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"Games should cost £70 in the future"
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 31st July 2009
Chris Deering, ex-CEO of Sony Europe and 'Father of the PlayStation', thinks game prices are set to rise further.
The ex-Sony Europe CEO and current Codemasters board member, known to some as the Father of the PlayStation for the way he pushed the platform to dominance in Europe, has speculated that games may well rise to around £70 GBP ($110 USD)in the UK soon as developers are forced to spend more and more money pursuing the best graphics.
Chatting to MCV, Deering said that upping prices would be essential for publishers if they wanted to recoup spiralling costs - though consumers would obviously not be happy about the change.
“In order to price these games at a level where they would support an industry [as strongly as] they did ten years ago, they’d have to be sold at £70. But people just don’t have that kind of money, there’s a psychological glass ceiling," said Deering.
“Consumers won’t spend more, but to write the game, publishers are having to spend more than ever before. That’s the key problem...there are lots of things you can get for less than the relative value of paying 50p an hour for a very high end game.”
Valve meanwhile has been toying with the idea of community-funded games, perhaps as an antidote to escalating development costs.
Let us know your thoughts on videogame pricing in the forums.
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Do these people even have a single ounce of common sense?
But no. Automatic price-hike. I mean I understand: they can really do what they want, it's their product at the end of the day. They can charge what they want for it ultimately. It just seems like they don't have an original thought in them.
70 quid is stupid for a game.
Reminds me of the neo-geo console and its 200 quid odd cartridges.....That sold well didn't it ?
Shoot yourselves in the feet why don't you....
At the end of the day, if they want to raise the prices, then it's only right that we should expect more for that money.
7 quid for 3 hours at the cinema... whereas many games give you a lot more than 30 hours...
The value given by some games like cs:s or tf2 is immense...
still, 70 quid is still an obscene amount of money to pay for a game...
If they had a normal income like the rest of us they'd realise that £70's a day's wages or more for most in the demographic!
Well, I suppose I can always dust off that old box of Risk from the attic.
Are game publishers really trying to tell us that they can't make money in a similar way? Call of Duty x is surely a dumbed down enough game that it appeals to enough millions of people they can sell plenty of copies. If the massive hollywood studios are making huge profits from people seeing their movies for £5-10, then game studios should be able to make money from people paying £10-30 for a game.
I'm tired of publishers trying to blatantly lie to us about how they're just trying to scrape by in a tiny, moneyless industry, after them for years boasting to the wider world that the gaming industry is now bigger and richer than every other entertainment industry.
Why do publishers have to spend more? I don't get it...
"as developers are forced to spend more and more money pursuing the best graphics."
And why is that? As far as I`m aware, paychecks for employees are dropping down. So programmers don't get paid as much. So where are all those bucks going?
I`m not familiar with the intricacies of game developing and publishing, so if someone cares to explain, please do.
Publishers need to think of new ways of getting people to pay for content too, which is why we're seeing DLC that is blatantly just sliced out of the game from the start and games like battle forge that encourage micro transactions.
If you pay out £70 for one game thinking " oh I'll pay this because it's a flawless game, no patches needed and it's really really good" then it'll only encourage others to try and get away with the same and as always, standards slip, development costs will be blamed and prices will go up again.
Solution: Stop going for the best graphics and go for something that's actually good, instead.
Better for everyone :/
Because there is no way in Hell I'm paying £70 for a game. I won't even pay £50 in the high street for a game.
Let's go have a look at what is selling on Play.com right now...
That tells me that people are more willing to buy a game when the price drops. Raising prices is patently daft. Of course, then maybe they can complain about "Piracy is killing us! Look, nothing's selling!"
On consoles it's a slightly different kettle of fish for me; I mostly play JRPGs, which by design have a tendency to last for at least 20 hours.... and usually more if I decide to try to do everything. I'm well into the 90 hour mark for Disgaea 3 now.
(sarcasm)hey look at it this way itll push up the price of pre owned games and we all make a fortune on selling our old games that we have at the moment lol(/sarcasm)
ludacris
id say this is a case of aiming high so when the price does raise they can say hey, atleast its not £70 as we thought originally
i for one will not pay a penny more than i pay at the moment. i dont play into the game of greedy publishers. if it cost more than the rest i simply wont buy.
and another point graphics dont make the game
games are already expensive enough as it is ¬_¬
I would never pay more than £40 for any game unless it was something like "Better Than Life" from Red Dwarf.
Pah, £70, you must think I'm stupid. I'll keep my money thanks.
lets look at the orange box shall we? no game there is smth you could consider 'top of the line' when it comes to graphics, but all games are superb and keep on selling...
and the developers should look at the steam statistics when games are on discount - if i remember correctly, it was smth like 1300% increased sales with a 75% discount.
So, developers, what is better, to sell n games for 50$ each, or sell n x 13 games for 10$?
if it is then i'll just sell my ps3 and upgrade my pc.
but in all honesty theres only one game which i would pay that much for and it'll be modern warfare 2 as it will have good online gameplay, but £70 :(:(
i would send a letter to sony with just two words f*** off and a picture of my pc :D
How much did you spend on the that bunch of flowers for me ............. £2.50 from Tesco.
and the last meal you took me out for.............. £20.00 at the local inc. drinks.
How much play time WERE you gonig to get with me compared to your stupid game?
Back to BF1942 $6.00 from Amazon
Ha, yeah, that might end badly for you!
Yea... no thanks. It's hard enough finding games actually worth the initial 50$ (or 60$ if it's console), so I can't imagine the humongous crap that a 120$ game would bring, let alone the overpowering feeling of being ripped off.
Most games released last 4-10 hours in Singleplayer, providing they even have SP, and not all games have MP, nor do all game's MP actually work well enough for people to play it. Considering how lately it seems games have been getting shorter, and co-op/MP get shafted more of than not, and they STILL ask full price for them.. We'll be paying 120$ for 2 hours of gameplay and staring at the multiplayer login box saying "Connecting.." for 6 hours before giving up.
Oops I tell a lie, I have pre-ordered Forza 3, obviously the exception that proves the rule :P
it all boils down to how much profit they actually want to make though.
Try getting rid of the dirge of absolutly average games out there, the market is saturating itself with some truly average titles that must be making money somewhere and taking profits away from truly deserving titles.
Games are heading that way - just watch how EA structures it's next big releases as they will surely go first.
Didn't you notice the pattern before?
Come on now, what game, exluding some free roaming RPGs like WoW, Fallout, NVN and Oblivion would have enough gameplay and replay value to be played for 140 hours? I've completed most recent FPSs in less than 20 hours and there's no way I'm spending 120 hours in multiplayer with 12 year olds screaming "pwnd" and reciting jokes about "ur mom".
Also, with games around the £30 mark children can ask for it and the in most cases get it. But, with a price increase it will be "you'll have to wait till your birthday". And people out of work who get £50 to live on a week from the government, have fun playing with mud.
Brads
I didn't know such epic scale morons existed. One might think they are republicans.
Students: £30 a week = Fat-chance I'll be buying a game any time soon
On the dole: £50 a week = -£20 for food.... I'll have to sell my soul
Children: Pocket money = "You can get it if you save up honey... It'll only take 2 months"
People with money (Less than 45% claim middle-class status) = I own a mac... Is 'Death Blood 5: The 4th sequel' organic? And does it go well with wine and camembert?
£70 per week I need for petrol, food, drinks & cinema. (I cook and being vegetarian is cheap).
What's more important?
I know I wouldn't pay £70 for a game. I'd just wait a year or three for it to be a bargin bucket for £15.
They will shoot themselves in the foot for being so greedy, mainly because people will buy less games the 49.99rrp that games have now I begrudge and pay 39.99 online for (or less).
I have played some tripe already this generation, and its not funny to think I could be paying more for the same in the future. Modern Warfare 2 will not be worth the admission?!?!
It is, it's just companies claiming to be selling at a loss. Honestly if it was cheaper, it would be much more accessible. And if it was supported more. EA has murdered a few of my favorite games already.
I wouldn't say 1 hour of gameplay = 1 hour of cinema for a start. Cinema is more concise. For example I would rank FEAR as one of my most favourite shooters IF they had cut the play time by half, because the awesome moments were amazing, and the repeating grey corridors between them were tedious.
On the other end of the scale, I enjoyed all of Mirrors Edge, but clocking it in 4 hours after paying full retail for it? Unacceptable. Cinema here is $10NZ per ticket (~2 hours), Mirrors Edge $100NZ (~4 hours).
I agree with the notion that if 75% reduced cost increases sales by 13x then it makes more sense to increase volume for profits. I think a lot of devs get a false sense of value on their product, because they put so much time and effort into it. But selling it at an increased price will never work, and it costs nothing to sell more in volume. I don't see why they don't want the extra exposure of the public to their brand, that would again mean extra profits in the future.
1. they can stuff off with the weakening pound argument, we're now up 15-20% up on where we were 6 months ago, and previous to that we were stupidly over valued.
2. Can I recommend playing games 6 months behind the release curve. Top rated games at £20 or less new, normally available in plenty of 2 for £30 deals. the last game I bought on release week was GTA4 and before that it was GTA San Andreas
Console manufacturers hate the PC because there's no real licensing or zoning system they could create to keep prices high. The last PC retail release I remember staying at £40 and still selling well was Neverwinter Nights, and Warcraft III's Frozen throne add-on stayed up around £25-30, but that was back in 2003.
Whatever crazy price some games launch at, by Christmas/January or the next major sales weekend they'll be down to something tolerable.
It is relatively easy to develop for both the 360 and the PC, which have larger numbers of systems sold. The Wii is also out there and its owners are generally super happy when they can get good titles.
And as everyone else has said, any executive worthy of being an executive should roughly know their market and thus how well their title may sell. Development costs should reflect planning that takes this into account. To do otherwise, without specific reason, is incompetent.
It is also worth noting that sometimes people like to be deceptive about the profitability of their products. If a game gets a certain amount of revenue, depending on who the executives value and the nature of how contracts have been written, they may decide that they are better off claiming/paying higher development costs and leaving less for profit. What I am saying makes much more sense when you consider that development and publishing teams are separate entities, sometimes with even more organizations involved as well. Although some perspectives suggest that they are working together, and benefiting each other would create the highest value, other perspectives suggest they're fighting over limited resources.
Not to mention huge bases of code companies now have to work with plus standardized APIs and. Look how far Valve have taken the source engine; that's what over devs should be looking at.
Honestly, if ALL games were too expensive to make, then explain how very few of those said companies are going out of business?
One is from the casual gamer like me. I will NOT pay that much. It doesn't matter how great the game is, it just isn't worth it. Maybe after it drops. To casual gamers even pirating isn't often worth the hassle. It either needs to be creating a buzz or something I know of. People like me are the ones who make the cheaper games hit the top of the charts. "I heard of this, looks good, and for $30 sure, why not."
For the hardcore gamer though...
You all will sit and moan about the cost, but the truth is, the hardcore gamers, won't care. Look at the lines for the PS3 and I-Phone. If people want something, they don't care what it costs (within reason). They are sheep, and they will pay whatever someone asks them to. Will piracy go up? I' will bet not as much as you all think. Many lack the skill and ability, some are fearful, and some are just too honest. If you haven't done it before, odds are you won't do it now.
I do agree though, lower the price and sell more. They keep saying graphics are everything, I disagree, I think game play is, and if you want some evidence, look at Nintendo. They haven't had stellar graphics in how long? And why is the PS2 and games still selling so well. They seem to forget that this is entertainment, not a necessity. I can think of a lot of things that are just as entertaining for less.
For £70 it needs to come with a gold plated box ffs
Last game I paid full price for was GTA IV and I've had months of entertainment out of that, even Eve @ 15 euro's a month is damn good value for money but £70 for a game that lasts 20 hours if you're really lucky (and quite possibly really crap) is utter lunacy.
THIS IS SATA!
http://www.personal.psu.edu/jea169/blogs/engl202c/SATA%20Cable.jpg
Don't know about you, but one of the greatest things about purchasing a game was the box and all the extras it came with...
But unlike the old days, now there's not much there..
Still Having a CD is much easier to install than having to Friggin DL Empire:TW when you reformat. :(
I do wish the retail games would have all those extra packages...remember those HUGE manuals? Those 100+ pages of info on the game itself? Only CIV IV has gotten semi-close to this, the last great game with the huge manual was way too far back.
So I'm okay if it's that expensive, just give us all the extras of yesteryear, like the cool boxes, the nice charts, the maps, and the manuals with TONS of info.
Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.
I don't think that a gamer needs any of those. We just want to enjoy games, that's it.
If developers want to successfully charge a higher price, they have to offer value, not whine about costs.
The price was reasonable and the game engine was good.
If CoD4 only gives you 10 hours of gameplay, you're doing it wrong! The multiplayer is fantastic.
I think part of the problem is there is inconsistency, for example you can get CSS pretty cheap and I'm sure I've chalked up well over 100 hours on that. I think everyone also values money differently, and also that everyone values games differently. Some people spend a lot of their income happily on games whilst others find spending more than £10-£15 on a single game extortionate. Just speak to some peeps on the internet from Poland etc. and they say it's just impossible to afford games at western european prices which is why they have to pirate.
I don't think we should be afraid to pay more, at long as we are still getting value for money.
It's all a difficult balancing act really.
And then there was Far Cry 2 which blew all over the place. It depends on the game Imo, RTSes will have devs making new maps and patches, FPS games: Patches for multi, RPGs: extra chapters, and MMOs: More farming places..
That is certainly true.
I would say that maybe devs should split single and multiplayer into two boxes (maybe make single player £15 and multiplayer £20)... the core would still be the same (textures, sounds, meshes, engine) but the single player bit would have some story and the multiplayer bit would have netcode.
Only problem is, if any developer did that, the publisher would probably want to charge £35 for each component. Which gets us back to the whole "£70 game" bit. ;)
The other problem would be the games that have multiplayer or single player bolted on almost as an afterthought - which seems to be common in a lot of games now. :(
1) I dont want to Britain to go to the euro, but it would be really interesting if it did. Would we still get quoted "bad echange rates"? would we still pay more for everything than everyone else?
2) I read recently that photoshop was the most pirated bit of software ever. The price might have something to do with this.
3) Sas anyone else noticed that the original COD4:MW keeps going upto £39.99 for a while than back down to £20. I am sorry but I WONT pay more than £30 and very rarely that. £25 is my "glass ceiling" really.
4) Maybe the devs should stop making too many mediocre games, and maybe just 1 good game per year. I recently bought a few games but only at £5 from Morrison's - DIRT, CIV4, Company of Heroes and Rollercoaster Tycoon3. Really enjoyed Dirt. Didn't enjoy CIV as much as the original and gave up. Quite like RT3, and not installed Company of Heroes yet (just not had time as of yet). My point being that £5 is chuck away money and if the games devs took the plunge at a low prive point I'm sure they'd be rewarded with massive sales. But then like someone said earlier they will most likely get massive sales from MW2 anyway even at £55 because people are sheep.
£70 my *ss. They only thing that should cost £70 is your head and I would gladly pay for it :P
I totally agree.. This is ridiculous at 70 quid.. i still think anything over 40 is too much
If game prices truly ever came to that, I would stick to my already large catalog of games (many of which I like, but have not dedicated enough playing time to). Emulators and ROMs are also great for retro gaming. That is a surface I have barely scratched.
Modern graphics can be awesome, but gameplay on older games can make a big difference. I still know people that play D2 regularly even though the graphics are shite compared to something like Titan Quest. BTW - I like Titan Quest Immortal Throne better than D2 - LOD
If games are going that way then I wont be able to afford the hardware to run them.
Looks like my DS is going to get more usage in the future and my desktop is looking more like a door stop :)