Bionic Commando Rearmed

I don't think that publishers ever said that in-game ads will make games cheaper. Quake Live, however, will be free based on this concept. Also, N64 games WERE more expensive. Plus, you don't realize that games are expensive to make. Look at the credits of any recent game and you'll see countless screens full of names. And people that trade in their games because of the lack of long-lasting multiplayer are not helping. There's a reason why there are so many games with tacked on multiplayer, even when it does not fit. And downloadable games are still at a point where they are overlooked in favor of a huge retail hit. Ikaruga has sold about 35K copies. It probably wouldn't have sold that much more if it was a brand new game. That's only about 250K dollars in revenue, which is enough to pay 5 people 50K a year for 1 year. Not getting it done. We'll see what BC does, but if it sells 50K copies because everyone is playing GTA4, then they lose money on it. You just can't hit it really big with a high budget XBLA game without it being an established IP.

If you're buying used or always waiting for the price to drop to clearance levels, you are part of the problem. If you don't value the games that much, that's fine. But don't be all like "WTF happened to all the games" later on. RIP Sega Racing Studio, Stuntman, etc

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

Also, N64 games WERE more expensive.

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Not by much, especially when you consider how companies don't have to pay $30-$40 in licensing fees just to manufacture the game anymore. I paid $72 for Super Empire Strikes Back at launch and $67 for COD 4. $5 is not the major difference the industry was hyping back in '94 and '95.

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Plus, you don't realize that games are expensive to make. Look at the credits of any recent game and you'll see countless screens full of names.

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The game industry has grown way out of proportion, and it has a lot to do with publishers and developers adapting the "blockbuster" attitude Hollywood has. Talk to anyone not in the industry now. A lot of them don't like where its headed at all.

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And downloadable games are still at a point where they are overlooked in favor of a huge retail hit. Ikaruga has sold about 35K copies. It probably wouldn't have sold that much more if it was a brand new game. That's only about 250K dollars in revenue, which is enough to pay 5 people 50K a year for 1 year. Not getting it done. We'll see what BC does, but if it sells 50K copies because everyone is playing GTA4, then they lose money on it. You just can't hit it really big with a high budget XBLA game without it being an established IP.

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If it's so hard for them to make money with DL games because of the low price, that's not my fault. I didn't set that price and then hype it as being a cheaper alternative to retail games, only to later discover that it's not all that cheaper to make. The industry dug this hole for itself, and now it's struggling to find a way to claw out of it.

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If you're buying used or always waiting for the price to drop to clearance levels, you are part of the problem. If you don't value the games that much, that's fine. But don't be all like "WTF happened to all the games" later on. RIP Sega Racing Studio, Stuntman, etc

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Sorry, but I'm not buying this. I don't buy games thinking of publishers and their bottom line. Look at Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, a buggy expansion pack that was sold for $60. I regret having bought it full price, and USM doesn't deserve my cash for putting out unfinished shit like that. A quality release like GOW or Oblivion? I'll pay full price for that. I'm not going to pay full price for every game that comes out to "help the industry." That's not my job. If you make a shitty game and it doesn't sell, don't blame the people who didn't buy it.

And I couldn't honestly care less if there aren't any good games later, because I'm more into retro games anyway. It's funny that you should use Sega Racing Studio as an example, too. A studio in a company that has coasted by on crappy games for the last decade. Next Gen Sonic? Shadow the Hedgehog? Nightshade? It's my fault Sega doesn't have the cash to keep SRS open? Please.

First, I can add tax to a 70 dollar N64 cart to get 76 dollars up here, which is cheaper than the 65 it cost for COD4.

And DL (smallish) games ARE cheaper to make. But a game like BC isn't DIRT cheap. It'll still need to do probably 200K units for it to break even. And it has nothing to do with "making a shitty game and it not selling". Rally Revo is 10x better than Vegas 2 is. And Sega's doing quite well thanks to the 5 million people that bought Sonic and Mario inject each other with roids so they can compete in Track and Field. But Rally Revo didn't. So guess what gets the axe.

And if you knew the game was not any good, why buy it in the first place and then complain about it later? That's what everyone here does with Nintendo, so I guess I can understand.

I don't get this argument at all. Read reviews, decide if you think the game is worth your money, and then either spend it or play something else. It's not like we aren't spoiled for choice.

James

You're only taking into account Nintendo's greed for those cart prices, because Genesis games never cost that much. Since companies can no longer attribute half the retail price of a game to just buying the actual cartridge from Nintendo, what's the excuse then? A $35 savings for them = $11 savings for the consumer. "But games cost more to make now! Funny how not a single publisher considered that when they were hyping how much cheaper CD games would be. ;)

I bought SRR, and I'm sad to see no one else bought it. Why Does Sega keep making shitty games? Because people buy them. Who's to blame then? Sega's out for its bottom line, so if a half-baked Sonic sells, that's what it will release. They have no right to then point the finger at people for not buying SRR.

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

And if you knew the game was not any good, why buy it in the first place and then complain about it later? That's what everyone here does with Nintendo, so I guess I can understand.

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I had no idea that R6: V2 would be so buggy when it was released. That's what I get for rushing out to buy a game day 1.

The original Phantasy Star cost me $60 when it first came out. I could have gotten COD4 for $35 with free shipping a few weeks ago. What the hell are you talking about?

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Originally Posted by Melf

You're only taking into account Nintendo's greed for those cart prices, because Genesis games never cost that much. Since companies can no longer attribute half the retail price of a game to just buying the actual cartridge from Nintendo, what's the excuse then? A $35 savings for them = $11 savings for the consumer. "But games cost more to make now! Funny how not a single publisher considered that when they were hyping how much cheaper CD games would be. ;)

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The giant hole in your argument is that you aren't taking into account 14 years of inflation. You might as well be comparing 1994 with 1980. The $70 you're griping about for an N64 cart is over $100 in today's money.

The second is that the sizes of dev teams have more than doubled. In '94 30 people was a AAA budget team. These days a company like Epic with 80 employees is considered tiny. Those peoples' salaries are all being cut from the same price tag.

Marketing demands are much higher. You're not just buying print ads in the same 4 or 5 media outlets any more. Web ads on dozens of sites and dedicated PR campaigns are musts to avoid getting lost in the giant shuffle.

I'd also argue that higher margins on disc-based media did a whole lot to grow the industry and attract major investment. It's added up to a whole lot more choice in the end.

But at the end of the day, like I started off saying, you can't complain since you're paying comparatively less money for products which have more work put into them.

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Originally Posted by AaronChance

The original Phantasy Star cost me $60 when it first came out. I could have gotten COD4 for $35 with free shipping a few weeks ago. What the hell are you talking about?

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Online, sure, but I'm talking about brick and mortar stores. The Internet didn't exist back in the 16-bit era, so I'm trying to make a fair comparison between retail prices. You can buy anything cheaper over the Internet now. That doesn't make retail up and disappear (though it should), and most people still buy their games in-store instead of online.

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

The giant hole in your argument is that you aren't taking into account 14 years of inflation. You might as well be comparing 1994 with 1980. The $70 you're griping about for an N64 cart is over $100 in today's money.

The second is that the sizes of dev teams have more than doubled. In '94 30 people was a AAA budget team. These days a company like Epic with 80 employees is considered tiny. Those peoples' salaries are all being cut from the same price tag.

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The hole isn't in my argument because it's not my argument. Go back and look at Next Generation, GameFan, or any magazine from the mid '90s. It was publishers who were hyping CDs as cheaper to produce than carts, and it was they who were going on about how much cheaper games would be. What I'm pointing out is that they conveniently "forgot" to take inflation into account or consider higher development costs.

You just made my point about the whole argument being one big ton of bullshit, which is what I said in my initial post. The cost of games was never going to really go that far down in price because of precisely the factors you mentioned - factors publishers downplayed completely. Or do you think they just didn't know?

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But at the end of the day, like I started off saying, you can't complain since you're paying comparatively less money for products which have more work put into them.

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Yeah, it's less, but that's not the point. My point is that lots of promises made by publishers about how great new things like downloadable games and in-game ads would make games so much cheaper just haven't happened yet, and they probably never will.

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Originally Posted by Melf

The hole isn't in my argument because it's not my argument. Go back and look at Next Generation, GameFan, or any magazine from the mid '90s. It was publishers who were hyping CDs as cheaper to produce than carts, and it was they who were going on about how much cheaper games would be. What I'm pointing out is that they conveniently "forgot" to take inflation into account or consider higher development costs.

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But that's just it - you didn't pay $100 for Rainbow Six, so they are cheaper.

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You just made my point about the whole argument being one big ton of bullshit, which is what I said in my initial post. The cost of games was never going to really go that far down in price because of precisely the factors you mentioned - factors publishers downplayed completely. Or do you think they just didn't know?

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Nobody sensible was predicting things would get to the point where games would outgross Hollywood movies within 10 years, and nobody in 1994 was talking about HD so they couldn't have appreciated how that would affect development costs or how/why it would differ from VGA.

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Yeah, it's less, but that's not the point. My point is that lots of promises made by publishers about how great new things like downloadable games and in-game ads would make games so much cheaper just haven't happened yet, and they probably never will.

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There are already tons of 100% ad supported games. Downloadable ganes also DO cost less than comparable retail releases. Sorry Melf, you're just going to have to accept that things haven't gotten worse and you're actually paying less than you used to. I think you just got older, had kids and learned the value of a dollar ;)

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Originally Posted by Melf

Online, sure, but I'm talking about brick and mortar stores. The Internet didn't exist back in the 16-bit era, so I'm trying to make a fair comparison between retail prices. You can buy anything cheaper over the Internet now. That doesn't make retail up and disappear (though it should), and most people still buy their games in-store instead of online.

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Both Best Buy and Circuit City had COD4 for $40 two months after release. The only reason I used Amazon as an example was because it was recent. I still don't really get the nature of your complaint.