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[DonkeyPunchJr]

Well, I appreciate the breakdown, but it kinda misses the point. Most publishers deal with that by having few hits, but square keep producing dud after dud on their most expensive games. He said publisher spend a lot to guarantee game will be a 10/10, but square managed to do the opposite. They created a studio just to promote their engine, but the game they created was... Forspoken.

Isn't weird that hitman struggled so much while under square, but io interactive did just fine living solely from it after they split?

It's also funny to consider how they are very good at making mid size experiences. Their pixel remasters are a success, and so is their 2d-HD games and remakes. Their MMOs are also successful. It's only their AAA games that always fell short of expectations.

Ehh a lot of their mid tier stuff is also shit. Look at Diofield Chronicle, Saga Emerald Beyond, Valkyrie Elysium, and the Tokyo RPG Factory games for some recent examples. I seriously don’t get why they keep funding all this ugly, unappealing, half-baked shit.

Meanwhile you got something like Chained Echoes made by a single developer + looks 100x more appealing than all those games.

 

[tkscz]

I enjoy seeing things like this though he isn't explaining anything I didn't assume. I talk to people about how sales work when it comes to movies and why Hollywood is in so much trouble and assumed Games worked the same.

That said I'm glad to see details like this spread. I didn't know the exact percentage the average game loses out on after the initial sale. I always assumed it was around 30 - 35% but reading through the entire thing it looks more like 50 - 60%, which closely match the loss movies go through.

I'm also glad he's replying to REEEEEE on this because they're the type of people who understand business exceedingly little. Along with game journos, the socialist type believe that 100% of the net goes to the companies and don't even assume that a lot of it goes to paying back loses.



This was a HUGE issue with Hollywood as well, specifically any studio that tried to have a streaming service. The pandemic built up unrealistic expectations on sales, with the assumption being that the quarantining would last at least five years (basically that we'd still be quarantining until now). But as we all know, that stopped a year into the pandemic for the most part, by the end of 2021 most people (in the US at least) began leaving their houses, and no longer paying for things like streaming services and video games. So anything that was in the works during that time that would take years to create would be released when all that market build up had start falling.

 

[Celine]

He is right when discussing in general however he missed the point specific to the Final Fantasy franchise.

Highest selling game in the franchise during the PS1/N64 generation:
Final Fantasy VII (PS1): 9.81M (later PC port sold over 1M)
Resident Evil 2 (PS1): 4.96M
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64): 7.60M

Highest selling game in the franchise since mid 10s when digital adoption got widespread and market reach expanded into more markets allowing higher sales threshold:
Final Fantasy XV (PS4/XBO/PC): 10M
Resident Evil 2 Remake (PS4/XBO/PS5/XBS/PC): 13.90M
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NSW/WIU): 33.55M


Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) was met with softer sales compared to FFXV.
Final Fantasy failed to grow larger however each game become more and more expensive to produce and put into the market.

 

[Chukhopops]

Interesting read but it paints a pretty dire picture of the SP games segment in general.

Basically you either sit at the top of the pile where you can count on a large number of first week sales at full price, or you immediately lose a large chunk of your revenue as people simply wait for your games to be 30% cheaper.

I used to think SE simply lost some of their traditional fans as they « modernized » their gameplay but the issue runs deeper than that. At some point the only solution will be to either reduce budgets or increase prices but the latter will simply push more people into waiting for better prices.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It's a perfectly reasonable way of explaining it to a layman because most people contribute to e.g. a 401k or equivalent tracking some stock index and can relate to that. The point is very simple, a risky game investment has to have greater NPV than a lower-risk investments like S&P500 to be worthwhile, otherwise you'd just invest in the lower risk option.

Why would we use a return much higher than historical average just because that was the outcome for a short period?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Curious but why do you say it’s false and stupid? He was the director of business at Square Enix Holdings, so I assume he’s not just talking out of his ass.

I’ve explained it in subsequent posts. It’s using lofty assumptions of returns that has zero nuance to industry makeup, risk, projected growth in gaming, etc

 

[Doom85]

That is not true at all. There were a lot of games that i would have picked up for 40 but after a while you lose both the initial hype for it and there are so many other games that come out that you either stop caring of simply forgetting about them.

Also there is a perceived loss of value when time passes (no idea why since it's not like they get worse with time but it's there).

I already covered a bunch of this in later posts. Including that a few individuals on a forum don’t necessarily reflect the consumers as a whole.

As I said earlier, lowering the launch price of all these games to $40 means they have to nearly double their sales to not take a loss from that change. You all are on some serious optimism high if you think that will pan out well for a lot of games…..

 

[Senhua]

LOL at the some who blame gacha game for this.
AAA games industry crash is because of 2 factor:

1. Greed (selling their low value content games with high price)
game with low the production value and generic gameplay sold as high as $50

2. No Creativity (all their games big and small a like is sterile and generic story, char design and gameplay) and only pretty graphics as selling point

Compared with this:
Game with tons of value, very high content, good gameplay, decent char design and story with updated anually and FREE

Or the game with great sexy character design, generic gameplay, great story and also free and having a tons of content which updated regulary

Or Indie games with low price, decent gameplay and great story and unique setting in ancient China

But sure keep blaming GACHA game. Surely will make you beloved Japanese Single player game company survive longer.

I rather giving $100 every month to genshin or nikke rather than single player westernized Japanese game slop every time.

 

[Buggy Loop]

jRPG became niche as can be and they still put all their chips in big productions. They've changed the combat constantly at almost every franchise in the hope of becoming mainstream but not only mainstream didn't bite, but you also pretty much alienated your core audience.

GaaS is killing the gaming industy

The numbers say quite the opposite.

their numbers say that people have been infected by the GaaS virus; mindless time sinkers that have hijacked an entire industry.

How can it be killing the industry. Gamers moved to something else apparently.
GAAS is now acronym for the bad examples, but games like Counter-Strike, DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2 are old as fuck GAAS and still have millions CCU daily (less so for TF2). What's bad about gamers playing this every day?
You don't like it, it's removing chances of you getting what you want, but it's in no way "killing" the industry.

 

[Last Hearth]

No, it’s not except under certain conditions. There are plenty of other ways to fund a project (retained earnings, debt, exclusivity arrangements, etc). Issuing stock of a mature company is a lot more rare

Retained earnings a company has 2 choices, distribute or reinvest. If you reinvest, you have to justify to your investors not giving them their distribution, which they could have gone out and invest in other stocks earning the market return on capital rate.
Debt, first of all debt carries an interest rate, so you have to minimally earn past the interest rate level of returns to have a profit at all, and secondly, loan terms are affected by a company's price to debt ratio, which means stock prices are very important to whether a company can get a loan at all, and what terms the loan has. And in order to have a good price to debt ratio, you need to maintain competitive return on capital rates with the overall market, lest people dump your stock, drives down your stock prices and limit your ability to get a loan.
Even exclusivity arrangement, whoever is giving your that deal has to calculate whether the money they are giving you is likely to yield them higher rates than doing something else with the money, such investing in the market.
In the end, in a market driven economy, capital always flows toward where the highest returns are, and all companies are competing in that capital market for those capital resources, it doesn't matter what your business is, if your company's return on capital is lower than the overall market, they capital will flow out of your company toward those that are. So a company, be they SE, or Sony, or Microsoft, or Apple, has to always use the market over all return on capital as their baseline for performance, lest capital start leaving their company toward the ones that are performing better.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Retained earnings a company has 2 choices, distribute or reinvest. If you reinvest, you have to justify to your investors not giving them their distribution, which they could have gone out and invest in other stocks earning the market return on capital rate.
Debt, first of all debt carries an interest rate, so you have to minimally earn past the interest rate level of returns to have a profit at all, and secondly, loan terms are affected by a company's price to debt ratio, which means stock prices are very important to whether a company can get a loan at all, and what terms the loan has. And in order to have a good price to debt ratio, you need to maintain competitive return on capital rates with the overall market, lest people dump your stock, drives down your stock prices and limit your ability to get a loan.
Even exclusivity arrangement, whoever is giving your that deal has to calculate whether the money they are giving you is likely to yield them higher rates than doing something else with the money, such investing in the market.
In the end, in a market driven economy, capital always flows toward where the highest returns are, and all companies are competing in that capital market for those capital resources, it doesn't matter what your business is, if your company's return on capital is lower than the overall market, they capital will flow out of your company toward those that are. So a company, be they SE, or Sony, or Microsoft, or Apple, has to always use the market over all return on capital as their baseline for performance, lest capital start leaving their company toward the ones that are performing better.

No one of these companies are issuing stock to any significant degree to fund their projects

A utility company is going to have a far different hurdle rate than a gigacorp tech company with far loftier growth expectations

 

[Vlodril]

I already covered a bunch of this in later posts. Including that a few individuals on a forum don’t necessarily reflect the consumers as a whole.

As I said earlier, lowering the launch price of all these games to $40 means they have to nearly double their sales to not take a loss from that change. You all are on some serious optimism high if you think that will pan out well for a lot of games…..

My post was about how it would not go well for many games if they did that..

 

[MagiusNecros]

The games they make now chase trends and graphical fidelity and don't offer anything unique like they did back in Square's Golden Age. And given 90% of their talent is gone they have been success coasting off of old IPs ever since.

I keep saying they should just do AA stuff and abandon AAA altogether.

 

[nush]

back in 2013...

But Gamestop would never accept that original trade if person 2 wasn't going to buy the used game. Why shouldn't Gamestop benefit? They are the middleman. You just want them to give people free money and throw the discs away?

No, here's the problem. Tomb Raider sold 3.4m units in the space of a month and it's a "failure" because it will fail to recoup its budget.

THREE POINT FOUR MILLION FUCKING UNITS FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A B-TIER FRANCHISE AND THAT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY MONEY.

And killing used games would have solved this how? Would it have made the execs at Squenix who thought throwing $100m budget at a franchise that's been irrelevant since the turn of the century suddenly get a clue?

Oh, but no, they argue "GAMERS PUSH FOR HIGHER AND HIGHER BUDGETS AND WE HAVE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT! THEIR ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CAN'T BE SATIATED! WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LET BUDGETS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL!" and that's lovely, but since when did they ever give a fuck about what we actually thought?

Are Microsoft going to turn around and backtrack on this DRM fiasco because "WE HAVE TO GIVE GAMERS WHAT THEY WANT!"? Are they fuck.

Are EA going to throw all their games up on Steam and patch Sim City to not need the stupid Origin authentication because "THAT'S WHAT THOSE ENTITLED GAMERS ARE SCREAMING FOR!"? Fuck no.

If you couldn't afford to give people what they wanted, then why didn't you just turn around and say no like you do with every other thing we complain about? Here's why; Every publisher big and small decided to get into a dick waving contest and it turns out that not everyone has a big dick. Squenix got its tiny little acorn cock out and went up against Mandingo Activision screaming "LOOK AT MY MASSIVE JUNK! YOU'LL WANT TO CARE FOR IT!" and everyone just turned around and shrugged and bought something else.

Not everyone has a big dick. Acting like you have a big dick when you don't have a big dick is going to make the reveal of your tiny little penis all the more humiliating. And that's what happened here. Squenix acted like Tomb Raider, a franchise that habitually sells less than 3m lifetime per entry was going to suddenly sell COD numbers just because they spent $100m on it and guess what happened? THE FUCKING INEVITABLE.

In terms of the franchise post-Core, the game is going to do really well, probably double what you'd expect from a Tomb Raider game post-PSone but it cost far, far too much.

But no, it's all used games that did this. Used games made Capcom make some horrible design decisions on DmC and piss off the entire fanbase. Used games made Activision and EA flood the market with guitar games and accessories long after people stopped caring. Used games made Microsoft make a fourth Gears of War game that nobody asked for from a developer nobody cares about. Used games made Sony pump out another God of War game after they spent the past few years flooding the market with HD remasters. Used games made Sony make a Smash Bros clone with no appealing characters to help sell it. Used games made Bizarre Creations make James Bond and racing games no-one wanted. Used games make publishers shutter studios the moment the game they were working on goes gold, before they've even had a chance to sell a single new copy, let alone a used one.

I could go on. And on. And on. You could write a book about every single executive level screw-up this gen and yet these same people with their million dollar salaries and their shill puppets still try to insult our intelligence and blame used games and awful, entitled consumers for companies shutting and talented people losing their jobs.

So please forgive our cynicism when we don't want to buy into the bullshit you're spouting.

 

[leo-j]

It’s the f2p massive online MMORPG and amMO’s in general that are eating up space. Especially in this economy and in this low amount of time situation. Also the gamepass model is killing time too, why buy a game when it will come out to your 100+ game backlog.

 

[Hudo]

LOL at the some who blame gacha game for this.
AAA games industry crash is because of 2 factor:

1. Greed (selling their low value content games with high price)
game with low the production value and generic gameplay sold as high as $50

2. No Creativity (all their games big and small a like is sterile and generic story, char design and gameplay) and only pretty graphics as selling point

Compared with this:
Game with tons of value, very high content, good gameplay, decent char design and story with updated anually and FREE

Or the game with great sexy character design, generic gameplay, great story and also free and having a tons of content which updated regulary

Or Indie games with low price, decent gameplay and great story and unique setting in ancient China

But sure keep blaming GACHA game. Surely will make you beloved Japanese Single player game company survive longer.

I rather giving $100 every month to genshin or nikke rather than single player westernized Japanese game slop every time.

I am sorry but if you call the gameplay in Akitoshi Kawazu's SaGa games "generic", you obviously don't know what you're talking about.

The reason why the SaGa games are niche (both in appeal and sales numbers) is exactly because they don't play like your typical JRPG.

 

[Last Hearth]

No one of these companies are issuing stock to any significant degree to fund their projects

A utility company is going to have a far different hurdle rate than a gigacorp tech company with far loftier growth expectations

Yes, what I neglected to mention is that there is a risk component to this. Investors are willing to settle for a lower return if the investment is safer they are less likely to lose their money.

Utility companies fit the profile of someone looking for safer investments and forego the chances of higher returns.
Video games, however, are not a safe investment and would need to justify the capital investment with market level returns.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Video games, however, are not a safe investment and would need to justify the capital investment with market level returns.

Some of the established franchises are, they don’t need to mimick a 14% return when market average is decidedly lower

That 14% was just a result of luck, timing, noise. It shouldn’t be expected

 

[Senhua]

I am sorry but if you call the gameplay in Akitoshi Kawazu's SaGa games "generic", you obviously don't know what you're talking about.

The reason why the SaGa games are niche (both in appeal and sales numbers) is exactly because they don't play like your typical JRPG.

I already play the classic SaGa so for me it's not unique anymore unless they change the mechanics drastically in the newer entries and
Why I should buy it when there are thousands same/more unique niche games on steam with lower starting price point?

 

[Holammer]

Square enix way of making games

1) come up with a random super high sale number based on nothing but dreams.
2) spend money on a game and make sure most of the market has no access towards it
3) make sure to target a niche market.
4) spend stupid amounts of money on making a game
5) up prices on all there products
6) game runs like crap on the market that it does run on

Result: It doesn't work shocking pikachu face.

3.5) sell it exclusively to a limited section of the market

 

[Holammer]

LOL at the some who blame gacha game for this.
AAA games industry crash is because of 2 factor:

1. Greed (selling their low value content games with high price)
game with low the production value and generic gameplay sold as high as $50

2. No Creativity (all their games big and small a like is sterile and generic story, char design and gameplay) and only pretty graphics as selling point

Compared with this:
Game with tons of value, very high content, good gameplay, decent char design and story with updated anually and FREE

Or the game with great sexy character design, generic gameplay, great story and also free and having a tons of content which updated regulary

Or Indie games with low price, decent gameplay and great story and unique setting in ancient China

But sure keep blaming GACHA game. Surely will make you beloved Japanese Single player game company survive longer.

I rather giving $100 every month to genshin or nikke rather than single player westernized Japanese game slop every time.

The Chinese & Korean mobile sludge offers customers what they want, cute waifu & fan service.
Western game devs, take notes.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

What a completely stupid and false thing to say:

“Navok noted that if a game costs $100 million to make over five years, it has to beat what the company could have returned investing a similar amount in the stock market over the same period. “For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline,” he explained.”

It's a perfectly valid point, but using stock market trends is risky.

A more reasonable calculation is compare it to a rate of 5-6% from a bank buying a guaranteed term deposit. Using 14.5% is silly.

 

[cireza]

I rather giving $100 every month to genshin or nikke rather than single player westernized Japanese game slop every time.

Was actually quite convincing until you said this.

Square-Enix also know how to make excellent games, with lower budget. You don't need to resort to gacha to play something great like Star Ocean 2R or Octopath Travelers.

 

[Killer8]

Here's a crazy thought - how about releasing your biggest games on more than one platform?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The Chinese & Korean mobile sludge offers customers what they want, cute waifu & fan service.
Western game devs, take notes.

This is a wrong assessment of why those games succeed. Those games offer for free what others charge full price but with better production values. The cute waifu argument wouldn't last for longer than 1 week if there is no substance in those games. It turns out that there's plenty of it, the reason why players stick around for years. By the way, Mihoyo games have zero fanservice so the argument falls flat.

Square is too dumb to learn the lesson, so its gachas flopped, while those others succeed.

 

[Xyphie]

Why would we use a return much higher than historical average just because that was the outcome for a short period?

Why get hung up on if the actual rate is 7% or 10% or 14.5% when it has nothing to do with what his point is conceptually? All he is saying is that game investments are riskier than stocks and thus need to generate returns in excess of the something like a stock market return.

 

[semiconscious]

Yes, and no. FF and other odd-ball projects haven't done well lately, but DQ and Octopath and Triangle Strategy have all been very good games that didn't break SE's budgets like others.

well, the fact that se can't manage to do this with their heavy-hitters only makes it kinda worse, in a way. also, games can be both good & profitable without being trend setting. I'm simply pointing out that there was a time when se was capable of all 3. other developers took their cues from se games...

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Why get hung up on if the actual rate is 7% or 10% or 14.5% when it has nothing to do with what his point is conceptually? All he is saying is that game investments are riskier than stocks and thus need to generate returns in excess of the something like a stock market return.

Because that rate is central to his point

These recent FF games may have received 6-8% which may be fine if that’s your expectation. 14% is lofty and just an unrealistic goal

 

[Xyphie]

Because that rate is central to his point

Do you feel the point would be meaningfully different if read something like:

If a game costs $100m to make, and takes 5 years, then you have to beat, as an example, what the business could have returned investing $100m into the stock market over that period. The index has returned a historic annualized average return of around 10.26% since its 1957 inception through the end of 2023. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $162.96m, so this is our ROI baseline.

Rather than:

If a game costs $100m to make, and takes 5 years, then you have to beat, as an example, what the business could have returned investing $100m into the stock market over that period.For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline.

No. Nothing about his point changes at all.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

jRPG became niche as can be and they still put all their chips in big productions. They've changed the combat constantly at almost every franchise in the hope of becoming mainstream but not only mainstream didn't bite, but you also pretty much alienated your core audience.

I’m not so sure this is true. Final Fantasy XV sold over 10 million copies. Did the genre really decline that much in popularity since the last mainline game?

I think that VII Remake and XVI are just not appealing + the timed exclusivity deals didn’t do them any favors either. Remake isn’t a real remake, split into multiple parts and crammed full of filler. XVI looks like an ugly generic brown western fantasy game and it’s boring as hell with no RPG elements.

As a long time FF fan I was really disappointed with both of those games and I’m not the only one.

 

[Goalus]

Launching at $40 is different to waiting for a sale at $40.

How often has it gotten to that price and your like, well I waited this long -

A. I’m no longer interested
B. I may as well wait for $20 or lower.

That’s exactly me with almost any Square-Enix game on Xbox. I bought FF7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 13-3, each for €13 or less, and 15 Royal Edition for €17. I think that the actual value of these games is much higher, but if I have to wait three years, I can as well wait five or seven years.

 

[Buggy Loop]

I’m not so sure this is true. Final Fantasy XV sold over 10 million copies. Did the genre really decline that much in popularity since the last mainline game?

10M copies over 6 years, so a lot of deep discounts. But it took 10 years of hype and waiting to get it, and then a lot of peoples were disappointed. That kind of halves expectations for the sequels. A lot more peoples doing the wait and see approach. FF7 remake personally bored me to tears by the end. Haven't touched FF16 yet.

 

[Senhua]

The Chinese & Korean mobile sludge offers customers what they want, cute waifu & fan service.
Western game devs, take notes.

Just sexy fan service is not enough for gacha to be successful these day:
1. New content annualy
2. High production value (Graphics/open world/gameplay)
3. Deep gameplay
4. Great story

Fanservice gacha with 3 and 4 only is a bit of lagging behind (Fate G/O & Azur lane)
1 & 2 is the must.
NIKKE lack in the 3 but still successful because they do 1 & 2 correctly.
Genshin a bit lack in 4 too.

Was actually quite convincing until you said this.

Square-Enix also know how to make excellent games, with lower budget. You don't need to resort to gacha to play something great like Star Ocean 2R or Octopath Travelers.

There days with the abundance a lot of indies at Steam, All that SE niche games is not worth their production value to justified their asking price.

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

What a completely stupid and false thing to say:

“Navok noted that if a game costs $100 million to make over five years, it has to beat what the company could have returned investing a similar amount in the stock market over the same period. “For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline,” he explained.”

Correct, because here Navok also neglected to factor in Saturn’s positioning to the sun.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Maybe don't use Unreal 5 or whatever. Why switch when unreal 4 was fine and a known engine, or whatever proprietery engine they used. Use that. This hunt for "best of class graphics" every game is ridiculous. Let the tech catch up.
I also think we jumped to 4k too soon (we weren't even maxing 1080p). Also cut that dei detpartments and other such consultancy firms. Its bs and not needed.

I know myself, I buy less games when they are $70. I will wait for a sale, buy from a key shop if on pc, etc.. I can wait, my backlog is huge.
Graphics aren't everything. Of course, I am an older gen x 40 something gamer, so i don't fuss about this stuff. It was cool with Quake 3 /doom3/half-life2/crysis/witcher but since PS4 I really don't care.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Nintendo, Sony, Capcom, etc. all have sales showing this clearly isn’t the case.

Well I have evidence, myself. I have cut down drastically on buying new games since the $70 hike. You know who gets my money, Nintendo, as they still have $60 games, or I wait for sales. For pc I go to key sites.
We are in super bad economy with inflation and basically a "not named recession" of course numbers will go down.

They need to stop aiming for the sun with graphics and focus on gameplay. I find it crazy that some are pushing for more expensive games. I guess you all have killer jobs and no family , no bills and expenses?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Square Soft never recovered after becoming Square Enix period.

 

[cireza]

All that SE niche games is not worth their production value to justified their asking price.

This is your opinion bro. Star Ocean 2R is worth 60 bucks as far as I am concerned. Enjoy your F2P games with infinite money income, they are entirely different games.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

"So game companies have several ways to increase the ROI for their products: decrease costs, increase price, or increase audience size. As it is hard for single-player titles to signficiantly icnrease the number of players, Novak believes that publishers will continue to charge more for their games. The new $70 base price already seems too much for many customers, so companies try to come up with tricky monetization methods, including various deluxe editions priced at $100 or even higher."

Notice how the dude doesn't even give lip service to the concept of decreasing production costs.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

They need to stop aiming for the sun with graphics and focus on gameplay. I find it crazy that some are pushing for more expensive games. I guess you all have killer jobs and no family , no bills and expenses?

If anything, one of the problems with AAA today is that the few "current gen" games are not really distinguishing themselves in graphics or gameplay from the previous gen.

 

[Gambit2483]

Nintendo will end up in a very unique position with the Switch 2. For the first time in a very long time more and more publishers will be relying on them to help with software sales, be they physical or digital.

Things are going to get very interesting in the next 2 years...

 

[delirium trigger]

They totally screwed it up from the business side. They made you wait 4 years for the next part of 7 but gave you a whole new game six months before it finally released.

I said it in another thread, everyone that bought 7 remake and didn't finish the game already got their nostalgia fill and don't really need to spend money on the next chapter.

It's a shame because they made a great remake but the business model is fucked.

 

[Sephimoth]

They should stop disappointing their fans.

Didn't bother with FF16 because it felt more like DMC than a JRPG.

I played a little more of FF7 Rebirth yesterday after dropping it for a while after arriving at Gold Saucer. Well I played about an hour to Corel Prison and now I hate it even more (CONSTANT FORCED MINIGAMES, and I'm talking about after the saucer). Lmao literally waiting 9 years since the 2015 announcement to see my fav game remade and it's just a massive let down.

 

[Shadowstar39]

They totally screwed it up from the business side. They made you wait 4 years for the next part of 7 but gave you a whole new game six months before it finally released.

I said it in another thread, everyone that bought 7 remake and didn't finish the game already got their nostalgia fill and don't really need to spend money on the next chapter.

It's a shame because they made a great remake but the business model is fucked.

This is me to a t. I never even finished ff7 remake and will eventually get the sequel but I will wait for a sale. My backlog is huge and there is just so much to play. Ff7 should of been one game and that's it. The fact that they didn't account for this is just odd.

 

[Woopah]

What a completely stupid and false thing to say:

“Navok noted that if a game costs $100 million to make over five years, it has to beat what the company could have returned investing a similar amount in the stock market over the same period. “For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline,” he explained.”

He makes it seem like free money, just invest $100m get $200m but ignores that there are no guarantees.

He's just explaining IRR (Internal Rate of Return) to people. I don't think he's claiming to know what IRR Square is currently using, he's just showing how it is calculated.

A lot of the points he brings up are sound and I don't necessarily disagree with him but..

There's a lot of ways these companies can cut costs by maybe just not making dumb choices and chasing trends.

The amount of money companies spend on marketing now is insane. You really don't need an A list celebrity in your commercial or worse.. streaming your game when they've clearly never picked up a controller. You don't need to pay Ninja to play a game on stream for you, his audience won't care in most cases.

You don't need Superbowl ads, you don't need time square ads. You definitely don't need tv ads. Noone watches tv anymore.

Idk. I presented it as fact but I really don't know.

Nintendo sure does look to be in a really good place right now though. Of course it affects them too but not having to worry about going to Iceland to take up close pictures of rocks and dirt because your game needs to look like the best thing ever as a selling point must be nice.

Nintendo is in a good place, but I don't think that is unrelated to the amount they spend on marketing

It’s common sense that a lower price means more people will buy games, which will lead to a massive profit increase, if you can’t see it then there’s not much more I can say.

It's not common sense. Price changes can work but it's not guaranteed.

If I lower prices by 30%, but my unit sales only go up 20%, then I've lost money.

 

[Kataploom]

Governments would be doing business a huge favor (and themselves with tax money) by raising wages with inflation.

If people have more money then they will spend more of it. On video games, etc.

But no. Government makes a wage that even with working full time, people can't afford any apartment to live at.

It's happening in New York. People working minimum wage can't afford any apartment in the whole city.

I'm disabled and unable to work. But this pisses me off.

Which increases inflation then again even more lol.

I think AA games are the right answer, not only those have been way better imo but they've also been more economically conscious

 

[Lord Malachite]

With most games today costing $70, I'm far more judicious in what I buy. I have a large backlog. I don't need to rush and boot up my digital storefront or mail order my physical game for the release date experience. The fact is, most games have problems on release and it's often worth waiting a good week or two for patches to come forth and fix glaring issues.

Every year there are fewer "must have" games for me that I need to snap up at full price instantly. It's just better to wait in most cases to play. I still have sealed physical games I bought on release date. Not because I'm keeping them as collector's items, but because I just haven't gotten around to even playing them yet. When I look at my shelf of physical discs unopened, and my digital library chock full of games I bought and haven't even installed? Yeah, I just don't feel a rush anymore. It's not my job to keep publishers in business or to support an industry bent on unsustainablity.

 

[ArtHands]

Idk, maybe releasing the games on more successful platforms might help

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Idk, maybe releasing the games on more successful platforms might help

Getting either game to run on Switch 1 would be a challenge.

 

[Iced Arcade]

I’m still of the opinion that games (like a lot of things) are pricing themselves out of existence.

They would make more sales and in turn more money if they lowered the cost of buying games.

Feels weird but 100% agree with you.


Higher priced games I have to be a very big fan of... When games were cheaper, I often said "fuck it, I'll give it a shot"