The Video Game Industry

Think of it as saving $60 every however-long

Edited by Reflextion on Nov 4th 2022 at 8:39:01 AM

The fucking balls of Sony to increase the price of triple A to 70 then increase console prices should not be understated.

Considering how long that price point had been on 60 dollars, and how expensive these triple A titles have gotten to make, the price increased was justified, if annoying.

I don't think people realize how weird it is that games have a set price point like that anyway. That sure doesn't happen with movies or books.

Does the expense get you value for the price though? As consumers we're paying for entertainment value not production costs . Maybe its just my steam page but it seems like relatively simple games like Minecraft or Rimword get more hours of entertainment for cost than AAA games right now

Edited by Gaiazun on Nov 5th 2022 at 2:18:09 AM

That is a rather subjective definition. An average movie ticket costs $11 USD for an average two hours. By that metric any game sold at $70 USD with 12 or more hours is good value. However that is a pretty poor way to define value.

I'll say that game developers deserve to be appropriately rewarded for their time and effort. I'm happy to pay $70 for a 10 hour game if it's good and the developers are compensated fairly and were not mistreated or crunched to make it.

It's a fairly complex issue. I very rarely buy those games for full price, instead waiting for sales or just getting games which are always cheaper. However, the studios do need to earn a certain amount of money to be financially succesful. However, a high price doesn't necessarily guarantee everyone involved actually will be compensated fairly.

Right, it's complicated, and I would find it hard to determine what any game is actually worth paying for. Especially since it is something rather intangible, unlike, say, a phone.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 5th 2022 at 12:10:38 PM

It would be easier to accept if the people actually making the games either got raises or were allowed to take longer at the same pay rate. As is, it seems like the money is just being added to the “straight to the execs” fund.

And then there's the fact that some games are expensive because of production issues, such as restarting the project multiple times. To me the price increase seems like a way to make the customers pay for any and all production issues.

I have to admit, I’m also skeptical of the argument that games have to be so expensive because game development is so expensive.

Like I said, the increased costs to us don’t make their way to the actual devs.

I haven't been buying as many games as I used to because I'm not a fan of the model of "release it bare bones with little content and add more via updates." I know that isn't a problem exclusive to Nintendo, but they're the one I associate it with. I'll gladly take delays if it means the game feels more complete at launch.

If you'd recall a few years ago, there was some controversy around the soundtrack of Doom Eternal- the game's initial composer, Mick Gordon, expressed a lot of frustration over the entire creation process for the game's OST and how difficult id Software and Bethesda were to work with. The game's producer, Marty Stratton, argued against this and argued any difficulties were on Gordon's end instead.

This morning, Gordon posted to Twitter a link to a rather lengthy blogpost detailing pretty much everything that happened during his time with Eternal and proof of a lot of his allegations, while saying that Stratton's statements before have hurt his reputation in the industry. Among new details include that the game already had an alternative OST ready to go in case Gordon didn't agree to mix it for the Collector's Edition, that Gordon wasn't paid for half the soundtrack (since a lot of stuff he was told was being thrown out got used anyways), and that id Software offered to pay Gordon six-figure sums to go under a NDA about his entire time working with them.

He also stresses very heavily this is a defense of himself and not meant to be an attack, so not that anyone here needs to hear it but... no witchhunts.

Edited by NesClassic on Nov 9th 2022 at 11:53:43 AM

Compared to the Platinum and Helena Taylor situation, I can all too easily believe that Zenimax and Bethesda would deliberately go out of their way to screw Gordon over as they have a history of corporate fuckery, even without Gordon providing plenty of hard receipts of his mistreatment.

Honestly, I've always suspected something was fishy with the way Stratton tried to portray Mick Gordon as a Small Name, Big Ego since the beginning.

Edited by AlleyOop on Nov 9th 2022 at 3:48:51 PM

Even if Stratton's claims about Gordon were truthful it doesn't do anything to address or deny Gordon saying he had to deal with Executive Meddling either. And that was just the story before now; crunch, unpaid dues, using proof-of-concept work without his permission- it's the whole kit and caboodle of game industry issues.

Edited by NesClassic on Nov 9th 2022 at 8:03:11 AM

Yep. There is a reason we all believed Hellena at first.

Unrelated, but a topic I wanna discuss about open world games:

So I played Sonic Frontiers for a few hours and it just wasn’t clicking with me, and I think my issue lays with most open world games:

I think developers tend to focus more on how big they can make the sandbox but forget to fill it with stuff to do. And also not pointing you to where important story stuff is. I’ve noticed that GTA is the only open world game I actually like and I think it’s because they fill their sandboxes with stuff to do and they mark where story missions are so you don’t end up meandering.

TBF, Sonic Frontiers does mark story objectives like the Chaos Emeralds. I think most open or semi-open games I've played (BOTW, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Super Mario Odyssey, etc.) have some kind of compass system for main story objectives.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Nov 10th 2022 at 10:48:21 AM

GTA maps post-III have their own fair share of map filler (rolling hills, dessert and mountains, mostly), so I don't think those should be off the hook either. V is particularly bad with huge stretches of empty mountains in the north.

I count Odyssey as a collect-a-thon more than an open world sandbox. Plus Moons are plentiful so you aren’t meandering around.

I don’t really notice the filler areas as I’m driving past them too quickly or I’m in them as part of a mission.

To be fair, the V map is really showing its age in how bare and barren those hills and mountains are. Even Odyssey far outshines that one, and Odyssey is pretty old at this point too.

Yeah.

I’m also thinking of the GTA IV map and that has no filler areas AFAIK.

The big areas of filler may well be due to technical limitations.

Computers, including consoles, have finite RAM, and can only hold so much data at a time. Putting an empty area between two intense areas means that, as the player moves through the empty area, the CPU can be loading the data for the next intense area.

This school of design happens all over the place. Metroidvanias, for example, often put empty corridors between the big, important rooms so that the CPU can load the corridor quickly, and then fetch the data for the big room while the player is walking through the corridor. If they didn't, they might have to resort to a loading screen, and well remember how annoying those are.

Metroid Prime has a similar effect with their doors and some corridors. When you shoot a door, sometimes it might take a bit for the game to load the next room, so the door won't open until it's ready. It also has the corridors that either just there to waste time so the next area loads before you reach the door or it's filled with enemies to keep you busy for the same reason.

I remember having very rare occasions where the game would freeze trying to load the next area.

Edited by Steven on Nov 11th 2022 at 4:14:41 AM

Mass effect's space elevators say hi

Excuse me while my game makes me shuffle slide into a small crevice so I can slowly move to the other side….