EA planning $70 price point for PS4 games.

[purbeast0]

To all the people saying how developmental costs have gone up much much more are lying.

To prove my point I point to kickstarter. This game Grim Dawn is being developed by some of same guys who did Titan Quest. They only pledged $280,000 not million of dollars like some of you say is needed. This is only one of many examples on kickstarter that prove you don't need 10 or 20 million.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crateentertainment/grim-dawn

$70 is a joke and I won't be paying that price.

wow 1 example of an old school style game for a pretty niche market with a "few" developers that doesn't look to be remotely close to an AAA title you total won me over!

 

[Jeffg010]

wow 1 example of an old school style game for a pretty niche market with a "few" developers that doesn't look to be remotely close to an AAA title you total won me over!

What do yo consider AAA? Also niche game my ass Diablo 3 sold millions on this type of game.

 

[purbeast0]

What do yo consider AAA? Also niche game my ass Diablo 3 sold millions on this type of game.

i personally wouldn't consider ANY game by blizzard a niche game. they also have a huge marketing campaign of course they are going to sell a ton of copies. have you seen commercials during primetime tv for the one you linked to?

by AAA game i mean one that LOOKS like it has an extensive budget. that game looks like it is an xbl or psn game. nothing special about the environments or graphics. doesn't look like it has any cut scenes to drive the story. according to the link there are a few devs working on it. AAA titles usually have 100+ people working on them in various aspects. few devs vs. 100+ people working, obviously you don't need as big of a budget. AAA titles also have an extensive marketing budget.

AAA game i'd say something like uncharted or gears of war.

it is cool though that those guys are doing that out of passion and actually enjoy what they are doing.

 

[cmdrdredd]

if all you enjoy is rpg's then purchasing a 360 was a pretty bonehead decision in the first place. that is like buying a wii if you don't like nintendo games.

Actually I remember Microsoft making a very big deal over Blue Dragon. Hype machine in full effect. The game itself though...didn't do well

 

[ImpulsE69]

EA hasn't put out any AAA games for years. They just charge AAA prices and hype them.

Again just because you throw 100million more at a production than some small dev, doesn't mean it's a good product. Unfortunately that's how these big companies think. Dev costs aren't up because they have to be, dev costs are up because the companies have gotten bad at business. The other 50% of the money is marketing.

 

[American Gunner]

While BF3 may not be the type of game some people like, that was a AAA game. People like to bitch about EA, but they are no worse than Activision.

 

[Doppel]

Ok a few peeps here are telling porky pies.

First, dev costs have gone up a lot in recent years. This is not a debate, it is a fact. You can argue the value for money but the cost has gone up.

What people seem though to fail mentioning is that sales are also up. It a game costs twice as much but sells twice as many copies the overall profit is the same (not including whatever costs are involved with manufacture and distribution).

My guess is that given how many companies make games and how many end up shuttering that the competition in price is high-we are not being gouged.

But as I said personally I won't part with 70 unless the game is damn good but I don't part with 60 today either unless it is damn good.

 

[exdeath]

i personally wouldn't consider ANY game by blizzard a niche game. they also have a huge marketing campaign of course they are going to sell a ton of copies. have you seen commercials during primetime tv for the one you linked to?

by AAA game i mean one that LOOKS like it has an extensive budget. that game looks like it is an xbl or psn game. nothing special about the environments or graphics. doesn't look like it has any cut scenes to drive the story. according to the link there are a few devs working on it. AAA titles usually have 100+ people working on them in various aspects. few devs vs. 100+ people working, obviously you don't need as big of a budget. AAA titles also have an extensive marketing budget.

AAA game i'd say something like uncharted or gears of war.

it is cool though that those guys are doing that out of passion and actually enjoy what they are doing.

Gears of War was good and fresh the first time...

Then Gears of War 19: now with more endless waves of enemies that dont die and even more chest high cover than before!!!

 

[Ban Bot]

Look at Sony exclusives. Action games, adventure games, unique stuff like little big planet and journey and only a couple shooters. Look at Nintendo exclusives. Adventure, RPG, action...no shooters. Microsoft exclusives? Two shooters and nothing else of note (maybe a small nod to forza).

Just my view of it anyway.

Ok, you nailed Halo (3, ODST, Reach, 4) and Gears (1,2,3, Judgment) with a small nod to Forza (2,3,4; which has been multi-million seller and outsold a fair number of Sony exclusives).

But looking across their portfolio this generation there is a bit more variety coming out of MGS than you give credit for: Viva Pinata (1&2, sim/strategy games and a third which was a party game), Kameo (adventure), Perfect Dark (shooter), multiple Fables (action RPG), Halo Wars (RTS), and most glaringly Kinect software (Kinect Sports 1/2, Kinect Advetures).

MS is much lighter than Sony in regards to internal studios but they have also done a bit of exclusive contract works with various studios this generation generating PGR3 (racer), Blue Dragon (JRPG), Lost Odessey (JRPG), Too Human (Action RPG), Mass Effect (FPS RPG), and so forth.

Early on MS had quite a few defacto exclusives due to the PS3 not being released/difficult to develop for and MS had a pretty big leg up in the Arcade/Indie game sector for quite a while.

All that to say MS wasn't a one trick FPS/mature content pony with the 360.

 

[exdeath]

The only games worth $70+ are RPGs or similar that take YEARS to make, require orchestras to record the music, etc.and only sell to a niche audience.

A cookie cutter cut and paste "take cover from waves" coridor shooter or sports games that imports 85% of its assests from last years game are dime a dozen. Why do you think devs like them so much?

You can't tell me changing the roster in Madden costs $100 million every year.

 

[American Gunner]

The only games worth $70+ are RPGs or similar that take YEARS to make, require orchestras to record the music, etc.and only sell to a niche audience.

A cookie cutter cut and paste "take cover from waves" coridor shooter or sports games that imports 85% of its assests from last years game are dime a dozen. Why do you think devs like them so much?

You can't tell me changing the roster in Madden costs $100 million every year.

It all depends on who you are. You don't like shooters or sports games, so to you $70 is a waste. But there are others that don't like RPG's, so $70 would be a waste to them. I know that you are very vocal about your feelings on video games, but just because you are old school, it doesn't make you any more right than the person that only plays shooters and sports games.

Gaming is a hobby, for people from all walks with all different tastes. It may drive you crazy that shooters are the top dogs right now, but you can't argue with their appeal when they sell better than most games out there.

 

[Ban Bot]

What people seem though to fail mentioning is that sales are also up. It a game costs twice as much but sells twice as many copies the overall profit is the same (not including whatever costs are involved with manufacture and distribution).

Actually if that was the case the profits, too, would double

Example (using bad number of illustrations purposes only; obviously publishers don't net the full retail cost and it costs more than dev fees to make a game--you have to manufacture, distribute, advertise, etc)

Game 1
Dev Cost: $50M
Sales: $60M (1M @ $60/game)
Profit: $10M

Game 2 -- 2x Dev Cost, 2x sales - 2x profits
Dev Cost: $100M
Sales: $120M
Profit: $20M



Per this upcoming generation's costs: Art is the expensive part and the good news is developers already do multi-million vertex models and bake in normal maps. If a studio has a good workflow this is not a huge issue. In fact a big benefit of engines that have fully dynamic lighting (including GI) and shadowing solutions can benefit from near instance iteration.

The big potential cost will come from gamers wanting more: more content, more variety, and bigger worlds.

It is going to cost oodles to have an open city where every building can be accessed and looks unique. The "obvious" solution is middleware that generates unique content based on base models or simple variables and going with modular base models but the realtiy is these tools routinely generate sub-par assets.

The net sum is studios that plan smartly -- first in not tossing assets due to poor planning and secondly keeping art costs inline with the projects sales and find art choices that maximize their budgets -- will do well and studios that fail to adapt and cannot design and deploy reasonable budgets for their sales expectations won't be long for this world. Put another way: if you only plan on 500K sales you need to set your budget accordingly and THEN design the game to get the most out of that bang for buck. I get sick of hearing how dev costs are so crazy high--it is primarly "trying to keep up with the Jones" issue. If you don't have a $50M budget don't make a $50M game. The unwillingness of "mid-major" developers thinking a big budget game is what they need to do to leap into the big boys is the first sign there is trouble: they are trying to solve the design issue with people and money, not a better approach.

And the grim reality is also this: 70% of games are in the red and 30% in the black. This is why Publishers rule the roost these days: they hit a home run with AAA title which funds many other projects. The industry is "hit oriented" and everyone is looking for the next big hit.

If Publishers raise the cost they will back themselves into a corner where fewer and fewer unique titles will be made and "sure fire" titles will be the only titles worth developing. Long term this is bad for the industry because it diminishes the chances of floating new projects.

That said everything is cyclical: it will result in more unique ideas hitting the indie scene and alternative design efforts and more middle engines tailored toward ease of content creation and fast iteration.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You can't tell me changing the roster in Madden costs $100 million every year.

Actually..for this I can see due to licensing....but that's a different subject.

 

[purbeast0]

It all depends on who you are. You don't like shooters or sports games, so to you $70 is a waste. But there are others that don't like RPG's, so $70 would be a waste to them. I know that you are very vocal about your feelings on video games, but just because you are old school, it doesn't make you any more right than the person that only plays shooters and sports games.

Gaming is a hobby, for people from all walks with all different tastes. It may drive you crazy that shooters are the top dogs right now, but you can't argue with their appeal when they sell better than most games out there.

yea just because it is not worth it to him doesn't mean it isn't worth it to others. obviously millions upon millions find $60 for the yearly install of cod games to be worth it - otherwise it wouldn't sell. and just before you get all butthurt and accuse me of enjoying a game, i haven't bought cod since mw2 and hardly played it. but i'm one of the people who can avoid games i don't enjoy and play the ones i do enjoy, without crying about it.

i personally wouldn't pay $1 for any RPG games (talking 100% old school rpgs and prett much all other types of rpgs with maybe an exception her and there) because i'm not into that genre. i wouldn't even take one for free unless it was to turn around and sell it.

 

[purbeast0]

Actually if that was the case the profits, too, would double

Example (using bad number of illustrations purposes only; obviously publishers don't net the full retail cost and it costs more than dev fees to make a game--you have to manufacture, distribute, advertise, etc)

Game 1
Dev Cost: $50M
Sales: $60M (1M @ $60/game)
Profit: $10M

Game 2 -- 2x Dev Cost, 2x sales - 2x profits
Dev Cost: $100M
Sales: $120M
Profit: $20M

percentage wise, he is right, as shown in your example. that is usually how profits are measured. you had to invest 2x as much in order to make 2x as much, which is the same returns in the end.

 

[American Gunner]

I used to be big into RPG's and I just don't find them as interesting. I wouldn't pay $70 for COD or BF, but do enjoy some shooters and other genres. Just give me a quality game, and I will pay for it.

 

[Aikouka]

i didn't know that games had to be price set on a cost plus basis.

You mean to tell me that manufacturing costs are not factored into the overall price?

 

[Wreckem]

The video game(software) industry(especially the console game market) is in decline.


Nov 2011 was up 15% over Nov 2010
Nov 2012 was 11% off Nov 2011
Dec 2011 was 21% off Dec 2010
Dec 2012 was 22% off Dec 2011

Jan 2011 was 5% off Jan 2010.
Jan 2012 was 39% off of Jan 2011.
Jan 2013 was 19% off of Jan 2012.

The last 14 or 15 months have all seen year over year declines. Total sales of 2012 were down 23% from 2011. But the declines start over two years ago.

Its mostly because of Sony, MS, and Nintendo waiting longer to release next gen consoles, but the disaster that is the Wii U doesn't paint a rosy picture for 2013. PS4 and XboxNxt aren't going to make a sizable impact in 2013. And its to be determined if they are going to sell well at their expected price points.

 

[Wreckem]

EA hasn't put out any AAA games for years. They just charge AAA prices and hype them.

Again just because you throw 100million more at a production than some small dev, doesn't mean it's a good product. Unfortunately that's how these big companies think. Dev costs aren't up because they have to be, dev costs are up because the companies have gotten bad at business. The other 50% of the money is marketing.

AAA has never had anything to do with quality.

 

[dagamer34]

Business 101: The price of an object/service is not based on how much money it takes to make that object or service, but what they market will bear. Period. Anyone trying to backport the cost of a game to it's development costs is going about it the wrong way and would totally flip at the bill of materials for a smartphone (but something tells me you aren't going to swear them off).

Don't think a game is worth $70? Simple solution, don't buy it. But for multiplayer games where you might spend hundreds of hours on it, what's another $10?

 

[exdeath]

It all depends on who you are. You don't like shooters or sports games, so to you $70 is a waste. But there are others that don't like RPG's, so $70 would be a waste to them. I know that you are very vocal about your feelings on video games, but just because you are old school, it doesn't make you any more right than the person that only plays shooters and sports games.

Gaming is a hobby, for people from all walks with all different tastes. It may drive you crazy that shooters are the top dogs right now, but you can't argue with their appeal when they sell better than most games out there.

I wasn't referring to value based on personal tastes and preferences, I was talking about production cost. It's well known that RPGs cost a SHIT TON more to make and take much longer to bring to market than any other game due to the length, story, etc, enough locations and unique content to explore for 100 hours of story telling, hours upon hours of dialogue, etc.

Contrast, first person shooters are one of the fastest and simplest types of games to make. And I say this with background and experience as a programmer. A first person corridor design alleviates MANY issues with game development compared to other layouts, it's literally the simplest and most basic 3D game type. The FPS game essentially collapses to game design paradigm to be centered around pumping out levels.

That's all I meant. An RPG that took 3+ years to develop, another 1 year to translate and localize, and involved an entire philharmonic orchestra just for the 3 disc 45 track soundtrack alone can be justified at $70+ dollars.

A shooter done in 6-12 months with a guy doing techno beats on a synthesizer/tracker cannot.

 

[Sulaco]

Yup. PS2 was the last REALLY good console. The original Xbox really brought about the start of this drab stale "mature" mainstream casual shooter/sports/dance/guitar disposable cheap thrill culture nonsense. Ever since we've had nothing but self proclaimed mature bad asses with scowling helmets and 500 lb swords/guns.

I would take any of the BioWare exclusives on the Xbox (exclusive to consoles anyway) over 95% of the drivel JRPGs on the PS2, including any of the Final Fantasies. Knights of the Old Republic alone was quite arguably the best RPG of the entire generation, still ranks as one of the top 5 or 10 of all-time, and beat the royal shit out of FFX, FF12, and plenty of other gimmicky PS2 exclusives. That's not counting the underhyped KotOR II and Jade Empire, again, far more enjoyable than recent RPG bilge. The Xbox didn't have nearly the quantity, but there was serious quality there.


Second, while I usually agree with your stance on the direction of the industry, it seems more than a little daft to lay the "casualization of gaming" or some such nonsense at the feet of the Xbox, when the PS2 was vastly more successful with the mainstream casual market, sold far better, and had just as many brain-dead exclusives. This isn't neuroscience. The PS2 did far more, just by the sheer weight of it's massive success, at "casualizing" and "mainstreaming" gaming than the Xbox ever hoped. That's simply inarguable.

Furthermore, I find it amusing that trash like Killzone and Resistance, both Sony's (exclusive) answers to the massively more successful and better received Halo series, gets a free pass without mention in the Sony circlejerk of "non-shooter excellence", despite both series having nearly a dozen games between them within the past 2 generations?

 

[exdeath]

I would take any of the BioWare exclusives on the Xbox (exclusive to consoles anyway) over 95% of the drivel JRPGs on the PS2, including any of the Final Fantasies. Knights of the Old Republic alone was quite arguably the best RPG of the entire generation, still ranks as one of the top 5 or 10 of all-time, and beat the royal shit out of FFX, FF12, and plenty of other gimmicky PS2 exclusives. That's not counting the underhyped KotOR II and Jade Empire, again, far more enjoyable than recent RPG bilge. The Xbox didn't have nearly the quantity, but there was serious quality there.

I wasn't talking about Final Fantasy X, or 12. Final Fantasy has been dead to me since after 6. Square can go to hell.

More along the lines of Xenosaga, Kingdom Hearts, Suikoden, Tales, etc.

I'd give Xenosaga the nod for best RPG series of the PS2 generation. I know there are many other great RPGs on the PS2, but the deep imprint of Xenosaga in my brain makes it hard to recall them.

Not defending Sony either, but MS started it with that Halo shit. Halo has to be the worst thing to ever happen to console gaming.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Ok, you nailed Halo (3, ODST, Reach, 4) and Gears (1,2,3, Judgment) with a small nod to Forza (2,3,4; which has been multi-million seller and outsold a fair number of Sony exclusives).

But looking across their portfolio this generation there is a bit more variety coming out of MGS than you give credit for: Viva Pinata (1&2, sim/strategy games and a third which was a party game), Kameo (adventure), Perfect Dark (shooter), multiple Fables (action RPG), Halo Wars (RTS), and most glaringly Kinect software (Kinect Sports 1/2, Kinect Advetures).

MS is much lighter than Sony in regards to internal studios but they have also done a bit of exclusive contract works with various studios this generation generating PGR3 (racer), Blue Dragon (JRPG), Lost Odessey (JRPG), Too Human (Action RPG), Mass Effect (FPS RPG), and so forth.

Early on MS had quite a few defacto exclusives due to the PS3 not being released/difficult to develop for and MS had a pretty big leg up in the Arcade/Indie game sector for quite a while.

All that to say MS wasn't a one trick FPS/mature content pony with the 360.

The games that sold on an Xbox were shooters and as I said maybe a nod to forza. You can name a billion other niche titles that got average reviews and sold like crap all you want.

 

[ImpulsE69]

There was much more variety on the PS2 than the Xbox, even among RPG's.

On the 360/PS3 side, both were pretty lackluster overall when you compare them to earlier generations. Sure those generations had lots of shovelware, but choice and variety are what make memorable systems, not 1-2 pionted decent games. There just aren't many games on this gen that will be missed (IMO).