By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
wombat123 on 30 June 2016
Edit Thread
DonFerrari said:
wombat123 said:

No, I assume that a lot AAA companies to do it if they know their game is derivitive as a safety net to ensure that their game sells.   (I had something here about review embargos but I am going to assume Nintendo also does them).  As as example, there are rumors that Nintendo is seen as company that just gives their games to game reviewers without strings attached or threats to remove ad revenue if they don't play ball like a lot of AAA companies are rumored to do.  As for how much a company pours into a game, I don't care as long as I'm having fun and I get my money's worth. If a game makes 1B in revenue with only a 20m investment, it just means that they goddamn know what the hell they're doing or they got really lucky. 

In the case of development costs determining the cost of a game; I see that more as a publisher decision.  If the market doesn't agree with the publisher's opinion that their game is worth 60 bucks then no one is going to buy it until it's discounted.   If people are willing to spend 60 bucks on a small budget game, then that means it must be a good game and if you're not willing to spend that kind of money, then buy it used, wait for a sale or don't buy it.  As for me, I'm not going to begrudge a developer because they were inventive and smart enough to come up with a low budget game idea that millions people were willing to spend the same amount on as a game with a 150m budget.

As for what companies do with their profits; that's their business.  I'd personally agree with you in that I'd love for Nintendo to double their internal development staff with their Wii money, but it's not my money: it's theirs.  But just like it's their business, they'll have to deal with the consequences if they make the wrong decision with those profits just like any other company -- like Nintendo did with the Wii U.

What you buy and how much you pay for it is your business.

You know how much sense would make to think ... well this game development cost 20M, but it's a little generic and probably would sell only 1M (having like 10M profit, or 50% over the investiment) so let's toss 100M at it and expect to sell at least 5M to break even make? Makes zero sense, so it's just your opinion that the game is derivative and they tossed money at it to cover it. ok.

Value and cost are two different things with not much of a connection. But expecting to find it normal that a game costing 2% of the revenue they are making as acceptable as a customer is quite crazy.

And you know why I'm certain it's crazy? Because about every customer complain about things being too expensive and the company is only getting 3-10% margin, so I'm pretty sure it's senseless to say 80% margin is reasonable.

No it isn't their money. It's your money that you gave then for their product. If you as customer think they should be doing things different than you shouldn't be giving they your money or you are only enforcing what they are doing. It's the endless cicle in videogames, gamers complain at what a company is doing or about a game but end buying it anyway. Do you think the company is going to care about the complains? Hell no.

In my opinion -- development and advertising budgets in general have gotten out of hand.  I see it as a snowball effect of companies wanting to have their own CoD or GTA franchise that sells a ton but not wanting to try anything new or unique in that investment and risk losing money, so they go for tried and tested formulas for low risk investments and try to differentiate themselves by investing in graphics, voice acting and marketing -- because it's a formula that's been proven to work.  That's not to say that all AAA games take this approach but a lot of them do -- in my opinion.

And yes, it is their money.  After you give them your money for their game and don't return their game, it's their money.  If they want to piss it away, that's their business but if they do so, they'll ruin their relationship with their customers and quickly go out of business.  As for if a company is going to care about customer complaints?  Yes -- if it affects their profits.  Hell, companies caring too much about customer opinions is one of the bigger problems we currently have because of a minority of virtue signaler SJWs trying to speak for the majority of gamers and insert their politics into games.

Paying full price for a low budget game may not be acceptable to many consumers but milllions of people still do it when it comes to a lot of those  games because they've determined that the game itself is worth 60 dollars -- same way people spend 60 dollars on derivitive (in my opinion) AAA titles and determine it's worth their money.  You say everyone complains about certain low budget games being too expensive but apparently not enough of them put their money where their mouths are for those companies to lower their prices.   You say that a game costing 2% of the revenue they are making is crazy but then you look at a company like Apple and what they charge for their products or Nike and what they charge for their shoes and it just all comes down to what the market determines something should cost.  Just because you and people you know in real life and on online forums think that's not acceptable isn't going to stop them from charging what they charge as long as people still buy it at their asking price.