HawkMan Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 What does this have to do with Activision's CEO wanting to crank up prices? IMO it's the developers and artists being taken on a ride by the publisher's themselves. Prices are going up because development costs are going up and games aren't selling twice or four times as much. The actual coding in games aren't much more costly or time consumign than it was, a few years back, but one average it is going up, the use of frameworks and engines like Euphoria and unreal helps keep the coding costs down. However art, is skyrocketing. Art teams need to be bigger and bigger, and everyone needs to do ever more and harder work. it used to be a game consisted of a low poly 3D model with fairly simple texture with shading baked. Today, the level designers need to make every bigger and more detailed levels. The texture artists need to make textures many times the resolution, wich needs to be paired with custom bumps maps, spec maps, blend maps... a simply astonishing work load. The modelers are probably worst off as they can no longer simply make a low poly model, everything has to be modeled to cinematic quality, so they can make a normal map. Then they have to pretty much redo all the work to make a regular game model, which if they're lucky , they can simply choose a lesser subdivisions level for to get a low detail model for distance shots. And this isn't just characters, but every item in the game. Then there's animation, which almost has it as bad as modelers, while euphoria helps a bit by making natural skeletal animations in game. They still need properly skin the models so they don't deform weird, wich when you increase the polycount, doesn't get easier, it gets more difficult on an order of magnitude. Then they have to make animations for all the non organics, and make animations for all the scripter or FMV sequences. Either way you look at it, the cost of making a game today, is many times that of just a few years ago. wich was many times the cost of a few years before that again. Cost is skyrocketing, game prices need to keep up if we still want games. At least games that are evolving and not just looking like UT2004 forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted August 8, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 8, 2009 Prices are going up because development costs are going up and games aren't selling twice or four times as much.The actual coding in games aren't much more costly or time consumign than it was, a few years back, but one average it is going up, the use of frameworks and engines like Euphoria and unreal helps keep the coding costs down. However art, is skyrocketing. Art teams need to be bigger and bigger, and everyone needs to do ever more and harder work. it used to be a game consisted of a low poly 3D model with fairly simple texture with shading baked. Today, the level designers need to make every bigger and more detailed levels. The texture artists need to make textures many times the resolution, wich needs to be paired with custom bumps maps, spec maps, blend maps... a simply astonishing work load. The modelers are probably worst off as they can no longer simply make a low poly model, everything has to be modeled to cinematic quality, so they can make a normal map. Then they have to pretty much redo all the work to make a regular game model, which if they're lucky , they can simply choose a lesser subdivisions level for to get a low detail model for distance shots. And this isn't just characters, but every item in the game. Then there's animation, which almost has it as bad as modelers, while euphoria helps a bit by making natural skeletal animations in game. They still need properly skin the models so they don't deform weird, wich when you increase the polycount, doesn't get easier, it gets more difficult on an order of magnitude. Then they have to make animations for all the non organics, and make animations for all the scripter or FMV sequences. Either way you look at it, the cost of making a game today, is many times that of just a few years ago. wich was many times the cost of a few years before that again. Cost is skyrocketing, game prices need to keep up if we still want games. At least games that are evolving and not just looking like UT2004 forever. That would play well if the game increasing it's price didn't sell 11 million alone on consoles. Not to mention the engine powering MW2 will be a tweaked MW1 engine, not a complete overhaul. So if MW could sell at the normal RRP, what made MW2 need to be that bit more expensive? Just posing those questions for argument, I believe most of us know exactly why the price went up ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 8, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 8, 2009 I'm not interested in boycotting anything just because of the price. Maybe if they did something really poor like ... Iono, spend all their money on nuclear missiles... or something.... I don't know, I'm too tired to come up with a snappy reply. But yeah, I wouldn't boycott Activision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 With no presige edition of MW2 for PC? You bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 That would play well if the game increasing it's price didn't sell 11 million alone on consoles.Not to mention the engine powering MW2 will be a tweaked MW1 engine, not a complete overhaul. So if MW could sell at the normal RRP, what made MW2 need to be that bit more expensive? Just posing those questions for argument, I believe most of us know exactly why the price went up ;) Just because you're using the same engine, the textures still need to be created. No I'm not saying that costs a billion to do for a game like this or anything of that sort, just saying using the same engine doesn't eliminate the need to actually put a ton of work into it. I for one am surprised game prices are almost the same and perhaps even less than "back then" where games consisted of 16 colours and "pew pew" sounds - I don't mind the price bump, I don't mind paying for quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted August 8, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 8, 2009 Just because you're using the same engine, the textures still need to be created. No I'm not saying that costs a billion to do for a game like this or anything of that sort, just saying using the same engine doesn't eliminate the need to actually put a ton of work into it. I for one am surprised game prices are almost the same and perhaps even less than "back then" where games consisted of 16 colours and "pew pew" sounds - I don't mind the price bump, I don't mind paying for quality. Sorry I'm not discounting the effort that will have gone into this, just pointing out it will be an evolution of the engine, not a creation of a new engine (something that is indefinitely more expensive). I don't mind paying for quality either, but when other quality is going at the exact same price it always has been I don't see why I should shell out more for one product. Unless the money is genuinely needed by the dev teams its anti-consumer when all the other quality blockbuster titles are still sold at the prices we expect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Sorry I'm not discounting the effort that will have gone into this, just pointing out it will be an evolution of the engine, not a creation of a new engine (something that is indefinitely more expensive).I don't mind paying for quality either, but when other quality is going at the exact same price it always has been I don't see why I should shell out more for one product. Unless the money is genuinely needed by the dev teams its anti-consumer when all the other quality blockbuster titles are still sold at the prices we expect. In this case and the reason why I'm not complaining is the fact other "blockbuster titles" will only keep my busy for a short amount of time, usually. Counting per hour spend in the game, I may spend 2 days collectively in many of those come-and-go blockbuster titles while Call of Duty 4 had my busy in just multiplayer for almost 10 days, that's 240 hours of entertainment for the price of 2 newly released DVDs over here, I'm not even counting the time spent in Single-player which goes well beyond 3 days with the Veteran completion, 3 times on the other difficulty levels and one briefcase run. So well over 300 hours for that measly price. And honestly, I could very well be hitting those numbers again and with MW1 I really felt I got entertainment at a bargain price, so a tiny bump in cost is nothing, I'll gladly pay it since I'm still getting more than my money's worth. So for each ? I get so much more entertainment out of a game like this than any of those other "meh" blockbuster titles. I know this won't be the same for you, as you don't seem to like an FPS crazed person but you know what I mean, there must be games out there you spent so much time with, you'd be willing to pay that extra without flinching because you get SO much for your money ( Demon's Souls? ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Well beyond that, the money they make on MW2 wil fund work on the next game, which most likely will have a new engine(though as I said, engine is probably the cheapest part of developement, even if you make it in house anyway). And that beign said, while MW most definately didn't go red, due to dev costs it probably didn't make very much per unit, and in total the amount of money actually made may have been fairly low compared to the norm. And what is the reason for making a triple A game if not to make loads of cash. So it may be as simple as the fact that MW didn't make so much, the market wasn't ready for a price hike yet at that time, they are now, and they are both making up for the money they didn't make on MW and getting some extra funds for the next big project beyond MW2. afterall Wasn't it valve who recently said they thought gamers should contribute to the development of games before release so the studios could develop new games without fear that it would bankrupt them. Otherwise we'll end up continuing in the circle we are already seeing a start of now, where no new innovations are really being done in games. Sure the occasional basement studio is making the quirky orignal and weird arcade or iphone game, but that's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted August 9, 2009 Author Share Posted August 9, 2009 instead you'll support CEO's that sell the games cheap, and thus can't afford to pay their developers and artists fairly, and hires and takes advantage of fresh out of school devs, and in the current economical climate they can even take advantage of seasoned ones. That would make sense if it wasn't for the fact that they're raising the price on a high-profile game that's guaranteed to sell MILLIONS of copies. Going by your logic, it's the smaller titles that wont sell as well that need the higher price. This is blatantly just corporate greed. Just because you're using the same engine, the textures still need to be created. No I'm not saying that costs a billion to do for a game like this or anything of that sort, just saying using the same engine doesn't eliminate the need to actually put a ton of work into it. I for one am surprised game prices are almost the same and perhaps even less than "back then" where games consisted of 16 colours and "pew pew" sounds - I don't mind the price bump, I don't mind paying for quality. To be fair, (and I don't mean to sound like an ******* when I say this), do you actually know what costs are truly involved in making a game? Especially something like MW2, the vast majority of the game was done when MW1 shipped, what they've done is make a bunch more maps and tweaked it a fair bit. Not saying its a trivial task or anything, but it certainly wasn't as expensive to make as you seem to imply. Furthermore, as stated above, this game WILL sell millions, it could retail at ?20 and still make a nice fat profit. The sad thing is that most money from game sales don't go to the developers, but rather they end up in the Publisher's pockets. That's why big publishers like Activision, EA and Ubisoft are raking in cash, but a lot of their dev studies risk getting closed down if their next title flops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 That would make sense if it wasn't for the fact that they're raising the price on a high-profile game that's guaranteed to sell MILLIONS of copies. Going by your logic, it's the smaller titles that wont sell as well that need the higher price. This is blatantly just corporate greed. As I said, the reason for making AAA games is to make lots of money. if you sell a AAA game cheaper because it sells a lot, but a cheap low volume game priced higher has the same end income... then what's the point in making AAA games. we live in a capitalist world, the sole reason for making AAA games is to make lots of money, if you're not, then you're not gonna make them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted August 9, 2009 Author Share Posted August 9, 2009 As I said, the reason for making AAA games is to make lots of money.if you sell a AAA game cheaper because it sells a lot, but a cheap low volume game priced higher has the same end income... then what's the point in making AAA games. we live in a capitalist world, the sole reason for making AAA games is to make lots of money, if you're not, then you're not gonna make them. Sorry, but how does that justify hiking up the price? That's also not really how sales work. Everything has what's called "price-elasticity". Essentially, that means that the cheaper something is, the more units it will sell. Doesn't matter what it is, a product that sells 100 units at ?100 is likely to sell 200, 300, 400 or whatever units within the same time frame if it's ?50. Crap games, even when priced below the RRP, will never sell as well as good games above the RRP (Unless there's some really good marketing going on). you can see this in action on the wii. Look up "popcorn arcade", these are a bunch of REALLY bad budget titles that RRP for ?15-20 and below when the RRP of a Wii game is ?35 or higher. They don't sell much because the games are genuinely god-awful, but its enough to recover the development costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted August 9, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 9, 2009 (edited) In this case and the reason why I'm not complaining is the fact other "blockbuster titles" will only keep my busy for a short amount of time, usually. Counting per hour spend in the game, I may spend 2 days collectively in many of those come-and-go blockbuster titles while Call of Duty 4 had my busy in just multiplayer for almost 10 days, that's 240 hours of entertainment for the price of 2 newly released DVDs over here, I'm not even counting the time spent in Single-player which goes well beyond 3 days with the Veteran completion, 3 times on the other difficulty levels and one briefcase run. So well over 300 hours for that measly price. And honestly, I could very well be hitting those numbers again and with MW1 I really felt I got entertainment at a bargain price, so a tiny bump in cost is nothing, I'll gladly pay it since I'm still getting more than my money's worth. So for each ? I get so much more entertainment out of a game like this than any of those other "meh" blockbuster titles. I know this won't be the same for you, as you don't seem to like an FPS crazed person but you know what I mean, there must be games out there you spent so much time with, you'd be willing to pay that extra without flinching because you get SO much for your money ( Demon's Souls? ) Believe it or not I'm quite a tight arse with money:pp I don't mean in a generosity sense, I'd like to think I'm a really generous guy, just when it comes to spending money on myself. I tend to spend a lot, but I will drive the best bargain all the time every time. The only reason I paid ?47 for Demons Souls was importing, I'd never of bought that game at that sort of price here. Munky already knows my views on collectors editions lol. Everyone has a different ? to value ratio, some people would say they'd pay ?100 for MW2 just because they love it that much, but when it comes to money I can't form "bonds" like that, it's always head over he:pt :p My brain just can't justify Activision charging what they are for MW2 on either the plea of "the money is needed for development" or "everyone else is doing it", because they IMO clearly don't need the money for development, as Kushan pointed out this extra money is going to Activison no doubt, not Infinity Ward (that's the saddest part) and secondly not yet have any other big devs start ramping prices. The games industry is teetering with how the music industry went, all the publishers and label records getting greedy and wanting to maximize their profit margins whilst the developers get the shaft... There's so much money to make here now, some corporation was going to grow the balls to see how well they can exploit the market, why not do it with what is the most popular FPS game right now? Lets ramp the vanilla RRP and chuck out an insanely priced collectors edition and see what happens... what happens? Collectors edition sells out and vanilla edition probably hits around/over 11 million again, Activisions pockets explode, CEO's pay themselves millions in bonuses, a successful and rewarding business plan. But it's interesting for everyone to read our views, no onewrong. Edited August 9, 2009 by Audioboxer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kheldorin Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Sorry, but how does that justify hiking up the price?That's also not really how sales work. Everything has what's called "price-elasticity". Essentially, that means that the cheaper something is, the more units it will sell. Doesn't matter what it is, a product that sells 100 units at ?100 is likely to sell 200, 300, 400 or whatever units within the same time frame if it's ?50. Crap games, even when priced below the RRP, will never sell as well as good games above the RRP (Unless there's some really good marketing going on). you can see this in action on the wii. Look up "popcorn arcade", these are a bunch of REALLY bad budget titles that RRP for ?15-20 and below when the RRP of a Wii game is ?35 or higher. They don't sell much because the games are genuinely god-awful, but its enough to recover the development costs. So their game is price-inelastic. They are not aiming to sell high volumes but to maximize their profits. The increase in price would probably more than make up the drop in sales. Basically the game developers are asking the publishers huge amounts of money to fund their AAA game. But why would the publishers risk investing such a huge amount of money when a corresponding lower-risk, low-cost game would produce the same amount of profit. They'll say "Nah, I'll give you the money only if u make a lower-cost Wii or iPhone game". I'm sure people will say that this game will definitely be a hit and there's very little risk involved but the thing is that you never know. The game market is pretty much like the movie/entertainment market. Your super-expensive blockbuster movie could flop. Besides, most of the time the profit from these "sure-hit" sequels are used to fund more experimental games. Somewhat like movie producers who fund their more artistic/sophisticated/Oscar-worthy but probably not-so-profitable movies with movies that are more mainstream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qdave Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Mo, i think its silly to boycot games especially when you are the one who will benefit from playing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 wth is this new boycott thing? What? Its the new thing cool kids do now? Do you think, I mean do you TRULY think Activision gives a flying s*** AT ALL about your little boycott? MW2 have ALREADY broken pre-order records. This game is going to sell like HOTCAKES with BACON on it. Activision is only going to charge what the market will allow. And the market, despite what you (and maybe lets say what? 500? 1000?) other people thinks is "too high" of a price, clearly everyone else do not think so. So not only will you boycott not make a single bit of difference, you are making yourself look rather foolish. The thing about the CEO being a dick is just immature. Steve Jobs is a dick and add an Apple tax to everything. You know what? I don't see anyone up in arms. Bill Gates is a dick and lets be honest, Microsoft software is hella expensive. I don't see anyone up in arms. People live in poverty, die nameless deaths for someone else's war on a daily bases, nobody gives a crap, nobody is up in arms. A company charging 10 extra pounds for a game, suddenly Activision is the next axis of evil that fanboys everywhere must band together and defeat? Give me a break. Please, before I get crucified by the power of the internet, let me just say that I'm not justifying what Activision is doing at all. I do think its unfair. But at the same time, if you have the effort, time and energy to create a thread and make some noise, don't you think that energy would be better spent elsewhere? Shows you where some people's priorities are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kheldorin Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 because they IMO clearly don't need the money for development, as Kushan pointed out this extra money is going to Activison no doubt, not Infinity Ward (that's the saddest part) and secondly not yet have any other big devs start ramping prices. How do you know that? Isn't Infinity Ward owned by Activision in the first place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted August 9, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 9, 2009 People live in poverty, die nameless deaths for someone else's war on a daily bases, nobody gives a crap, nobody is up in arms. A company charging 10 extra pounds for a game, suddenly Activision is the next axis of evil that fanboys everywhere must band together and defeat? Give me a break. Please, before I get crucified by the power of the internet, let me just say that I'm not justifying what Activision is doing at all. I do think its unfair. But at the same time, if you have the effort, time and energy to create a thread and make some noise, don't you think that energy would be better spent elsewhere?Shows you where some people's priorities are. Oh great it's the "look look all these people are dieing" brigade arriving, there's nothing actually sadder than misusing other peoples misfortune out of context just to aid your opinion in an argument like this. People are allowed to have a conversation about things in life that aren't incredibly important and not feel bad about it, so shoo off. The thing about the CEO being a dick is just immature. Steve Jobs is a dick and add an Apple tax to everything. You know what? I don't see anyone up in arms. Bill Gates is a dick and lets be honest, Microsoft software is hella expensive. I don't see anyone up in arms. And you really haven't visited the Apple/MS forums... How do you know that? Isn't Infinity Ward owned by Activision in the first place? I don't actually, you make a fair point, but it's not an out of the field prediction. Activision are the publishers, the ratio of 'cake' to developers is usually always behind the CEOs, Big boys and corporate lackeys behind the company/publishing/business side. Yup, Activision own Infinity Ward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Oh great it's the "look look all these people are dieing" brigade arriving, there's nothing actually sadder than misusing other peoples misfortune out of context just to aid your opinion in an argument like this.People are allowed to have a conversation about things in life that aren't incredibly important and not feel bad about it, so shoo off. And you really haven't visited the Apple/MS forums... I don't actually, you make a fair point, but it's not an out of the field prediction. Activision are the publishers, the ratio of cake to developers is usually always behind the CEO and Big boys behind the company/publishing/business side. Yup, Activision own Infinity Ward. So you don't find complaining about higher prices over a video game a bit...oh I don't know, petty? Fine, my example about people dying is a bit extreme I will give you that, but surely there are micro level example I can give that will be more important than arguing over higher prices? You know? Problems in your life that you can spend more time on having a discussion over? Your right, maybe involving wars is not the best context to use. But I mean as far as complaining about things go, this one is pretty low on the list which ever way you slice the cake? And the Apple/MS comment. Haha, do people start boycotts there as well? Well than my response to that is the same unfortunately. I think my point at the end of the day is the bet justice you can dish out is with your wallet. Market forces will organize boycotts if someone is doing something ridiculous believe you me on that. All I'm saying is these little "boycott" that you call it at the end of the day...pretty petty. Boycott, the real ones stand for something that goes beyond the issue at hand. May it be liberty, or otherwise. These boycotts are just about spending 10 pounds less. Sure, some idealist is going to give me the "well we are standing up for something bigger than spending less money" but really...I seriously doubt anyone is going to have this kind of convection over a video game. I stand corrected about how Activision don't give a flying f*** though.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted August 9, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted August 9, 2009 So you don't find complaining about higher prices over a video game a bit...oh I don't know, petty? Fine, my example about people dying is a bit extreme I will give you that, but surely there are micro level example I can give that will be more important than arguing over higher prices? You know? Problems in your life that you can spend more time on having a discussion over? Your right, maybe involving wars is not the best context to use. But I mean as far as complaining about things go, this one is pretty low on the list which ever way you slice the cake? And the Apple/MS comment. Haha, do people start boycotts there as well? Well than my response to that is the same unfortunately. I think my point at the end of the day is the bet justice you can dish out is with your wallet. Market forces will organize boycotts if someone is doing something ridiculous believe you me on that. All I'm saying is these little "boycott" that you call it at the end of the day...pretty petty. Boycott, the real ones stand for something that goes beyond the issue at hand. May it be liberty, or otherwise. These boycotts are just about spending 10 pounds less. Sure, some idealist is going to give me the "well we are standing up for something bigger than spending less money" but really...I seriously doubt anyone is going to have this kind of convection over a video game. I stand corrected about how Activision don't give a flying f*** though.... When peoples hard earned cash is involved you're going to get debates. There's lots of people wanting to buy this game, some not impressed with the price hike which frustrates them as they're so helpless, which spawns topics like this. However I do agree the term boycott is a watered down 'internet threat' nowadays, but I don't think there's any need to torch this topic of what decent debate it has, ignore out of context terminology like boycott, it should just be 'are you buying or not'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 I feel for you guys. It's really sad you get the shaft with MW2 at that price. I don't think it's fair at all, and it makes Activision look like a bunch of as*holes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sn00pie Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 You should boycott it the way you guys are getting it with the prices for MW2. I have no problem with the price so there is no reason for me to boycott them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powerade01 Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 There's been a lot of talk lately about an Activision Boycott. I think the reasons are pretty obvious, their CEO is a douche and nobody's happy about the extortionate prices they've been trying to put on their games (Most notably Modern Warfare 2).I, for one, have always maintained that I'll never pay more than what I think something is worth. For me, that's about ?30-35 on most games, with maybe ?40 for a good collectors edition. MW2 wont be any different, I can wait for that to drop in price or pick it up second hand. I'll happily pay the ?55 for a second-hand copy if it means Activision don't get a penny of my cash. But what about you guys? Will the raise in prices put you off buying their games? Will you just wait for them to drop in price? Or will you stand your ground and not purchase any of their products until they stop trying to raise said prices? Or are you happy to pay over the odds? Discuss! Boycott = Pirate their games. [/endthread] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 I won't be boycotting Activision as the PC version of MW2 is priced well. The console version (Which I don't want) is the one that is overpriced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lokutar Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 MW2 is the same price as every other game.. everyone else is just *****ing about the price of the collectors editions... Don't like em, don't buy em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted August 9, 2009 Author Share Posted August 9, 2009 MW2 is the same price as every other game.. It's not, actually. In the UK, the RRP for most games is about ?45. MW2's is ?55. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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