Disk consoles are not necessary anymore

[metalmilitia623]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickey1331

Yeah people won't pay $80 now. I said in 5-10 years. It's just gonna cost more to make a game and with inflation the dollar will be worth less. Games will eventually cost more than $60. Look at iTunes. Remember when it only cost 99 cents to buy a song?

Console game prices may be going up in that time frame but PC game prices are not.

Digital is going to happen and hopefully the FCC will get it's act together to keep the telecommunications companies from being able to have caps and other things on their internet services.

[K0ZZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickey1331

As it gets more expensive to make games a price increase will happen. I'm kinda shocked it didn't happen this time but in 5-10 years I think they will increase it.

I really doubt that prices will increase, eventually the gaming market is going to have to become more efficient, either by generating better engines or requiring more workload to be spread across a smaller group (something I'd oppose, I don't want jobs to be taken away).

A price increase will knock gaming back to a niche market which will kill sales, and in my knowledge which could be wrong, games bought per person went down by a good amount in the last generation (X360/PS3) as opposed to the (XBOX/PS2) generation simply with a 20% jump in price. If you sell 100 discs at $60, or 130 at $50, which is better? (naturally all things considered equal i.e. production and ilk). Speaking strictly from an economic perspective, I feel that gaming is attempting to try and force the equilibrium price further up and especially in the state of the global economy, it's not going.

I could go on a tangent about the gaming market and how I feel about it, but I'll stop here and simply say 'no'. Remember, digital isn't 'ownership' per-say, a physical copy is. In my opinion. Digital is more convenient, but I'd only go that route on games I know for sure that I wouldn't trade in.

[K0ZZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pared

Those arguing against discless consoles must not have a smartphone. Either that, or they are side loading apk's on Android. This is the future. It's not a question of if, but when.

I can agree with the last statement, I know that publishers will be all for that as it eliminates production costs, no matter how marginalized they have become and again, people tend to be more impulsive to buy, sitting at home staring at an advertisement or product with credit card in hand as opposed in a store with various products and finite resources at hand.

[ubernoob]

Quote: Originally Posted by metalmilitia623

Console game prices may be going up in that time frame but PC game prices are not. Digital is going to happen and hopefully the FCC will get it's act together to keep the telecommunications companies from being able to have caps and other things on their internet services.

Console Games won't be going up in price.

PC Prices are the same for new games.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 - $59.99
South Park: The Stick of Truth - $59.99
Skyrirm Legendary Editio - $59.99
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - $59.99
Call of Duty: Ghosts $59.99
Pro Evolution Soccer - $59.99
Football Manager 2014 - $49.99

Look. It's been multiple threads. We get it. You love your PC. I love mine too, else I wouldn't have spend thousands on it. Stop blatantly ignoring facts and waving your fanboy flag around. It gets the discussion nowhere, and it makes you look bad.

Digital has very little to do with cheaper prices. Unless you think that going digital doesn't require any costly infrastructure to set-up / keep running.

The PS4 and XBone are closed marketplaces. Anything you buy digitally (be it a code you purchased at a store for XBL/PSN Dollars or if you purchase the game through the marketplace itself) is through Sony or MS. I can buy Final Fantasy VII from Steam. I can buy it from SquareEnix themselves. I can purchase it through Amazon or GOG. I can purchase the old one and have absolutely NO DRM attached to it. You cannot compare open-market PC prices to closed-market console prices. I know you may think it's the same "Ehhh digital download, it'll make things cheaper like Steam!" but that's not how it works. On the PC, there are multiple companies (Steam, GOG, GMG, GG, etc) all competing for your dollar. Oh, what's that you say? Retail does the same thing? Imagine that - or am I dreaming that Target had a buy 2 get 1 free Next-Gen deal at launch, that Amazon matched?

The PC by it's very nature is open. Consoles by their very nature are closed. Why do you think the indie games are most often on PC? Because they don't have to jump through the hoops MS/Sony put in place to distribute their game. They can release it into the wild on PC however they see fit. Oftentimes, they will jump through those hoops due to market share reasons, but that's how it works.

As it stands now, you can't lower the price on digital titles without lowering the cost of retail titles. The retailers would throw a ****ing fit (and rightfully so) and there is no benefit to doing so.

So yeah, Steam sales ARE awesome... but don't act like new games are sold at a discount all the time. Most Steam sales games are either A) getting to the point in their age where sales have dropped off a cliff or B) Indie games that will go cheaper to get a larger slice of the market share.

[LambertandHam]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickey1331

I agree that $80 is too much and I won't pay that much for a video game but something will have to give. I do like the cheaper prices no used game option.

Same. I love gaming, especially with friends, but 80$ for one game, before DLC?

Ha.

Production costs are insane for AAA games, especially with things like ubernoob posted. Something like Borderlands 2's "Hey, let's make a DLC for every holiday!" bit is really milking it.

[metalmilitia623]

Quote: Originally Posted by ubernoob

Console Games won't be going up in price. PC Prices are the same for new games. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 - $59.99 South Park: The Stick of Truth - $59.99 Skyrirm Legendary Editio - $59.99 Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - $59.99 Call of Duty: Ghosts $59.99 Pro Evolution Soccer - $59.99 Football Manager 2014 - $49.99 Look. It's been multiple threads. We get it. You love your PC. I love mine too, else I wouldn't have spend thousands on it. Stop blatantly ignoring facts and waving your fanboy flag around. It gets the discussion nowhere, and it makes you look bad. Digital has very little to do with cheaper prices. Unless you think that going digital doesn't require any costly infrastructure to set-up / keep running. The PS4 and XBone are closed marketplaces. Anything you buy digitally (be it a code you purchased at a store for XBL/PSN Dollars or if you purchase the game through the marketplace itself) is through Sony or MS. I can buy Final Fantasy VII from Steam. I can buy it from SquareEnix themselves. I can purchase it through Amazon or GOG. I can purchase the old one and have absolutely NO DRM attached to it. You cannot compare open-market PC prices to closed-market console prices. I know you may think it's the same "Ehhh digital download, it'll make things cheaper like Steam!" but that's not how it works. On the PC, there are multiple companies (Steam, GOG, GMG, GG, etc) all competing for your dollar. Oh, what's that you say? Retail does the same thing? Imagine that - or am I dreaming that Target had a buy 2 get 1 free Next-Gen deal at launch, that Amazon matched? The PC by it's very nature is open. Consoles by their very nature are closed. Why do you think the indie games are most often on PC? Because they don't have to jump through the hoops MS/Sony put in place to distribute their game. They can release it into the wild on PC however they see fit. Oftentimes, they will jump through those hoops due to market share reasons, but that's how it works. As it stands now, you can't lower the price on digital titles without lowering the cost of retail titles. The retailers would throw a ****ing fit (and rightfully so) and there is no benefit to doing so. So yeah, Steam sales ARE awesome... but don't act like new games are sold at a discount all the time. Most Steam sales games are either A) getting to the point in their age where sales have dropped off a cliff or B) Indie games that will go cheaper to get a larger slice of the market share.

I'm pretty sure all of those games have at least been 10% off at one point or another. While the sales are unmatchable Steam still typically has brand new AAA games for slightly less than retail disc versions.

And my gripe is less with consoles and more with AAA game publishers just pushing so much garbage lately. Consoles are fine for those that want them. The fact that there's all these $60 games still out there is beyond me. Because I can go onto Steam and find good games that are way cheaper than that and they will be the same kinds of games but way less expensive and way better put together.

Now maybe that means it's time for a more open console.. Oh wait that is happening... Now before you say it has no games let's see I can think of two other consoles that have no games. Yep you guessed it the XBO and PS4.

Also I like to rant so don't take me too seriously because I sure don't, ha.

[ubernoob]

The PS4 and XBO aren't more open consoles. It may make it easier for developers to self-publish, but that doesn't make it an open marketplace.

They still have to get approval from Sony and MS to be put up on the market, regardless of publisher status. There is nobody that can compete with Sony/MS on their marketplaces because they have full control over who and what gets put up. Sony/MS can pull anything down at any time (just like the Apple Store.)

MS program ID@XBox is still flawed for a lot of indie developers. They have their silly requirements of launch day parity, which just isn't how a lot of indie developers can work. They don't have teams that can work on multi-console launches. Some do, some made enough money off previous games that they can wait on releasing their game into the wild one system at a time... but others don't. They work system by system.

MS Policies are light years beyond what they had, but they still need quite a bit of work when it comes to the ID@XBox program.

Also, yes... Most Steam games have been 10% off before, GMG gives a 10-30% off voucher for pre-orders all the time - but so do retail chains for console games. Best Buy has their GCU program which gives 20% off new games at all times for two years. Retail always runs sales on physical copies of games, sales are JUST a Steam thing. It's just more noticeable because the devs/publishers have say over how much of a discount their sales get, because they know their current/target sales and what they can do to squeak a little bit of extra money out of games that have otherwise pretty much stopped sales.

Spoiler

See: CoD: Ghosts being a max of 10% off during Steam Sales. They know they'll sell anyways. However, an older game like Skyrim (where most of the people who want to try it have purchased it already) will get discounts of 50-75% off because they know that maybe, just MAYBE, they can get a little bit more market share of people willing to try out their game.

I'd also venture a guess and say that AAA devs have ALWAYS pushed out a lot of garbage. The issue here is that the smaller guys (AA Games such as those produced by Atlus, NIS America, etc.) are disappearing faster than a Twinkie at a weight watcher's meeting.

[metalmilitia623]

I remember the days when EA and it's studios made good games. Need for Speed Porsche Unlimited comes to mind, Hot pursuit, C & C, Simcity 3000, Crysis, BF2. Then they got too greedy and stopped making games and started to make money and only money.

Same kind of trends as other companies as well. Some of it could be due to me growing up and losing that childlike innocence where everything is fun, but it seems like more and more games these days are just copies of other games and nothing is new and original and it's just boring and bland.

Thank god for indie devs and the people that still care about making games.