It feels to me like the closer we get to the Nintendo Switch 2’s June launch and the, apparently, $80 games associated with it, the more people are fighting with themselves over what is and isn’t worth it. But at least Sony veteran and previous head of PlayStation Indies Shuhei Yoshida is free from inner turmoil – he thinks relatively expensive, high quality video games are unequivocally necessary.
“I don’t believe that every game has to be priced the same,” Yoshida continues. "Each game has different value it provides, or the size of budget. I totally believe it’s up to the publisher – or developers self-publishing – decision to price their product to the value that they believe they are bringing in.
Yoshida continues to say that, “In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment.”
“As long as people choose carefully how they spend their money,” he continues, “I don’t think they should be complaining.”
This is like when the music industry said CD’s should cost 40 to 50 dollars instead of 12 dollars. There was only one good song on most CD’s. Look where CD’s are now. I don’t see how they can justify 80 dollars a game when they don’t even make a physical copy anymore. It’s now just an SD card with a key on it. They’re still downloading the game itself from the internet.
I agree with you about CDs but I’m not sure I understand your point about physical copies. If they’re still buying and shipping a physical SD card, from a production perspective, I’m pretty sure that’s the same cost regardless of whether it’s a key or a full game. And considering that digital copies of games tend to be the same price as physical ones anyways, I think the physical aspect is pretty negligible and doesn’t factor into the price in any real way.
Well, if i have the entire game on the physical device and it doesn’t come with arbitrary DRM stuff, i can still enjoy it in 20 years on the old console even if all the servers are shut down.
I recently saw that used Gameboy Advance SPs go for the same price like when they were new. Old Gameboy games also go for similar prices like when they were launched. Because no matter where or when. As long as the console and the cartridge themselves are working and there is electricity, the games can be enjoyed.
That is a gigantic difference from a consumer perspective, no matter what the physical production costs are.
“In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment.”
I actually don’t entirely disagree, problem is that I’ve yet to play a game that was actually good enough to be worth $70-80.
Even the highest rated games of all time have flaws that every video game has. The tech simply isn’t advanced enough yet to justify the cost, not until we have games that are designed so well that you can do practically anything in them that you could do in real life. That means we have to move past things like invisible walls, awkward conversations with NPCs that don’t flow like a real conversation would, buildings that can’t be entered, short walls that can’t be climbed over, etc. (e: I’ve been around since the 3rd gen of consoles, and I can’t believe that we still don’t have the kind of games that I’ve been dreaming of since childhood.)
Furthermore, if your game has microtransactions, you can shut the fuck up. They generate so much income, that Free to Play is a sustainable business model. I am of the opinion that any game that has loot box mechanics, gambling, etc. should always be free.
Yeah. I think there’s a problem with the modern development cycle that a fuckton of the budget goes into marketing and marketable assets (i.e. all them graphics that look great in the trailers but nobody’s computer can actually handle, and then the rest of the team’s on the hook to make a game on a shoestring that can actually use all of that content - The only way you can possibly accomplish that with a fraction of a fraction of the budget is if it’s super simplistic and repetitive gameplay that’s stretched over 40+ hours like a peasant on a torture rack.
Think about how many games you’ve played over the last decade, and how many of them were still fun to play after the first five hours, either because the primary gameplay loops were satisfying enough to keep you engaged, or because the game was keeping it fresh with new mechanics that didn’t bungle clumsily atop one another like a raspberry and beef trifle. Making great games is difficult and expensive, and most studios would rather put out something with a guaranteed return than anything that’s fun to play.
I would say something like elden ring might be worth that price point given the breadth of the experience. Thing is, Elden ring is actually kinda too big. I like it, but a run through is like a multi week commitment, and I definitely don’t want that to be the norm, especially for fromsoft.
Considering the at least 200+ hours I invested in give or take ten* games throughout my childhood / adolescence / young adult past, then even €100 would’ve been a steal.
I’ve always thought games were expensive until studying game development in college. From programming to 3D modeling, and boy can I confirm that it takes a lot of work to do well. The developers and artists that do it well, and ethically, deserve to be fairly compensated as such, provided no one becomes disproportionately rich.
*Age of Empires 2, MU Online, Unreal Tournament 1999/2004, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2/3, Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, R.O.S.E. Online, Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, Battlefield 2, Insurgency.
The developers and artists absolutely need to be fairly compensated for the highly skilled work they’re doing. The question is, does a good game require 1500-2500 of them? That’s where you need to sell 9 million copies of an $80 game to break even. Particularly in an era where online sales mean you no longer need a distribution partner who will produce hundreds of thousands of discs at a time, and who has existing partnerships with big box retailers, so much of that publishing budget, relationships and supply chain are no longer needed. Even with the standard 30% cut that digital storefronts take, a team of 30 people can spend five years developing a game for $15-20 million, including marketing and localization, sell 500K copies at $50 and break even. This type of scaling back is what’s needed to keep the industry profitable and sustainable. I’m not saying there’s no place for huge budget games, but they don’t need to be the norm that bankrupts developers from one bad release.
people used to lift game cartridges from the chains before they starte dlocking them up.
I’m carefully spending my money by buying less games, mostly DRM-free indie games.
Does this mean less expectations for sales numbers too?
Not wrong. You and other AAA studios are not making games worth that price tag though.
Why sell multiple games and make more money collectively when you can just sell one and alienate your loyal customers? Art of the deal.
yup, “a steal” is a good word for that, but not in the direction they mean
They’re referring to hours of entertainment. People pay $20 to see a 2 hour film. Games give us 50+ hours at times.
That’s not to say games should cost the same as movies in terms of “entertainment hours”.
You guys are paying $20 to see a single film at the cinema!?
Quantifying the value of your media in “hours spent consuming it” is an intrinsically poor way to do things
I do choose carefully, I buy half a dozen indie games on sale instead, and I have nothing to complain about.
This is the way.
Oh I will be choosing very carefully.
I’ll be going back and playing all the super Nintendo games I missed out on as a kid I think
You’d be better off getting an Anbernic for that.
We know they were an exec of one of the shittest companies around by the way they talk.
He’s not wrong, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a steal for the price it is. “Really great games” do exist and they’re worth their price tag, the problem is the number of AAA games of that caliber are like 1 in 30. We’re lucky to get one in any given year. Meanwhile, there are consistently high quality indie games coming out for less than $40.
but like… if your entire customer base is saying you’re wrong, aren’t you then wrong by definition? the buyers set the prices, in a way.
If the customers still buy it in the end, the publisher was right. We will see over time. Maybe there will be a drop in sales but then GTA6 comes along and no one can resist, opening the path for other games.
Someone on lemmy recently put this into perspective for me. Even like 1% of the population of the USA is 3 million people. If you increase the cost of a product and don’t care about long-term sales, the immediate gain in profit can outweigh the loss of total customers down the line.
I still think cutting off customers and burning good will isn’t a good business model, but I’m not stupid wealthy, so what do I know.
Translation: The executives who don’t do anything deserve to get lots of money and you should be happy to pay them for it.
Fuck you.
