GTA 6 publisher suggests games should be paid for per hour played

[Ganger]

Well, so these publishers not only want you to pay for content, loot boxes, DLC etc but some how some CEO has now come up with the idea of charging you per hour to play AAA+ titles. Clearly earning billions in profits isn't enough nwo they want more.

Im not on board with this nonsense but sadly, this is the way gaming is heading if we allow it to happen. Guys you need to read the full article.....

"The CEO of Rockstar owner Take-Two has talked about changing the way video games are paid for.

The game’s price is also of interest, although it’ll almost certainly cost £69.99, which is what most new AAA games are priced at now.

But during a recent investment call Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that big budget video games should be more expensive the longer they are


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/gaming/gta-6-publisher-suggests-games-should-be-paid-for-per-hour-played/ar-AA1jXCRl?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7b92c858b554472687e1021ddc7109fb&ei=12

[River]

Can you see it? Governments can control how much you game via your paycheck/CBDC. And game companies can make record profits. A win for everyone that matters.

[AbedsBrother]

Originally posted by Ganger:

"The CEO of Rockstar owner Take-Two has talked about changing the way video games are paid for.

The game’s price is also of interest, although it’ll almost certainly cost £69.99, which is what most new AAA games are priced at now.

But during a recent investment call Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that big budget video games should be more expensive the longer they are


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/gaming/gta-6-publisher-suggests-games-should-be-paid-for-per-hour-played/ar-AA1jXCRl?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7b92c858b554472687e1021ddc7109fb&ei=12

F * C K
T H A T

[Corvus XIII]

Originally posted by Devsman:

Originally posted by Basho:

thats my take as well.
it lays the conceptual groundwork for padding AAA titles with filler to justify a larger price tag.

This is nothing new.

Ass Creed IV literally wouldn't let you embark on certain missions without upgrading the ship a certain amount. And lookie here, there's a "timesaver DLC" (ie, pay to NOT play the game) that upgrades it for you.

pissed me off black flag, get the game kick some ass and it says now all you need to do is log on to this thing here register and you get this stuff!

Im playing a ps3 and why cant you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just put that with the disc it came with :'(

Didnt have my ps3 hooked up to the net. I let it pass and enjoyed the game immensely just felt meh you want my data or something screw you I pay to play a game.

Now its the normal way to do things. I made a decision not to upgrade to ps5 (and ps4 was just a waste of time im glad i didnt get it part of the rat race racket).

[kilésengati]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Originally posted by kilésengati:

It's far less outragous than what the headlines want you to make believe. What Zelnick suggests is that games which offer higher "expected entertainment usage" should be priced accordingly, not necessarily metred gameplay or some bs like that, but through a formula that doesn't exist yet. Whoever invents such a formula would make for a good economics Nobel prize candidate.
But the basic premise is utter bs still. Of course good games deserve decent pricing, but quantity isn't quality.

What he suggests and what's between the lines are completely different things. Zelnick would then proceed to ordering his development team to make future games FULL of unskippable cutscenes lasting longer than average JRPG dialogue and make the gameplay insanely grindy to rival a cookie-cutter Korean MMO.

As I've said, quantity ain't quality and Zelnick's thinking just shows how little he understands about videogames. Bloke has been an executive at CBS before, so guess where his idea of just serving people loads of gunk comes from.

[Corvus XIII]

I got banned for comparing the games industry to what Damien wanted to do in Omen 3.
Similar to holding people hostage (just with gaming).

Naturally moderating team were as professional as ever and refused to read what any of it was about.

[Phirestar]

Originally posted by kilésengati:

It's far less outragous than what the headlines want you to make believe. What Zelnick suggests is that games which offer higher "expected entertainment usage" should be priced accordingly, not necessarily metred gameplay or some bs like that, but through a formula that doesn't exist yet. Whoever invents such a formula would make for a good economics Nobel prize candidate.
But the basic premise is utter bs still. Of course good games deserve decent pricing, but quantity isn't quality.

Keep in mind, of course, that they’ll keep the baseline price where it’s currently at, and all games will start at that value regardless of how much “expected entertainment usage” they offer. (By the way, that term sounds like an alien trying to describe a human being’s concept of “fun” to their fellow aliens.)

I can see it now: the next Call of Duty comes out, and they advertise a 6-hour long campaign this time. Quote: “A 50% increase in expected entertainment usage over our previous entry, Modern Warfare 3!”

That’ll be a hundred bucks, please.

[Basho]

Originally posted by Devsman:

Originally posted by Basho:

thats my take as well.
it lays the conceptual groundwork for padding AAA titles with filler to justify a larger price tag.

This is nothing new.

Ass Creed IV literally wouldn't let you embark on certain missions without upgrading the ship a certain amount. And lookie here, there's a "timesaver DLC" (ie, pay to NOT play the game) that upgrades it for you.

i agree, but this goes beyond artificial mechanics like grinding etc, and instead actively incentivizes padding of the writing itself, as with mediocre multi-season TV series.
do an image search for "gta 3 vs gta 4 script" and my concern should be quite clear.

dont get me wrong, i enjoy a good story. even better if it is also long, so a longer script isnt in itself bad.
but inversely a longer script isnt in itself good either if it is just padding for length.

and a lot of the missions in GTA 4 seem like a haze in retrospect, in GTA 5 as well, and this line of thinking calls for even more padding so you can tout the total gameplay length as justification for the price tag.
i can already see the headlines, "GTA 6's story takes 500 hours to finish".
guessing there will be even more yoga and bowling, finicky RC helicopter missions, inexplicable self-sabotaging by characters, car dialogue, driving missions, etc, to pad the content in GTA 6.

[BigBallinChester]

Unity tortanic 2.0

[Xautos]

Unfortunately this example exists already, just not marked up the way anyone expected. you see the likes of these simulator games like trucks and trains and the sims 4, you look at the DLC's and add them up. you are already looking at dollars an hour, assuming you ever hit the amount of hours over that time. the prices are ludicrously crazy in some of these games, but guess what? people pay for all of it anyway.

[--=[Nokturna Mortis]=--]

Will we have to find 400 pigeons in the future instead of 200?

[Devsman]

Originally posted by --=Nokturna Mortis=--:

Will we have to find 400 pigeons instead of 200 in the future?

Yes, and it will be mandatory instead of a sidequest. And you'll have to do it three times.

[Raccoon.♡]

So like, mmo subscriptions with extra steps?

[gza]

I feel as though people are misunderstanding what exactly he meant. He didn't mean he's going to charge you by the hour. What he meant was that the cost of the game should be calculated against the projected hours someone would play. Based on some implemented algorithm.

This is still bad, as it incentivises developers to cram their games with filler content more than they already do to meet profit/pricing targets.

[Tiberius]

He prolly looked up how asians played their mmos and thought this is a good idea 🤦‍♂️

[2103]

This seems like a very good idea! My god that rockstar guy its a GENIUS!