Are gamers short changed?

JUMPURS

JUMPURS

JUMPURS

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Inspired by another thread (:p) i have been wondering if other gamers are feeling short changed?
The gaming industry seems to be the only industry that is getting away with excuses when it comes to rushing their final product to market.
When it comes to games we often hear excuses of 'deadlines force it to come out' 'we can patch it later' (yeah 6 months later?
Some games are criminal, with Gears of War and its incoherant story (because they needed to get it out, why did the biggest company in the world need to get it out?), Heavenly Sword being rather short. Assassins creed on the PS3 with all its bugs, which iirc are still not fixed. Some of the early PS3 releases, plus the plethora of games on all systems with shockingly bad framerates.
The list can go on and on. Lets not forget, game rrp's are £40-£50. That is still a lot of money. We are paying a premium for these experiences
Imagine a movie came out and you went to see it, and the middle was missing because they had to make cuts, but the special effects rawked. Or 'Och we will add that bit later, when you have stopped giving a crap about it' Reviewers are often making excuses for the games too! You would be demanding your £6 cinema ticket refunded. (and that is only 6 quid!)
As consumers we shouldn't have to factor in 'oh well they had budget issues (at tens of millions of dollars, get a grip)' 'they had deadlines' (with a game 2 years in the making?)

I can't help that gaming seems to be the only industry we are getting shafted.

What are other peoples thoughts on it? Maybe i am just in a lull when it comes to gaming at the moment, but i am a bit peeved. COD4 didn't help with the single player (which always made a COD game) last half an hour.

**note** this isn't meant to sound like a total rip of Gears, so fanboys, go away, i did try to balance with games from PS3 and Xbox 360, i would include the Wii but, well, do i really need to say anything. :p
 
I agree with you as most of my games have screen tearing due to frame rate issues. I'm annoyed as I pay good money for games only to be let down with technical issues.:mad:
 
I largely agree with the OP..

But I just think it must be a case of a balance of interests Development Time Vs Consumer patience with a bit of Vs "Need some games for the new platform".

I look at Sony and MS though and see two different strategies for their own franchises..

Sony seem to be spending gazillions on the development of some of the biggies such as GT5/KZ etc and making us wait a long time, but we know these will be superb..
Then we have MS that have delivered 2 PGR's, Forza 2, Halo, Mass effect, etc, etc and yet although we have had our fix, it's undeniable they needed more polish..
 
I think it's just the nature of the industry. The developers with the highest level of quality control usually take the longest to release their games (Valve, Blizzard etc). There's room for studio's like that in the industry, but if every game took 4-5 years to finish then I think many would get tired of waiting. There are clearly some games that come out well before they should, but I'd say overall the balance is just about right.

I also don't like how SP games are going as far as length though. 8-10 hours seems to have become standard over the last few years and I'd just about got used to that, but we're seeing games clock in at under 6 hours which is very disappointing.
 
Do we really see many buggy games released on the Wii? I would say no from Nintendo themselves, but then we're 'short-changed' compared to US/JAP who get their games months in advance. Wii owners have to put up with the crap shovelware PS2 ports (or worse, PSP), and aside from getting games later, I don't think Wii owners do too bad. At least Wii games are generally cheaper!

Games, I believe, are getting shorter. 20 hours is about all I can stomach though to be honest. It took me nearly a year to complete Zelda @ 60 hrs for Christ's sake. :p I don't have the time for games I did as a student, and I'd happily take an excellent, well polished 10-15 hr game over a buggy or padded 20+ hr game. It matters even less if it has replay value.
 
i agree, then there is the resale value, buy a game for £40 and in 6 months time is worth £5. Look at PGR4 you can buy in new for £9.99 - wish all games was this price and i'm sure they will sell more also.

Then there is the people who cannot update their games also, the people without an internet connection so in effect they are buying incomplete games, flawed to start with.

total ripoff in most cases
 
Demon said:
I largely agree with the OP..

But I just think it must be a case of a balance of interests Development Time Vs Consumer patience with a bit of Vs "Need some games for the new platform".
Click to expand...

Personally i would rather see a game with maybe a few less techincal bullet points for a presentation, a wee bit less shiney stuff, and just have a solid game. With nice graphics, and decent lengthed single player.

I know i will sound like a Sony fanboy (but i am an insomniac fanboy, i have said many times to :p) But resistance: fall of man was a great example of time IMO. The graphical textures where a bit lower, but i thought (i know Nokkon will dissagree :p) that it had a great single player, nice length too. Also although the graphics where not as shiney as something like Gears, the framerate was solid. It also had a decent multiplayer.

I think that is an example of a dev thinking, well we will give a finished, polished product rather than an unfinished one, that might look a bit better.
 
I totally agrees JUMPURS, Resistance was a great example of what the developers can do if they put the time an effort in.:)
 
I don't think things such as the marketplace on XBL (no idea what the PS store is like) really help the cause either. If I buy a game I want the full game and all the content that comes with it. I don't want to have to buy add-ons for stuff that may already be on the disc (especially that the stupid rates MS want for them).

It just comes across as if they know there is interest in 'X' title so lets get a few more pennies while we can.
 
BenjiSayers said:
I don't think things such as the marketplace on XBL (no idea what the PS store is like) really help the cause either. If I buy a game I want the full game and all the content that comes with it. I don't want to have to buy add-ons for stuff that may already be on the disc (especially that the stupid rates MS want for them).

It just comes across as if they know there is interest in 'X' title so lets get a few more pennies while we can.
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Yeah, a lot of DLC is a complete joke. GH2 being case and point. I wonder how many developers actually hold back things so that they can release it as DLC later on. I personally don't mind paying for DLC, but only if i deem it worth it.

It is shocking that PC gamers got a COD4 map for free, and console gamers haven't even got it (either pay or free) and we often pay twice as much for the game.

Do devs make more money from a console game or PC game? Because we pay twice as much, does the extra cash go to the console manufacturer or whatever or do devs get a bigger cut? I think i would be surprised if devs didn't make more money from console games. Surely they would also make a larger profit due to volume of sales too?
 
Demon said:
I largely agree with the OP..


Then we have MS that have delivered 2 PGR's, Forza 2, Halo, Mass effect, etc, etc and yet although we have had our fix, it's undeniable they needed more polish..
Click to expand...

Is it undeniable?
What are these problems with the games you mentioned?I know Mass Effect has a few problems,but the other games mentioned are extremely polished imo.

Just because KZ2 is taking so long to come out,it doesn't mean its going to be worth the wait.
 
JUMPURS said:
I personally don't mind paying for DLC, but only if i deem it worth it.
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That's the thing for me though, I have yet to see any DLC that makes me think yeh I want that as it is going to make the game even better.

It is normally something like some crappy re-hashes of maps from previous games, a new car here or there or opening up a new part of a game world or some new woeful new tracks (i'm looking at you forza).

The last thing I got off DLC was the black map pack for R6V and that was FREE! (granted I did only get it last week so it may of cost originally, i dunno I'd be pretty miffed if I had to pay for that going by the qaulity of the maps)
 
JUMPURS said:
Personally i would rather see a game with maybe a few less techincal bullet points for a presentation, a wee bit less shiney stuff, and just have a solid game. With nice graphics, and decent lengthed single player..
Click to expand...

I agree too many games win people over with a flashy presentation. R6 was released at the same time as gears of war. Gears looks stunning R6 less so.

R6 kicked the arse out of gears in every feature except graphics. Gears is the title everyone goes on about despite the Woefull AI, crap multiplayer, small environments, tiny single player game, crap cover/run system etc etc.

As usual people were won over by the glitz and a chainsaw attachment.

Assassins creed, stunning. Yet people dont seem to be able to see it's one enviroment doing exactly the same thing 120 times x 4.

Pro Evo is the one game though that rises above all others in the we shall really take the **** and release a game we made in our tea breaks.

That game is insulting, that really should be a game that they took back and refunded money on. Lots of people on here complained about the slow down in replays, broken Multiplayer. Well you should see the master league, it was never great in 6 but the AI and rubber banding is absolutely shocking. So bad that you know when the AI is about to get one back. You can literally see when your 2-0 up against a big team that until the other teams scores you aint getting another goal.

I don't care if Pro evo 8 gets 10/10 in reviews, Konami are not getting any more of my money for a football game release after this version. Unless they sell it for £20 from day one as a gift for the crap they put out.
 
dannyjo22 said:
I agree too many games win people over with a flashy presentation. R6 was released at the same time as gears of war. Gears looks stunning R6 less so.

R6 kicked the arse out of gears in every feature except graphics. Gears is the title everyone goes on about despite the Woefull AI, crap multiplayer, small environments, tiny single player game, crap cover/run system etc etc.
Click to expand...

It's all down to opinion I guess because I loved R6V coop and online on Live but at the same time I loved Gears every bit as much and thought they were pretty much 2 totally different styles of games. While playing through R6V i was slow and methodical, always taking my time and coordinating stuff with my m8 but while playing Gears I had a much more run and gun mentality. I also probably found the single player modes of Gears and R6V to last me roughly the same time.

For me I think it has become fashionable on hear to bash Gears at times and when i sit and play through RFOM every level I think "boy I wish I had Gears on my PS3".
 
now
console games are £40-£45 in a supermarket
and £10-£30 for the PC version

when i used to have my sega megadrive i got mortal kombat 1 for £50 [the most reasonable price at the time]

in comparison...
price of a mars bar back then = 28p-30p
price of a mars bar now = 35p-50p

price of a litre of petrol then = 40p
price of a litre of petrol now = £1+

so my point is that everything has increased in price by a very significant amount
stop complaining that games cost so much, you are very lucky to have had 2007 [a great year for ALL FORMATS]
and the games were cheap! - you were not short changed

if you put on the inflation rate of everything i mentioned above then a game should cost around £80-£90

and consoles roughly 40% more than they do

but you have it lucky - technology has remained cool - only increasing minimally in price

so you are not being ripped off or short changed
 
rjkoneill said:
now
console games are £40-£45 in a supermarket
and £10-£30 for the PC version

when i used to have my sega megadrive i got mortal kombat 1 for £50 [the most reasonable price at the time]

in comparison...
price of a mars bar back then = 28p-30p
price of a mars bar now = 35p-50p

price of a litre of petrol then = 40p
price of a litre of petrol now = £1+

so my point is that everything has increased in price by a very significant amount
stop complaining that games cost so much, you are very lucky to have had 2007 [a great year for ALL FORMATS]
and the games were cheap! - you were not short changed

if you put on the inflation rate of everything i mentioned above then a game should cost around £80-£90

and consoles roughly 40% more than they do

but you have it lucky - technology has remained cool - only increasing minimally in price

so you are not being ripped off or short changed
Click to expand...


The point being they are half finished or riddled with issues. You would complain if the mars bar didn't have the caramel or someone had taken a bite. Or the litre of fuel wasn't as efficient as it should be.

Its not about paying more it's about paying for half finished/glitched rushed games.

Pro Evo is usually about £30 on release day, less than normal RRP. You play that and then come back and tell me this discussion is just about the money.
 
rjkoneill said:
now
console games are £40-£45 in a supermarket
and £10-£30 for the PC version

when i used to have my sega megadrive i got mortal kombat 1 for £50 [the most reasonable price at the time]

in comparison...
price of a mars bar back then = 28p-30p
price of a mars bar now = 35p-50p

price of a litre of petrol then = 40p
price of a litre of petrol now = £1+

so my point is that everything has increased in price by a very significant amount
stop complaining that games cost so much, you are very lucky to have had 2007 [a great year for ALL FORMATS]
and the games were cheap! - you were not short changed

if you put on the inflation rate of everything i mentioned above then a game should cost around £80-£90

and consoles roughly 40% more than they do

but you have it lucky - technology has remained cool - only increasing minimally in price

so you are not being ripped off or short changed
Click to expand...

Tbh, I think the fact that games were so expensive back in the days of the MegaDrive and SNES is testiment to how artificially high games were back then and the way the industry was ripping off the consumer, rather than it bearing on todays prices.

Game costs are high compaired to other entertainment mediums but I don't think they are too high now. What JUMPURS was saying was that it's not good enough for publishers (very often they are at fault) to get the developers to rush a product to market rather than take the extra time needed to fix or tweak a game to make it better.

dannyjo22 said:
Pro Evo is usually about £30 on release day, less than normal RRP. You play that and then come back and tell me this discussion is just about the money.
Click to expand...
Or better still try playing Orange Box on PS3.
 
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