The Next Gen Epic Fail

The next generation is fast approaching, and with it comes a number of hurdles that will play a major factor in the future of games development. Could rising dev costs put the industry at risk? The Daily Reaction economists of Seb and Dan calculate all the factors and prime numbers they can think of to bring you their thoughts on your wallet’s future.

[dbjj12088]

More money doesn't necessarily make things good. I'm worry about the next-generation, but many publishers have proven that they can generate products using every available resource across their studios. That's the only way publishers can afford next-gen AAA development.

[ALLWRONG]

The pricing of digital content is what worries me. I do not want to pay $70-$80 for a downloaded game. I hope Epic can get the cost of development down so game prices don't skyrocket. There have been many games made with Unreal 3 and not all look the same.

[Cirran]

It worrys me to...And its stupid. They cut out the middle man (shops) yet make the prices crazy high. I don't see the logic D;

[SyWolf]

You don't see the logic? It's fairly simple, they make more money.

[Godmars290]

Most people say they don't want to pay $60 for a game then $10-$30 for DLC, but they do.

[PopRocks359]

That's because all anyone does is complain. Sometimes I feel like the only human being capable of saying he follows the concept of "Voting with one's wallet."

[Foolsjoker]

The amount that we actually get out of games these days is quite a bit, almost to the point that many people are having to ignore titles just because there isn't enough time. So $60+ really is not that big of a deal, I just don't like that a 60+ hour game is the same price as a 10 hour game.

[Canary]

Yes, we do say that. And yes, we do that.

But doing something and liking something are not mutually inclusive. Have I spent more money on DLC for certain games than I paid for the game itself? Yes. Several times. Have I ever enjoyed doing so? No. Not once.

But there are some games where I, and others, just can't get enough. Disgaea. Valkyria. Dark Souls. Dragon's Dogma. Tokyo Jungle. Etc., etc.

Personally, I'm more offended by the people who buy really, really bad DLC (like aircraft re-skins in Ace Combat Assault Horizon which can only be used with specific aircraft in specific--usually 3 or 4--missions) at really, really obscene prices, and then rate them so highly on the PSN.

That game I mentioned earlier? Ace Combat Assault Horizon (a awful game that shames the Ace Combat franchise) has approximately 60 pieces of DLC. Some of it is free-DLC, but the vast majority of it is paid-DLC.

At launch, the game had an MSRP of $60 USD, but many retailers (like Amazon) sold it for $45 USD. It's current market price (new) is approximately $30 USD.

It has exactly two-hundred and sixty-two dollars and fifty-two cents worth of DLC. That's $262.52.

This amounts to 437% its initial retail price and 875% its current market price.

And all of those items are rated 4 out of 5 stars or higher on the PSN.

-That- is far more unforgivable than any perceived hypocrisy on the part of those of us who criticize DLC with one hand and buying it with the other. By FAR.

[ALLWRONG]

My hope is that gamers will revolt before the prices get too high.

[vortis]

Cool.

Better stop buying CoD and the 101 iterations of DLC that comes along with it, then.

[vortis]

Deadlight was made on UE3 and was a cheap digital game. I don't see why it would cost more to make a game like that where the resolution, lighting and shaders weren't gimped?

The thing that makes no sense is that in UDK real-time lighting is automated, it doesn't costs more to make better lighting in the Unreal Engine. HD textures start out HD...they have to PAY PEOPLE to make textures smeared and low-res. Why would we have to pay more if they have to spend LESS time actually developing games?

So some of what they say makes no sense to me.

[jessupj]

Certainly does worry me.

I really hope devs find a way around this.

[nypifisel]

I'm not worried, efficiency of tools will increase too.

[TacticAce]

I think we will see publishers sharing in house engines with the games they are publishing. Look at what EA is doing with the frostbite 2 engine. They had one really good engine built and are usig it for the majority of their published games.

We will see less but more quality with publishers. They will be much more reluctant to publish just any game. They will go for "guranteed" money makers.

Thats not to say we wont see new IP's, we will but the quality will be much higher now.

[ronin4life]

The game industry really did come dangerously close to crashing at the start of this gen due to ridiculous cost increases, and in many ways still has yet to recover from this.
If costs go up even further, that will indeed spell trouble for the industry.

[lfclee]

Stand firm gamers and show them what we want for a change, i like collecting my games and over time looking back with great memories, i don't want digital dl.

[Npugz7]

New developement tools and tech will make it much easier to make games next gen which might even make games cheaper according to a handful of developers.

[djslimzz]

Didn`t EPIC just win a lawsuit against Sillicon Knights?