Paid content in videogames (DLC, loot boxes, passes, currencies, "surprise mechanics" and - new! - pay more or wait!)

The AAA game business model is broken but they're not going to fix it by increasing prices further and further.

Moggy wrote:Inflation wise, games probably should be £80ish. The £40 price point was there in the '90s.

But, there are very few games now where there aren't loads of other costs added on. £20-£30 for a season pass (sometimes more than 1!) and/or extra costs for extra characters/clothes/weapons etc.

So they can strawberry float off.

I agree with the gist of your thinking, Moggy, but I'm a little hesitant to take that "£40 in the 90s" price point as the sole check point. Publishers love doing that as the price point then was very expensive. But... how about we also take the £1.99 price point of 1985 (8-bit home computers), the £8.95 point of the same era (8-bit home computers) and the £19.95 point of the early 90s (16-bit home computers). They are, respectively, £5.89, £26.51 and £41.96 in today's values. In addition, then we had a cartridge, a case, a manual and the factors of delivery and retail mark-up; much of which has gone today.*

Equally, the gaming market is massively bigger today, with - often - millions of copies sold rather than thousands. I'd rather we had, say, less detailed and accurate cloud movement and weather systems in FORZA than further increasing game costs. £70 a game is, IMHO, pretty crazy and - as you point out! - there are often extra costs on top of that, with additional content, "deluxe" editions and online fees.

* Albeit platform/storefront holders take a huge circa 30% of the sale price. Perhaps that should be a lot lower!

jawa_ wrote:

Moggy wrote:Inflation wise, games probably should be £80ish. The £40 price point was there in the '90s.

But, there are very few games now where there aren't loads of other costs added on. £20-£30 for a season pass (sometimes more than 1!) and/or extra costs for extra characters/clothes/weapons etc.

So they can strawberry float off.

I agree with the gist of your thinking, Moggy, but I'm a little hesitant to take that "£40 in the 90s" price point as the sole check point. Publishers love doing that as the price point then was very expensive. But... how about we also take the £1.99 price point of 1985 (8-bit home computers), the £8.95 point of the same era (8-bit home computers) and the £19.95 point of the early 90s (16-bit home computers). They are, respectively, £5.89, £26.51 and £41.96 in today's values. In addition, then we had a cartridge, a case, a manual and the factors of delivery and retail mark-up; much of which has gone today.*

Equally, the gaming market is massively bigger today, with - often - millions of copies sold rather than thousands. I'd rather we had, say, less detailed and accurate cloud movement and weather systems in FORZA than further increasing game costs. £70 a game is, IMHO, pretty crazy and - as you point out! - there are often extra costs on top of that, with additional content, "deluxe" editions and online fees.

* Albeit platform/storefront holders take a huge circa 30% of the sale price. Perhaps that should be a lot lower!

Yes, but a 1980s game was knocked up in a few hours by a kid in their bedroom.

It's not really comparable to the huge teams it requires to make a modern AAA game.

But I am not supporting £80 prices. Merely pointing out that £80 is the equivalent of a Megadrive/SNES price point. But the Megadrive/SNES didn't continuously charge you for extra after extra.

Eurogamer wrote:From 4pm PST on 5th December this year, however, player-to-player trading will be removed from the game. Explaining the change in a post to its website, Psyonix - which was acquired by Epic Games in 2019 - insisted this would align Rocket League with Epic's "overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies, where items aren't tradable, transferrable, or sellable."

This is Rocket League. Right now players can trade items with each other; selling off bits that they don't want and getting bits that they do. Excellent!

Epic are finally gonna stop this and apparently it's due to "policies". Strawbin' pony!

I saw that report yesterday. It's extremely transparent why they're doing that.

Tomous wrote:I saw that report yesterday. It's extremely transparent why they're doing that.

Yeah, this is pretty bad for consumers overall. The reason I don't completely hate the cosmetics in CSGO/CS2 is the fact that people can sell them between each other and make a little bit of money back. Epic just don't want people making any money unless it's them.

Qikz wrote:

Tomous wrote:I saw that report yesterday. It's extremely transparent why they're doing that.

Yeah, this is pretty bad for consumers overall. The reason I don't completely hate the cosmetics in CSGO/CS2 is the fact that people can sell them between each other and make a little bit of money back. Epic just don't want people making any money unless it's them.

But valve are taking a cut of every transaction, and it's exactly this facility that allows skin gambling websites to function, leading kids into some pretty horrendous territory getting involved in real money gambling. Valve are fully aware, and choose not to do anything about it. Just as scummy as Epic if not more so.

Eurogamer wrote:Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav has outlined the company's plans to transform its biggest gaming franchises from traditional console and PC releases into "always on" live service games.

Warner Bros wrote:"Ultimately we want to drive engagement and monetisation of longer cycles and at higher levels," he continued. "We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post purchase revenue."

That comment sounds so robotic; almost like AI-generated words to convey extreme income.

Ubisoft is apparently testing in-game ads during gameplay on older Assassin’s creed titles to promote their Black Friday sale -

twitter.com/Fab_XS_/status/1727800156077060156

Monkey Man wrote:Ubisoft is apparently testing in-game ads during gameplay on older Assassin’s creed titles...

Oh, boy.

> "£50 for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£50 and expansions for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£50 and expansions and micro-transactions for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£50 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£60 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£60 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£60 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes for our games just isn't enough!"
> "£60 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes and battle passes for our games just isn't enough!
> "£60 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes and battle passes and two editions for our games just isn't enough!
> "£70 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes and battle passes and two editions for our games just isn't enough!
> "£70 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes and battle passes and three editions for our games just isn't enough!
> "£70 and expansions and micro-transactions and currencies and loot boxes and season passes and battle passes and three editions and in-game advertising for our games just isn't enough!

Man, I need to go out and buy some Lightspeed Briefs

Guys, it's okay! Adverts were only appearing in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games because of a "technical error" that has been "addressed".

.

Now GRcade has a man on the inside of Ubisoft, we can expect in-game adverts to be full of shitting on tits.

twitter.com/GIBiz/status/1729105451412083192

Recently bought Disgaea 7 and did a double take when I saw the day 1 DLC was over 80 quid.

also saw the price of the cosmetic DLC for Witchspring R (a port of an indie mobile game) which was around £8 for an outfit for the playable character

Ironhide wrote:also saw the price of the cosmetic DLC for Witchspring R (a port of an indie mobile game)

I had missed the thing about Mortal Kombat 1 having a ten-dollar DLC containing a twenty-second animation sequence.

Thankfully Stephanie made this vid and not only have I now become aware but I laughed at both the "paytality" ( ) line and the super end-of-video song. Hee-Hee! Strawb these strawbers!

Epic have rolled back some of the highest transaction costs in their new Rocket Racing game within the Fortnite platform.

Some cars were £27.99 each (!) and now they're "only" £17.49 each.

Push Square wrote:Don’t worry if you already splashed out on any of these cars, as you’ll be refunded the difference within a week. Looking at the replies to the release’s communication, fans are much happier with these new prices, so it’s good that it’s course corrected so quickly.

Ah, yes. The classic "initially come out with a super-crazy price and, quite quickly, drop to just a crazy price" approach. Yay! Epic are listening to customers and are good and are doing the right thing! .

Eurogamer wrote:"VC [virtual currency] is not plaintiff's property," a Take-Two lawyer stated this week, as reported by Game File. "Instead, in-game VC are fictions created by game publishers, subject to the publishers’ terms of service and user agreements."

Requesting that the case be dismissed, Take-Two pointed to clauses in each of its games' EULA documents - the End User License Agreements that nobody actually bothers to read - which state that players also have only a "limited right and license" to virtual currency that Take-Two can choose to "suspend" or "eliminate... as it sees fit".

Source: Eurogamer

Some people in the US have bought a class-action lawsuit against Take-Two/2K about how they keep/delete customers' in-game money - that has been paid for using real cash - when they close a game down.

"It's all okay because the EULA clearly says that this is fiction and that we can be total asses whenever we want to!".