Ninja Stan wrote...
RaggieRags wrote...
Ninja Stan wrote...
Whether publishers want to sell games for $100 is immaterial. It's all about what the market will bear, and the North American market simply won't tolerate $100 videogames, and probably won't ever do so. They will, however, tolerate $60 games and the option to purchase additional content for little money.
Little? All the DLC added together can end up costing more than the base game. Obviously makes publishers love DLC, and me hate it; usually DLC is not a very good deal. It can be cheaper to buy a whole new game than all the DLC to a game. DLC is sold to people who love the base game so much they are willing to pay premium for a little bit of extra content. That's why I'd rather pay for a "complete edition". At least I'm going to know how much I'll end up spending.
Sure, but you're also paying the exact same price for a game whether it has 20 hours of play time or 120. You're paying the same price whether the game has zero replayability or infinite replayability. You're paying the same price whether a game took 18 months to produce or 12 years. You're paying the same price whether a game is rated highly or poorly. You're paying the same price regardless of the number of features, innovations, what tech is required to play the game, game engine, graphics/cinematics, number of models, amount of voice acting, number of playable characters, number of other platforms on which the game is released, etc.
You're misrepresenting things again Stan.
I pay the same price for a movie ticket no matter how many years it took to make. I pay the same price for that movie ticket no matter what budget it was given. I pay the same price if there's 5 minutes of CG imagery, or 3 hours. My cable bill isn't a sliding scale based on how long it took to make TV Shows, and I don't pay more for a book depending on how long it took to write it.
Further, Hollywood and TVLand don't treat every game as if it'll sell to every gamer, those business people understand the concept that different genres have different potential customer bases. They budget according to potential market.
I'm not seeing any reason why the Game Industry's inability to budget, or even do real market research, should be the Customers problem. This all sounds like the issue actually is the Game Industry is in desperate need of better business leadership, not DLC and gouging consumers.
Because the answer really is, don't spend a ridiculous ton of money as if every game's potential market is every gamer ever. Cutting out that 25%-30% that the Publisher adds to the cost of the game's development would help alot as well. When you're spending a quarter to a third of your budget on people who don't actually contribute to the project is simply bad management. There's no reason for Gamers to be expected to foot the bill for that many people not generating usefull work, the first part of the Game Industry's problem is it's desperate need for Publishers to get themselves under control.
And all of them need to sell copies in order to recoup the amount spent on development. Many gamers have a very specific definition of "complete game" in their heads, which is fine, but it usually ignores the complexity and financial wizardry that accompanies the game industry. Some folks say that asking the fans to learn more about the industry and how development works is wrong, but the number of simply misguided arguments I see from armchair economists, executives, and developers on the internet convinces me that I still need to provide some of this context for people. 
It's not ignored, it's recognized to be bad business strategy. The problem is the Game Industry is highly insular and very highly susceptible to Myth. The Game Industry creates ideas in isolation and insists they are true regardless of how obviously wrong they are, because they have little feedback from the outside since they've turned the Gaming Press into syncophants by controlling their paychecks. For example a relatively recent Myth the Game Industry has created that it wants to believe is true...
"You can't launch a new IP late in a console cycle, they only work in new console cycles".
Something easily demonstrated as false, because every single console has been able to launch new IP's at the end of it's cycle, and historically the launch of new IP's lead to strong sales in later generations. Just a few minutes researching release dates for games on any given platform shows this.
Day 1 DLC is no different. The Game Industry wants to hide the fact that it's terrible business strategy is killing sales, So rather than take risk and actually make something other than a Shooter or Action-Adventure, it tries to gouge the remaining consumers to make it look like they're still generating the same revenues without admitting that they're losing consumers.
We can even extend this to "Mobile!", "Tablets!", "Free to play!", because it's easy to demonstrate that this is investor driven, not actually researched or thought out, and the Industry is jumping right on that bandwagon because they see a way out of creating 3D games, letting them go back to 2000 era graphics and expenses while hoping to keep 2008 era sales.
I also note you like to toss around the word "Armchair" alot, which is indicative of the condescending view the Industry has of it's consumers. The use of that word is intended to try and indicate that no one can understand game development unless they work at a game studio. It's software development. Not all that different from any other software. Further, it's an entertainment medium. Directly comparable to it's sister industries, with the exact same market dynamics. The condescending attitude of the Industry this generation is one of it's larger problems.
I'm not saying that customers can never understand the development side of things, but if you want to persuade companies to do things your way, it'd be a good idea to find out if "your way" is even economically feasible from their perspective.
It is. Hollywood does it every day. They don't treat every title as a blockbuster, budget it according to historic sales, and generate alot of smaller profits instead of massive losses because not everything's a blockbuster. Works extremely well too. Even if a blockbuster fails, those "Non-mainstream" genres like Horror and Comedy still generate enough profit to cover it.
I don't see why Consumers need to understand anything, and I'd argue that the Industry really doesn't want the Consumers to understand things. Because if the Consumers understand that the Industry doesn't actually do market research, it doesn't do real focus groups, it's management side desperately needs "Streamlined" as it's adding ridiculous overhead, it holds the Press hostage, and it's strategy for deciding what to make consists of "What sold well last year" or "What are shareholders insisting is The Future of Gaming this week", then the Industry would cave in weeks. Right now, alot of Consumers still think the Industry actually works on good business practices like market research, market analysis, lean business strategy, and other good practices. Let them find out it's an insular bunch of people who don't really understand the market and have no idea what they're doing, and Gamers will become alot more critical in days at most.
Plus, I suspect that if we go for full honesty here, and the Consumers discover there really is a high degree of "Viral marketing" manipulating various forums, all adding to the cost of a game's development, the Industry is in desperate trouble.
I sincerely doubt that the Industry wants "Understanding", I strongly suspect that what the Industry wants is to push out another Myth "Game development is too expensive!", while continuing to hide it's real practices from the Consumer.
Modifié par Gatt9, 25 août 2012 - 08:23 .
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