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Just watched this which I thought was very interesting.Arguments seem to stack up on all sides (Customer,Developer/Distributor & Retailer). Just wondered what you guys make of it, would you happily part with £40 of your hard earned cash for a game if there was no way to sell/trade it on when you were done with it? On the other side with games development costs constantly rising is it really fair that developers should not receive a penny from this part of the industry? (we've just witnessed the demise of Bizarre Creations could other developers be heading for a similar fate if things do not change?). As for EA's (and I believe now also THQ's) controversial online pass system, I think the fact that neither distributor seemed willing to comment on it proves that they must be only too aware how just unpopular it is with gamers. Perhaps games should be about £10 - £20 and any online features (mutliplayer,DLC) paid for on top of this? That way developers would get their share of the revenue, while people just wanting to play the basic game could do so without the need for waiting to buy a cheap used copy? One thing I felt this feature slightly overlooked was the plummeting cost of new titles, very often a game will be available for around half it's initial asking price and just a few weeks after it's release. What about rental?, apart from the revenue from the sale of each individual disc developers currently do not get any money from this. Then again you could argue if someone rents a game and likes it they may then buy it?, I know I have done that on quite a few occasions. There are many titles I own that I would definitely not have bought blind. While these mentioned practices may have become commonplace for many of us in recent years, could we pay for it in the not too distant future in the form of rushed substandard games? Be really interested to hear peoples comments on this.
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Garin,I wasn't intending to mislead by pulling prices out of my backside,the 360 version of Bulletstorm was showing as £38.99 on Game Collection when I checked prices using the Find-Game price checker earlier and the price I posted was the cheapest listed at that time.That is actually a very good price you found for Bulletstorm there we could use you in the bargain thread! But yes I agree console games may cost a bit more to develop and licencing costs will need to be paid to the console developers.I was never saying that console games should be the same price as their PC counterparts just I think at times the difference can be disproportionate.
Alfonse,extremely good point you made about Steam.Full games available for download on Xbox Live are far more expensive then their retail counterparts which seems ridiculous to me.
Alfonse,extremely good point you made about Steam.Full games available for download on Xbox Live are far more expensive then their retail counterparts which seems ridiculous to me.
If developers want players to pay ludicrous prices for the latest games (despite the fact we all know it will be half the price within 6 months or less), then maybe they should stop making games for the sake of making games.
A prime example are EA Sports with the release of a new FIFA every year. Yes, the game will be slightly different (some would say improved), but I don't think EA should be releasing a brand new title for the hell of it. What's stopping them not releasing FIFA 12 and just updating FIFA 11 right now? Why can't they just release a new title when the new title is made different and majorly improved? That is why the second hand market has a deserved place in gaming. It's the same with Infinity Ward and Treyarch. They release a new Call of Duty every year, because that is what is expected, not because they believe the game is ready. Sadly, there are lots of consumers who get the latest games because they need the latest release. As soon as you release a new game in a series, the value of the previous titles plummet. Second hand gaming - yes please.
A prime example are EA Sports with the release of a new FIFA every year. Yes, the game will be slightly different (some would say improved), but I don't think EA should be releasing a brand new title for the hell of it. What's stopping them not releasing FIFA 12 and just updating FIFA 11 right now? Why can't they just release a new title when the new title is made different and majorly improved? That is why the second hand market has a deserved place in gaming. It's the same with Infinity Ward and Treyarch. They release a new Call of Duty every year, because that is what is expected, not because they believe the game is ready. Sadly, there are lots of consumers who get the latest games because they need the latest release. As soon as you release a new game in a series, the value of the previous titles plummet. Second hand gaming - yes please.
It depresses me how much non-sale Steam games cost, considering the cuts in the costs of distribution.
Cheapest UK online prices? I didnt even have to visit a different site to find Bulletstorm cheaper, the gamecollection want 34.99 for the 360 version. Very easy in this situation to pick prices to tell whatever story you like. And it doesnt tell us anything useful in the end because different retailers have different sources, deals, buying power etc. which skew comparisons.
Anyway, its besides we point we both know PC games are cheaper. Your point seems to be that if a PC game can be this cheap then so can a console game. All I can suggest is that you go look up what a developer has to pay to put out a console game and then remember none of those costs apply to PC games.
Anyway, its besides we point we both know PC games are cheaper. Your point seems to be that if a PC game can be this cheap then so can a console game. All I can suggest is that you go look up what a developer has to pay to put out a console game and then remember none of those costs apply to PC games.
Garin wrote:
Console games are more expensive to make than PC games.
So comparisons are simply misleading especially when you're exaggerating prices differences. ;)
Exaggerating price differences?
Cheapest UK online prices for EA's Bulletstorm :
£19.95 PC Version
£36.85 Xbox 360 (standard) version
There would appear to be a price difference of some £16.90,making the console version just £3 short of being double the price of it's PC counterpart.Perhaps the Xbox 360 version cost nearly double to develop? Somehow I doubt that would have been the case.
Console games are more expensive to make than PC games.
So comparisons are simply misleading especially when you're exaggerating prices differences. ;)
Exaggerating price differences?
Cheapest UK online prices for EA's Bulletstorm :
£19.95 PC Version
£36.85 Xbox 360 (standard) version
There would appear to be a price difference of some £16.90,making the console version just £3 short of being double the price of it's PC counterpart.Perhaps the Xbox 360 version cost nearly double to develop? Somehow I doubt that would have been the case.
Console games are more expensive to make than PC games. So comparisons are simply misleading especially when you're exaggerating prices differences. ;)
Garin wrote:
So in this brave new world, I can go into Game and buy Dead Space 2 for 20 pound instead of 38. Who is going to absorb the 18 pound loss? Its obviously not going to be the retailers given they think the current situation is quite nice.
Point taken Garin but you can buy Dead Space 2 for just over £20 if you're a PC gamer it's just us console owners who are currently being forced to pay what I and many others believe is simply a very inflated price.I agree,some retailers must currently be making a 'quite nice' profit on what they do sell.Problem seems to be (in my view) that it is the fact that console games are so expensive that has allowed to second hand market (and probably the rental market as well) to grow at a rate games developers/distributors are clearly unhappy with (hence the birth of the controversial online pass).CEX who now have a store in just about every major town as well as an online trading facility do not sell anything new at all,hence games developers/distributors currently do not make a penny from anything bought or sold through them.PC gaming has forever had a problem with piracy with last years Call Of Duty : Black Ops being illegally downloaded some 4.3 million times,can't see it's distributor Activision being too pleased with that situation either.Distributors are more than aware of this hence most PC games are usually around the £20 price mark,so why are their console equivalents usually double this price? The second hand market has exploded in recent times with non specialist gaming retailers such as Asda,Tesco,HMV & Argos moving into it.The fact is this is now what consumers want and indeed expect and the argument is that it may be unsustainable as games developers are losing big revenue because of it.But this has all been allowed to happen for one reason and that is that console games are simply too expensive.If the distributors/developers want to curtail this then in my view they need to lower the price of their games and entice more people into buying new.If the retailers lose margin then that's sad but other industries have been forced to work on tighter margins in recent times.The very fact that there are now so many places to offload your games once you are done with them proves that these retailers must be confident of being able to resell them.Why do these retailers not want say second hand paperback books?,because they were cheap to begin with,considered to have little resale value with few waiting to buy them used.
So in this brave new world, I can go into Game and buy Dead Space 2 for 20 pound instead of 38. Who is going to absorb the 18 pound loss? Its obviously not going to be the retailers given they think the current situation is quite nice.
Point taken Garin but you can buy Dead Space 2 for just over £20 if you're a PC gamer it's just us console owners who are currently being forced to pay what I and many others believe is simply a very inflated price.I agree,some retailers must currently be making a 'quite nice' profit on what they do sell.Problem seems to be (in my view) that it is the fact that console games are so expensive that has allowed to second hand market (and probably the rental market as well) to grow at a rate games developers/distributors are clearly unhappy with (hence the birth of the controversial online pass).CEX who now have a store in just about every major town as well as an online trading facility do not sell anything new at all,hence games developers/distributors currently do not make a penny from anything bought or sold through them.PC gaming has forever had a problem with piracy with last years Call Of Duty : Black Ops being illegally downloaded some 4.3 million times,can't see it's distributor Activision being too pleased with that situation either.Distributors are more than aware of this hence most PC games are usually around the £20 price mark,so why are their console equivalents usually double this price? The second hand market has exploded in recent times with non specialist gaming retailers such as Asda,Tesco,HMV & Argos moving into it.The fact is this is now what consumers want and indeed expect and the argument is that it may be unsustainable as games developers are losing big revenue because of it.But this has all been allowed to happen for one reason and that is that console games are simply too expensive.If the distributors/developers want to curtail this then in my view they need to lower the price of their games and entice more people into buying new.If the retailers lose margin then that's sad but other industries have been forced to work on tighter margins in recent times.The very fact that there are now so many places to offload your games once you are done with them proves that these retailers must be confident of being able to resell them.Why do these retailers not want say second hand paperback books?,because they were cheap to begin with,considered to have little resale value with few waiting to buy them used.
So in this brave new world, I can go into Game and buy Dead Space 2 for 20 pound instead of 38. Who is going to absorb the 18 pound loss? Its obviously not going to be the retailers given they think the current situation is quite nice.
Garin wrote:
Lowering price doesnt actually change anything, same problem just with smaller numbers.
In theory that may well be the case but I actually reckon lowering the prices would make quite a bit of a difference.If a game was say £20 on release then far less people would be bothered about waiting a few weeks to pick up a cheap used copy.The used value would also fall accordingly to say around £8.If you bought a recent title that cheap I would think people would pay a reasonable fee (say £6) for an online pass as it would still be good value for money.I believe £40 is just too expensive for an item which you know is going to have seriously depreciated once you have redeemed it's online pass code.As already mentioned I still have not bought EA's Dead Space 2,I'm waiting for a sub £20 used copy.If it would have been somewhere near that price on release I would have bought it new.
Lowering price doesnt actually change anything, same problem just with smaller numbers.
In theory that may well be the case but I actually reckon lowering the prices would make quite a bit of a difference.If a game was say £20 on release then far less people would be bothered about waiting a few weeks to pick up a cheap used copy.The used value would also fall accordingly to say around £8.If you bought a recent title that cheap I would think people would pay a reasonable fee (say £6) for an online pass as it would still be good value for money.I believe £40 is just too expensive for an item which you know is going to have seriously depreciated once you have redeemed it's online pass code.As already mentioned I still have not bought EA's Dead Space 2,I'm waiting for a sub £20 used copy.If it would have been somewhere near that price on release I would have bought it new.
Lowering price doesnt actually change anything, same problem just with smaller numbers.
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