Mw2

[JoshGuru7]

In theory, they might. In practice, they'll just keep releasing the same or worse quality games because as companies like EA have shown investing more in games isn't as profitable as releasing more lower quality games. Companies that'll do stuff like this aren't usually interested in long term success; they're interested in short-term profits. Making higher quality games is a long-term strategy (see Blizzard).

The incentive for a developer to produce games for the PC platform is a function of the proft they expect on the PC platform. As a result with more temporary profit you will see more console ports produced, and console ports that would have been ported anyway given a little more attention to adjust them to the PC. That doesn't mean it would benefit PC gamers because they would now be paying a higher price which might easily offset the increased quality for most.

Your diamond example makes your point, but this is more about price elasticity. Games are expensive to make, no one can argue that, but I believe those many of the costs that are associated with them are self induced and not always necessary. This is the reason why someone can make a movie for $20 million and it be a better movie than one with a $150 million budget. I don't believe in the premise that charging more will get you a better product.

We can certainly describe this as you having a highly elastic demand for PC games at the $50 mark due to any one of a number of reasons besides strictly income and leave it there. However, I do think that cost and quality are positively correlated.

All things remaining equal, game developers can increase the quality by raising costs in many ways. They can hire more talented staff, produce more content, employ more QA/QC testers, license the latest game engine, as well as employ more expensive technology (maintain more servers for example). I agree that charging more does not guarantee a better product but it does increase the likelihood. I would add on the side of your argument, however, that lower costs today may very well be of greater benefit than increased quality tomorrow for most consumers (see: PC Piracy).

 

[NoSoup4You]

I was put off by the $60 price at first, but let's face it the original COD4:MW is still $40 except for the occasional sale for $20. That's pretty much unheard of for an FPS. I went ahead and picked up MW2 recently and haven't thought about the price tag since, this game is just insanely well made. I haven't tried the single player yet though, so if that's all you're interested in I can see your dilemma.

It is interesting to consider how the original MW's price affected my decision to pay the full $60 for MW2. I can almost certainly say I'd have waited for MW2 to drop in price if the original had been selling for $25 a year after release, or $35 six months after release. But knowing Infinity Ward's track record with MW1, why wait?

Hmmm...

 

[mindcycle]

But knowing Infinity Ward's track record with MW1, why wait?

Maybe because MP in MW2 is nothing like MW1..

It was designed for casual console players, not PC gamers.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I love the matchmaking system in MW2, it makes getting into a game insanely easy which is important to me. It couldn't be any easier to use. Open game, click 'Play', choose a gametype, and I'm in a match. Love it, no hunting through endless server lists trying to find one without a bunch of silly mods I'm forced to download or one that isn't spoofing the number of active players to attract people to an otherwise empty server (TF2), or one that shows open spots available except that they're reserved spots so you get kicked after loading the map. I don't miss getting kicked from a server to make room for some clanmate, or getting auto-switched to the other team and getting credited with a loss even though I was on the winning side the whole round, or joining a server with a friend only to have one of you get auto-switched to the other team mid-round, or joining with several friends only to have some of them getting assigned to a different team and being unable to switch. And I don't miss the admins which abuse their power and kick people because they happen to be mopping the floor with the competition. And many, many more reasons.

Matchmaking has it's flaws too, of course. And they're quite glaring, especially for clanmates. I understand their concerns, but for a 'typical pub gamer' like myself matchmaking is perfect. I have a couple of real life friends to play with, so we can create a party and play together very easily in MW2. Lag is a total non-issue as well in my experience (roughly 80 matches played, maybe 6 or 7 had lag).

I don't hate dedicated servers as much as I suggested above. But matchmaking flat out works in this game and for regualr gamers it makes everything so much easier and more enjoyable. But for hardcore gamers, again, I understand why they're upset.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

If you like PC gaming, don't purchase MW2 ever.

 

[marmasatt]

I played it at a friends house for awhile last weekend. Lets just say enough to know the PC version is a POS. He was already over it given how shitty the matchmaking system is and the fact you can't even view your ping.

I don't know. I never really considered boycotting it although I don't really agree with IW's decisions. (Well I guess that makes me a lemming now that I say that out loud.) Anyway, IMO the single player is epic. If you like the COD series, you will love this one. The settings and environments are pretty unreal. I paid $45 off of amazon and it's worth every penny. Glad I did it even if I never get to resell it. And then there's the multi when I finish.

 

[duragezic]

It's about principle. Consoles pay an extra $10 because of licensing fees. Because there are no platform licensing fees for PC games, PC gamers are paying a $10 premium for a game that offers no more value than its counterparts. It would be equivilent to charging $70 for a console game and charging $50 for the same game on PC. Console gamers would go ape s*it over that. My problem with the whole situation is that if this catches on we will see all PC games released at $60.

Even if you could justify the $60 price, you would still have to look at the price/hour ratio. MW2 offers an extremely short single player game (which is the only part I want), so at $60 the ~5-6 hour game (as reported by reviewers) costs about $11 dollars an hour, compared to about $2 dollars per hour for a game like Dragon Age (~30 hours), or $4 to 5 dollars per hour for a game like Mass Effect which is relatively short 10-12 hours of gameplay. Its easy to see that MW2 is extrodinarily expensive compared to other games.

So its not about "LOL @ your income". Its about not throwing away money.

Yes, we are talking about Modern Warfare 2.

Developing on the PC is more difficult than consoles. That could explain part of it.

Also, people always say the short campaign and MP, but rarely mention Spec Ops. It's not equivalent to either by it's a neat mode to play solo or best with a friend. Very cool they added that to compliment the other two modes.

Yes, most people bash the game with the same old shit repeated over and over without playing the game. I play online pretty much every night since release and it's fun every time. Only a couple of times has a game felt laggy or had connection problems.

 

[cbn]

I hear a lot of complaints about MW2 relatied to lack of dedicated servers.

But is the PC versions still a leap forward from Modern warfare I in other ways?

 

[NoSoup4You]

It's a leap forward in every way, including the omission of dedicated servers.

 

[duragezic]

It's a leap forward in every way, including the omission of dedicated servers.

Well I have had a blast with MW2 since midnight release and still play it every night almost. But I don't agree with ya fully on this one, NoSoup4You.

Dedicated servers + matchmaking is the ideal system for Left 4 Dead. I remember you could access a server browser and it just seemed pointless. I would have preferred this approach with MW2. Best of both.

They did improve on COD4 in that there is much less grenade spam and bombing runs constantly. But a lot of that is due to a lower player count. I'd prefer higher than 9v9 (listen server constraints ignored) but at least the games do feel full of action still.

Overall it's just evolutionary. Overall to me it's just similar gameplay but with new maps to play on with new weapons, perks, and upgrades. One new thing is the Spec Ops mode is an awesome addition that COD4 does not have.

So when I say it's like that overall I can understand people saying it's not worth $60. But it's been totally worth it to me.

 

[minmaster]

i like it. i like how it got rid of those servers where you aren't allowed to sprint, or stand up, or fire without aiming. those servers took all the fun out of cod5, they yell and scream at you to walk and crouch only and move with your sights up. i'm so glad i don't have to deal with those servers anymore and their 100 rule console message spams. i guess IW had enough with them too.

 

[slightlyhuman]

i love modern warfare 2, on xbox.

 

[brennok]

I was put off by the $60 price at first, but let's face it the original COD4:MW is still $40 except for the occasional sale for $20. That's pretty much unheard of for an FPS. I went ahead and picked up MW2 recently and haven't thought about the price tag since, this game is just insanely well made. I haven't tried the single player yet though, so if that's all you're interested in I can see your dilemma.

It is interesting to consider how the original MW's price affected my decision to pay the full $60 for MW2. I can almost certainly say I'd have waited for MW2 to drop in price if the original had been selling for $25 a year after release, or $35 six months after release. But knowing Infinity Ward's track record with MW1, why wait?

Hmmm...

I think with their plans to try to release a new version of COD yearly it makes sense to wait. Amazon currently has it for 54.99 which is a start. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is coming out at 49.99 for the limited edition.

 

[brennok]

i like it. i like how it got rid of those servers where you aren't allowed to sprint, or stand up, or fire without aiming. those servers took all the fun out of cod5, they yell and scream at you to walk and crouch only and move with your sights up. i'm so glad i don't have to deal with those servers anymore and their 100 rule console message spams. i guess IW had enough with them too.

Meanwhile the only reason I picked up W@W is because there are servers that allow bolt action rifles only so it feels like playing the old COD and COD2 and you don't have people running around just holding down the fire button. Having choices is good, and no one told you to play on those servers. As of last night there were 17,000 servers on COD4 and around 3500 on W@W on the latest patches. They can't all have rules you don't like.

IW likes to blame dedicated servers on how difficult it is to find a game to join. Meanwhile who designed the filter options? They didn't give servers an option to post their rules or make it so you could filter out servers that don't fit what you want to play on until after you join. They could have added so many options that servers could fill in but chose not to. They didn't give servers the options to setup the game where instead of spamming the rules the server could lockout the things they don't allow.

 

[Regs]

MW2, putting hacks, p2p, and lag penalities aside, is an arcade game.

 

[minmaster]

MW2, putting hacks, p2p, and lag penalities aside, is an arcade game.

yeah the more i play, the more arcadish it feels like. especially when 80% of my deaths come from akimbo model 1887 shotguns.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Who ever thought it would be anything BUT an arcade game? It's not exactly the next ARMA, is it? It's just like every other COD. /shock

 

[evident]

MW2, putting hacks, p2p, and lag penalities aside, is an arcade game.

out of all the reasons to fault MW2, being an "arcade" game is not one of them.

 

[iamwiz82]

MW4 was allegedly to be made free on battletech.com. I can't check at work, though.

 

[Regs]

Who ever thought it would be anything BUT an arcade game? It's not exactly the next ARMA, is it? It's just like every other COD. /shock

Hardly. MW2 is loaded with gimmicks and 1001 ways to kill your opponent. At least MW1 was just nade spam. This is just a guantlet of "holy fing shi*".

 

[Kroze]

I love the game and it was worth every penny. Just buy it

single player is amazing! And I've put every night i have free time into online gameplay. So far I'm level 28 Prestiged.

You won't regret it

 

[Nebor]

It's the principle of the thing to me too. PC games are supposed to be $50, not $60.

 

[pontifex]

who says they are supposed to be $50? why not $40 or $30 or even less?

 

[JBT]

60 is too high for me as well. screw IW

 

[Zargon]

i like it. i like how it got rid of those servers where you aren't allowed to sprint, or stand up, or fire without aiming. those servers took all the fun out of cod5, they yell and scream at you to walk and crouch only and move with your sights up. i'm so glad i don't have to deal with those servers anymore and their 100 rule console message spams. i guess IW had enough with them too.

yeah damn those clearly labeld special gameplay servers

its minmasters way or the highway, unless he disagrees with IW, then hes fucked too