Price hike

[Odal]

Sometimes ago game publishers decided that that they had been patient enough, and that the "normal" price for a game will be at least 70$/euros. I wonder, have they been selling their games for below cost, without making an honest profit.?That is more than 30% rise! Talking about inflation!
Have the devs received a 30% pay raise?
Imagine you are old and lucky enough to have a job and earn a living, as a fervent gamer, do you think your boss will give you a raise?
Is gaming doomed to be an elite hobby to fill shareholders' pockets?

[ReBoot]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Walach:

You'll probably not believe me without evidence, but game companies, MOST of them, would survive on selling their games for half their price. The ones that wouldn't, didn't price it correctly in the first place. ;P

Actually, I do. I mean, I am inclined to believe this 20€ indie title one sngle person worked on for months (years?) to have a fair price, but with all the "news" about A game companies' stock exchange results, yeah. Their games are too expensive indeed. Too expensive to buy that is, not to make. If at least the ground floor workers working on said games got some of that money, but Activision's employees can't even afford food in the company cantina, while Kottick rakes in so much money, he could give every single worker he fired to celebrate a record quarter a couple thousand bucks and still be as rich (ignoring sub-promille rounding errors).

Opprinnelig skrevet av Walach:

But there is one huge problem... taxes... Like always. That's why large companies have their HQ in another country, and somehow they only need to hire janitors for their HQ. ;P

... or even get tax returns, despite raking in billions per year because their accountants are as clever as they are evil.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Walach:

About "pulling the brakes", did you know that, I think it was one of the old 3d GTA games, had to pay something like 10.000 dollars for the 'software' that made that pitching sound when you rev an engine? Do you know how much it cost in, I believe, their latest game? 100.000+ dollars! Insanity!

Let me guess, it actually doesn't sound 10 times better, even with a 10k$ HiFi rig?

Opprinnelig skrevet av Walach:

And their fix for some of their lagging problems? "Just make all the wheels spin at a 30 FPS limit, instead of what the computer can handle". :P

Yeah, that's another good point. Too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lazy to even program the game right, but raising prices.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Walach:

But now I'm just derailing everything, sorry, I'll stop!

Please don't! Your stuff is interesting! As Crunchyfrog, I'd like to get more of your stories.

Opprinnelig skrevet av crunchyfrog:

There's also the colossal stupidity of HALF any game's budget being purely on marketing. That is utter bollocks especially in this day and age,.

Almost missed that one. Half? Judging by the state A games get released in nowadays, they blow all of their QA budget on marketing, as well as substantial parts of the development budget.

[Walach]

Opprinnelig skrevet av crunchyfrog:

I'd love to hear them someday :)

Thank you for your kind words. :)

People just need to make the "right" topic then. AND for me being awake and online as well. So I can tell how, for example, a huge hot air balloon, created for a marketing stunt, somehow got sent to china (where the game couldn't be sold), just because it had "chinese" markings on it. And then the "hilarious" work to try and get it back. It's a story that will blow the air out of you, get it? :P

Opprinnelig skrevet av ReBoot:

*snip*

1. A lot of indie companies price their games fairly, that's why they can't 'just' half their price (and still be in business). They could, easily, just increase their selling price but they just don't do it because they are people wanting to make a game and sell it, they are not people that "wants to sell a game they'll soon finish".

2. A point about accountants. You'll probably not be able to get money back from buying a watch, but you might if you write "chrono timepiece". :P

3. Only if you use gold >plated< wire! Everyone knows that! ;P

4. I'm gonna be fair, for once, and say that programming those "shortcuts" are rather interesting. Like for example how people found a way to reduce the sound buffer in the Xbox 360 so that they could get a whooping 6 (or something close, I've forgotten the number) megabites more for other things, guess what it went into? Yes, exactly, graphics.

5. Thank you, it warms my winter cold heart, I mean fingers! Wait, that doesn't sound as nice... hm. Forget it, I'll just delete this, they'll never know! Hahaha, I'm a genius.

[ReBoot]

I think, there's a difference between lazy tricks and clever tricks. What you're describing in 4, reads like a clever trick. By the way, got anything to read up on that? Would like to dive into that detail, without asking you to detail this story ad nauseum ;) Unless, of course, you'd like to detail this story. Because I indeed do like your writing style.

Tying the game's physics to the frame rate (while also limiting said frame rate to sub-par instead of par) is a lazy trick. Especially when it comes to EA. I am willing to forgive someone with limited ressources to go the easy route, but a company like EA does have all the ressources they need to not have some NfS title crap it's pants. Even more so with smaller companies with more limited ressources managing unlimited frame rates just fine.

[Walach]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ReBoot:

*snip*

Sorry, but it was a discussion I had in a packed car, I believe someone wrote stuff on a napkin, where they showed some "programming mumbo jumbo" (I understand very little about that technical stuff, also in general now that I think about it). They tried to explain how you could change a specific texture into a soundfile, then pass it into the buffer and then "open" that soundfile as a texture again! It sounded like magic to me. And I'm not even sure I'm explaining this, probably already butchered memory, correctly. :P

Was the same people that told me how insanely high fines you'll get if you misspatch (is that a word?) a game on the xbox 360. 10.000 dollars, just because you dared to give out a quickfix to patch the game because Microsoft changed how multiplayer worked. First offense's free at least. :P

EDIT: I'm writing a book so I think my English is improving somewhat. But English still do have a lot of weird stuff in it. Like why do you have to have the "." and "," INSIDE the speech, like "I don't understand it at all," I said. And not "It's so randomly insane", I continued!

EDIT2: Also, thanks again for the kind words! :)

[ReBoot]

Your English is mighty fine! I am not a native speaker, henceforth not the biggest authority on what constitutes good English there is, but I find your posts easy & pleasant to read.

That, and thanks for explaining that texture/sound stuff. You gave me enough info to understand the topic. What a clever trick indeed!

[Start_Running]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Odal:

Sometimes ago game publishers decided that that they had been patient enough, and that the "normal" price for a game will be at least 70$/euros. I wonder, have they been selling their games for below cost, without making an honest profit.?That is more than 30% rise! Talking about inflation!
Have the devs received a 30% pay raise?
Imagine you are old and lucky enough to have a job and earn a living, as a fervent gamer, do you think your boss will give you a raise?
Is gaming doomed to be an elite hobby to fill shareholders' pockets?

The entire argument here is undermined by the simple fact that games exist in a very wide price spectrum. from $0 to $200+ and everything in between. You're basically complaining about a price hike in mercedes, and porche's when there are plenty of other cheaper car brands and models out there.

You want the super expensive stuff then you better have the wallet to back it up. If you just want a fun game. You have no shortage of budget options.

[nullable]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Odal:

Sometimes ago game publishers decided that that they had been patient enough, and that the "normal" price for a game will be at least 70$/euros. I wonder, have they been selling their games for below cost, without making an honest profit.?That is more than 30% rise! Talking about inflation!
Have the devs received a 30% pay raise?
Imagine you are old and lucky enough to have a job and earn a living, as a fervent gamer, do you think your boss will give you a raise?
Is gaming doomed to be an elite hobby to fill shareholders' pockets?

You know when I was a kid in the 90's some SNES and N64 games were $69.99 USD. You adjust that for inflation and that's $122 USD today.

I feel like I pay a lot less for games today than I did twenty years ago. Base prices haven't changed much, they haven't adjusted with inflation. A lot of things have kept prices low. But game prices won't be $49.99-$59.99 forever. Anyone who's outraged about eventual increases just isn't being realistic.

If game prices had kept up with inflation they'd be a lot more expensive today. Even at a higher price the entertainment value is still good. But naturally people don't like price increases and often have opinions about them.

And it's not like games won't go on sale. And it's not like most of us buy games at full price on the regular. It's not like every game is not going to be priced at $70. We'll be fine. The sky is not falling.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Just because someone releases a game for 80$ does not mean you need it at that point.

If its good, remember it, release is an information.
And get it for the price you think is fine.

[Drab]

Luxury good aren't priced by the cost it took to produce them.

[Mythical Ostrich]

I always wait to find a deal before I buy something.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Drab:

Luxury good aren't priced by the cost it took to produce them.

Luxury good is something that has no use and/or costs more than the product itself should for the function it provides.

A game price does not determine if its luxury, but if its still worth it to get that game.

It actually costs nothing if a poor person plays game X. It costs nothing for anyone. But if he drives a race car, he drives a luxury product.
Thats why you can not say, just because a game has an inflated price its a luxury product. Its just not worth it.

[unca.alby]

It's fascinating to read comments here from people saying what game developers SHOULD be doing, without a one of them having ever run a game development company ever in their lives.

Put simply ... most of you do NOT know what you're talking about.

You have utterly NO idea how much marketing is required to sell games. You have NO idea how much of the money goes into development, into profit, into servicing debt, into repaying investors. You have NO idea what goes into deciding what a price should be.

Bottom line ... you think the price is too high? DON'T BUY IT.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Opprinnelig skrevet av unca.alby:

It's fascinating to read comments here from people saying what game developers SHOULD be doing, without a one of them having ever run a game development company ever in their lives.

Put simply ... most of you do NOT know what you're talking about.

You have utterly NO idea how much marketing is required to sell games. You have NO idea how much of the money goes into development, into profit, into servicing debt, into repaying investors. You have NO idea what goes into deciding what a price should be.

Bottom line ... you think the price is too high? DON'T BUY IT.

But thats what people say here.

They dont want to buy them.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Odal:

I have been participating in Steam for many years, and I do sometime buy a game for a full price. Only not that often.
The "it is your choice"argument is rather superficial, don't you think?

No it isn't superficial. It's a fact on Steam. It's rare to find a game that has never been in a semi recent sale.

[Crazy Tiger]

Just wait for the price to come down to the price you are willing to pay, OP.