LFTE: A Fair Exchange? (June 12)

Staff

by Andy McNamara on May 25, 2012 at 03:15 PM

1,532 Views

As discussed in our feature on game monetization [in issue 230], with the advent of freemium games 99-cent apps, and downloadable content expansions, premium console games face one of their toughest challenges yet. How do publishers convey value for a $60 game in a world where a larger percentage of titles are free or available at a fraction of the cost?

I don't just speak for myself when I say there is a market of gamers who are willing to pay more for an experience that goes above and beyond the call. The popularity of games like the multi-billion dollar Call of Duty franchise proves that. Those same gamers also prefer experiences that are devoid of invasive ads or built solely for the purpose of taking dollars out of their pocketbook rather than delivering unadulterated entertainment to fill their valuable free time. The real question is, will the traditional $40 to $60 price tag for console games still be acceptable as we enter the next generation of hardware?

In my mind there is no simple answer, because every entertainment medium - be it movies, TV, or video games - is an exchange. I give them money, they keep me joyfully occupied for a period of time, and when it is over I deem whether the exchange has value or is a rip-off. This is not qualitative judgment of product in the classic game review sense; this is a consumer interaction graded in the rawest of forms: Was the fun worth it?

With free games, it is easy to get to the tipping point of making it a positive value for the customer, but I've still had free experiences where I felt ripped off because my time is valuable. Bad games are bad no matter what the cost. Great games make a player feel like every penny spent was worth it, no matter the cost.

The solution sounds simple: Game publishers should offer games at a value-appropriate price. Small, simple games (hell, even giant MMOs) can be free. Small, simple games (hell, even giant MMOs) can be expensive. Determining the value and formulating a strategy for selling and marketing your game is a right every game publisher should have. Unfortunately, on consoles they don't have that power.

The platform holders - in this case Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony - charge publishers and developers a set fee for each game and enforce pricing standards. In effect, they take the decision of whether or not the game is a good value proposition away from the creators. Want to make your game free-to-play on Xbox Live? Too bad. Thinking about porting that App Store game you sell for 99 cents over to Vita at the same price? Sorry, that needs to be $12.99.

Publishers and developers are not free to make these decisions in the current console game environment, and if it doesn't correct itself other game platforms where the creators are empowered to define price freely will win the battle - not of price, but of value. Premium games aren't in danger of extinction, but archaic control over game pricing should be.

Filed under: June, LTFE, 230

I agree that console download content pricing needs to be fixed. However, it seems that the premium the developer must pay to get their game onto Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo’s platforms would serve to keep the marketplace from becoming crowded by every “game” under the sun that gets made. While this seems harsh from one point of view and certainly beautiful gems fall through the cracks, I’m more content to browse a marketplace that already has some method of filtering the content so it isn’t left to me. It is a rather lazy sentiment I understand, but none the less... Certainly, improvements could be made to bring content evenly across all platforms. This is especially noticeable when content on PSN is more (or less) expensive than the same content on XBL (and on occasion the Wii/DS Stores), and when content appears on one but none of the others. [Interestingly, stories have appeared on this site before about this pricing problem.] Given the complex and expensive task of following the creative process from the point of conception to completion, the publisher of a video game must have a strong investment in the game studio(s) that created the game. Without control on pricing, if a product hits the market at a low price because it has been evaluated as a low price point game, then the publisher runs the risk of losing money while basically giving a product away. In the end, the consumer who buys it at a low price point loses as well; receiving a sub-par experience that was never worth it in the first place. It is up to the consumers (gamers in this case) to put pressure back on the publisher (and by extension the studios) to constantly improve their methods and become more efficient at creating their product. I don’t mean to imply that the creative process should be eliminated and that developers should produce cookie-cutter franchises like Call of Duty 24/7, but that the pressure from the consumer should keep the developers from churning up content that nobody wants to see in the market. Also, many times there are games that may have started out conceptually awesome but fell flat in the process, and these games fail because they are a bad product (and no marketplace can be devoid of bad products). Furthermore, I think there are developers who look to put as little work as possible into a “game” and deliver it to the market to see what suckers they can get to by the “game.” I think many of us have fallen victim to this before, myself included (and, let's not go into movie-based video games *shudder*). They seek to invest very little and reap the profits of a gullible consumer. Ultimately, I don't see how that sort of greed will be changed by allowing the price to be set by the developer/publisher. While those three situations are certainly not the genesis of every bad game, I think that these play a role in the argument presented in your post Mr. McNamara. In contrast to my lazy point of view above, I feel that it is our responsibility as the consumers (the ones who generate the demand) to keep our standards high; and, in doing that, apply the pressure to the producers and platforms to justify the $40 - $60 price range for the future (adjust for inflation of course ;P). Final Summation: I won’t lose sight of the fact that it’s my money, and I can go spend it on a good book or movie rather than give it to a market that may devolve into greed and play off of our laziness.

Comments

sort by date:

by Torr3ntialFire Friday, May 25, 2012 at 08:38 PM

I agree that console download content pricing needs to be fixed. However, it seems that the premium the developer must pay to get their game onto Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo’s platforms would serve to keep the marketplace from becoming crowded by every “game” under the sun that gets made. While this seems harsh from one point of view and certainly beautiful gems fall through the cracks, I’m more content to browse a marketplace that already has some method of filtering the content so it isn’t left to me. It is a rather lazy sentiment I understand, but none the less... Certainly, improvements could be made to bring content evenly across all platforms. This is especially noticeable when content on PSN is more (or less) expensive than the same content on XBL (and on occasion the Wii/DS Stores), and when content appears on one but none of the others. [Interestingly, stories have appeared on this site before about this pricing problem.] Given the complex and expensive task of following the creative process from the point of conception to completion, the publisher of a video game must have a strong investment in the game studio(s) that created the game. Without control on pricing, if a product hits the market at a low price because it has been evaluated as a low price point game, then the publisher runs the risk of losing money while basically giving a product away. In the end, the consumer who buys it at a low price point loses as well; receiving a sub-par experience that was never worth it in the first place. It is up to the consumers (gamers in this case) to put pressure back on the publisher (and by extension the studios) to constantly improve their methods and become more efficient at creating their product. I don’t mean to imply that the creative process should be eliminated and that developers should produce cookie-cutter franchises like Call of Duty 24/7, but that the pressure from the consumer should keep the developers from churning up content that nobody wants to see in the market. Also, many times there are games that may have started out conceptually awesome but fell flat in the process, and these games fail because they are a bad product (and no marketplace can be devoid of bad products). Furthermore, I think there are developers who look to put as little work as possible into a “game” and deliver it to the market to see what suckers they can get to by the “game.” I think many of us have fallen victim to this before, myself included (and, let's not go into movie-based video games *shudder*). They seek to invest very little and reap the profits of a gullible consumer. Ultimately, I don't see how that sort of greed will be changed by allowing the price to be set by the developer/publisher. While those three situations are certainly not the genesis of every bad game, I think that these play a role in the argument presented in your post Mr. McNamara. In contrast to my lazy point of view above, I feel that it is our responsibility as the consumers (the ones who generate the demand) to keep our standards high; and, in doing that, apply the pressure to the producers and platforms to justify the $40 - $60 price range for the future (adjust for inflation of course ;P). Final Summation: I won’t lose sight of the fact that it’s my money, and I can go spend it on a good book or movie rather than give it to a market that may devolve into greed and play off of our laziness.

GameInformer

LFTE: A Fair Exchange? (June 12)