There must be balance between common sense and being a producer to know what consumers want to pay for their games, because I did not like to hear one thing in this statement of alleged employee of THQ ...US$10 more per game because because next gen consoles have 10 times more power than ps360 ...I think the casual market with games spreading affordable would not be a good idea to encourage this policy of failing to give a shot in the foot.
Price of next-gen games *spawn
- Thread starter Heinrich4
- Start date
How else do you fund more content, especially with inflation? Expecting everything to priced the same forever is short-sighted. Remember that games used to cost ~$100 back in the 80s when people bought carts. The difference will be that the cost of ownership will be spread across transactions. Instead of buying the whole game at once, it'll be released in episodes or such. I was shocked to see on the PSN store that you could buy colours for customizing your White Knight Chronicles, £0.70 for 4 shades of green or something ludicrous. That's an extreme, but it's how things have to be, mixing free-to-play ideas with full-price ideas.
It'll be interesting to see if Wuu games have a £5 price premium on account of higher quality assets or not. I imagine some publishers will try it, but then charging different amounts for the same game (COD) may generate negative PR.
upnorthsox
Veteran
And yet, they don't charge more for higher asset PC games. In fact, they charge less.
Yeah, they might not get away with it, but then if just higher res models and textures, it wouldn't cost them more. Next-gen,with more content, there'll have to be a price increase. If Wuu gets bigger games, I expect a price premium. Nintendo will certainly be able to ask for it on some of their titles. Te latest, greatest Zelda could come in at £5 more than the average and be accepted I reckon.
upnorthsox
Veteran
Well the thing with Nintendo is that they'll be increasing $$ already just to get to the same level as PS360 games so adding another $5 may not seem too much of a stretch.
In general though, I wouldn't expect more content next gen. Better content yes, but more............I'm doubtful.
In general though, I wouldn't expect more content next gen. Better content yes, but more............I'm doubtful.
Very interesting points you bring here.
But Shifty we have to see (or imagine,especulate whateaver) what consumers pay for content, because with the spread of casual market started with the Wii and being further developed with smartphones and tablets that can pretty much do consumers think it is really worth it for content that costs US$70.
I speak here not of relationship and games and its complexity per se and inflation,econumics, but the subjective impression that many may begin to question whether it really worth spending US$70 per game, as they were accustomed to paying US$40-60 for almost two decades. maybe a shot in the foot if it is then that mindset, because the video game market needs to reinvent itself, with challenges to enhance the latent print has the casual market starting from 2006.
The market will always decide the price of goods as too expensive and people won't buy. But people also can't expect the price of goods to remain static, and they accept ever-increasing prices wtih everything else, so why not games? There's also an expectation that games will get better, which will come with a cost. As I say, I expect the psychology of more expensive games to be side-stepped via DLC. U2 probably cost most folk a good $10 more than the original RRP because they bought the DLC. There's not a lot of cost involved in such a map pack, reusing engine and assets already created for the game. There'll also be episodic content. Whether a publisher can afford to go with online-delivery only, I don't know. Perhaps a game could be sold as requiring internet access, and then at a later date an anniversary release with the content is made available for those who don't go online?
It's worth nothing that, according to ShopTo, Uncharted 3 has a higher RRP than other PS3 titles. anf FIFA 12. Both are listed as RRP £55 versus a usual £50 RRP. I don't think anyone actually pays that in the UK, and the average selling price of games is probably well under £40, but the RRP is already up to $70 or so in some cases.
It's worth nothing that, according to ShopTo, Uncharted 3 has a higher RRP than other PS3 titles. anf FIFA 12. Both are listed as RRP £55 versus a usual £50 RRP. I don't think anyone actually pays that in the UK, and the average selling price of games is probably well under £40, but the RRP is already up to $70 or so in some cases.
I still wish for a "Neo Geo" style super system even today, and wouldn't mind paying a premium for it's games, provided of course they provided a graphical premium. Something like $80.
Of course while I like the idea, anything outside of mass market isn't tenable in videogames anymore.
The question whether manufacturers tack another 10 bucks to games next gen is an interesting one. I'm not philosophically opposed to price increases, especially since I know how inflation works.
I'm not sure they'll actually do it though. Even though intellectually I know that $60 is a bargain compared to the 50-70 (much more inflation adjusted) I used to pay for short SNES games with no multiplayer or online, 60 bucks still feels like a lot.
Of course while I like the idea, anything outside of mass market isn't tenable in videogames anymore.
The question whether manufacturers tack another 10 bucks to games next gen is an interesting one. I'm not philosophically opposed to price increases, especially since I know how inflation works.
I'm not sure they'll actually do it though. Even though intellectually I know that $60 is a bargain compared to the 50-70 (much more inflation adjusted) I used to pay for short SNES games with no multiplayer or online, 60 bucks still feels like a lot.
But what I don't get is why are all the games similarly priced? There is little doubt that the cost of making a game varies greatly, even for the ones that are sold on disc, but still they all launch at the same initial price, how come. Why don't we see low budget games that come at lower prices. I know that it is similar for the movies, music and so on but apart from that you can either use price or quality to compete and wee see that in almost any industry, but to me it seems that price is not variable used for competing in gaming, apart from the price reduction we see after a few months and so on...
For the same reason movie tickets don't vary based on how much the movie cost to make, as you noticed. It's a sensible standardisation were everyone knows where they are and publishers know a reaistic budget to work to. If they overreach that, more fool them. It also gives the opportunity of a cheapo creation selling gangbusters and making huge profits, like the Blair Witch Project - if tickets for that film were priced at what it cost, they'd have been about 25 cents each and it wouldn't have been the hugely profitable success it was.
It's also worth mentioning that some games vary. We had some more budget titles launch at the beginning of this gen IIRC, and I don't think that served them terribly well. Given that the price of games also drops depending on demand, there's no real reason to launch at a lower price and miss out on some extra money from your most enthusiastic customers. Release at full price and have the price drop over time (prices are very flexible at retail) and make the most at each price band you can. In fact publishers have complained about price competition in the UK dropping prices too quickly and giving UK customers an unrealistic idea of what they should expect for their money.
PC ports are priced lower because there's no royalty to pay to the platform holder. But rest assured, if the console market didn't exist, those games wouldn't even get made.
They have started moving to $59 for PC as well.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
To be honest i don't buy the whole "funding more content" excuse. Next Gen there's no reason why they can't use the same High Fidelity source assets that they already make for current gen games next gen. Plus with the greater processing power of the machines things like real-time radiosity and real time GI implimentations will be possible, therefore negating the need to spend time and money baking lighting data into textures etc. procedural generation techinques can also be employed, and depending on how tesselation takes off or not, that may or may not help in the creation of the various LOD assets that devs need to create. So in all i reckon dev costs for big budget games can go down provided pubs and devs are sensible about the scope of their projects next-gen. There's no excuse for increasing the retail RRP of games above £40/$60 because it's already reached a point where this model has become unsustainable.
Basically, by increasing games costs anymore you'll be driving far more gamers away from buying dayone and far more gamers towards the used-games market. If Sony/MS/Nintendo and their 3rd party partners are smart then they'll focus on pushing DD more next gen with aggressive prices, whilst getting in to new partnership deals with non-game specific retailers like Walmart, and Tescos in the UK to push HW sales through those channels, therefore takign their reliance away from game-specific retailers like Gamestop/Game etc to sell their HW & games. DD will be the future if HW platform holders can relinquish their love/hate relationship with current game retailers and allow those prehistoric relics to die the death that they should have long ago. Then the content producers will get the bigger slice of the pie they deserve, games will sell better and for much longer at lower prices, and the entire industry will be healthier in the long-run.
I can only dream right
That's higher quality assets, not more content. If all you want from next-gen is the same as this gen with more polycounts and higher texture quality, fine. But if you want your games richer and more varied, we need more content - more textures for more varied buildings; more models for more varied characters; more variety in crowds, vehicles, environments, etc.
On PC the devs/publishers are getting much more per-sale as they won't give 30-50% of the box price to retailer if they sell through DD
upnorthsox
Veteran
How many full-disk sized games can I digitally purchase and download for PS3/XB? How big sums reach devs/publishers through those channels compared to e.g Steam (70%)?
If those graphs are to believed DD on PC was something like 5-7x bigger than retail.
