I find this extremely interesting, Epic are one of the companies held up as an example of the industry embracing the concept of the app store and everything it entails, and here we are with someone from Epic saying they hate the idea of these cheap games just as much...
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What's wrong Epic? That egine of yours a bit pricey now?
If you're scared of dollar games you should be worried. You're competing with them in the same way the Ritz hotel is competing with McDonalds...
People need to quit hating on Epic for verbalizing the fear that every developer has. Why are people so quick to spread negativity about every game, system and developer out there?? Geez.
Anyway, more expensive games will always survive as long as the developers give the gamer reason to put out the extra money. This is why a 50,000$ Lexus still sells well when there are also 015-20K cars out there and the reason why expensive resaturants still do well when there are cheap fast food restaurants out there. You get what you pay for.
| greenmedic88 said: The question of production value comes into play here; whether the production value that requires a $60 price to recoup development costs is sustainable to the consumer base playing these games. If general interest ever shifts towards mobile games (majority share of market) then the current business plan of spending two years worth of a full developer studio's resources on a major budget game suddenly becomes questionable. Would there still be a market for these games? Of course. But the question is whether the market for such games would still be large enough to sell enough units to recoup costs and justify further development of such projects to whoever was financing the studio. If not, budgets shrink, projects become less ambitious and the focus may shift away from production values to profitability. Titles like Heavenly Sword and Enslaved come to mind when it comes to examples of games that clearly had big production value, yet were often measured by consumers on the basic merit of length in regards to whether they merited a $60 purchase and underperformed financially as a result. The question doesn't come into play as often (paying for production value as opposed to duration of entertainment hours/minutes), but when looking at something like film, a movie that cost less than $1m to produce still has the same ticket price as a film with a $100m budget at the same theater showing both films. In many cases in the gaming industry, there are titles that try to sneak a $60 full retail price for a game that clearly does not have the same production value/cost/man hours as say a AAA title priced the same. That's something that definitely won't be sustainable if the trend to mobile games continues. |
I had to edit this down somewhere, because I did want to reference it, but not list it all. It touched on a point I was going to raise here. The videogame industry keeps wanting to think it is, or wants to be, the movie industry, because it is doing total sales BOXOFFICE that match what the movie theater is. The issue it is running into is that it doesn't have box office to recover its costs, so it ends up being even more hit-driven than the movie industry. Because it insists on thinking it can budget like the movie industry, and try to put the same level of production value into games, it is going to run into issues.
Games DO NOT need the same level of production value to be entertaining. People can do $1 disposable games, and generate enough money for developers to keep going. They won't be able to hire voice actors for their games, or writers to produce scripts, but they can do an Angry Bird or a board or cardgame, or a puzzle game, and people be entertained by it.
The industry is learning that, for the most part, they can't be trying to make movies, with the same production value, and expect to guarantee staying in business. They can think more about doing games... that are games. If they don't, look for more Enslaved type titles to pop up, or Brutal Legends. You will get fans of the game posting on here wondering why millions aren't buying the title, and wondering why something like Mass Effect doesn't do 5 million plus in total sales. There isn't enough money out there to support $60 a pop titles to the degree the industry would like. End result is that studios will die, if they keep doing what they are doing.
| ghaleon1980 said: People need to quit hating on Epic for verbalizing the fear that every developer has. Why are people so quick to spread negativity about every game, system and developer out there?? Geez. Anyway, more expensive games will always survive as long as the developers give the gamer reason to put out the extra money. This is why a 50,000$ Lexus still sells well when there are also 015-20K cars out there and the reason why expensive resaturants still do well when there are cheap fast food restaurants out there. You get what you pay for. |
This doesn't mean the people have the money for it. Even if they give reasons, the budgets of people are limited, due to the economy. You will have a number of AAA titles in quality bombing miserably, because people can't afford to pay what the industy wants to charge, to recover their costs. The more expensive games would survive, if there is less of them. Eventually, people have to say no, and they wait until things get to clearance level prices. If the people on the whole decide they will do this, then the industry will have problems on its hands. It will need to rethink its budgets.
| fps_d0minat0r said: if epic are scared of 99 cent games, that says a lot about them. |
You do realze every single large scale game developer has said this?
Sony and Nintendo themselves have stated word for word the 99 cent and small app games are a major threat to all hardcore large scale gameing.
So if it says alot about Epic, tell me what does it say about Sony and Nintendo?
THis dude mad cause his Bulletstorm went tits up, moral of the story?? dont talk crap. but seriously it will be alright people will keep on getting the 60 dollar games as long as they want
| oniyide said: THis dude mad cause his Bulletstorm went tits up, moral of the story?? dont talk crap. but seriously it will be alright people will keep on getting the 60 dollar games as long as they want |
Epic also sells graphic engines for AAA titles, so that is another concern they have. If games that are 99 cent deals, and provide entertainment in 2D for folks, like Angry Birds, what do they need Epic for to provide them a 3D engine?
BenVTrigger said:
Sony and Nintendo themselves have stated word for word the 99 cent and small app games are a major threat to all hardcore large scale gameing. So if it says alot about Epic, tell me what does it say about Sony and Nintendo? |
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/260121/news/sony-mocks-iphone-in-psp-ad/
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