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

[Miya]

[QUOTE=Raidyr;39753044]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]

i dont put equal rights below game politics.

equality is good. using it to make your image look better after you pull something bad makes it look like damage control then actually caring.

[Squad]

[QUOTE=catbarf;39751025]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.

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]

I understand that everyone takes a chunk. Which is completely fine.

Let's Say the retailer takes half of the $60 retail.

That leaves the game company with $300 million for Battlefield 3 that sold over 10 million copies.

So lets say advertising is $100 million.

Let's say just the production cost of the game just for stuff they have excluding worker salaries is $50 million.

Also lets say they had 150 people working on the project and they all made $60,000. That is $9 million in salaries.

That leaves them with $151 million at the end of the day.

Now they have DLC that comes out every 3-6 months. And we say only half the people by the DLC, for $10. That is another $50 million per DLC.

Realistically the retailer doesn't take half of the profits, and even if advertising is more than the estimated $100 million (which is completely possible), and they might not have 150 people working with an average salary of $60,000. With DLC they are turning a profit.

Another point is that many game studios are creating an engine and reusing that engine for several games. Overtime that saves them a ton of money and time.

[theevilldeadII]

[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]
Why Not both A good Gameplay and a good Story

[ZomboJoe]

Personally I really don't care about graphics in most games. I just keep textures on high and models high and everything else low, a higher FPS is more important imo.

Having a well known voice actor doesn't mean anything to me. As long as the voice acting is believable that's enough, that worked really in New Vegas. I didn't care if John Goodman was voice acting in RAGE, the game still sucked.

[MegaChalupa]

[QUOTE=catbarf;39753060]
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.[/QUOTE]
A single voice in a game doesn't stop it from being a "generic space shooter," Gary Oldman's role in WAW could have just as easily been filled by another voice actor with an actual Russian accent for a fraction of the cost. The graphics in Battlefield 3 may be impressive but it certainly isn't why people play the game, additionally thanks to horrible art direction, the gameplay in Battlefield 3 actually suffers.

[catbarf]

[QUOTE=Squad;39753912]I understand that everyone takes a chunk. Which is completely fine.

Let's Say the retailer takes half of the $60 retail.

That leaves the game company with $300 million for Battlefield 3 that sold over 10 million copies.

So lets say advertising is $100 million.

Let's say just the production cost of the game just for stuff they have excluding worker salaries is $50 million.

Also lets say they had 150 people working on the project and they all made $60,000. That is $9 million in salaries.

That leaves them with $151 million at the end of the day.

Now they have DLC that comes out every 3-6 months. And we say only half the people by the DLC, for $10. That is another $50 million per DLC.

Realistically the retailer doesn't take half of the profits, and even if advertising is more than the estimated $100 million (which is completely possible), and they might not have 150 people working with an average salary of $60,000. With DLC they are turning a profit.

Another point is that many game studios are creating an engine and reusing that engine for several games. Overtime that saves them a ton of money and time.[/QUOTE]

But 150 people didn't work for exactly one year to produce the game. Suppose they worked on the game for three years, which is common for many AAA titles. Now the developer payout has tripled. But what about the people who work for the developer who don't work on the project, the people with clerical duties or senior management or public outreach? What about the people working for the publisher, who manage everything between the developers and the retailers? What about the company contracted to manufacture the CDs, or the firm that ships the CDs to the retailers? What about legal fees, developmental licensing costs, rental or purchase price on the building they develop it, computers and related assets?

Sure, they made money. Battlefield 3 was a hit. But for every Battlefield 3, there's a MAG. For every World of Warcraft, there's a APB. A lot of these games are going to fail, and it's very rare that a game will manage to sell ten million copies and then a ton of DLC on top of that.

My point is that publishers don't set these prices because they're greedy and think they can gouge consumers, they set these prices because they strike a balance between return on the investment and market sustainability. Yeah, part of it is that there are some people who will buy on release no matter what the price, but if they could make more money with the game priced at $30 they would. In the end it's business, not charity, and it really comes down to what the market will sustain.

[QUOTE=MegaChalupa;39754333]A single voice in a game doesn't stop it from being a "generic space shooter," Gary Oldman's role in WAW could have just as easily been filled by another voice actor with an actual Russian accent for a fraction of the cost. The graphics in Battlefield 3 may be impressive but it certainly isn't why people play the game, additionally thanks to horrible art direction, the gameplay in Battlefield 3 actually suffers.[/QUOTE]

Of course no one element is going to make a mediocre game great. So? A lot of these elements still add to the overall experience. Many games get justifiably criticized for looking awful (Aliens: Colonial Marines) or having terrible voice acting (Resident Evil) or are overlooked because they simply weren't marketed and didn't sell (every 'great games nobody played' list). Usually a game that puts looking and sounding good over gameplay is going to suck but it's silly to say that things like graphics, voice acting, and marketing are irrelevant to whether a game succeeds or fails.

[Zareox]

The developer is at a disconnect with its consumer base. The answer isn't to throw more money at it through marketing and putting shiny new graphics on it. Honest to god, I don't see the current video game developers and publishers going much further. I think the market needs to start over again.

[editline]28th February 2013[/editline]

With that said, I also think there's a lack of understanding from the consumer's point of view towards the developer. The whole market is in chaos.