Commentary re DLC

[entrerix]

strange how that article is saying that we'll see less and less single player games, yet this year i've bought more single player games than probably any other year.

 

seems like the companies havent all gotten the memo.

 

that said, if we do see a huge drop in the number of single player games and everything becomes evony online then i guess I'll just play fewer games each year and get more exercise instead. remember comics in the 90's?

 

sooner or later quality will make a comeback

 

I've never heard of a single game playfish has made. I am not a consumer for that company, and unless they intend to make good new IP (or maybe a really awesome follow-up to Myth: The fallen lords) I probably never will be a consumer for them.

 

I'm willing to bet that there will remain a few companies out there who still want my dollars. I spend currently almost 1k a year on video games and consoles and pc parts etc. if my only options are ****ty online games then my spending will drop to ~zero

 

Here is a list of Playfish games:

 

The company has created eight games:

 

* Pet Society - virtual pet game

* Who Has The Biggest Brain? - game show themed skill based challenge

* Word Challenge - word construction from scrambled letters

* Geo Challenge - time based geographic location challenge

* Bowling Buddies - 3D bowling with intuitive controls

* Minigolf Party- 3D golfing game

* Restaurant City - resource management game

* Crazy Planets - Strategy game to destroy robots

* Country Story - farming game

* Quiztastic! - game show

 

 

 

edit: if you ask me, these are the types of games a company like EA puts out to create a buffer in case one of their big tentpole games flops. the big money is still in the tentpoles, they just want to go after it without taking risks with the entire company.

 

just cause cheap romantic comedies are cheap and profitable doesnt mean those are the only movies that will ever come out. district 9 was cheap and made a ton of money

Edited November 18, 2009 by entrerix

[Gorgon]

Isn't Fallout Las Vegas a stand alone game?

 

 

Is there something about the "layer cake" you don't like, or is it just it's method of delivery that rubs you the wrong way? Concerned about slippery slope?

 

 

I think the time spent on such extras could be better spent building something proper. Take the Fallout DLCs as a forinstance. Instead of 3 not particularly good mini adons they could have spent their time making something worthwhile.

 

Bethesda started this whole micro transaction trend back when they started charging pennies for a single suit of armor - and nothing else - adon. I think that was Morrowind.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Gorgon

[LadyCrimson]

Never heard of any of those Playfish games either...

 

I feel like I'm seeing a minor resurgence of enjoyable single-player games, both bigger and low budget, also. Or at least, even if the game has MP emphasis, that the SP is still fun/worthwhile enough I'll buy it. Especially during economic downturns where paying for a lot of online accounts might not be top priority for people. WoW's crazy kind of online success could be a fluke, never to be duplicated. I think things will eventually settle into some kind of balance between online-only and single-player options.

[entrerix]

a show like the wire or mad men would not have existed on tv in the 90's. (correct me if i'm wrong)

 

maybe things will just get better and better and all these doom-n-gloom "oh noes the only games that bioware will be allowed to make will have petz in the title" will be flat out wrong.

[Wrath of Dagon]

and it will collapse on itself and have to be rebuilt from the bottom with games that cost less money to develop but will recoup their costs with moderate sales.

That's what needs to happen.

[Slowtrain]

Game developers spend too much money making games.

 

*shrug*

 

Eventually like every other industry they'll either get their budgets in line with reasonable expectations on returns or go out of business. If the big ones fall, small developers will move in to fill the gap.

 

I see no reason why I or any other gamer can't criticize them for Day 1 dlc or whatever else we want.

[entrerix]

lol, yeah thats essentially what i was getting at, you just said it much more succinctly

[Mamoulian War]

Game developers spend too much money making games.

 

*shrug*

 

Eventually like every other industry they'll either get their budgets in line with reasonable expectations on returns or go out of business. If the big ones fall, small developers will move in to fill the gap.

 

I see no reason why I or any other gamer can't criticize them for Day 1 dlc or whatever else we want.

 

+1

[Flouride]

I personally don't mind the DLC's as long as I know the content wasn't cut from the original just for the sake of making more money with it. No one forces me to pay for the DLCs, though I would prefer if the games didn't have an npc standing there telling me I could buy content.

I would prefer if there was a sub-menu under the menu where you can preview the DLC content available. Short summary what's it's about, estimated time it takes to finish it etc.. That way it ain't thrown at your face everytime you play the game and it's not there breaking the so called immersion.

As for the content I'm willing to pay for.. Well the content needs to have some sort of replayability and it needs to actually last longer than one or two hours. 5-10 hours worth of extra adventures for a crpg with the price of 10-20$ or euros is perfectly fine for me. Not sure if it's economically viable for the company though.

 

I do value good old expansion packs ala Mask of the Betrayer (if you can even call it an expansion pack), IWD: Hearts of Winter or even Tales of the Sword Coast over DLC content. Why? Mostly because expansion packs usually are made with more care, there's more to play and they add way more than your regular DLC to the original game. Most DLC reviews I've read haven't been all that positive (FO3 and Mass Effect). I rarely buy any game (at full price) that is short or has no replayablity, that's why I haven't bothered to buy any DLC content so far. I want proper value for my money. But then again I'm not judging the companies, I know there are loads of customers (or idiots) who pay even for things like horse armor. And in the end it's all about what sort of crap (or good) DLC's the customers are willing to pay for. It's not like the gaming business is doing so f***king great at the moment that it would be fair to call (most of the) companies greedy bastards.

 

I'm kinda surprised there are so few games released as "episodes". It cuts the company's development time, gives them income while they are working on the 2nd/3rd.. episode of the game. And there's less risk of bombing totally when you release it in small portions. You will know if there's market for the game or not. If some things are not working you can fix them for the next episode. I personally wouldn't mind if Bioware/Obsidian would start releasing some epic crpg as an episode game if each episode would last like 15-30 hours. Most likely I would be happy that I wouldn't have to wait for numerous years for the final product and I could enjoy part of the game while they are finishing the next part. It wouldn't really differ from books, series or movies ending in a cliffhanger while you are made to wait for the sequel.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Flouride

[Kaftan Barlast]

I think this guy is just crying wolf. Up until the financial crisis, the games industry was selling more than ever. And even now, sales records are broken with MW2 for example. The problem is that you cant expect a perpetual constant increase in sales, because people dont go out and by a new PS3 with 5 games every christmas. Its like how the music industry got a heart attack when CD sales started to level out because people had finally replaced their old vinyls with CDs and only bought the occasional album now and then.

 

 

I think my argument might need a more thorough explanation, but I cant be bothered.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

To me this just sounds like games need to start costing less, or selling like crazy (which I doubt will happen). But trying to reduce development costs seems just as reasonable and as possible as building a whole new buisness model around your games.

[Slowtrain]

How much money did Obsidian waste developing AP and the Aliens crpg? Didn't Bioware completely reboot Dragon Age at some point during development?

 

I think a lot of financial loss in games development occurs due to poor or unfocused internal processes.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Making anything new is hard, even harder if creativity is required.

[alanschu]

How much money did Obsidian waste developing AP and the Aliens crpg? Didn't Bioware completely reboot Dragon Age at some point during development?

 

I think a lot of financial loss in games development occurs due to poor or unfocused internal processes.

 

 

And people wonder why sequelitis is an issue.

[Slowtrain]

How much money did Obsidian waste developing AP and the Aliens crpg? Didn't Bioware completely reboot Dragon Age at some point during development?

 

I think a lot of financial loss in games development occurs due to poor or unfocused internal processes.

 

 

And people wonder why sequelitis is an issue.

 

 

I don't think people wonder WHY precisely. People know why. It just becomes kind of boring after a while when all you get is sequels and reboots and remakes.

 

Its that balance where I know why something is done and I understand why, but I don't really like it, as a gamer.

[Niten_Ryu]

I wonder - How far you could take this?

 

Let's use Dragon Age as example.

 

Normal game

[Niten_Ryu]

edit - double post

Edited November 19, 2009 by Niten_Ryu

[alanschu]

That's not what Dragon Age did, so it's a bit silly to put a price point for Dragon Age that way. You basically said "What if they made Dragon Age a lot more expensive based on my arbitrary [and biased since I don't like DLC] decisions."

 

 

Though there are people that still play Baldur's Gate 2. Would they pay for some DLC for that game that added to the Infinity Engine experience today?

[Slowtrain]

I wonder - How far you could take this?

 

Let's use Dragon Age as example.

 

Normal game

[Mamoulian War]

Though there are people that still play Baldur's Gate 2. Would they pay for some DLC for that game that added to the Infinity Engine experience today?

 

i can say for myself that i would not hesitate to buy even full Infinity Engine game,but that's me... i do love game with manual art much more than fully rendered 3D animations...

 

and the model posted was an hypothetical view of how he thinks the game business my go, the DA was chosen just to make it easy to understand, because it's the game which is currently talked about... he could name it differently, but he did made his point clear...

 

and i also think, that some companies want to go this way, and it is sad that some people are stupid enough to pay that much money for these games, making our hobbies less and less appealing...

Edited November 19, 2009 by Mamoulian War

[Slowtrain]

From a developer/publisher/shareholder point-of-view, it's a no-brainer. You can make a lot more money selling the same content piecemeal vs in one big package.

 

 

Look at what Bethesda accomplished with its DLC:

 

Each DLC cost $10 US, or roughly 1/5 of the cost of the US Fallout 3 PC version. Did any of the DLC's contain anything even remotely close to 1/5 of Fallout 3's content or require 1/5 of Fallout 3's resources to make? Of course not. Not even in the same ballpark. Yet gamer's happily spent the money and Bethesda made a lot of money on them. Will they do it again, but even more so in the next ES game or Fallout 4? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

 

Sell a skeleton of a game for a standard price. Get people into the game then start chucking small bits of dlc at them fron every angle. It's the best way to make oodles of cash.

[Mamoulian War]

From a developer/publisher/shareholder point-of-view, it's a no-brainer. You can make a lot more money selling the same content piecemeal vs in one big package.

 

 

Look at what Bethesda accomplished with its DLC:

 

Each DLC cost $10 US, or roughly 1/5 of the cost of the US Fallout 3 PC version. Did any of the DLC's contain anything even remotely close to 1/5 of Fallout 3's content or require 1/5 of Fallout 3's resources to make? Of course not. Not even in the same ballpark. Yet gamer's happily spent the money and Bethesda made a lot of money on them. Will they do it again, but even more so in the next ES game or Fallout 4? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

 

Sell a skeleton of a game for a standard price. Get people into the game then start chucking small bits of dlc at them fron every angle. It's the best way to make oodles of cash.

 

yes but there i difference between Point Lookout type of DLC, and bigger inventory type of DLC... one feels like small expansion, one feels like a ripoff

[entrerix]

From a developer/publisher/shareholder point-of-view, it's a no-brainer. You can make a lot more money selling the same content piecemeal vs in one big package.

 

 

Look at what Bethesda accomplished with its DLC:

 

Each DLC cost $10 US, or roughly 1/5 of the cost of the US Fallout 3 PC version. Did any of the DLC's contain anything even remotely close to 1/5 of Fallout 3's content or require 1/5 of Fallout 3's resources to make? Of course not. Not even in the same ballpark. Yet gamer's happily spent the money and Bethesda made a lot of money on them. Will they do it again, but even more so in the next ES game or Fallout 4? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

 

Sell a skeleton of a game for a standard price. Get people into the game then start chucking small bits of dlc at them fron every angle. It's the best way to make oodles of cash.

 

 

point lookout was pretty close to 1/5 of the experience, at least close enough that i didnt mind the price for that one

[Slowtrain]

Yeah, I didn't have a problem with Fallout 3's DLC, other than the fact most of it was pretty bad.

 

My point was that the more you break content apart into smaller pieces and then sell those pieces individually, the more money the content will generate.

[Masterfade]

To me this just sounds like games need to start costing less, or selling like crazy (which I doubt will happen). But trying to reduce development costs seems just as reasonable and as possible as building a whole new buisness model around your games.

 

The problem I see is not game companies want to spend that much money, rather it's the packaged-goods business model that's forcing developers and publishers to increase their budgets.

 

I remember watching a video of one of John Carmack's Quakecon keynotes, in which Carmack said he enjoyed making smaller and simpler games and actually entertained the thought of breaking id Software into 10 small teams all working on low-budget stuff, but what kept him from doing that was the fact "the market was non-linear in its response". Spending half less on a project may cause it to have only one-tenth of sales, which is understandable as most people will only buy a few games per year. i think the attach rate for Xbox 360 by the end of last year was like 8 or something?

 

Ironically DLCs, because of their different business model, allowed developers to set lower budgets on them. But then people began to cry foul because they felt not getting enough for their money.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Masterfade