EA 'theoretically' interested in raising game prices for next gen - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Ericson666;39729321] Well they have like 6-8 weeks after finishing the game before the actual launch, so it's for the best that they make more content[/QUOTE] Content is already on disk. The disks are usually pressed 2-3 months prior to launch. 6 weeks of nothing, means DLC was done AT LEAST 2 months before release.

[QUOTE=Killuah;39729280]That logic works when you view it from "majority-of-buyers" perspective but not when you view it from an individual perspective and that's why people posts stuff like "I don't like higher prices" because they hope they are not alone. YOu telling them "just don't buy it" is the same as telling a worker who is not in a union "just don't go to work".[/QUOTE] No, it's not the same. You don't need a video game from EA to support you or a family. Come on, get real. It's a realistic thing to say. If you don't like the price of a product, stop paying for it, because by paying for it, you tell the company that their price is justified. If you're just going to bitch and moan about the price of a video game but then buy it anyway, only to bitch and moan about prices being high a week later, then you're contributing to the problem.

[QUOTE=Killuah;39729280]YOu telling them "just don't buy it" is the same as telling a worker who is not in a union "just don't go to work".[/QUOTE] this is a ridiculous analogy and it says volumes about you

Well, gamer who sees a new game priced at US$30 might think it's an old game or bad game or an indie. Plus the production value is what make the game more expensive.

[QUOTE=Ericson666;39729321][MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TT_SGL-oc[/MEDIA] Well they have like 6-8 weeks after finishing the game before the actual launch, so it's for the best that they make more content[/QUOTE] I'd rather actually have bug fixes. Half the games I've bought in the past 2 years have been unplayable at launch, either in terms of gameplay or graphical errors. It's not like I'm operating on some alien hardware either when it comes to my machine either for the graphical errors. It does not get more generic than a gtx 460 with a sandy bridge. I like joining the nordic space program as much as the next guy, but the number of game breaking bugs is ridiculous.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;39729317]It used to actually cost money to print games onto media, especially cartridges. Now it's literally less than a nickel to make a dvd. Blurays aren't exactly that expensive either, and digital distribution is essentially scalable to whatever level you need on top of outright eliminating the shipping costs. Inflation is one thing, but the net cost of distributing media has steadily fallen, and is approaching the point where it is a trivial cost to consider.[/QUOTE] The cost of a video games more than just how much it costs to distribute it, people gotta be paid with inflated wages so they can buy goods (that have their prices inflated too).

Really, with the withholding of game content for day 1 and other DLC, we're already at that point.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;39729462]I'd rather actually have bug fixes. Half the games I've bought in the past 2 years have been unplayable at launch, either in terms of gameplay or graphical errors. It's not like I'm operating on some alien hardware either when it comes to my machine either for the graphical errors. It does not get more generic than a gtx 460 with a sandy bridge. I like joining the nordic space program as much as the next guy, but the number of game breaking bugs is ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Remember the L4D2 launch? And the Portal 2 launch? It wasn't even the games faults then, launch problems almost always happen because people/companies underestimate the software demand on launch (eg. Steam). Rarely have I had a game unplayable due to bugs actually in the game -- most of the time it's unplayable because X software (whether that be Steam, Origin, or any server pretty much) was clogged with loads of people like me trying to start the game up.

[QUOTE=ZestyLemons;39729504]The cost of a video games more than just how much it costs to distribute it, people gotta be paid with inflated wages so they can buy goods (that have their prices inflated too).[/QUOTE] Oh I know. I'm just saying that expecting game prices to be locked 1:1 with inflation is stupid. There are effects to make them increase in price faster than inflation, and slower than it, as well as effects like distribution that should decrease the price too.

better graphics require more man hours and therefore higher costs. nes games took like 3 months to make. a good, well rounded $60 PS3 game takes about 2-3 years to make

[QUOTE=ZestyLemons;39729530]Remember the L4D2 launch? And the Portal 2 launch? It wasn't even the games faults then, launch problems almost always happen because people/companies underestimate the software demand on launch (eg. Steam). Rarely have I had a game unplayable due to bugs actually in the game -- most of the time it's unplayable because X software (whether that be Steam, Origin, or any server pretty much) was clogged with loads of people like me trying to start the game up.[/QUOTE] I didn't actually have problems with those oddly enough, but for example, one of my more recent purchases. Guild Wars 2. Gameplay was utterly fucking broken at launch. Not because of overloaded servers, thoughj that did happen too, but because of billions of bugs in zones. Tons of exploits that I sent detailed reports about during the betas remained unpatched, and the zones that you didn't have access to during the betas were packed full of broken mobs, events, glitched terrain, npcs, and anything else.

[QUOTE=meppers;39729536]better graphics require more man hours and therefore higher costs. nes games took like 3 months to make. a good, well rounded $60 PS3 game takes about 2-3 years to make[/QUOTE] Did you see the posting of the prices for Sega Genesis games posted from above?

I dunno what the issue with prices going up is - it's bound to happen sooner or later. It sucks, but it's the way the economy works. Relevant; [IMG]http://www.1up.com/media/03/9/4/0/lg/103.jpg[/IMG] [url]http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle[/url]

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;39729564] Gameplay was utterly fucking broken at launch. Not because of overloaded servers, thoughj that did happen too, but because of billions of bugs in zones. Tons of exploits that I sent detailed reports about during the betas remained unpatched, and the zones that you didn't have access to during the betas were packed full of broken mobs, events, glitched terrain, npcs, and anything else.[/QUOTE] SWTOR was a huge offender when it came to this. Some of the stuff I reported in beta never got fixed even I quit the game.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. After BF3 and ME3 I've vowed to not buy another EA game. Then my friends convinced me to get Shift 2, and of course they can't even fucking patch the thing properly so that Steam and Origin versions don't desync with each other in multiplayer. Raise the prices to $100 for all I care EA, I'm not touching your shit even if it's free.

[QUOTE=Ericson666;39729321][MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TT_SGL-oc[/MEDIA] Well they have like 6-8 weeks after finishing the game before the actual launch, so it's for the best that they make more content[/QUOTE] I agree with the points he's making in extra credits, but god daaaamn do I want game devs to work on expansion pack quality DLC rather than small and stupid cosmetic shit.

[QUOTE=Doomish;39729162]$70 is my absolute limit for new video games, personally. $60 is pushing it but that's kind of become the standard for console games (and a lot of stuff released on Steam is getting there now as well), so I can accept it. I live in America, so I don't have to deal with the kind of crazy pricing range places like Australia have, but if the going rate is raised again then I just don't know if it'll be worth it anymore.[/QUOTE] Think about what you said. Didn't everyone go berserk when the price got raised to $59?

[QUOTE=thisispain;39729415]this is a ridiculous analogy and it says volumes about you[/QUOTE] Well he WAS voted the worst poster of 2012

[QUOTE=Del91;39729654]Think about what you said. Didn't everyone go berserk when the price got raised to $59?[/QUOTE] uh, yes but if you had actually read my post you perhaps would have seen that i was referring to [I]myself personally[/I]

[QUOTE=Maloof?;39729585]I dunno what the issue with prices going up is - it's bound to happen sooner or later. It sucks, but it's the way the economy works. Relevant; [IMG]http://www.1up.com/media/03/9/4/0/lg/103.jpg[/IMG] [URL]http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle[/URL][/QUOTE] I don't understand the point this graph is trying to make. It looks more like games have gotten cheaper based on inflation.

yeah fuck ea for causing inflation in the us economy

[QUOTE=wulfe8857;39729780]I don't understand the point this graph is trying to make. It looks more like games have gotten cheaper based on inflation.[/QUOTE] That is what's happened So there's little basis for these accusations of unfairly increasing prices when the hobby has always been as or more expensive

The problem is that in this day and age many people cannot afford to set aside money for something as non-essential as video games anymore. The concept of living on a budget is more prevalent now than it has been in a very long time in the modern-day family. They haven't gotten [I]that much[/I] more/less expensive over the years, but people have to be more stingy with their money than ever before and I feel like that's where the complaints are stemming from. A lot of people with jobs have other things to pay for, and it gets them upset when there is talk of raising the prices of stuff that is already considered quite expensive.

While video games might be more expensive to produce now than they used to, I think you guys are underestimating the effect that digital distribution and the move away from cartridges to disks has had on cost, as not only have distribution costs decreased greatly but the size of the market and potential sales has increased massively. So while production time and cost has gone up, the costs are being distributed over a much larger area, while the development of each game might be more expensive, the number of copies which are being sold at lower costs more than make up for the different in profit.

There's already a massive price hike as is. The fact that distributors like Steam and Amazon can have 50 and 75% off sales and there's still a profit in it for both the distributor and the producer is testament to that fact. Before, it took far more resources and hours for NES, SNES, SEGA games to be produced, manufactured, programmed from near scratch, shipped, marketed, and all that. Now, you just throw some video up on youtube, make a game off an existing engine, and throw it onto some servers and tah dah, the whole thing is out there to the existing market. There's a reason why prices were more, adjusted, than they are now. That being said, the cost of living is higher and wages are lower now than then also. I've gone without alot of games because of the price lately- I can't see paying 60$ for a game that now more than ever has a high chance of being crap. But I don't have much of a choice. I either have to wait for a major sale, or I have to shell out. There is no lower competitor like there is in any other market. If you want a better deal on a car, go to a different dealer. Go to a different grocery store if you want cheaper food. Shop around for a specific electronic product. But games are all priced the same across the board. That's not because of legitimate demand or adjusted cost, that's because they can get away with it and do.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;39729279]Australia has practically double the minimum wage. I realize you guys get screwed on some stuff, but it's nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be.[/QUOTE] If it's a huge company brand, then yes. Family owned? Nope. First job I worked I was getting paid $7.50 an hour compared to a friend who was working at maccas for $10 an hour. And just because we have higher pay, it doesn't mean it's good. Everything is expensive, heck even fruit can be up to $5+(I've seen mangoes being sold for $5 per mango).

[QUOTE=meppers;39729536]better graphics require more man hours and therefore higher costs. nes games took like 3 months to make. a good, well rounded $60 PS3 game takes about 2-3 years to make[/QUOTE] That's 520 hours per person on the team for a NES game still. Do you have some source that says that's how long they took? That seems a bit on the short side to me. And even ignoring that, a lot of game development is easier because it doesn't rely on such things as programming in assembly or having to make tons of sprites for smooth animations. (Compare making a 3d model and animating it to someone making smoothly animating sprites for a 2d game. The 3d model will take awhile to setup and animate but the 2d sprite setup is a lot harder to get right even if you're good at it.) The increased development times are often because the games tend to be much larger in general and require a lot more attention to detail.

Also in terms of the length of games; Super Mario World only really takes a few hours to complete. The notion that games are getting shorter and shorter just doesn't make any sense to me; I think people are comparing games that are typically quite short and action-oriented (linear or mission-based shooters) to RPGs like TES that inherently take a lot longer to complete. And I mean, a new movie on DVD costs what, $30 nowadays? That's two hours worth of entertainment; extrapolate that shizzle and you get 8-12 hours of gameplay in a contemporary game for 60-80, which is a pretty sweet deal. That being said, I don't buy new release games or films because frankly I can't afford it. I'd either get it second hand or Steam-sales it. I wouldn't have bought new releases 10 years ago either, for the same reason.

[QUOTE=janky;39729142]Sigh. I remember when games were $50[/QUOTE] Yeah, but SNES games also cost $50 when i used to buy them, which was quite a bit at the time, which adjusted to inflation is probably over $60-$70.

[quote]Electronic Arts [b]has yet to decide[/b] on next-generation pricing.[/quote] gee i wonder what this means [editline]26th February 2013[/editline] [quote]An EA representative confirmed with GameSpot that Jorgensen misspoke during his presentation, meaning to use examples of $59 and $49, not $69 and $59.[/quote] oh what does this mean too? i have no idea i can't read.