Before purchasing a game, the average person is not going to know how much they are going to enjoy it or how many hours they will get out of it. Even RPG fans don't enjoy every RPG despite the creator or years in development.
If they set the price significantly higher than other games, it becomes a riskier purchase.
I think it is different for smaller games with a small loyal niche audience. But DA seems like an expensive game that needs to sell a lot to a broad audience of gamers.
Before purchasing a
gamehamburger, the average person is not going to know how much they are going to enjoy it or how many hours they will get out of it. EvenRPGhamburger fans don't enjoy everyRPGhamburger despite the creator or years in development.
If they set the price significantly higher than other
gameshamburgers, it becomes a riskier purchase.
I think it is different for smaller games with a small loyal niche audience. But
DADouble-Double seems like an expensivegameHamburger that needs to sell a lot to a broad audience ofgamersHamburger enthusiasts.
Sorry to single out your post, it isn't a personal attack on your logic, but to paraphrase Bronn's sentiment: "The whole ****-stained world could drink off that."
It's this mentality I like to point out when people come out against critics and the critical process. It's impossible for everyone to try everything, there's just so many hours in the day, so as a responsible consumer you need to seek our critical sources. And in the case of highly subjective engagements like Gaming, it's best to compile a portfolio of sorts, of critical sources which you most closely align yourself with. It's why even though I hate the aggregate metacritic crap, I love the site for indexing so much critical information.
Skyrim cost what £30 at release on PC, I've got 500+ hours logged on that game. Definitely got my money's worth.
Vs
Halo ODST on X360, cost £40 at release, lasted best part of an afternoon, alright it had multiplayer, but that was just the same as Halo 3.
RPG's (the good ones anyway) give you far better return on investment then any other genre of gaming. I don't think the price point of any of the rpg's I've bought in the last 10 years has been an issue. I would argue that we get massively over-charged for the repetitive shooters and sport sims that barely change and are solely reliant on multi-player options to give value for money.
I have big issues with DA2, the price of the game wasn't one of them.
Sorry to single out your post, it isn't a personal attack on your logic, but to paraphrase Bronn's sentiment: "The whole ****-stained world could drink off that."
It's this mentality I like to point out when people come out against critics and the critical process. It's impossible for everyone to try everything, there's just so many hours in the day, so as a responsible consumer you need to seek our critical sources. And in the case of highly subjective engagements like Gaming, it's best to compile a portfolio of sorts, of critical sources which you most closely align yourself with. It's why even though I hate the aggregate metacritic crap, I love the site for indexing so much critical information.
I'm not sure the genre is being held back. I think it is more popular than ever and more games are incorporating RPG elements.
I think raising the price would stunt that growth.
if you hate rants, ignore. otherwise, here you go:
holding back? from developing itself? well... i think pricing is just a side effect.
huh. let's make it clear - i have no idea about gaming industry. i see it from gamer perspective only. for one: cheap games are not necessarily bad (indie, kickstarters - imho some of them are brilliant and concepts started in those are both fresh and mindmelting). bad games are not necessarily cheap, nor have they shorter developement cycle.
if you want quantity - industry is in perfect state imho. if you look for quality - well... it's standing still - the number of good titles seems to be constant, but the number of titles total is quite high (and it's rising fast - new technologies: consoles, phones)
besides... that's pretty complex topic and depends on what is cRPG. for me it's basicaly a table top emulator. i don't expect fancy visuals in table tops. i expect adaptive story.
sadly industry focuses on new shaders/particle effects/new engines/next gens/aaa fidelity instead of AI/mechanics/inventing ways to improve branching, allow some sort of randomness/giving player more options and handling them in the story. hell, even Skyrim's boring Radiant system is an achievement these days. but no, games are even more constrained by additional cinematics/pre recorded VA - i have netflix for movies, thanks.
faster developement cycles and third-party engines force devs to wave off some of the more complex ideas (because it would be ****** to implement, because i'd have to override 3/4 of the core classes and my scrum master will eat my face, because business client is here tomorrow and we have to show him something cool - he has no time to learn techno-babble/read documentation/understand the lore, because i cannot start rewriting AI from the top now because QA already tested it and they have to test cinematics someday!)
and that's kind of funny... i'd expect awesome blood spattering and fancy explosions from fps not cRPG. maybe because original engines were made to meet fps requirements first? or maybe it's just fps are easier to create? as i've said - i have no idea about gaming industry, i just know what i hate about most of the cRPGs today.
being a programmer myself, i wouldn't want to seek job in this industry, as much as i love playing games or creating mods/indie projects with friends. it seems like a really bad and toxic place to grow, even more so if you have fresh ideas.
(Disclaimer: I'm cranky and using this thread to defuse that rather then go off on my ex-sister-in-law on facebook. Thus apologizes if I accidentally come off hostile, that's not my intention. 
)
The current conversion of the US Dollar to Euro is 1 USD = .75 Euro
The current conversion of the US Dollar to the British Pound Sterling is 1.71 USD = 1 BPS
That being said, current standard edition AAA games in the US run us about 60$. So right off the bat, the same amount, all things being equal (and I'm aware that they're not, differing markets and whatnot) Europeans should be paying about €44.03. Where in that same line, folks in England should be paying £35.06.
Now that should be if all things are equal in terms of cost. But as all things are never equal, you have to then take into account that these games (specifically the RPG's in question) are often made within the US or Canada. The cost to sell an American (or Canadian) made game is always impacted by taxes. Where a game made in the US (and Canada) does not have extra tax heaped upon it outside of individual state's sales tax, a US (or Canadian) made game being sold to the rest of the world is impacted by individual countries taxes in terms of out-of-country shipping and licensing.
Companies like EA have to compensate for paying the cost of permission to sell their product to countries who have higher taxes imposed upon them, which then raises the price for the consumers.
So while we're still paying the basic 60$, Europeans are now paying the equivalent of 100 USD for the same product.
And that looks awful (and hurts the wallet) of folks who actually can tell the difference between $60 and €60.
Basically it seems really unfair that the US gets to pay $60 for something that Europeans are paying $100 for, and in all honesty, it is. But you have have to take into account that cost-to-ship, as it were, costs the company in question more to ship and sell to countries outside of their own.
With all of that, you can now factor in the fact that a company never, ever has to sell hard copies to anyone these days. They can 100% sell all of their product digitally. And while it's absolutely reasonable for them to charge more for physical copies due almost completely to licensing and taxes, the real issue we should, as consumers, be questioning -- is why the digital copy of a game costs equal or greater then the cost of a physical copy.
Why is it that we're still being asked to spend $60 (and its $100 euro equivalent) on digital content when these companies are not being forced to pay various taxes for their digital content in the way they must for physical copies of the same product?
Shouldn't even the US version of said digital content be less?
The question should (hopefully) never be "Are these games worth $60/€60", but "How come If I don't want the box and the cd, am I being asked to pay the same amount as someone who does?"
But that hits a nerve too, because how is it Fair (all things being fair 
) for folks who are forced or choose to buy the physical copy of an item to have to pay more for something that other folks can get for less?
The whole thing is a very tricky bunch of questions that people who are way smarter then I am are probably sitting down to figure out as we speak. (well.. type, but yanno..) Generally speaking, the easiest answer in this case, is probably "If everyone pays 60 dollers/euros, then it LOOKS even, even if it isn't actually even." Which at the end of the day, is also the safest route to take. It looks even, so most folks don't really stop to question it.
As for individual worth of something, that's really just a personal choice. If you dislike paying 60 EUROS/60USD for something and find enjoyment in games that cost much less -- well that's your personal choice. And until it gets to a point where EVERYONE is being asked to pay over-the-top pricing for low quality games in a consistent manor, it's always going to be a personal issue and not an industry-wide issue.
I'll agree that BG2 is overrated, but I think BG did many good things that games today simply don't do.I will say, however, that BG2 is incredibly overrated. Whatever love some developers have for it, I have a hard time seeing anything in BG that's uniquely outstanding today. It was a masterpiece compared to what was available in comparison - gameplay wise it was much better than Planescape, and story wise it was better than the hive-mind D&D simulators in IWD, but that's all it had as competition.
That Brenda Braithwaite and Tom Hall couldn't get funding for Shaker really disappointed me.I agree, with the caveat that the funding is really only available to already established developers: see the difference between the old Black Isle vs. randoms on Kickstarter.
Just buy more copies. For truly epic quality games (DA:O, Xcom:Enemy Unknown) I generally buy copies for my friends that haven't tried it.
I certainly feel I still owe Bioware more money for the amount of time I played the first Dragon Age. Personally, I would love it if games would double up on content and then double their price. I am more than willing to pay for quality. However, I also understand free market principles and human behavior. People come to expect to be given more and pay less. Look at the whole Day-One DLC people that complain non-stop about it "should have been in the game already". Doubling the price of a game just doesn't work unfortunately, hence content will also always be limited by the budget of "where" the game can retail at effectively.
On a PC, it's more like £35.
Where have you found it for that price?
It's £50 on Origin, £40 on amazon and I haven't found anything cheaper than that.
I ALWAYS get bang for my buck with Bio games, since I play a **** ton of it.
I played DA2 the least because, well...LOL COPY AND PASTE DUNGEONS
I do too.
BioWare, Fall Out and Elderscrolls, I always get my money worth, especially with BioWre. I still play KOTOR and JE along with the newer ones which I replay until the next BioWare game comes out. I don't do that with most other games, I will keep the ones I like and replay it but not on the scale I do with RPGs that let me do things like customize my character, make decisions along the way and is all around fun.
DA2 I played a lot, not as much as past games, but still pull it out and I do enjoy it. ME3 was the one I played least, but I've started playing that again on the pc with an ending mod.
I'm pretty sure, at least from what I've seen and heard so far, I will be playing DAI for many years, just to see the dialogue dialogue between all of them.
The most important thing to know about priceing pc games is that you want x= number of sales times price per unit to be as high as possible.
So if a 10% reduction in price per unit meant 30% bigger sales then lowering the cost would be profitable. if an 50% increase in cost per unit meant 40% lower sales you would accually loose Money on it.
This is because digital sales cost the Company almost nothing. But developing the game cost alot.
Some parts of the world would buy the games if they doubled in cost. the price of the game in some parts of the world is so low the cost of the time you spend on them is much higher then the small cost in buying the game.
Where have you found it for that price?
It's £50 on Origin, £40 on amazon and I haven't found anything cheaper than that.
Huh, thought it used to be lower on amazon.
While the plot of BG was quite simple, that way it was presented was not. The player needed to figure out what the plot was, rather than having it described to him in great detail 10 minutes into the game.
BG allowed much greater flexibility in party construction than these new games do by not forcing the PC to be party leader or party spokesperson. It makes no in any post-BG2 BioWare game for the PC to be uncharismatic, but such a thing was actually supported in BG.
Similarly, the sheer number of available followers granted the player greater freedom in the construction of the party from a mechanical standpoint. The same thing could be achieved today, even with the smaller number of followers, by using a classless system or granting more flexibility with each class, but they're not doing that.
The roleplaying freedom that was created by there being places to go and being allowed to travel there even in the absence of a related quest is something I haven't seen in a party-based game since (TES does it, but that's a very different sort of game with a great many other serious issues).
BG was (and still is) an amazing game, and no roleplaying game I've seen in the past 15 years has come close.
I do agree with you that BG had a lot of great elements - at least in concept, though I will disagree that it actually allowed the Bhaalspawn not to be spokesperson (I could point out certain dialogue options that only work when said by the PC proper). As a matter of gameplay you're allowed to use another person, but the actual dialogue doesn't sync up with it. I actually think DA2 had a much better approach along these lines - allowing you to choose to defer to companions. I would like to see that option return. And it is the one option I actually wholly endorse the paraphrase being "Anders" or "Aveline", because part of deference is not actually knowing what the other character will do.
I also agree with you regarding the openness of the plot structure, though I would argue it is less open than you suggest because of the overarching plot that binds you for many parts of the game, beside when you needed some $$.
I think BG has a lot of great ideas that weren't executed that well in a lot of cases, and that Bioware has thus far failed to follow up on them.
The importance of cost for games varies a fair bit for peoples play styles and their disposable income. I've gotten a lot of value out of almost every BioWare game mostly because the variety of companions they include lets me have multiple play thoroughs which I always include as entertainment value. Cost is also less of an issue now for me than it was years ago when I was a poor college student.
In BG2 it often doesn't work. At least one of the writers later admitted that he hadn't known about the mechanic when writing the game, and had written assuming a PC spokesperson.I do agree with you that BG had a lot of great elements - at least in concept, though I will disagree that it actually allowed the Bhaalspawn not to be spokesperson (I could point out certain dialogue options that only work when said by the PC proper). As a matter of gameplay you're allowed to use another person, but the actual dialogue doesn't sync up with it. I actually think DA2 had a much better approach along these lines - allowing you to choose to defer to companions. I would like to see that option return. And it is the one option I actually wholly endorse the paraphrase being "Anders" or "Aveline", because part of deference is not actually knowing what the other character will do.
I'm thinking of the first 4-5 chapters. Those are open. The overarching plot isn't even visible, I would argue, until chapter 4.I also agree with you regarding the openness of the plot structure, though I would argue it is less open than you suggest because of the overarching plot that binds you for many parts of the game, beside when you needed some $$.
While I loathe the high prices seen in current years, the knowledge of the time, devs, and zots it now takes to make such games makes it an investment into entertainment that I can afford and choose to accept. And while I cannot get everything, I have been pleased with the title choices I have made this century.
So, your over a hundred years old huh :0
So, your over a hundred years old huh :0
$80 must have been a fairly unusual case. I agree with the general point, though; AAA titles are about due for a shift to $65 or even $70, based on historical averages. I was surprised we didn't see this when the new consoles dhipped.First of all, to address the OP's question, I've been saying for years that modern games are priced too low. In 1986 I was happily paying as much as $80 for one game, and adjusted for inflation that's like $160 today.
$80 must have been a fairly unusual case. I agree with the general point, though; AAA titles are about due for a shift to $65 or even $70, based on historical averages.
Ultima IV - bought it in Spokane, WA.$80 must have been a fairly unusual case. I agree with the general point, though; AAA titles are about due for a shift to $65 or even $70, based on historical averages. I was surprised we didn't see this when the new consoles dhipped.
Feels like it. Simply wish I could get the games of this century with the prices from the past one.
(Said in the Samantha traynor voice after she confessed about the cost of her tooth brush...) "I once spent $50 dollars on an intellivision game."
I'm glad the writer didn't understand the mechanic, then. Being able to swap NPCs into the speaker role is of no interest to me, and writing to accommodate that style has negative value. Obviously, this is just another one of those zero-sum things.In BG2 it often doesn't work. At least one of the writers later admitted that he hadn't known about the mechanic when writing the game, and had written assuming a PC spokesperson.
But BG works really well. If the only examples of difficulty with that are individual dialogue options, I would say that isn't a problem at all. It's up to the player to decide which dialogue option is appropriate for his spokesperson. What you describe would only be an issue if it happened regularly, or if there were instances where all (or all but one) of the available options were nonsensical when spoken by an NPC.
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