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Forums - Gaming - Do on-line and Used check-ins mark the end of gaming?

NiKKoM on 24 May 2013
Zkuq said:

The thing is, games cost a lot already and gamers have only so much money to spend on games. Trying to monetize the market won't suddenly increase that amount of money. I'm sure it'll increase that amount a bit but not I'm also sure it won't be very much, at least compared to the current situation. If games cost more, people will buy less games.

This isn't an issue of gamers not spending enough on games, this is an issue of publishers spending too much on developing and marketing games. Those marketing budgets are huge, even bigger than development budgets and even those are huge.

No they don't.. games are historicly at their cheapest



Games back then cost a lot less to develop than they do now, but they cost a lot more for the consumer..  creating more healthy income for the developer then nowadays with this consumers are spending less cause inflation didn't kick in and budgets are up.. something has to be done right now or we will be playing facebook games for the rest of our lives.. and this is one way.. sure it's not the second hand games fault.. but they have to try to monetize that because the final option would be 100 dollar new games..



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

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Dark_Lord_2008 on 24 May 2013

A huge win to corporations in terms of maximising profits but a huge loss and no choice to consumers. I may not even buy an 8th generation console- period. Used games make up over half of my game library and quite frankly most games are not worth paying full retail price. Used games are recycling and help keep game stores in business.



SvennoJ on 24 May 2013
NiKKoM said:
Zkuq said:

The thing is, games cost a lot already and gamers have only so much money to spend on games. Trying to monetize the market won't suddenly increase that amount of money. I'm sure it'll increase that amount a bit but not I'm also sure it won't be very much, at least compared to the current situation. If games cost more, people will buy less games.

This isn't an issue of gamers not spending enough on games, this is an issue of publishers spending too much on developing and marketing games. Those marketing budgets are huge, even bigger than development budgets and even those are huge.

No they don't.. games are historicly at their cheapest

Games back then cost a lot less to develop than they do now, but they cost a lot more for the consumer..  creating more healthy income for the developer then nowadays with this consumers are spending less cause inflation didn't kick in and budgets are up.. something has to be done right now or we will be playing facebook games for the rest of our lives.. and this is one way.. sure it's not the second hand games fault.. but they have to try to monetize that because the final option would be 100 dollar new games..

Retail/digital revenue is still 50% up compared to 1992, adjusted for inflation.
It's rapidly shrinking now though. Raising prices or making sales less atractive (by blocking used games and sharing/lending) when sales are declining is not a good idea.


Throwing bigger budgets to games and marketing and target it to the largest crowd possible is not sustainable. Going back to a model where a few 100k sales is a success sounds good to me. More variety instead of chasing the one game fits all model more and more people are getting tired of.



mibuokami on 24 May 2013
mike_intellivision said:
I certainly think that PC gamers -- who are used to technology advances rendering their games virtually unplayable -- will not see this as an issue.

I certainly think that those who play older systems and collect older systems will be apt to ignore restrictive systems.

There's plently of ways to play old PC games on newer OS.

Sure you go through some hoops but the beauty of being on a PC is the fact that a game like Heroes of Might and Magic or Freespace can still be enjoyed 15 years later.




Zkuq on 24 May 2013
NiKKoM said:
Zkuq said:

The thing is, games cost a lot already and gamers have only so much money to spend on games. Trying to monetize the market won't suddenly increase that amount of money. I'm sure it'll increase that amount a bit but not I'm also sure it won't be very much, at least compared to the current situation. If games cost more, people will buy less games.

This isn't an issue of gamers not spending enough on games, this is an issue of publishers spending too much on developing and marketing games. Those marketing budgets are huge, even bigger than development budgets and even those are huge.

No they don't.. games are historicly at their cheapest



Games back then cost a lot less to develop than they do now, but they cost a lot more for the consumer..  creating more healthy income for the developer then nowadays with this consumers are spending less cause inflation didn't kick in and budgets are up.. something has to be done right now or we will be playing facebook games for the rest of our lives.. and this is one way.. sure it's not the second hand games fault.. but they have to try to monetize that because the final option would be 100 dollar new games..

Maybe single games are relatively cheaper than they used to be but I imagine most people also buy more games these days than in 1992 because of that. There's just so much more choice and more worthwhile games. And either way, $60 is a lot for a single game and people perceive it as being expensive and if they think it's expensive, they'll definitely think twice before buying their next game which is not helped by higher prices. Overall, I don't think this is the way to help gaming industry. The current model is unstainable and needs to be changed. Each generation brings development costs higher and the currend model doesn't seem to allow for much more growth in terms of sales. I also doubt this second-hand thing is going to change that enough in the long term.