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8 hours ago, soultaker655 said:

Which is why I said the gaming industry in not in a healthy position right now.

 

Yes and for some of game companies that crunch doesn't pay off.

 

PROFITS that have to be put back in the company in order for it to function for the next year. (ie. pay their employees for the next year of work plus other fees they have to deal with like paying for that Respawn buy out, if i'm remembering it was 150 million now and 350 million based on next four years.) Also EA made more than just SWBF2 this year so yeah they made money all year before this "Lootbox debacle". It won't really hurt them until the next fiscal year. Also of course they told their investors everything will be okay, they won't know if that's true or not until the next fiscal year. 

 

Sony is a huge company that makes more then games, while the PS brand makes money the other sony brands don't make as much. The money the PS brand makes is used to make sure all of Sony can run for the next year.

 

What is a great game and how can you prove it will make money? How many "great game" have never made enough money to offset the cost and bankrupted the company that made it?

 

You do know Ubisoft is really close to being bought out by Vivendi because they don't have enough money to stop it right?

 

Yes the gamer market grew, but see the stuff I said to Bullstomp above. 

 

Hellblade is an complicated exemption. Yes they made a 4K, 5-6 hour, corridor game with simple combat. Like you said they use tricks to make a nice looking, simple game that people liked, but it's also a 5-6 hour game with little to no replay value. Plus you have to think how big of a risk did they take to make the game and other things like the stuff I was saying above.

 

Witcher 3 is also a complicated exemption, but complicated or not. Exemption are still exemption not the rule. That's 2 game out off the 100+ games that have to follow the current normal rules.

 Where are you going with this thought? What you are saying here is that games are cheaper than they've ever been and we have things that reduce development costs, but still development costs have increased. Which means games cost more to make and don't make as much as they should even with the things that reduce development cost. Yeah this is true, what about it?

 

 

Also to all of you. You have brought up okay counterpoints, but they are to linear. I could write essays of counterpoints to your counterpoints, but I not. 
I will say stop looking at EA and other game companies as these one big things. Game companies like all companies are like buildings made of lego blocks, they are made of tons of little parts that all have to be taken care of or it will fall. Now if you are one of those people that want the companies to fall that's a whole other conversation.

Finally somebody agrees with me

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On 11/24/2017 at 10:27 PM, soultaker655 said:

we have things that reduce development costs, but still development costs have increased. Which means games cost more to make and don't make as much as they should even with the things that reduce development cost. Yeah this is true, what about it?

 

My point was that some publishers are making the choice to spend money in this way. 

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On 11/24/2017 at 5:43 PM, grbolivar said:

- The act of gambling is not addictive, if that were the case, anybody that touches a slot machine on a casino will be instantly hooked. Ludopathy/Ludomania is a rare psychological disorder that affect very few people. Anybody addicted to gambling (either on a gamer or a casino) is probably a ludopath, and it's not the fault of the game/casino. Gambling will NOT make anybody a ludopath.

 

What a clown leap of logic.

On 11/20/2017 at 8:27 AM, Cynthia-Roses said:

For those claiming "but game development has gotten so expensive!" the companies making these claims seldom break down their numbers or give away their profit margins. They also are not telling us what the money for development is being spent on. For all we know there are tons of areas where they could save and they are likely making far more than they are letting on. The reality is, companies survived (and continue to survive) without micros, so the mantra of "they're needed to keep companies afloat" is likely total BS.

 

This is a worthwhile observation. I remember back in the day the wonky accounting done by movie studios, which resulted in every film turning up a loss. This was so actors and the like could not claim royalties easily. The most egregious example of this was Forrest Gump, which was a massive financial success...to everyone except the studio, who reported a massive loss, due to the absurd expenses put on the ledger.

 

The reason that this movie finally pierced the veil, so to speak, was the fact that Tom Hanks had negotiated a percentage of profits into his contract, and was pissed initially that the studio was claiming a loss. After some light was shone on the issue, however, it turned out that the movie in fact did just fine for the studio, and Hanks got his money (although still not as much as experts thought he should, if memory serves).

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12 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

What a clown leap of logic.

 

That's not the only bit wrong with that post. I started writing a reply but halfway through I gave up.

 

Quote

 

This is a worthwhile observation. I remember back in the day the wonky accounting done by movie studios, which resulted in every film turning up a loss. This was so actors and the like could not claim royalties easily. The most egregious example of this was Forrest Gump, which was a massive financial success...to everyone except the studio, who reported a massive loss, due to the absurd expenses put on the ledger.

 

The reason that this movie finally pierced the veil, so to speak, was the fact that Tom Hanks had negotiated a percentage of profits into his contract, and was pissed initially that the studio was claiming a loss. After some light was shone on the issue, however, it turned out that the movie in fact did just fine for the studio, and Hanks got his money (although still not as much as experts thought he should, if memory serves).

 

Lord Of The Rings is another big example, if I recall correctly the actors still have not received any percentage of the profits.

Edited by Cubone
typo
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On 11/24/2017 at 4:19 AM, Cubone said:

It's weird how people say that the gaming industry is hemmoraging money. People have gotten complacent. They ignore red flags and parrot bland statements.

 

I actually think the game industry is doing rather poorly, but most of the damage is self inflicted. There are just too many people trying to take a slice of the pie these days. Just look at the credits on a big budget game. 

 

It's much like the university environment that I find myself in, except that the consumers are far more savvy in the gaming world than in the college world (though that's damning with faint praise). With a university, everyone tries to horn in on the success of one or two people, and when that pot runs dry, rather than simply canning the extra admins and whatnot, the university just raises tuition. However, since the main customer is 18-22 years old, s/he doesn't have the wherewithal to demand better terms.

 

Gamers, however, don't seem to accept these terms. If companies decided to hike the price of games to $69.99, the blowback would be fierce (that's why the hikes always come on the heels of a new system release). Digital delivery hasn't been the boon they wanted, since most people are smart enough to realize that if you wait, you'll probably find it cheaper, and even if you don't, the store has infinite shelf space, and it's easy to find an alternative. First-day sales remain relatively high, but after that, sales collapse, because why in the world would you buy a game at full price a month later, when you might find it at 2/3 the price two months later, or half price (or better) 6 months later?

Just now, Cubone said:

That's not the only bit wrong with that post. 

 

No, it was not (by FAR). But it's complete awfulness should be easily recognizable by all.

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3 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

I actually think the game industry is doing rather poorly, but most of the damage is self inflicted. There are just too many people trying to take a slice of the pie these days. Just look at the credits on a big budget game. 

 

It's much like the university environment that I find myself in, except that the consumers are far more savvy in the gaming world than in the college world (though that's damning with faint praise). With a university, everyone tries to horn in on the success of one or two people, and when that pot runs dry, rather than simply canning the extra admins and whatnot, the university just raises tuition. However, since the main customer is 18-22 years old, s/he doesn't have the wherewithal to demand better terms.

 

Gamers, however, don't seem to accept these terms. If companies decided to hike the price of games to $69.99, the blowback would be fierce (that's why the hikes always come on the heels of a new system release). Digital delivery hasn't been the boon they wanted, since most people are smart enough to realize that if you wait, you'll probably find it cheaper, and even if you don't, the store has infinite shelf space, and it's easy to find an alternative. First-day sales remain relatively high, but after that, sales collapse, because why in the world would you buy a game at full price a month later, when you might find it at 2/3 the price two months later, or half price (or better) 6 months later?

 

Agreed.

 

Personally, I buy much more day one these days than I used to (not a child or student any more, reasonable salary, no kids). A good way of making me pay more for a game and ensuring I want it pre-ordered, other than having a good track record, is giving some physical bonus I'd want. I love the Assassin's Creed series, don't know if I'd still get them day one if I wouldn't get the statuette, art book and such.

 

Now adding those physical things is a much more positive way of adding revenue, in my eyes.

 

Note that there's still stuff I want to buy day one, even without extra's. The LucasArts point and click remakes come to mind, and Mario Kart.

 

I think going (adding) digital is much better for sales as well, as there are less costs involved. If you're making a game people want to keep playing for ages, they're more inclined to go digital - I just bought Skyrim digitally, and earlier I got Mario Kart and Mario Odyssey. That's a full game price going directly to the publisher, platform and developer, without costs for transportation, fabrication or stores that sell the product. I notice people keep getting more and more willing to buy even AAA games digitally.

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On 24.11.2017 at 7:22 AM, soultaker655 said:

This all comes back to the fact the a majority of gamers don't really buy games for $60 anymore when really, in order to keep everything afloat, all games should cost like $20 more than they do now.

 

I'm sorry, but in my opinion this just means that the game companies have a bad buisness model.

 

It indicates that majority of gamers do not buy the games for 60$ because the price is too steep. They wait for the price to go down not because they are spiteful and do not want to give the company their hard-earned money, but because they do not have enough money to spend on this game. And I do not mean that they are neccessarily poor or would have to skip a few meals to buy a game - this money is perceived as better spend elsewhere. Let's go with an example. Let's say I have the money to go to a fancy restaurant every week for a proper, fancy meal with good wine, but then I wouldn't have a lot of savings or could not go on a shopping spree one weekend. Therefore I would think a lot before choosing the fancy restaurant and probably would only go there for really special occasions. At the same time, eating in fast food restaurant while more expensive than dining home does not put much of a damper on my other financial plans, so I could be more spontaneous - maybe even to a point where I spend more money in fast food restaurant than in a proper restaurant. Say, how many of us buy 10 things (we don't need) for 5$ and think nothing of it, but have to agonize for hours over one 50$ purchase (that is actually useful)? 

 

Maybe, just maybe, lower prices are an answer. Let's say every new game costs 40$. That significantly widens the pool of people wiling to buy it without giving it much thought. It also gives potantial to buy more games - it's easier to justify to yourself buying three or four  games for 40$ than one or two for 60$. But of course that should come from the PROPER analysis. 

 

Or maybe the answer lies in a better diversification of game prices - why every game has to have a 60$ price tag? Maybe go for a few smaller, shorter projects that each generates less money on its own, but they add to revenue. You can keep you company afloat by small projects, and occasional big one. This usually works very well for designing studios, which have one or two big, long projects, and several smaller, just to keep the money coming and all designers fed. 

 

I might be wrong, but I just think they got too reliant on the big titles that go all out, and forgot that selling one, pretty uniform (I don't think that anyone will argue that majority of AAA titles are very similar, or in case of Ubisoft, almost identical to each other when it comes to gameplay) product for a lot of money is not really a good practice. 

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On 24/11/2017 at 8:43 PM, grbolivar said:

All EA has to do is replace the entire progress system and remove the F2P model.

 

Or, make the game F2P as its business model makes it look like.

EA's problem is greed. They tried to take advantage of people thinking they could get away with it (just like Activision) and it backfired hard.

They could have made money, but they wanted ALL the money.

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6 hours ago, MilwaukeeMeg said:

 

I'm sorry, but in my opinion this just means that the game companies have a bad buisness model.

 

It indicates that majority of gamers do not buy the games for 60$ because the price is too steep. They wait for the price to go down not because they are spiteful and do not want to give the company their hard-earned money, but because they do not have enough money to spend on this game. And I do not mean that they are neccessarily poor or would have to skip a few meals to buy a game - this money is perceived as better spend elsewhere. Let's go with an example. Let's say I have the money to go to a fancy restaurant every week for a proper, fancy meal with good wine, but then I wouldn't have a lot of savings or could not go on a shopping spree one weekend. Therefore I would think a lot before choosing the fancy restaurant and probably would only go there for really special occasions. At the same time, eating in fast food restaurant while more expensive than dining home does not put much of a damper on my other financial plans, so I could be more spontaneous - maybe even to a point where I spend more money in fast food restaurant than in a proper restaurant. Say, how many of us buy 10 things (we don't need) for 5$ and think nothing of it, but have to agonize for hours over one 50$ purchase (that is actually useful)? 

 

Maybe, just maybe, lower prices are an answer. Let's say every new game costs 40$. That significantly widens the pool of people wiling to buy it without giving it much thought. It also gives potantial to buy more games - it's easier to justify to yourself buying three or four  games for 40$ than one or two for 60$. But of course that should come from the PROPER analysis. 

 

Or maybe the answer lies in a better diversification of game prices - why every game has to have a 60$ price tag? Maybe go for a few smaller, shorter projects that each generates less money on its own, but they add to revenue. You can keep you company afloat by small projects, and occasional big one. This usually works very well for designing studios, which have one or two big, long projects, and several smaller, just to keep the money coming and all designers fed. 

 

I might be wrong, but I just think they got too reliant on the big titles that go all out, and forgot that selling one, pretty uniform (I don't think that anyone will argue that majority of AAA titles are very similar, or in case of Ubisoft, almost identical to each other when it comes to gameplay) product for a lot of money is not really a good practice. 

Interesting perspective. However in order for something like that to work prices would more or less have to be locked down for like a year. 

 

Which is the big problem with lowering the current base price of $60. You would have to more less kill every form of sale of any game that's not a year or two old. Sure Nintendo does that for their Mainstay games and most people seem to be okay with it, but I don't know how people would feel if all of a sudden every other game for every other system did that as well.

 

I will say for the Middle Market games that you're kind of talking about, that come out of lower price in the AAA games. Is that people tend not to appreciate them and they tend to die off faster than the AAA games. Sure some games like that get lucky and succeed ,but recently it seems like 7 times out of 10 those types of games still don't make enough money to justify their creation.

 

In fact during the PlayStation 2 era if I'm not mistaken that's basically how the game development worked. You would get one or two big releases and like 5 smaller releases in a year, but during the PlayStation 3 era and beyond the cost of making those smaller games got higher and they could not turn the profits needed to justify them.

Edited by soultaker655
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They shouldn't devalue their own product. I say don't charge 60$ but 40$, but don't drop the price for AT LEAST a year.

The problem is the 60$ price tag can often go down within weeks of release, it's quite easy to assume that only 10% of all buyers for any game will be paying the full price tag. So many retailers trying to undercut each other, flash sales.

They'd be making a hell of a lot more money on the initial release price if there wasn't this persistent race to the bottom. Consumers are savvy to these practices now, clawing that money back from stupid whale like consumers because your regular consumers are buying sensibly, is not the answer.

 

I remember back on the SNES, Mario Kart and Mario All Stars, that game was full price, for seemingly forever. Even years after release. If people couldn't get access to these games cheaper then they would buy them on full release, and at full price, because they'd be no other way to get the game and just waiting for the price drop WOULD mean missing out.

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For me it's a 6/10 because of the campaign mode otherwise 4 or 5 like the first one (2015). I don't understand where are the improvements for singleplayer against AI much wanted after the disastrous first title. Singleplayer against AI is basically a boring arcade/time challenges, they even excluded space battles...

It's useless, these new DICE Battlefront can't even match the past games. Boring modes, boring card system... i save only the graphic.

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