Spare-Flair
Supreme [H]ardness
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Except for the fact that they are splitting up the game into three separate purchases?
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Are PC games going to be priced at $60 now?
- Thread starter Zepher
- Start date
Except for the fact that they are splitting up the game into three separate purchases?
No, they're splitting the single player up, but making each part as long as the entire first game. The MP is fully featured, which is what most people seem to care about anyway. And they haven't announced a damn thing on what they consider the next two parts. If they count them as expanions then they will be 30-40, if not then well we'll see.
To be honest I dont mind when games like that are $60 because I get a lot more time out of them (although I still wait until they come down in price). Its when games like AC2 come out at $60, when you're only going to get 1 play through which only takes a night or two to complete.
spindoctor
Gawd
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You won't finish AC2 in 'a night or two'
. It's easily a 20-25 hour game, and possibly more depending on how much you want to complete apart from the main story.You won't finish AC2 in 'a night or two'
Yeah, AC2 is a surprisingly long game - you really get something for your money.
Now, Splinter Cell: Conviction, thats a short game.
siliconnerd
[H]ard|Gawd
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It would be easily a night in the winter months of Alaska.You won't finish AC2 in 'a night or two'
You won't finish AC2 in 'a night or two'
So a few nights then
I still haven't picked up AC2 thanks to the DRM, as much as I want to play it But even at 20-25 hours its still hardly worth $60, I was comparing it more to games that are several times that amount of gameplay time.
spindoctor
Gawd
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But even at 20-25 hours its still hardly worth $60, I was comparing it more to games that are several times that amount of gameplay time.
Value for money is a subjective and personal opinion, so there isn't much point debating it. However, I do think that using the number of gaming hours obtained per dollar spent is a pretty stupid metric to judge the quality and value of a game. For one, what is the benchmark? You can get more than 200 hours out of a Fallout 3 or a Dragon Age for 50$. You can get 2000 hours out of a Team Fortress 2 for 30$. Now which other games are going to match up to that? Does it mean that every 10 hour shooter (which is basically all of them these days) is worth less than 2.5$? And speaking of AC2, if a 25 hour game is not worth 60$, that would mean that any 50$ game that is less than 20 hours is not worth it either yea? That would rule out entire genres of games from the past 5 years. Most of them, in fact, unless they are RPG/multiplayer. Which is fine, of course, but then don't limit your objection to AC2 alone. Say that you have a problem with the value for money with almost every game that gets released.
For the record, AC2 lasted 27 hours for me. It's also the best game I've played this year (and I've played all the major ones). In fact, I'd go as far as to saying it's a GOTY candidate.
I only used AC2 as an example because its a recent single player console style action/adventure game that costs $60. You're correct in saying that value is subjective, I really dont want to argue that point as it goes no where at only. Only to say that to me $60 (or even $50) for a relatively short action/adventure game is hard to justify next to cheaper games which have far more content. The only games I would ever pay close to full price are those I know I'll get a lot of time out of, or want to be on the new release hype band wagon. When it comes to single player action/adventure, it seems much more logical to pick it up when it halves in price a few months later.
Shalafi
Fully [H]
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Everyone who buys PC games @ $60 is just engaging in a Pyrrhic victory
oilfieldtrash
Limp Gawd
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I refuse to pay $60 or $50 for that matter. Once they hit $40 or below I'll take a look.
GoldenTiger
Fully [H]
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Yeah I should have waited on bfbc2 myself... have been with most games lately. Works well.
The buyer is?
I would have understood if you had said the publisher. They're driving away some loyal gamers from an already small market by raising prices in what is still a pretty lean economy.
The buyers are the one deciding the cost of price hikes, and whether or not they will be a victory for the publishers at all. Consumers are just deciding what they perceive the value of games to be.
MW2 is pushing this norm.
It's simple economics. See: economies of scale.
It is. Year and year growth has been fairly slow, but consistent and steady. From 2008 to 2009, overall growth in was in the 3% range, according to a PCGA-sponsored study.
I wonder why
I wonder why
Any other answer than: They cost too damn much to make is no valid.
Let's stop pretending for a moment. We all know net profits are, effectively, gross profits minus the cost to develop/produce, market and distribute products. It's not just development/marketing costs (and other associated costs): it's also gross sales. Insufficient sales — insufficient sales volume — to yield net profits could be attributed to...! Take a guess.
We can simply blame high development costs or we can take a reasonable view of the situation and understand that development and marketing costs are only one part of a multi-part equation.
We can simply blame high development costs or we can take a reasonable view of the situation and understand that development and marketing costs are only one part of a multi-part equation.
Even at $60 people are buying exponentially more copies of games on consoles than ever before. The problem is most of those sales are towards a few big franchises. And of course development costs for a AAA title went from a few million last generation to tens of millions. You can bring up a point and say "well maybe they would sell more at a lower price", but I'm pretty sure people with a lot more knowledge than you or I have done a lot of research on this and told companies where they should be at to maximize potential profit.
Now of course thats only for the console market. The PC market is entirely different as a lot of the marketing costs are lowered or simply removed and I've never seen and statistics pointing specifically at that market. So for all we know PC games have a higher success ratio. Or maybe they have a lower one. And I wonder how the 70% number I gave before relates to years ago when development cost was significantly less.
I just think it's unrealistic to discount the possibility that so many commercial failures in PC games are not solely due to soaring development costs. Certainly rising costs complicate the business of development and publishing tremendously, but it's shortsighted to assume that it's the primary cause of commercial failure rather than what could very well be just a small part of it. The blame may very well lie predominantly with undesirable games: games that are lacking in innovation, production quality (despite high development budgets), bugs, hardware incompatibilities, draconian DRM (which is too significant to discount) and so on.
These kinds of issues are brought to light here and on review sites, magazines and so forth. A DRM-ridden game will receive an untold number of 1-star reviews on Amazon (AC2 is sitting at 1.5/5 stars at the moment; conviction 2 stars), and this kind of consumer-to-consumer word of mouth most assuredly drive down sales.
It's a self-created rut. In the grand scheme of things, development costs are probably small potatoes.
These kinds of issues are brought to light here and on review sites, magazines and so forth. A DRM-ridden game will receive an untold number of 1-star reviews on Amazon (AC2 is sitting at 1.5/5 stars at the moment; conviction 2 stars), and this kind of consumer-to-consumer word of mouth most assuredly drive down sales.
It's a self-created rut. In the grand scheme of things, development costs are probably small potatoes.
There is no hard sales data on PC games to give a clear picture how any of it truly effects anything. These companies have people on staff who they pay to watch sales and watch consumer reactions to gauge how much of an effect specific decisions will have on games. Very few gamers are like those of us on this site. Most of them, even PC games I'd bet, don't read a lot of game sites. They go in cold to games and buy what looks cool. Word of mouth helps (and hurts), but I don't believe its as significant as it used to be. Hell most people don't have a clue what DRM is, even among the core PC gamer crowd. But again, without hard sales data a lot of it is conjecture right now.
Innovation isn't a factor at all. Gamers a fucking hypocrites when it comes to that shit. They scream about innovation and ignore good games that do things a little differently instead opting to buy Call of Duty 506.
Because they've proven people will pay $60 for it. They would have been idiots to charge $50 on the PC when they're selling at record setting rates for $60 on the consoles.
they set prices that way for a reason. alot of people dont care and want to play the game as soon as it's out.
There is a price point where people will start to refuse to buy. Or simply won't be able to afford to buy.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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While I'm never a fan of price increases at the same time I want these guys to be able to make decent money from their PC games. I'm all for good profit because I do think that's the best bet that you'll see future efforts for the PC. So a few early adopters I don't mind paying a little extra as long as their are deals and sales quickly ensuing. But that's just me.
Why pay money to watch a movie at the theaters when you can just wait till your local cable company shows the movie for free on tv.
Its not free, you're paying for the cable.
WabeWalker
Supreme [H]ardness
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Desperation?
1) Each game is about as long as Starcraft and Brood War. Wings Of Liberty has 28 missions. Each expansion will be about the same length, look at Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne and Brood War for example.
2) We do not know what the expansions will cost, but based on past history I would guess $30 since that's what Frozen Throne was. We will see.
So you aren't getting a $60 split into three 10 mission games, you're getting 3x the content you would had they not released an expansion at all. You have nothing to complain about.
firas
2[H]4U
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too many leachers ah well thats life
$60 is a good price, the game is worth it, didn't play it yet but I recommend it, have fun and all, thank you very much
ah well thats life $60 is a good price, the game is worth it, didn't play it yet but I recommend it, have fun and all, thank you very much
pigwalk
[H]F Junkie
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Because movie theatres suck ass?
+1
It's just greed, or as they like to call it...capitilism, driving the 'new' market. These companies now do polls to guage the level of anticipation prior to release.They then hike up the price based on that, because they know guys will buy the game at what ever they charge.Remember not so long ago when a really good pc game started sales at $39.95? They went straight to $59.95...a $20 increase, despite the fact that more games are now being downloaded and packaging cost are down from previous...(no more giant boxes, etc..). I think the $60 trend will continue because guys pay it.
I don't know where you've been looking, but $50 has been the average price for new PC games for years. Sure a long time ago we saw more at $40, but no they did NOT jump straight to $60. And the packaging cost argument is a bullshit one. People vastly overestimate how much that stuff costs. Its, at most, a few bucks a game.
$50 is not the "average" cost. For pretty much everything it has been the maximum cost for top tier games. MW2 was the exception with a $60 price point. But most titles have been coming in at $40 and with sales on steam or 4-packs you can get into the mid 30's. Third tier games are about $30 and the indie titles are typically $10 to $20.
+1. so why are we complaining again....
Fifteen years ago we had the best economy in history, everything was more expensive in comparison to today. They shouldn't be priced the same as console games because they have no resale value. This is probably another thing to combat the PC market, and eventually give most publishers an excuse not to publish PC games because we won't pay the same price as the console market.
What the hell do you think these companies are? Little children in a sandbox? They're not going to abandon a market that makes them money and they're not going to pull shit just to have an excuse to pull out of that market. Like any company in any industry they're going to keep pushing the prices to see what people are willing to pay and charge that much. Its a simple as that. If gamers show they're willing to pay $60 then that is what it will be. If we showed that we aren't willing to pay it then prices would stay as is. Put your tin foil hats away.
]|[ Mar']['in ]|[
Supreme [H]ardness
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as was stated before, blizzard games have been released at $60 since Diablo II, possibly earlier. $60 is absolutely not new, and not a big deal.