Support NeoGAF

[ArkhamFantasy]

It's worth noting, that, it looks from my read of the data that profitability started increasing in ~2014, which is around the time that the big players started playing around with microtransactions in AAA titles.

Does anyone remember 2014? It was so barren that Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was the the unanimous game of the year (it's a good game, don't get me wrong, but would probably miss the top 10 of many gamers' if it were released in 2017). My data indicates that EA was hemorrhaging money, less than they had a few years earlier, but still pretty badly.

And so, investment in AAA development was non-existent, as half the publishers pivoted to mobile or various other f2p schemes, banking on the next generation of consoles being the last one, much less supported than the previous ones. With their backs to the wall, Microsoft proposed eliminating used game sales altogether, only to be sufficiently chastened by their userbase. Game development costs were trending up, and up, and up, with no clear end in sight and no clear view of how you were even supposed to manage the thousand man teams that would be required to make them, much less finance them. As a result, 2014 was pretty indisputably the worst year for AAA game development we've ever seen.

Then they stuck microtransactions into games, some of them were popular and profitable, and the slow gears of industry started pivoting back towards AAA development. Three years later, by 2017, AAA development has never been more financially secure, or produced games of such a high caliber. It's night and day compared to three years ago.

If 2014 is what AAA looks like sans microtransactions, and 2017 is what it looks like with them, I know which world I'm choosing.

2014 was a result of AAA publishers not believing that the PS4 and Xbox One were going to sell well, how you could come to the conclusion that Microtransactions are responsible for the turn around is baffling.

The PS4 and Xbox One selling like crazy are responsible for that turn around, because publishers started investing heavily into them afterwards, like they should have been in the first place.

 

[DerpHause]

It's worth noting, that, it looks from my read of the data that profitability started increasing in ~2014, which is around the time that the big players started playing around with microtransactions in AAA titles.

Does anyone remember 2014? It was so barren that Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was the the unanimous game of the year (it's a good game, don't get me wrong, but would probably miss the top 10 of many gamers' if it were released in 2017). My data indicates that EA was hemorrhaging money, less than they had a few years earlier, but still pretty badly.

And so, investment in AAA development was non-existent, as half the publishers pivoted to mobile or various other f2p schemes, banking on the next generation of consoles being the last one, much less supported than the previous ones. With their backs to the wall, Microsoft proposed eliminating used game sales altogether, only to be sufficiently chastened by their userbase. Game development costs were trending up, and up, and up, with no clear end in sight and no clear view of how you were even supposed to manage the thousand man teams that would be required to make them, much less finance them. As a result, 2014 was pretty indisputably the worst year for AAA game development we've ever seen.

Then they stuck microtransactions into games, some of them were popular and profitable, and the slow gears of industry started pivoting back towards AAA development. Three years later, by 2017, AAA development has never been more financially secure, or produced games of such a high caliber. It's night and day compared to three years ago.

If 2014 is what AAA looks like sans microtransactions, and 2017 is what it looks like with them, I know which world I'm choosing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_in_video_gaming

The year 2014 saw the release of numerous games, including new installments for some well-received franchises, such as Assassin's Creed, Bayonetta, Borderlands, Call of Duty, Castlevania, Civilization, Dark Souls, Divinity, Donkey Kong, Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls, Elite, Far Cry, Final Fantasy, Forza Horizon, Infamous, Kinect Sports, Kirby, LittleBigPlanet, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Metal Gear, MX vs. ATV, Ninja Gaiden, Persona, Pokémon, Professor Layton, Shantae, Sniper Elite, Sonic the Hedgehog, Strider Hiryu, Super Smash Bros., Tales, The Sims, Thief, Trials, Tropico, Wolfenstein and World of Warcraft. In addition, it saw the release of many new intellectual properties, such as Destiny, Five Nights at Freddy's, Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall, The Evil Within and Watch Dogs. Many awards went to games such as Bayonetta 2, Dark Souls II, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mario Kart 8, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Seemed like a good year to me.

Furthering that, my best gaming experiences in 2017 thus far surrounded games not following the games as a service, continual monetization trend save standalone DLCs to games that hand good standalone initial releases.

 

[Fukuzatsu]

It's... really hard to see his point, here. People say, "games haven't increased in price for a decade, so they need alternate revenue models like DLC and microtransactions," and Jim says "What bullshit! Games -have- increased in price over that timeframe, look at all the DLC and microtransactions!" I mean, we're saying the same thing, just with a different emphasis.

I think the more salient point is that games (like say NBA 2K) with pricing tiers also have microtransactions on top of that.

Regardless, games in many territories outside of the US already exceed '$60', so not a whole lot one can say in Asia or say, Australia.

 

[MJLord]

I miss the intro song. It was much more fun & upbeat then the old one.

btw who're the people demanding cutting edge graphics? Are we sure its gamers? Cause back in 2010 I was still happy ta play new PS2 games! Today I'm still playing 'em with my fancy new PS4 collecting dust after having played through the 4 cross-gen (aka last-gen) games I own for it. Aren't PC games generally playing some pretty ancient looking/playing stuff themselves (TF2, WoW, etc.) or games that aren't eyebleedingly amazing looking like PUBG and indie stuff? Weren't people eating up HD Collections/cross-gen games/and HD'ier ports? Its not like those are any kind of impressing looking going up against todays biggest budget games, yet people kept/keep buying 'em.

You cannot be serious

 

[Iva Demilcol]

Tax avoidance is a given for any multinational, ever heard of the "Double Irish" ? I've linked the wikipedia page which is useful for showing exactly how long this sort of practice has been used and how it intersects with the "Dutch Sandwich".

Its not good, but its a financial matter and has no direct correlation with games or the product strategy of multinationals employing tax avoidance strategies.

Trying to draw a comparison with product pricing is frankly a bit daft, you may as well ask why Apple (historically one of the biggest serial abusers of this practice) doesn't pass its tax savings onto consumers! Yes they could subsidize the prices of iPhones, iPads etc. if they wanted to, but they aren't going to because the products are selling great as is.

None of this however has anything to do with the fact that development budgets are across the board way, way, higher than they've ever been.

Bottom line is I'm not defending Activision, personally I know for a fact that their ruthless cutthroat practices were responsible for killing several developers I've worked for, and come close to killing off others. They are pure fucking evil in my book.

That being said, I also know from experience precisely how expensive development has become and how vulnerable the standard single-sale model can leave developers and publishers.

A long time ago on this forum when people were frothing over online passes I warned that getting rid of them would only result in a replacement, possibly less consumer friendly, approach being implemented. Because you don't fix a problem by going after the symptom and leaving the root cause untouched. In this scenario, user expectations and advancing technology forcing up production costs year-upon-year.

Look, what you and I are saying is not exactly the same. You tell me that games are more expensive than ever, but what I'm showing you is that companies are spending less on making them, I actually linked that video because there's a section that shows these companies invest less money to make them, despite the increases in the technology, and they (i.e. George from Super Bunnyhop) discovered that as a byproduct of their research regarding tax evasion.

Yes, the cost of making a CoD is higher than ever but at the same time that came with the cost of having a very homogenized industry, which has been a complaint for years. Your costs increased but you decided to stop making other kind of games, you monetized the ones you know they sell well, etc. So, while the costs of making your new (and safe) AAA game increased, tax evasion + microtransactions are what allow activision-blizzard to spend less money in making all their games in general.

I believe what you are saying and what I'm saying are not exactly in conflict with one another, after all what I'm showing you are data these companies made public.

 

[Yarbskoo]

I honestly feel the exact opposite. As increasingly dubious products come out that actually probably do require me raising a more suspicious eyebrow (like Shadow of Mordor or Forza), I feel like I've become increasingly numb to voices like Jim's that are just perpetually angry about everything. It's a "boy who cried wolf" problem to me just in that it's very difficult for me to take notice to new consumer rights threats because the loudest voices are always people like Jim that seem to be able to find a brand new "this time the games industry has gone too far!!!!" thing to rant about each and every week.

I think it's less that Jim's perpetually angry about everything, and more that the game industry is perpetually a pack of wolves. The reason that the games industry hasn't "gone too far!!!!" is that people only bother to be upset about something until something even worse happens, leading to a downward spiral driven by a cycle of outrage followed by acceptance.

I'd also like to point out that this isn't a "brand new" topic for Jim. In the face of people telling him to "just move on", he's constantly talking about lootboxes and microtransactions. It's one of his favorite subjects along with Steam's complete lack of oversight. He's probably done five videos on Shadow of War alone.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

It's worth noting, that, it looks from my read of the data that profitability started increasing in ~2014, which is around the time that the big players started playing around with microtransactions in AAA titles.

Does anyone remember 2014? It was so barren that Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was the the unanimous game of the year (it's a good game, don't get me wrong, but would probably miss the top 10 of many gamers' if it were released in 2017). My data indicates that EA was hemorrhaging money, less than they had a few years earlier, but still pretty badly.

And so, investment in AAA development was non-existent, as half the publishers pivoted to mobile or various other f2p schemes, banking on the next generation of consoles being the last one, much less supported than the previous ones. With their backs to the wall, Microsoft proposed eliminating used game sales altogether, only to be sufficiently chastened by their userbase. Game development costs were trending up, and up, and up, with no clear end in sight and no clear view of how you were even supposed to manage the thousand man teams that would be required to make them, much less finance them. As a result, 2014 was pretty indisputably the worst year for AAA game development we've ever seen.

Then they stuck microtransactions into games, some of them were popular and profitable, and the slow gears of industry started pivoting back towards AAA development. Three years later, by 2017, AAA development has never been more financially secure, or produced games of such a high caliber. It's night and day compared to three years ago.

If 2014 is what AAA looks like sans microtransactions, and 2017 is what it looks like with them, I know which world I'm choosing.

But 2015 also had a big number of great AAA games though. Games which were in development before 2014.

For me it seemed like they just waited for install base to grow a bit before releasing big games.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I think it's less that Jim's perpetually angry about everything, and more that the game industry is perpetually a pack of wolves. The reason that the games industry hasn't "gone too far!!!!" is that people only bother to be upset about something until something even worse happens, leading to a downward spiral driven by a cycle of outrage followed by acceptance.

I don’t know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owned games that I haven’t played yet and a plethora of endlessly replayable games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don’t need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I’m fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don’t need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don’t agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

 

[joecanada]

I don’t know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owner games that I haven’t played yet and a plethora of endlessly replay able games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don’t need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I’m fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don’t need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don’t agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

Amen this industry has been run way too long by the I gotta have this thing now attitude and I'm completely out ... I buy all my games 6 months old now or gsmeshare them all. Once you have a good backlog brand new games with brand new dlc doesn't mean much. its more of a I wonder how cheap this will go attitude for me now

 

[Lunaray]

I don't know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owner games that I haven't played yet and a plethora of endlessly replay able games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don't need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I'm fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don't need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there's a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don't agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

I completely agree with this and don't get all the vitriol and less than charitable aspersions towards developers and publishers in this thread. Some of these posts make it sound like they have zero free agency and companies are forcing them to buy their games.

 

[nephilimdj]

Funny thing is he brings up complete editions when talking about battlefront, hey when do u think we will get BOTW with its DLC and Amiibo DLC unlocked in a retail box? A complete edition? Ha

I mean they didnt even put the amiibo DLC from splatoon 1 in 2 for free.

 

[Yarbskoo]

I don’t know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owner games that I haven’t played yet and a plethora of endlessly replay able games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don’t need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I’m fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don’t need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don’t agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

I mean, my backlog is such that I could never buy another game and still never run out of things to play. I buy maybe one or two games a year. Still, just because most of this stuff doesn't affect me personally, that doesn't mean I can't recognize the bullshit, and even though I'm not too bothered by what WB does to their games, I'm certainly not going to object when someone who is bothered speaks up about it.

 

[lastplayed]

Must be nice to know every major game will cost $60.

Over here AAA (read in Jim's voice) can wildly range from NZ$90 to 120 at random, sometimes from the same publisher. Even the platforms are inconsistent. The same game on PSN might be $90, but on Xbox Live it's $120 and vice versa.

I dunno where I'm going with this, just thought I'd point out the concept of a fixed price for games doesn't exist here.

 

[Duxxy3]

Now I don't feel as bad when buying games from cdkeys.

Edit: This might be my favorite video from Jim.

 

[nynt9]

Must be nice to know every major game will cost $60.

Over here AAA (read in Jim's voice) can wildly range from NZ$90 to 120 at random, sometimes from the same publisher. Even the platforms are inconsistent. The same game on PSN might be $90, but on Xbox Live it's $120 and vice versa.

I dunno where I'm going with this, just thought I'd point out the concept of a fixed price for games doesn't exist here.

Looking up exchange rates, $60 USD means $85 NZD. Probably due to games not being manufactured in NZ, there's some extra shipping and importing costs. Each publisher probably has different channels they work with to export games into NZ, which probably causes the price variance. In Turkey, games cost like 1.5-2x the actual dollar price converted into Turkish lira, which is even more ridiculous - but it's the fault of the government's import taxes, luxury taxes, and distributor fees.

Countries where games are imported are not really a good way to talk about the prices because oftentimes the price is out of the control of the publisher.

 

[DerpHause]

I completely agree with this and don't get all the vitriol and less than charitable aspersions towards developers and publishers in this thread. Some of these posts make it sound like they have zero free agency and companies are forcing them to buy their games.

How does the free agency of the buyer enter into the consideration of how specific publisher/developer practices are predatory? It's no less scummy when any specific buyer chooses not to make a purchase.

 

[Yukinari]

Now I don't feel as bad when buying games from cdkeys.

I was sketchy about CD Keys but the value there is immense.

Granted i havent bought a full price game in quite a while cause of amazon prime and best buy GCU so if youre really savvy you can basically avoid full price in the US at least.

 

[lastplayed]

Looking up exchange rates, $60 USD means $85 NZD. Probably due to games not being manufactured in NZ, there's some extra shipping and importing costs. Each publisher probably has different channels they work with to export games into NZ, which probably causes the price variance. In Turkey, games cost like 1.5-2x the actual dollar price converted into Turkish lira, which is even more ridiculous - but it's the fault of the government's import taxes, luxury taxes, and distributor fees.

Countries where games are imported are not really a good way to talk about the prices because oftentimes the price is out of the control of the publisher.

Well I was talking purely digital games since that's how I buy them. I know they have to slap on 15% GST which makes them more expensive, but how does that explain the fluctuating price differences between platforms? Why is PSN cheaper than XBL sometimes, but more expensive other times? It's really unpredictable.

 

[the1npc]

Must be nice to know every major game will cost $60.

Over here AAA (read in Jim's voice) can wildly range from NZ$90 to 120 at random, sometimes from the same publisher. Even the platforms are inconsistent. The same game on PSN might be $90, but on Xbox Live it's $120 and vice versa.

I dunno where I'm going with this, just thought I'd point out the concept of a fixed price for games doesn't exist here.

yeah games are $80 in canada (plus 13% tax where I am) so I can understand.

 

[MotionBlue]

Looking up exchange rates, $60 USD means $85 NZD. Probably due to games not being manufactured in NZ, there's some extra shipping and importing costs. Each publisher probably has different channels they work with to export games into NZ, which probably causes the price variance. In Turkey, games cost like 1.5-2x the actual dollar price converted into Turkish lira, which is even more ridiculous - but it's the fault of the government's import taxes, luxury taxes, and distributor fees.

Countries where games are imported are not really a good way to talk about the prices because oftentimes the price is out of the control of the publisher.

Canada game prices fluctuate wildly too. The exchange rate is usually used an excuse, but it took almost 5 years of a high Canadian dollar value to drop the games to 60, but less than 2 months for them to bump it back up to 70, and now 80-90 dollars.

 

[nynt9]

Well I was talking purely digital games since that's how I buy them. I know they have to slap on 15% GST which makes them more expensive, but how does that explain the fluctuating price differences between platforms? Why is PSN cheaper than XBL sometimes, but more expensive other times? It's really unpredictable.

Digital prices are usually set to match local retailers to not cause conflicts. As for why different platforms have different prices, might be due to how much import demand there is for a game, maybe different platform games have different importers (in Turkey Nintendo platform games used to be imported by a completely different company than the ones who did PS games even from the same publishers) etc. With imports there's a lot of random factors that's hard to predict.

 

[Deleted member 325805]

Now I don't feel as bad when buying games from cdkeys.

Edit: This might be my favorite video from Jim.

CDKeys usually means you can get the complete game (with season pass) for the price of the basic game which seems fair to me, no way I'm paying £90 for a single game.

 

[Two Pikachus]

yeah games are $80 in canada (plus 13% tax where I am) so I can understand.

80 CAD = 63.73 USD

Pretty close. 90 NZD is like $64.

I mean, you guys are paying more but not that much more.

 

[legend166]

Several things:

1. The argument over whether loot boxes fit the strict definition of gambling seems like pointless arguments over semantics. Here's what we know about loot boxes:

• They change the way games are designed to encourage the purchase of lootboxes
• Content that was historically included in the game is now put in a lootbox
• The purchasing of lootboxes is tied directly to a credit card and offers immediate results, which is why it's not comparable to the other things Mat listed (baseball cards, etc)
• The items you receive in a lootbox hold no intrinsic value and are completely worthless outside the game (unlike trading cards and other items which are physical products you can sell in a secondary market)

Do they fit the strict definition of gambling? Probably not, but who cares? It's an exploitative business model designed to suck more money out of a consumer with no benefit to the consumer whatsoever. The only reason they use lootboxes instead of direct purchases is because it means the consumer might have to pay more money to 'roll again' instead of just getting what they wanted. It's gross.

2. I don't buy the idea that the push for increased visual fidelity lies solely at the feet of demanding consumers. Maybe if you think the entire consumer base of video games posts on Neogaf and reads Digital Foundry. But that's so far off the mark it's not even funny. Is this the first generation that the most powerful console will also be the market leader (just comparing launch consoles)? I mean people debate PS1 vs N64 I guess. Looking at what games are popular and the reasons for it, it's really hard to argue that the increase in visual fidelity is simply publishers responding to market forces even though they don't want to.

I'm not going to argue it's got nothing to do with market forces, but I think it has just as much to do with larger publishers pushing it during the HD transition because it was a way for the larger publishers to wedge the mid-tier publishers. The big boys could afford to throw 1000 people at a game and essentially brute force development with all the bells and whistles, and the mid-tier couldn't keep up.

3. Publishers are making billions and billions of dollars combined profit. I don't think video game publishing has ever been more lucrative. They are not scraping by.

 

[oni-link]

I can't get my head around anyone paying 100 dollars for one game

I mean, I'm sure people do, but it blows my mind that they do

 

[Neverwinter27]

I wait until the "complete version" of the game is out, then buy it second hand for about 15 bucks or less. The tactic has saved me a lot of cash over the years, not sure if anyone else does it here.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

well stated, Jim.

 

[Silvawuff]

I couldn't agree with this more. Great video.

 

[katsubento]

I honestly feel the exact opposite. As increasingly dubious products come out that actually probably do require me raising a more suspicious eyebrow (like Shadow of Mordor or Forza), I feel like I've become increasingly numb to voices like Jim's that are just perpetually angry about everything. It's a "boy who cried wolf" problem to me just in that it's very difficult for me to take notice to new consumer rights threats because the loudest voices are always people like Jim that seem to be able to find a brand new "this time the games industry has gone too far!!!!" thing to rant about each and every week.

Ditto

 

[Sulik2]

He never even mentioned that much of the true excess in game development costs isn't the team sizes and production time growing. It's ridiculous marketing budgets in the AAA space.

Minecraft, DotA, League, PubG, counter strike go, Pokemon are the most popular games in the world but and all had barely any marketing compared to something like Call of Duty to achieve those sales levels. And despite it's massive marketing budget Call of Duty sales have been declining yearly. The only AAA games I can think of where massive marketing campaigns actually made a difference in the last few years is GTA 5 and Destiny. It's a giant sunk cost for publishers when a few just giving your game to a few big streamers can sell more copies of your game then a tv ad campaign and could do wonders to make publishers more profitable.

 

[lastplayed]

80 CAD = 63.73 USD

Pretty close. 90 NZD is like $64.

I mean, you guys are paying more but not that much more.

Yeah it's not the price that bothers me, it's just the variation in prices. Take COD:WW2 for example, it's listed on PSN as $109.95, but Battlefront 2 is $112.95.

Just makes me scratch my head.

 

[Yukinari]

Man i completely forgot about SBH's video about the tax avoidance that companies pull off.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

EA is scum.

Battlefront II will sell millions.

Consumer vote with their wallets, and they will send the wrong message yet again. How do you think we got here?

most consumers won't be aware of the micro-transaction issue until after they bought the game. they'll buy it because it's Star Wars and because the commercial trailers will look splendid.

 

[Nick_C]

A long time ago on this forum when people were frothing over online passes I warned that getting rid of them would only result in a replacement, possibly less consumer friendly, approach being implemented. Because you don't fix a problem by going after the symptom and leaving the root cause untouched. In this scenario, user expectations and advancing technology forcing up production costs year-upon-year.

This is the part of your post that really strikes me as what to expect going forward. Online passes in and of themselves weren't necessarily a bad thing. Devs/pubs had to pay for the upkeep of their online services, and MS/Sony aren't giving them a cut of their subscription money. Having a $10 code that let someone access the service portion of their product wasn't a bad thing. What was bad, however, was when substantial portions of offline-only, singlepleyer games like Batman: Arkham City and Kingdoms of Amalur started having parts carved out to support the model. Catwoman's story was a big part of Arkham City, and anyone that bought the game second hand would have to pay extra for it.

That gets scrapped and Day One DLC and meaty preorder bonuses, like Metro: Last Light's Ranger Mode, become the next big thing. There is massive pushback from the customer base with regards to this and on-disc DLC, so they start spacing out post-launch support. Season passes become the norm, but like anything else the big pubs touch, that quickly goes to shit. Arkham Knight was asking for an extra $40 on top of the base game at launch. Many of whom that bought it at that price will more than likely tell you that it wasn't worth it. Then things like the Deus Ex: MD "Augment Your Preorder" happened. We're now at the point that loot boxes are being used effectively to support true Games as a Service, like League of Legends Fortnite in the Future, and they're being utilized in annual releases like Forza and the FIFA series. Games like Forza taking what were once series-staple gameplay mechanics and tying them to lootboxes. The thing with these loot boxes, though, is that they started out as "optional" but as time goes on, they are becoming less and less so.

Eventually, the consumer side of the industry will get fed up as the systems push us harder and harder into relying on these mechanics and something new will come along.

My question: What's next?

 

[traveler]

It's... really hard to see his point, here. People say, "games haven't increased in price for a decade, so they need alternate revenue models like DLC and microtransactions," and Jim says "What bullshit! Games -have- increased in price over that timeframe, look at all the DLC and microtransactions!" I mean, we're saying the same thing, just with a different emphasis.

Yeah.... this is where I'm at. Like, he's just stating the reverse from the justification- loot boxes, season passes, dlc, monthly fees- all of these are part of the same trend of developers needing alternate revenue streams to make up for the fact that the base price has not changed.

What exactly is the point here?

 

[oni-link]

Yeah.... this is where I'm at. Like, he's just stating the reverse from the justification- loot boxes, season passes, dlc, monthly fees- all of these are part of the same trend of developers needing alternate revenue streams to make up for the fact that the base price has not changed.

What exactly is the point here?

His point is a full game used to cost 60 dollars, now a full game costs more than 60 dollars, therefore people who defend bullshit pay to win or play to earn features in games by arguing games still cost 60 are wrong

 

[poodaddy]

I don’t know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owned games that I haven’t played yet and a plethora of endlessly replayable games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don’t need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I’m fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don’t need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don’t agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

I empathize with all of this post, particularly the bold, more than I can say. The whole, "New game hype train" culture is just so odd to me. Sometimes I feel like an old foagie who just doesn't understand what's happening around me or how game culture has progressed, but hell I'm only 30 so I can't be that out of the loop. I feel like video game culture has changed so much in the past fifteen years from what it was in the 90's that I barely recognize it any more.

 

[fester]

Glad Jim made this video and is calling out this out for the bullshit practice it is. I have never bought a season pass or a lootbox no intention of starting.

 

[FingerBang]

I love Jim. I rarely fully agree with gaf but this guy is a national treasure.

 

[Yarbskoo]

I feel like video game culture has changed so much in the past fifteen years from what it was in the 90's that I barely recognize it any more.

Honestly, I feel like that may not be a bad thing.

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

It's worth noting, that, it looks from my read of the data that profitability started increasing in ~2014, which is around the time that the big players started playing around with microtransactions in AAA titles.

Does anyone remember 2014? It was so barren that Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was the the unanimous game of the year (it's a good game, don't get me wrong, but would probably miss the top 10 of many gamers' if it were released in 2017). My data indicates that EA was hemorrhaging money, less than they had a few years earlier, but still pretty badly.

And so, investment in AAA development was non-existent, as half the publishers pivoted to mobile or various other f2p schemes, banking on the next generation of consoles being the last one, much less supported than the previous ones. With their backs to the wall, Microsoft proposed eliminating used game sales altogether, only to be sufficiently chastened by their userbase. Game development costs were trending up, and up, and up, with no clear end in sight and no clear view of how you were even supposed to manage the thousand man teams that would be required to make them, much less finance them. As a result, 2014 was pretty indisputably the worst year for AAA game development we've ever seen.

Then they stuck microtransactions into games, some of them were popular and profitable, and the slow gears of industry started pivoting back towards AAA development. Three years later, by 2017, AAA development has never been more financially secure, or produced games of such a high caliber. It's night and day compared to three years ago.

If 2014 is what AAA looks like sans microtransactions, and 2017 is what it looks like with them, I know which world I'm choosing.

The best games that came out this year don't even have the microtranactions much less loot boxes. Zelda, nier, horizon, divinity, yakuza 0, resident evil 7, nioh, persona, tekken, and any number of indie games that came out this year.

Also personally it seems like the ea games released this year have all disappointed me or been completed removed from my radar. Mass effect being the most offensive example.

 

[patapuf]

He never even mentioned that much of the true excess in game development costs isn't the team sizes and production time growing. It's ridiculous marketing budgets in the AAA space.

Minecraft, DotA, League, PubG, counter strike go, Pokemon are the most popular games in the world but and all had barely any marketing compared to something like Call of Duty to achieve those sales levels. And despite it's massive marketing budget Call of Duty sales have been declining yearly. The only AAA games I can think of where massive marketing campaigns actually made a difference in the last few years is GTA 5 and Destiny. It's a giant sunk cost for publishers when a few just giving your game to a few big streamers can sell more copies of your game then a tv ad campaign and could do wonders to make publishers more profitable.

League spends a ton in marketing.

Valve throws tournaments that upwards of 30 million for Dora every year. CS is less, but still a lot of money.

Pokémon is one of the most marketed franchise In the world. It's marketing cost is surely you at least as high as the developer cost.

The average indie game on the scale of minecraft earns less than 1000 dollars on steam. You don't build a business strategy on that with thousands of employees.


Cod BTW. Is still one of, if not the best set selling game every year.


In general 10% of games make a great 70% of the total revenue in the industry. A big publisher wants to be part of that.

 

[johancruijff]

It's worth noting, that, it looks from my read of the data that profitability started increasing in ~2014, which is around the time that the big players started playing around with microtransactions in AAA titles.

Does anyone remember 2014? It was so barren that Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was the the unanimous game of the year (it's a good game, don't get me wrong, but would probably miss the top 10 of many gamers' if it were released in 2017). My data indicates that EA was hemorrhaging money, less than they had a few years earlier, but still pretty badly.

And so, investment in AAA development was non-existent, as half the publishers pivoted to mobile or various other f2p schemes, banking on the next generation of consoles being the last one, much less supported than the previous ones. With their backs to the wall, Microsoft proposed eliminating used game sales altogether, only to be sufficiently chastened by their userbase. Game development costs were trending up, and up, and up, with no clear end in sight and no clear view of how you were even supposed to manage the thousand man teams that would be required to make them, much less finance them. As a result, 2014 was pretty indisputably the worst year for AAA game development we've ever seen.

Then they stuck microtransactions into games, some of them were popular and profitable, and the slow gears of industry started pivoting back towards AAA development. Three years later, by 2017, AAA development has never been more financially secure, or produced games of such a high caliber. It's night and day compared to three years ago.

If 2014 is what AAA looks like sans microtransactions, and 2017 is what it looks like with them, I know which world I'm choosing.

What?

In 2014 most of the 2017 AAA games were already budgeted and in development

 

[Yazzees]

I don’t know. I just feel at odds with the mindset that many of my fellow consumers in the enthusiast space operate under. Between my backlog of owned games that I haven’t played yet and a plethora of endlessly replayable games I can always go back to, I feel like I could probably game for the rest of my life never buying a new game ever again if I had too. I don’t need what companies are selling right now. When I look at what a game is offering and surmise that it feels like a poor value I’m fine with it as they are just saving me from myself in terms of pissing money away on another game I don’t need.

Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a subset of costumers out there that experienced a rage-induced aneurism around the time of horse armor and have spent the last 10+ years feeling like corporations are just trying to bend them over a barrel ever since. And I don’t agree with that defeatism. EA needs me to buy Battlefront II more than I need more AAA Star Wars games to exist. The power to happily not waste money on yet another AAA shooter rests entirely in my hands.

I'm with you there. It feels like there are gamers who complain about this stuff more thab they spend time actually playing a damn video game. It's a question of just how long-winded one can be on what's essentially the same topic over and over with some superficial variation (dlc vs season pass vs loot crates vs whatever, ultimately it's anger at having to pay beyond sticker price to own everything either way) and people like Jim who seem to have an absolutely bottomless capacity for ranting about it are a strange bunch to me.

 

[JelDeRebel]

maan I remember COD map pack going from $10 to $15 and Booby Kotick was the devil

 

[airmangataosenai]

I guess I tend to avoid these sort of exploitive titkes so I don't run into this shit as often. That Mordor upsell is especially disgusting. i can accept this for superfluous multiplayer bullshit I will never touch, not core gameplay in singleplayer.

 

[traveler]

I know this isn't the main thrust of his argument and it was just a one off example, but man, that is an absolute butchering of the actual situation with Destiny 2's shaders. There's, like, a minor inkling of truth somewhere in there with a hefty mixture of falsehoods.

1. Destiny 1 had shaders as permanent items that you would equip in 1 item slot and then the shader would apply to all your gear while equipped. Shaders were acquired from a variety of activites, with some shaders being tied to specific activites. (i.e. there was a high end "raid" shader that you could only get from getting it as a drop in each raid with a color scheme befitting the raid's theme)
2. Destiny 2 has shaders as 1 off consumable items that come in batches. Players can now outfit each item individually, so you don't have to have a single shader applied across your entire gear and can mix and match shaders across armor. You do have to reacquire shaders if you wish to add them to new pieces or change current pieces. (although due to the way infusion works, you aren't needing to color new pieces as often as you might think) Destiny 2's shaders are acquired from a variety of activities, including the exact same activities as before. They are NOT locked behind a paywall. The given reason for the change to consumable (ostensibly alongside the added benefit of being able to color individual pieces separately) is that Bungie wanted to provide additional reasons for players to target certain activities after they had acquired the necessary gear from them. A player might decide they want to continue playing the raid well after acquiring the gear there because they like it's look. Or they might go run public events on Nessus because they like the Nessus shader. Or, like this last week, they might pledge to a certain faction because they like that faction's shaders.
3. Destiny 2 also has items called Bright Engrams. These are a collection of cosmetic items that can contain items like cosmetic sparrows, cosmetic ships, and rare shaders not associated with any particular activities like the ones mentioned in points 1 and 2. (They also include minor weapons mod, which are used chiefly during the early leveling experience to give your armor certain perks. They do not raise power level like the ones needed for lategame activity and are plentifully available in the game proper) These Bright Engrams can be purchased for real money. They are also earned on a regular basis without spending any real money in game, so players who don't spend any money will continue to acquire a stash of cosmetic shaders from these and can use them, assuming they don't wish to use the activity specific shaders mentioned in points 1 and 2.
4. A full set of class gear is 5 pieces, so you'd need 5 shaders to outfit them. Assuming you also wanted your weapons to match, you'd need an additional 3 shaders for your loadout, although weapons are shared across classes so there's some wiggle room there. Either way- 5 or 8- 3 shaders isn't some insidious "just 1 below full count" rubbing it in your face count for shaders.

So, in summary, Destiny 2 allows you to acquire a certain subset of shaders more rapidly at random by spending money. You can get the same exact shaders by playing the game normally. You can also get unique shaders from every activity you used to get shaders from in Destiny 1. You do have to consume a shader on use but you obtain multiple every time you get them and can apply them individually as a tradeoff.

His point is a full game used to cost 60 dollars, now a full game costs more than 60 dollars, therefore people who defend bullshit pay to win or pay to earn features in games by arguing games still cost 60 are wrong

The bolded two points are the exact same. Everyone is saying the exact same thing.

People are stating the price of games hasn't reason so publishers need additional sources of income so they change for things like features in games that might have been necessary.

Am I going crazy? This is super frustrating to read what seems like two sides talking past each other agreeing.

 

[BigDug13]

Is the market for the traditional AAA games really bigger?

Yeah. PS1 and PS2 really grew the overall market compared to the SNES/Genesis days. Xbox and 360 made gaming more "cool" also and grew the market. Wii and it also seems the Switch expanded the market into more mainstream homes as well.

The multiple companies having strong consoles has grown the market. The contraction post-Wii looks like it might be back post-Switch.

 

[Air]

This was a good one. I don't always agree with him, but I thought this was well executed. I really don't understand how people can tolerate paid loot crates in full priced games.

 

[LordRaptor]

In general 10% of games make a great 70% of the total revenue in the industry. A big publisher wants to be part of that.

Its even more concentrated than that; 30% of all revenue is made by only 2% of games.