Yossarian wrote:At Gav: Not googling all of those, but Nier has apparently sold 1.5m copies according to Wikipedia, which doesn’t sound like a lot to me. Perhaps it has been profitable, perhaps not, but it is published by Squeenix who are getting money from MTs in a FF online game if I’m not mistaken?
Yossarian wrote:I thought you’d prefer no games either way around?
Yossarian wrote:Thought I’d move this here:Yes and no. We’re all aware of the fact that budgets for games these days are huge compared to what they were 30 years ago, we’re also aware that the sticker price on new games has barely shifted in those 30 years, failing to even move with inflation. Obviously there’s a larger market now, but I’m not sure that it’s increased by enough to offset the above. Devs have got to eat.poprock wrote:Yes, because we live in a capitalist society. I get where you’re coming from, but correlation is not causation in this case. Businesses are always looking for more ways to make more profit, especially large ones and ones with shareholders.Yossarian wrote:There’s a reason why they were searching for extra revenue streams in the first place.
Not a transcript but I watched it.Yossarian wrote:If anyone can find a transcript of that Sterling vid, I’ll give it a read.
There's no point where a company that makes money (particularly Bad Guy EA) looks at its revenues and thinks 'ok that's enough'. Being the most successful company in the world didn't stop MS nickel and diming in the 90s or Apple doing similar today.Yossarian wrote:That’s all fair, but let’s not pretend that all of the other stuff that’s added on isn’t a response to the same issue: users not wanting a higher sticker price, nor should we pretend that people don’t complain about those things either. And yes, the technological arms race is a thing, but arguably we wouldn’t be looking at a billion dollar industry without it. If games still looked like they did back in the 16 bit era, I can’t imagine them gaining the sort of mainstream acceptance that they have. Plus, I like the shinies.
It's a dirty business. Maybe there isn't room for any. In my book, devs that just get on and make a good game as a complete experience, release it and then get on with the next one. The player just buys it once and their level of enjoyment is completely dependent on the talent and hard work of the devs.Verecocha wrote:I love the whole nice guys vs bad guys in game dev world. If EA are the bad guys, out of interest who are the perceived good?
This isn't fact. It came from low-budget mobile games. Production costs have been used to defend every bit of money-grubbing behaviour going back to horse amour. It's got to be greed sometimes hasn't it? Or just wrong priorities. Don't put Kevin Spacey in your game if it means I have to pay for more maps.Yossarian wrote:There’s truth to the point about companies wanting to make more money, but the fact is that the impetus to start exploring these have come because of the need to cover bigger budgets. I don’t believe that there are dev teams out there who would rather be spending their time working on MT economies than improving the game. People aren’t drawn into the industry due to that. Clearly, there might be pressure being put on by publishers, but the dev team need only look at all the mid to large studios that have shuttered over the past few years to see the strength of the argument. And if you think that the existence of lootboxes in triple A games are so egregious that you would rather not buy the game than simply ignore the MTs, that’s entirely up to you. I’m with you as far as something being pay to play goes, but that’s not been my experience of MTs in the games I’ve been playing, they’ve been optional extras which I’ve opted not to pay for. It hasn’t affected my gaming, and it seems like I’m not alone looking at how these things have been selling.
monkey wrote:If high production costs drive revuenue by making the game more marketable, why do the costs need to be covered by in-game slot machines?
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