Why Haven't Video Game Prices Gone Up

[Slick_36]

Oh, sure. I should have said AAA games. Lots of indie games exist, but they also tend to have the least DLC.

My only point was regarding early and "Day One" or "On Disk" DLC being a practice of cutting up a core game into segments and distributing it in pieces. Thats not the case. Stuff like loot boxes and their contents are a whole other topic with positives and negatives.

For me personally it always comes down to personal choice. If something isnt worth my money, Im not buying it. On the other hand Ive put it more hours into the War of the Chosen DLC for Xcom 2 than I have in most games Ive bought in the last ten years. So its almost always a case by case basis.




To be fair, I just gave a breakdown earlier of why I think that's not the case. Did you read the write up I linked?

I wasn't speaking of only Day One and On Disk DLC, I don't support the practice but they're far less egregious than loot boxes and pay to win mechanics. I'm not sure how your argument actually proved that game content isn't broken up with those practices though, could you please clarify or elaborate for me? I actually think there's a lot of good DLC, that's not what I have a problem with at all because it absolutely can add longevity to a game and more. There's good examples and bad examples. It is a personal choice, if we stop feeding the system, they'll change their tactics. But as long as there are people willing to spend extra money for an advantage or because they have low impulse control (i.e. gambling addicts), then the games will be made around that system that profits most.

Even if you take into account the increased sales numbers, their still dwarfed by the skyrocketing production costs. Back when Doom was released, a million copies was a huge deal. Also the budget was around a million bucks. Compare that to something like Skyrim, which sold over 20 million copies. So twenty times the sales. But the production cost was literally 80 times higher than Doom (something like 85 million).

But just put that in perspective. Youre getting twenty times the sales at 80 times the cost. Thats one example but you get my point, I think.

DLC/Loot boxes, etc are an inevitability unless we want the price of the core game to double. Personally, I'm fine with DLC because it's completely my choice as to whether or not to purchase it. If it looks like it sucks or it's too expensive, I don't buy it. Plus we live in an era of steam sales and sites like CDkeys that have insane price drops within a reasonable amount of time from release.

Those production costs aren't entirely necessary though. As I said earlier, that budget causes them to take less risks which makes for inferior games and slower growth. The development becomes too spread out with the largest teams and it can have a negative impact on what a game turns out to be. Plus a lot of money actually goes to advertisement and not the game itself. So yes, they are spending more than ever, but that doesn't mean that money is being used like it was in the past.

 

[Slick_36]

The thing is video games are a relatively new media that are heavily dependent on ever changing technology and market dynamics. Just because I have problems with some practices doesn't mean I hate video games or even DLC. I think it's interesting that we're watching something like this evolve and we do have power as customers. I think many fans are caught between a rock and a hard place in that they want to support games they love, but they don't support everything companies do to make money with those games. The games themselves are being effected more than ever now because of the most recent practices, and I think that's drawing a line in the sand so to speak.

 

[Bob Gray]

I wasn't speaking of only Day One and On Disk DLC, I don't support the practice but they're far less egregious than loot boxes and pay to win mechanics. I'm not sure how your argument actually proved that game content isn't broken up with those practices though, could you please clarify or elaborate for me? I actually think there's a lot of good DLC, that's not what I have a problem with at all because it absolutely can add longevity to a game and more. There's good examples and bad examples. It is a personal choice, if we stop feeding the system, they'll change their tactics. But as long as there are people willing to spend extra money for an advantage or because they have low impulse control (i.e. gambling addicts), then the games will be made around that system that profits most.

Did you read the link I posted? The game isnt broken up, because its finished and then released. While the game is in its latest stages of development, new content, that is not part of the core game, is in it's initial stages of the development process.

Put it this way. This is a very rudimentary analogy. One guy is drawing the levels for Doom IX. He finishes. Then another guy is putting the code together and making the levels in the game engine. He finishes. Then another guy is playtesting the levels with the characters/weapons, etc. He finishes. Now another guy is doing the bug testing and quashing out the quirks. He finishes. Now another guy is getting the game ready for release. He's done. Game released.

Now, when when the guy is playtesting the levels. What do you do with the guy that designed the levels, and the guy that does bug testing? They have nothing to do. The guy in the middle of the process is busy, but both guys at the beginning and end of the process are currently not working on anything.

More than that, when the levels were being designed, what are you doing with the guy that does the bug testing? And the guy that readies the game for release? They have nothing to do. The only guy doing anything is the guy in the earliest initial stages of development. All the other guys have nothing to do.

This is why DLC gets released in a close window with the core game. Once the game finishes, theres even a time window between the game being finished and being released. So you have all these different people doing all these different jobs that take place at vastly different times during a games development. If theyre constantly working all the departments, then theres going to be content released on a somewhat regular schedule. Otherwise you have entire departments do nothing for stretches of time.

Those production costs aren't entirely necessary though. As I said earlier, that budget causes them to take less risks which makes for inferior games and slower growth. The development becomes too spread out with the largest teams and it can have a negative impact on what a game turns out to be. Plus a lot of money actually goes to advertisement and not the game itself. So yes, they are spending more than ever, but that doesn't mean that money is being used like it was in the past.

Well, it depends on what you mean by necessary. Some games become enormously popular without them (Minecraft). Others have all the backing behind them and flop. But then others have all the backing and become phenomenal games and cultural milestones (Skyrim, Witcher 3). I dont think you can just say that the budgets and advertising arent necessary.


As of now theres indie games, AAA games and everything in between. Not every game is gonna be great, but not every game ever was.

 

[tru3f4n]

I'm still salty about what they did with the last Hitman game. Split that thing up like cheese slices and charged full price each installment.

Then Lootcrates in every game now. lol. AAA gaming is turning into tablet/mobile games.

or like the devs from bungie locking shit behind walls in their Destiny games because they thought it was too much content for $60 in both games. Or them talking activision into letting them put their online store into the game instead of releasing content more often. It's like every big title has the base game, base game + season pass, and deluxe edition. They all get their money one way or another which is meh but actively throttling their own game to help push ppl to buy the lootcrates is fucked.

 

[blaseblah]

DLC after the game is released is fine. The Witcher 3 did this. They released a complete game and story. Then they made additional stories for the same game.

What I highly disagree with is making a game and then holding some of it back to sell separately.

 

[chrisdiaz]

Anyone getting the UFC 3 game? If you have an xbox one and ea access, it is available to download now for free to try. Gonna test it out after work.

 

[Snubnoze707]

because they fucking suck. other than black ops 1 on ps1 or sf 5 on ps4 i dont play shiet

But SFV sucks and is probably the worst offender for ripping people off...

It doesn't even give you a complete game plus DLC. You get a partial game, and have to pay extra for the complete one. Fucking HALF of the stages are blocked off.

 

[facePuncher7]

As someone who has made and sold video games, I can say that for the most part - they haven't gone up in initial price, but the add-ons are expensive. It is easy for someone to spend more than the initial price of the game just to make the game more playable or more competitive.

The thing that really illustrates the power of the microtransaction method of digital content sales to me is the number of emails I get from people REQUESTING that I add microtransaction to my games, often because "it takes to long to beat the game".

It confirms what I've often thought which is that the overwhelming majority of players these days are more interested in winning than they are in playing, to the point that they'll spend money for the title rather than working their way up to it for free and enjoying the experience.

*EDIT* Probably also why my games thus far have only been moderately successful - I try to design challenging experiences where the path to victory can rarely be clearly discerned. People just give up instead of taking the time and effort to learn it.

 

[Plissken]

A lot of the cost back then was due to cartridges, they cost a lot to manufacture, especially ones with higher memory capacity. The move to CD's, DVD's, and Blu-Rays cut the manufacturing costs significantly, but in a lot of cases Sega and Sony still sold games for the same cost as most N64 games, and that carried on to the next generation when all four major consoles used DVD's as a base, so they had more profit per game than they did with cartridges. With the move to hd resolutions the cost of making many games went up so the cost of making games has erased to the difference gap from eliminating cartridge manufacturing costs, so there's less profit per unit sold hence loot boxes and micro transactions everywhere, trying to get some of that money back.