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[Dunamisdeos]

I do not buy full-priced things with micro-transactions. It is not needed to ensure a return on their product. I want to buy the experience of the game, and I want to make sure that the people who made it get paid enough to A) live, and B) make more games.

There is no need whatsoever to include micro-transactions in a full-priced game aside from base greed. Not going to telegraph acceptance of that through my purchase.

[Chiefwaffles]

Well, games have been $60 for quite a while now. Inflation has lowered the effectiveness of that price and increasing game development costs is making it harder for studios to make money off of just game sales.

I think it’s unfair to judge games so harshly based on micro transactions. I mean, I’ll be cautiously looking to see if the micro transactions are super noticeable before considering buying it, but I think it’s unreasonable not to buy it at all because of micro transactions.

[nenjin]

I've always wondered what the take on MTX is, between the dev and the publisher. Like, if over time the publisher collects more money from MTX once a game is in to its long tail of sales.

Anyways, I do feel like developers are stuck in the middle. They've gone with a publisher, get a lot o support and money to make a great game, but they have high expectations on them and publishers can and will make their interests known in a game. Do you say no to your publisher? Are you even allowed to under the terms of your contract? You're trying to keep them happy while not alienating your fanbase by doing the things they want you to do. At least that's the subtext of what Bob Roberts is saying, to me. So at least on the surface, they have some of my sympathies.

[Ozyton]

I'm glad this popped up, I was considering asking for an update on the whole DLC issue since I haven't really been following the game and it's coming out soonish. Still pretty tentative about getting it on launch. Still going to be hard to tell just how big an impact the micro transactions will be until the game has been out for a few days. The whole competitive multiplayer aspect of MGS5 never interested me so them putting that into this game for the sake of justifying microtransactions is kinda bleh.

[lordcooper]

Well, games have been $60 for quite a while now. Inflation has lowered the effectiveness of that price and increasing game development costs is making it harder for studios to make money off of just game sales.

I think it’s unfair to judge games so harshly based on micro transactions. I mean, I’ll be cautiously looking to see if the micro transactions are super noticeable before considering buying it, but I think it’s unreasonable not to buy it at all because of micro transactions.

So charge $70.  Fuck it, charge $80.  I'd have happily paid that much for a complete game I've been looking forward to.  When I was kid, games were about £40 and Freddos cost 10p.  Now Freddos are 26p and games still cost, well, £40.  AND the games have got bigger while the Freddos got smaller.  Things get more expensive over time, that's fine.  I have a rudimentary understanding of both economics and game dev, I get it.  So be honest, and charge what you need to charge.  I'll probably pay it.

Don't be a slimy piece of shit and actively make the game worse to try and milk some pathetic sad sack of a whale out of their inheritance, while leaving more savvy customers the option of a watered down experience or supporting a transparently predatory business model.  That leaves a stain on your soul, and worse, puts me off buying your game.

Again, I'd have paid £70-80 without complaint if they could operate their business with a shred of decency.  Fuck 'em, I'll be waiting for reviews and torrenting the game if it turns out they haven't totally gutted it.

Edit: Yes, I just ordered a few packs of Freddos.

[Virtz]

Am I on everyone's ignore lists, or does Shadow of War's pre-order being on the humble bundle seem irrelevant to everyone?

Like you can pre-order the game and have all the funds go elsewhere if you want. Thought that'd raise some eyebrows. :|

[Ozyton]

pre-order

That's the catch, isn't it?
I suppose if you just have a bunch of money lying around that you could donate to charity anyways and get something back from it in the process it's not a bad choice, and if the game is bad then oh well, the money went to charity anyways. Just keep in mind you'll be spending more than if you had just outright bought the game.
EDIT: Umiman's post below pretty much invalidates this argument

So charge $70.  Fuck it, charge $80.

The problem is convincing people that the price of AAA games has to go up. I suspect average people are more inclined to pay 60 dollars with the possibility of 'maybe if they want to' paying more later (and probably ending up paying WAY more, incidentally) than having to pay 10 dollars more out of the gate.

[umiman]

Am I on everyone's ignore lists, or does Shadow of War's pre-order being on the humble bundle seem irrelevant to everyone?

Like you can pre-order the game and have all the funds go elsewhere if you want. Thought that'd raise some eyebrows. :|

To cover costs for the pre-order title and physical merchandise a deduction of $60 + tax will be made for qualifying bundles. Custom payment split ratios still apply to remaining payment

The split of payments applies to every game in that bundle except Shadow of Mordor.

[ThtblovesDF]

I disagree with "games have been 60 $ for a while now", I feel that is limited to certain publishers and platforms - console players are easy to milk, as they lack options.

I buy my games from steam, since my lazyness has long since outgrown my financial needs, but if a game is overpriced, I'll buy it from some keystore where they buy it on sale in russia or something, which turns it from 60 to 30 $.

I also find the sillyness of "60 $ = 60 €" on steam to be akward, since it is so easy to let a friend gift the game to you and just paypal the reduced price to them...

[Virtz]

Am I on everyone's ignore lists, or does Shadow of War's pre-order being on the humble bundle seem irrelevant to everyone?

Like you can pre-order the game and have all the funds go elsewhere if you want. Thought that'd raise some eyebrows. :|

To cover costs for the pre-order title and physical merchandise a deduction of $60 + tax will be made for qualifying bundles. Custom payment split ratios still apply to remaining payment

The split of payments applies to every game in that bundle except Shadow of Mordor.

Woah. The amounts in the sliders don't reflect this at all. Well, that kinda sucks.


On the subject of "AAA games should cost more", I somewhat disagree. They've reduced the costs of distribution by going digital, netting themselves more profits, yet this hasn't cheapened AAA games at all. Not to mention poorer regions of the world that used to get games cheaper are slowly reaching the point of paying full price. Like I now have to pay over twice the amount I would've bought games for 15 years ago. They're steadily getting more and more out of their customer base, questionable dlc and cash store practices or not.

[Dunamisdeos]

No, I will not pay an equivalent of my month's grocery bill to buy a game. Any game. Any game whatsoever.

There is no way that anyone needs that much money in order to produce games. Divinity: Original Sin was outright named game of the year by big-name critics, and was kickstarted with less than a million. You don't need millions and millions of dollars to produce this stuff, they just spend millions and millions of dollars because we keep giving it to them.

[Ludorum Rex]

Game productions often do cost enough millions to make it hard to break even at 60$. And yes, some games are made for a fraction of that and are still polished and great. Software development is notoriously risky. Just look at all the government software scandals in pretty much every country. On top of that games have a creative and artistic aspect which adds even more risk. Then you have corporate politics, the inevitable inefficiency of large organizations and a culture of crunching for months, high staff turnover, pathologically bad development processes, etc. So many games have a very troubled development and a lot of games that look to be relatively smooth releases were complete clusterf**s behind the scenes.

Does that mean that practices like microtransactions in AAA single-player games are acceptable and shouldn't be protested? No, I certainly don't think so. But one of the reasons that publishers love microtransactions is that they provide a revenue source which does not involve developing another game. It's not just greed - it is much related to risk-avoidance. They'd much rather milk a release for a decade, than risk losing double-digit millions on a failed new game. The trend of fewer AAA games, in favor of series / franchises and DLC/microtransaction driven games has been increasing, and this is just another step in that direction. Innovation now comes from indie and smaller studios. Until production costs come down (which is a long way out, imo), I don't this trend will be reversed.

[Dunamisdeos]

Fair enough regarding greed, but at the same time I don't want to be milked for 10 years.

To me, I don't want to pay for most AAA titles while smaller devs make a higher quality product. Doesn't make sense to me. For every Breath of the Wild there are 3 AC: Unities.

[nenjin]

Game productions often do cost enough millions to make it hard to break even at 60$.

FIFA 10 sold 10 million units. That's $600 million in sales at the $60 price point. Madden NFL 25 sold 1 million in just its first week in 2013. A few years ago a couple big AAA publishers estimated $60 million is what it cost to make some of their largest games. ME3 is reported to have cost about $40 million to make.

So yeah, games are expensive to make but they're also profitable if they hook the public. 500,000 sales is large by indie standards, but very tepid by AAA estimations because of what they games cost to make, and what the two expect in terms of profit.

The issue with big publishers is they don't care about a single game, they have a portfolio. That portfolio represents their quarterly earnings. They have target numbers they want to reach for their shareholdes. It doesn't matter if a game costs $30 million to make and on paper makes back $70 million. $40 million on its own doesn't make up the entirety of their portfolio, and will always cover some of their losses.

So they pad their earnings with things like DLC, creating a secondary revenue stream that, if a game is a flop, makes it less of a flop. If it's a hit it makes it potentially a much bigger hit over time. If the game cost very little to make, DLC and MTX are pure profit. If the game was expensive to make, it's a way of recouping some of the excessive costs of development over time, above and beyond what the selling price can actually earn (which is less and less as time goes on from release because gamers expect sales and discounts these days when something is more than 6 months old.)

Publishers are large, multinational entities that have to pay the bills and satisfy stockholders. They use these huge, risky investments to accomplish that. Year to year these gambles fail and they post losses. Which then makes them feel like they have to double down on monetization to make up for the gaps.

I agree with LC that I'd just rather they raise the price. If I like the game enough I'll pay it. And at least I can point to and evaluate a straight dollar amount rather than weaving through these ethical and mechanical minefield we have now where I both feel bad for buying games using practices I don't agree with, and I don't know what effects these profit attempts will have on my gameplay and enjoyment. Unless I wait 3 months and let reviewers go to town, at which point I've not contributed to the release sales and just further create the perception in the minds of big publishers they have to try do something even more extreme next time to drive up sales numbers.........when just fucking stepping back and letting the game speak for itself would be the most sure-fire way to get me to spend money.

But they really can't do that to the base price of the game for fear what it will do to the market. Far better in their eyes to slip back door profit streams in there, to snag the whales or just people who don't like missing out on content. Whether that's release DLC that raises the price of a game to $80+ dollars.....or the slurp slurp slurp feed of MTX over time.

[Madman198237]

I don't WANT less work going into games, actually.

Production costs will likely stay right where they are.

Those costs are all man-hours, aren't they? Pay for art, pay for coders, pay for testers, etc. In order to bring that down, you'd either need to bring down wages (Because the professionals will TOTALLY love their companies for THAT one) or reduce man-hours invested in the game somehow, which would likely take the form of less actual effort going into the games, which just makes things worse.