Nymeria said:
Cerebralbore101 said: I wholeheartedly agree with most of the video but one thing is bothering me. The 30% that Valve takes is not less than the cost of putting a game on a shelf at Wal-Mart. Brick and Mortar stores take $10 from the $60 price tag and producing/shipping physical discs costs $5. A 30% take from Valve is $18. I don't think the entire industry is doing lootboxes. Just EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and WB Games. I know those are big names in the industry, but I don't care too much, because the majority of their games don't appeal to me. I'm only really interested in Assassin's Creed, Rayman, Mario x Rabbids, Shadow of Mordor, and Mortal Kombat. In the case of Mario x Rabbids, Nintendo probably won't let Ubisoft ever get greedy, since it's Nintendo's flagship character being represented.
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On PC, but PC market in stores is almost dead outside the biggest games. Compared to consoles a Sony or Microsoft take a cut like Valve does. You also have to think about estimating production and inventory issues. Digital has been a boon for PC games of past decade.
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Sony and MS take a cut of about $10 for console royalties. I completely forgot about that. So yeah we have $18 to put a $60 game up on steam vs $25 to put a game in stores. Unless you are the console owner, since you aren't going to charge yourself royalty fees. This is why Nintendo hasn't gone third party yet. A $60 1st party game from the big N, only has to pay $5 for production/shipping, and $10 to the brick and mortar store. That's a net profit of $45 per game. Meanwhile if you are a third party dev toiling under a publisher with heavy marketing you have a high chance of only seeing $10-$15 per $60 game sale. And your publisher only stands to gain a net profit of $10 per game sale, after the costs of marketing. This is why Lootboxes, and day one DLC have become so common. It's an easy way for greedy publishers to double their profits.
I'm not sure if you've seen the Extra Credit's episode "The JCPenny Effect", but Steam's pricing and sales work like JCPenny's did with clothes. That $60 price tag you see on steam isn't really the real price of the game. It's just there to make your eyes bug out when the game finally goes "on sale".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxfkWZPAUg4
So yeah, that's kind of another argument against the old "the cost of making games is too high" argument. Digital has made the cost of goods sold way cheaper, and increased profit margins for developers. Yet we still see the same old slave labor practices of employers, combined with greedy lootboxes, day one DLC, etc. This is why I refuse to support a game that has predatory day one DLC or lootboxes. There are way better games and companies to choose from. 2017 was an epic year for games, and I won't be missing Shadow of War. Hell, I can barely get through what I've bought this year. Just too many excellent games to be bothered spending even more money on games that ask for more than the normal price tag.