't have merit. We've likely all played games at the same price but with far less story to them. But I think in this day and age, when you see what other developers are capable of putting into their games for $60, a game that's only 8hrs long is a much harder sell not only to publishers, but to players as well. If you're having to pick between The Witcher 3/RDR2, or Uncharted 2, which do you grab first? I'd also argue that game with longer campaigns do boost a games visibility, because the player likely won't be able to finish them in less than 2 two days. Games like TW3, AC:Odyssey, RDR2, Spiderman, GTA, and countless other open world games, have benefited from increased viewership longevity.
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Post by river82 on Mar 16, 2019 21:01:21 GMT
This isn't me saying that short story campaigns don't have merit. We've likely all played games at the same price but with far less story to them. But I think in this day and age, when you see what other developers are capable of putting into their games for $60, a game that's only 8hrs long is a much harder sell not only to publishers, but to players as well. If you're having to pick between The Witcher 3/RDR2, or Uncharted 2, which do you grab first? Triple A games need to move to the $100 (US) price point so there is room at the $60 level for small, single player games (let's call them 'AA' ... this term has so little meaning)
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Post by melbella on Mar 16, 2019 21:32:09 GMT
"Would you pay $60 for an 8hr campaign with no additional features?" If it's a one and done? No. Can I play as multiple protaganists and make different choices so I'm effectively getting maybe 5 8hr games in one? Then maybe. 8 hrs is way too short, and if it costs a butt load of money to make, then my guess is most of it is cutscenes so I'm basically watching a movie instead of playing a game.
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Post by biggydx on Mar 16, 2019 21:45:35 GMT
"Would you pay $60 for an 8hr campaign with no additional features?" If it's a one and done? No. Can I play as multiple protaganists and make different choices so I'm effectively getting maybe 5 8hr games in one? Then maybe. 8 hrs is way too short, and if it costs a butt load of money to make, then my guess is most of it is cutscenes so I'm basically watching a movie instead of playing a game. I couldn't either (at least not at that price).
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Post by Frost on Mar 16, 2019 21:56:58 GMT
I happened to come across a destructoid article where Amy Hennig described the climate surrounding singleplayer games, and her struggles with getting a singleplayer, Star Wars game off the ground at EA. In it, she stated the following: I proposed a poll on a gaming forum (GameFAQ's) asking the question: "Would you pay $60 for an 8hr campaign with no additional features?" While a majority of players said that they would, an almost equal number also stated that they wouldn't. gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/691087-playstation-4/77551530This isn't me saying that short story campaigns don't have merit. We've likely all played games at the same price but with far less story to them. But I think in this day and age, when you see what other developers are capable of putting into their games for $60, a game that's only 8hrs long is a much harder sell not only to publishers, but to players as well. If you're having to pick between The Witcher 3/RDR2, or Uncharted 2, which do you grab first? I'd also argue that game with longer campaigns do boost a games visibility, because the player likely won't be able to finish them in less than 2 two days. Games like TW3, AC:Odyssey, RDR2, Spiderman, GTA, and countless other open world games, have benefited from increased viewership longevity. I agree that 8 hours is very short for a $60 game. However, when Bioware made single-player-only games, they were never only 8 hours long.
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Post by decafhigh on Mar 16, 2019 23:10:59 GMT
I proposed a poll on a gaming forum (GameFAQ's) asking the question: "Would you pay $60 for an 8hr campaign with no additional features?" While a majority of players said that they would, an almost equal number also stated that they wouldn't. $60 for an 8 hour game? No way. $10 or $15, maybe if it is a quality 8 hours. Triple A games need to move to the $100 (US) price point so there is room at the $60 level for small, single player games (let's call them 'AA' ... this term has so little meaning) Uh I think you are going the wrong way there. The only game I have played in the last decade I would spend $100 on would have been Skyrim since I got sooooo many hours out of that game. And that is only because of the mod community behind it. For $60 a mid-tier SP AAA game should be in the 25 to 60 hour range, that seems like the sweet spot. And is inline with past Bioware titles like ME and DA. Obviously companies that want to go above and beyond like Rockstar/CDPR make games that give a lot more than that, but I don't expect everyone, certainly not a studio owned by EA, to go above and beyond.
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Post by Iakus on Mar 16, 2019 23:16:55 GMT
I have spent $60 on 20-30 hour SP games. Provided they have a high replayability factor.
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 16, 2019 23:18:34 GMT
Without knowing the expenditures necessary to produce that revenue, knowing the amount of revenue tells us exactly nothing. I'm not saying that EA isn't profitable; it's just that your argument is silly. You need the profits, not the revenues.
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Post by biggydx on Mar 17, 2019 0:50:11 GMT
I have spent $60 on 20-30 hour SP games. Provided they have a high replayability factor. Sounds about right, or the game in question also gets free additional content down the road. God of War was like this, where they added new game plus, up'd the difficulty, and added in new items for players to go after. One I enjoyed was Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Though I wish that game didn't end so abruptly, I still enjoyed the 20hr campaign experience, and it offered other ways to handle various situations. I'm sure there are better examples, but that's one I can think of.
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Post by AlleluiaElizabeth on Mar 22, 2019 5:16:31 GMT
This isn't me saying that short story campaigns don't have merit. We've likely all played games at the same price but with far less story to them. But I think in this day and age, when you see what other developers are capable of putting into their games for $60, a game that's only 8hrs long is a much harder sell not only to publishers, but to players as well. If you're having to pick between The Witcher 3/RDR2, or Uncharted 2, which do you grab first? Triple A games need to move to the $100 (US) price point so there is room at the $60 level for small, single player games (let's call them 'AA' ... this term has so little meaning) Uh, no. Companies need to control their budgets better. Game dev prices are clearly inflated if, for example, selling 5 million copies of a $60 dollar game is considered "breaking even". That's 300 million dollars. That's more than the annual budget expenditures of all but 15 of the world's 200+ countries. I don't know if its the technology development expense, or the salaries, or stupid licensing agreements, or stupid expensive marketing, but something has to give. $100 for a video game is most certainly not the answer and completely unacceptable, not to mention it damn sure won't work. You think sales aren't covering expenses *now*? Raise the price $40 dollars.
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Post by river82 on Mar 22, 2019 6:15:00 GMT
selling 5 million copies of a $60 dollar game is considered "breaking even". That's 300 million dollars. askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/138674831501/hello-i-have-a-question-regarding-the-maths-ofThis may change with the digital marketplace though. EA's own digital platform, and Epic's digital platform etc So publishers don't really get to keep all that money, somewhere between 50-70% maybe. The biggest expense is usually salary. Ubisoft and EA back in 2014 had over 9,000 employees each. Say they get paid 50k a year. 9,000*50k = $450 million. And if they ramp up developer size for full production it's going to cost more. www.kotaku.com.au/2014/04/ubisoft-has-over-9000-employees/ So the ballooning dev size brought about by greater demand in graphics (higher res graphics tends to balloon employee count) combined with publishers not getting anywhere near full amount of the retail price tends to mean AAA gaming is a hard place to survive. There's fewer and fewer companies but they're growing larger and larger. Who knows what the solution is, but people keep saying it's just not sustainable
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Post by colfoley on Mar 22, 2019 7:47:17 GMT
selling 5 million copies of a $60 dollar game is considered "breaking even". That's 300 million dollars. askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/138674831501/hello-i-have-a-question-regarding-the-maths-ofThis may change with the digital marketplace though. EA's own digital platform, and Epic's digital platform etc So publishers don't really get to keep all that money, somewhere between 50-70% maybe. The biggest expense is usually salary. Ubisoft and EA back in 2014 had over 9,000 employees each. Say they get paid 50k a year. 9,000*50k = $450 million. And if they ramp up developer size for full production it's going to cost more. www.kotaku.com.au/2014/04/ubisoft-has-over-9000-employees/ So the ballooning dev size brought about by greater demand in graphics (higher res graphics tends to balloon employee count) combined with publishers not getting anywhere near full amount of the retail price tends to mean AAA gaming is a hard place to survive. There's fewer and fewer companies but they're growing larger and larger. Who knows what the solution is, but people keep saying it's just not sustainable *whispers on the breeze* Liver service...constant revenue stream.
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