£50 seems to be becoming the average price for new games

[jimferno]

The CEO of Take 2 actually admitted earlier this year that concurrent spending in-game was now more relevant than their boxed game sales and that every single game they publish going forward would sell you in-game items (microtransactions). In other words they could give away their base games for free and it wouldn't really hurt their profits but there's still gamers out there who believe these companies are struggling to get by on a £50 entrance fee, £20 season pass and micros on top.

I'm not against micros tbh, If it has micros and a free to play economy it should be free to play, see Fortnite for example. There is no excuse for a £50 game to have microtransactions IMO.

 

[malachi]

I'd love to know what people think all these "partial" games are? In the last couple of years I've played games like Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, Far Cry 5, Assassins Creed Syndicate/Odyssey, The Division and Fallout 4 - they've all had DLC or season passes, but they've all still been 30+ hour games without it, and have all had a complete story. Seems like there's a touch of entitlement in expecting more game than that for no money.

It's also worth mentioning that back in the day, it was entirely possible to pay £50 for a game that turned out to be hideously buggy, or worse, so broken it couldn't be finished. And don't forget the joys of copy protection like coded manuals, or bizarre code wheels - don't lose those, or your game is only good for fixing a wonky table leg . Hell, I had Elite on the Spectrum which was completely unplayable, thanks to the delights of the single worst copy protection I've ever seen (lenslock, I think?) - I was literally never able to play it.

But those have been replaced by online DRM. Remember the kick off about Diablo 3 which cant be played offline and Sim City from 2013? (which they patched offline mode about a year after)

Some games are fine for £50 with or without DLC. But games such as Street Fighter 5 were clearly unfinished and rush out the door. And Asura's Wrath which you had to buy the DLC to get the true ending...Both Capcom games, so no surprise from them.

Its when you are paying £50 for a game and its laced with microtransactions. That's not acceptable.

 

[ZG002]

I tend to complete games pretty quick and sell/trade them back in.

If they are story driven I will normally buy them on release and plow the time in as I often end up seeing a spoiler or someone will open their mouth when ahead of me.

If it’s something like Forza Horizon 4 for example I will wait till the game has dropped a little in price and a few patches have been released.

The thing that boils my **** is paying top price for a game and finding it close to broken until a patch or two is released.

They are expensive and always have been imo, but I guess it’s all relative. I’ve sold/traded my games in since the ps1 days to take the sting out of it all. They just sit there gathering dust otherwise, announced DLC has made this harder if something catches your attention but you have to really weigh it up.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I tend to complete games pretty quick and sell/trade them back in.

If they are story driven I will normally buy them on release and plow the time in as I often end up seeing a spoiler or someone will open their mouth when ahead of me.

If it’s something like Forza Horizon 4 for example I will wait till the game has dropped a little in price and a few patches have been released.

The thing that boils my **** is paying top price for a game and finding it close to broken until a patch or two is released.

They are expensive and always have been imo, but I guess it’s all relative. I’ve sold/traded my games in since the ps1 days to take the sting out of it all. They just sit there gathering dust otherwise, announced DLC has made this harder if something catches your attention but you have to really weigh it up.

I bet you hate Destiny 1 + 2 !

 

[ZG002]

Yeah they both have caused me issue lol.

Even went in twice for Destiny 1 due to playing it online with a group of friends.

 

[KraniX]

I'd buy more Zelda Breath of the Wild DLC tomorrow, had so much entertainment out of that game, my Switch has been a Zelda Player for the last year and I'm really happy with that

 

[Woogie]

It's odd that God of War could be made as a complete game for £50 with no planned DLC. According to most of you they must have lost a lot of money because games should cost £100+ now, you'd be happy for them to cost that, and DLC/micros are needed to keep them afloat.

Question, If the prices were raised to £100 per game would they stop with special editions, microtransactions and DLC?

Games such as this and Spider-Man tend to be Loss Leaders and are designed to sell consoles.

 

[Kreeeee]

Games such as this and Spider-Man tend to be Loss Leaders and are designed to sell consoles.

I doubt that. Don't forget that first/second party games don't have to pay the extremely high software lincence fees that third parties do, so profit margins per sale is higher.

 

[Woogie]

I doubt that. Don't forget that first/second party games don't have to pay the extremely high software lincence fees that third parties do, so profit margins per sale is higher.

Both were published by Sony Interactive and not a 3rd party, Both are exclusives and both had branded consoles to go along with their release. They may not have been true loss leaders but they were specifically marketed to sell consoles but it is why I used the words "Tend to be" rather than "are"

Spider-man was also a case of Sony approaching a developer and asking them to make the game rather than the developer licencing the IP etc.

 

[d_brennen]

I'd buy more Zelda Breath of the Wild DLC tomorrow, had so much entertainment out of that game, my Switch has been a Zelda Player for the last year and I'm really happy with that

I'm nearly at the end, deliberately spent time doing everything and exploring. I resent paying to upgrade the master sword though, probably won't, the champions Ballard and trials of the sword really should have been in the base game.

More content, maybe even post game content, I'd pay for

 

[jimferno]

Both were published by Sony Interactive and not a 3rd party, Both are exclusives and both had branded consoles to go along with their release. They may not have been true loss leaders but they were specifically marketed to sell consoles but it is why I used the words "Tend to be" rather than "are"

Spider-man was also a case of Sony approaching a developer and asking them to make the game rather than the developer licencing the IP etc.

Spiderman the game made more profit from sales in its first three days than the film "Spiderman: homecoming" did in it's opening weekend. They aren't losing money on these games.

They've done a good job spinning the rhetoric that they really struggle to break even on these games and they're doing us all a favour by giving us the "option" of paying for "additional" content. Meanwhile all the big devs/publishers continue to post record profits.

The push for "live services" is designed specifically to maximise profit for minimal work. Give the player a big open world sandbox, give them incentives to keep logging in and repeating the same content, sell them "content" over the space of two years, pack it full of micros and watch the money roll in.
All you've done is develop one game but you've broken it down, monetised every aspect of it and released the content over two years. They're quids in and they know it.

 

[Woogie]

Spiderman the game made more profit from sales in its first three days than the film "Spiderman: homecoming" did in it's opening weekend. They aren't losing money on these games.

They've done a good job spinning the rhetoric that they really struggle to break even on these games and they're doing us all a favour by giving us the "option" of paying for "additional" content. Meanwhile all the big devs/publishers continue to post record profits.

OK, That wasn't what I was saying but lets move on.

 

[shuffle]

thankfully fallout 4 and battlefield 1 are worth it, playing them 2 years. how many games can you get into at once these days? maybe its an age thing