Would you pay $100+ for a blockbuster game?
As we continue to monitor our buying behavior during the recession, something we can rely on during these difficult times is that video games will be affordable. For $50 to $60, we can derive hours and hours of entertainment from a single title. It's generally not a bad deal, in most gamers' eyes.
Would you pay $100 for Gears of War 2?
(Credit: Microsoft)But what if a blockbuster title that took years and millions of dollars to develop was priced at $100 or more? Would the price make us think twice about buying it?
That might be the question we'll need to ask ourselves soon, if we are to believe former Sony Europe President Chris Deerling.
Speaking to U.K. publication MCV, Deerling said that if current development cycles and costs are maintained, a price tag of 70 British pounds per game is inevitable. Based on recent exchange rates and on the assumption that the game would sell for essentially the same price internationally, that would mean that U.S.-based customers would face about a $119 price tag for the title.
"Before there can be as many successful blockbuster games as there were in the past, games have to be produced in a more efficient fashion," Deerling told the publication. "In order to price these games at a level where they would support an industry (as strongly as) they did 10 years ago, they'd have to be sold at 70 pounds."
"Consumers won't spend more, but to write the game, publishers are having to spend more than ever before," Deerling continued. "That's the key problem."
And what a problem it is.
The video game industry has had a somewhat stable history when it comes to pricing. I remember buying Nintendo 64 titles for $60. The first PlayStation was originally offered for $299--$50 more than what the Nintendo Wii retails for today. The 3DO, a failed console from EA co-founder Trip Hawkins, sold for $699 when it went on sale in 1993. As most industries saw prices rise over the past 10 to 15 years, the video game industry has enjoyed relatively stable pricing.
Can video game developers get away with charging $100 or more for a blockbuster title like Metal Gear Solid or Halo? They might be starting to ease us into it.
A report surfaced in the United Kingdom last week claiming that Activision will increase the suggested retail price of Modern Warfare 2 in the country from 45 pounds ($76) to 55 pounds ($92).
That's a hefty price tag--but a reasonable one? According to Deerling, "the cost of development (today) is 10 times what it was for PS2, and more like 20 to 50 times more than on PSOne."
Assuming that's true, it would follow that today's games should be priced higher. And gamers, expecting blockbuster titles on par with Metal Gear Solid, should be ready to pay. But we have been conditioned to expect video game prices to hover around $50 to $60. When they start creeping up into the $70-and-up range, developers have usually bundled "collector's" items to entice us to buy the more expensive version.
Some developers have already crept up to the $100 mark, albeit after selling their game at a normal price. Bethesda, for example, released on Monday its fifth and final piece of downloadable content for its blockbuster title Fallout 3. These add-on packs cost anywhere from $10 to $20 a piece, have totaled up to $60--equaling the original price of the game and topping out the "complete" version at $120. Later this year, the company is simply re-releasing the original, along with the downloadable episodic content as its own game.
So perhaps that's the state we all find ourselves in today. We won't pay more unless we get more for it, but developers can't necessarily maintain the same cost structure and charge $60 for a game that ideally (for them, at least) would be priced at more than $100. It can't last this way forever. Eventually, one side will need to give.
Will we give in and start paying more for major titles? Or will developers simply cease development on huge, blockbuster video games? At this point, it's anyone's guess. But I doubt either solution will make everyone happy.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Thing is, more and more people are doing the same.
Eventually, they'll get the hint and either start thinking straight, or they'll DRM-lock the games to one console and require activation (meaning you have to go buy it new).
When games were $39-49 dollars, there was not much of a used market. The $59 jump when it became popular. If they goes more, then sales will drop more as people buy used and rent. If they use DRM, then piracy will soar.
The solution? Stop spending so much on the development. Many of good games are not blockbusters. Just be more efficient with development spending.
The problem is the development process itself, which is the driver behind the cost increases mentioned. It's sporadic and chaotic, with premiums paid for stupid things, and inefficiencies requiring constant rewrites, reworking, or chucking everything and starting over. It has become as mammoth an undertaking as making a blockbuster movie, which is ironic when you consider that computers and visual effects are making things much easier and more efficient in the movie industry. If the game developers would work on efficiency and optimization, rather than always trying to push the envelope and creating their own wake of destruction through their bottom lines, this conversation would be nonexistent.
But then again, most gamers are fickle and demand more bleeding-edge stuff... So I guess it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.
...so why are their costs going up?
It can't be the 3D/CG tools - those are actually getting cheaper to buy. In 1999, a seat of Maya would cost you $25k. Now you can get a seat for $4k (equivalent to 3DS Max and/or Lightwave with all the trimmings). Meanwhile, there have been a lot of just-as-capable but far lower-cost suites that have come out in the meanwhile (e.g. Modo, Silo, etc). There are even some pretty powerful free apps floating around out there (like Blender) that can do the job very nicely in skilled hands. There are even far, far more 3D/CG artists out there nowadays than there ever was in the mid-to-late 1990s.
There are more free and far more comprehensive game development resources (Gamasutra as one long-time ferinstance). The programming code is far easier now than before, thanks to expansions of OpenGL, and the introduction of some damned powerful libraries like SDL. (and even the likes of DirectX make it easy for the Windows-only crowd).
The only possible diff I can think of is the SDK costs - which are set and licensed by the console makers. Thing is, if the consoles are costing more to develop for, then cut back on what consoles you write for... enough folks do that, and the console maker with the most expensive SDK suddenly gets an epiphany and lowers the costs.
Another possibility is the licensing of trademarks and crap like that (e.g. games based on Disney characters, and such) - a sure cure for that is to have some originality and stop pimping brand names in/with your games, no?
Long story short - there's nothing really indicating which costs are going up that everyone bemoans... maybe some insight from the game industry itself would help? As it stands, the only one I can see rising that cannot be avoided is the console maker SDK/license costs. Other than that, everything else has become cheaper over time for the average developer who isn't relying on a franchise to get published.
* note that I agree with you completely, I just couldn't resist the classic joke
Back in the late 80's early to mid 90's PC games cost the same as they do today, but back then you got manuals the size of books and posters and other stuff as well. Total game play time was calculated in days not hours. Today you get a clamshell case with a CD in it. Maybe a slim booklet if you're lucky and total game play of maybe 8 hours.
To be fair a $50 game in 1992 when taking inflation into account would cost $75 today. Would I pay $75 for a game? If it came with as much stuff as it did over 15 years ago, probably. But only if it was a star title like a Modern Warfare or Bioshock.
Besides, iPhone is dragging down the price of games. The handheld game machines (DS, PSP) are already feeling it. Nintendo has already warned that iPhone/iPod touch is now a competitor. Apple is updating its hardware every year and solved the distribution issue. The basic Nintendo DS platform is about five years old and still relies heavily on physical media.
Personally, I'd rather pay $20 for a game that I have no expectations for. If I'm paying $100 for a game then a. I'd better like it. . . a LOT and, b. It had better hold my attention for a LONG TIME. My expectation for a game I pay that much for is exponentially higher.
Another option (and I know this is a sore subject,) product placement. Let me walk into a building in Modern Warfare that is littered with Pepsi cans and Pizza Hut boxes. If done right it makes the world more believable. And make sure that the company pays for the privillage of being seen in the game. As long as it's not overdone or I don't have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials every time I fire up Gears of War then I'm good.
It's a good thing that the leaders of Sony are the ones saying this, cause they truly have the least say this generation. They'll be playing catch up till the new consoles release, and sadly for them this is looking to be the longest generation in history. So forget what Sony says, listen to Microsoft and Nintendo, who are perfectly happy to sell 50 dollar retail games and even cheaper games over Xbox Live. They are the true movers and shakers in the industry.
I already buy only AAA titles and not very many of them. If games were $100 out of the gate and then more with DLC I probably would not buy more than 1 or 2 a year from my now 5-6 a year that I play.
Gears of War 2 $59
Flashback Map Pack $15
Snow blind Map Pack $15
Combustible Map Pack $15
Dark Corners Map Pack $15
Games will become less expensive to buy initially (TF2 experiment, etc...) but additional content will be offered. This will shorten the time to market, allow for longer support cycles after the game is released and allow them to sell a lot more of the game online and skip the brick and mortar stores so they will even have bigger profit margins.
If game prices increase that much.. you'll probably see more people begin to hack their console and see a HUGE spike in piracy. If games go to $100, I'll be one of those people saying "arrgghhh!!!"
the thing is, not many games are worth $100
With the increasing quality of easier to use development tools, the price shouldn't need to increase that much. Besides, many of the fancy looking new games aren't even as entertaining as older games were.
I won't pay $60 for a game, so there is no way I'll pay $100. Talk about being out of touch with the current economic environment.
Instead of blowing out big budget games that
A) Suck
B) concentrate on online multiplayer but cut short the single player so that they can sell multiplayer map paks
They should sell games for $40. It has already been shown that selling games cheaper results in more games being sold. One of the big reasons Gamestop is so huge is that they sell used games at the prices consumers want to pay. Developers are lazy. They create huge multiplayer games because they don't want to take the time to write good stories for the single player part. Most consumers don't feel that those games are worth $60 much less $100. And if they go to console locking DRM, the publishers will be shocked at how low sales will get. I and a lot of others will drop out of the console market.
b/c unless they are very good and make the single player have insane replay potential, multiplayer is where I'm going to spend most of my time with a game
- by virtualtodd August 4, 2009 7:03 AM PDT
- Isn't the market for games much bigger than it was 10 or 20 years ago? Selling many more games at the same price point results in higher revenue. Selling fewer games at a higher price point could result in lower revenue.
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