EA Investor Conference: Next gen games will probably cost $10 more, more microtransactions and socia - Polidicks

games don't need to be full retail price if you're going to include microtransactions. if this becomes a trend then all games will just go the way of MMOs: free to play with paid microtransactions for special items and DLC. hell all of the extra development will go into multiplayer for every single game from now on anyway, right? because every game needs a multiplayer. singleplayer costumes and weapons are one thing that'll become a thing, but imagine how much more of a boost you can buy to get the upper hand in multiplayer.

This supports my theory that EA are a bunch of asshats trying to make everybody hate them.

sweet Australians are already busting their balls over the ridiculous amounts of video game prices here, 10 bucks extra is just what we need

I never buy game full price anyway. Last game I got for full price was Skyrim and it didn't impress me enough to warrant a $60 purchase. $45 is pretty much the upper limit for my game purchases these days.

If they want to raise prices, whatever, game prices go up and down. But with DLC and microtansactions, it is too much, and god forbid the "no used games" thing is true.

With digital distribution you effectively have an unlimited supply of your product. It makes far more sense to lower the barrier to entry dramatically. Steam has shown that half price doesn't necessarily mean twice the number of customers, it often means three or four times the customers. Gabe himself remains amazed and confused about the dynamics behind steam sales.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;39741683]You get an hour and a half to three hours of entertainment from watching a movie, which is a static product that doesn't change at all. Videogames can last you anywhere from 3 to 300 hours, depending on length, how much you like it, and how long multiplayer stays active. Pretty much one of the cheapest forms of digital "new" entertainment out there. Which is more worth your money?[/QUOTE] The length of the entertainment doesn't justify the high price tag. The only thing that matters is the production costs. People can get hours of entertainment from a ball or a pen and some paper, but that doesn't mean it's right to sell them for 60$.

Hey do you guys remember when EA had their hands on good stuff? [img]http://planetarbitrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/roadrashcover.jpg[/img] I do EA is just being greedy now. The gaming industry didn't take a hit like every other during the recession, it still grew. Digitally Distributing in today's day and age is next to free for a company as large as EA, and it's certainly cheaper than physical copies, also. Valve with Steam have shown consistently that Cheaper is More, for some weird reason. EA just doesn't have the mind set FOR the customers anymore, They don't

[QUOTE=TheTalon;39746361]Hey do you guys remember when EA had their hands on good stuff? I do[/QUOTE] Not to say Road Rash isn't good but I have thoroughly enjoyed my last three EA purchases. I think they still make some solid games. Just really weird management/PR moves.

Hopefully it'll mostly be EA who are raising their prices.

EA has a lot of swing, I'm sure if people are willing to pay $70, most publishers will follow suit.

I'm not willing. If this is a case of everyone changing to $70, I might deal with it, but if it's only EA, fuck 'em.

why does the game industry think it is exempt from basic principles like the law of demand. people aren't going to keep buying this shit.

Wait, so is this going to affect every publisher and every platform? Why in the fucking hell is EA the one to decide it? They're just one publisher; they have no authority over prices of other games by different publishers. A publisher can choose to release a game for 30 bucks if they want, and EA can suck a dick for all they care. Furthermore, publisher's shouldn't have any say in how a game should be developed; that's what DEVELOPERS are for. EA can suck a big fat gorilla dick. I hope they miraculously go bankrupt like THQ and sell their franchises to better people.

[QUOTE='[sluggo];39741577']You guys obviously don't remember just how much you had to pay old NES games. Adjusted for inflation now, NES and Super NES games would cost 90-100 dollars or more. Some were that much back then even. [img]http://www.1up.com/media/03/9/4/0/lg/103.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Guess what, most of the current gaming population either were not born yet or didn't game, so that statement is irrelevant [editline]28th February 2013[/editline] He snes came out a year before I was born, I am almost 21, get over your nostalgia boner no one cares about

[QUOTE=Atlascore;39740647]People crying over the prices of video games need to go read up how much these things cost to make, with the next generation of consoles right around the corner the price of development is only going to go up.[/QUOTE] Well Battlefield 3 for example sold 5 million copies in its first week. At $60 a copy that is $300,000,000. I am going to go ahead and assume that the first week covered production cost of the game. Today they have sold over 10 million copies. So I assume AT LEAST another 300 million dollars... I know it costs a lot to make these games, but this should be motivation for them to MAKE BETTER GAMES AND NOT RAISE THE PRICES. Look at Madden, that game sells millions of copies EVERY YEAR! People by the shit out of it and most of the time it is a reused game. They don't COMPLETELY redo the entire game every year, it takes a lot of work, but Madden alone brings them 300-400 million a year just from new sales.

[QUOTE=GunFox;39746213]With digital distribution you effectively have an unlimited supply of your product. It makes far more sense to lower the barrier to entry dramatically. Steam has shown that half price doesn't necessarily mean twice the number of customers, it often means three or four times the customers. Gabe himself remains amazed and confused about the dynamics behind steam sales.[/QUOTE] Did they ever do that on a newly launched AAA title, or just for sales after the fact? Most of a game's sales come from the first two weeks after release, and at that point the price definitely matters. I really doubt most AAA titles would sell six times more copies if they were $10 on release, and that's not even taking into account that selling to six times more consumers on release would have a detrimental effect on sales price later. The economic model is simple here- you want it on release, you pay full price. You wait a while, maybe a year, and the price drops usually down to about $20. Sometimes cheaper, sometimes more expensive, but it depreciates over time and people know this. I'm willing to bet all a lower price on release would do is shift those later sales forwards. [QUOTE=Squad;39749404]Well Battlefield 3 for example sold 5 million copies in its first week. At $60 a copy that is $300,000,000. I am going to go ahead and assume that the first week covered production cost of the game. Today they have sold over 10 million copies. So I assume AT LEAST another 300 million dollars... I know it costs a lot to make these games, but this should be motivation for them to MAKE BETTER GAMES AND NOT RAISE THE PRICES. Look at Madden, that game sells millions of copies EVERY YEAR! People by the shit out of it and most of the time it is a reused game. They don't COMPLETELY redo the entire game every year, it takes a lot of work, but Madden alone brings them 300-400 million a year just from new sales.[/QUOTE] Yes, $60 a copy- [i]retail[/i]. The retailer takes a chunk. Then the distributors who get it to the retailers take a chunk. Then the advertising firms take a chunk- [url=http://bf3blog.com/2011/04/battlefield-3-launching-this-november-with-a-100-million-ad-campaign/]$100 million for marketing alone[/url]. Then the publisher finishes paying out the developers their normal salaries, and then the publisher is finally left with whatever remains. A lot of people don't seem to realize that the cost of developing games, and ancillary costs associated with marketing, is [i]exponentially[/i] higher than it was ten or even five years ago. Prices have been at a historical low point for years now. Game prices in the past two decades have usually been $60-80 in 2013 dollars. And there is not a single industry on earth where the response to inflation and rising costs is 'just work harder and make a better product'.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;39749321]Guess what, most of the current gaming population either were not born yet or didn't game, so that statement is irrelevant [editline]28th February 2013[/editline] He snes came out a year before I was born, I am almost 21, get over your nostalgia boner no one cares about[/QUOTE] Woah man, relax. I care about it, I'm almost 26. I was 4 or 5 when my parents got me my SNES. (along with Jurassic park action figures and dinosaurs) And my age group are the ones either starting to make the games, or will soon buy them for our children.

[QUOTE=Foda;39741529]plus the digital versions should cost less, considering that they don't have to produce a disk[/QUOTE] Discs are extremely cheap. It would not make digital versions much cheaper even if they did do that.

EA's one of the biggest collection of boneheads I've seen in this industry.

I really don't see any reason to buy any kind of EA title anymore to be honest... So much better games out there.

to be fair guys, inflation is doing this, but I don't think steams going to do this at all soooo. if they do it to just EA games then its CLEAR they're being dicks about it. But I'm just justifying both sides, they are dicks unless everyone else does the same thing. (Due to inflation)

[QUOTE=zombojoe;39740696]Perhaps they should spend less money on graphics, famous vocie actors, and marketing. Instead spend more money making the games fun to play.[/QUOTE] B-BUT THIS MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE!

It'd be funny if other publishers took advantage of the backlash and made EA look like huge assholes.

[QUOTE=zombojoe;39740696]Perhaps they should spend less money on graphics, famous vocie actors, and marketing. Instead spend more money making the games fun to play.[/QUOTE] Graphics and voice acting contribute to games being fun to play, just as cinematography and actors contribute to a film being enjoyable to watch. Marketing is there to make sure people actually buy the game. I mean really your argument could be applied to literally any film. I really doubt a movie like, say, Avatar would have made as much money as it did if it had mediocre CGI, no well-known actors, and nonexistent marketing. And few people would have bought Crysis if it had poor graphics and wasn't marketed. Pointing to things that are part and parcel of high-quality AAA game development and saying they're bad seems a little narrow-sighted to me. Of course a developer is going to invest their money in developing the game itself, but there are a lot of things that go into games that cost money and are carefully calculated to ensure optimum return.

[QUOTE=catbarf;39752080]Graphics and voice acting contribute to games being fun to play, just as cinematography and actors contribute to a film being enjoyable to watch. Marketing is there to make sure people actually buy the game.[/quote] No, gameplay makes games fun to play. A game could have the worst story and voice acting on the planet and it could still be the funnest game you have ever played. [quote]I mean really your argument could be applied to literally any film. I really doubt a movie like, say, Avatar would have made as much money as it did if it had mediocre CGI, no well-known actors, and nonexistent marketing. And few people would have bought Crysis if it had poor graphics and wasn't marketed.[/quote] You are trying to compare a noninteractive media to an interactive one. You cant compare books to movies or movies to games. Using your logic a book is only good if it has pretty pictures.

and once again a day after they announce terrible shit [URL="http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4036482/ea-to-host-one-day-conference-to-discuss-industry-lgbt-issues"]http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4036482/ea-to-host-one-day-conference-to-discuss-industry-lgbt-[/URL] my conspiracy theroy still proves true

[QUOTE=catbarf;39752080]Graphics and voice acting contribute to games being fun to play, just as cinematography and actors contribute to a film being enjoyable to watch. Marketing is there to make sure people actually buy the game. I mean really your argument could be applied to literally any film. I really doubt a movie like, say, Avatar would have made as much money as it did if it had mediocre CGI, no well-known actors, and nonexistent marketing. And few people would have bought Crysis if it had poor graphics and wasn't marketed. Pointing to things that are part and parcel of high-quality AAA game development and saying they're bad seems a little narrow-sighted to me. Of course a developer is going to invest their money in developing the game itself, but there are a lot of things that go into games that cost money and are carefully calculated to ensure optimum return.[/QUOTE] Those are things that add to the experience. Ultimately gameplay is what makes games fun and if gameplay is being neglected because of it you end up with a sub-par game. A good example of this is Oblivion, where they blew a huge chunk of their budget just getting patrick stewart to have like 10 lines in the beginning of the game. While it was still a great game by all standards, imagine how much better it could have been if they just got a lesser known voice actor and spent that money on something more important. Like improving the combat mechanics or increasing the amount of voice actors in the game.

[QUOTE=Wii60;39752838]and once again a day after they announce terrible shit [URL="http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4036482/ea-to-host-one-day-conference-to-discuss-industry-lgbt-issues"]http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4036482/ea-to-host-one-day-conference-to-discuss-industry-lgbt-[/URL] my conspiracy theroy still proves true[/QUOTE] How far after they announce "terrible shit" (lol increasing video game cost to account for inflation and having more microtransactions that have proven to be popular = terrible) can they announce their support for the LGBT community, something that has been a long-standing position for them, and not fall victim to dumb internet conspiracy theories by people on Facepunch who put equal rights below dumb video game politics?

[QUOTE=zombojoe;39752972]Those are things that add to the experience. Ultimately gameplay is what makes games fun and if gameplay is being neglected because of it you end up with a sub-par game. A good example of this is Oblivion, where they blew a huge chunk of their budget just getting patrick stewart to have like 10 lines in the beginning of the game. While it was still a great game by all standards, imagine how much better it could have been if they just got a lesser known voice actor and spent that money on something more important. Like improving the combat mechanics or increasing the amount of voice actors in the game.[/QUOTE] The developers behind Oblivion made a mistake, but that doesn't mean developers shouldn't ever hire quality actors for voice work. I'd say Crytek put too much emphasis on graphics in Crysis over gameplay, but that doesn't mean no game should try to have good graphics. Bruce Campbell made Tachyon memorable instead of a generic space shooter. Gary Oldman as Reznov added a lot to the Russian mission of Call of Duty: World at War. Good graphics is part of what makes games like Battlefield and ArmA immersive. These add to the gameplay experience, they're not just fancy window dressing to appeal to some new demographic. The idea that developers should just stop spending money on graphical assets, voice actors, and marketing seems silly to me. If they contributed nothing to the game, the developers wouldn't be investing in them in the first place. [editline]28th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Cmx;39752533]No, gameplay makes games fun to play. A game could have the worst story and voice acting on the planet and it could still be the funnest game you have ever played.[/QUOTE] Conversely a game could have minimal gameplay but still be entertaining on the basis of its story, like The Walking Dead. There are plenty of games people play for story and voice acting contributes a lot to that. I mean what's your argument, that because Serious Sam is good something like Heavy Rain shouldn't exist?