Will you buy it?
i hope people dont laugh at the price... this is a glimpse into the future of what pc games are going to cost. activision and wb already are trying to push up prices and once they get a foothold, other major publishers will follow.
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To be fair, prices have held steady for quite a long time, while the costs of development have grown exponentially. I wouldn't be surprised if game prices increased by $10 over the current standard within the next few years.
The $100 listed price though, that's just crazy.
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You've got to also consider that the player base increased, which results in way more sales. Way more people are into gaming today than 10 years ago. So in my opinion, they could afford not increasing the price up to this point.
That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if we saw an increase.
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I think you'd be surprised by how much the cost of making games has grown - I was shocked. Average PS2/Xbox games cost $3-5 million to make, PS3/X360 games cost $10-30 million. That's a 2x-10x increase in just one console generation, and that's for the average game -
blockbusters for PS3/X360 easily broke $50 million, with some going as high as $100 million. And that's just development cost, marketing can easily double that number.
Games have become so expensive that 500,000 sold is considered a failure. There was an estimate from 2005 that only 80 games that year turned a profit.
The player base has increased as well, but mostly on mobile devices, and not in proportion to game development cost. Just look at console sales. The PS4, after 4 years of sales, is at 70 million units sold. The PS2 was at 71 million after 4 years, but it also wasn't available outside of Asia for the first 9 months, and NA and PAL are much higher selling regions. If you look at the PS2 sales over 4 years after it was available worldwide, it's closer to 77 million. If the gaming market is larger, it's not buying any more console than a decade ago.
Another example, and one of my favorite games: Bayonetta. Bayonetta sold 1.35 million units over 5 months - sounds great, right? It was Platinum's best selling game. And yet it's sales disappointed, it failed to meet sales expectations, and they were only able to make a sequel because Nintendo funded them to make a Wii U exclusive.
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You are strictly talking about console sales here. I never claimed I know what the development cost of console games was/is nor their player base. It is true that the player base on consoles didn't increase that much, I could even say that it is probably stable or even decreasing (at least from my point of view by interacting with other gamers). However, that's not the case with PC games. People today tend to play more on their PCs, simply because most of them already own one. They don't have to go out and buy a dedicated machine only to game on.
I'll give you simple numbers for the most popular games out there:
- Overwatch has sold more than 40 million copies, let alone the microtransactions
- League of Legends has more than 100 million active monthly users and even though it is a F2P game, it is being constantly updated with people working on it (especially due to the competitive aspect of the game), which results in a higher cost in the long run
- PUBG has close to 20 million unique players and it's a couple months old
- I could say that even Indie titles probably manage to make the money back, at least the successful ones. For these companies however, the cost of development is nowhere near of those of AAA titles.
These are numbers that publishers of PC games couldn't even imagine of 10 years ago, yet here we are. Obviously, you can't expect everyone to make a profit as it is a business where someone fails while others make it. I simply can't believe that big companies that release AAA titles are struggling due to development costs. Maybe it's the marketing cost that it's ruining them.
You shouldn't expect a massive increase in the units sold for console games, simply because people's preferences changed.
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And you're strictly siting the largest multiplayer success stories and extrapolating from that to all of PC gaming.
League of Legends is a huge success, but there are 84 games tagged MOBA on Steam. Paladins is one of the biggest ones, rated 83% by 153K Steam users, is also free to play, and has a lifetime high of only 60K users, usually hovering around 20K. SMITE has half that many players.
Overwatch is a huge success. Battleborn, from another huge studio, isn't. It sold well the first week, and then Overwatch came out and cannibalized all of its sales, and within a month the playerbase was down to 1/10th of what it was on release. Paragon was considered a huge success of having 800K active players, and it's free.
TitanFall 2 was met with critical acclaim, but it's release sales were only 1/4 that of TitanFall.
For every WoW, there's a dozen subscription MMOs that shutdown or went free to play.
I mean, it's to be expected, honestly. People are busy, and they don't have the time for multiple multiplayer games. They stick to one, and the rest suffer.
And that's just looking at multiplayer games, which are the sales leaders. If you look at single-player games, things are a lot less cheery.
Dishonored is one of the best games ever made, towards the top of many "Best of" lists, and released to widespread critical acclaim. It sold 2 million copies. Dishonored 2 was trailing Dishonored sales figures by 38%, which would put it at 1.24 million copies if the trend continued. And these are the successful games.
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I didn't list those games to show you that they make their money back, those were numbers to simply point out what the playerbase on PC games can be like.
You are comparing player bases of games that have nowhere near the same amount spent to be marketed and developed. You can't expect an Indie or a half decent MOBA to cannibalise LoL's players when it is where it is. I'd personally say that 60K peak for Paladins is more than enough. Plus the peak means nothing, Dota2 for example has around 800K players at peak yet there are more than 20 millions playing. Smite can also be played with no Steam DRM, so those numbers are not the real ones.
Most of the games you stated are sequels to previously good or mediocre games, why should their sequels do as good as their first ones did? Because they ended up spending as much money? Maybe coming up with a new interesting idea would be better than refreshing previous ones. Maybe that's what big companies like EA, Activision, Bethesda etc. fail to do and that's why they don't make their money back and not the lack of players. Spending a certain amount of money should never mean you'll earn those back.
It's utopical to expect every single studio out there to be profitable and meet their expected revenue. I'll say once again what I said in my initial comment, it was sustainable up to this point to spend that much on a game and not increase it's price simply because the growth of the player base was huge.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with them increasing their prices, it's their product after all. However, I do believe that it was feasible to spend those couple millions of dollars and not increase the prices, due to the increase of the playerbase. Nothing less, nothing more. I simply can't believe that they were not making as money as they intended to and there was no increase in the price out of a good will.
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The fact is that video game prices have really been stagnant over the past 30 years. If anything, they've decreased once you account for inflation.
A decade ago, they were $50, which would be $60 in today's dollars. So over the past decade, the price of games has just kept up with inflation.
In 1990 they cost $50. $50 in 1990 would translate to $94 in today's dollars. Thus games are actually much cheaper now than they were 30 years ago.
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And that's something I never argued against. The difference is that nowadays Indie developers exist to a much greater scale than they ever did before.
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the COSTS have not grown, the price / budget put there by major developers and publishers has. MAJOR difference.
when was the last tiem you were charged an extra £20 for a cinema ticket because "oh, but the film cost so much!" - doesnt happen.
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IMAX and 3D costs more than a standard movie ticket, because it costs more to include those technologies, and because people will pay it. The local movie theater has one price for standard, one price for "Prime", another for 3D, another for IMAX. I don't have a Dolby Cinema around here, but I believe those also cost extra for the extra technologies they employ.
But movie ticket prices have also kept increasing over time, while video game prices haven't. I remember buying movie tickets for $8 a decade ago, now it costs $12.30-$13 for a standard movie. That's a 50+% increase over 10 years.
Compare that to video game prices. A decade ago, games cost $50, which would be $60 in today's dollars, which means that over the past decade the cost of games hasn't really increased, it's just kept up with inflation. NES games cost $50 in 1990, which is $94 in today's dollars. Games are actually cheaper now than they were 30 years ago.
And while you're right that budgets have grown, the costs of developing the games have also grown.
With higher technical capabilities and resolutions, you have to make more art. Textures have to be sharper, art assets have to be larger. The cost of making art assets for a PS3 game costs twice as much as the cost of making that same game for the Wii. People will viciously criticize a new PS4 game that looks like a PS2 game.
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"With higher technical capabilities and resolutions, you have to make more art. Textures have to be sharper, art assets have to be larger. The cost of making art assets for a PS3 game costs twice as much as the cost of making that same game for the Wii. People will viciously criticize a new PS4 game that looks like a PS2 game."
incorrect. assets by any AAA production are always scaled up to begin with, then scaled down for distribution. Example: concept art from EA projects (as only one example) in the late 2000s exceeded "ultra 4k" as did many derivative assets. \i know this because its my frubbing JOB.
"IMAX and 3D costs more than a standard movie ticket, because it costs more to include those technologies, and because people will pay it. The local movie theater has one price for standard, one price for "Prime", another for 3D, another for IMAX. I don't have a Dolby Cinema around here, but I believe those also cost extra for the extra technologies they employ."
Missed the frubbing point entirely.
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I believe you, but I have read that this was a huge change from the early 2000s.
"Namco Bandai Holdings President Takeo Takasu said ... graphics for PS3 games can cost nearly $9 million to create — more than double the price tag for Wii titles."
"An Ubisoft executive gave a breakdown of the company's average development costs per game - with a DS title costing between 500,000 to 1,000,000 euros ($785,000-$1.57m), PS3/Xbox 360/PC titles averaging 12 million to 18 million euros ($18.8m-$28.2m) to create for all 3 SKUs, and a Wii game expected to cost 5 million to 6 million euros ($7.8-$9m) to develop."
I understand your argument that those figures are the budgets allotted to the games, but why would they allot far more than the cost of developing those titles? It would make sense that they would budget the amount needed to make the game, and if they could make the game cheaper they would.
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I dont live in america, but i can tell you here in new zealand, our prices.. AT MOST.. were 100 nzd (about 70 usd) it used to be less (maybe 80-90 nzd) but then activision and wb started pricing at 100 nzd and stuck with it ever since. now RECENTLY (with shadow of war) warner bros launched the price for the standard game at105 nzd (75 usd)... america is a massive market, so changes like this wont happen all that quickly, but make no mistake, bumping up the prices to HIGHER levels than theyve been before (remember, this is about baseline pricing, NOT regional price changes, since New Zealand has had its own pricing for a while now) but yeah, make no mistake, these companies are actively looking at what they can get away with, and theyve shown their intentions to create new standard pricing models and are currently testing them in the market.
and while yes, costs HAVE increased, but honestly.. so has the gaming market. its bigger now than its ever been, so its not like the costs have grown out of proportion to the potential market. if anything, the potential for profit has only GROWN. I mean look at the profits gta 5 has made, and plenty of the call of duty games. no way would that ever have been possible 10-15 years ago.
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The profits are, unfortunately, in DLC and micro-transactions - particularly micro-transactions. While the gaming market has grown, fewer people are buying games on release. For every GTA and Call of Duty, there's a ton of great (better) games that fail to make anywhere near that level of profit. And note that both games you list are multi-player titles - single-player titles have struggled in recent years. For every title that makes it big, hundreds more struggle.
But gamers are all too willing to hand over money for micro-transactions - thus the addition of micro-transactions to full priced released. If you want to see the dark, dismal future of PC gaming, it's already here with micro-transactions being added to more and more games. Personally, given the choice between increasing the base price or adding micro-transactions, I'd rather see an increase in the base price.
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@Timobkg I'll just leave this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHSso2vufPM.
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In all fairness, prices have been held steady for quite some time not including DLC
here's a good read on the history of pricing
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Prices should be lower, because of the nature of digital distribution. Still, they have the same price as physical copies, or even higher depending on the region. So, pretty much nope.
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prices should be higher due to the increased development cost.
Back in the '80s games were made by a handful of people in just a few weeks. Today, AAA games take teams of people several years to build. Games have gotten longer and more complex. Sure, distribution is a lot cheaper, but that's only a part of the equation. Grand Theft Auto 5 cost approximately $265 million dollars to develop. By comparison, that's nearly quadruple the most expensive game of the '90s Shemue, which was so expensive, every console owner would have had to purchase the game twice for Sega to break even
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Adjusted for inflation, Virtua Rally for Sega Megadrive cost ~65€ in 1994 when it was released in Europe. Most games cost a bit more than half of that new, let's call it 90€. Used games cost 35-40€. PC games I think were a little cheaper than console games, but not by very much. Games were not cheap back in the day. Since then, volume of sales has increased exponentially, certainly making up for increased development costs.
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prices have gone up, sure, but the market (and potential for profit) has exploded... gaming is more popular than ever, and there are more gamers, with more disposable income to spend on purchasing games, than there ever has been.
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which is why prices have remained fairly stable - the increased cost is offset by the increased sales
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I'm sorry, but I put very little stock into anything Jim Sterling says.
I do, however, put stock into what game company SEC filings say.
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You can put it in the thread of the best deals of the sale.
/s
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If you do a quick translate of the negative reviews, they show a consistent trend of stating that the game has the interface, features, and content depth of a basic mobile app. Given that the game is certainly not getting its price tag by way of its graphics, once you factor those reviews in, you gotta wonder what justification the publishers had for the pricing. :P
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Has it ever been sold outside of Japan? Can't see prices for those countries on steamdb.
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Nobunaga's Ambition is much too expensive (looks a bit like the Total War Series).
I never give more then 25€ out (bundles, packs, GOTY editions expected).
So when it needs 3 years before a game drops unter this line then i wait this time.
And when games never drops under this line i don't buy them (Call of Duty Series are very good examples for that...).
I nearly never make exceptions from this rule(s).
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Mhhhh....why would i buy a game which is only available in japanese? (and probably not even buyable outside of most East Asian Countries)
And no idea what the price in japan would be....but as far as i heard games (or Media in itself) can be quite expensive there.....
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This developer is also a pioneer of "Expansion pack (DLC)" commercial law.
After putting up the expansion pack, it will "serve as one game" That's why it costs more money. XD
For Japan only, you can purchase "GC Coins" at "Developer's Store" and purchase games cheaply.
(There is a GC coin increase sales campaign)
It is not very useful information. I think.
[GAMECITY Online Shopping] (Dev shop)
https://shop.gamecity.ne.jp/
GC coin (GC coin)
https://my.gamecity.ne.jp/mygc/gccoin/
Download sales | GAMECITY Online shopping (Dev shop taishi)
http://www.gamecity.ne.jp/shop/dl/soft/taishi/
"This product is currently available only to customers living in Japan."
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This is pretty average pricing for a 'premium' game (from KT, and probably other publishers) in Japan; it's certainly not a new trend. If it ever gets an English release, it won't cost more than $60, plus the requisite overpriced DLC.
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..which is why it's better not to buy their games.
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http://store.steampowered.com/app/628890/Nobunagas_Ambition_Taishi/
Brazil 175.99Real
China 256RMB
kazakhstan 11900Tenge
Malaysia 169RM
Russia 1659RUB
USA 99.99USD
Normally,Russian price equals to Indian price,they're the cheapest.（28.77USD）
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