The Great Leap Forward?

Quote: On Next Generation, John Gaudiosi wrote: In the next generation, games prices are going up. Is this good news for the bottom line? Or will it stifle growth? In a special feature, we ask a large cross section of the industry for their views - publishers, developers and analysts...

This article seems to be pretty good about what everyone on our side of the playing field thinks about the (not so) new $60 mark for games. While (in my opinion) SoA's Scott Steinberg comes off as a drooling madman (claiming that the cost is for better quality), I think that Miguel Iribarren at Midway Games does a better job of saying that the issue is (or should be) not will people accept the price, but when will it come back down. On the developer side, Dave Perry has a good point about how higher game prices will do more harm than good, by driving more gamers to the rental market rather than buying their own games. For the most part, the developers seem to be against the higher prices, but Mark Long at Zombie seems to be of the opinion that it won't all be higher and higher prices, thanks to the depreciation of value of older and used games ensuring lower prices will still occur with the next gen systems. Three industry analysts also take a look, and each seems to be of his own opinion. Which is to say the three span the spectrum on the issue. Just keep in mind that if console gaming is more expensive, if people are still willing to play games on their computers, it may mean more published indie games at value prices (say, $35 to $10), which means better off for us.

One thing he forgets is if a game is more expensive to buy that also means its more expensive for a company like blockbuster to buy and so the rental price goes up, and besides most gamers I know would much prefer to own their games. Not all games are one time wonders that you can be in 8 hours (at least not the good ones)

Quote: Original post by coldacid
Just keep in mind that if console gaming is more expensive, if people are still willing to play games on their computers, it may mean more published indie games at value prices (say, $35 to $10), which means better off for us.

I agree. Since the big money seems to be more or less in console games these days the PC games' field is pretty much an open market for indie developers.

Alot of the larger and more niche N64 games costed 60, sometimes 70 dollars US. I believe I payed $60 for RE2, which was a 512 megabit cart (one of the largest) and I know I payed $70 for Quest64, which in hindsight was a monumental rip-off and crap-tacular game, but it was the only other RPG out at the time besides Zelda, which I already had and at the time I was an RPG junkie. I think the market will happily, for the most part, accept the increased price. The rest of us will come along begrudgingly.

That said, once everyone can get their art-asset pipelines down for the higher-quality resources I think production costs will come back down. I also think that finding good artists to create high polycount models or high-resolution textures is easier than finding ones who can create good art asssets with low poly-counts or low resolutions (finding people who can do something with more resources is always easier than finding people who can do the same with less.) Whether or not that will mean a price drop for consumers will remain to be seen. Much like the government, once they've gotten you to accept paying more theres little incentive to ever lower that amount.

I remember paying 89.99 for SNES games back in the mid 90's . I certainly find that since the plague-like spread of Wal-Mart the prices of games have fallen Dramatically from when I was younger. So 60.00 doesn't seem like much of a hike. However I completely agree with the point that anything that drives people away from Consoles and back to PCs(the obviously technological superior platform) the more indie's will have succesful launches, which means that there might be an inkling of a chance that games will become creative again for a least 5 years before going back to the cookie-cutter industry that we have today

Quote: Original post by netflow
I remember paying 89.99 for SNES games back in the mid 90's . I certainly find that since the plague-like spread of Wal-Mart the prices of games have fallen Dramatically from when I was younger. So 60.00 doesn't seem like much of a hike. However I completely agree with the point that anything that drives people away from Consoles and back to PCs(the obviously technological superior platform) the more indie's will have succesful launches, which means that there might be an inkling of a chance that games will become creative again for a least 5 years before going back to the cookie-cutter industry that we have today

You'll never convince people that pc's are better, they go and buy some cheap 400 dollar comp and expect it to run BF2 on full settings. Besides, PC games go up in price too, for example, Doom 3 was 60 dollars.

The future is not in higher upfront costs, it will be making every game 'online' so you have to pay a monthly recurring. That is the future of the industry.

Considering the Steam debacle, I don't really see that happening any time soon.