The High Cost of Gaming

MTV Games is reporting on the financial pinch next-gen gamers will feel now that the 360 is out. $60 games are drawing frustrations from both sides of the gaming industry. From the article: "Many developers and publishers say the reason for the price hike is simple: Next-gen games, because of graphics, coding, voice acting, cinema scenes and everything else gamers expect, cost more to make. 'As a studio we can certainly speak to the amount of man hours and increase in staffing for next-generation content,' said Cord Smith, the producer of February 2006 car-combat title 'Full Auto.' 'As a gamer, it seems like it costs a lot to enter this new generation.'"

Re:just wait

[cornface]

If no one wants to buy the game at the initial price, the developers don't have any incentive to drop the prics of the game.

Nobody buying the game is the incentive to drop the price. Are you sniffing glue? You are, aren't you?

Opinionated post ahoy!

[Headcase88]

"because of graphics, coding, voice acting, cinema scenes and everything else gamers expect, cost more to make."

You want me to pay for:

• Graphics: Have little to do with gameplay. Sure you need good frame-rate, low popup, and distinct colouring, but that's actually achieved best with minimalist graphics, which cost less to develop.
• Coding: More coding = more unneccessarily complicated = less fun. When I look back at my favourite games, it's their deceptive simplicity that keeps me coming back. Yeah, I guess "deceptively simple" still requires a lot of coding, but that goes against my argument so let's forget I said that.
• Voice Acting: Fuck this. I don't really use that word awfully often, so that means I really hate it. I personally prefer reading text, but I do enjoy games with voice. But why pay a celebrity to do voices? Shit, I better buy this game, it stars celebrity x. Yeah, and I know that's why a lot of uninformed people buy games too. Dammit.
• Cinima Scenes. Oh God. Don't even get me started. I have two points against this one. One, I didn't buy a game to watch a screen with my controller aside for half of it. Two, blockbuster movies cost like $25. Yeah, I know the lower price is due to the fact that they sell a lot more of them, but again, against my argument... I know I've said that twice, but I hope you still understand the fundamental stuff I'm talking about.

Can I please see a few more games like Alien Hominid? Not speaking from a genre point of view, just the style of the game. I think the XBox360 Live Arcade is a step in the right direction, but I'd rather see new games with old-style graphics, not the other way around, which is what I'm seeing from a lot of those games (ie Joust, Smash TV).

This whole post just wrote itself. It took like 2 minutes to write it. That means I feel strongly about it. You should probably take that with a grain of salt... I'm just saying.

How does that work?

[paranand]

So, if next gen games are costing so much more to produce, why is it that a game like Call of Duty 2, which is made in tandem for pc and xbox 360, will sell for 50 bucks on pc and 60 on the console? Seems like they might be messing with the market base a bit.