Saddle up and ride for world’s ending, its time for another edition of EpicBattleCry! This week, we check out the ‘better late than never’ Darksiders demo, run down the latest details on Super Street Fighter IV as well as the news that SFIV is headed to the iPhone, discuss the new Assassin’s Creed 2 DLC and the circulating info on Assassin’s Creed 3, and ponder the North American delay for the first episode of the Heavy Rain Chronicles DLC.
First up, we talk the Heavy Rain demo. With the game being release this week we discuss our impressions of the demo and what the future may hold for this unique title. Next, after many a request from you the loyal Axehead vanguard, we take a stab at some of the business models being discussed by Jason Rubin on his recent Bonus Round appearance.
The Battle Cry of the Week goes to Metal Gear Solid: Arcade, free copies of Red Faction: Guerrilla, Transformers G1 Awakening on iPhone, and VOD vs Blu-ray.
Stay sharp.
As we stated in the show, we’ve got WAY more to say about both of this week’s topics. Watch this space for links to a couple all-new EBC On Tap discussions; coming real soonish.
UPDATE: You can now listen to the full On Tap Heavy Rain demo conversation right here.
-iPod compatible mp4 download-
Kept me waiting all day long >:C
I expect a kickass episode… and cupcakes
Whats up with gametrailers.com not showing any love?
Yeah Great Episode Guys!! Woo !!
Before the text cane up about the show being edited, I realy started to wonder wtf was wrong with Tony. Daniel and Brent were having their discussion and suddenly Tony unleashed his havoc. phew, dont scare me like that.
Awesome episode. Really like that you guys have focused on important topics these last podcasts and i’m looking forward to more awesome discussions!
Oh and btw. I guess i’m not the first one, but god damn I wich I could be with you guys making this show. I have so many opinions on what you guys are talking about and more. I’ll even rip Tony’s head off, put it in a carebear costume and then put it in Daniel’s bed if you’d let me join ^^
awesome episode, and some nice topics.
been on the fence about darksiders for some time and u nudged me over , and thats always awesome to have happen.
keep the good stuff coming and thanks for mentioning Shenmue,1 of my all time fav games, that realy deserves more credit imo.
great episode, really interesting topics, heading to Tap right away! gotta try the darksiders demo, see if it’s any good, thanks for letting me know.
keep it up, you’re the best
I wanted to comment on Jason Rubin’s ideas. Well first off.. I agree that none of his ideas are guaranteed to work on all games, we’d just have to see how it’d work with some games on a case by case basis – and I do agree that the overall price of games is going to increase in some way, shape, or form.
That being said, I think his ideas about microtransactions are good ideas. Before having heard Rubin’s views, I’ve been generally against microtransactions… but Rubin sheds some light on it. He emphasizes that, with proper microtransactions, you are not paying to get better at the game but you only paying to reduce the time it would take you to get to a certain point (example: Paying real money to get a weapon in MW2 instead of having to wait till level 20 to get that weapon. Or maybe even paying real money to get your account to level 20 instead of having to put the hours in to reach that level – because we all know leveling in MW2 takes time, not skill.) He also stresses that what you would buy with real money would always be able to be obtained on your own if you dedicate time towards doing so. I think these two points are very important and, if these two points apply to every micro transaction, then I have no problem with it. I think the anaology Rubin used to defend it was a very good one. He said something about how you have two kids on a soccer team, and one kid’s mom had enough moeny to send him to a soccer camp before the season started and the other kid’s mom didn’t. Naturally, the kid who went to soccer camp would most likely have an upper hand. That’s not exactly fair but you can’t really do something to stop that from happening.
Personally, I would never pay to progress more quickly in a game. However, I could see microtransactions benefitting people that don’t have so much time to play video games like some of us do, or benefitting people that are sick of grinding to level 30 in MW2 or maybe frustrated or even lazy. I don’t have a problem them paying to get ahead aslong as I know that I could get to that point if I work for it. The only thing that I would like is some sortof designation for players that bought something. For example, let’s say someone paid to be brought to level 50 in MW2 – I think there should be some sort of dollar sign emblem somewhere on their callsign that indicated that they paid to reach the point that they are at. Also, the idea of Mass Effect that was brought up in this episode is a brilliant way to implement this.
Now, as far as his ideas about paying for how long you play go – I’m not 100% sure how I feel. I’m not totally against it because I’ve taken part in subscription based models such as World of Warcraft before. World of Warcraft is different though, that makes you pay $15 to play for a month, and you don’t get a refund for the time you didn’t use up in that month – there’s no rollover or something. What Rubin is talking about is perhaps paying $7.50 to unlock 20-30 hours of multiplayer in MW2. Perhaps paying $7.50 to for every 6 or 7 campaign missions you do in MW2 (regardless of whether you’ve played them or not already). And then in turn, you would
drastically reduce the price of the upfront game or maybe make it even free. I think it’s not a terrible idea and it could work for some games.. but I think I’d rather just pay whatever price up front and not have to deal with all of that (also I do see it as pretty risky for the developer, as said in the episode). I do see how it is more beneficial for the guy that only plays the game through once and maybe only plays the multiplayer for a week. Perhaps I would like it for some games, depending on the game and depending on what the exact pricing is.
Jugzor i have read your post above and i agree in certain respects of your argument. But, take another casestudy as a model in world of warcraft. What jason rubin is suggesting is to let the player buy what certain items are available through the hard work of the players themselves. This model is prominently used in Maplestory,a MMORPG which is predominantly free and microtransaction based. As, i have played this(crappy) game before, the premise which is involved is a lot of grinding and very few quest in between grinding which you would only get 0.01% of the xp needed to lvl up. Due to that lvling up is a chore even though the game is free, and the only way to progress fast without grinding so hard is to pay micro transactions to get an xp boost so to speak. This model would neer work in a game like WoW due to WoW being more geared towards the casual gamer while accomodating the hardcore. I say this because the bevy of quest available in WoW gives you the opportunity to lvl up progressively instead of the chore of lvling up in Mapplestory( prominently one reason i quit is because the lvling was so slow and i declined to pay for the xp boost which in my oppinion cost too much and as it last for a certain period of time forces you to break anything you have got going for you at that moment to maximize the xp boost you paid for). Even assuming this works in WoW, following Rubins example of a soccer family, would this not make competitive gaming an afterthought? I use the example of WoW due to it being very recognized in the raiding concept of things and world first do count as very big accomplishments in the raiding sphere. Using rubins model, two guilds at the same skill level but with varying ammounts of monetary resources would be set a point where one guild chasing a world first would start from a point of disadvatage compared to the other as they would be able to purchase ‘bonuses’ which rubin suggested to ‘get there’ faster, after all if say anybody who was dedicated enough but didn’t have the money would be pissed of by that, but hey life isn’t fair is it.
I do however love the other points you have brougt up in that the means of how a game would make money(ie. the comparison between single player and multiplayer games) as i think and it is my own personal oppinion that this model would work in a single player model(ie. mass effect or a real world example of the model in action now in the ‘sould(pun intended) packs’ in dantes inferno’ but less so in multiplayer/competitive games where an outcome should be decided by skill and not by how deep your coffers are.
awesome episode guys. one of the most interesting in terms of content
My battle cry goes out to Jason Rubin’s statements, I think people are seeing what he was trying to say in the WRONG WAY . He was suggesting a business model in which the games are cheaper, THE PROGRESSION is there but if you wanna progress faster you pay for it. To be honest I PREFER to pay an SMALL AMOUNT for my game and pay to unlock for stuff, my example MW2. I don’t have the time that 15 year olds have to unlock all the weapons, cause I have a job and a live. And to enjoy the game, I would rather pay 3 dollars extra to unlock certain weapons and have fun with the game. Not all the games can follow this business model, but very, very GOOD GAMES will benefit from this. This also would FORCE the DEVELOPERS to make a very engaging game so that they can make a profit out of that. So you get a very good game for a reasonable price, and if you like it you go the extra mile, I don’t see anything bad in that.
awesome as always, jason rubin is high, what he says will never work the economy i think is just to poor but i know nothing so… ha
I really wanted to enjoy Heavy Rain, but demo killed it for me. The game constantly requires you to do something with your damn controllers and annoying sixaxis sequences take me right out of the game’s atmosphere. The walking I didn’t mind much once I got used to it, but it doesn’t feel natural and where is my run button? I tip my hat to the dude who said “now, i have to play this game.” I would have said F this then either get back to GOW collection or ME2.
I like the idea of paying for what I actually play instead of a fixed price for every game (for example it dont like the idea of buying Bioshock 2 for 50US$ on the PC, but if there was a version without the multiplayer for 30-40 US$ I would buy it).
On the other hand I understand it can get annoying if a game its broken into to many pieces, like in the case of micro-transactions, where you have to buy (for example) weapons individually.
But would it be so wrong if a MW2 type of game was released for free or maybe at a reduced price of 15 to 25 US$ that included the SP and the multiplayer but his last one was locked to a certain level, once you get there you pay (if you choose to) to unlock to whole thing. For this to work though I thing they should still sell a normal version of the game with everything unlocked at 60US$ and this other divided version I propose should probably be a little higher in price (once you unlocked everything) because you are somehow “buying” the security that you really liked the product.
Another approach is what they are doing with Darksiders with the “extended demo” they are releasing. They are giving you a really good chunk of the game for free so you can really decide if its worth your money or not.
Anyways, I think its good that new bussines models are created but I believe this could help to expand the market and get more people into gaming.
Jason Rubin should stay away from full games as his views wouldn’t be popular.
Right of the bat, yes, I agree that they need to make their money back for the quality of games there is … but there needs to be other ways to do so.
DLC is one way, and I find it’s really good … but it hasn’t been used the best way possible yet.
Imagine if those COD4 maps were compatible with Modern Warfare 2 … and both of those were compatible with modern warfare 3. What if the maps were also backwards compatible?
What needs to be worked on is engine based games … what I mean by that is if a company uses the unreal engine game, the series should be compatible for each other. Hang on their, I’m getting there =P
PS3 and PC would be the best for this, they have HDD. Imagine buying a game, lets use COD4 for example. The game has a 500 meg install on the HDD. That installation is actually the game engine. The engine then gets updated with updates where in the end, becomes the Modern Warfare 2 engine, yet it can still run the Cod4 content that’s on the disk. This allows for Cod4 players to then be able to download Modern Warfare 2 map packs and use it’s kill streak and such. Vice versa as well. Modern Warfare 2 buyers can download CoD4 maps as it’s still compatible with the engine. Since those maps were already compatible with the engine, it takes no extra work to release it.
imagine this 2-3 times over. Give’s the player value in what they are buying since the next game doesn’t make it obsolete.
And, if games ever become online only (via steam for example) then it’s ultimately endless since the original content can then be visually updated 4-5 years after it’s release when it starts to look aged.
A series shouldn’t be only about the name, the content should also be cross game compatible. This would, like I said, make DLC more worth it to players as its more valuable in the long run without adding additional cost to the developers.
Granted, there’s some technical issues that would need to be solved for this to work, but I’m sure they can do it … unless Microsoft is in charge of creating hardware again (X_X)
you bring up a good point wingchunharpies. that model perhaps wouldn’t work with WoW – unless it was handled very delicately and limited because any small thing could disrupt the balance with raids and competing for world firsts or even server first. WoW seems to be working well with the subscription model though. The only way I could see microtransactions working is for some stuff, perhaps to level up a profession quicklier (not necessarily to crant you recipes though) or maybe to pay money to unlock dual specs instead of spending 1000g. Things like that.
ahh wonderful as always
My Epic Battle Cry
Goes out to Battle Field Bad Company 2 & Dice for making a multiplayer game that is awsome because it’s not like mw2 in the sense your not a supper human killing machine, this game actually requires team work plus the open maps, vehicals and lets not forget the destruction is sweet. Should note I been playing the PC beta and the game is really solid and cant wait for 64 player mayham on dedicated servers.
also I agree with brent I would rather spend an extra 10 or so dollars and be done with it because I think of the time I spent playing morrowind and oblivion and if I had to pay by how much I played I would be one poor bastard and I think it would further limmet how many games I buy.
I found it funny the talk about pricing in game always have to go up. Why do the cost of game go up. Cause of the cost of development go up. Who pay for the game to be develop. The people making the game. Then why cant they lower the cost with less high end every thing and find a middle road in the technologies that is financially more sound. Cause They’re morons. They can still make a high end 60 or 70 dollar game ever so often and it will be more understandable to spend that much on it when it not the norm. Why do game even have this way of pricing though? There no set price on other purchasable items. Every thing vary on the make and model. Don’t get me wrong.I like the set prices for games. I just found it strange.
On to how they want us to pay. Have play few free games were micro transaction is they’re way of making money. On a small scale it work fine for what you get. How ever they don’t turn a huge profit. There going to be surprise that even 2% of the people bought they game will do any kind of micro transaction. This have never bin a favorable method among western developer’s cause the low profit turn over. They can do it but I doubt they will see the profits they want. The more you play the more you pay is offaly similar to paying for content that already on the disc that we all love so much. Last subscription fees. Are they going to support a game for 5 years delivering new content every other month. No? Go #$&% your selves then. All these ideas seem to come from mmo’s. I cant see how they will work on game that are not. So tack on the 10 bucks or learn to actually run a business responsibly.
I’m going to double check, but i think you only have to hold the R2 button to walk and use the left stick to aim where ur going. also the left stick moves the head when your not walking.
hey guys,
on the subject of heavy rain, i know two kinds of gamers, the ones that dont care that much about the storyline but go for controls and gameplay in particular to enjoy the gaming experience and theres the kind like me who look more for the interactive movie type of games and i think heavy rain can be more appealing to the latter
Jason Rubin’s proposed model is something I’ve always been disgusted with. But I’m a hardcore gamer that bears grinding for rare gear, as opposed to duping, glitching or paying real money for 1s and 0s. The “pay for l33t gear” model would definitely work with the Casual crowd, no doubt. Even then, the devs/publishers would be very hesitant to give these casual gamers any form of identifying tag, simply because their customers would immediately be devoured by discrimination.
The current one-time $60 model is the only real way the industry can make money. Face it, not every game out there is worth that price. If publishers want to split the payment up as some sort of “pay as you go” model, they would certainly end up losing way more. For example, Game X costs $10 for the first 5 stages and another $10 for subsequent 5 stages and so on. If a player finds the game boring by the first 5 levels, he/she wouldn’t pay for the rest of the game, which DOESN’T cost any less to make. In other words, 1/3 X360 and PS3 game and 9/10 Wii game would be a loss-maker! Sure, it’s a system that benefits the PLAYER. In the short term, at least.
Jason Rubin has the right idea, but applied in the wrong industry. Games like Farmville make billions because they’re casual and SOCIAL games. To these people, $0.50 is a small price to pay for a slightly larger e-Peen.
Finally, in response to Blu-ray and digital-only distribution, I fully disagree. Sure, maybe the whole of the USA has blazing internet speeds that allow you to download 30-60 GB of data in a relatively short time, but for those of us who don’t have these sorts of connectivity, Blu-ray (and DVDs) will still be the favoured distribution medium.
About the demo topic of darksiders, no one seems to mention the demos that came out after the initial release like Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2 and Little big planet (I only mention the ps3 ones cuz thats the system I have)…………………………………………………………………. Also about the micro transactions, (once again I only mention the ps3, since thats all i have)isnt Home for the ps3 kinda following the model that microtransaction is trying to achieve??? They gave the game for free and yet if you want the nicest house, u pay for it, if you wanna stand out with some shirt, u pay for it, if u wanna upgrade in the mini game sodium ( i think thats the name), u pay for it, yet this has flown under the radar!!! I dont know, maybe im wrong….
awesome episode once again guys
.. can’t wait to listen to on tap later this week.
Great episode guys! I couldn’t stop laughing at DK when he mentioned the “Awesome GOG action” Col. Kurtz was going to get, lol.
For some reason, everytime Daniel says that it just sounds like “GAG action”… rofl
Cheers axe heads!
I have two words for the content pricing, Grand Turismo for PS3. That tanked before he was even finished, no one wanted to pay for extra cars, it would rack up 1,000s of dollars if you wanted each and every car. I’m kind of shocked there bringing it back, id rather them just get an extra 10 bucks then having to pay for things i REALLY have to have. When i was young (12) they had games for 80 bucks, and that was the norm then, That was new technology in those days and that wasn’t even that far away (1998), My mom paid 80 for Tomb Raider II, and now games are WAY more advanced and there only 60 dollars. So it is about time for a fee increase, but on the downside more and more people will download illegally more so then ever before. But i do hope it works out for the best, both Consumer and Distributer wise.
Peace! <3
that was 4 words
I think the game developers/publisher still didn’t figure out why people buy games, and why we are willing to pay some money sometimes and sometimes not. Here my theory: the formula is (fun multiplied by playtime). I played WOW for about a year and sure I payed about 250EUR (in total) but I played about 25days (600hours) which is 2,4 EUR for an hour of gameplay I enjoyed. A 10 hour action game, let’s say uncharted2 costs 60EUR, so 6EUR for an hour, now uncharted2 was really awesome and was willing to pay that, but for a not as good or fun game I think we (gamers) are not willing to pay that much money and that’s simply it. Just make a good game and we will buy it, starcraft 2 with its episodic release just doubled (maybe tripled) it’s price, but everybody knows it’s going to be worth it. A GTA4 let’s face it we would have bought for 80-100 EUR (at launch) because it was worth it. A mediocre (not bad) game like Army of two2 for 60 EUR for 6-8hours (single player campain) which is in average 7 EUR is far more expensive than WOW, starcraft2 and so on, and not that fun. What do I want to say with that: I personal don’t care about a specific price point rather than the value I get from a final product. And game developers/publisher should consider that rather than copying the farmville principle which would not work for many hardcore games.
Im actually looking forward to Darksiders demo. Guys, not everyone can rent a game once it’s released if he’s not sure if he want to buy it. That’s what demo is for.
(I can’t rent the game anywhere since we don’t have any such facilities here in Poland =( )
Here is my argument about gameprice going up. If the gameprice go up then European gaming is dead. We are already paying over 100$ for a new game. And if the price of games go up in the US that means it will automaticly go up in Europe. And then european gamers just simply can’t afford to continue playing games.
yeah i agree with you.
@murmlei – Well i ment Grand Turismo, but wanted to make sure everyone knew i ment the PS3 version just in case, so to correct Grand Turismo (for ps3). So it’s still 2 words
this is epic battle cry skirmish 60 thousaaaaand!
Speaking of using real money to buy in-game items, Gunbound was the first game I played which did that. For those who don’t know, Gunbound is an online Worms-like game where you pick a character, each with different weapons or abilities, then play 1v1 to 5v5 and you shot by picking an angle and the power of your shot. With the right combination, and depending on the wind strength/direction and where you were on the map, you could hit or miss.
Now this game had game money you could use to buy stuff for your character like better armor, more damage, bigger explosions which destroy the map, more gold per hit/kill, etc. You could also buy all those things AND MORE if you used real money. Of course people who used real money had an advantage but it was only slight! The things you could buy with real money only added up to maybe 10-15% more than what you could get with game money (by playing for a longer time of course).
What they also had were servers with avatars off, meaning that the damage, armor, etc. items would only be cosmetic and wouldn’t improve your stats during that game. This way, people could play on an even field regardless of their avatars.
I think that was a good way to deal with it, and for the particular game, it worked really well.
Would this work for all games? No, of course not, but micro-transactions can work for any online game with unlockable characters, weapons or abilities, like more recently, League of Legends, which is a DOTA-style game. In this game, almost everything is buyable with game money you get by playing, killing, winning, etc. You can unlock characters or buy runes which increase your stats slightly. Using real money simply saves you time without technically giving you a big advantage, since anyone can buy those same items for free, provided they play for long enough.
I think in that situation, micro-transactions are good since the game is absolutely free to anyone – it only costs money if you want it to. Being forced to pay $60+ dollars to essentially play the Entire game like they do with DLC is much worse, in my opinion.
Best “Thats what she said” ever!
Great episode as always. Looking forward to the OnTap stuff.
Simply put the gaming industry is slowly headed for a fall akin to the auto industry. Developers and publishers are flooding the market with numerous terrible games that do not warrant a purchase, then pass the blame on to gamers when they aren’t recouping all of their yearly costs.
The gaming industry needs to adopt a delivery method like the movie industry. The film industry has their AAA product released in cinemas for the purchase of tickets, and their lower budget releases heading straight to DVD. Publishers should work to acquire the rental distribution rights for their B or A titles. If I could boot up XBL or PSN and pay a flat fee for a one week rental of a B title I bet you would see alot more money going directly to the coffers of the publishers. Save the money spent on excessive marketing for the AAA titles, and now the publishers can save some money.
I would rather 7 titles come out a month of which 4 deserve a purchase than 35+ titles when only 3 deserve to be purchased.
Right now as a consumer I feel like the industry is trying to screw the consumer at every turn for their own shortcomings. You require an internet connection to ensure you can download day one patches to cover broken elements of games, I can’t buy used anymore because some titles will require me to pay an extra $10 to play vital elements of the game, then I’m getting screwed out of content if I don’t preorder at the right location.
The gaming industry needs to take a long hard look at itself before passing all of the blame onto consumers for their poor business model.
Let me start off with saying great show guys, as always.
I think you’re all off on the micro-transactions in games like Mass Effect and Modern Warfare. I’d bet money that Modern Warfare 4 will be a $50-60 game that only includes the multiplayer part of the game, with all solo content and additional (high-end) multiplayer maps being pay for DLC. It’s that simple: developers will sell the core part of their game for a fixed amount with all other content being pay for.
Also, minor things like access to leader boards, private servers, voice chat, etc… might also cost real money as well.
I think the sum,sum of this is that developers will charge for actrual, honest to go features and not in game content. One of the big reasons Blizzard doesn’t charge for in game content is fear of associating a real world value with their in game economy because the Senate has already looked at the possibility of taxing it.
I really like the way you guys have broken up the episodes. Much appreciated.
Great episode.
I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on the new “charging structure” of game disscused in this episode. There are many people playing games today that love multiplayer, but hate playing alone. Or perhaps they only like single player campaigns. Why can’t game makers split single player, multi player, and even co-op into different packages so that gamers can choose which they want to pay for. If you only like single player, you only have to pay $20 and don’t get co-op or multiplayer. Can’t stand to play alone? Spend $40 on co-op and multiplayer. I think this would be a great idea that would put more choice in the gamers’ hands, which is always a good thing in my book. Keep up the great work guys
My Battle Cry Goes To Game Pricing. Games Like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Should Come Out On Disc But Only Single Player If You Want The Multiplayer Component of The Game you have to download it via disc ,then after a timed exclusivity window with the disc release it on the xbl and psn with a small update for those who played vid the single player disc. which to me means that the single player part of the game get (bioshock original)size and length, multiplayer get size via download like map pack’s, you can still charge same price if you want but a small drop price wouldn’t hurt the gaming industry . NEXT single player orientated game such as mass effect and to me the original bioshock should be episodic , brake down a game into 5 part’s and release then periodically throughout the year .( e.g. mass effect 2 part 1 for $25 , mass effect 2 part 2 for $25 and all the way up to mass effect 2 part 5 ) and that people that like the game enough have brought the hole game and people that are not sure about the game and maybe brought the first part of the game and then made up the decision on the game, and by product of doing it in episodic form is that gamers’ will stay playing the game for longer and less of a wait in between game release dates.( oh yeah i come from Australia so pricing is based upon the pricing in Australia which is , New release $125 ).
OMG i hate the DLC idea so much i want to meet the person responsible with a crowbar in my hand. What happened to expansions, all this content is ALREADY made, the fact they are releasing it apart is to get every cent possible. I rather pay 150$-200& for a full complete game than some half-assed crap with half the content missing and a promised sequel (which i firmly agree with zero punctuation about – sequels suck) and the sequel has even less so they dont “waste” ideas they can use in part 15 of the game.
Im from Bulgaria in Eastern Europe and we are absolutely neglected in any terms of after release support so far we might as well be on the moon and we are a part of the EU. PSN and XBoxLive are just a function on the device we never even stop at.
I think the idea of buying a PART of the game is the stupidest thing ever, that’s what demos are for!!!
And unless they are constantly expanding and updating the multiplayer elements content and servers why the hell would we pay more money!!!
Also i never understood the AAA idea. What the hell is a C,B,A,AA game if half the so called AAA titles are sequels and some plain suck.
Last but not least. Does anyone think there is gona be a GoW3 demo for free for people on the fence even released later than Darksiders demo. In this very dark time for gaming im not gonna get something because of a few trailers and someones recommendation unless i tried it.
Jimmu makes a great case about the value of a game, and I totally agree. I also think Auswin was totally on the money with developers making games that people don’t want to buy.
Here’s a good case for the value and price of a game experience: Killzone 2 versus Shadow Complex. I played through the Killzone 2 Campaign in just over 7 hours and cost me $65, and I don’t play shooters online so this is a perfect example. Now Shadow Complex cost me (I think) $15 on XBL, and I played that game for 10 hours, and loved every minute of it.
My point here, is that I think fun and value DRASTICALLY outweigh high-end graphics and effects. I think there’s certainly a value to a game looking beautiful and glossy, but when go beneath the aesthetics, I only had fun with Killzone 2 for 7hours at a price point of $65. That’s $9.29 per hour of enjoyment, and since I don’t play online, I’ll only be getting 7 hours of play from the purchase. Shadow Complex’s single play-through lasted me just over 10 hours at $15, which is an astonishingly less $1.50 an hour.
Let’s compare some other games. I played Oblivion for something like 120 hours for it’s price of $65. That’s only .54 cents per hour I spent with it. A game like GTA 4 or Fallout 3 has 60, 80, even 100+ hours you can get out of it and the game’s value is increased by it. Hence, it’s something I’m willing to drop $65 for.
Here’s what COULD work, in my mind. If a game is of the Shooter kind; Modern Warfare, Killzone, Halo, Gears of War, etc. we could split up the cost of modes of play. Everyone considers MW2 to be a multi-player game, that’s what you buy it for. Now, you get an exciting, short little snippet of a campaign along with it, but hour per hour the multi-player is the meat and potatoes of the game. Ideally, we could divide the price into the amount of time you’d be playing it, I would venture to guess 50 hours (over the life of the game) is a low-balled estimate of what the average MW2 owner plays online. So why not sell the game, multi-player locked for $10 for those of us who want to play the short campaign, and then for $50 unlock the multi-player components. But my opinion is this, we wouldn’t see “fair” prices. What I think we’d see is a 6 hour MW2 campaign sell for $40 and the rest unlocked for $30, or $40. In the end we’re getting raped for that 6 hours of playtime versus buying a lower-budget game like Shadow Complex, in terms of value.
Does our current model have it’s drawbacks? Well of course, a game like Terminator (the newer one) has only a 6 hr campaign, and no multi-player, and sells for the very same $65 that Valkyria Chronicles sells for, but that game gave me around 60 hours of play.
But the alternative? We’re already seeing an abuse of DLC from the older model of Expansion Packs. I call Bullshit on anybody who says that pre-release DLC is “extra”. And paying to unlock data stored on the game disk IS CHARGING MORE FOR THAT GAME. I think the guise to making more money is causing too many to rush out unpolished, unfinished, or even broken games because they can fix it later, and charge you for the rest of the story.
There are definitely people doing DLC right, GTA and Fallout are great examples. But a Capcom’s bullshit with the “extra” multi-player component and Prince Of Persia charging an additional $10 for the real ending is ludacris.
Also, there’s something to be said about owning your entertainment rather than renting it. When I purchase your game for the high price point (versus $6-8 to rent it) I own it, I own what’s on the disk. Charging for how long you play or how often would be the same thing as charging you every time you put YOUR movie disk into the player to watch it, or every time you open YOUR book to read it again.
Having said that, one think I would be OK with is doing away with 3rd party used sales and rentals. I would absolutely be behind developers if we figured out a way to rent games from them, rather than blockbuster. I think people would sell their games back to game developers if they could also buy used games from them at reasonable prices. I’d sell a new game back for $30 if I could buy it used for $45. And I’d feel a hell of a lot better because THEY would be making that small profit rather than GameStop making a $50 profit.
BF heroes would work on the counsoles.
Crossfire would work on the consoles with improoved graphics (f2p counterstrike clone where you can level up or buy levels to get better)
runes of magic, DDO, dungeon runners … all mmo’s making lots of money without being bad
those games are all making money and none of them sucks… and the “shopping” system in all those games work out nice and don’t effect balance in a big way
[...] Stupid-ass pricing Hey gang, DK here with a quick update for those of you fresh off a date with the latest EBC that have come to the ‘Axe looking for the EpicBattleCry On Tap! Editions regarding Heavy [...]
i think the indestry want a little to much money from us gamers.. that will hurt them in a near future.. sence the more expensive a game gets + DLCs etc might make ppl think.. ” why should i pay this shit load of money for just a game when i can DL it for free on TPB? “
[...] 23rd, 2010 at 10:18 pm | by Viking BrentIn On Tap | Tagged: Heavy Rain When we sat down to record this week’s BattleCry episode, we knew we had a lot of opinions to share on the Heavy Rain demo. Too many as it turned out; we [...]
I gotta say about the Darksiders demo I’m completely with DK on this one. I myself have been on the fence about Darksiders and can’t wait to try it out. See yeah it might be late but if you haven’t bought it yet you haven’t played it yet so that in itself makes timing less of a problem.
Also consider the fact that the release date of Darksiders was during an unexpected busy time period. The normally safe begin januari launch date was now suddenly a very crowded one.
So to me it makes sense to put out a demo now because I know lots of folks are on the fence about this particular game. I think it is a smart move by THQ and I expect the game to sell pretty decent in march.
Great EBC guys and thanks for uploading the full convo about Heavy Rain, can’t wait to hear the one about Microtransactions.
Great show as usual guys – looking forward to checking out On Tap as well.
I can see why they did a demo for Heavy Rain but you need to play every scene in context or it loses most of its appeal. I would certainly recommend everyone to at least try it (and give it until beyond the opening few hours which are pretty slow going).
On the whole DLC/micro-transaction issue I wouldn’t have a problem with people being able to buy weapons/item in game with real money as long as I can get the same items through hard graft.
Also I think Shane Satterfield mentioned this on Bonus Round but if that does happen I’d like to see an icon or something on the gamers online profile to show who has bought the items and who earned them. Pride plays a big part of online gaming, I certainly wouldn’t want to put 20/30 hours into levelling up and have people presume I’ve bought everything I’ve earned.
For my Battlecry, I would like to point out some of the previous success stories with micro-transactions. Farmville is a bad example, since it isn’t a competitive game.
Look at games like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and Battlefield Heroes. These are all competitive multiplayer games that are free to play, but you have the option to pay for bonuses (exp boosts, extra skins, more in game money). You can pay how much you want to for the game, which should be a win win situation. For these games, it is.
I believe almost any competitive multiplayer game can use this business model successfully, but companies like EA and Activision will most likely find a way to exploit it more.
[...] By Lorin BaumgartenIt is unavoidable. I tried to write about the Darksiders demo, as discussed on Skirmish 64 of EpicBattleCry. I also tried to write about the controls in Heave Rain, a topic I am very interested in. Please [...]
Having a Darksiders demo offered could only ever be a good thing..regardless of it hitting a few weeks after the launch.
This is a new IP, with a marketing campaign that was pretty much mute here in the UK. Gamers aren’t going to care that the demo’s hitting after the games release if they’re not aware of the game being released.
Brent, enjoy Heavy Rain? or endure it because it’s pretty and a ps3 exclusive? If ever there was an arguement that visuals are more important than gameplay this is it.
my battle cry goes out to the big “F*CK YOU GAMERS” idea of new price methods for games.
the whole idea of having to pay so you can progres in the game faster, is bull sh*t.
the only thing this is gonna do is, first of all, completly rip off game addicts or gaming fans, and secondly, with multiplayer games, it will make that how good you are in a game is based on how much money you spend and not on your skill lvl, you might be like lvl 70 on modern warfare 2 and then get completly pwnd by a newd of lvl 30 or so, that had paid for the strongest gun, and the best perk.
this will completly ruin my gaming experience and probably the gaming experience of alot of people.
Great episode guys.
I want to react to two issues here.
First off Heavy Rain. I still think its ludicrous to do a button sequence or whatever to do something like pull your pants up. We are all tired of having to do a quicktime event to do a finishing move or whatever just circle (ps) or B (xbox) should be enough.
Second micro transactions.
I play a lot off single player games (offline) like God of War and Ninja Gaiden. And I play these games a lot (hour wise) and always try to finish them on the hardest difficulty. Now I am perfectly happy to pay up front and be done with it because I research games a lot before I buy them. But now I could theoretically get charged by the hour I play a single player game. This is going to take me longer because I want to beat the game on very hard. So the replay value is out the door. That’s just bull crap. I can see us buy less games and play less games because of this. Because is it worth it to pay more bones just to finish it on very hard? Because I already seen how it ends on lets say normal and the stages don’t change. Its just for my own pleasure and feeling of achievement that I do that. I want to see if I got the skills to do so. And what about down the road a year later when I want to do so again. Than I have to pay again?
Greetings.
Guys i respect you allot in your opinions, but when you were reviewing the demo of Heavy Rain you said you didnt like the controls and that you have press R2 and the analogue to move, actually are controls are very simple , you press R2 to walk, thats it, you use the left analogue stick only to change direction and press you press L1 to change the camera angle so you can see things you might not be able to see with the other camera angle.
I don’t understand why everyone’s complains about the controls of this game, i mean they are very basic controls , my 12 year old cousin (who’s a girl btw) whos never even played a Playstation before picked it up straight away, my uncle played the demo without even played a gaming console before, and he picked it up right away, so why do all these gamers have such a problem with such simple controls, is it just an american thing or what?
Also regarding the future of how games are sold, it is a very simple idea why are people having trouble understanding it.
It actually benefits the hardcore games so unsure why they have the most problems with it.
The idea is that instead of buying a game for £40 or $60 in your case, you might be able to get the game for free or for like £10, let’s put the example as Call of Duty seeing how thats what everyone is comparing it to.
You buy the game for £10 or free depending how they do it, you get the full game, and you have to work youre way through the game in the normal way and lvl up in multiplayer , trying to unlock all the weapons and upgrades like the usual hardcore gamers go.
But for example casual gamers or just gamers who want things faster they might buy a new weapon for a certain amount or even rent a weapon for a month for example for a fee that’s in the game.
So everyone can get all the weapons and upgrades in the game, it just depends how fast you wanna get there, how fast u wanna get that weapon u like, how much u wanna get that first presige.
It;s a very simple idea and very easy to understand, this model happens allot in F2P MMorpg and compaies have great success with this model , and it’s a good way to attract allot of people to the game.
You can play the full game, ppl who play 10 hours a day might not need to buy anything whereas someone to plays 5 hours a day would a buy a x2 exp potion that lasts a certain length for a cost of real money.
What don’t people understand about this?
I personally dont like this idea in Mmorpg’s , but in these types of games ps3 xbox etc, it’s a great idea, it means you can play more games and experiance them more, so it’s good for everyone and good for everyone who can’t spend allot on games.
I like the new segmented format. Makes me feel less like I have to listen to the whole show in one sitting, and is good for times like when I’m at work, and I generally have enough time to listen to one segment without my boss interrupting, but not an entire show.
Jewplayer seems to be a lot less buggy than the old one too. Jews always know how to get stuff done right :p
I’ll definitely check out the Darksiders demo, but shouldn’t demos come out BEFORE the release of games, like everyone is saying? Maybe taking a lot of time to release it will make it an actual good demo as opposed to the slew of crappy ones?
AC3? Sweet pigraping christ, I still haven’t played the first one. oh and multiplayer? HOORAY! Multiplayer is the sure fix to extend the life of any franchise! Not.
I pre-ordered Heavy Rain and the DLC thing is a minor annoyance but it still feels pretty stupid. Mostly because the DLC is a prologue to the game, which, you know, feels like something you should play BEFORE the main game, not after.
Heavy Rain:
The walking controls just suck complete ass. It is so inexplicably clunky that it completely breaks the immersion.
Agree with DK on the 2nd stage of the demo being less engaging. For me, this was all about the “power glove.” That just felt so unrealistic and so over-simplified that it was a complete 180 from the traditional detective work you were doing in the first chapter.
I still bought the game though, I think mostly because I want to support fresh prospects in the game world like this (instead of the 100th god of war clone). As with all consumer mediums, money speaks louder than words.
I found Jason Rubin’s argument on the Bonus Round to be completely asinine. His whole defense of “hey, life’s not fair, why should games be?” is ludicrous. People play games to escape from real life, not to relive the disparaging aspects of it. Farmville being his one and ONLY example was also ridiculous. It’s ONE GAME, on Facebook. Its format cannot possibly apply to all games.
Pachter commenting that games are the ONLY kind of media with replayability was a bit of a false statement. These days, most games are relatively linear, with little changing upon replay. This is no different than buying a movie on DVD and watching it over and over. I’m pretty sure most people would find charging people again for something like that unacceptable, so why are games any different?
My problem with most of this argument was that they lumped all games together when speaking about them, when games are a very divergent medium. They can operate in vastly different ways, making the way you would pay for them also have to be vastly different.
Fist of all, great disembowelment of the industry =D Love it!
Now about Heavy Rain, I got it yesterday and I’ve played a couple of hours, and trust me, you guys will be blow away.
It starts very slow (the demo is from the begining) but once it picks up pace, it becomes insane. They use so many variations of control and gameplay schemes YOUR SKILLS WILL BE TESTED, truuust me (i’m no new comer to gaming)
So trust me, GET IT! But you guys made good points =)
Secondly, about the “mirco-transaction” game sales theory, I agree that an infinitely replayable game could make more money
what I think is either:
they make the game playthrough once, and sell if for very cheap (say 30 bucks)
If you want to have Multiplayer, another single player campaign, extras and everything else, you cough up another 30
and then add DLC and you got some cash
OR
Make a perfecly normal game, and sub divide it into parts
and give each part a price (slightly more inflated)
so you can….
one of you just mentioned it (writing while watching xD)
but yeah, you sell one part for 20 bucks or all 4 parts for 60 (thus cheaper if you buy the whole game upfront)
i do NOT agree with pay-for-play or anything like that (i quit WOW for that…why buy every month what i can get for one off payment?
anyway, doobie ooon xD
1st thing. I loved Heavy Rain and plan to do a 2nd playthough when I can, cause playing through it once made more questions appear and made me wander what happens if I did this or this happened. Great game, but yes the controls to just walk around were horrible and you end up fighting with them more than just walking. Love the fact that the devs took a risk to make a game that was different than any other games coming out this year and if another game comes out by them and they make controls that make sense this time around so walking isnt a chore and add a run function, I will be even more pleased I took the risk. The 2nd thing is the changing the money plan on paying for my games is a horrible idea I will not support. I want to pay once, get and know what I paid for and enjoy the product I bought. I like completing my games to the fullest so I now get charged more to play my game I already own cause so and so doesnt care about playing on a higher difficulty or playing for a different ending, or looking around while playing. I like looking at the environments made and will stop mid mission to look at all the walls, trees, characters, signs etc cause I know how hard a team worked on it. But someone else flys thru and they get charged a smaller amount of cash? What if we all play the games for free and dont want to pay money or additional money to them? Or you dont want to bother whipping out the card? I’d rather get the money up front than rely on people to maybe think about getting etc added to their game and random intervals. Just give me the game and if you make DLC I am willing to pay for to expand my game you’ll get more money out of me. Try to put me on that wow or farm payment system and I know I’ll never pay for it. I played a few MMOs online that are free but cost money for items etc to get further in game and I never would do it even though I loved the game. Paying real money for items I feel I should be able to earn thru playing doesnt make me want to jump on the bandwagon. Just make great DLC that really adds to my game and the hrs I play it and I’ll pay money. Throw in a freebie sometimes to make me feel good for buying your game and supporting you and I support you in the future. If the payment system for games drastically change, I wont continue gaming. If I want to do a quick play or dont think I want to make a full commitment to a title, I’ll rent it via Block Buster. IF I want the game, I’ll buy it. There is no inbetweens in my gaming animation(game buying). I only buy games anyway, due to knowing 100% I want them. If Im skeptical on them I pass.
I dont get why these guys and Jason Rubin, Pactor ect dont get that its game rentals and used games that are the problem here. When you rent or buy a game used the developer gets 0 dollars. Making games Download only or by making the Disk with a key is they only way they are going to get the money they are rightfully due. So when you buy it you own it forever. I admit that I am part of the problem because I rarely buy a game for $60 when I can just wait a little while and get it for half or less than half of that. I dont really buy much DLC either because overall Ive been dissapointed with it. I also dont buy many “arcade” titles for the same reason. The free to start playing game mentallity isn’t gonna work either because so many games come out so often ppl get bored and move on so fast that they are not going to keep paying, if they even start paying, for the same experience month to month and the game they do like enough to pay for, like world of warcraft, keeps them from buying/playing more games so once they are hooked they are not really interested in playing alot of additional games. Sure alot of ppl will try the game for free but can you really see yourself paying possibly hundreds of $$$ monthly or for DLC, new content, or “perks” on multiple games ? Not me, when I paid monthly for FFXI I didnt really buy many games for like a year and a half. Why would I when I was playing that game 4-8 hrs a day ? Dev’s getting paid for every player playing the game is the best solution IMO.
[...] Unfair Craptastic Profit Margins, Used Games By Lorin BaumgartenThere was a lively discussion last week on EBC about the Jason Rubin-inspired topic of new distribution models for video games. When this week’s [...]
Loved the review of Heavy Rain. Thanks for showing the demo too because now I absolutely want this game. Great fan of CSI so this is right up my alley. <3
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