Dysfunctional Console Industry Struggles For New Profit Centers 351
MojoKid writes "The rumor mill is still churning out quite a bit of information on new consoles this week, including new data on Nintendo's upcoming Wii U. According to unnamed developers, the Wii U actually isn't as powerful as the Xbox 360 or PS3, despite boasting HD graphics and significantly improved hardware. Meanwhile, the Xbox 720, codenamed Durango, is reportedly targeting the holiday season of 2013 as a launch window. Rumors are floating about of a required always-on internet connection and of locking out the used game market. What this discussion truly highlights is just how dysfunctional the entire console industry is and how skewed its profits are. Profits on hardware sales are so small, game shops can't survive on console sales alone. $60 MSRPs are subsidized by exchange and trade-in programs. Kicking Gamestop in the teeth may occasionally sound like fun, but the idea of killing the used games market doesn't make much sense. If used title values collapse and MSRPs stay the same or rise, the entire industry could hamstring itself in the name of higher profits."
Stores (Score:3)
All three consoles have an online store for downloadable games, apps, etc.
Microsoft charges for XBox Live Gold. They've had other avenues for profit during this entire generation.
Re: (Score:2)
yep - they as in the console companies.
but this industry refers to other players in the industry, namely game stores. which are as fucked as they're always been. of course if it was a goldmine.. everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't be a goldmine anymore.
Re:Stores (Score:5, Insightful)
So for example, I buy most of my games used. If I can't buy used games for a PSNext or XboxNext, I won't buy one at all. They don't sell the hardware to me. They don't get the sales that might come from me recommending the console to friends. They don't get to count my purchase among the total number of consoles sold when trying to convince a software company to make a port of the game for their console. And they don't get the profits from the 5-10 new games I would buy over the life of the console. Maybe they figure the loss of my purchase and the loss of purchases from others like me is acceptable for the gain of cutting out used game sales... and maybe not.
Also consider the requirement that my internet access always work to play games. So if I lose my internet access, I can't play on the console until it's restored. If the console vendor has a server outage, like for example if the Sony Playstation Network services might be hacked and offline for a few weeks, then I can't play on my console either. I'm the type of person who considers that restriction onerous and won't purchase the console because of it. So again, the vendors can try to guess how many other people will be similarly alienated and decide whether the lost sales is worth the lockdown it gets them.
They have every right to defend their digital property. And I have every right to tell them to go fuck themselves and not use their products if they decide to enforce those rights by making their product more trouble than it is worth to own.
Higher profits (Score:5, Interesting)
Killing used sales doesn't mean higher profits for console makers. Those who are only willing to spend $20 on a used title aren't suddenly going to drop $400+ for a new console and then start paying $60 for new games. They'll likely just spend $20 on used games for current gen titles like they do. Console makers will hurt the adoption of their consoles and lower profits. And some gamers will be less likely to spend $60 on games that already currently do so, if there is no longer an option to sell the game back and make back some of their money.
I don't understand how Microsoft and Sony think this will lead to higher profits. And frankly if Microsoft or Sony does this, but the other does not, then it will just drive business to that console.
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Interesting)
I sometimes think that high prices aren't all about profit. It almost seems like Microsoft / Sony / Nintendo think it would be an insult to offer their best titles for $15 even if that meant they would make much more money. Prestige matters to them.
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Might be granny and auntie christmas purchase marketing. "the $60 game must be better than the $30 game... I'll buy junior the $30 game"
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Thanks /. for the post editing button.... not
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Funny)
Might be granny and auntie christmas purchase marketing. "the $60 game must be better than the $30 game... I'll buy junior the $30 game"
Thanks /. for the post editing button.... not
Or your Auntie or Granny just doesn't like you much.
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, it is the game publisher who sets the price. For instance, at one point someone decided to challenge the Madden franchise by offering a $20 alternative.
Developers and publishers have both been going belly up. Budgets on games are going through the roof. You need $20 million to put together a AAA title these days, with some games costing $100 million to make.
NES games in 1985 were $35, which is over $70 in today's dollars. But the cost of making a game is considerably higher today than it was in 1985. Some people claim that there are more consumers today, so you can sell more copies.
But there were 62 million NES consoles sold. There have been 62 million PS3 consoles sold and 65 million XBox 360 consoles sold. Given that many people have replaced 360's due to defective hardware, I'm not sure you can honestly say you can expect more sales from a console game today than during the height of the NES.
$60 isn't ridiculous when you look at it. I don't know why people felt $35 was fine in 1985, but assume better games today should sell for $15 as you suggest.
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Technically, it is the game publisher who sets the price.
While that's true, Microsoft and Sony both pressure the publisher towards higher-priced games in a variety of ways. Examine for example Halo. All the IP is controlled by a holding company controlled by Microsoft so it's not like there's any separation there. Halo games have all the fancy crap, the themes and the videos and the DLC. If you want to have that stuff for your game you have to shell out a bunch of bucks to Microsoft for them to handle the downloads and such for you on a service which is then paid
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The carts still weren't that expensive to produce. And I was mistaken. NES games were $50 at launch, which is akin to over $100 today. And the best estimate I can find online for the development cost for Super Mario Bros. is $1.4 million. Even that sounds high given that it was a fairly small development team, and cheap art assets.
Compare that to $100+ million to make Max Payne 3 today, but selling the game for $60, which is cheaper comparatively than NES games that are inflation adjusted.
The main point rem
Re:Higher profits (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.destructoid.com/max-payne-3-potentially-cost-105-million-to-develop-211058.phtml [destructoid.com]
I interviewed Brian Fargo recently, and he cited $20 million dollars as the price point to get in the AAA market.
There are only 25 PS3 titles to ever reach 1 million sales. Most games will not sell 1 million copies. When I look at a practical business model, I'm assuming a relatively low budget ($20 million as opposed to $100 million for titles like Max Payne 3) but also assuming I'm not selling 1 million copies.
And funny that you cite Fallout: New Vegas, but Obsidian just ended up laying off 30 people. The owner of the company hasn't taken any salary in over six months and they're fighting bankruptcy. But surely, they're making too much money and should lay off the rest of their staff.
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And funny that you cite Fallout: New Vegas, but Obsidian just ended up laying off 30 people. The owner of the company hasn't taken any salary in over six months and they're fighting bankruptcy. But surely, they're making too much money and should lay off the rest of their staff.
I can't comment on the organization or management of the company, but if they're having problems making $300 million last for 2 years then maybe there are other issues going on other than the cost of development. Or, to put that another way, I have a hard time believing that New Vegas is the reason for Obsidian's troubles.
When I look at a practical business model, I'm assuming a relatively low budget ($20 million as opposed to $100 million for titles like Max Payne 3) but also assuming I'm not selling 1 million copies.
Citing $20 million as a relatively low budget is sort of stretching the meaning of "low". Speaking of Brian Fargo, I'm sure you're aware of Wasteland 2 [kickstarter.com]. He said he could develop that ga
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Because Wasteland 2 is going to be developed with a skeleton staff, largely like a indie game. Wasteland 2 isn't a AAA game from a big publisher.
You can doubt the $20 million figure all you want, but that is the norm for a AAA title. Really big games cost even more.
Obsidian didn't get $300 million in revenue. They got paid a flat fee for developing the game. They were only slated to get a percentage of sales revenue if the game received a Metacritic score of 85, and it got an 84. Oddly enough, all the negat
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And funny that you cite Fallout: New Vegas, but Obsidian just ended up laying off 30 people. The owner of the company hasn't taken any salary in over six months and they're fighting bankruptcy. But surely, they're making too much money and should lay off the rest of their staff.
From what I've read, they are in money trouble because of some bad licensing with Bethesda, instead of getting straight royalties they went for a multi-million dollar bonus based off of good Metacritic scores. They then had some nasty bugs on release which lead to bad reviews, which lead to no bonus, even if most of those bugs were finally fixed. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I've heard that they little more than broke even on Fallout NV because of this.
Which says: they made a dumb decision, suffer from
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FYI, here's [warioworld.com] a page describing what it takes to become a WiiWare developer. It isn't even close to as easy as it is for iOS devices.
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Prestige matters to their investors.
FTFY
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I was rather late to the console party. I got a PS3 for it's media capabilities, but picked up a few used/sale games due to how cheap they were; I mostly play them when I have a parry, let them out and let people manage playing them for themselves. I have not and will not drop $60 for a new game, I don't even do that with my PC which is my primary gaming platform.
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Insightful)
The new model will look different, and will vary a lot from game to game. Basically, the game publishers will try to maximize revenue by getting each customer to pay the highest price they are willing to pay, with the reward of getting the game sooner than you would have for a lower price. When your distribution costs approach zero as they do with digitial distribution (remember that Wal-Mart probably gets somewhere between $10 and $20 out of that $60), you can sell a game for $7 and still make a profit. And that beats not making a profit. So expect used games on consoles to follow the same thing that's happened on Steam. Eventually some pretty good but old games will show up for a few dollars on the consoles; this is a price point that isn't worth GameStop's trouble. There's already some flavor of this with the fact that you can buy MarioCart for N64 on the Wii market for $5.
Re:Higher profits (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the curve. The problem for publishers is that they have to compete with their own used games at the end of this curve.
Excellent statement but this bit is a bit off. The problem for publishers is not at the end of the curve, but at the start. Game chains like GameStop will carefully calculate demand and order as few copies as they need to seed a local market of used copies. They will do their best to brainwash children into beating games and return them for "amazing credit value" (rip-off values) and then push a full wall of these new titles for a $2 dollar discount.
Heck, look at Modern Warfare right now at GameStop's website. [gamestop.com] Amazing savings, eh? $2 whole bucks saved in exchange of a box filled with store stickers and thorn box!
You will find even great games back in the used bins in large numbers and an artificially created scarcity for new copies of the "hot" title. See, kids eventually are "educated" that should they return the game as soon as they can from release date, they will get more money back (still a rip-off value but a lesser rip-off.) This is not a new practice, but as games get more expensive to produce, and the market becomes more competitive, it becomes a larger issue, especially for smaller game titles (not so much for the Modern Warfare’s of the world.)
I actually perceive the end of the curve used copies to be extremely undesirable for most people. At that point they are so thorn and destroyed that you may as well just get the new copy for $20.
This is one of the reasons online play has become so big in the last few years: online components tend to encourage people to keep their games for longer instead of just beating a campaign and returning the thing.
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing to remember is that we're not talking about bread, or water, or heating oil, or any of a variety of fundamental needs. It really is pretty viable for you to decide to go down to the library and read a book for free instead of playing the latest video game. Then buy it when it drops to $40 or whatever your purchase point is.
Re: (Score:2)
Console games used to be $50. They bumped them to $60, and the secondary market took off, after that. They took the market past what it could handle. I do believe that this will hurt consoles more than anything. Most "kids" I know, buy used. That is a fairly large demographic to cut out.
Re: (Score:2)
As a kid I remember saving up money to buy Super Mario 3 for $35. If you account for inflation, that's over $70 in today's dollars.
Console game prices do go up in time, but that's because all prices go up over time.
Re:Higher profits (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the MAJOR problems, though, is that inflation has gone up, while general salaries have remained stagnant. So, people don't make a LOT more than they did 10-20 years ago, but things cost more. It's getting to the point right now, that charging $60 for game is going to slow sales for many, MANY titles. I think the REAL gaming success story, over all, is Steam. They are very aggressive on pricing, and they just send you games, when you want them, day or night.
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It's getting to the point right now, that charging $60 for game is going to slow sales for many, MANY titles.
I don't believe this to be true. We're at a point where at debut, premire titles sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies within the first 24 hours of release. There are release parties, where people rejoice in their freedom to drop three Jacksons plus tax for the right to get a game within minutes of its availability. There was nothing of this magnitude in the NES era.
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The median household income has risen 30% since 1990. Prices have gone up about 65%. So there is definitely a disparity, but people didn't make MORE money 20 years ago. They made 30% less.
It should be noted that we're in a recession. If the economy hadn't tanked, there probably wouldn't be as much of a disparity in income growth rate and inflation.
Re:Higher profits (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who are only willing to spend $20 on a used title aren't suddenly going to drop $400+ for a new console and then start paying $60 for new games.
Here is the biggest issue with your observation. The problem is not people buying old used games for $20 bucks. The problem is people that just pay $57 bucks at a GameStop for a used game instead of paying the $60 for the new copy.
At every level, the only one winning here is GameStop. The used copies are rarely in a condition where they are only worth 3 bucks less, yet that’s the undercut range they go for with used games is only between $2 to $5. Given the conditions they sell them at, these used games should be worth about 50% of the new copy price.
Given no choice, most these people will just buy new, heck, if GameStop was not pushing the used copy down their throats with "incentives" like free magazine subscriptions and discounts for a yearly fee, they would never had looked at the used copy anyways.
I am not in favor of used copy banning, but it's this predatory actions from chains like GameStop that are actually hurting many studios that barely can make a profit due to not having the marketing backing that you see behind titles like Modern Warfare.
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Those people are idiots. And that behavior will stop pretty quick given that many games now include a one-time code for some of the content. The used copy is often devalued by $10 by these online codes, making it really hard to sell a used game for anything more than $50.
If someone purchases a new game for $60, they consume that code, and then someone later buys that game used with less content for $50, then the publisher was never going to get that sale. That consumer has determined they aren't willing to
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Those people are idiots.
Those people are usually children or parents that don't care. Neither makes them idiots, just uninformed. GameStop (flagship chain doing it, not the only one) preys on these people. Unfortunately, most games are actually purchased by either uninformed parents or children.
There ARE some idiots out there, too, helping the process (I do know a few) but for the most part it's the children and parents.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter to the publishers whether the gamers that spend $20 a month on used games will only buy a new game every 3 months. For them, that is profit already. Not a cent spent on used games goes to the publishers and studios. It all goes to Gamestop and other retailers.
Even if people buy 1 new game every six months rather than 10 used games a month, it's more beneficial for the publishers that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Option A). 3 used games on current gen consoles they already one
Option B). Spend $400 on a new console, and then purchase 1 new game for the same price as 3 used games
You honestly think the budget gamers are all going with option b?
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Worked for the PC game market (Score:3)
the idea of killing the used games market doesn't make much sense
It does if you're looking to appease developers. And if you think that killing the used console game market is going to hurt developer profits, I would like to submit exhibit A: The PC game industry.
Unfortunately, the consumer suffers. But what's new, huh?
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Yep. it worked so well the PC game ecosystem is flourishing! Only.. it isn't, really, unless we're talking indie developers that are hitting close to the mobile app price points. I have a hard time believing Microsoft, Sony, or console development studios are going to aim that low ..
Re:Worked for the PC game market (Score:4, Interesting)
Same goes for the consumer. The last time I spent 300+ on PC parts (the cost of a new console by a very modest estimate) My purchase Included one of the most expensive parts to buy, a new monitor. And even then, it isnt NECCISARY to upgrade all that often, I know people who game on PC who havent upgraded in 6+ years.
Then we have Things like steam sales, and if you are patient with your gaming, you can come away smelling like a rose most of the time. That one game you kinda wanted to try 6 months ago but never gort around to it? if it was good, you are looking at $30, not so good? $5-$10.
The videogame hobby as a whole, is cheaper for the consumer on the PC
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The videogame hobby as a whole, is cheaper for the consumer on the PC
Does this remain true even if you take into account that console games are far more likely than PC games to support multiplayer on one machine through gamepads?
Well then ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That pretty much guarantees I won't buy the next XBox.
I have no interest in having my XBox being required to always be connected so they can implement annoying features like ads in my XBox and other nuisances.
I don't play on-line, and I mostly view a console as a stand-alone, mostly off-line game. So, if it truly does require a constant internet connection, it's not going to get bought by me.
Removes the entire advantage of consoles (Score:2)
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I'm sure for many people that's a big part, but for me I simply have no interest in a video game console which demands a constant internet connection.
I'm not playing on-line. I'm not downloading content. I don't even have an XBox-live membership. But, after the recent update to my XBox where Microsoft started putting ads i
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Same. Always-on is a dealbreaker for me.
If both Sony and MSFT implemented always-on, I simply wouldn't buy either.
Same story over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. (Score:2)
the Wii U actually isn't as powerful as the Xbox 360 or PS3
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Rumors are floating about of a required always-on internet connection and of locking out the used game market.
I'm almost positive if these rumors prove to be true, the receptive companies will take a huge hit in sales.
I'm not huge on the "I hate company X because of this, this, and this" mentality that most of slashdot has, but if I buy a game? I expect it to be mine.
And in these difficult economic times? I expect a lot of people think similarly to this, being able to sell games you're not using for extra cash is great.
The ONLY reason I'd go along with this was if game pric
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I live in the boonies and I want my console game most when the power is up but the internet is down and I can't even get online. Planning to move further out where I may even end up on satellite, urgh. I just have to stick with the old games and systems if this happens. No big deal though, there's hundreds of games I haven't played yet for the systems I've got.
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That, and with every form of DRM, someone, somewhere takes it as a challenge and takes it down.
Up until the past year or so, I've been very much against piracy. But when companies do shit like this...Yo fucking ho.
What is Nintendo doing? (Score:2)
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I have a Wii. It's almost 100% used for watching Netflix. My first grader doesn't care for games, and though I was a gamer once, neither do I. I want something more computer like, yet dirt simple to hook up to the TV so I can watch Netflix, YouTube and do light Web Browsing, and maybe email checking.
Maybe there is already some kind of Roku thing that does it. I got YouTube vids running briefly though Opera which runs on Wii, but it wasn't smooth. I'd get some wireless keyboard to keep on the coffee t
If only player 1 has the Wii U controller (Score:2)
effectively using the touchscreen means finding a way to make it uniquely useful without giving the player who possesses it an overwhelming advantage. There are some multiplayer games that will map very effectively to this concept--but most won't.
Isn't this a case where players 2, 3, and 4 can use a DS Lite, DSi, or 3DS with DS Download Play?
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From the article:
effectively using the touchscreen means finding a way to make it uniquely useful without giving the player who possesses it an overwhelming advantage. There are some multiplayer games that will map very effectively to this concept--but most won't.
Isn't this a case where players 2, 3, and 4 can use a DS Lite, DSi, or 3DS with DS Download Play?
There's no way they could make game play identical between a special purpose device and general purpose devices. (unless the special purpose device *is* just a DS in a slightly different case)
If I were to get one of these, I'd leave the touchscreen controller in the box, and get several DS's. Perhaps that's Nintendo's plan. The touchscreen device might just be a "starter", but to get full control, you need a DS.
It looks like half of a 3DS (Score:2)
(unless the special purpose device *is* just a DS in a slightly different case)
Photos make the Wii U controller look almost like a cut-down 3DS. Compare this illustration [wikipedia.org] to this photo [wikipedia.org]. It just has a bigger touch screen, a second Circle Pad on the right, no top screen, no GPU, no Game Card or SD slot, and probably only enough CPU to display rendered images that the console streams to it.
There is no COULD hamstring... (Score:5, Insightful)
They WILL hamstring themselves. Even with the overall apathetic appearance of a large portion of the United States, if they attempt to kill off the secondary or used game market they will, in effect, be killing the console game market. The only people who can afford to throw $60+ at a game every time they turn around does not constitute the overall gaming market. I would be willing to bet that those people with large enough bank accounts to buy games AT WILL amounts to less than 10% of the overall gaming market. The VAST majority of the gaming market depends on being able to play a game and then turn it in to lessen the cost of the next game, specially when you can run through the majority of the games on the market in under, what? -- 20 hours per game?
Their need for control and their greed will be their undoing. A lot of people say that voting with your dollars doesn't work. I say that it will work when at least 50% of the market rises up against the corporate overlords who are producing this crap. Who want us, the gamers, to continually pay them for the privilege of using their game - not owning OUR game. As these rumors become fact, I hope that each of you who despises this will begin educating those fellow gamers who may not be following the information. Educate them that the cool thing to do is not to buy that uber new shiny, but to reject the new paradigm that the corporations want to foist upon all of us. Actually vote with your dollars this time and not just pay it lip service. All it takes is enough of us protesting in forums, in direct mails to the companies, in e-mails to the companies, and DO NOT BUY ANY NEW CONSOLES. Make it plain and clear, without resorting to cursing and ranting, that you nor anyone in your family or circle of friends will be purchasing any gaming console that removes the rights of the people* to First Sale Doctrine or the ability to trade it in so you can afford to purchase another new game.
Make them understand they will pay for their hubris by us, the gamers, simply saying "No."
* Do NOT, under any circumstance, call yourself a consumer. We should always remind them that even if we act as a group, we are individuals who are much more than just a consumer.
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The VAST majority of the gaming market depends on being able to play a game and then turn it in to lessen the cost of the next game, specially when you can run through the majority of the games on the market in under, what? -- 20 hours per game?
Very good point. Perhaps the best strategy would be for the game makers to DROP the price to where $new - $used is today. Maybe $20 instead of $75 would be far more profitable. Then people wouldn't fret about not being able to sell used games.
What's wrong with "good enough?!" (Score:4, Insightful)
These damned MBAs out there seeing only what they want to see and not understanding the whole picture is a problem. For one, the used market is actually vital to the game industry. Without it, people are less inclined to buy new things as they [rightly] feel that the ability to sell something they bought for a rather high price is a way to lessen the sting of the high prices and the high risk when some games end up being rather disappointing. After all, there are no returns on most of these which is a huge risk for the buyer.
But beyond this, it's clear that the technology of games has just about plateaued for now. Things aren't getting any better or more exciting until the next earth-shattering invention. The Wii and Kinect and whatever the PS3 has are fun and all, but when it comes to long-play games, I'm sorry, but endurance shouldn't be a requirement. The gimmick has already worn off on me. I do like sword fighting games though... just not enough good ones and anything for Kinect will just suck.
But what's wrong with keeping things as they are for a while?! The PC market "matured" from always wanting to upgrade. The gaming market is there right now, I believe. Let's just sit on our laurels for a while and let the innovation in game creativity run on its own for a while. The greed and unrealistic perspective of change and control and getting people to buy new things every 5 minutes needs to fade.
Good. (Score:2)
Net effect: PC gaming no longer screwed up by megacorps chasing fratfucks and other casuals. Players having higher barrier to entry causes more devs to consider risk taking, returning artistic credibility to the medium. Bobby Kotick switches to making staplers. The Mona Lisa takes her t
the era of "hardcore" is over (Score:2)
the era of the walk/run kill a few enemies, scour for crap and repeat is over. the market is now after casual kiddie games. angry birds made more money than most "hardcore" violent games. i love Mass Effect and other games like this, but this is the new era of gaming.
farmville/cityville were just sim city clones with a social aspect and publishers have noticed. if you don't like any kinect games its because you aren't the target market for them. the market just became a lot bigger and the run/kill games are
Hey Microsoft, you know what we want? (Score:3, Insightful)
We want an updated Xbox. I want an Xbox that can compete fairly well with modern PCs. I want to run games at 1080p and have them look good with high frame rate. I want it to be quiet. I want it to have a good online gaming experience, which honestly I think Live has done. I want good first party games. The problem is that the current consoles are old. They are outdated. My gaming has dropped off over time as the games and quality are lagging. Don't try to reinvent everything...I'm trying to make it easy for you. Give me a modern capable console.
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We know. We all know that graphics don't equal fun. But....better graphics can absolutely help enhance games. I play my 360 on a 65" 1080p Plasma. I want it to look good on a display that size and the current consoles are woefully lacking. There is nothing I can think of that goes on a spec sheet that immediately equals better games..but the specs help to support the game devs vision.
devs did it to themselves (Score:2)
i played black ops after it came out. play it once and its useless to replay. same with gears of war.
Mass effect and other RPG/shooter combos can be replayed a lot of times with different strategies each time
if you want people to buy your games new and not sell them, make games with replay value
Takeaway (Score:2)
Nintendo knows where the money is.
Microsoft and Sony need to upsell their existing customer base in order to succeed, just like the last time around.
The game industry... (Score:2)
... is run by morons anyway, and a lot of the developers are just as stupid. Game development costs from the late 90's onwards have just been going up exponentially and killed a lot of smaller B and C level game developers so now we're stuck with game companies that are risk averse because the costs to make a game who's graphics are at the current GPU level is just too costly. Yet a 2D game like New super mario bros. Wii sells millions. Publishers/developers were too quick to kill 2D games when 3D arr
Oh the hyperbole ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I may be odd-man out on here, but I don't find $60 a particularly large amount of money to spend on something I get 10-20 hours of enjoyment out of. And there are plenty of games that I've gotten 10x that out of for the same $60. I happen to like the big, detailed, long games that require teams of 250 people a couple of years to make. I don't expect to pay $5 for a game like that, nor do I feel its right to thank them for their hard work by buying the game from someone else used.
Hell, I even like having authors of books I happen to like actually being paid for the work they did for me.
Here's the reality: If you don't value your entertainment to that level, don't buy it. The game makers will get the hint. Maybe the market really has shifted to $5 throw-away casual games, with companies like Zynga shooting for quantity, not quality. Maybe the market can only really sustain a dozen or two games with mid-eight-figure development budgets a year.
I do find it baffling how little people value the efforts of those who are providing entertainment to them. I'm not so poor that paying $10 to see a movie I'm excited about is a problem, nor am I so poor or easily amused that I value my entertainment at $1 an hour.
Irrelevancy and fancy accounting (Score:3)
What this sounds like to me is a combination of two things: fighting the impending irrelevancy and threat of the iPhone and Android, and trying to lock in another profit center to deal with the fact that they're not the only game in town anymore (literally).
Irrelevancy: Look, what these next gen consoles are up against is the cheapest of the cheap: we're at a point where you can get a $100 device running Android, hook it to your TV, and play any number of games off Google Play for free or near free. They're not up against their old consoles, particularly with how mature and well featured some of the Android games are getting. (There are FPS games on Play which rival the original Counterstrike in features and surpass it on graphics by quite a bit, all playable on your phone...)
Profit center: Again, $50-60 games which might suck on a $400 console you might buy if there are a couple games on it you like does not hold a candle to the $4 and under games. Since most people probably buy a console (due to the cost) once there are games they want to play available, and only buy a handful of games (what parent wants to regularly 'feed' their kids' console at $50/game or who wants to risk $50 on something that's horrible?).
Hollywood accounting: I suspect that the game industry has succumbed to Hollywood accounting. They claim a loss on the games or that they're not making a profit for accounting reasons, making it look like everyone's "losing" money. I'm sorry, but as popular as even the worst games are, they're selling them for $50+ each. I understand development costs are higher now than they used to be due to the epic nature of many movies, but there's little reason (IMO) for the disproportionate claims.
Economic Theory (Score:3)
Economic Theory tells us that it's better to be a monopolist than to compete in a free market. The only thing better than a monopolist is to be able to exercise price discrimination. That means you can charge lower prices for the same goods to capture more revenue. Video game companies are among the few who can do that. They charge more for pre-release, full-price at release, and then scale it down afterward depending on the sales volume and time from release. In mathematical terms, they capture more of the demand curve, and thus, higher profits.
So they're already sitting in the catbird seat, yet still grasping for more.
Greed knows no limits.
Re:If they kill the used game market, (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not the only one. It's interesting to note that there's no market for used iPad games either. I suppose when the game is a few dollars, nobody cares.
Mobile device games are a lot like the games we used to play in video arcades. Frankly, I welcome the return of these smaller games.
Re:If they kill the used game market, (Score:5, Insightful)
Console makers realize people aren't going to go for required always-on internet, lockout of online play beyond the original owner, or the various other schemes they have tried to keep people other than the original purchaser from using physical media.
It won't be long before they make games download-only, and linked to your user account only. I'm sure they would sacrifice their firstborn to implement this today, but internet connection speeds simply aren't there yet. Sure, it'll be marketed as being done out of 'convenience' to the user, but it's out of convenience to their profit margins.
On behalf of the rest of the world I say to them - if you want to make more money just raise game prices. Don't require internet connections. Don't continue to try to destroy the secondard market. We aren't going to buy all the games new that we are currently buying used, we'll just play less games. If $60 isn't enough then try $75. If your product is good, the market will bear it.
No sense being a dog in the manger about it. (not that they are listening)
Putting them on internet (Score:3)
My theory is that if the console makers don't change strategy that tablet gaming will replace console games. tablets will soon have enough capability to be functionally equivalent in every way that matters to the user. just add a control device like a kinect or something to interface. That will actually be good for game makers since it will expand the number of consumers in general but bad for block buster game makers that require concentration of high sales in a few expensive games.
Adding more and more f
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If not bundled, a killer app is needed (Score:3)
Since when are there enough deployed Bluetooth gamepads to make a game designed for Bluetooth gamepads commercially viable?
But what if every game is controllable using the gamepad?
My point appears to have missed you, for which I apologize. If the gamepad isn't bundled with the system or at the very least sold in the same brick and mortar store that sells the system, there has to be a first game that's good enough to inspire people to go online and buy a gamepad sight unseen. That's enough to deter some developers from taking the effort to support even one gamepad because it's not likely to be the brand that everyone already owns. And then you get into fragmentation when different gam
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On behalf of the rest of the world I say to them - if you want to make more money just raise game prices. Don't require internet connections. Don't continue to try to destroy the secondard market. We aren't going to buy all the games new that we are currently buying used, we'll just play less games. If $60 isn't enough then try $75. If your product is good, the market will bear it.
Here's the thing, though, games are expensive to make, and getting more and more so every day. But are we getting better games for that bigger investment? Prettier games? Sure. Better sound? Yup. Good voice acting and mo-cap? Indeed. But are the GAMES getting better?
There really isn't anything that console makers are doing to help make better games beyond providing decent APIs, although there are lots they are doing to make them more of an audio/video spectacle. After all, you could provide a great API that
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if you want to make more money just raise game prices.
We aren't going to buy all the games new that we are currently buying used, we'll just play less games
It isn't about making more money. If they want to make money they can follow Steam and LOWER prices and get more sales. Making money is not the issue (don't let any of the copyright math about "lost sales" fool you)
What this is really about about is control. That (the bold) is exactly what they want you to do - just don't play their games at all. Ditto for pirates
They see themselves as owners of a theater, with the full price of a new game being the admission/ticket fee. They don't want anybody who paid nothing (from their perspective) to get to watch the show
I'm not saying their perspective is right or wrong. Just pointing out that it's not about money. It's about control
I believe you have this right but it still makes no sense when you consider it.
A corporation exists for the sole purpose of making money. There is no point in attaining control if it does not result in higher profits. There is really no point if it actually results in lower profits.
Seems to me like the way to change this is to point this out to the shareholders. If they divested in companies conducting such petty and counterproductive business practices, this situation would change in a hurry.
Re:If they kill the used game market, (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that most of the big players in the content industries think control precedes profits. They're predisposed to think so by corporate environments. There's an old saying among business people that businesses are not a democracy. That always struck me as one of the stupidest things you could say to any employee. Essentially, it's "your [expert] opinions don't matter because you work for me". I've met some people who think like these media conglomerates, and I'd be willing to bet that many of these guys are absolutely enraged by the second hand market in addition to unauthorised sharing. They view used [game, CD, record, DVD] sales as theft just like "piracy". They think the people selling these used products are profiting from their work without paying them which is their new definition of theft.
Because many of these executives got to their positions by being petty, controlling and possessive jerks, they are now unable to see the benefit in any other sort of behaviour. So they expect once they have eliminated the used game sales, people will have no choice but to give them tons of money. When they don't get it, they will blame piracy, because it's safe for them to blame every strategic failure on piracy.
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Once you accept that piracy is theft, then it becomes clear that lowering prices is also theft. After all, look at all the imaginary money that won't be collected on each sale at the lower price. No clearly, it's a much better and profitable idea to increase the price and use that money to pay for anti-theft (used games) measures. You can't trust people, after all, we already know they're thieves (piracy).
Or at least, that's what I figure the pointy-haired managers would say to that. Simply put they don
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With downloadable content, the console makers will probably develop into a more Steam-like service, with discounts for older games taking the place of used sales.
Well, one HOPES anyway.
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Only one thing you can be sure of, when they are done you'll be transferring more money to them than you were before for the same thing.
Re:If they kill the used game market, (Score:4, Insightful)
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You can bet that's what they're expecting. Whether they'll get it will depend on exactly how far the consumer will go on the console side before piracy will start to look more attractive than putting up with the hassle of trying to be honest.
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Hence why they're rumored to be developing an ARM-based Xbox Lite console [ign.com].
While unappealing to me, I think it would be a smart move for Microsoft. There's a ton of money to be made on cheap apps, as the rise of the smartphone/tablet as a gaming platform illustrates easily...
It's called the Lumia, and it has two problems (Score:2)
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You're assuming parents aren't buying cell phones for their kids.
If I'm a parent buying a cell phone for my kid regardless, and they can get cheap/free apps, that seemingly beats paying $150 for a DS and and then a bunch of $40 games. I'm not spending an additional $1,440 for gaming, because I'm paying for a family cell phone data plan regardless.
I've heard that Windows Phone 8 (based off Windows 8) will support peripherals. So you might be able to prop up your phone in front of you, but play with a wireles
Re:If they kill the used game market, (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, also, historically speaking, we're paying much less for a new game than we used to be. Ditto consoles.
According to The Inflation Calculator [westegg.com]:
Atari 2600 - $199 in 1977 - $707 today (in 2010 dollars, anyway)
Intellivision - $299 in 1979 - $886 today
NES - $199 in 1985 (US release) - $398 today
PC Engine/TG-16 - $249 in 1989 - $432 today
Games were also pretty expensive. I didn't actually buy my own games until the NES-era (and I'm having a hard time finding historical retail prices on video game cartridges), but even then, a new game was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 back then, which would translate to $100 today. And look at how little you got for it in the case of a lot of games! I paid the equivalent of $100 for Mario Bros. 2 and beat it in a day. Ditto Mega Man 2 and 3. Ditto a lot of games.
I think many of us are more cognizant of how much were paying for games today because we're not using birthday money and allowance to buy them anymore, coupled with the fact that it's harder and harder to justify the expense with the economy being rough like it is. But in truth, we used to get charged a hell of a lot more.
That's not to say that I don't have my own misgivings, particularly related to the abuse of DLC as a concept. It seems like more and more games are coming out with 2/3 of the content they used to, with the intention of selling the remaining 1/3 in a few $10 increments down the road. The DLC on disc bullshit [angryjoeshow.com] is even more ridiculous and unforgivable in my opinion.
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But in 1977, a regular PC (e.g. an Apple ][) was $1298, about six times the cost of an Atari 2600. Today's enthusiast gamer PC setup will come in at around the same price (~$1300), and thus a console for $199 has about the same pricing distance as it was 35 years ago.
If you look at prices, don't just adjust for inflation, you have also to check for the alternatives then and today.
Buying two copies (Score:3)
Also right out of the gate PC games are $10 cheaper
What you say is true in the case of one gamer per household but not so much for households with more than one gamer. A lot of PC games won't activate for more than one e-mail address.
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Even if they do that, the games aren't necessarily worth much money.
I still play and love games like Asteroids or Tetris. I've been playing Asteroids for around 30 years now and Tetris for 20. It doesn't get much more replayable than that.
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Re:To the games industry: (Score:4, Interesting)
They've already been massively cheaping out by churning out these games that are basically just unreal clones.
Make a few maps and a few weapons, corral a server or two, you're done. No need to invest in an actual story or developing an expensive single player campaign. Force everyone into online play.
Online play also has the bonus effect of making a game useless after most people have moved on to the next big game, thus encouraging the player of the current game to buy something new.
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I'll stay on my PC.
Yeah, you can always buy PC games used!! And no one would even *think* of requiring an always on internet connection for a PC game.
Oh wait...
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Not to worry, the friendly and benevolent folks of the internet develop cracks for these games!
And none of them would even *think* of doing anything malicious, so just go ahead and execute their code on your machine, Administrator.
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Well, at least there are games without nonsensical DRM
Unfortunately, they're getting few and far-between these days. And many PC developers (not all, but a lot of big names) have come up with some of the most insane DRM schemes of late. It's nuts that you would even need an internet connection to play Skyrim, for example. But if you play it on a PC, you do (not so on a console, but you can bet that's going to follow suit soon enough).
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Either that or my 4 hour session while my internet was being worked on was all in my head.
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If you cannot afford to buy a game new, wait for a price drop
By which time the publisher will likely have turned off the matchmaking servers for the game's online multiplayer. Google dnas error 103 to see how this has affected PS2 and PS3 games.
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I played Tribes 2 online with people just the other day. Thats totally is less than 6 months old right?
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It's funny since after a few threads on troublesome releases of games a console is a more locked down PC.
Try and play a game and it over heats your console, some suggested you patch it, while others suggest you re-install it.
I forgot what platform they were talking about after reading the fixes as it's the same stuff you'd hear for the PC.
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I have all the consoles. And a gaming PC. And an iPad.
*Real* gamers play everywhere. :-)
More pixels; cheap phones (Score:2)
My old wii seems to output decent 480p at refresh rate. I suppose 1080p would be nice although it would obviously have no effect on gameplay
With more pixels, you can see smaller objects farther away. This translates into, for example, more enjoyable sniping in a first-person shooter. And with more pixels, you can give each of four players his or her own 480p window, which I admit might not be valuable to you given your preference for a single-player computer role-playing game.
And if I didn't care at all about graphics at all (lets play scrabble!) I'd be playing on my cheapie cellphone.
The cheapest cellphones don't even support apps. On Virgin Mobile USA, for example, you have to go up to a $35/mo cellphone to get Android app support; Virgin won't activa
Theodore Sturgeon's 90% of crud (Score:2)
Remember the days of the Atari consoles, the Nintendo NES, or even the early 16-bit era with SNES and Genesis? 80% of all the games were fun
How much of this is due to rose-colored glasses? If you played then, you thought the games you happened to receive as gifts were fun because you had little to compare them to. If you play now through emulators, you remember only the fun games, not Theodore Sturgeon's 90% of crud in the "full ROM set" that people tend to torrent. Among the crud are the games reviewed in Something Awful's ROM Pit [somethingawful.com].
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WTF?
i bought some of those classic games for my iphone and ipad and never play them. they suck. i even had Command and Conquer decades a few years back and the early C&C games suck compared to the later ones. the control sucks, the graphics suck.
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Games haven't been fun for 15 years or more at this point,
Rubbish!
Let's see what was around 15 years ago or so. My favourites were:
C&C: Red Alert
Quake 2
Half Life
GTA
Final DooM expansion pack
You _can_ claim those games weren't fun and innovative, but you'd be talking utter tosh.
Remember the days when every single arcade game in the room was fun
Nice rose-tinted goggles you have there. No, they weren't all fun. Many of them were kind of sucky, but they disappeared sooner, spread less widely and have general
Definitely too hard. (Score:2)
I expect to be able to sit down and enjoy a game from minute one, with no learning curve, no research, and no commitment. And then to walk away again.
I'm a busy person. I'm not wasting my time or my cognitive resources on "learning how to play a game" or "developing enough coordination to manage 150 different controls" so that sometime dozens and dozens of hours down the road I get the satisfaction of being an elitist that can claim to be good at something no-one else is good at.
I still have a Genesis syste
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That's all fine. The problem is that you are declaring everything outside what you like to be rubbish and bullshit, and that's nonsensical, albeit typical. Yes, Angry Birds is a big hit. So is Skyrim.
I have a very complicated job that involves designing things that get shot into outer space. I find deep and complicated game worlds like Skyrim to be incredibly relaxing after a long day. It's not all twitch and skills. You can spend a lot of time just ferreting out how the game world works and how the various
#7: Thou shalt let us play with real-life friends (Score:2)
My brother is very specific on the reason why. If you force people to play online, that's potentially extra sales for EA. There's no technical reason to exclude split-screen from recent titles, just a financial reason.
Quoted for emphasis. Here's what Cracked's David Wong has to say about the subject [cracked.com].