945 réponses à ce sujet

[JZSquared]

wowpwnslol wrote...

Crimzon Nutcase wrote...


To get on topic however, Blizzard gets money from your subscription fees, from the add-on expansion packs, and from tools who buy server changes. Bioware doesn't charge you to play your game, they don't charge you for even a toolset to build new weapons and armor. However in order to produce more content they have to make more money from somewhere, don't they? Hmm yes they do. Free content like you propose isn't feasible, nor is it intelligent business practice.

Nice job derailing the topic to WoW. When I meant "free content" - I was talking about battle.net, Diablo 2 patches (new content for absolutely zero cost - they're going to release a new one soon, still supporting fans of a 10year old game) and Warcraft 3 patches (once again, new heroes for free).

But Bioware is charging us $5-15 for half an hour of content? No. I am not trolling, I am 100% serious. DLC's should be free. It's an outrage and an insult to be expected to pay for something you could cook up in toolset in 20 minutes.

But you see Blizzard can afford to do that because they have a money making machine, called World of Warcraft. Plus it depends on what kind of content. If there's additional voice acting, that costs money, actors don't work for free. If there's additional graphics that need to be designed, that costs money, again graphic designers do not work for free. Also I would like to take the time to point out that it will most likely not be recycled content. As you see from the trailer you actually go down to the battlefield, something you did not do before. Plus it's a ruined Ostagar, not the Ostagar that you walk into in the beginning, so they will need to change some things. Also I'm intrigued that you believe this content can be created so easily, if it can be done as you say, then by all means, make your own content for the game, it will only take twenty-minutes after all. Again, if you don't like it, don't buy it. That's what will hurt BioWare more. While trying to convince other people to believe what you believe, is an arduous, pointless task that grants very few minds being changed, if any at all. You've made your point however, and people will either choose to listen or ignore you, that is up to them. So to press the issue further only makes you look more desperate for attention. So find a game that suits you instead, and play that, Diablo II for example, and leave the rest of us to "burn" our money on a game we enjoy.

[MerinTB]

mrmike_1949 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

mrmike_1949 wrote...

 from sales figures, it seems that DAO is going to sell close to 10 million units - figure EA/Bioware gets $25 per copy (half ?) that's $250 million. I find it hard to beleive that it cost more $10 million to produce. And if only 10% of DAO buyers purchase RtO, that's $5 million, all of which goes to EA/BW.

Speculation, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
Game publishing is neither that cheap nor that profitable.

If you know better numbers, put 'em out there. You'll have to work hard to convince me that it cost very much more than $10 million to produce DAO though.

Speculation on what percentage of the $50 retail price does EA get, yes total WAG - but, have you got any data to suggest different

MikeK

Some quick facts -
http://www.m2researc...s-and-downs.htm
"Research estimates more recent development costs for these 7th
generation consoles to have soared, with the average costs running $10
million for one platform and $18-$28 million for multiple platforms."

Some caveats - it says "average game" and average games do not take 5 years of development.  Dragon Age: Origins is a bit bigger than your average game, I think most of us would admit.

But even jumping in at the low-end of that estimate: DAO is multple platform, so DAO at minimum would be around 18 million, or nearly doublt your estimate.

I'd do more research on this, but I have a busy night ahead of me - I trust others to take this ball and run with it.

[grieferbastard]

mrmike_1949 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

mrmike_1949 wrote...

 from sales figures, it seems that DAO is going to sell close to 10 million units - figure EA/Bioware gets $25 per copy (half ?) that's $250 million. I find it hard to beleive that it cost more $10 million to produce. And if only 10% of DAO buyers purchase RtO, that's $5 million, all of which goes to EA/BW.

Speculation, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
Game publishing is neither that cheap nor that profitable.

If you know better numbers, put 'em out there. You'll have to work hard to convince me that it cost very much more than $10 million to produce DAO though.

Speculation on what percentage of the $50 retail price does EA get, yes total WAG - but, have you got any data to suggest different

MikeK

Actually, how about examples of BioWares fiscal health/profitability? Earlier I made a joke about how I can't turn on the news without hearing about their devs being caught knee-deep in hookers and blow and how bad it was that the EA CEO bought Madagasgar, had it towed to the US and paved over to use as an auxilliary parking lot for his exotic car collection.

Admittedly the profitability of EA has little to do with the success of DA:O. I'm not a big fan of EA's business model and would not buy their stock.

Any attempt to speculate on DA:O's profit margin would be just that; speculation, but the industry seems to run terribly, terribly lean. Even consoles (which tend to be cheaper to produce) run a million units to the break-even point.

What is salient is that their valuation, they cut their projected earnings from 0.70 to $1 down to 0.40 to $0.55 a share for the upcoming year. This is after shedding a pile of jobs.

It's not an industry that works by profit on a particular project. the money to develope DA:O was part of their budget for the last several years. What is happening now, the money it is generating, is part of their projected budget to create new projects - which is a grim, grim projection.

[mrmike_1949]

MerinTB wrote...

Some quick facts -
http://www.m2researc...s-and-downs.htm
"Research estimates more recent development costs for these 7th
generation consoles to have soared, with the average costs running $10
million for one platform and $18-$28 million for multiple platforms."

Some caveats - it says "average game" and average games do not take 5 years of development.  Dragon Age: Origins is a bit bigger than your average game, I think most of us would admit.

But even jumping in at the low-end of that estimate: DAO is multple platform, so DAO at minimum would be around 18 million, or nearly doublt your estimate.

I'd do more research on this, but I have a busy night ahead of me - I trust others to take this ball and run with it.

One thing I can extract from this info is that the voices and basic game dev must be a small part of overall costs, since it appears to be almost a linear relationship between cost and number of platforms, which implies that actually coding and QA is the majority of costs. I  also assume that distrubtion costs are included in that number - making the actual DVDs and cases and shipping ?

If we go with $30 million dev costs, that's still 8X ROI ( if EA gets 50% of retail price)

Anyone have data on what percent of retails sales price goes to EA?

btw MerinTB : Good link!

MikeK

[TheMadCat]

mrmike_1949 wrote...

If you know better numbers, put 'em out there. You'll have to work hard to convince me that it cost very much more than $10 million to produce DAO though.

CoD: MW 2 had a $40m-$50m developmement budget. I don't believe they actually hit their budget, but it's a big number for game that had a 2-3 year development cycle.

vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs. Good article with this quote.

PS3/Xbox 360/PC titles averaging 12 million to 18 million euros
($18.8m-$28.2m) to create for all 3 SKUs, and a Wii game expected to
cost 5 million to 6 million euros ($7.8-$9m) to develop.[4]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7151961.stm. Another good article.

I'd say DA:O had a development cost of somewhere between $20m-$30m overall and an actual launch budget of around 9 figures which is typical for a big AAA release these days. If you need some more I'll pull up some more.
   

Modifié par TheMadCat, 15 janvier 2010 - 11:25 .

[ArathWoeeye]

About voice acting: Blizzard changed about all the voice actors they used on warcraft games. It's rumored that it has something to do with the payment actors demand... but not sure.

[Azuarc]

Read the first few pages before jumping to the end. This thread is (or at least was early on) pretty outlandish. I happen to *mostly* agree with the free DLC...assuming it doesn't add anything major to the game.



Games often release with things missing from them. This game was released without a storage facility or one of the characters that was planned. Bioware is selling one of those to us for $7 and the other for $15. Fortunately, we aren't paying that $15 because we bought the game before April, but until I realized I wasn't going to have to pay that, I was pretty incensed at the thought of an expansion that basically adds one companion and costs a fourth of what the game does.



Fair comparison? Maybe, maybe not. But if a game is going to have DLC, I expect it to be worth the price. "Worth it" does not mean altering the gameplay so you feel like you are lacking without it. (Like a storage chest, or extra talent points.) It does not mean shoring up a deficient area of the game that should be patched instead, like itemization. It means adding real things to do. I'll admit I haven't sufficiently done my homework on each of the DLC's, and I definitely haven't paid for any, but it sure sounds like you're mostly paying for snake oil.



I'll pay "the cost of four cups of coffee" (which is an absolutely HORRIBLE comparison, btw) for something that I think is worth that money. Warden's Keep doesn't sound like it. Neither does Return to Ostagar. Dragon Age, the base game? Sure, absolutely, but that doesn't mean that I should continue to pay for something above and beyond the enjoyment of the original product. A company needs to convince me to buy their DLC through the merits of the DLC...and shamelessly putting advertising for it within the base game is a pretty big red flag for me.

[traversc]

If RtO isn't worth $5 for you personally, don't buy it.

Please stop trying to pass this argument as valid.  We all know why it fails, and it does, very badly.  It's in no one's interest to keep going back to this very flawed statement, so please stop. 

Do not, however, presume to spend my money for me or even more inappropriately make more sweeping and incorrect statements about how 'well' I spend my money. $5 for 45 minutes of entertainment - that I will repeatedly enjoy on several playthroughs and see further enjoyment out of as it adds to the pool of resources modders use to make more free content - is an insignificant expense and if that extra $5s goes to supporting the future production of content as high-quality as DA:O is I'm all for it.

I can make objective observations about value, and how people  spend their money.  I don't need your permission to do it, sir. 

It's safe to say that the quality per time of the DLC (all 30 minutes of it) was about on par with DA:O.  That is an assumption, but I think it's a reasonable one. 

If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O.  It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O.  In other words, imagine that DA:O is a hotdog.  Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog.  Do you think that's reasonable?  I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this!  It is highway robbery. 

A point was made earlier that DA:O was in fact worth more than $50 dollars, and that we were simply getting a really good deal with the intial game.  I agree.  But the argument to that effect is marginal, even if DA:O were worth several hundred dollars.  It still doesn't change the fact that the price of DLCs are several times more expensive than they should be. 

[TheMadCat]

If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O. It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O. In other words, imagine that DA:O is a hotdog. Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50. Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog. Do you think that's reasonable? I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this! It is highway robbery.

The thing is RtO is not a consumable product, once you play it once it doesn't disappear or luck back up until you buy it again, once you buy it it's yours for good. If I play RtO say 5 or 6 times in my life that resulted in 2 to 3 hours worth of time. Is 2 or 3 hours still to short for a $5 DLC?

[addiction21]

traversc wrote...


If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O.  It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O.  In other words, imagine that DA:O is a hotdog.  Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog.  Do you think that's reasonable?  I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this!  It is highway robbery. 

Well if it was a never ending hotdog that I could pull out the fridge everytime I wanted a hotdog then I would think 15 dollars would be on the cheap side.

[Sloth Of Doom]

addiction21 wrote...

traversc wrote...


If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O.  It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O.  In other words, imagine that DA:O is a hotdog.  Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog.  Do you think that's reasonable?  I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this!  It is highway robbery. 

Well if it was a never ending hotdog that I could pull out the fridge everytime I wanted a hotdog then I would think 15 dollars would be on the cheap side.

Metaphore win.

[mrmike_1949]

Sloth Of Doom wrote...

addiction21 wrote...

traversc wrote...


If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O.  It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O.  In other words, imagine that DA:O is a hotdog.  Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog.  Do you think that's reasonable?  I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this!  It is highway robbery. 

Well if it was a never ending hotdog that I could pull out the fridge everytime I wanted a hotdog then I would think 15 dollars would be on the cheap side.

Metaphore win.

Nope - that's $15 every time you pull your hot dog, oops I mean, never mind

[Bibdy]

People still comparing disposable food consumption vs a recyclable entertainment product...

[addiction21]

mrmike_1949 wrote...


Nope - that's $15 every time you pull your hot dog, oops I mean, never mind

Good thing thats not true or I would be further in debt then America is...

Not going to sign your post at the bottom so we know who said it

[Sloth Of Doom]

traversc wrote...
imagine that DA:O is a hotdog.  Most places will sell the hotdog for a reasonable price at $1.50.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars for the hotdog.  Do you think that's reasonable?  I can't think of anywhere else that so readily gets away with this!  It is highway robbery. 

Imagine that DA:O is a 2009 ferrari 599  Most places will sell the ferrari for a reasonable price at $320,580.  Now imagine being charged $15 dollars fr the ferrari.  Do you think that is a really stupid metaphore?  I can;t think of anywhee else that so readily gets away with this!  Its bad logic.

[ladydesire]

traversc wrote...

If that is the case, then it is simple mathematics to determine, objectively, the comparitive value of DLCs with respect to DA:O.  It comes out that DLCs are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than DA:O.

I disagree, since they  took far less time to develop than DA did. Stone Prisoner was actually originally part of the game, so it was relatively easy for Bioware's DLC team to finalize what elements of the package were missing and get it ready to ship. Warden's Keep was created entirely from scratch in approximately 6 months, and Return to Ostagar was done in a similarly short span of time compared to the five years (or more) that Bioware took to develop DA. If you look at it by the amount of time needed to properly design and test them, I would say that they are quite reasonably priced.

[addiction21]

ladydesire wrote...

I disagree, since they  took far less time to develop than DA did. Stone Prisoner was actually originally part of the game, so it was relatively easy for Bioware's DLC team to finalize what elements of the package were missing and get it ready to ship. Warden's Keep was created entirely from scratch in approximately 6 months, and Return to Ostagar was done in a similarly short span of time compared to the five years (or more) that Bioware took to develop DA. If you look at it by the amount of time needed to properly design and test them, I would say that they are quite reasonably priced.

*insert bad joke about delays*

There now no one needs to do it.

[Zalbaar]

This thread makes no sense. You really expect a company that is in the business of making money to take a fifty percent paycut on a piece of software because you did not get it soon enough. As far as five dollars for the price I doubt they are even going to get there money back on this since they keep finding more and more problems with it. They said they will let us know when it gets here so until then settle down and think of how awesome it will be to play another hour or hour and half of game play. You guys keep asking for free stuff they might decide this is not worth it and cut DLC in the future of all there games. Not worth the headache, when it comes down to it.

[mrmike_1949]

thought I'd throw this into the mix:

www.tomshardware.com/news/PC-Gaming-Digital-Retail-Steam,9452.html

it predicts PC games all digital in 2011, no more retail

MikeK

[freche]

wowpwnslol wrote...

But Bioware is charging us $5-15 for half an hour of content? No. I am not trolling, I am 100% serious. DLC's should be free. It's an outrage and an insult to be expected to pay for something you could cook up in toolset in 20 minutes.

So there is 8 companions that require some dialogue to be recorded and they need to take into consideration which characters you have in your party since they "talk" with eachother. So just there is quite a lot dialogue to be written and recorded. Then there is probably some more characters to interact with that also require dialogue.

So I'd like you to as you so delicate said "cook up" a DLC that lasts ~30min with a semi-good story/lore, atleast 10 characters that have a couple of lines, all that in 20min.


That being said I'm sure most of the folks at bioware would love to give out free DLCs. But they also want to be able to deliver some more DAO goodie and they can't do that if they get fired because the company spent all money creating free DLCs for you.

And regarding the price of $5 for 30min game time, almost all cases of sales (being whatever), the price has nothing to do with what it costed to develop/create it. The price is set to where they belive they can gain the most profit. If they belived that enough people would buy it if it just cost $1 then thats what the DLC would cost. But even you understand that they would not sell 5x the amount of DLCs if they lowered the price to that.

[TheMadCat]

mrmike_1949 wrote...

thought I'd throw this into the mix:

www.tomshardware.com/news/PC-Gaming-Digital-Retail-Steam,9452.html

it predicts PC games all digital in 2011, no more retail

MikeK

Right, because 1C is no doubt the company that sets the bar.

Too soon, many publishers still aren't on board the DD wagon yet and internet outside NA, Western Europe, and maybe parts of Asia not sure there, still isn't cheap enough to warrant a full switch over. 1C may go full DD, but the big boys like EA, Ubisoft, 2K, Take Two, ect. won't. Oceania, Eastern Europe, Asia, South Africa, Russia are still valuable markets that you'd cripple with such a move at this time.

[addiction21]

TheMadCat wrote...

mrmike_1949 wrote...

thought I'd throw this into the mix:

www.tomshardware.com/news/PC-Gaming-Digital-Retail-Steam,9452.html

it predicts PC games all digital in 2011, no more retail

MikeK

Right, because 1C is no doubt the company that sets the bar.

Too soon, many publishers still aren't on board the DD wagon yet and internet outside NA, Western Europe, and maybe parts of Asia not sure there, still isn't cheap enough to warrant a full switch over. 1C may go full DD, but the big boys like EA, Ubisoft, 2K, Take Two, ect. won't. Oceania, Eastern Europe, Asia, South Africa, Russia are still valuable markets that you'd cripple with such a move at this time.

He does make some good points. Your right tho I would not expect it to go world wide or be a total flip to DD.

As for 1c they make some fun games. Kings Bounty (think Heroes of Might and Magic minus the turns) or Majesty 1 and 2. Very much loved the first one and was impressed with the second one. Even tho they do lack a certain grasp of the english language " Leaded by young sorceress Telle the hero has to grasp in intrigues, experience himself and accept his fate. Will he become Dragon the Created or Dragon Slayer? " 
Then again I am not much better with grammer and spelling

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

I'm suprised this thread isn't closed. What's everyone spamming in here?

[traversc]

The thing is RtO is not a consumable product, once you play it once it doesn't disappear or luck back up until you buy it again, once you buy it it's yours for good. If I play RtO say 5 or 6 times in my life that resulted in 2 to 3 hours worth of time. Is 2 or 3 hours still to short for a $5 DLC?

The point of interest is the comparative value. If you play RtO 5 or 6 times that means you probably play DA:O 5 or 6 times and the comparitive value is invariant.

People still comparing disposable food consumption vs a recyclable entertainment product...

Its a shame you don't understand the concept of comparison, considering how cute the bear is. I am not comparing DA:O and RtO to hotdogs. I am comparing the relationship between DA:O and RtO to the relationship between hotdogs of different prices. It's called an analogy. The fact that one is physical while the other is magical is irrelevant because comparitive value is dimensionless. In lay terms, the units "cancel out" so to speak.

Using the idea of comparitive value, you'd need to believe that the actual value of DA:O is really around $600-700 for DLCs to be worth $5. Isomorphically, if you somehow managed to beat the game in 6 hours and still require 30 minutes to beat RtO, then yes, RtO is reasonably priced. If neither of those conditions are met, then DLCs are determinably overpriced. That so many of you people a buying into these DLCs is not only a disservice to other gamers, but to yourselves as well, as Bioware, a rational actor, will focus on churning and milking the DLC cow rather than putting their focus on developing content.

Modifié par traversc, 16 janvier 2010 - 02:06 .