Reasonable to be mad and reviewbomb/downvote the game?
You support the devs by paying full price....they don't make much during Steam sales.
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Exactly, IMHO thats the ONLY reason to buy a game at release for full price. If you buy for any other reason, its your own fault and the sooner you learn, the better it is for you. We swim in a sea of great games these days and in most cases a newly released game will have no distinctive technical or gameplay-wise enhancements over a two year old games. There is no reason not to wait at least 30 days, to save 10-20 bucks and the longer you wait, the better the game will be (patches and all) and the cheaper it is.
If you are aware of this reality and still think paying full price is worth it to you, thats fine. But then there is nothing to complain about. If you complain about it, you obviously made a mistake and should learn from it. There are a lot of things where critizisim towards the game industries treatment of their customers is very much justified, but this here is just a reality since over a decade now and wont change anytime soon. Learn from your mistakes and make informed decisions, thats all I can say to people comlaining about it.
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"longer you wait, the better the game will be (patches and all) and the cheaper it is"
sad but true. Anyone buying at launch is basically paying to be a beta-tester.
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Do you have any more recent articles/interviews that dispute it, i.e. developers or publishers claiming that discounts hurt their income?
Here's one from 2 years ago: What Steam Sales look like for Indie Developers
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Not sure why peeps are surprised since Eidos titles get discounted pretty quickly. It is only their JP stuff that will take forever to get discounted, and even then the best you can hope for is 50%.
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It is their own fault. People should know already not to buy pre-orders and within a few months after release. There is no benefit. Games always have the most bugs and are always the most expensive at release. Multiplayer is over-rated. If the multiplayer doesn't last at least a few months, it wasn't good to begin with.
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And yet the internet shows us that there are always people stupid and immature enough to throw a tantrum over the smallest of things...
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If there weren't those people who bought after release for full price, we wouldn't even have all those nice games. Do you honestly believe all this would work if everybody bought months or even years after release, for -75% or less? No, the gamers who buy after release are the ones that make the games possible in the first place.
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You say "nice games" I say 'validate publishers that practices like pre-order exclusives, season passes, and micro-transactions are okay'.
Things I really don't want so can't say I would be happy with.
Now if we were talking about indie devs that don't nickle-and-dime, offer exclusive "cut out of the game" items for pre-ordering at store X etc. then you've got my agreement.
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I don't think that's true. I remember reading an interview where either Valve or a game developer said that they make a lot more money when they discount games. The reason games are priced the way they are is to maximize profit from the small number of people that will pay much more than everyone else is comfortable with. This is why games are now broken into discrete components that are sold separately. They have tested the market and found that a small number of people will happily pay $110, but most will only pay $60, so they make the main game $60 and package the rest as DLC. This is also the reason for in-game microtransactions. Only a small percentage of people embrace them, but those that do will keep going back for more, spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
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Pretty sure that is wrong. Do you maybe mean that indie game dev who published an article about this (some months ago, I believe)? I remember reading that. For indie games it might actually be correct. They might make more money during sales, because they only get some visibility then. And many people will only pick those games up if discounted. But I am pretty sure AAA games in general make the most money in the first weeks/months after release. I've read that so often from devs and publishers.
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I'm not fully sure I believe that. Yes, immediately sales are the most important for AAA-devs, but I'm fairly sure this is mostly to clock those profits into that fiscal quarter, where they need to make set goals and stockholders are more interested in immediate results rather than a long-term money-trinkle.
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my understanding is that they make the bulk of the money in the first month or so. then they make a tidy amount off the first decent sale. After that, it's just fighting for scraps.
The rest of it is true - DLC and microtransactions allow for "menu-pricing", where the company is able to capture a higher price from people willing to pay more, while still being able to sell at a somewhat lower price to people who aren't willing to pay as much.
People complain about it, but if games were sold for $100, people would complain even more.
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Nah, it was an older article. I haven't been able to find it but this one has similar information.
You are right that sales are highest immediately after launch - even indie games typically make 20% of their first-year sales in the first week after launch according to this article, but as the other article says, discounts can drive a lot of new revenue after that initial rush. So, depending on the sales figures associated with this current Shadow of the Tombraider experiment and others, we might eventually start seeing games discounted only one week after launch.
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If nobody bought the game on release because it was too dear, the price would simply come down. They're not going to sell games at prices they know nobody will pay. You've got it exactly backwards by thinking there's some sort of support structure in place where gamers need to prop up the publisher lest they stop making games. It's exactly the narrative the major publishers want you to accept -- by doing so they can justify increasingly more predatory price models "otherwise you can't have all those nice games".
You're somewhat right in that if a game does badly because it doesn't make enough simoleans, the studio may cease to exist because Big Daddy Publisher may throw it away like so much refuse -- but that can happen even if things are going well for the studio, simply because even more money can be made elsewhere. For the most part, studios aren't at risk like this, and the pricing model isn't based on what will keep them afloat, but what will maximize their profit -- that is, what the market will bear, rather than what's necessary to keep production possible. The fact that the market will bear $200 ultimate supreme preorder deluxe editions with 10 bonus skins and a plastic action figure* because there are actually people who'll fork over the cash for that doesn't mean that buying them is necessary.
If you want to pay full price for a game because you want it now and you can afford it, more power to you. If it makes you feel good to support the studio like this, even better. But it's not true that it's inherently a good thing that others should be doing as well.
*Totino'sā¢ exclusive downloadable armor set not included.
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I know what you're getting at. "You're exactly thinking what the bad publisher wants you to!!". The Jim Sterling argumentation. While that is certainly true in some cases, it's really not here with me. I am not "on the publisher's side" or anything like that. I think that games have a certain value, and it's sad that more and more people refuse to pay the according price and instead wait until they are dirt cheap. My argument is that if everyone did this that would be a problem. And I am absolutely convinced it would. As far as we know AAA games make make the big chunk of money in the first time after release, at full price. If in our example people would not be willing to pay that anymore, then sure, the price would go down. But what would be the consequences of that? Only half or quarter revenue in this critical first sales period means a lot less income. What does that mean for the next game? There will be cuts. The budget will be much lower. AAA games as we know them now (talking about production qualities, forget about microtransactions and all that for a moment) would probably not be made anymore. That is my argument. And everybody who is so proud of not paying full price that he calls me stupid for doing so (yes, unfortunately that happens a lot) should maybe think about it for a second.
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AAA games as we know them now (talking about production qualities, forget about microtransactions and all that for a moment) would probably not be made anymore.
I see a convergence between what we call "production AAA games" and "indie games" -- in favor of indie games becoming more ambitious, featured and polished, I mean. The notion of what is an "AAA game" is continuously eroding, to the point where "microtransactions and all that" are increasingly what defines an AAA game for me, when we're talking PC gaming. And so I increasingly find myself not only caring less about the possibility of "AAA games as we know them now" disappearing, but I actually think this might be a good development. (Not that I'm laboring under the illusion that this is actually happening -- the current strategies are obviously still making money.)
Perhaps this idea is just wrong. Maybe there are lots of quality games sold for regular AAA price at launch that can't be made (or at least can't be made as good) unless enough people buy them for that full price at launch. Maybe it's just that I'm not invested enough in gaming. But I haven't seen anything in the way of evidence that convinces me that's the more likely scenario than what you call the Jim Sterling argumentation -- that it's not only perfectly possible to make these games at the prices they're currently sold, but certainly also while being sold for less, with publishers just chasing the whales for even more.
Just for completeness: I rarely pay full price for a game, but that's because I rarely have a need (or opportunity) to play games immediately, not because I like sticking it to the publishers. It's not a point of pride to me, and I don't care what other people pay for their games. I wouldn't even call the person who clearly overpays for a game by getting all the stuff I'd consider superfluous and silly "stupid"; I'd just appreciate that their priorities are much different from mine.
Maybe Tomb Raider is a good example in case. I've played the first part of the remake, and I thought it was quite enjoyable -- I'd call it severely competent -- but that's it. I didn't get it at full price, I'd probably have felt disappointed if I did. I've now picked up the second one, because it was discounted, and at the price it was discounted for I thought it was worth it. Again, I don't know yet as I haven't played the game yet, but going by how I liked the first one, probably not something I'd agree full price was worth it. If I have to believe the reviews the third one is at best as good, and possibly slightly worse, so again, that's not something I'll get until it's deeper in the bargain bin.
Now, if everyone thought that, and it meant that a game like Tomb Raider could not be made at all due to lack of budget, or could be made but with less polish for the graphics, a less drawn out story, maybe less collectibles -- I'm sorry, but my life would really not be much the worse for it, and I could totally live with that. Maybe you could not, and that's a valid point.
And Tomb Raider is certainly free of the excesses of fake currency, microtransactions etc., only having some mildly priced and quite optional DLCs, so it's not that I'm turned off by predatory business practices in this case. It's just that I think of it as slightly above average AAA fare -- OK, but not worth full price. Obviously, your mileage may vary.
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Well that's just completely untrue. Since when is it the consumer's fault that game publishers lie to us that they need to sell these expensive packs to survive. Or that they mismanage their own projects so badly that they waste a reported $135 million for this game. The game itself seems to be like Rise of the Tomb Raider, meaning that it copies its predecessor and claims that it's a new game.
I personally think that perhaps game publishers should make a good game for once. People don't buy their crap as much as they like because their crap isn't worth buying as much as they think it is.
Those gamers that buy right after release are no heroes like you make them out to be. They're people who are impatient or who don't care for the money they spend for these games. They're not bad people. They just have different goals and interests. They aren't paragons that keep up the game industry. The industry is so terribly bloated that it wouldn't be a surprise if there was another video game crash in the near future.
If you can't make a compelling game for a price that is worth it for enough people at that price then you have failed. You've made a bad product. This isn't a nice game. This is a game that lacks ray-tracing, which was at first promised at launch and then pushed back a fair bit. This is also a game that is unoptimized for so many people.
I was going to write around 5 more reasons why it's not a "good" game. But in reality, all you need to do is look at the reviews for Shadow of the Tomb Raider to see why people think it's the mediocre, pointless piece of software it really is.
Only gamers are the ones that are so stupid about this stuff. When John Carter spent $250,000,000 on a boring movie and it lost a hell of a lot of money at first, no one said "It's the moviegoers who are the reason that these movies are possible in the first place".
Your first mistake was thinking that a giant like Square Enix is some poor little underdog that's fighting for its life to bring you entertainment.
Your second is thinking that wasting a ton of money on a mediocre game and charging people up the wazoo is something acceptable and that it should be supported by the community.
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"Only gamers are the ones that are so stupid about this stuff. When John Carter spent $250,000,000 on a boring movie and it lost a hell of a lot of money at first, no one said "It's the moviegoers who are the reason that these movies are possible in the first place"."
You obviously missing the Star Wars argument at the moment where us fans get blamed for literally everything under the sun since Disney OWED us to watch their Solo movie.
Not making that shit up :(
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Well that's just completely untrue. Since when is it the consumer's fault that game publishers lie to us that they need to sell these expensive packs to survive.
Since when are "expensive packs" what we are discussing here? I didn't even mention anything like it. Sorry, but you guys seem to have a completely different discussion in mind. Maybe you're watching too much Jim Sterling or similar videos. Yes, I agree to all that. DLC are not necessary, microtransactions are certainly not necessary and hurt our experience. All true. But not what I am talking about.
I personally think that perhaps game publishers should make a good game for once.
You think they don't? I think there are lots of good games. They might in part be infected with MT and all that, but we still get lots and lots of good games. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a good game. You might not like it, but it is considered a good game. And I believe it is worth its price.
Those gamers that buy right after release are no heroes like you make them out to be. They're people who are impatient or who don't care for the money they spend for these games. They aren't paragons that keep up the game industry. The industry is so terribly bloated that it wouldn't be a surprise if there was another video game crash in the near future.
I didn't say they are heroes. But what unfortunately often happens is that they are called idiots. They are called stupid. They should know better. Bla bla bla. Do you think that is ok? Do they do something wrong in your opinion?
They're people who are impatient or who don't care for the money they spend for these games.
No, that's just wrong. Impatience already implies that's it's somehow bad to buy a game for what I think is a reasonable price on release. I also care for my money, but at the same time I am willing to spend a certain amount for entertainment media. I bought Shadow of the Tomb Raider shortly after release, I played it for 30 hours or so. I feel I got my moneys worth. What did I do wrong in your opinion?
If you can't make a compelling game for a price that is worth it for enough people at that price then you have failed. You've made a bad product. This isn't a nice game.
Well, the game is actually considered a good game by most people. The people that proudly post on forums that they never buy for full price, do that independent of the game's quality, by the way.
This is a game that lacks ray-tracing, which was at first promised at launch and then pushed back a fair bit. This is also a game that is unoptimized for so many people.
Oh come on... Raytracing doesn't even matter for the vast majority of gamers. Barely anyone has one of the new cards yet. If that promise existed, then yes, it's a shame they didn't keep it (here are other factors as well, like missing DirectX support for RT at release of SOTTR). But what are we even talking about. It's a small feature for a very small group of gamers. I don't think it has any relevance here.
I was going to write around 5 more reasons why it's not a "good" game. But in reality, all you need to do is look at the reviews for Shadow of the Tomb Raider to see why people think it's the mediocre, pointless piece of software it really is.
I did just look at the latest reviews. And the only negative ones were all chinese and complained about the current discount. There is obviously some review bombing going on, which you can also see in the graph on the store page. See my screenshot below, ignore the bombing part on the right and tell me again how much people dislike it? No sorry, it's considered a good game. Just like the last two.
Only gamers are the ones that are so stupid about this stuff. When John Carter spent $250,000,000 on a boring movie and it lost a hell of a lot of money at first, no one said "It's the moviegoers who are the reason that these movies are possible in the first place".
Strange comparison. I don't care if it happens to bad games. I care if it happens to good games.
Your first mistake was thinking that a giant like Square Enix is some poor little underdog that's fighting for its life to bring you entertainment.
I never said that. Again, you guys are adapting the Jim Sterling argumentation regarding DLC+MT and therefore assume I said things that I didn't say. I don't care much about the big publishers. But the smaller studios will suffer from things like that. And most importantly: our games will suffer from that. In my hypothetical scenario (see above) where suddenly nobody at full price anymore, games will suffer. Why? Because the publishers are so greedy. Because they want the most profit. If they suddenly don't get as much money anymore, they will make cuts. And if a big AAA production suddenly cannot be expected to make the first-few-months profit anymore, that probably means they will significantly reduce the budget (=>potentially worse games). That is my argument the whole time. I never said anything about the poor publishers, as you seem to think.
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it's difficult to argue with people who make up their minds based on their emotions
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In the whole Battlefront II debacle EA even admitted it didn't need the micro-transaction lootbox money... they just did it to cream players more.
How again is that making up our mind on "emotions"? Seems like a cheap excuse to throw away valid critism.
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If you buy full price at the start ... it's only going to get cheaper. Whether it's a month later or a year later, what do you (the buyer) care since you wanted it on day one and were willing to pay the premium?
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But will Rise of the Tomb Raider finally get to reasonable (Tomb Raider prices) sales (75% or more off)?
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Rise already has been bundled. Basically you want it for free.
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I'm not sure if you did already, but set up an ITAD account. I bought my copy (the full version of the game, not the "Standard edition" from Humble) from GMG for less than $12.
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That already happened. I bought it three days ago from GMG at 80% off.
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Same happened with Just Cause 3 and last Deus Ex. People never learn and as someone said in this thread, all those review-bombers are idiots.
Also this situation is good example why steam reviews ducks and are useless :p
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Just cause got 20% after 3 weeks because of the Winter Sale (which is often expected). For a 40$ sale it took them until march (4months).
DX:MD needed 3 months for a big discount (though that one was even down to 30$).
So 1 month is fast even for Square Enix...š
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Now there's preorder for Just cause 4
https://store.steampowered.com/app/517630/Just_Cause_4/
warning discussion xD
https://steamcommunity.com/app/517630/discussions/0/3145094199308380388/
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I would say memes and positive "funny wreckings" and 0.1 hour "BEST GAME EVAH" reviews are far worse. But yeah, reviews are kinda a mess.
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But would you be okay with these?
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198070369032/recommended/750920/
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Not really unless there's a minimum of content in any review.
That one at least addresses something the game, not just the price, but it's still pretty far from a review.
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idk if this one is different, but judging by the last 2 games it seems that they are more eager to make a movie rather than a game, with linear levels, artificial set action pieces and an inconsistent characters, and little in the way of gameplay characteristics that differentiate this game from a lot of other games.
You can say what you want about the original series, but they offered a unique experience that other games do not.
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Well if that movie had been any good, I'd get it, maybe but considering it was even worse than the worst game of the franchise (and not even as fun as the previous movies and that's not saying much), what is their end game then?
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The reviews often state the technical issues (no audio or controller support, although complaining about the latter on PC always baffles me). For a 90-dollar game that has been released for over a month, it is unacceptable, even if I am highly against harping on technical difficulties in a game review. If the porting job is not finished, then do not release it. You'd think the industry learnt about Arkham Knight, but apparently, the entire AAA world is composed of idiots with no memory.
Plus if you saw the game, it is essentially a sturdier Rise of the Tomb Raider DLC with prettier graphics and fewer things to do. But at least we are almost at the point where we may eventually get a game in the distant future where we witness how Lara Croft turned into the Tomb Raider (because they yet again copped out of that). I assume it will be after Revenge of the Tomb Raider, a mobile game called Tomb Raider Chronicles, maybe actually getting hints in Revelations of the Tomb Raider, which will lead into Return of the Tomb Raider and it direct sequel, Resurrection of the Tomb Raider, only to culminate in actually seeing a Tomb Raider in Dawn of the Tomb Raider, after which they announce a series reboot with a game titled Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its immediate sequel, Tomb Raider, but only after they finish releasing their mobile multiplayer clicker game, Tomb Raider World.
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You'd think the industry learnt about Arkham Knight, but apparently, the entire AAA world is composed of idiots with no memory.
As long as the game isn't as badly ported as Arkham Knight I'd say the publisher doesn't care about the state of the game. Arkham Knight showed that there is a point at which the consumer is complaining loud enough (though it's sad that it is only when the game is pretty much unplayable for 50% people...). Every other time the consumer just buys it anyway.^^
And can't wait for Tomb Raider World... š
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The reviews often state the technical issues (no audio or controller support, although complaining about the latter on PC always baffles me).
Why? Do PC gamers not have the right to play with controller? I play most games with controller, and in games like Tomb Raider I find it superior to M+K. If a game like Tomb Raider had no controller support (it does, of course), I would complain, too.
Tomb Raider is a solid port and works flawlessly for most people, I am pretty sure. You will always have the occasional problem with certain configurations. Almost impossible to prevent that.
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I was eager to put my wallet on it before its release but glad i waited and i'll wait even longer. Considering i still bought Tomb and Rise of Tomb at the start, there is no regrets whatsoever.
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The game is getting reviewbombed because the lastest patch broke it to lots of players, that's all.
As a launch buyer i'm not that happy about the discount, but hey, who cares.
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Most of the negative reviews since the sale are "-34%/-47% after a month? fk you SE".
But yes the rest is mostly about bugs....
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I got the Croft version preorder off HB (which is cheaper, or was at the time, and not sure if still is) cheaper than Steam version. Honestly? I'm indifferent. I got to play it sooner than later. And it baffles me that people get this outrageously upset over sales when it's pretty much a given that every digital game has a sale/discount at some point or another in it's life cycle.
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That's what people get that are stupid enough to pre-order.
Shadow of War did the same (since it had terrible terrible micro's so needed everything onboard to sell people).
As I was very VERY dissapointed in Rise (after loving the "original" Tomb Raider) I'm going to wait till it gets in Humble Bundle Monthly anyway :)
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With a discount this fast I wouldn't be that surprised if it's already in one next year...
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Same thing happened with Deus Ex Mankind Divided, if I remember correctly. And that one didn't get review bombed. This is the only review bombed game I don't agree with. What are people thinking? What's so special about being part of the "full price" club? Entitled pricks.
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It took MD 3 months for a 50% discount. Yes better discount, but 2 months later.
That's why I made this topic I thought back then that it was a pretty fast steep discount, but this one seems to top them all. š
Now I'm curious to see if they get even lower in the wintersale...
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Here the discount is high because they made it a bundle and discounted the titles as well, so when combined, the ~34% with ~19% you end up near 50%
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looks better at bundle
HOLY HELL... That package was 110 dollar originally? What the... And people seriously still hold the argument games still cost 60 bucks nowadays?
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Actually they cost less, since sales and bundles were non existant back then.
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Sales didn't exist before Steam?
...What?
Infact it seems physical stores were (and still are) in pertupual sale status all around the year.
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Yeah, here in Australia, the EB Games stores have so much sales signage that it has become a point of ridicule, e.g. "Do you think there's a sale on at EB Games?" and (seen on reddit) "I found an EB Games that wasn't having a sale. Pic for proof."
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It's game+season pass+digital extras. I think those are usually around that price if you pay for them separately at release, isn't it.
They keep the base game at 60, the other stuff can add up a lot. I mean, games with expansions didn't cost $60 with the expansions.
You have the issue that if you priced games where you think they should be you'd have trouble selling them outside of the richest places. The argument isn't that companies aren't trying to get aroung the $60 tradition, it's that the current price is low when compared to what it "should" be. When corrected just for inflation (US) it would be up to around $110 and corrected for increased salaries (US), around $75. Aside from that you'd need to balance expected sales and cost of production to see what is a reasonable asking price.
The obvious "problem" is that there are a shitton of games, and they get cheap really soon after release, so to many people there is no point in paying the higher original price when you aren't done with your pile of previous games, so it has to make you want to play it at the time of release. I mean, if you wait you get the game content complete (no need to wait for development of DLCs), bug-fixed (hopefully) and for a fraction of the cost, assuming the game made enough money to complete all the extra content.
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Expansions usually costed around 20, and offered way more than these sliced season passes did.
Good old times :/
Also "extra's" meant things like artbooks, clothmaps... not 'content we cut from the game just to sell back to you'
Yeah, those good old times. Why Kickstarter was so popular for a while (before that bubble got poked by bad devs and scams. Can't have nice things :( )
The major difference between the past and now is the market. Gaming became way more mainstream and there are more people to sell too, so even if the prices stay the same profits massively increased due to marketincrease.
And yes, those DLC practices basically made me go "Gold Edition or bust"... Humble Monthly slightly pokes holes in this by offering up base games since publishers expect to make back their investment offering games for there by DLC sales :/.
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Diablo 2 was $60 + $35 for LOD, but nowadays the cost of development gets really crazy when you don't do the CDPR thing of living in Poland. Everything in LA, San Francisco, etc, can be really expensive.
Usually, the extras are similar to that, just digital (so the value to me is much less)... Day one DLC annoys the fuck out of me, same with any preorder DLC that is not able to be purchased after launch.
Still doesn't change the fact that if you want those games to be made, they need to be able to cover higher than ever production costs ( at least digital distribution helps reduce distribution and material costs) and I don't know if those incentives help or not, but we don't have enough info to say that they are greedy and they could cut every "anti-consumer" practice and still get the profit they need/want not to have issues with shareholders who have different goals (management in these companies is often only focused on maximizing short-term profits as their CEOs rarely stay for more than 5 years). At the same time, these "recurring spending opportunities" help support deeper sales despite having to maintain price parity across the huge digital market, the physical stores market of the past operated under a much greater degree of market segmentation and could leverage it to a degree no longer possible.
In the end, it comes down to just buy into what you enjoy and hope they get enough money to keep making it.
Kickstarter is a mess because of scammers and people incompetent when it comes to finances and management can just get the money and run away with it, or over-scope a project until it crashes. I've been lucky to contribute to a few titles and have all of them work out, but the horror stories are way too widespread.
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Blizzard back then already was a bit of a rockstar in the gaming industry, with a massive following so they could walk away with a bit more than most other developers did (then again people adored LoD and D2 so obviously lots of effort went into it, even if I never could get into any Blizzard titles myself at all).
I don't recall parts being cut from the game back then though. The Collector's Edition of Baldur's Gate II got a storekeeper with unique items and that caused a MASSIVE controversy, and the developers felt forced to add it free for all in a patch to calm the outrage it sparked.
Agreed on pre-order and day 1 DLC. Or going even worse nowadays, releasing expansionpacks for an unfinished base game people funded you to complete (ARK I look at you).
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I don't recall parts being cut from the game back then though. The Collector's Edition of Baldur's Gate II got a storekeeper with unique items and that caused a MASSIVE controversy, and the developers felt forced to add it free for all in a patch to calm the outrage it sparked.
Giving the means of distribution it wouldn't have been easy to deliver small extra content after the fact, same with patches, so it ended up forcing them to make sure games were really ready to release, that didn't stop broken games from getting minted and sold, but they had to at least try. Nowadays the internet can give them an avenue where they can release that drip-feed of patches and content close to the cost of production while they make the bigger stuff. The effect is that these games which are often more complex and have more points of failure end up getting released with many issues either un-noticed or unfixed since you can focus on fixing them after launch (you have to hold to that release date because of how much they invest in marketing).
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Yeah, it was "on-disk" DLC, which is still a thing (somehow), and I persobally akin to day 0-DLC.
It just seems to become much more prominent. If I remember the backlash on Baldur's GateII and then compare that to BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins... where you would need an accountant to make heads and tails of the DLC (and it's inclusion sucks compared to BG where you still needed to make money to buy the new items, current year DLC is just OP-stuff given in your inventory at game start :( ).
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In my experience with RPGs that kind of day-one DLC is pretty useless, you end up leveling past its usability pretty quickly, so it ends up only being worth it if the game has a cosmetic system, an upgrade system, modding scene or no leveling at all.
If you look at AC:Odyssey, people that buy the DLC armors at low level are complaining that they have to upgrade them to match their level, so they don't outgrow them.
The DAO Blood dragon armor was pretty sweet.
If I'm not misremembering it, Metal Gear Revengeance had a pretty bad one, the preorder DLC gave you an armor and weapon with special properties, like being able to cut armored parts without needing to weaken them first.
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You are forgetting that there are a lot more players to sell the game to.
Before they had a small market of people who could buy the games. Today if your game is good enough, you can sell to a much wider audience.
I mean fortnite BR has an average person spending $85 9n the game. And they turned a profit of 200-300 million a month for a while. It's mainly because they had a wide audience. Of course fortnite is massively popular and not a standard game, but it does highlight the fact that there is plenty of money to be made if your game appeals to a wide range of players. Call of duty and Battlefield are another such examples. Even if you take away the DLC and microtransactions, they earn quite a lot because they appeal to a wide range of audiences. And lower price points are key to targetting the wide range of audiences.
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I'm not. I stated as much, but the vast majority of games doesn't get sales in proportion to that increased market since now there are many more titles to compete with.
Generally, AAA games have managed to continue with high sales based on marketing budget and brand recognition, but less known studios are often overlooked, despite making good games with a high degree of polish.
Super popular games are not good examples of the mean.
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But only those "super popular games" have the absolutely bloated cost to develop that apparently warrants 60+Season Pass+Micro's to "return investment".
Many indies don't even need to be popular to make back their investment.
(Sadly enough the shitstorm Steam turned into makes it much harder for them to find an audience though)
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Not really. Games that explode in popularity are not related to how big the budget was.
You can look up the development costs of PUBG and Fortnite before it exploded and compared to the singleplayer AAA games we are talking about or the call of duty series, they were done relatively cheaply.
I was talking more about AAA and AA games where the budget are considerable, not small-team indies, though those can more easily be overlooked,
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Yeah but personally I would rather have the industry ask "why should our games be so expensive, can't we not make them less expensive?" than "We bloat our budgets... how do we make gamers pay up for that?"
(Or "Why do we pay 200 million on marketing?")
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games can be made cheaper, or more expensive.
But if you want games with lots of good writing (RPGs) or if you want life-like graphics (sports and FPS), those cost money.
Compare it to movies - the ones with lots of special effects cost a lot more, whereas dramas cost a lot less.
We live in a golden age of gaming. a ridiculous amount of games are getting released, in just about every genre, and at many price points. Some people gladly pay $60 (or more) for the latest, biggest AAA games, others pay $20 for the most innovative indies, and plenty of great games. of every type, are available at a discount for the budget-minded.
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The best RPGs of this moment are kickstarted ones that costed around 2 million to make.
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Witcher 3 had a budget of $81 million. Skyrim around $100 million.
Note that that includes marketing. While some games are able to effectively cut through the clutter, a lot of games need marketing to succeed
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Can't speak for Withcer III since I haven't played it yet (I know, shame on me).. .but you really try to claim Skyrim is popular for "Good Writing"?
And I think the best RPG's around would be games like;
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 (around 2 mil each)
Wastelands 2 (same)
Divinity: Original Sin (same)
You really don't need these mega-budgets to make amazing games. That's just leading down a self-destructive path that AAA games are currently on.
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I haven't played either of Witcher of Skyrim. Was a bit disappointed with Pillars - but only after sinking 30+ hours in, so I can't really say anything bad about it.
No, you don't need mega-budgets to make amazing games. I've sunk 60+ hours into This War of Mine before I beat it the first time, 50+ into FTL.
But it's like movies: there are great low-budget movies, and there are great summer blockbusters with mega-budgets. They're a completely different experience, and I enjoy them both. Likewise, I really enjoy some of the AAA games, and I really enjoy some of the indies, and everything in between.
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I would be pissed if season pass went on sale without even having any content yet. Like what did you pay for even?
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Mind blown. I'd never expect people to react to such a discount this way. But I also wouldn't expect people to preorder games, so I guess I just don't understand this type of person in general...
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When it comes down to money, people are funny. Ive had customers come back when we had a 2 for 1 offer in a grocery store and they told me they bought it last week and wanted another for free xD
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LOL
What's even better is the fact that some systems actually allow pulling this kind of thing off. When there's a bundle and a person recently bought the included game on Steam, they often refund it, buy the bundle and activate the game again for cheaper. Personally I never did that since I think it's unfair to the developer and I'm a person who is more concerned about the shape of the gaming industry than a few extra dollars in my pocket, but for the majority it's the opposite...
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Hahaha yeah well not at our store! But yeah when it comes to money people suck. I just wait for a game to bundle unless I really want it. It's not that hard, but yeah. Same for APKs btw People buy apps and games. Copy the Apk, refund and install the copy. Kind of dumb imo.
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There were tons of -25% pre-order deals for this game, maybe even more.
While it is really fast, not really surprising as game didn't made much racket (even with weird-face-photo-mode) and if people didn't pre-order for -25%, you need to give them even a better deal now...
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Just won the game here on sg, will play at least the 2013 one before trying this last one, one of the hard points that I already spoiled myselfs in the reviews is that the system is pretty much build as equal as the inmediate last game, so not much about innovation, just change the perspective, backgrounds, also less action scenes(people say), I was surprised about the mixed reviews tbh, didn't expect that for the users to a Square Enix game, also most of the reviews I read said that a Mixed upvote/downvote would be helpful since they don't really wanted to downvote the game but they had to.
In resume, users talk about the lack of effort of square enix members related to this game.
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Seems like the game didn't sell as good as hoped or why would there be such a deal this fast?
Yeah.. that is indeed pretty fast, was a bit surprised as well when I saw it.
And I was asking myself the same thing.. do you know anything about it? Is the game really not doing as good as expected?
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No idea what was expected and the only data I have is about concurrent players on steam.
And that number over the first month of Shadow compared to Rise has been 25-40% lower. That surely doesn't say though if it's been sold a lot less or just played less and what the expectations of Square Enix were.
But nonetheless I was surprised at a steep discount THIS fast.^^
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Seems like the game didn't sell as good as hoped or why would there be such a deal this fast?
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which is only out for a month, just got a weeklong discount of 34% @39.59$/ā¬(Basic Edition) or 47% @58,78$/ā¬ (Croft Edition aka full game) and now gets rewiewbombed...
This leads to my poll-question...š
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