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[Ryoku]

The argument is and always has been about value. Some games simply offer more value through having more content at the standard $60 price tag. Others may view purely online multiplayer games as having less value, therefore cannot justify the $60 to buy it.

The problem is the sort of standardization of the $60 price tag. Not every game needs to be at that price, and companies should price their games accordingly. I understand there are other issues at play here, such as who gets how much of the total revenue, and those certainly need to be "fixed", as well, before any real "price reform" can happen.

Nintendo sells certain games under $60 because of the value it sees in those games. On the other hand, people don't seem to complain about paying the full price for a Pokemon or a Mario game that came out years ago. It's all about value, and it's up to the companies to sell us on the value of the games. Unfortunately, most of the consumers in this industry seem to fall for "hype" and have just accepted the $60 price tag as is without really thinking about it. As a result, you get games like Battlefront selling at full price.

EDIT: To clarify, I don't think the attitude is flawed. It's just that instead of complaining strictly about content, people should be vocal about the value of the game itself.

 

[Ensirius]

Why? If the content there is enough to keep you playing a long ass time.

This is exactly my stance on this.
As long as it is top quality content and it will give me hours and hours of entertainment then it's all good.

 

[ForsakenLotus]

Yes OP. However...

If you have a game like TitanFall, Battlefront and Evolve, and you charge full price for them despite those games not having a single player campaign, it's perfectly justified for consumers to expect the multiplayer portion of those games to be more robust and polished than they would expect a game with both a single player and multiplayer component.

It's fine that Battlefront doesn't have a campaign, but if the multiplayer content is less than what we expect from regular games like Call of Duty or what have you, people should be upset. There should be more modes, maps and options, not the same or less.

 

[choodi]

Again this wrong notion that it's either short and good or long and boring. There are plenty 40+ hour-games that are of really high quality. Noone forces anyone to invest that time but I can't help but roll my eyes whenever I see someone say they wished a good game was shorter so that it matches their short attention span.

Don't know how you read into my response that short = good, long = bad.

My stance is padding = bad, focussed engaging content = good.

The wrong notion that a game needs to be 40 hours + to be good or "worth the money" is the problem.

A game that lasts 2 hours can be of more value to me than a game which boasts of having 40+ hours of content. Simply because if that 40+ hour game is just boring padding, then it's likely not going to be engaging enough to keep my attention for very long in the face of other better options for my entertainment.

Nothing to do with my "short attention span" at all, in fact i have a good attention span. I just have no patience for a bloated mess of a story that doesn't keep me interested when i could be using that time to watch a good tv show, read a good book or play another video game.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

This has been a problem i have railed about for YEARS, this negative unreliable mindset of quantity over quality.

The capper of "will you buy EVERYTHING if it all meets your demands" usually catches them blindsided.

That isn't really the problem, for me. The problem still remains with who holds the absolute power over when I can play some of those games.
It isn't me.

You (we) have the absolute power.

Well, for now at least...

 

[Panajev2001a]

In my opinion its similar to 2D games aren't worth full price mentality

Which is consumer hysteria, but also a change in tastes that made sow thing great have little value. Similar to how ADD gamers prefer to have hundreds of new in app purchased laden new games per month on the App Store than replaying or beating the console games they have too.
First world problems sure... it must be me getting older, but when so was younger the idea of a backlog of purchased games I could not go through was just not possible... I would get few games a year (4-5, but rarely I could get more), had to choose wisely and beat them instead of hopping from game to game.
This is not how kids are growing up today (lots of super cheap or free to download games every month... which has helped destroy the value of games in people's minds IMHO), but then again that is life and a world transforming.

 

[Rathorial]

I'm just sick of the attitude towards multiplayer-only games getting nailed for content deficiency, and single-player only (or single-player games where the MP mode is cobbled together garbage) regularly getting a pass for often having less.

Content amount isn't king, content quality and/or variety is, and a far more useful argument for why you don't want to buy something...because really if the amount isn't high enough, just wait for a lower price, and enjoy the rest of your day.

It's even funnier to me content amount is valued so much by enough people...yet the percentage of people that complete their games is pathetically low. It's like people have a psychological need to feel they get a good deal, even if they don't use all of the product.

Quality of time spent should matter to people, because those hours you waste on mediocre filler could be spent on other activities or making more money.

 

[spineduke]

I'm just sick of the attitude towards multiplayer-only games getting nailed for content deficiency, and single-player only (or single-player games where the MP mode is cobbled together garbage) regularly getting a pass for often having less

Receipts.jpg please

 

[RedSwirl]

This whole thing probably started around the PS1 and N64 era. Sure you had big RPGs during the 16-bit era, but during that time many games were still essentially arcade games meant to be played again and again in bursts until you mastered them.

The early 3D era is when console games started to be explicitly designed to be played at home. One of the manifestations of this was RPGs advertising 40-plus hours of gameplay. On the action game side you had over-delivering games like GoldenEye and eventually Halo which had excellent singleplayer campaigns AND acclaimed multiplayer. Back then those games felt like massive packages, but now we've convinced ourselves every shooter should try to deliver on that level, and every shooter just can't.

 

[DryEyeRelief]

I'm just talking about how it poisons the discussion, discourages other people from trying the game, and generally kind of reduces what you're exposed to.

Aren't you the guy who massively talked down to anyone who wanted single player content in SFV? Said tutorials in a video game were part of being over entitled? Defending SFV's shitty online with stances that made people question if you were in Capcom's pocket? And you have the audacity to talk about poisonous discussion.

 

[Davide]

No one goes into a movie saying, 'this better be three and a half hours long or I want my money back', so why do we expect that with our games?

What movie is $60?

 

[Subpar Spatula]

There isn't a set requirement but you just know by how resourceful the developer / publisher is that games can feel empty. An indie developer doesn't need to make Assassin's Creed but Ubisoft shouldn't be saying, "it's too much to make a female model". Blizzard has no excuse making the games as bare bones as it is (WoD and Overwatch).

 

[duckroll]

What movie is $60?

For 30 bucks I can get an international buffet spread at some chain place. How dare the restaurant right opposite one of these chains charge 80 bucks for a tiny main course that might not even be filling! The outrage!!!!

 

[choodi]

What movie is $60?

We can all play this game.

What movie is 40 hours long, but is so boring that i turn it off after 20 minutes?

 

[slavesnyder]

I chose my music after the same standards.
Long tracks with many chords and a wide variety of instruments are automatically better.

 

[laxu]

I would rather see more single player only and multiplayer only games as that means each side gets equal amounts of attention. Those with both often end up having either a throwaway single player campaign or a mediocre multiplayer. There are few hybrid games that somewhat successfully combine both (Soulsborne games for example).

As for content it is really the variety of content than the amount. For example Witcher 3's quests feel fresh because they have plenty of lore and dialog written around even simple fetch or kill dude X quests whereas by comparison Far Cry and Assassin's Creed have tons of repetitions of the same mission types where they don't give any good purpose for the player to do them other than money/item rewards so they feel like a chore to get thru.

MGS V failed in the repetition part and its open world devoid of anything but core gameplay stuff takes out any sense of exploration. It could've easily been levels confined to the near vicinity of the mission targets.

For multiplayer games it usually comes down to the amount of good levels. People still only play a handful of Counter-Strike levels as they are considered great. For a game from a large company to have only a handful in total for a game costing 60 euros does feel like you are not getting your money's worth. If that's all they have there should at least be a promise of free DLC levels in the near future.

I kinda like the way the new Hitman has gone about it, offering each level as a separate purchase. I was really positively surprised by the amount of effort put into each, just allows for a good amount of replayability while waiting for the team to finish up the next. Gives fans something to expect and improves the longetivity of the game while also taking into account that people might play other games in the mean time. It prevents fatigue with one game. In the end it all comes down to the pricing of the levels and how well that matches with the value. I think the 10€ is quite spot on so far.

That said, there are several indie games at 10€ that have provided me with just lots of value. FTL and Undertale come to mind. By comparison I'm still waiting for Firewatch to come down in price as 20€ for a 4 hour game seems a bit much even if it's understandable that the developers want to get a decent pay too. But for me as the consumer it doesn't seem like a great value proposition since it's not 4 hours of gameplay I'm going to play over and over again. By comparison for example FTL only has about 30-60 minutes of gameplay at a time but its replayability and amount of content (even if it's mostly text based encounters) makes it totally worth the price.

 

[Beartruck]

This is why I've been playing more retro stuff recently. A lot of old retro games are basically movie-length and have little to no fat on them.

 

[Zeuanimals]

I already fell for this trick with the Division. It won't happen again. Never buying a super focused multiplayer game at $60 ever again.

That doesn't make sense. You get burned by one MP only game and you swear off all others (for the same price)? What if you were new to gaming and the first game you bought was a broken mess? Would you swear off gaming entirely or just for games priced similarly?

Do what you want but I think you should look at what other issues you ran into when you bought The Division, and the big one being, you bought The Division.

 

[TeddyShardik]

For 30 bucks I can get an international buffet spread at some chain place. How dare the restaurant right opposite one of these chains charge 80 bucks for a tiny main course that might not even be filling! The outrage!!!!

This argument cuts both ways. Like how dare someone say this 80 dollar meal isn't worth their money?

That's aside from the fact that there are a lot of alternatives with both high u
quality and volume on offer. And for the same price!