Switch physical sales vs digital

[Tanooki]

Because they work with a far smaller budget so they don't have to charge as much to break even and get on top of that. A simple $10-20 buy online, say Axiom Verge for one (it costs in there doesn't it?) is made by 1 guy by himself and did this around his real life job for fun. Within around 5 years of very part time work he got that done, then got it greenlit for online PC sales and console download through submission to hardware makers. All this was him from the get go. One guys pay check even if you valued it at say part time $5000/yr worth of work, over 5 years that's $25000 + whatever the expenses are to get Steam, Sony, MS and Nintendo to take your licensing fees, submission costs, and the rest to get graced with a download presence. Let's make this up, say it rounded up to $30000.

 

Now you look at something like a Call of Duty game. The budget on that is probably $5-10M dollars, and has around a 100 people from development to pressing/shipping the junk to retail outlets who buy them to sell to you. Which one do you think they need to sell astronomically more copies of to stay in the profit? That's why call of duty doesn't cost $20, but $60 and why a small indie devr can charge $5, $10, $20 for a game and make a tidy sum off it to pay their bills and roll into their next pet project.

 

And if you think typing up a basic text manual using the generic fonts and some screen captured images from the game into the system manual menu is no difference in production or expense you're a bigger fool than I thought, same on box art. You really do need to go do some research and some basic school level reading up on what it takes to produce a physical game from the developers little computers, to the end point of sale when you walk in (or click on amazon) to buy it. It adds up and it's sad you're too intentionally blind or thick to get that.

[Mord]

Keep in mind that big budget games like Call of Duty also seem pretty bad at budgeting and spend a large portion of their budget just on marketing to trick people into wanting to rebuy a new iteration of the game. What's really changed in a lot of current gen games anyway? They look better? That's basically the devs making the same 3d meshes but using a higher resolution while they do it. It really shouldn't be drastically increasing the costs of production like people like to claim. (Lord knows they're saving enough on gutting the quality assurance departments and using end consumers for beta testers. )

 

I can't say I've seen much in innovative game mechanics with the current gen outside of that - even music at times takes a hit with being generic and forgettable in nature. Having the system keep track of and displaying 100 enemies at the same time, all doing the same basic actions, rather than 20 isn't changing the game mechanics. (And with all the instances of brain-dead AI I've seen in some PC releases the last few years...)

 

At the end of the day the big name publishers have shareholders to please. That's pretty much the driving force for the higher and higher price tag. That and "Because we can."

 

 

*edit* Ok, I suppose one place I've seen extensive innovation in has been the creative ways employed to add micro transactions and DLC. That's not a plus however.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Mord

[bojay1997]

Keep in mind that big budget games like Call of Duty also seem pretty bad at budgeting and spend a large portion of their budget just on marketing to trick people into wanting to rebuy a new iteration of the game. What's really changed in a lot of current gen games anyway? They look better? That's basically the devs making the same 3d meshes but using a higher resolution while they do it. It really shouldn't be drastically increasing the costs of production like people like to claim. (Lord knows they're saving enough on gutting the quality assurance departments and using end consumers for beta testers. )

 

I can't say I've seen much in innovative game mechanics with the current gen outside of that - even music at times takes a hit with being generic and forgettable in nature. Having the system keep track of and displaying 100 enemies at the same time, all doing the same basic actions, rather than 20 isn't changing the game mechanics. (And with all the instances of brain-dead AI I've seen in some PC releases the last few years...)

 

At the end of the day the big name publishers have shareholders to please. That's pretty much the driving force for the higher and higher price tag. That and "Because we can."

 

 

*edit* Ok, I suppose one place I've seen extensive innovation in has been the creative ways employed to add micro transactions and DLC. That's not a plus however.

 

Not sure where you're getting this from and I'm guessing you don't actually play a lot of franchise games. While there is some reuse of game engines and occasionally even some graphic elements, there is also a lot that's brand new every single year in big franchise games. People wouldn't buy these huge franchise games at $60+ if they were literally just getting a reskinned experience each year. Like the other guy, you obviously don't understand how budgets work and how much time and effort actually goes into making modern games work. If you want to get a basic handle on the costs, I would suggest reading a piece the team behind Skullgirls did three years ago explaining what it really costs to do something that sounds cheap and easy like creating a single new character in an already designed fighting game. Frankly, these arguments about modern games being repackaged garbage are getting tired and just reflect the views of people who haven't even bothered to play modern games to know what it is they are arguing about.

[Mord]

People wouldn't buy these huge franchise games at $60+ if they were literally just getting a reskinned experience each year.

 

You're obviously excluding certain sports franchises!

[bojay1997]

 

You're obviously excluding certain sports franchises!

 

Actually I'm not. There are significant new features added every year. It has been quite a while since EA just did a quick stats update. Madden this year has an entire story mode which is a first.