72 réponses à ce sujet

[Cimeas]

The average consumer in a game store would not buy DA3 at launch for $100, when every other game is $60, even if it is the most magnificent game since Goldeneye and every single review ever has given it a 10. They would just wait until it gets cheaper, the price would plummet way below $60, and then they would buy it.

ME2 had a good length. Without DLC it takes about 35 hours to complete. Perhaps if they made it a bit longer (say inc Shadow Broker and Arrival) it would take 42 hours.

42 hours is perfect for an RPG like this, but it has to be of a high quality. Instead of being like DA:O where the same backstreets, mage tower, houses, castles and ruins were copied and pasted all the time, Mass Effect has unique locations. Make every area unique, every armor set NOT a copy of another one but actually look different and make the story divergent, and I'll happily buy DA3 for $60 with 40 hours of content.

That content just has to be really good.

[Jerrybnsn]

Fast Jimmy wrote...


They couldn't keep their price up because their ending was a rushed, garbled mess. Something that might not have happened if they had enough development time... development time that could have been bought with a higher price tag, perhaps? 

ME3 did get the best jump out of the gate than any other Bioware game,  with something of 1.2 million preorders (including mine).  But I'm wondering how their sales went after that first four weeks.  Last I heard about a month ago, ME3 was at about 3.6 million sold (nothing to sneeze at),  but does this mean that DAO is still the best selling Bioware game?

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 12 juillet 2012 - 12:30 .

[Fast Jimmy]

^
ME3 hasn't outpaced DA:O, although to be fair DA:O had about twelve months of good, active content being developed for it, including lots DLC and an expansion.

That being said, given the huge ending backlash and the fact that the people who hated the endings before still hate it with the EC says to me it probably won't surpass it.

If ME3 had been everything the fans expected and more, with all different sorts of endings and outcomes, real interactions with our past companions and characters and a story that didn't seem patched together, but was able to finish a great tale, spurning people to return to ME1 and start all over again, people would have paid more for it. Instead, it was an imperfect product and after week 1 sales dropped dramatically.

[Wulfram]

If a game did manage to sell at $100, then almost immediately every (major, non indie) game would be released at that price. And I doubt you'd actually get better games for that price.

[WotanAnubis]

To me, the topic title translates into "Alpha Protocol VS Final Fantasy XIII".

Reducing it down to that level, I'll go with Alpha Protocol every time.

But, in all fairness, I'm OK with longer games not being very divergent - you probably won't have enough time to replay it very often (and see all the different possibilities play out) unless it's a very good game.

I'm not even sure I can say I prefer long, divergent games over short, divergent games. Short games, at least, make it easier to get me motivated to play them again and again to see everything because it's just not that huge a time investment.

Then again, I genuinely like X-Men: Destiny so clearly my opinion is suspect (though that game was still more divergent than FFXIII).

[ChaosAgentLoki]

Okay, so in my opinion, I'd like to see a long game. Some of my favorite games are epics like Persona 2, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem Path of Radiance.

However, Bioware has never really released a game that I've spent that much time on. My first playthrough for DA:O took me about 30 hours to complete (the exact same amount it took me to complete Kingdom Hearts, the shortest Japanese made RPG I've played), with most of the sidequests completed, and DA2 is already somewhere in the 15 hour range.

If a shorter game is what fans receive, then I'd be fine with it, but I truly want an epic. Not just a game full of choices. I want to see an epic story like KotoR or some of these Japanese made RPGs. I'm tired of the bland stories that are told in the DA games when the rest of the universe, novels and other forms of media, have such strong and engaging tales (Maric's rebellion was a far more enjoyable tale in Stolen Throne than either of the two games' plots and is the primary reason I got into the series).

Modifié par ChaosAgentLoki, 12 juillet 2012 - 01:27 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

If a game did manage to sell at $100, then almost immediately every (major, non indie) game would be released at that price. And I doubt you'd actually get better games for that price.

Cars range in price and quality wildly, yet people don't only buy Pintos. Clothes, while all serving the function of being on your body, can range in the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars with no other difference than a designer tag. Restaurants range from featuring a dollar menu to not having an item less than $100 on the menu. 

I don't know why video games have to be the only industry pigeon holed into a mentality that everyone has to be the exact same price. Not every (not even most) game(s) are of similar quality. Why should we be charged the same for a mediocre game as a great one? 

I'd buy Uncharted, for it's great action scenes and movie-like qualities, for $30. It has zero replay value and is basically like a long movie, so I'm fine with paying about what I'd pay for a brand new Blu-Ray. Similarly, if DA3 is a Bette version of DA:O, with tons of options and replayabilty, I'd gladly pay $100 for it. 

You can't argue the logic of every game being $50-60, because there isn't any. Mediocre games should price themsves low, so that thrifty gamers will pick them up. Games with lots of value should charge more, because gamers who love that type of game will shell out the money for it. 

[Plaintiff]

I really, truly, deeply don't give even half of a ****.

I'll play a linear game, I'll play a divergent game, I'll play a long game or a short game.

A good story is a good story, whether it's an hour long or one hundred hours long. Having the outcome change based on my decisions is a bonus, not a requirement.

[Cimeas]

Games aren't priced like cars because no-one says 'hey I want an average game for $40 because I can't afford a great game for $60'. The fact is that paying $20,000 more for a much better car is very different to paying $20 more for a much better game. The first is a huge amount of money, the second is not.

Also, developers rarely consider their games bad. Some people really enjoy Dragon Age, for example. But even if I love RPGs, when I go into the store and see Dragon Age for $100 bucks and EVERY OTHER GAME at $60, I won't buy it. (or at least, most people won't.)

Games are like movies. A terrible $2m budget movie will cost you $15 to watch at the movie theatre, and the $350m Avatar/Avengers will cost the same. It's up to you whether you want to watch whatever movie.


For games to increase in price, publishers have to decide with each other that the next-gen game price will be $70 (which it probably will be). However all the bad games don't want to be percieved as 'budget' so they will increase their prices as well.

And the cycle continues.

Modifié par Cimeas, 12 juillet 2012 - 01:46 .

[Jerrybnsn]

Cimeas wrote...

Games are like movies. A terrible $2m budget movie will cost you $15 to watch at the movie theatre, and the $350m Avatar/Avengers will cost the same. It's up to you whether you want to watch whatever movie.

Perfect comparison.  The comparison with automobiles never really works in the entertainment industry.

For games to increase in price, publishers have to decide with each other that the next-gen game price will be $70 (which it probably will be). However all the bad games don't want to be percieved as 'budget' so they will increase their prices as well.

And the cycle continues.

I think the ability to add DLC has allowed publishers to keep the $60 price range and yet get more money for the game by withholding certain characters, stories and upgrades.  Creating dlc for "replayability" never comes off as a legitimate excuse.

[Fast Jimmy]

^
Until Kickstarter and the indie movement takes root, and quality games can be made for a fraction of the cost without tons of bells and whistles and they can get away with charging much less.

Then there will be true price variance in the market.

[AkiKishi]

Jerrybnsn wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...


They couldn't keep their price up because their ending was a rushed, garbled mess. Something that might not have happened if they had enough development time... development time that could have been bought with a higher price tag, perhaps? 

ME3 did get the best jump out of the gate than any other Bioware game,  with something of 1.2 million preorders (including mine).  But I'm wondering how their sales went after that first four weeks.  Last I heard about a month ago, ME3 was at about 3.6 million sold (nothing to sneeze at),  but does this mean that DAO is still the best selling Bioware game?

Thats typical for any overhyped oversold product (by oversold I mean to retail not consumers). It's the reason we get to pick them up at half price a month later in many cases.Or 20 days in the case of ME3.

[AkiKishi]

Jerrybnsn wrote...
I think the ability to add DLC has allowed publishers to keep the $60 price range and yet get more money for the game by withholding certain characters, stories and upgrades.  Creating dlc for "replayability" never comes off as a legitimate excuse.

I loathe day 1 DLC reason I rented ME3 and have yet to buy it ditto DA2. but DLC itself is not so bad. If you like something you can buy more of it. If you don't you ignore it.

Once I finish Rainbow Moon I'm going to buy all the DLC just because the game was worth way more than £10. But I don't want the game advantage that goes with most DLC.

[Kidd]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I offer another solution. 

I'd most like to play a long adventure with lots of divergent gameplay and I'd be willing to pay a $100 sticker price for that game.

The sticker price of $60 games is killing the industry. Every year, this becomes worth less and less with inflation, while games cost more and more to make. I'm not against paying more for a product than I did fifteen years ago - why are video games any different?

Agreed. However, this is not plausible. Aside from the general "$100 game vs $60 game" posts we've seen in here already, there is one more factor that would hurt BioWare more than many other developers.

You know who publishes their games, right? EA, yeah. And how would the general gaming world react if EA was the one who broke new ground for more expensive - and more expansive - games? Regardless of intention, every one out there want to see EA burn on the stake for whatever reason, so for completely unfair reasons I believe BioWare could never do this even if another company theoretically could.

[Fast Jimmy]

So, instead, EA is moving to more and more online and MMO games, which in addition to a $60 pice tag, also comes with over $100 a year in subscription costs.


If that business model seriously fools or confuses people, then people are even dumber than I thought.

[Fast Jimmy]

Also, in regards to the line of thought that no one will buy a game over $60... does anyone remember Guitar Hero? People paid through the nose for all those games and accessories, which had no other value other than playing other Guitar Hero games. And they were making money hand over fist.


Granted, all of those companies are broke now, but not because no one wanted to spend $100 for a game. The problem was that they kept pushing games with songs that were incredibly expensive to license which were not worth it (the Aerosmith game comes to mind). If they had stuck with their formula of making solid games and not licensing prohibitively expensive artists and instead found more underground music that was fun to play in Guitar Hero (like they had started with) then they could succeeded.

Kind of got off base here, but the problem isn't that people are too cheap to buy more expensive games. People just need to perceive that game as worth it. People demanding their money back the first week after ME3 came out would suggest people did not perceive it as worth it, for obvious reasons.

If DA3 was truly DA:O2+, people would shell out good money for it, as seen by the number of people who have multiple copies of DA:O. Bioware just needs to grow a pair and tell the EA execs to buzz off.

[wsandista]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If DA3 was truly DA:O2+, people would shell out good money for it, as seen by the number of people who have multiple copies of DA:O. Bioware just needs to grow a pair and tell the EA execs to buzz off.

While I agree with the bolded part, I don't know if it is necessarily EA that caused DA2 to be DA2. I mean EA is a business, and like them or not, their goal is to make money. DA2, while probably more profitable(because it had less dev time which translates to lower production cost), failed to sell as many copies or reach the same acclaim as DAO. Wouldn't it make sense for EA to make the product that is proven to succeed?

[Provi-dance]

75 - 100 hours, but not filled with Bioware's standard level scaled trash mobs.

[Provi-dance]

wsandista wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If DA3 was truly DA:O2+, people would shell out good money for it, as seen by the number of people who have multiple copies of DA:O. Bioware just needs to grow a pair and tell the EA execs to buzz off.

While I agree with the bolded part, I don't know if it is necessarily EA that caused DA2 to be DA2. I mean EA is a business, and like them or not, their goal is to make money. DA2, while probably more profitable(because it had less dev time which translates to lower production cost), failed to sell as many copies or reach the same acclaim as DAO. Wouldn't it make sense for EA to make the product that is proven to succeed?

I also quite doubt that EA went out of their way to tell Bioware: "Hey, make the Dragon Age franchise/ruleset as shallow and unappealing as possible, alrighty?"
It's Bioware's fault.

[Jerrybnsn]

wsandista wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

 Bioware just needs to grow a pair and tell the EA execs to buzz off.

I don't know if it is necessarily EA that caused DA2 to be DA2. I mean EA is a business, and like them or not, their goal is to make money. DA2, while probably more profitable(because it had less dev time which translates to lower production cost), failed to sell as many copies or reach the same acclaim as DAO. Wouldn't it make sense for EA to make the product that is proven to succeed?

I have been thinking the same thing for the last couple of months that it wasn't EA that created DA2.  Because, you're right, why wouldn't EA just say, "make another Origins game like the last time"?  That's the milking part that big companies get criticised for.  I do believe they had the time limit of two years to make, but all the directions that they wanted  to make with DA2 came from Bioware developers themselves. 

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 12 juillet 2012 - 04:00 .

[Cimeas]

Yeah, I really really really doubt that EA gave Bioware only a year to make DA2. It hasn't done that with any other franchise. I think *Bioware* decided they could make the game in a year.

[Fast Jimmy]

Normally, I would agree with your logic, but EA's track record of acquiring developers and turning their IPs into dumbed-down versions to try and bring in more fans (and failing miseraby in most cases) is near legendary.

Did EA stick a gun to Bioware's head and say 'do this!'? Probably not. But the influence to make things more arcadey/actiony, less detailed and complex came from EA, of that I have little doubt. Either that or EA idenitified the Bioware employees who most matched up with the more 'casual' game design and got them into key positions and muscled other older Bioware employees out. Which can possibly be seen with some of the key leadership vacancies in both the ME and DA series prior to ME2 and DA2 coming out. But that's just a theory.

[Cimeas]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^
Until Kickstarter and the indie movement takes root, and quality games can be made for a fraction of the cost without tons of bells and whistles and they can get away with charging much less.

Then there will be true price variance in the market.

Yeah, but I (and many others) enjoy voice acting, lack of bugs (or at least less than an indie game), good graphics, nice animations and all the other 'bells and whistles' (i.e. the difference between a 1999 game and a 2012 game).

The fact is that Bioware could have continued churning out isometric 2D semi turn-based D&D RPGs without voice acting and without technical or gameplay improvements but they would have gone under because such games cannot compete with Witcher 2 or Deus Ex or whatever else.

The evolved, staying on the forefront of the genre, and I think there's a quote from a Bioware exec saying that they've *never* had an unprofitable game. 

[Maclimes]

I'd prefer something more episodic.

For $40, you get the base game, with "DA3: Episode 1". It would have a full story arc, although perhaps a smaller one. Say, 15 hours.

Then, you get another episode. Each would be around 15 hours, but since the base game and engine and mechanics are already done, they could release them for cheaper. Say, $20. Think of it as a smaller game with a series of expansions.

That would have worked perfectly for Hawke, since he had a long series of largely unrelated adventures. (Would not have worked for the Warden, without some clever writing).

Modifié par Maclimes, 12 juillet 2012 - 04:08 .

[Jerrybnsn]

Cimeas wrote...

Yeah, I really really really doubt that EA gave Bioware only a year to make DA2. It hasn't done that with any other franchise. I think *Bioware* decided they could make the game in a year.

Per Brent Knowles, the Lead Designer of Origins, discussion began on DA2 in the fall of 2008, at which he declined to be its lead designer because he didn't like the direction they wanted to take the franchise.  Origins wasn't released until the fall of 2009.