| mirgro said: I am sorry, but if a game spends millions in development, why is it not groundbreaking? If they aren't going to make a groundbreaking game, why waste the huge resources. Your problem is that you think cost justifies price. I am sorry, but in the real world, or at least one with smart consumers not sheep, only the end product dictates the price, and the people making the end product allocate budget according to their selling price. Again, this is their problem don't mine, don't make the consumer pay for it. I also see that you amde the error that a modern masterpiece is measured among it's contemporaries. That is not how it works. Seeing how I can still play SC, or DE, or XCOM, or any other game, their are still very much counted towards measuring the cost. I don't understand why you don't count them as contemporaries, when they were made just 10 years ago, more like 18 for XCOM, but you get my point. I am sorry, all SC2 is SC with some units switched out and new ones switched in and the others tweaked a little bit. Add snazzy graphics and voila. It is not groundbreaking, but I'd still put it at about $50 solely because of its polish. However asking for $60 is just greedy and a very bastardly way to go about things. This game is not even close to being as great as Half-Life, Starcraft, Deus Ex, X-Com, etc. etc. In fact as sequels go, it doesn't even have as much improved territory as Diablo2 did to Diablo. A raise in price of Diablo 2 over DIablo would have been much more deserved than SC2. Finally, I am not making judgements, I am just reading what you said. You said that time, cost, and resources need to be taken into account of the price point, which to me means that a big budget somehow justifies a higher price point than something that hasn't waisted as many resources. It is exactly what you are saying. If you still believe otherwise, I think you are suffering from some very severe cognitive dissonance. |
You are stuck on things being "groundbreaking." Guess what? Most of the time, massive successes are something that takes an existing formula, and polishes it to perfection. Games like the first StarCraft, or Halo:CE didn't need to invent all sorts of new mechanics for their genre - they implemented various things others had done - and did it best. And they were amazing for it.
As for speaking of contemporaries, 10+ years was almost 2 generations ago from a video game perspective. Everything has changed. Yes, you can still play SC today, but you're playing a 640x480(ONLY resolution) game without a dozen of the (not critical) advancements we've grown accustomed to in RTS games since then.
SC2 is SC updated, there's no question - but for those of us that were StarCraft fans, it's exactly what we wanted. If Blizzard had decided to push the envelope on the basic multiplayer, a lot more diehards would be unhappy. That said, we're only talking about the basic multiplayer - and you're judging the game on that alone. Have you even read what SC2 is bringing tot he table? From all accounts, the new editor is likely to be groundbreaking, and what you can do with it is completey unmatched in RTS games. A year or more ago they demonstrated being able to easily change perspective ont he maps and create a third person shooter experience as a single unit. You like to toss around words like "sheep", but you need to glance at history. How many times has blizzard released a major game, and not made it absolutely blow everything around it out of the water?
And to clarify, I'm saying putting massive resources into a game can justify them raising the price. HOWEVER, I never stated that it's justified in any circumstance. If a company blows a fortune developing a steaming pile, then guess what? it won't sell at any price, and they will tank. However, if they spend a fortune(and a great deal of time) creating a masterpeice, and they want to charge an extra $10, that's fine. I mean, you call them greedy, but look at blizzard -nearly every other company, once they had a hit like SC would be making releases every couple years to cash in. They released one solid exp, and then waited an age, and put matchless work and polish into their sequel. And you want to criminalize them for it. Somehow, this is worse then them making slight updates and releasing unneeded sequels every other year? They maintain their high quality by releasing games only when they're perfect - and we're better off for it. And quite frankly, considering how much replayability we get, so are our wallets.
