Why does nobody ever mention that more people buy video games then ever before. The games may still be 60 bucks, but they have a lot more customers. These people are still making buckets of profit well before they tack on all the extra costs. GTA 5 was the most expensive game ever made. It made about a billion bucks in a few days... There's no need for these additional costs. They never needed to the online microtansations.
Xearrik Gaming indeed, games are continuously "dumbed down" to attract ever more players to buy them. Note that's not a bad thing pls don't hunt me down Duke Amiel :(
And why does nobody talk about the archaic, overly wasteful marketing? I would like someone to analyze the current gaming market and how the old and busted way of marketing is just a huge waste of money.
Xearrik Gaming GTA V is an anomaly in the video game industry. Having said that it's true, gaming is a bigger industry than the movie industry, which means there are a lot more customers than before. Publishers will push these practices until it starts to negatively affect them, either from public backlash (by not spending money, not just moaning about it) or government intervention.
EXACTLY THIS. I keep telling people who defend publishers saying they need more then $60 that not only are more people buying games but a whole chunk of them are buying them *digitally*. That means no cost to create disks, cases, box art, delivery and distribution. NO ONE mentions any of this and it really annoys me.
You missed economies of scale. Usually items go down in price as the market matures. Computers used to be tens of thousands, now they're hundreds. In video games more people buy them than ever before, meaning they can make more money at the $60 price point more than they have in the past. Video games should have gone down in price as the market grew. They have no per unit production cost. Often they have no upkeep costs. In those cases, we are seeing clear market manipulation. They aren't lowering the price simply because they don't have to.
Servers have a maintenance cost and 'every game has to be multiplayer' and 'every game has to be always online' and will cock-block you in a few years when the servers go offline... So they cost a lot to make (arguments that will crop up)
@Ilya Panferov The development cost of making the game itself is a fixed cost, meaning that it doesn't increase per unit created. You can think of the fixed cost of producing a game as being sunk, and should not impact the price of a good. It is basic microeconomics that if a business is not able to earn more than the fixed cost of production, it should not be in business. The variable cost, the cost of physically producing copies of it is small for the physical discs, and a small fraction of the cost of the game at best if the game involves multiplayer servers and server expansion is needed. It is warranted to say that the per-unit cost of a game is virtually nonexistent nowadays, since the variable cost is so small compared to the cost of development.
Izaac It gets worse - some are not lowering the prices as their products mature and sometimes become outdated. Now you can still find games that are, at least, 3 years old and have a sequel or two, but still cost $69,99 (€65)/€69,99 (US $75). Imagine buying new iPhone 8 or a 2016 car today for their original prices? No bueno. Also, remastered versions. I imagine upscalling textures is as easy as changing font size, because if they’d be much of hassle, we wouldn’t have seen as many of those as we have. And there is the currency issue. We in EU overpay a few US $ for every damn thing and get shit like regional content and sometimes no language support or local support, that would be operating under the local laws (which sometimes they ignore local or EU laws and regulations and do whatever the fuck they want, because they hired the cheapest idiots). One could say that it is because conversion costs in the banks, but judging by the fact that they don’t even pay their taxes (and the biggest fucks even manage to get tax refunds from 0 taxes paid), I very much doubt it. Even if it is - it’s their expense, not ours, why the fuck are we paying for it?
Another noteworthy point, games used to come with actual boxes, hand crafted instruction manuals, fold out maps and no always online bullshit. Nowadays you get a virtual key for your virtual games storage case in your virtual games library. I used to enjoy a morning shit while reading my instruction manual and accompanying map
i remember cracking the case open on a brand new sega game and reading the manual on the way home because of how hyped i was to be playing it. i do miss those things, in game menus or whatever just don't have the same effect. i get times change, but man did it feel great.
Problem is, sometimes games expire before they get completed. I haven't touched a Battlefield game since BF2 due to the fact that I just refuse to pay more than $60 to get the full experience, and by the time that it happens, the players are elsewhere. The same happened to SW Battlefront recently. I haven't played it since the beta, and now I'm playing SWBF2 beta, and I already know I won't be getting it because lootboxes.
It's really sad that things like Stardew Valley and Cuphead come out, both which have an amazing level of quality and a very good amount of content, are around $20, and still make a truckload of money. Maybe if these companies didn't spend 500 million on advertisements they wouldn't act like they were losing money
divinity original sin 2 shows how its done. a well past 50 + hour amazing 4 player coop rpg that only had 2 million in funds from a kickstarter with no dlc bs and is incredible every npc is fully voice acted.
Most companies really really never spend even $20 million on advertising. Especially the companies that have been getting into partnerships and sponsorship deals decades ago. Especially racing games and sports games have had in-game product placements and other kinds of hidden advertisements in games since like forever (yes, this includes big deals with NVIDIA, Intel and AMD, but also brands like Coca Cola, Snickers, Nike, etc. etc.). Even worse, quite a few publishers simply brag about having reserved an X amount of money as the 'budget' for the game. The same happened with Destiny 1. A game that really did not cost more to make than around $40 million, including advertising on TV in quite a lot of countries. The whole $500 million stuff was nonsense. It's the budget reserved for all potential games in what is intended to be the next 'Halo' or 'Call of Duty' level of long-lasting franchise. It doesn't mean they've spend $500 million on Destiny 1 at all. That's basically a publisher that's lying just because it gets even more eyes on their 'new' franchise. And lets not kid ourselves, Destiny 1 was a crap product. They released an incomplete mess of a game, merely testing the waters. Destiny 2 isn't even really that much better, still filled with a nonsensical storyline because of how they've messed up the first game. It's actually a bit sad to see console gamers get the game as if it's the best thing ever, because these games will be the downfall of this industry. People shouldn't support remakes like Battlefront 2 (which shouldn't be called Battlefront 2) that are lacking in level design and gameplay. People shouldn't support Call of Duty WW2 that's basically modern warfare with a second world war skin, which is exactly NOT what people were asking for. Honestly, if game devs do not focus more on compelling and skill based gameplay with worthwhile content and good value, I'm really not going to buy their game.
The funny thing is Jim didn't even mention how in many ways the costs of making games has gone DOWN. The majority of sales these days is digital! You don't need to pay the retailer, shipping costs to get it to the retailer, in store marketing and most importantly the cost of the actual cart. The most expensive part of old video games was the cartridge! What few games still are bought physically come on cheaper to produce, much smaller cartridges or mediums. You can fit like 30 of the games made for the Switch into an old NES cartridge and that is still by FAR the most expensive medium of game installation. Blue Rays are half the cost. Digital distribution (the main method of selling a game) costs pennies compared to physical distribution.... so why are the games the same price in the PS Store or the Xbox store? Because $$$$$$$. What a load of shit. People, if it has purchasable loot boxes in the game you are buying. Don't EVER buy one. You are only making your future purchases more expensive because you are telling the asshole game producers that it's acceptable to do that bs.
This so much. Game development costs are not outrageous like they used to be. These publishers CHOOSE to make them outrageous, (honestly they could be lying, it's not illegal for them to lie) by using the most ridiculous technologies that add virtually nothing to the games. It wouldn't be impossible to use very good visuals, but on a cheaper engine and buy a cheaper version of said engine that can be modified by your team. In fact, people already do this with Unity but most people don't realize because of the fact that you don't have to have the splash screen on paid Unity versions. If Hellblade can do it, and especially Witcher 3, then no excuses really. Honestly, it's pretty easy to logic out yourself anyways. I was interested in game development at one point, since I'm a programmer and honestly the costs can be almost as high or low as you want them to be if your are efficient about how you organize the team and write the code. I'm not saying hiring is cheap but it's not so expensive that games need to be higher than $60 when they already get millions of sales. I mean if we're being honest, most team members will average around $82,000 a year (This is based off of average of starting salary and experienced salary). If you have a reasonable team and not overinflated corporate sized teams (ie the mistake that most publishers choose to make) then you might need 15 team members. For 3 years of development (the average dev cycle) that's about $3.7 million. And fixed costs will run maybe another $1 million (lighting, computers, electricity, hardware). And not all of those are monthly fees. Computers are good after bought for many years. Good software is the same. So averaging that out with developer salary might be $5 million. So the cost of making your game was give or take $5 - 6 million. Maybe if we are being generous we could inflate that to $10 million. Okay but if you sell only 1 million units (most of these games sell more) then that's still well over that margin. Assuming they only make half of that money as true retail on EVERY unit that's still $30 million. And that's assuming only 15 members on the team. We could double that number up to 30 but they would still make a profit because the cost would average total expense up to about $12 million ($16 million with that massive random inflation earlier I did). Now be realistic and realize that they make much more than that per sale on average and if soemone buys digitally from their store on PC (at least 5% of sales) that's the full $60. Then it becomes really easy to understand why their arguments are bullshit. And keep in mind that this only assuming 1 million sales. They often get FAR more than that.
I didn't say overall costs had gone down, I was talking about ways in which they had. Also, "Development teams stretch into the hundreds of people", tell that to the developer of Stardew Valley. Total development team..... 1. SOME games have teams that size but it's becoming ever more clear that that is not a good business model. Many games don't require servers to run. Destiny and games like COD are NOT the norm in the gaming industry, they are the extreme. Someone is ill-informed here, but it's not me.
Who said I wanted cheap games? Nor am I "over privileged". You make a lot of assumptions off of the extremely small information you have on me. Yes, this is the norm in the AAA industry but it's not the only way. Also, you make an excellent point, Destiny sold 500 MILLION just at release! This game is still selling really well, there will be even more sales for Christmas and it doesn't even include PC numbers. You aren't helping your argument though. Simply because you pointed out how astronomically more copies that the big AAA games can sell now over how they used to and still NONE of that disproves what I said, that some costs have gone down. Destiny 2 sold majority digital. Every one of those copies saves them a ton of money in physical distribution That means that every digital sale was approximately 40-60% less than the physical copies that used to make up 100% of the sales. That is a huge decrease in development cost. I'm not saying game development is cheap. I'm just saying that in some ways it has gotten cheaper. You aren't even reading what I'm saying though are you? You're just jumping to conclusions and then spewing numbes that have nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
Games development cost hasnt gone down, it just got more accesesible. The AAA games now are mostly chasing graphic. The game itself while complex can be made with less graphic heavy process. That the real issue here. Devs are always pushing bounderies of what the tech is capable of, render, texture, etc, and that take time, a lot of time, as well as costly. So yes, it made sense that games are expensive to make, but that only apply with AAA games who are so obsess with graphic, but that too falls apart quickly when you take in game like The Witcher 3, Hell's blade, Horizon Zero Dawn and many more games with AAA quaility gameplay that don't have shitty DLC, cashop, poor launch content, and many more bad practices surrounding them and most are made with smaller budget too, without the backing of WarnerBro, EA, Activision, etc. So no, it never excuses them to ever include them just because it expensive. Manage their own budget better and stop raising stupid sales expectation.
It's worse in Australia. Because of shipping costs, the price tag for games moved from $60 to $90 or $100. While that's fair enough on it's own (we live on an island far from anyone, it's expensive to send things here, I get it), they have also made the digital storefront's price tags match the sale price on the shelves, because @#$% customers
Zarsky88 I use an Australian Bank with Australian currency. From what I understand, most, if not all, digital stores charge to the region of the bank (I will have to look that up though). I suppose I could join a bank in a separate country and fool the system. However, I don't earn enough millions or need to dodge taxes to justify that :P
Yeh "mye vil ha mer" ;) Im pirating and cheating through this game, no way am i spending my hard earned Norwegian crowns on AAA lootbox day-1 dlc shillfest.
Actually, the full expression in Norwegian is "Mye vil ha mer, og fanden will ha fler." Which translates to "Much wants more (uncountable, ie. wealth), and the Devil wants more (countable, ie. people). It's rhymes in Norwegian, but not English, so that's why I left the last part out. The implication is that just like greedy people amass wealth, so does the devil amass people, which is implied to be those very people who are greedy.
We actually have something Similar in Arabic. it translates roughly into "the Ocean Loves getting More" , it's mostly lost in translation but it stems from the fact that most Arabic speakers came originally from some form of desert or another, and for an "Ocean" to actually want more water, that would be the epitome of Greed. but yeah, the original quote up there translates more elegantly into English for sure :D
I honestly don't think the size of the team or game matters. They've managed their expenses properly and aren't greedy. So they do stuff like release free dlc. Size doesn't matter, greed does.
Team size matters because every employee has to get paid (or should get). That's one reason why the expenses are so high, plus half of the expenses are going to marketing. It's just the way how they think "We have THIS much people working on the game and we have used THIS much money to make it, so it's going to be BIG game. Also...we are poor now.. help!" *whipes the sweat on 1000 dollar bill*
Games used to be a very democratizing medium: the experience a middle-class gamer got at home was the same the rich kid got in his mansion. That's over now: you have different experiences depending on how much money you're willing to invest in a game. That's what worries me the most
2 years, I know, it doesn’t matter. Why this is even more scarier, because they don’t care how much money one can spend, they will want everybody to buy the most expensive thing they offer even if it’s your last penny. We’ve already passed a €100 (US $115) mark with fancy editions that don’t even offer a physical items anymore (most of them were shit quality anyway, but still). What’s even worse - no matter how much money their scummy tactics will earn them, they will still continue to underpay and fire staff by hundreds and will treat the customers like fucking idiots.
Another thing, way back in the day most devs had to build their own game engines. Now with the ubiquity of Unity, Unreal, et al, thats a lot less money they have to invest.
You say that and although you are still right because it at the very least would be cheaper, I wager they still have to rent the engine out to use it, I mean they can't use it for free can they?...no really can they? I want to know if it's a single purchase item, mainly because if it was I would love to buy it and screw around with some skit dood. :3
@Shadow60f Unity, Unreal, and the Crysis engines are all free to use but if you make a certain amount of profit you are required to pay a certain percentage of that profit in royalties. For most, the royalties are around 5-10%. Its not too bad.
And while you are right, it is cheaper, its not significantly cheaper depending on the game and what the developer is looking to get out of it. The main benefit of using an existing engine is not the cost, but its for time and convenience. If a developer chooses to use an existing engine but that engine is terrible at doing several key things that the game requires, then its possible that they'll have to spend a shitload of time and money to rectify those issues before development can continue. Star Citizen had this problem with the Cry engine. While its a great engine, its not built to process a large play area with alot going on over a network. The star citizen has spent (and is still spending) alot of time and money retro-fitting the engine to combat this issue, as the cry engine was never designed to handle a game like star citizen. So yeah, it might save money in most cases, but its generally not enough to significantly lower production costs of large projects. And it can still backfire if the wrong engine is chosen for the job.
I love this one: "Every game is made at a loss"... Yeah right, corporations are doing it just for the good of mankind, not because of the million dollar industry
I've been saying for years that if a company spends 30-100 million dollars making a game and needs to charge me $69.99 (meaning every million copies sold is $10M extra in revenue for them), that's fine... *IF* they... 1. Give me a *full* game; don't put shit on my disc that I can't access without a credit card. 2. Don't penalize me for not paying you before I see your product (i.e. pre-order "bonuses") 2. Finish the game so it doesn't require 10 Gb worth of day-one patches. Do that, and we'll be fine with a higher "standard" price point. And then, if you work for another 6-12 months and come out with a bad-ass *expansion pack* (not a piece of garbage DLC that you cut from the base game), then I'll probably give you another $30 for it. I'd be fine with paying $10 or even $15 more than I did for Genesis games in 1995 if I could stop having to download so much bullshit that I have to delete games off my 2TB HDD just to play your game.
I have a feeling AAA-gaming market is going to crash huge time, and Indie's are going to take over. I'm okay with this. I have more fun playing unique games than what essentially feels like the same game again and again.
Lyrikan You may be right. I'd be ok with AAA, AA, or A games (lol) as long as they're fun. I had a ridiculous amount of fun for hours and hours with games like Earthbound back in the day, and you could make something like that for $500,000 today. I'd take it
Competent developers, a desire to make a good game and not $, positive PR with community, and taking big risks is what many of the great games nowadays are doing.
Dave Carsley oh yeah, after it introduce all fake dlc, season pass, micro-transaction, then charge you 69.99 dollar, sounds awesome, but that is the basic version. You want premium first start advance ahead version? 199.99
$150. $150 to get the base game of $60, plus the three DLCs that retail for $30. This is based on industry averages. If you want to go for Fallout 4 levels of fuckery, it's $240. If you want to hit Sims level of fuckery, it's $530. FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS FOR A GODDAMN VIDEOGAME.
AMEN BROTHER! I still dont get how people let EA get their way with the SIMS by charging 500$ FUCKING DOLLARS FOR THE FULL GAME ... specially when in SIMS 1 you could get all that shit + more for less than 100$ FUCK EA, THANK GOD FOR JIM FUCKIN STERLING SON
Thatone Pronoun yeah it's fucking stupid how much shit costs for us compared to America the fact we deal with triple digit prices I wish we could buy games for $60
hey mate not sure if you realise but most chains will price match and if you check jb hi-fi always has new games at $79 au when eb games are selling for $89-$99 ask nicely at counter and save a few bucks,all the best
Over here in NZ I don't touch consoles. Inherently more expensive, you lose access to older games pretty quick, and pirating for the newer consoles is a painful process.
Weird how almost all of the best games now-a-days are generally priced at 40 dollars or below. A lot of them also don't have big publishers behind them. Someone get me that thinking emoji.
MushyBird McMushington now that Warframe is finally getting some sunlight you can add free to that list of good. And ethical games without big publishers behind them.
I'm still mad at Bethesda for that metacritic shit they pulled with Fallout: New Vegas : ) Also this is why I wait for "AAA" games to go on sale when they come out with their "Complete/Game of The Year Edition" a year or so later. God thing there are games like Cuphead, 20 bucks for a beautiful and enjoyable game without the bullshit.
Jim, you should have also brought up that the videogame industry routinely DESTROYS the film industry in terms of profits while the number of games per year that surpass the *average* film budget can be counted on one hand, if that. The games that have all these different versions and season passes and loot boxes sell millions upon millions of copies making far in excess of what the initial budget of the game was. Which of course is even more disgusting when you consider that the film industry pays royalties to actors, directors, writers and so forth. The only ones that get 'royalties' in the game industry are the scumbag execs that are railroading good games with horrible forced design mandates.
And you don't see film actors working 60 hour weeks for "passion" and screaming themselves hoarse because actors actually have fucking unions, while the video game industry is still running sweatshops instead of entertainment studios.
But don't forget, when a game only sells 11 million copies, it's seen as a complete and utter failure! Hardly anyone bought the game! If they could only sell 100 million copies each and every time a game comes out, then they wouldn't need microtransactions or season passes! It's our fault for not buying even more copies of a game that still has these mechanics in it for them to justify it as something we obviously want!
Haha seriously!! You don't see game creators renting out a whole area in a city in order to shoot one damn scene! These devs and pubs are banking on the people who actually think these companies are spending a crap load of money to make these games xD. If 100,000 people buy a 60 dollar game, that is 6,000,000 dollars already and that is just the beginning!
In fairness, MGS5's feature density and the amount of stupid attention to detail actually did make it way more memorable. a game where you can evade enemies by playing a tape of a soldier with the shits while hiding in a toilet should never be forgotten.
I've played Fallout a fuck load of times...and you're full of shit if you think it's even comparable to a modern release like MGSV. What is it with everyone and their rose colored lenses when it comes to old games? Were you all toddlers in the 90s or some shit?
I just wish the Yakuza led Konami didn't keep forcing Kojima to make a game he wanted to end and then fuck him over. MGSV should've been the final swan song of all of it, I'm surprised it even turned out as well as it did.
Here's kind of a different question to ask any apologists/anyone who agrees with ANY of the practices Jim pointed out in the video (I know it won't ever be seen by em, but it's there all the same): How far is too far then? If NONE of the things mentioned are too much for you to handle, that's fine, but then that leaves the question of...when WILL it be too much? When WILL the industry finally go beyond what you're willing to deal with? If lootboxes/gambling, huge amounts of DLCs and season passes, oodles of 'special editions', and other nonsense too much to list is not enough, at what point will you finally break and say 'enough is enough'? I admit I'm not faultless here. I've made mistakes, even still support some of these practices on some games I play, even fallen for it as well. It's very much so a case of 'let he who is without sin' kind of situation. I won't deny it, hell even Jim has admitted time and again he's only resisted the lure of loot boxes through sheer will, as he's very susceptible to them. I doubt there's many among us who are completely sinless when it comes to all the BS that these gaming companies do, but that doesn't mean there's no point to be made either. But just know that all these things that happen, all the BS that the companies put in, is never an 'accident', they don't do it to be 'nice' to the players or be our 'friends', they aren't our friends. They're a business, nothing more nothing less. Any acts of supposed 'benevolence' is just that, an act. Everything they do is coldly and strictly calculated movements that are designed to make them the most money, and they're only gonna keep finding ways to get more. Period.
TheNN when it comes to loot boxes I can give a definitive answer, overwach compared to everything else. I can't even fake getting mad at bright endgrams in comparison. cause 1 they ain't filled with ugly sprays and tags to pad them out, and two anything you don't want can be immediately broken down into a generous amount of dust. Seriously fuck overwach.
Nothing is too far for these people too busy riding or sucking a nice juicy corporate cock to notice that their wallets are being drained and they're catching a nasty STD.
Almost all these scummy practices are targeting the consoles and as a PC guy I rarely encounter them. Plus I don't rely on big budget exclusives, none of them can compare to the classics in gameplay anyway, and their built in cash grab economy holds no allure for me. I also don't much care for online multiplayer so I'm even further away from the toxic community they harbor and the loot boxes and microtransactions they so love parading in front of people's faces. If the console community doesn't make a stand for their right to be treated with respect by the industry then they deserve to be ripped off. Meanwhile when Bethesda tried to push Creation Club on to players the PC crowd universally rebuffed it and modded it so that players won't even see it. Now Bethesda's not even trying to win back it's PC consumers, they went for the easy target which are consoles because they know console players have no other alternative.
first of all there is no such thing as one big industry. every company chooses its own business model. some publishers go for loot boxes some for season pass and some for both or none. the one that allows it to happen is the consumer. overwatch being popular means that people love this type of business model. you get constant added content while not required to pay extra for DLC's\Seasons pass\monthly support fee. people that pay for the loot crates are the one who chose they want the extra content. by that people that don't pay for loot crates get continued support and future content while the company gets the revenue they need. it's a WIN-WIN-WIN while jim sterling comes and cries about how its a bad thing that you don't get the "Full Experience"
Why am I getting anti-Jim Sterling suggestions in my suggested videos up next column? I have to say that I watched one and it was pathetic, in it the guy actually suggested that people find Jim's personal information online and harass him in his home, but he did condemn that kind of activity after already saying it. Makes me wonder which of the big gaming corporations paid him to start a channel specifically trying to create hate and destroy Jim Sterling. You need to keep an eye on that stuff Jim, that will be there next move, creating competing channels that personally target those that they don't like. They can try, but he is Jim Fucking Sterling Son, and he don't scare easy, and as worthless as this may be, I will always have Jim's back against this tidal wave of hate and bullshit.
As harsh as Jim Sterling message can be its also 100% necessary. The gaming industry is a rare kind of industry that desperately needs harsh sober critical voices in it, even games I love need to have the developers told whats what sometimes. Its rare in that it has almost no oversight, and its set up to make money even if the product is crap or takes advantage of the customer. I recently talked to a now retired professor of economics, and he was saying that market forces, that is you the consumer, that demand no longer drives the market anymore, but that its very much now a top down, we give you what WE the corporation wants you to have and you will take it or not, but we will always find someone to push this product and make that extra money somehow even if the product is utter shit. This has taken decades for them to perfect but Sterling is right in that they plant polling and focus groups do steer under there conditions to come out with what thy already wanted to push. Voting with your wallets on one bad game will not do then, its coming to the point were the industry itself as a whole needs to under perform to teach it a lesson, this happened before with Atari and I actually thank them for that lesson in the 80s as it shows that it can happen again to clean house, that rare moment were a entire industry finally sank because it was pumping out crap and it no longer could keep the pyramid scam going.
Of course the sad thing is that horse armour now comes in lootboxes where you don't even get the horse armour you want until you open 100 of the fucking things.
You don't even get the horse armour you want after 100 of the fucking things, you get "horse armour fragments" which must eventually be combined into horse armour which only has a 1/10 chance of being the horse armour you want since it's a legendary skin. Also it's only available for the holiday period.
This is maybe one of the best episodes you've ever done, Jim fucking Sterling, son! Holy crap, you opened my eyes so effectively. I'll have to look into this more, before I say you're unanimously correct, but this definitely gave me something to think about. Thank god for Jim.
AAA games are just released into early access now and they make everyone pay for the updates and new content they add until the game is finished and they move on to the next one. that's why they never feel finished at launch anymore and the price hasn't gone up-$60 is the early access price, but unlike real, honest early access games, they pretend it's finished and you're paying for more content on top of the finished game. imagine other early access devs/publishers doing this.
Have you played ARMS? It's another game that came out feeling pretty light on content to put it that way. However, something I'm pleasantly surprised by is that there is no DLC, no microtransactions, no Amiibo content locked and all updates are free. Sure, they're being drip-fed to us over the course of a year, but at least it's a pretty consumer friendly model in comparison. Ugh...
I advise you to do a little a bit of research. while Jim sterling is funny comedian and knows how to do videos he doesn't understands the basic of economy.
Remember how fun it was to complete all the challenges to unlock all the characters and maps in Timesplitters 2? I fear we'll never get that kind of fun again
Anybody remember when you could unlock extra costumes and game modes and stuff by playing the fucking game or with cheat codes? Now you have to pay the game for the same content. Sad times, indeed.
Squid King Cal Pretty much why I haven't bought any games for the current gen, so many of them are riddled with microtransactions, cut content, and now lootbox bullshit from the mobile game market. It's kind of funny how _AAA games_ used to be/is supposed to be the best of the gaming industry, but is now part of the lowest of the low as far as business practice is concerned at the very least.
Marshimus Prime Yep I'm on the same line: haven't bothered with any AAA games, or at least only a very few (only Overwatch comes to mind as a AAA game I recently bought, but not sure if Persona 5 is AAA and if it is, it's one hell of a good AAA game). But yeah, I just couldn't bother with these games where they're riddled with season pass, dlc, microshit and etc: it drives me away from even caring and unlike those whales I don't have money to waste. It doesn't make them worth it even when their price is lowered because even if i pay 5 bucks, I'd still get an incomplete game! Meanwhile I bought some old ps2 games a gamestop, they all work as intended, and have ALL the content inside. Just makes those 5 bucks worth it.
I don't disagree with what you're trying to say, but back in the NES, SNES or the N64 era it would've been practically impossible to add DLC to a game, considering that game consoles didn't even have internet access, not to mention the lack of a real operating system. I wouldn't be tiniest bit surprised if someone told me that a developer cut out content from a game just to sell it as a sequel before DLC became a thing. Maybe the reason why they're charging for that kind of content now is because of greed, but I don't think it's fair to claim that they didn't do it before out of the kindness in their hearts.
Ugh, reminds me of the new Marvel vs Capcom game. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the old ps1 Marvel vs Capcom as a kid, that new game felt so hollow in comparison. Good thing indie games are a thing now, really. Indie games alone have me backlogged because there's so many, so cheap, good games.
This usually falls on def ears with the most current generation of kids that are use to being exploited but here it is anyways: To change their scummy business practice follow these steps: 1. Stop falling for flashy trailers. 2. Stop buying/pre ordering games on release, and P2W Loot crates. 3. Look for credible reviews imo: (EasyAllies) and or find twitch streams of the game being played for more information on the game. 4. If the game is available on steam and you're not interested paying full price wait for a steam sale. Remember that you as the consumer have the power to change all this, either you change the way you purchase games or get use to being exploited.
Only if enough ppl band together. Unfortenatly, the casual gamers are those who sustain them nowdays, and they don't roam around those parts of the internet to get this advice.
The way I see it: Yes, more work is put into making games than ever. BUT, It has also become easier than ever to create games (as evident by the obvious growth of indie developers), and the gaming market is bigger than ever as well. Technology today is far more powerful, and depending on the viewpoint also a lot cheaper. With all these ups and downs, I feel that the 60$ price tag is sitting pretty much at the same balance as a decade ago, _however_ part of that 60$ was the ensurance that the game was produced professionally, worked the way it should, and stood as a solid product. The way many of these recent AAA games have turned out to be (looking at you Andromeda) those 60$ almost feels like too much.
It's so obvious that all the money goes to greedy executives that overwork their staff for minimum pay too. I'd honestly start to avoid any games backed by big publishers/studios with shady practices. Like between destiny 2 and Warframe for example, Warframe is the clear choice for both my sanity and my wallet.
Games fail when they are desgined shittely, and design ideas don't increase the price. Was Andromeda cutting-edge-but-not-working-new-animation-system needing more money? Or their writing quality would increase if you were to increase the pay? I'm not convinced about that.
And then we talk about Cuphead. 3 people can make a game that blows past (to me) most of the AAA games that has come out recently in quality and price.
Why is there a need to sound apologetic? The reality is that indie games are now objectively better, valued-added and consumer friendly than AAA gaming. Be proud of it, indie will make gaming great again.
Not apologetic at all but there are still merits to AAA games and certain things can only be done within a reasonable time frame with the development resources that larger companies have. That being said, indies generally are much more consumer friendly & do have interesting ideas & mechanics
Perfect example on how to do it right is Divinity Original Sin 2. One of the best reviewed games this year, with more than 200 hours of gameplay minimum. It has no season pass, no micro transactions, a game that was crafted with love and care and the price is $45...
Or start with the "first" part, Divinity Original Sin, from 2015 (also not a single DLC in sight). It may be called "Enhanced Edition" but that's because they "enhanced" it some time after launch for free and now it's the only version available on Steam.
Just one more example of corporate greed ruling the world. This shit has to stop at its roots, not just in relation to games. Business philosophy in general is a fucking mess of "more more more" and executive level greed.
Agent 005 the hardest and only way to stop this bullshit is by having MOST of us gamers and casuals to stop buying their shit. The lower the sales they have to start listening to the fans or change the way they make games. Hard yes impossible no
Agent 005 Well partly it has to start at an educational level, like many things in this world. Like Brad said, we can make some progress by forcing their hands. But that'll only combat it in the short-term. We also need to change how we're teaching business philosophy to young and upcoming people. For example, it's really common, especially in American rhetoric, for people to believe that the primary goal of a business is to make profit. It's so deeply entrenched that many of us probably wouldn't even think twice about it. But profit as the priority only leads to greed at its core. Some businesses are trying to say, "Oh, we're a good company. We give back to society as well as aiming for profit." But they're usually still prioritizing profit over everything else and in some cases, it's arguable that they're just doing the pro-social stuff for PR reasons. Instead, I believe the priority should be, "What can this company do to benefit society and people?" And profit should be relegated to maintenance status; it's a thing you have to put time into because you need to keep the lights on and the employees fed. You'll notice that a lot of independent creators on youtube follow this philosophy. They make money, so that they can keep creating. Rather than making money so that they can make more and more money. And it works out well. Audiences generally trust them and are often willing to hand over money to them to help them continue. It becomes a symbiotic relationship, rather than a relationship wrought with distrust that feels like an ongoing battle. People also need it hammered home to them the fact that money is a zero-sum-game. That no matter how much money you print, there's still a finite amount of resources and a finite amount of *worth* attached to the currency to go around. It may be harder for people to justify greed to themselves if they understand, as the whole point of greed and why it's problematic is that you are inherently depriving someone. It'll take time for this kind of stuff to get rooted in our cultural conversations, but we do need to expand the conversation beyond "greed is bad." Cause "greed is bad" doesn't really get it through to people why greed isn't just bad on a moral level, it's also just a super impractical way to run a society. A society that runs on greed is a society that courts its own implosion (as is happening now in the US with the disappearing middle class). But part of the problem with the conversation, sort of related to the general point being made by Kurt Andersen with his recent book Fantasyland, is that there's too much of people believing fantasy things about the world. People who truly believe anyone can be rich if they put their mind to it, for example. But it's literally impossible for everyone to be rich past a certain point, as it would reach a point where due to everyone being on the same level, the value of their money goes down. I'm not educated enough in economies to put it in academic terms, but I'm pretty sure the gist of it is just common sense.
Project Mayhem Perhaps so. Though I think branding the solution as socialism causes serious narrative problems. The word socialism gets uttered and in seconds, the conversation is buried in lingering paranoia from the Cold War era.
On the consumer's side there's an easy way to avoid a lot of that cost. Just wait a year before buying it. It'll be cheaper, often will have all the dlc bundled and by that stage you'll definitely know wether the game itself is any good after all the hype has died down. That famous XKCD comic may be a joke, but it really has massive benefits.
I bought the first Battlefront when it first came out but , cause it was so devoid of content, barely played it, Never bought any of the DLC for it.. but the other day EA gave it all away for free.. All the DLC for the game.. for free.. So sometimes if you wait long enough , you don't even have to pay for it..
Ramen costs barely more than fucking white rice man. Most people spend more than $20 a day on food for themselves alone. 60 dollars ain't even a week of food for most usa citizens. sometimes there are even homeless people like this too. the lowest of income groups of people in america averages out to $127 dollars a week per-person on food.
Except that 30 pounds by and large was equal to 60 dollars for years. That's changed because the UK economy went down the toilet thanks to brexit, but still. ;p
Can you imagine going to KFC and paying $60 just to see the menu... Then after ordering (because anyone is going to pay to see the back wall of the PoS area for $60) and then paying another $25-$50 just to have the option to pre-order more than one chicken tender. Then you do that you're *allowed* to pre-pay for a shake and fries that will be along later that year. ...and then when you can finally sit down to your year old mummified chicken tenders, composted fries, and an oddly unappealing bubbling fermented milkshake months past its freshness date, you can drop another $5-$100 for a random selection of little condiment packets... You could get all mustard or all ketchup and you can only get to the best random boxes with a *chance* of getting the BBQ dipping sauce after first buying the $5 box which has two packets of some sort of 'secret sauce' that doesn't look or smell so much like a food product as the contents of a weeping sore. Then buying the $10 box before the $50 becomes visible... Etc etc... ...and then when all is said and done you *might* manage to collect all the pieces to a puzzle that gets you $10 off on your purchase of Shadow of Whore.
When you see and hear the opening and realise that this video is still bloody relevant... Jim could release this right now, and it'd make perfect sense.
Jim, you hit the nail on the head. Please make a video about NBA 2K21 being $70 on next-gen consoles despite the fact that it will undoubtedly be stuffed to the gills with microtransactions
Pretty good. Had a rough start but has been getting regular free content updates with hours of content (30+ with the newest one) being added every few months.
Lena Oxton Don't try to equalize the monsters from the industry with the developers because of a flaw, ModProto stated that he supports indie devs. Not ALL indie devs, that would be a completly false statement. I support indies too. Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Binding of Isaak, and too many others can soak up weeks of your life of pure gameplay. No Man's Sky fell prey of their own shitty marketing, but that does not condemn all indies, that would be absurd. Indie devs are not a unified consiousness...
Lena Oxton I support indie developers, but I also know to wait for reviews and to not buy into hype (I didn't purchase no man's sky). Of course not all indie developers are good, but it seems that most of them seem to actually care about their craft. Also no man's sky does not have loot boxes, this video and my comment was referring to that.
Any game that has Lootboxes are instantly on my "Don't Bother" list, I don't care how good the game is because let's be honest, the developers probably don't even care either, I'm not going to pay for initial price and then some more and more, little by little, as time goes on. *I WANT THE FULL FUCKING GAME FROM THE START,* is that too much to ask for these days!? Cause they make it seem like I'm the one that's asking too much!
palindinX What do you think of Overwatch? It has loot boxes, but it's mostly for aesthetic reasons (skins, voice lines, profile icons, emotes) which doesn't affect gameplay.
I'm completely ok with Aesthetics, like in Overwatch. In fact, if anything they should just solely be ONLY aesthetics when it comes to $60 games. No "Pay to Win", just "Pay to look a little cooler", they get the money they want and the player just wants to look awesome, it's a simple Win-Win situation.
My Problem with OW is that you have to get ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from the Fking Boxes. Even the Fking Ingamecurrency... and its not even Guaranteed you get some with the "overhaul" .-. Why not gibt some of the Credits after the Game to.. as a little Reward.. to make on Happy :( And yes yes "Play a lo and you get your Stuff" - but I want to get Stuff as a "Casual" too.. I payed a Lot of Money Goddamnit And yeah its just "Aesthetics", but still a reward .-.
I don't mind expansion packs - for example, you HAVE a game, now you can add to it if you like (although I certainly think that as a customer I'm entitled to good expansion packs). But loot-boxes and literally drip-fed games? Is it any wonder that people wait for Steam sales?
Note: Jim brings up Mario + Rabbids as a way of showing Nintendo jumping on the Season Pass train. Not to defend them, but for clarity's sake, but Mario + Rabbids isn't a Nintendo game with Rabbids in it. It's a Ubisoft game with Mario in it. They developed and published it, so it's not super out of character for them.
If anything Zelda Breath of the Wild and Samus Returns with a difficulty mode being locked behind a double pack amibo that costs more then just a single character and are naturally har d to get regardless of price, would have been better examples
Rubescent Dragon Yeah, totally. Nintendo definitely has it's own problems. Manufactured product scarcity is incredibly bad with them, and there's a lot of other bullshit you can point to as well. But Mario + Rabbids was all Ubisoft.
The thing that always baffled me is what do these CEOs want to do with all this money? What could they possibly want to do that requires this much money, even on a completely personal individual level? It almost seems like CEOs and corporations want this money just to have it, like they value money as an object rather than for it's utility the way society values gemstones.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up that games in the 90s didn't even have a standard pricing model. It didn't start until around the PS2/XBOX/Gamecube generation. Prices were all over the place until then.
To be fair, I think a good part if that was actually due to cartridges, especially then NES, SNES, and N64. They often had extra chips too which added to the cost, so a standard MSRP wouldn't really work. I mean some carts were $20 by themselves. A disc is maybe $1 tops.
I remember watching an Angry Joe video about fourish years ago about Metro Last Light's Ranger mode - A.k.a. The way the game was "meant" to be played.
GentleMann Of Hats - I'm not attempting to start anything over Joe's recent drama nor any historical drama. I merely was giving due reference to the point made.
They may have stayed $60 dollars in the states, but here in Ireland (Cant speak for all of europe) they've gone from €60 to €70 since the new generation of console, thats online and physical additions!
When these mofos sell games at higher and higher numbers, for less and less content, the games' prices should probably be LOWERING now. I'll pay 80 or 100 bucks if there's a damn good amount of content, but just give me the full game!
Montesama314 or maybe charge me 60$ then release proper expansions and DLCs, like Borderlands and Dark Souls always does? I mean that would absolutely increase the game's value, right?
On the off chance you see this reply months down the line - try out Warframe for 0$ and see what you can do if you have a fair microtransaction model to fund your game for the people who deem the time they have with it worthy of the reward/contribution :)
you wouldn't though if it gets that point id stop playing current video games all together or pirate the fuck of set video game what people should be doing with current ones give these mother fucking publishers a message we had enough fuck off with this bullshit
I've been priced out of gaming basically. Combination of poor choices such as buying a PS4 and getting the Mrs. Preggers don't help. But I live on a modest income and don't have $60 to drop on a new game that I can play for 10 hours and then be bored of or asked to invest more in order to get the most out of it. I would be happy if $60 bought a full game but it just doesn't any more. Believe it or not, I've actually taken up photography and it's far cheaper and more rewarding. After the initial investment you can get years and years of use for no extra costs. Gaming has just become too expensive for me to keep up with and I can't really warrant the expense with a child on the way. Sad times.
Yep, exactly, its kinda obvious advice, but wait for sales and price drops. Unless you've gotta play that hot new game RIGHT NOW there's no harm in waiting till its cheaper. I haven't payed $60 for a game years, probably since the Wii. I don't get through them fast enough to need to. Of course, with a new bundle of joy on the way it'd be oretty hard to game anway. On the bright side, you have great use for that camera. Then you get to embarrass them baby pictures when they're older.:P
I started waiting to buy new systems until they are several years old. Like 4 or 5 years old. Then I would be able to buy used copies of most games for super cheap, including the ultimate/gold whatever shit editions of a game that come with all of the content. I will still be staying away from these microtransaction games though. There are still many games outside of the typical AAA space (and a few within) that aren't as advertised and don't do this insidious shit.
As soon as the ps4 came out, I was like "time to buy to ps3" woot!! As for micro transactions, I have a phone, I just download a mobile game if I want those.
These day's it's all about finding what you like and filtering out the shit, I bought a ps vita game called tokyo xanadu and sure it isn't a graphical powerhouse but the content and quality is there and it was 55+ hours of insane fun for cheaper than a modern day game overall, as long as you can find your main gaming squeeze and say eff that to the top tier DLC and microtransaction bullskit that they are pulling on us then gaming isn't that expensive dood. Also congrats on the kid dood. :D
Additional Argument: Games are more profitable than ever because the market has grown and distribution has gotten easier, they don't need to raise the prices, the increase in sales correlates with an increase in funding, which they can spend on competitive practices like better graphics, but even that isn't something the gaming industry foots the bill for, technology increases around them and they reap the benefits from it.
This shit puts me in such a disgruntled rage, because I feel so powerless to stop it. I don't buy into any of this shit. I actually don't buy a damn game when I learn it's got bullshit like the games in this video. I haven't for years. But this shit has still just become so prevalent, what can I do now besides sit down and hope all the jackasses who mindlessly consume the shit handed to them finally notice the feces stuck in their teeth and fucking stop. I can't stand when people do things like pre-order a game based entirely on the name, before they've learned anything about it. Or just mindlessly spend money on anything resembling DC superheroes no matter if it's a piece of lazy trash. What can anyone do when everyone's been trained from birth to treat the rancid drippings corporations give us as fucking ambrosia?
FLORIDA_MAN there are still tons of games that don't have these awful !money grabbing scams Take cuphead for instance, hand drawn animation, high quality content, only 20 dollars for years worth of animation alone, it's the steal for all the effort it had put into it
You're not powerless though! Vote with your wallet, rewarding games and devs/publishers who avoid this bs, and spread awareness to your friends with valid reasons that appeal to them. Explain to them that buying this piece of shit microtransaction freemium game tells publishers it is okay to carve their games up, making future instalments in their favourite series worse and worse. More importantly, even if you won't have a huge impact personally, it's important to adopt the ethical stance of not buying games that pull this bullshit at all, because at the very least, you know you are not contributing to making games worse yourself. Think of it like the fuckwads who throw their litter on the street. There used to be A LOT more people doing that a few decades back. And there are a fuckton of people who still do it, but you don't (hopefully) cos you know it's wrong, and you tell others it's wrong. So as the years pass it becomes less prevalent and less okay to do, until only the scummiest of shitheads do it. It's the same principle
I've thought like this since 2005. It doesnt matter if we dont support them, us intelligent consumers are the minority. Most of the shit for brains fools that buy these games dont know anything about the games industry. They are are people who dont care about video games and just buy whatever is new with no research because thats the hip thing to do.
same here man, haven't bought a game new in years because i refuse to support these shitty business practices. starting to get depressing seeing how the industry is shifting MORE towards mobile ftp business models.
I’ve been watching a lot of old Jimquisition lately (because Thank God for Jim) and the old song made me do a double take on if this was a new episode or another rerun in my recs. Thank God for Jim Sterling.
Bethesda's paid mods service literally sells power armour for fallout 4 that has toy horse parts all over it. They are selling horse armour again under the guise of it "being a joke".
Sooo...... Did anybody consider the sales numbers? Cause they've been going up like crazy too. Making a game like Mario may cost significantly less than Shadow of War, but, in spite of the Mario's later success, the original Mario game sold a hell of a lot less too. The more people there are to pay, the less the price has to be, if the costs are the same
I confess father... it has been.... never... since my last confession.... I was tempted.... by the devil.... that is blizzard.... I found myself, looking, at the lootbox buy screen, doing the math if I have the money to buy lootboxes.... I immediately saw my sin and beg your forgiveness... I shall try to stay strong for you, my lord.
anything after PS2 era this shit been happen, PS3 and Xbox 360 days this bullshit been happening more and more been getting half ass or incomplete experience because of day one DLC, normal DLC and season passes. Why i mostly just support indie developers at lease game is full experience even Binding Isaac had bunch of DLC but they were pretty cheap think it didn't even reach 60 dollar price tag, but you need need DLC to fully enjoy the game best time to be alive being gamer was NES to PS2 era, after been total shit I barely own any PS3 games how much bullshit we got, i dont' even own PS4 fuck that shit pay for online when I'm paying for my ISP i don't think so glad I'm PC gamer fuck console gaming
Pre-ordering The Witcher 3 also came with a %10 discount. Not a bunch of shitty, half-assed, broken missions or a shiny meme weapon that would become useless after a few levels, or a couple of basic avatars, but rather %10 OFF THE LAUNCH PRICE. It's one of the only games I ever pre-ordered, b/c I specifically couldn't muster up the additional $6 at the time, and knew CDPR weren't scumbag developers.
the sad part is you can get the ultimate edition with all the dlc for 30 dollars on a steam sale. reasonably priced games go a long way in selling themselves. fuck call of duty, charging 20 dollars during a steam sale for a 7 year old game.
I go to the movies and buy my ticket, sitting in my seat, I notice a credit card slot is part of my armrest. I put on the VR headset and head phones that this theater uses(It's the future , obviously). The movie plays though I'm constantly distracted by ads to change the protaganist's shirt or "customize" other parts of the movie as well. It seems as if the purpose of the VR helmets was to make this economy possible. I continue ignoring the prompts to buy insignificant items until a new prompt showed up asking if I wanted to buy small extra adventures, extra scenes with no impact on the main story, to add onto the game. Near the end the annoyances continued, a prompt popped up for an important story expansion. This would add legnth to the end of the movie and completely change how you viewed the movie's characters and story(the true ending). I didn't enjoy it much, so I gave it a negative review.
Yep, that will be the final nail in the coffin of movie theaters. They're already loosing sales as its become to expensive for most people ($60+ for a family of four, more if they're thirsty and hungry) I want to be entertained...but, I'm not that desperate.
You lost me at VR headset and headphones in a theater. Why the fuck would I go to the theater, the only benefit of which is to see the movies on a massive screen with an excellent surround sound system, only to ruin it all by strapping a shitty screen to my face and put on shitty headphones? Also if it's the future obviously, there would be no VR anyway, because VR is a fad and it's not going to be around in the future. It's going to be dead. It's damn well nearly dead right now.
The way they go about it now, VR is definitely on an assured path to a quick and silent death. It lacks blockbuster games that really sell the devices. Devices that still cost hundreds of dollars too much. And from a hardware point of view, the technology is simply too low-budget to really work. All the crap about redesigning games to counter for nausea is stupid. It's the hardware that's the problem. I've owned and used VR hardware in the past and there was NEVER an issue of nausea with those devices at all. The games also allowed real freedom. Current VR is nothing like that, which is why it will fail. And nope, porn won't save VR.
Don't games nowadays move a lot more copies than they did when the $60 price tag started? With an ever increasing part of those copies being digital? Are these numbers anywhere? I'm curious if the % amount of sales is higher or lower than the % of inflation.
esp if you cant join a mission if you didnt buy the dlc....if its free dlc like all of them in the past then i'll be very happy...its one game where they get dlc right still though the both versions of each game is prob annoying for jpn players...
i think the reason a lot of people are angry is that they are now going into pay to win microtransactions in full priced games...most people are fine with just cosmetic item but if in monster hunter some quests are locked off to you unless you pay up well you cant complete some sets and some armor sets are much better then the non dlc stuff and in generations you cant even max out the armor/weapon of some if you lack dlc... i can imagine that ruining everything in monster hunter if you see others with maxed sets and you are stuck with 2nd rate gear even if you are a better hunter then they are skillwise..and making quiet a lot of hunters give up on worlds when it goes pay to win rather then only cosmetic..
I seriously doubt Capcon would do that, Monster Hunter is the one series they're very carful not to screw up. Its one of their biggest, most important IP. Which is why its also the most baffling, being the anti-thesis to their usual antics.
Why can't people understand that game publishers need more money to develop game using all the slimy tactic they can use? Because they are too poor to spend money on making game since they are trying to buy ten personal aircraft make out of diamond.
Unfortunately, even with Jim's size, he ain't big enough to stop that torrent. It's already happened. He's just throwing people who are clever enough to want to swim out of it a life jacket.
I'd certainly believe a lot more of this "we need to cover dev costs!" if the average dev's salary rose as well. And don't even get me started on the QA team. But don't ever talk of unions or worker's rights, your benevolent corporate masters will regulate themselves!
Precisely my point. If left to their own devices: they will do what makes them the most money EVERY time. And many people will be thrilled to be "at-will" employees, because THEY'LL never be fired for no reason. You have but to look to the man fired by Home Depot for stopping a kidnapping. There was no shortage of bootlickers nodding in agreement: "He may have saved that kid, BUT he left his post. His employers were within their rights to fire him."
It's the sort of stuff that happens when you have a world run by machines. Because that's what a corporation is - a machine made of people. It doesn't matter what the motivations of any of the people involved are; the machine will continue running for its intended purpose. In this case, that is profit, which is usually pursued at all costs.
A machine will always be optimized to fullfill its job. The advantage of capitalism is the resulting efficiency. The fundamental error of our times is the belief that the efficiency itself would solve anything when left alone. Everything beyond it has to be applied from the outside of the machinery. Don't blame an industry for doing its job. It is job of the government to harness this power and lead it into the right direction, by changing the rules of effiency (eg. by taxes or regulations). But look around: everyone seems to agree that there should be less interference by the government. So in a way, the game industry just shows us what the whole world will become in the next few years.
Herr Schmidt Depends on what country you are talking about. Autocratic countries like Venezuela or North Korea should get some deregulation in my opinion. Hell, even my country needs some.
Herr Schmidt with a perfect government but here they're just as greedy as any publisher and would just encourage it inexchange for a cut of the profits.
the price of games doesn't need to rise since developers and publishers have found a way to make you pay for early access games and their subsequent updates and content additions. it's not just that content has been cut out of game and locked behind a paywall-it's more like the game isn't finished at launch, that's just when you get to buy the beta/early access, and then you can buy the updates as they come out later until the game is finished and the devs/publishers move on to the next game. you're paying for updates, content, and features as it's released instead of getting it for free since you bought it during early access-before it was a finished game.
That would involve actually knowing things, not skimming information for a video. Most of the heavy lifting is done by other creators that he just slices in parts of their videos with credits.
Right and wrong Nintendo did approve it and nintendo has put season passes or expansion type of passes onto games like splatoon, zelda, soon smash bros, and one other game i cannot remember. Only difference is that they finish the game and then work on the additional content soon after completion but it does cost money. But he is RIGHT about mario+rabbids DLC that is made by ubisoft nintendo had to approve it so they just as guilty but ubisoft is always known for paid add on content. Even more so then nintendo.
Why does nobody ever mention that more people buy video games then ever before.
The games may still be 60 bucks, but they have a lot more customers. These people are still making buckets of profit well before they tack on all the extra costs. GTA 5 was the most expensive game ever made. It made about a billion bucks in a few days... There's no need for these additional costs. They never needed to the online microtansations.
Xearrik Gaming indeed, games are continuously "dumbed down" to attract ever more players to buy them.
Note that's not a bad thing pls don't hunt me down Duke Amiel :(
And why does nobody talk about the archaic, overly wasteful marketing? I would like someone to analyze the current gaming market and how the old and busted way of marketing is just a huge waste of money.
Xearrik Gaming GTA V is an anomaly in the video game industry. Having said that it's true, gaming is a bigger industry than the movie industry, which means there are a lot more customers than before. Publishers will push these practices until it starts to negatively affect them, either from public backlash (by not spending money, not just moaning about it) or government intervention.
Its not like minimum wage in North America has moved substantially either.
EXACTLY THIS. I keep telling people who defend publishers saying they need more then $60 that not only are more people buying games but a whole chunk of them are buying them *digitally*. That means no cost to create disks, cases, box art, delivery and distribution. NO ONE mentions any of this and it really annoys me.
We'll get to a point with microtransactions that they'll put the graphics settings behind a paywall.
They already did. What do you think Fallout 4 High Resolution Texture Pack is?
You got to be kidding me.
I wish I was...
I still remember 'Ranger Mode' from metro...
Total war's gore/blood effects are DLC
You missed economies of scale. Usually items go down in price as the market matures. Computers used to be tens of thousands, now they're hundreds. In video games more people buy them than ever before, meaning they can make more money at the $60 price point more than they have in the past. Video games should have gone down in price as the market grew. They have no per unit production cost. Often they have no upkeep costs. In those cases, we are seeing clear market manipulation. They aren't lowering the price simply because they don't have to.
Servers have a maintenance cost and 'every game has to be multiplayer' and 'every game has to be always online' and will cock-block you in a few years when the servers go offline... So they cost a lot to make (arguments that will crop up)
@Ilya Panferov The development cost of making the game itself is a fixed cost, meaning that it doesn't increase per unit created. You can think of the fixed cost of producing a game as being sunk, and should not impact the price of a good. It is basic microeconomics that if a business is not able to earn more than the fixed cost of production, it should not be in business.
The variable cost, the cost of physically producing copies of it is small for the physical discs, and a small fraction of the cost of the game at best if the game involves multiplayer servers and server expansion is needed.
It is warranted to say that the per-unit cost of a game is virtually nonexistent nowadays, since the variable cost is so small compared to the cost of development.
Izaac It gets worse - some are not lowering the prices as their products mature and sometimes become outdated. Now you can still find games that are, at least, 3 years old and have a sequel or two, but still cost $69,99 (€65)/€69,99 (US $75). Imagine buying new iPhone 8 or a 2016 car today for their original prices? No bueno.
Also, remastered versions. I imagine upscalling textures is as easy as changing font size, because if they’d be much of hassle, we wouldn’t have seen as many of those as we have.
And there is the currency issue. We in EU overpay a few US $ for every damn thing and get shit like regional content and sometimes no language support or local support, that would be operating under the local laws (which sometimes they ignore local or EU laws and regulations and do whatever the fuck they want, because they hired the cheapest idiots).
One could say that it is because conversion costs in the banks, but judging by the fact that they don’t even pay their taxes (and the biggest fucks even manage to get tax refunds from 0 taxes paid), I very much doubt it. Even if it is - it’s their expense, not ours, why the fuck are we paying for it?
Another noteworthy point, games used to come with actual boxes, hand crafted instruction manuals, fold out maps and no always online bullshit. Nowadays you get a virtual key for your virtual games storage case in your virtual games library.
I used to enjoy a morning shit while reading my instruction manual and accompanying map
The future is now old man
i remember cracking the case open on a brand new sega game and reading the manual on the way home because of how hyped i was to be playing it. i do miss those things, in game menus or whatever just don't have the same effect. i get times change, but man did it feel great.
@@calliph Yea just because "Times change" doesn't mean it changes for the better.
I miss all the content being available to me when I buy the fucking game.
This is why I stand back with a lot of triple A games and just wait for Complete/Game Of The Year Editions. All the shit for half the price.
Yeah, this is why I haven't played Fallout 4 yet. Still waiting on that complete edition.
I think it just came out. On console anyway. Still $60, though. I might wait a bit yet.
you still buy it,so you are still bad.
Exactly.
Problem is, sometimes games expire before they get completed. I haven't touched a Battlefield game since BF2 due to the fact that I just refuse to pay more than $60 to get the full experience, and by the time that it happens, the players are elsewhere. The same happened to SW Battlefront recently. I haven't played it since the beta, and now I'm playing SWBF2 beta, and I already know I won't be getting it because lootboxes.
It's really sad that things like Stardew Valley and Cuphead come out, both which have an amazing level of quality and a very good amount of content, are around $20, and still make a truckload of money.
Maybe if these companies didn't spend 500 million on advertisements they wouldn't act like they were losing money
Didn't get stardew until Xmas sale last year... It was 12 bucks!
I want to say Don't Starved as well, but I'm not sure if it reached quite the same level as the other examples given. It's still well liked though.
Indies saving the gaming industry!
Big company want the money.
Independent developer wants a good game.
divinity original sin 2 shows how its done. a well past 50 + hour amazing 4 player coop rpg that only had 2 million in funds from a kickstarter with no dlc bs and is incredible every npc is fully voice acted.
Most companies really really never spend even $20 million on advertising. Especially the companies that have been getting into partnerships and sponsorship deals decades ago. Especially racing games and sports games have had in-game product placements and other kinds of hidden advertisements in games since like forever (yes, this includes big deals with NVIDIA, Intel and AMD, but also brands like Coca Cola, Snickers, Nike, etc. etc.). Even worse, quite a few publishers simply brag about having reserved an X amount of money as the 'budget' for the game. The same happened with Destiny 1. A game that really did not cost more to make than around $40 million, including advertising on TV in quite a lot of countries. The whole $500 million stuff was nonsense. It's the budget reserved for all potential games in what is intended to be the next 'Halo' or 'Call of Duty' level of long-lasting franchise. It doesn't mean they've spend $500 million on Destiny 1 at all. That's basically a publisher that's lying just because it gets even more eyes on their 'new' franchise. And lets not kid ourselves, Destiny 1 was a crap product. They released an incomplete mess of a game, merely testing the waters. Destiny 2 isn't even really that much better, still filled with a nonsensical storyline because of how they've messed up the first game. It's actually a bit sad to see console gamers get the game as if it's the best thing ever, because these games will be the downfall of this industry. People shouldn't support remakes like Battlefront 2 (which shouldn't be called Battlefront 2) that are lacking in level design and gameplay. People shouldn't support Call of Duty WW2 that's basically modern warfare with a second world war skin, which is exactly NOT what people were asking for. Honestly, if game devs do not focus more on compelling and skill based gameplay with worthwhile content and good value, I'm really not going to buy their game.
The funny thing is Jim didn't even mention how in many ways the costs of making games has gone DOWN. The majority of sales these days is digital! You don't need to pay the retailer, shipping costs to get it to the retailer, in store marketing and most importantly the cost of the actual cart. The most expensive part of old video games was the cartridge! What few games still are bought physically come on cheaper to produce, much smaller cartridges or mediums. You can fit like 30 of the games made for the Switch into an old NES cartridge and that is still by FAR the most expensive medium of game installation. Blue Rays are half the cost. Digital distribution (the main method of selling a game) costs pennies compared to physical distribution.... so why are the games the same price in the PS Store or the Xbox store? Because $$$$$$$. What a load of shit. People, if it has purchasable loot boxes in the game you are buying. Don't EVER buy one. You are only making your future purchases more expensive because you are telling the asshole game producers that it's acceptable to do that bs.
This so much. Game development costs are not outrageous like they used to be. These publishers CHOOSE to make them outrageous, (honestly they could be lying, it's not illegal for them to lie) by using the most ridiculous technologies that add virtually nothing to the games. It wouldn't be impossible to use very good visuals, but on a cheaper engine and buy a cheaper version of said engine that can be modified by your team. In fact, people already do this with Unity but most people don't realize because of the fact that you don't have to have the splash screen on paid Unity versions.
If Hellblade can do it, and especially Witcher 3, then no excuses really. Honestly, it's pretty easy to logic out yourself anyways. I was interested in game development at one point, since I'm a programmer and honestly the costs can be almost as high or low as you want them to be if your are efficient about how you organize the team and write the code. I'm not saying hiring is cheap but it's not so expensive that games need to be higher than $60 when they already get millions of sales.
I mean if we're being honest, most team members will average around $82,000 a year (This is based off of average of starting salary and experienced salary). If you have a reasonable team and not overinflated corporate sized teams (ie the mistake that most publishers choose to make) then you might need 15 team members. For 3 years of development (the average dev cycle) that's about $3.7 million. And fixed costs will run maybe another $1 million (lighting, computers, electricity, hardware). And not all of those are monthly fees. Computers are good after bought for many years. Good software is the same. So averaging that out with developer salary might be $5 million. So the cost of making your game was give or take $5 - 6 million. Maybe if we are being generous we could inflate that to $10 million. Okay but if you sell only 1 million units (most of these games sell more) then that's still well over that margin. Assuming they only make half of that money as true retail on EVERY unit that's still $30 million. And that's assuming only 15 members on the team. We could double that number up to 30 but they would still make a profit because the cost would average total expense up to about $12 million ($16 million with that massive random inflation earlier I did).
Now be realistic and realize that they make much more than that per sale on average and if soemone buys digitally from their store on PC (at least 5% of sales) that's the full $60. Then it becomes really easy to understand why their arguments are bullshit. And keep in mind that this only assuming 1 million sales. They often get FAR more than that.
I didn't say overall costs had gone down, I was talking about ways in which they had. Also, "Development teams stretch into the hundreds of people", tell that to the developer of Stardew Valley. Total development team..... 1. SOME games have teams that size but it's becoming ever more clear that that is not a good business model. Many games don't require servers to run. Destiny and games like COD are NOT the norm in the gaming industry, they are the extreme. Someone is ill-informed here, but it's not me.
Who said I wanted cheap games? Nor am I "over privileged". You make a lot of assumptions off of the extremely small information you have on me.
Yes, this is the norm in the AAA industry but it's not the only way. Also, you make an excellent point, Destiny sold 500 MILLION just at release! This game is still selling really well, there will be even more sales for Christmas and it doesn't even include PC numbers. You aren't helping your argument though. Simply because you pointed out how astronomically more copies that the big AAA games can sell now over how they used to and still NONE of that disproves what I said, that some costs have gone down. Destiny 2 sold majority digital. Every one of those copies saves them a ton of money in physical distribution That means that every digital sale was approximately 40-60% less than the physical copies that used to make up 100% of the sales. That is a huge decrease in development cost. I'm not saying game development is cheap. I'm just saying that in some ways it has gotten cheaper.
You aren't even reading what I'm saying though are you? You're just jumping to conclusions and then spewing numbes that have nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
Games development cost hasnt gone down, it just got more accesesible. The AAA games now are mostly chasing graphic. The game itself while complex can be made with less graphic heavy process. That the real issue here. Devs are always pushing bounderies of what the tech is capable of, render, texture, etc, and that take time, a lot of time, as well as costly.
So yes, it made sense that games are expensive to make, but that only apply with AAA games who are so obsess with graphic, but that too falls apart quickly when you take in game like The Witcher 3, Hell's blade, Horizon Zero Dawn and many more games with AAA quaility gameplay that don't have shitty DLC, cashop, poor launch content, and many more bad practices surrounding them and most are made with smaller budget too, without the backing of WarnerBro, EA, Activision, etc.
So no, it never excuses them to ever include them just because it expensive. Manage their own budget better and stop raising stupid sales expectation.
this is true
It's worse in Australia. Because of shipping costs, the price tag for games moved from $60 to $90 or $100. While that's fair enough on it's own (we live on an island far from anyone, it's expensive to send things here, I get it), they have also made the digital storefront's price tags match the sale price on the shelves, because @#$% customers
//Axius27 it's import tariffs and GST not shipping cost
DATskorge
Doesn't excuse the digital price tag though
What about using VPN to buy the games from another country's storefront?
Zarsky88
I use an Australian Bank with Australian currency. From what I understand, most, if not all, digital stores charge to the region of the bank (I will have to look that up though).
I suppose I could join a bank in a separate country and fool the system. However, I don't earn enough millions or need to dodge taxes to justify that :P
//Axius27 What about paying with PayPal instead?
We have an expression in my language. "Much wants more." Ie. they more they get, the more they want.
That's a great expression. Where are you from/what language is it?
Yeh "mye vil ha mer" ;)
Im pirating and cheating through this game, no way am i spending my hard earned Norwegian crowns on AAA lootbox day-1 dlc shillfest.
Actually, the full expression in Norwegian is "Mye vil ha mer, og fanden will ha fler." Which translates to "Much wants more (uncountable, ie. wealth), and the Devil wants more (countable, ie. people). It's rhymes in Norwegian, but not English, so that's why I left the last part out. The implication is that just like greedy people amass wealth, so does the devil amass people, which is implied to be those very people who are greedy.
I'mma copy paste that little nugget to my quotes.txt... thanx! :D
We actually have something Similar in Arabic. it translates roughly into "the Ocean Loves getting More" , it's mostly lost in translation but it stems from the fact that most Arabic speakers came originally from some form of desert or another, and for an "Ocean" to actually want more water, that would be the epitome of Greed. but yeah, the original quote up there translates more elegantly into English for sure :D
Meanwhile, Yacht Club Games adds full-size DLC to Shovel Knight for free. AAA publishers really do live in their own little world.
John Gabriel to be fair it's a way smaller game, with a way smaller team.
I honestly don't think the size of the team or game matters. They've managed their expenses properly and aren't greedy. So they do stuff like release free dlc. Size doesn't matter, greed does.
Team size matters because every employee has to get paid (or should get). That's one reason why the expenses are so high, plus half of the expenses are going to marketing.
It's just the way how they think "We have THIS much people working on the game and we have used THIS much money to make it, so it's going to be BIG game. Also...we are poor now.. help!" *whipes the sweat on 1000 dollar bill*
Games used to be a very democratizing medium: the experience a middle-class gamer got at home was the same the rich kid got in his mansion. That's over now: you have different experiences depending on how much money you're willing to invest in a game. That's what worries me the most
SwevenHannibal the age old axiom "He with the most money wins"
if you're talking about the market not rewarding objectively good game design though that's kind of false
MrZsc that’s not what he’s saying.
2 years, I know, it doesn’t matter.
Why this is even more scarier, because they don’t care how much money one can spend, they will want everybody to buy the most expensive thing they offer even if it’s your last penny. We’ve already passed a €100 (US $115) mark with fancy editions that don’t even offer a physical items anymore (most of them were shit quality anyway, but still).
What’s even worse - no matter how much money their scummy tactics will earn them, they will still continue to underpay and fire staff by hundreds and will treat the customers like fucking idiots.
Another thing, way back in the day most devs had to build their own game engines. Now with the ubiquity of Unity, Unreal, et al, thats a lot less money they have to invest.
Not to mention that the gaming audience is bigger now than its ever been in the past so they have far more potential customers.
Some. But modifying an engine is a lot easier than building one from scratch.
You say that and although you are still right because it at the very least would be cheaper, I wager they still have to rent the engine out to use it, I mean they can't use it for free can they?...no really can they? I want to know if it's a single purchase item, mainly because if it was I would love to buy it and screw around with some skit dood. :3
@Shadow60f Unity, Unreal, and the Crysis engines are all free to use but if you make a certain amount of profit you are required to pay a certain percentage of that profit in royalties. For most, the royalties are around 5-10%. Its not too bad.
And while you are right, it is cheaper, its not significantly cheaper depending on the game and what the developer is looking to get out of it. The main benefit of using an existing engine is not the cost, but its for time and convenience. If a developer chooses to use an existing engine but that engine is terrible at doing several key things that the game requires, then its possible that they'll have to spend a shitload of time and money to rectify those issues before development can continue.
Star Citizen had this problem with the Cry engine. While its a great engine, its not built to process a large play area with alot going on over a network. The star citizen has spent (and is still spending) alot of time and money retro-fitting the engine to combat this issue, as the cry engine was never designed to handle a game like star citizen.
So yeah, it might save money in most cases, but its generally not enough to significantly lower production costs of large projects. And it can still backfire if the wrong engine is chosen for the job.
Interesting thoughts on the biz as always Jim. Keep it up.
Karak is the man
Karak! I would love if my 2 favorite reviewers made a podcast together :)
much love Karak.. you keep it up as well
...there's nothing interesting here, as always. Jim is a blithering moron, as is his fanbase.
MegaLadysman1234 He presented his argument, you didn't counter it at all. I would say that your comment was uninteresting and lacked substance.
I love how Jim preemptively responded to all of Extra Credit's arguments
Eyyy, Just came back to this from there as well
I used to think the reason why they are $60 now was because of BluRay.
But now no Manuals anymore, No Content.
Still $60.
Hm...
a bluray dl still only cost $2 more than a dvd dl that would never justify a 15% raise in price for the entire game
ManSpider The point was the digital distribution instead of any discs, I guess.
Let's take a moment to thank god for JIM STERLING SON
That's Jim FUCKING Sterling Son, to you.
Jim *fucking* sterling son. Get it right or he will smite you with the might of zeus.
Dear Lord, Jim says Thanks...??? *shruggs*
Just pounding it. Pounding it. Pounding it.
Amen
I love this one: "Every game is made at a loss"... Yeah right, corporations are doing it just for the good of mankind, not because of the million dollar industry
Billion. Multi-billion dollar industry.
They just hope that the consumer target is to young or stupid to notice all the bullshit, kinda like political parties.
I've been saying for years that if a company spends 30-100 million dollars making a game and needs to charge me $69.99 (meaning every million copies sold is $10M extra in revenue for them), that's fine... *IF* they...
1. Give me a *full* game; don't put shit on my disc that I can't access without a credit card.
2. Don't penalize me for not paying you before I see your product (i.e. pre-order "bonuses")
2. Finish the game so it doesn't require 10 Gb worth of day-one patches.
Do that, and we'll be fine with a higher "standard" price point. And then, if you work for another 6-12 months and come out with a bad-ass *expansion pack* (not a piece of garbage DLC that you cut from the base game), then I'll probably give you another $30 for it. I'd be fine with paying $10 or even $15 more than I did for Genesis games in 1995 if I could stop having to download so much bullshit that I have to delete games off my 2TB HDD just to play your game.
Of course, I know they won't do this. Soon enough, they'll be doing all the bullshit they do now *and* charging me $69.99 per game.
I have a feeling AAA-gaming market is going to crash huge time, and Indie's are going to take over. I'm okay with this. I have more fun playing unique games than what essentially feels like the same game again and again.
Lyrikan
You may be right. I'd be ok with AAA, AA, or A games (lol) as long as they're fun. I had a ridiculous amount of fun for hours and hours with games like Earthbound back in the day, and you could make something like that for $500,000 today. I'd take it
Competent developers, a desire to make a good game and not $, positive PR with community, and taking big risks is what many of the great games nowadays are doing.
Dave Carsley oh yeah, after it introduce all fake dlc, season pass, micro-transaction, then charge you 69.99 dollar, sounds awesome, but that is the basic version. You want premium first start advance ahead version? 199.99
It is sad that we actually need videos like this, but glad someone covers it!
$150. $150 to get the base game of $60, plus the three DLCs that retail for $30. This is based on industry averages. If you want to go for Fallout 4 levels of fuckery, it's $240. If you want to hit Sims level of fuckery, it's $530. FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS FOR A GODDAMN VIDEOGAME.
VulpesHilarianus "AND THAT'S NOT ALL!!" bearded ad guy
VulpesHilarianus its just costumes but if you want dead or alive last round with everything you have to pay 1200 i think the game is just 40 or 30
VulpesHilarianus if you wanna go train simulator it's like $6k
Apoc Vulkax oh yeah! forgot about that one
AMEN BROTHER! I still dont get how people let EA get their way with the SIMS by charging 500$ FUCKING DOLLARS FOR THE FULL GAME ... specially when in SIMS 1 you could get all that shit + more for less than 100$
FUCK EA, THANK GOD FOR JIM FUCKIN STERLING SON
In australia we have to pay 100$ for our games as soon as they come out
Thatone Pronoun yeah it's fucking stupid how much shit costs for us compared to America the fact we deal with triple digit prices I wish we could buy games for $60
That's $60 us, not au.
zacozacoify I said US not USA
hey mate not sure if you realise but most chains will price match and if you check jb hi-fi always has new games at $79 au when eb games are selling for $89-$99 ask nicely at counter and save a few bucks,all the best
Over here in NZ I don't touch consoles. Inherently more expensive, you lose access to older games pretty quick, and pirating for the newer consoles is a painful process.
Weird how almost all of the best games now-a-days are generally priced at 40 dollars or below. A lot of them also don't have big publishers behind them.
Someone get me that thinking emoji.
🤔🤔🤔🤔
Hugh J. Ness ...He said "emoji" not "emoji's"...bellend
🤔
1UPGamR ...much better.
MushyBird McMushington now that Warframe is finally getting some sunlight you can add free to that list of good. And ethical games without big publishers behind them.
I'm still mad at Bethesda for that metacritic shit they pulled with Fallout: New Vegas : ) Also this is why I wait for "AAA" games to go on sale when they come out with their "Complete/Game of The Year Edition" a year or so later. God thing there are games like Cuphead, 20 bucks for a beautiful and enjoyable game without the bullshit.
It's always a good day to watch The Jimquisition
In The Mind of Kibara i'm growing tired of his salt tho
Jim, you should have also brought up that the videogame industry routinely DESTROYS the film industry in terms of profits while the number of games per year that surpass the *average* film budget can be counted on one hand, if that. The games that have all these different versions and season passes and loot boxes sell millions upon millions of copies making far in excess of what the initial budget of the game was. Which of course is even more disgusting when you consider that the film industry pays royalties to actors, directors, writers and so forth. The only ones that get 'royalties' in the game industry are the scumbag execs that are railroading good games with horrible forced design mandates.
And you don't see film actors working 60 hour weeks for "passion" and screaming themselves hoarse because actors actually have fucking unions, while the video game industry is still running sweatshops instead of entertainment studios.
Ashtarte The gaming industry surpassed the film in like 1999 IIRC.
Sorry this is unrelated but, where's that picture from?
But don't forget, when a game only sells 11 million copies, it's seen as a complete and utter failure! Hardly anyone bought the game! If they could only sell 100 million copies each and every time a game comes out, then they wouldn't need microtransactions or season passes! It's our fault for not buying even more copies of a game that still has these mechanics in it for them to justify it as something we obviously want!
Haha seriously!! You don't see game creators renting out a whole area in a city in order to shoot one damn scene! These devs and pubs are banking on the people who actually think these companies are spending a crap load of money to make these games xD. If 100,000 people buy a 60 dollar game, that is 6,000,000 dollars already and that is just the beginning!
To be honest I think Bethesda themselves has topped horse armour with the survival mode for Skyrim and just the creation club in general.
Suleyk Bethesda is an overrated piece of shit, just like Nintendo, Activision, EA and Ubisoft.
DevilGames but in the past it was a small developer that engaged well with fans and people don't want to admit that's changed.
@@doodeedoodee Bethesda was good until it released Skyrim.
After that the microtransactions started to show up with the creation club.
@@riel7387 I'd say after Skyrim, as while Skyrim does have Creation Club, it was released 6 years after Skyrim came out
@@indeed260 true. Although it was probably the success of skyrim that lead them on that path so i agree with you.
In fairness, MGS5's feature density and the amount of stupid attention to detail actually did make it way more memorable. a game where you can evade enemies by playing a tape of a soldier with the shits while hiding in a toilet should never be forgotten.
I've played Fallout a fuck load of times...and you're full of shit if you think it's even comparable to a modern release like MGSV. What is it with everyone and their rose colored lenses when it comes to old games? Were you all toddlers in the 90s or some shit?
I just wish they focused on finishing the story before adding in dozens of mechanics I only used once.
I just wish the Yakuza led Konami didn't keep forcing Kojima to make a game he wanted to end and then fuck him over. MGSV should've been the final swan song of all of it, I'm surprised it even turned out as well as it did.
Yeah, Konami is why the story wasn't finished, not all the mechanics.
MGSV was "finished". You just didn't like or get the pacing.
Hearing the old intro theme gets me hyped as fuck for the episode
I prefer the new one myself.
Javon Younger To each their own. I like the new one as an outro theme, but that iconic old intro music really gets me geared up for a the episode.
Here's kind of a different question to ask any apologists/anyone who agrees with ANY of the practices Jim pointed out in the video (I know it won't ever be seen by em, but it's there all the same):
How far is too far then? If NONE of the things mentioned are too much for you to handle, that's fine, but then that leaves the question of...when WILL it be too much? When WILL the industry finally go beyond what you're willing to deal with? If lootboxes/gambling, huge amounts of DLCs and season passes, oodles of 'special editions', and other nonsense too much to list is not enough, at what point will you finally break and say 'enough is enough'?
I admit I'm not faultless here. I've made mistakes, even still support some of these practices on some games I play, even fallen for it as well. It's very much so a case of 'let he who is without sin' kind of situation. I won't deny it, hell even Jim has admitted time and again he's only resisted the lure of loot boxes through sheer will, as he's very susceptible to them. I doubt there's many among us who are completely sinless when it comes to all the BS that these gaming companies do, but that doesn't mean there's no point to be made either.
But just know that all these things that happen, all the BS that the companies put in, is never an 'accident', they don't do it to be 'nice' to the players or be our 'friends', they aren't our friends. They're a business, nothing more nothing less. Any acts of supposed 'benevolence' is just that, an act. Everything they do is coldly and strictly calculated movements that are designed to make them the most money, and they're only gonna keep finding ways to get more. Period.
TheNN when it comes to loot boxes I can give a definitive answer, overwach compared to everything else. I can't even fake getting mad at bright endgrams in comparison. cause 1 they ain't filled with ugly sprays and tags to pad them out, and two anything you don't want can be immediately broken down into a generous amount of dust. Seriously fuck overwach.
Nothing is too far for these people too busy riding or sucking a nice juicy corporate cock to notice that their wallets are being drained and they're catching a nasty STD.
Almost all these scummy practices are targeting the consoles and as a PC guy I rarely encounter them. Plus I don't rely on big budget exclusives, none of them can compare to the classics in gameplay anyway, and their built in cash grab economy holds no allure for me. I also don't much care for online multiplayer so I'm even further away from the toxic community they harbor and the loot boxes and microtransactions they so love parading in front of people's faces.
If the console community doesn't make a stand for their right to be treated with respect by the industry then they deserve to be ripped off. Meanwhile when Bethesda tried to push Creation Club on to players the PC crowd universally rebuffed it and modded it so that players won't even see it. Now Bethesda's not even trying to win back it's PC consumers, they went for the easy target which are consoles because they know console players have no other alternative.
first of all there is no such thing as one big industry. every company chooses its own business model. some publishers go for loot boxes some for season pass and some for both or none.
the one that allows it to happen is the consumer. overwatch being popular means that people love this type of business model. you get constant added content while not required to pay extra for DLC's\Seasons pass\monthly support fee.
people that pay for the loot crates are the one who chose they want the extra content. by that people that don't pay for loot crates get continued support and future content while the company gets the revenue they need. it's a WIN-WIN-WIN
while jim sterling comes and cries about how its a bad thing that you don't get the "Full Experience"
+TheNN What are we to do though? Only buy Indie games?
Why am I getting anti-Jim Sterling suggestions in my suggested videos up next column? I have to say that I watched one and it was pathetic, in it the guy actually suggested that people find Jim's personal information online and harass him in his home, but he did condemn that kind of activity after already saying it. Makes me wonder which of the big gaming corporations paid him to start a channel specifically trying to create hate and destroy Jim Sterling. You need to keep an eye on that stuff Jim, that will be there next move, creating competing channels that personally target those that they don't like. They can try, but he is Jim Fucking Sterling Son, and he don't scare easy, and as worthless as this may be, I will always have Jim's back against this tidal wave of hate and bullshit.
Someone send this to the Extra Credits people.
done!
no wonder dan left
As harsh as Jim Sterling message can be its also 100% necessary. The gaming industry is a rare kind of industry that desperately needs harsh sober critical voices in it, even games I love need to have the developers told whats what sometimes. Its rare in that it has almost no oversight, and its set up to make money even if the product is crap or takes advantage of the customer. I recently talked to a now retired professor of economics, and he was saying that market forces, that is you the consumer, that demand no longer drives the market anymore, but that its very much now a top down, we give you what WE the corporation wants you to have and you will take it or not, but we will always find someone to push this product and make that extra money somehow even if the product is utter shit. This has taken decades for them to perfect but Sterling is right in that they plant polling and focus groups do steer under there conditions to come out with what thy already wanted to push. Voting with your wallets on one bad game will not do then, its coming to the point were the industry itself as a whole needs to under perform to teach it a lesson, this happened before with Atari and I actually thank them for that lesson in the 80s as it shows that it can happen again to clean house, that rare moment were a entire industry finally sank because it was pumping out crap and it no longer could keep the pyramid scam going.
You think those prices are bad
Here in Australia your basic game in stores costs $99.99 and extra editions go up from there.
Actually thats horrible
Accelerator I remember when infinite warfare came out, the edition that included MWR was $129.98
If you are still shopping at EB games to get a new game.
TheDoctor8010 i dont like any CoD, here i have a example a PS4 here coz almost the same as a gaming PC
Radio Raven believe me I stopped shopping at EB games a long time ago
Of course the sad thing is that horse armour now comes in lootboxes where you don't even get the horse armour you want until you open 100 of the fucking things.
You don't even get the horse armour you want after 100 of the fucking things, you get "horse armour fragments" which must eventually be combined into horse armour which only has a 1/10 chance of being the horse armour you want since it's a legendary skin.
Also it's only available for the holiday period.
And always got a voice line from Winston instead :D
tbh it's the "not paying royalties" part that pisses me of the most
This is maybe one of the best episodes you've ever done, Jim fucking Sterling, son! Holy crap, you opened my eyes so effectively. I'll have to look into this more, before I say you're unanimously correct, but this definitely gave me something to think about. Thank god for Jim.
Focie Lol, man, I just commented almost the exact same thing. xD
AAA games are just released into early access now and they make everyone pay for the updates and new content they add until the game is finished and they move on to the next one. that's why they never feel finished at launch anymore and the price hasn't gone up-$60 is the early access price, but unlike real, honest early access games, they pretend it's finished and you're paying for more content on top of the finished game.
imagine other early access devs/publishers doing this.
Have you played ARMS? It's another game that came out feeling pretty light on content to put it that way. However, something I'm pleasantly surprised by is that there is no DLC, no microtransactions, no Amiibo content locked and all updates are free. Sure, they're being drip-fed to us over the course of a year, but at least it's a pretty consumer friendly model in comparison. Ugh...
Yeah, it's kind of terrifying how I didn't notice this shit...it was all so slow it seemed almost normal.
I advise you to do a little a bit of research. while Jim sterling is funny comedian and knows how to do videos he doesn't understands the basic of economy.
Remember how fun it was to complete all the challenges to unlock all the characters and maps in Timesplitters 2? I fear we'll never get that kind of fun again
God, I miss Timesplitters the amount of characters/skins/game modes/challenges they had on disc still amazes me.
Handyman agrees whole heartily.
Those were the golden years man. Such good fun, all DLC and microtransaction free.. I miss playing Virus mode on the Hospital map..
Why unlock all characters when you could just unlock Robofish? >:-D
I used to stick with The Impersonator myself. Such charisma with them dual-wielded Tommy guns
Anybody remember when you could unlock extra costumes and game modes and stuff by playing the fucking game or with cheat codes? Now you have to pay the game for the same content. Sad times, indeed.
Squid King Cal And it's boring. //sigh// There's not as much satisfaction in "I bought it" as "I earned it"... 😔
Squid King Cal
Pretty much why I haven't bought any games for the current gen, so many of them are riddled with microtransactions, cut content, and now lootbox bullshit from the mobile game market. It's kind of funny how _AAA games_ used to be/is supposed to be the best of the gaming industry, but is now part of the lowest of the low as far as business practice is concerned at the very least.
Marshimus Prime
Yep I'm on the same line: haven't bothered with any AAA games, or at least only a very few (only Overwatch comes to mind as a AAA game I recently bought, but not sure if Persona 5 is AAA and if it is, it's one hell of a good AAA game).
But yeah, I just couldn't bother with these games where they're riddled with season pass, dlc, microshit and etc: it drives me away from even caring and unlike those whales I don't have money to waste. It doesn't make them worth it even when their price is lowered because even if i pay 5 bucks, I'd still get an incomplete game!
Meanwhile I bought some old ps2 games a gamestop, they all work as intended, and have ALL the content inside. Just makes those 5 bucks worth it.
I don't disagree with what you're trying to say, but back in the NES, SNES or the N64 era it would've been practically impossible to add DLC to a game, considering that game consoles didn't even have internet access, not to mention the lack of a real operating system. I wouldn't be tiniest bit surprised if someone told me that a developer cut out content from a game just to sell it as a sequel before DLC became a thing.
Maybe the reason why they're charging for that kind of content now is because of greed, but I don't think it's fair to claim that they didn't do it before out of the kindness in their hearts.
Ugh, reminds me of the new Marvel vs Capcom game. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the old ps1 Marvel vs Capcom as a kid, that new game felt so hollow in comparison.
Good thing indie games are a thing now, really. Indie games alone have me backlogged because there's so many, so cheap, good games.
This usually falls on def ears with the most current generation of kids that are use to being exploited but here it is anyways:
To change their scummy business practice follow these steps:
1. Stop falling for flashy trailers.
2. Stop buying/pre ordering games on release, and P2W Loot crates.
3. Look for credible reviews imo: (EasyAllies) and or find twitch streams of the game being played for more information on the game.
4. If the game is available on steam and you're not interested paying full price wait for a steam sale.
Remember that you as the consumer have the power to change all this, either you change the way you purchase games or get use to being exploited.
Only if enough ppl band together. Unfortenatly, the casual gamers are those who sustain them nowdays, and they don't roam around those parts of the internet to get this advice.
The way I see it:
Yes, more work is put into making games than ever.
BUT, It has also become easier than ever to create games (as evident by the obvious growth of indie developers), and the gaming market is bigger than ever as well. Technology today is far more powerful, and depending on the viewpoint also a lot cheaper.
With all these ups and downs, I feel that the 60$ price tag is sitting pretty much at the same balance as a decade ago, _however_ part of that 60$ was the ensurance that the game was produced professionally, worked the way it should, and stood as a solid product. The way many of these recent AAA games have turned out to be (looking at you Andromeda) those 60$ almost feels like too much.
Emil Macko
yes yes and yes
Excellent points
It's so obvious that all the money goes to greedy executives that overwork their staff for minimum pay too. I'd honestly start to avoid any games backed by big publishers/studios with shady practices. Like between destiny 2 and Warframe for example, Warframe is the clear choice for both my sanity and my wallet.
Games fail when they are desgined shittely, and design ideas don't increase the price.
Was Andromeda cutting-edge-but-not-working-new-animation-system needing more money? Or their writing quality would increase if you were to increase the pay? I'm not convinced about that.
And then we talk about Cuphead. 3 people can make a game that blows past (to me) most of the AAA games that has come out recently in quality and price.
This is kind of why I choose to stick with Indie games for the most part.
ClemmyGames - The Best Of Indie Games I don't blame you, plus you could get better games from what companies don't do anymore (i.e. wasteland 2)
Why is there a need to sound apologetic? The reality is that indie games are now objectively better, valued-added and consumer friendly than AAA gaming. Be proud of it, indie will make gaming great again.
Me too mate, haven't bought a modern triple A game in a very, very long time.
Exactly! Road Redemption is another great example!
Not apologetic at all but there are still merits to AAA games and certain things can only be done within a reasonable time frame with the development resources that larger companies have. That being said, indies generally are much more consumer friendly & do have interesting ideas & mechanics
Perfect example on how to do it right is Divinity Original Sin 2. One of the best reviewed games this year, with more than 200 hours of gameplay minimum. It has no season pass, no micro transactions, a game that was crafted with love and care and the price is $45...
I didn't know that. Does it have DLC though? My hope is no. But oh well, if so.
Desmond Brown no dlc, no in game pre-order bonus either. Check it out on steam. Can't recommend it enough.
Or start with the "first" part, Divinity Original Sin, from 2015 (also not a single DLC in sight). It may be called "Enhanced Edition" but that's because they "enhanced" it some time after launch for free and now it's the only version available on Steam.
Just one more example of corporate greed ruling the world. This shit has to stop at its roots, not just in relation to games. Business philosophy in general is a fucking mess of "more more more" and executive level greed.
Agent 005 the hardest and only way to stop this bullshit is by having MOST of us gamers and casuals to stop buying their shit. The lower the sales they have to start listening to the fans or change the way they make games. Hard yes impossible no
right there with ya buddy
Agent 005 Well partly it has to start at an educational level, like many things in this world. Like Brad said, we can make some progress by forcing their hands. But that'll only combat it in the short-term. We also need to change how we're teaching business philosophy to young and upcoming people. For example, it's really common, especially in American rhetoric, for people to believe that the primary goal of a business is to make profit. It's so deeply entrenched that many of us probably wouldn't even think twice about it.
But profit as the priority only leads to greed at its core. Some businesses are trying to say, "Oh, we're a good company. We give back to society as well as aiming for profit." But they're usually still prioritizing profit over everything else and in some cases, it's arguable that they're just doing the pro-social stuff for PR reasons.
Instead, I believe the priority should be, "What can this company do to benefit society and people?"
And profit should be relegated to maintenance status; it's a thing you have to put time into because you need to keep the lights on and the employees fed. You'll notice that a lot of independent creators on youtube follow this philosophy. They make money, so that they can keep creating. Rather than making money so that they can make more and more money.
And it works out well. Audiences generally trust them and are often willing to hand over money to them to help them continue. It becomes a symbiotic relationship, rather than a relationship wrought with distrust that feels like an ongoing battle.
People also need it hammered home to them the fact that money is a zero-sum-game. That no matter how much money you print, there's still a finite amount of resources and a finite amount of *worth* attached to the currency to go around. It may be harder for people to justify greed to themselves if they understand, as the whole point of greed and why it's problematic is that you are inherently depriving someone.
It'll take time for this kind of stuff to get rooted in our cultural conversations, but we do need to expand the conversation beyond "greed is bad." Cause "greed is bad" doesn't really get it through to people why greed isn't just bad on a moral level, it's also just a super impractical way to run a society. A society that runs on greed is a society that courts its own implosion (as is happening now in the US with the disappearing middle class).
But part of the problem with the conversation, sort of related to the general point being made by Kurt Andersen with his recent book Fantasyland, is that there's too much of people believing fantasy things about the world. People who truly believe anyone can be rich if they put their mind to it, for example. But it's literally impossible for everyone to be rich past a certain point, as it would reach a point where due to everyone being on the same level, the value of their money goes down. I'm not educated enough in economies to put it in academic terms, but I'm pretty sure the gist of it is just common sense.
Project Mayhem Perhaps so. Though I think branding the solution as socialism causes serious narrative problems. The word socialism gets uttered and in seconds, the conversation is buried in lingering paranoia from the Cold War era.
Project Mayhem I appreciate your perspective and optimism on the matter. It's hard for me to find the positive sometimes, in these strange times.
Hmm yeah $60 + DLC + microtransactions & lootboxes is pretty gross
ClemmyGames - The Best Of Indie Games thats Star Wars BF2...
On the consumer's side there's an easy way to avoid a lot of that cost. Just wait a year before buying it. It'll be cheaper, often will have all the dlc bundled and by that stage you'll definitely know wether the game itself is any good after all the hype has died down. That famous XKCD comic may be a joke, but it really has massive benefits.
That's a fair point, though EA will still charge you full price and not even include all of the DLC. Looking at you, Mass Effect 2.
VARIOUS videos that definitely helps. But they're often still fairly expensive, plus micro transactions
VARIOUS videos However, sometimes you just can't wait a year. I'm an impatient man!
I bought the first Battlefront when it first came out but , cause it was so devoid of content, barely played it, Never bought any of the DLC for it.. but the other day EA gave it all away for free.. All the DLC for the game.. for free.. So sometimes if you wait long enough , you don't even have to pay for it..
VARIOUS videos You shouldn't HAVE to wait a year after release to pick up a game. How about just not accepting AAA bullshit...
Given Extra Credits' latest bullshit episode, I am so glad this episode was around as a rebuttal. Thank god for Jim.
$60 is a lot of Ramen.
Ramen costs barely more than fucking white rice man. Most people spend more than $20 a day on food for themselves alone. 60 dollars ain't even a week of food for most usa citizens. sometimes there are even homeless people like this too. the lowest of income groups of people in america averages out to $127 dollars a week per-person on food.
dddmemaybe $127 per week per person on food? That’s too fucking much goddamn
$60 + gatcha fee + DLC + microtransactions + day 1 patch + deluxe boxes + fancy accessories + kickstarter = dead wallet
King Me Jumpman wait why is there day1 patch in this equation ? YOU don't need to pay for them .
well microtransactions are gatcha, the rate ups a lie, its gambling to kids...yada yada yada
Except that 30 pounds by and large was equal to 60 dollars for years.
That's changed because the UK economy went down the toilet thanks to brexit, but still. ;p
You forgot about 3 day early access with the super duper deluxe magic jizz in your pants edition.
Ad Lockhorst yes but not the patch it self. the internet and electricity cost are separated not the part of the patch of a game you buy .
Can you imagine going to KFC and paying $60 just to see the menu...
Then after ordering (because anyone is going to pay to see the back wall of the PoS area for $60) and then paying another $25-$50 just to have the option to pre-order more than one chicken tender.
Then you do that you're *allowed* to pre-pay for a shake and fries that will be along later that year.
...and then when you can finally sit down to your year old mummified chicken tenders, composted fries, and an oddly unappealing bubbling fermented milkshake months past its freshness date, you can drop another $5-$100 for a random selection of little condiment packets... You could get all mustard or all ketchup and you can only get to the best random boxes with a *chance* of getting the BBQ dipping sauce after first buying the $5 box which has two packets of some sort of 'secret sauce' that doesn't look or smell so much like a food product as the contents of a weeping sore. Then buying the $10 box before the $50 becomes visible... Etc etc...
...and then when all is said and done you *might* manage to collect all the pieces to a puzzle that gets you $10 off on your purchase of Shadow of Whore.
Able Baker ...I just want sweet n sour. :(
That's a pretty insane analogy. At least we know that KFC doesn't do that to their own customers.
When you see and hear the opening and realise that this video is still bloody relevant... Jim could release this right now, and it'd make perfect sense.
Jim, you hit the nail on the head. Please make a video about NBA 2K21 being $70 on next-gen consoles despite the fact that it will undoubtedly be stuffed to the gills with microtransactions
He is, because relevancy and him being correct.
This is why I only support indie developers now
Pretty good. Had a rough start but has been getting regular free content updates with hours of content (30+ with the newest one) being added every few months.
Not every Indie Dev is innocent just keep that in mind.
Lena Oxton Don't try to equalize the monsters from the industry with the developers because of a flaw, ModProto stated that he supports indie devs. Not ALL indie devs, that would be a completly false statement.
I support indies too. Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Binding of Isaak, and too many others can soak up weeks of your life of pure gameplay. No Man's Sky fell prey of their own shitty marketing, but that does not condemn all indies, that would be absurd.
Indie devs are not a unified consiousness...
Well i personally like my Lara to have every hair individually animated.
Lena Oxton I support indie developers, but I also know to wait for reviews and to not buy into hype (I didn't purchase no man's sky). Of course not all indie developers are good, but it seems that most of them seem to actually care about their craft. Also no man's sky does not have loot boxes, this video and my comment was referring to that.
I get why publishers do it: greed.
What I don't get is why in the hell so many damn people fall for it and feed the disgusting beast.
I love the fact Drill Queen is back again
It really doesn't suit the intro at all.
both tracks are being used, Drill Queen for the intro, the new theme for the outro.
I kinda feel like it'd work better the other way around? Hard to say.
Any game that has Lootboxes are instantly on my "Don't Bother" list, I don't care how good the game is because let's be honest, the developers probably don't even care either, I'm not going to pay for initial price and then some more and more, little by little, as time goes on. *I WANT THE FULL FUCKING GAME FROM THE START,* is that too much to ask for these days!? Cause they make it seem like I'm the one that's asking too much!
palindinX What do you think of Overwatch? It has loot boxes, but it's mostly for aesthetic reasons (skins, voice lines, profile icons, emotes) which doesn't affect gameplay.
I'm completely ok with Aesthetics, like in Overwatch. In fact, if anything they should just solely be ONLY aesthetics when it comes to $60 games. No "Pay to Win", just "Pay to look a little cooler", they get the money they want and the player just wants to look awesome, it's a simple Win-Win situation.
palindinX developers care a lot, they're the ones making the content that's in the loot boxes. I think you meant publishers
My Problem with OW is that you have to get ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from the Fking Boxes. Even the Fking Ingamecurrency... and its not even Guaranteed you get some with the "overhaul" .-.
Why not gibt some of the Credits after the Game to.. as a little Reward.. to make on Happy :(
And yes yes "Play a lo and you get your Stuff" - but I want to get Stuff as a "Casual" too.. I payed a Lot of Money Goddamnit
And yeah its just "Aesthetics", but still a reward .-.
I don't mind expansion packs - for example, you HAVE a game, now you can add to it if you like (although I certainly think that as a customer I'm entitled to good expansion packs). But loot-boxes and literally drip-fed games? Is it any wonder that people wait for Steam sales?
I like how the handrubbing orc has essentially replaced Cyril Sneer in these videos.
You are a role model sir. I hope in the days of children's growth, they look up high to your words and praises. Thank god for Jim!
Note: Jim brings up Mario + Rabbids as a way of showing Nintendo jumping on the Season Pass train.
Not to defend them, but for clarity's sake, but Mario + Rabbids isn't a Nintendo game with Rabbids in it. It's a Ubisoft game with Mario in it. They developed and published it, so it's not super out of character for them.
ChazzzyF
o shit
If anything Zelda Breath of the Wild and Samus Returns with a difficulty mode being locked behind a double pack amibo that costs more then just a single character and are naturally har d to get regardless of price, would have been better examples
Rubescent Dragon Yeah, totally.
Nintendo definitely has it's own problems.
Manufactured product scarcity is incredibly bad with them, and there's a lot of other bullshit you can point to as well.
But Mario + Rabbids was all Ubisoft.
Breath of the wild has a season pass
The thing that always baffled me is what do these CEOs want to do with all this money? What could they possibly want to do that requires this much money, even on a completely personal individual level? It almost seems like CEOs and corporations want this money just to have it, like they value money as an object rather than for it's utility the way society values gemstones.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up that games in the 90s didn't even have a standard pricing model. It didn't start until around the PS2/XBOX/Gamecube generation. Prices were all over the place until then.
To be fair, I think a good part if that was actually due to cartridges, especially then NES, SNES, and N64.
They often had extra chips too which added to the cost, so a standard MSRP wouldn't really work.
I mean some carts were $20 by themselves. A disc is maybe $1 tops.
That...is actually super interesting, I didn't know that, as an avid gamer this info was really cool to me, thank's dood :D
What’s saddened me was cheat codes and difficulty being dlc come the fuck on.
I remember watching an Angry Joe video about fourish years ago about Metro Last Light's Ranger mode - A.k.a. The way the game was "meant" to be played.
GentleMann Of Hats I miss cheat codes and code books, I like them more then microtrasactions.
if91100 that was godly in fact you’d be the cool guy/gal if you had one
Lyrikan Don’t get me started on Angry Joe and for some reason that doesn’t surprise me
GentleMann Of Hats - I'm not attempting to start anything over Joe's recent drama nor any historical drama. I merely was giving due reference to the point made.
They may have stayed $60 dollars in the states, but here in Ireland (Cant speak for all of europe) they've gone from €60 to €70 since the new generation of console, thats online and physical additions!
When these mofos sell games at higher and higher numbers, for less and less content, the games' prices should probably be LOWERING now. I'll pay 80 or 100 bucks if there's a damn good amount of content, but just give me the full game!
Montesama314 or maybe charge me 60$ then release proper expansions and DLCs, like Borderlands and Dark Souls always does?
I mean that would absolutely increase the game's value, right?
On the off chance you see this reply months down the line - try out Warframe for 0$ and see what you can do if you have a fair microtransaction model to fund your game for the people who deem the time they have with it worthy of the reward/contribution :)
this is why waiting for a discounted game of the year edition is a good thing
Can't wait for the day I have to take out a mortgage to buy a game.
Oh shit Fallout 35 is coming, time to sell one of my kidneys.
you wouldn't though if it gets that point id stop playing current video games all together or pirate the fuck of set video game what people should be doing with current ones give these mother fucking publishers a message we had enough fuck off with this bullshit
I've been priced out of gaming basically. Combination of poor choices such as buying a PS4 and getting the Mrs. Preggers don't help. But I live on a modest income and don't have $60 to drop on a new game that I can play for 10 hours and then be bored of or asked to invest more in order to get the most out of it. I would be happy if $60 bought a full game but it just doesn't any more. Believe it or not, I've actually taken up photography and it's far cheaper and more rewarding. After the initial investment you can get years and years of use for no extra costs. Gaming has just become too expensive for me to keep up with and I can't really warrant the expense with a child on the way. Sad times.
Yep, exactly, its kinda obvious advice, but wait for sales and price drops. Unless you've gotta play that hot new game RIGHT NOW there's no harm in waiting till its cheaper.
I haven't payed $60 for a game years, probably since the Wii. I don't get through them fast enough to need to.
Of course, with a new bundle of joy on the way it'd be oretty hard to game anway. On the bright side, you have great use for that camera.
Then you get to embarrass them baby pictures when they're older.:P
I started waiting to buy new systems until they are several years old. Like 4 or 5 years old. Then I would be able to buy used copies of most games for super cheap, including the ultimate/gold whatever shit editions of a game that come with all of the content. I will still be staying away from these microtransaction games though. There are still many games outside of the typical AAA space (and a few within) that aren't as advertised and don't do this insidious shit.
As soon as the ps4 came out, I was like "time to buy to ps3" woot!! As for micro transactions, I have a phone, I just download a mobile game if I want those.
These day's it's all about finding what you like and filtering out the shit, I bought a ps vita game called tokyo xanadu and sure it isn't a graphical powerhouse but the content and quality is there and it was 55+ hours of insane fun for cheaper than a modern day game overall, as long as you can find your main gaming squeeze and say eff that to the top tier DLC and microtransaction bullskit that they are pulling on us then gaming isn't that expensive dood.
Also congrats on the kid dood. :D
If you have a decent computer, I highly recommend buying games through Steam when a sale hits. You can get great ones for less than $20.
Additional Argument: Games are more profitable than ever because the market has grown and distribution has gotten easier, they don't need to raise the prices, the increase in sales correlates with an increase in funding, which they can spend on competitive practices like better graphics, but even that isn't something the gaming industry foots the bill for, technology increases around them and they reap the benefits from it.
Life's good when your a ninja block
life's good when you're a TV that looks an anime fan on prom night
life's good when you're a TV that looks an apple as a anime fan on prom night
"Mods". "Prize crates". That's disgusting news-speak, if i've ever heard it
This shit puts me in such a disgruntled rage, because I feel so powerless to stop it. I don't buy into any of this shit. I actually don't buy a damn game when I learn it's got bullshit like the games in this video. I haven't for years. But this shit has still just become so prevalent, what can I do now besides sit down and hope all the jackasses who mindlessly consume the shit handed to them finally notice the feces stuck in their teeth and fucking stop. I can't stand when people do things like pre-order a game based entirely on the name, before they've learned anything about it. Or just mindlessly spend money on anything resembling DC superheroes no matter if it's a piece of lazy trash. What can anyone do when everyone's been trained from birth to treat the rancid drippings corporations give us as fucking ambrosia?
FLORIDA_MAN there are still tons of games that don't have these awful !money grabbing scams
Take cuphead for instance, hand drawn animation, high quality content, only 20 dollars for years worth of animation alone, it's the steal for all the effort it had put into it
You're not powerless though! Vote with your wallet, rewarding games and devs/publishers who avoid this bs, and spread awareness to your friends with valid reasons that appeal to them. Explain to them that buying this piece of shit microtransaction freemium game tells publishers it is okay to carve their games up, making future instalments in their favourite series worse and worse.
More importantly, even if you won't have a huge impact personally, it's important to adopt the ethical stance of not buying games that pull this bullshit at all, because at the very least, you know you are not contributing to making games worse yourself.
Think of it like the fuckwads who throw their litter on the street. There used to be A LOT more people doing that a few decades back. And there are a fuckton of people who still do it, but you don't (hopefully) cos you know it's wrong, and you tell others it's wrong. So as the years pass it becomes less prevalent and less okay to do, until only the scummiest of shitheads do it. It's the same principle
I've thought like this since 2005. It doesnt matter if we dont support them, us intelligent consumers are the minority. Most of the shit for brains fools that buy these games dont know anything about the games industry. They are are people who dont care about video games and just buy whatever is new with no research because thats the hip thing to do.
same here man, haven't bought a game new in years because i refuse to support these shitty business practices. starting to get depressing seeing how the industry is shifting MORE towards mobile ftp business models.
I feel you deeply. Thankfully, there are tons of indie gems out there. True, you have to spend some time looking, but they're there.
Thank God For You Jim Stephanie Sterling
I’ve been watching a lot of old Jimquisition lately (because Thank God for Jim) and the old song made me do a double take on if this was a new episode or another rerun in my recs.
Thank God for Jim Sterling.
Wow, Horse Armor, haven't heard about that in a long time lol
Bethesda's paid mods service literally sells power armour for fallout 4 that has toy horse parts all over it.
They are selling horse armour again under the guise of it "being a joke".
Sooo...... Did anybody consider the sales numbers? Cause they've been going up like crazy too. Making a game like Mario may cost significantly less than Shadow of War, but, in spite of the Mario's later success, the original Mario game sold a hell of a lot less too. The more people there are to pay, the less the price has to be, if the costs are the same
I confess father... it has been.... never... since my last confession.... I was tempted.... by the devil.... that is blizzard.... I found myself, looking, at the lootbox buy screen, doing the math if I have the money to buy lootboxes.... I immediately saw my sin and beg your forgiveness... I shall try to stay strong for you, my lord.
Kelley Spier Truly Jim Sterling (Son) is with us! Even unto and BEYOND a console's age/generation!!!
Classic theme tune celebration.
yes, good to hear the return of the 'real' jimquisition theme
This, this song is a part of the Jimquisition. You can't replace it just like you can't replace Pikachu in Pokemon
Yes and yes
5 people have already disliked this 14 minute video that came out 13 minutes ago....
And all of them were Randy Pitchford.
Oh i know Randy. But that type of saying is just TOO overused by keyboard warriors ~_~ i don't want to see them here.
Excellent video Jim, it’s true, games have stopped being a one time $60 purchase and have become more like subscriptions and gambling schemes.
anything after PS2 era this shit been happen, PS3 and Xbox 360 days this bullshit been happening more and more been getting half ass or incomplete experience because of day one DLC, normal DLC and season passes. Why i mostly just support indie developers at lease game is full experience even Binding Isaac had bunch of DLC but they were pretty cheap think it didn't even reach 60 dollar price tag, but you need need DLC to fully enjoy the game
best time to be alive being gamer was NES to PS2 era, after been total shit I barely own any PS3 games how much bullshit we got, i dont' even own PS4 fuck that shit pay for online when I'm paying for my ISP i don't think so glad I'm PC gamer fuck console gaming
This is why I usually just wait for a $20 GOTY version of a game that has all the DLC included.
Witcher 3 base game: 60$
Expansion: 25$
Dlcs cosmetics: FREE
NO MICRO TRANSACTION AND LOOT BOXES BULLSHIT
Junior Duperval now it's 45$
Pre-ordering The Witcher 3 also came with a %10 discount. Not a bunch of shitty, half-assed, broken missions or a shiny meme weapon that would become useless after a few levels, or a couple of basic avatars, but rather %10 OFF THE LAUNCH PRICE. It's one of the only games I ever pre-ordered, b/c I specifically couldn't muster up the additional $6 at the time, and knew CDPR weren't scumbag developers.
Yakuza 0: 60$
Expansion: 0$
DLCs cosmetics: free
No microtransactions
Yakuza Kiwami: 30$
Junior Duperval they basically had the polish government fund them so they didn’t had to worry much about budget
the sad part is you can get the ultimate edition with all the dlc for 30 dollars on a steam sale. reasonably priced games go a long way in selling themselves. fuck call of duty, charging 20 dollars during a steam sale for a 7 year old game.
I go to the movies and buy my ticket, sitting in my seat, I notice a credit card slot is part of my armrest. I put on the VR headset and head phones that this theater uses(It's the future , obviously). The movie plays though I'm constantly distracted by ads to change the protaganist's shirt or "customize" other parts of the movie as well. It seems as if the purpose of the VR helmets was to make this economy possible. I continue ignoring the prompts to buy insignificant items until a new prompt showed up asking if I wanted to buy small extra adventures, extra scenes with no impact on the main story, to add onto the game. Near the end the annoyances continued, a prompt popped up for an important story expansion. This would add legnth to the end of the movie and completely change how you viewed the movie's characters and story(the true ending). I didn't enjoy it much, so I gave it a negative review.
Sparky KMAS And also there's a slot machine on the back of every chair so everybody can gamble while they watch their incomplete movie
Yep, that will be the final nail in the coffin of movie theaters. They're already loosing sales as its become to expensive for most people ($60+ for a family of four, more if they're thirsty and hungry)
I want to be entertained...but, I'm not that desperate.
You lost me at VR headset and headphones in a theater. Why the fuck would I go to the theater, the only benefit of which is to see the movies on a massive screen with an excellent surround sound system, only to ruin it all by strapping a shitty screen to my face and put on shitty headphones?
Also if it's the future obviously, there would be no VR anyway, because VR is a fad and it's not going to be around in the future. It's going to be dead. It's damn well nearly dead right now.
The way they go about it now, VR is definitely on an assured path to a quick and silent death. It lacks blockbuster games that really sell the devices. Devices that still cost hundreds of dollars too much. And from a hardware point of view, the technology is simply too low-budget to really work. All the crap about redesigning games to counter for nausea is stupid. It's the hardware that's the problem. I've owned and used VR hardware in the past and there was NEVER an issue of nausea with those devices at all. The games also allowed real freedom. Current VR is nothing like that, which is why it will fail. And nope, porn won't save VR.
Don't forget about the promt asking if you want to see a real ending of the movie.
One of, if not the best Jimquisition of the year. Good job Jimmy.
Don't games nowadays move a lot more copies than they did when the $60 price tag started? With an ever increasing part of those copies being digital?
Are these numbers anywhere? I'm curious if the % amount of sales is higher or lower than the % of inflation.
Probably the most trascendental jimquisition in long
i recommend watching this next ua-cam.com/video/SFKnv1YzI3k/v-deo.html
Trascendental..... oooooo
In long...... oh
Jim. I've decided to lend my incredible voice to you as a Narrator. Use me whenever. wait..I should word that better
We all know what you meant ;)
Too late! No take backsies!
Damm that's good shit
If you wanted to be Jim's narrator, just make sure you can voice act as Skeletor MYAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH
Cyael No. You were correct in saying how you said it.
If Monster Hunter: World has microtransactions and loot crates, I'm going to massacre Capcom personally.
esp if you cant join a mission if you didnt buy the dlc....if its free dlc like all of them in the past then i'll be very happy...its one game where they get dlc right still though the both versions of each game is prob annoying for jpn players...
The Japanese gaming purists would beat you to it, guaranteed.
I'd like got monster hunter to have micro transactions as long as their cosmetic stuff like costes n stuff.
i think the reason a lot of people are angry is that they are now going into pay to win microtransactions in full priced games...most people are fine with just cosmetic item but if in monster hunter some quests are locked off to you unless you pay up well you cant complete some sets and some armor sets are much better then the non dlc stuff and in generations you cant even max out the armor/weapon of some if you lack dlc...
i can imagine that ruining everything in monster hunter if you see others with maxed sets and you are stuck with 2nd rate gear even if you are a better hunter then they are skillwise..and making quiet a lot of hunters give up on worlds when it goes pay to win rather then only cosmetic..
I seriously doubt Capcon would do that, Monster Hunter is the one series they're very carful not to screw up. Its one of their biggest, most important IP.
Which is why its also the most baffling, being the anti-thesis to their usual antics.
Why can't people understand that game publishers need more money to develop game using all the slimy tactic they can use? Because they are too poor to spend money on making game since they are trying to buy ten personal aircraft make out of diamond.
There are examples of Nintendo using methods to do the same thing BUT Mario + Rabbids is a Ubisoft game.
Twilord I like to point to the Metroid game on 3ds locking difficulty behind an amiibo.
Which is why he said there are examples of Nintendo doing it. You just named that method.
The drill queen Renaissance
Bless you papa Sterling.
Thank God for Jim Fucking Sterling Son
Video games are $90AUD in Australia. That's $70USD as the base game right now. We get shafted even harder.
Jims one of the few holding the shit flood gates from flowing
Unfortunately, even with Jim's size, he ain't big enough to stop that torrent. It's already happened. He's just throwing people who are clever enough to want to swim out of it a life jacket.
That intro music though! IT'S BACK!!!!
Too bad it doesn't properly fit the animation like Stress did :/
I love this song. I hate the new intro.
I'd certainly believe a lot more of this "we need to cover dev costs!" if the average dev's salary rose as well. And don't even get me started on the QA team.
But don't ever talk of unions or worker's rights, your benevolent corporate masters will regulate themselves!
Precisely my point.
If left to their own devices: they will do what makes them the most money EVERY time. And many people will be thrilled to be "at-will" employees, because THEY'LL never be fired for no reason. You have but to look to the man fired by Home Depot for stopping a kidnapping. There was no shortage of bootlickers nodding in agreement: "He may have saved that kid, BUT he left his post. His employers were within their rights to fire him."
It's the sort of stuff that happens when you have a world run by machines. Because that's what a corporation is - a machine made of people. It doesn't matter what the motivations of any of the people involved are; the machine will continue running for its intended purpose. In this case, that is profit, which is usually pursued at all costs.
A machine will always be optimized to fullfill its job. The advantage of capitalism is the resulting efficiency. The fundamental error of our times is the belief that the efficiency itself would solve anything when left alone.
Everything beyond it has to be applied from the outside of the machinery. Don't blame an industry for doing its job. It is job of the government to harness this power and lead it into the right direction, by changing the rules of effiency (eg. by taxes or regulations).
But look around: everyone seems to agree that there should be less interference by the government. So in a way, the game industry just shows us what the whole world will become in the next few years.
Herr Schmidt
Depends on what country you are talking about. Autocratic countries like Venezuela or North Korea should get some deregulation in my opinion. Hell, even my country needs some.
Herr Schmidt with a perfect government but here they're just as greedy as any publisher and would just encourage it inexchange for a cut of the profits.
_Never pay more than 20$ for a computer game_
What happened to Jim's Big Ego theme?
the price of games doesn't need to rise since developers and publishers have found a way to make you pay for early access games and their subsequent updates and content additions. it's not just that content has been cut out of game and locked behind a paywall-it's more like the game isn't finished at launch, that's just when you get to buy the beta/early access, and then you can buy the updates as they come out later until the game is finished and the devs/publishers move on to the next game. you're paying for updates, content, and features as it's released instead of getting it for free since you bought it during early access-before it was a finished game.
oh also the mario+rabbids dlc was put in by ubisoft themselves not nintendo
krystalfan doesn't mean netendo couldn't say no
That would involve actually knowing things, not skimming information for a video. Most of the heavy lifting is done by other creators that he just slices in parts of their videos with credits.
Don't say that word, they will want money from you now.
@krystalfan, Nintendo still approved of it.
Right and wrong Nintendo did approve it and nintendo has put season passes or expansion type of passes onto games like splatoon, zelda, soon smash bros, and one other game i cannot remember. Only difference is that they finish the game and then work on the additional content soon after completion but it does cost money. But he is RIGHT about mario+rabbids DLC that is made by ubisoft nintendo had to approve it so they just as guilty but ubisoft is always known for paid add on content. Even more so then nintendo.
"games are expensive to make" you can fully fund 10 high quality indie projects with one month of Bob Kotick salary.