$60 games have got to go

[dlevere]

By Jamie Feltham

Free-to-play gaming service Nexon has denounced the $60 gaming model, stating that it’s “going to have to change” in the years to come.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Nexon America CEO Daniel Kim revealed his views on the current state of the industry, and how it’s going to have to change as we face another console transition in the next few years.

He said: ”I think at some point the console makers have to make a decision about how closed or open they’re going to be to the different models that are going to be emerging. Today it’s free-to-play, and I’m convinced that that one is going to continue to flourish and expand into other genres and other categories, but there may be something else completely and entirely different that comes out that again changes the industry.

“If your mind is just set on keeping the current model of buy a game for $60, play for 40 hours, buy another game for $60, play for 40 hours, that model I think is eventually going to change. It’s going to have to change. How they will adapt I really don’t know, but I hope that they’re aware enough to understand that the value proposition of free-to-play is not going to go away.”

He went on to discuss the challenges of current business models like Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade: “Dungeon Fighter is being released as a Microsoft Xbox Live Arcade version of the game. But again we had to modify the game and the business model to fit their restrictions or requirements. It’s not free-to-play, it’s DLC essentially,” he said. “Which is not really truly how we like to service our games, we like to service our games completely free-to-play, no limits, and earn the players’ business by convincing them there’s value in purchasing stuff.”

Kim does, however, find the release of titles like the free-to-play Dust 514 on PSN encouraging.

Is the future free-to-play? Or will we be able to meet in the middle with cheaper games?

[Helder]

The sad thing is lets look at this example:
In 1995 I paid a little over $70 for Chrono Trigger which was around the price of some of the highest priced games and granted the cartridge was an expensive media which is in that price and also we didn't quite make as much as we do today 17 years later.
Now a days all games are either on a disc format which is super cheap even to consumers like us or downloaded directly which uses no media at all (just a hdd or storage device of some kind) and they still charge us close to what it used to cost in the old days. Now this can be debated with things such as development costs and all that but come on 17 years later is hasn't changed much especially on a media that is so inexpensive for the developers let alone us. We need to see games priced in the $40 range not $60.

[LiquidManZero]

The problem I see with the prices now... Is greatly things like DLC. Which has turned into an impressively disgusting thing these days. So there's a good chance that not only will a game be extremely buggy even after a launch day patch, and that part of what's on the disc won't even be usable unless the sucker who bought the game pays up for the DLC.

Game development is taking entirely the wrong hints from the movie industry. For one thing there's entirely too many people involved with most games people have heard of. Which causes the cost of development to go up a great deal, and seems to be one of the many sources of large bugs.

[TheRequest2k]

Thats why i by them online cheaper except reproductions games.

[dlevere]

Videogames Can't Afford to Cost This Much

Videogames Can't Afford to Cost This Much

[dlevere]

Street Fighter X Tekken dev 'disappointed' in DLC being hacked

By Chris Morran on April 18, 2012 8:45 A.M.

When you buy a car and opt to get the basic, no-frills stereo, the really rad sound system isn't also included somewhere in the vehicle, just waiting for you to plunk down some money to activate it. If that were the case, the car-maker has to know that buyers are going to be tempted to figure out how to turn that better system on without forking over the cash.

Such is the current situation with the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Street Fighter X Tekken, which was shipped with not only a mouthful of a title, but also, lurking locked somewhere on the disc, $20 worth of "downloadable" content to which the buyer has no access.

Not only do the makers of the game drop this tempting morsel in front of gamers, they also say that buyers won't even be allowed to unlock the content — which again, is already in their hands, just waiting to be played — until after the release of the PlayStation Vita version... in the fall.

So you can't be surprised that some clever types have figured out how to unlock the content already, for free, and months ahead of time.

"I was pretty disappointed by that," the game's producer tells GameSpot.com. "I was really surprised at how skillful the hackers were, basically. But I was really kind of disappointed that it created this kind of environment where a bunch of players were playing the characters but a bunch were unable to play with them."

We're certainly not saying that what the hackers did was a good thing. But if game companies want to continue nickel and diming the gaming community by charging an extra 40% above the retail price for content that isn't worth the price or the wait, they have to expect that at least a few people will be savvy and angry enough to figure out how to unlock it.