No Man’s Sky: the price it should be and the price it will be

Much like the game itself, the details regarding the release of No Man’s Sky are up in the air. How much money can they ask for in exchange for the ability to explore more than 18 quintillion planets?

[TheColbertinator]

Around $28 and 27 cents should be all you need.

[showtimefolks]

what is indie really? is it from a studio that is independent and owns their ip? because if that's the case there are many big time developers who own their ip's. Cd project red and insomniac are independent

also I don't think we should really determine the price of a game based off whether it's indie or not

if the content is there and someone can gets hours upon hours worth of content than I am more than willing to pay the set price

also developers who are independent decide the price so whatever they think and no one is forcing us to buy it

[Erik7357]

IDK but sony loves the idea of charging 60 for a game without the budget of a Triple AAA game.

[showtimefolks]

fries

I hope you understand that it's not Sony that will decide the price. it's a indie game so the developer will decide the price

[b163o1]

@Fries

Please rethink your comment....

[Fil101]

I'll happily pay full price for this on wot I've seen. The developer "hello games" to me at least seem very humble in what thay have created which we don't see alot in video game development today.

[Sir_Simba]

£30/$40 for physical version.
£20 to £25/$30 to $35 digital version.
Its still an indie game.

[Becuzisaid]

Agreed. I think it was on one of IGN's videos a month ago where Sean casually mentioned a $60 purchase. Not sure how many people caught it, but I did and I couldn't believe they were considering full price for this game.

[Sir_Simba]

I shouldve mentioned
"small team, small budget, basically small development and marketing cost".

[Erik7357]

I feel like Sony is gonna get a huge cut of that.

I think they are pressuring them to charge it for $60 dollars because they love the idea of charging $60 for a game without the budget of a real $60 dollar game like gta 5,Uncharted,Halo,etc.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Not sure what being indie has to do with its price. Witcher 3 and Sunset Overdrive are indie games.

They are made by independent teams that own the IP to their work....

[PSIN4MANT]

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH don't you know your logic will get you killed around here!?!?!

[Jmanzare]

That's not what indie means..

[Eonjay]

@Jmanzare

Well, unless you want everyone to accept a new definition... the literal meaning of indie is independent developer... an nothing more.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@Jman- very much is.

indie- short for independent means just that. The team is not owned, the IP is not owned.

A independent team can work on a IP that is not theirs...thus making the game not an independent IP as its owned by someone else and they have set instructions on how it can be treated ie

Santa Cruz games did Tomb Raider underworld...they are a indie team, the IP is not theirs...thus..its not a indie game.

Indie team and the IP being owned by said team....very much makes a independent game. The rights to the game are with the team making it, not the publisher.

Sunset Overdrive's IP is not owned by MS, Insomniac owns it, they showed it to Sony...Sony passed as they wanted to keep the IP.

Thus...Sunset was clearly being worked on and in some playable form by Insomniac as Sony doesn't own them, thus...it was made by them of their own free will.

MS didn't pay them to make it, Sony didn't pay them to make it, MS merely seeked to publish the title as they have no ownership of it.

That is very much an independent game. I think too many folks are trying state something is "indie" based on stereotypical looks.

Indie is merely, is it the IP owned, is the team owned. Thats it.

[ginsunuva]

No, indie means it's cheap and 2D.

[wsoutlaw87]

you guys know he was referring to traditional indie game budgets. Obviously cdpr and insomniac aren't your typical indie devs. insomniac also hasn't been fully independent since the beginning making them different than what is generally considered independent.

[johndoe11211]

What does indie have to do with anything? It doesn't matter who the hell made a game, what matters is the quality and and value for your money. That is an absolutely horrendous way to look at this.

[Sir_Simba]

Indie in this sense means, small budget, small team, small marketing budget.
This is looking at it in a logical sense, not the "I feel its worth $60".

[WildArmed]

Just because it's an indie game doesn't mean they shouldn't charge the whole 60$.

We've had games that barely lasted 4 hours and still were 60$.

This game could last you well over 60 hours or even 100s of hours.

The quality of the game should decide its price, and indie games shouldn't be excluded from a full price release. Some indie games are waay better than retail games with much more content and are still not 60$. Why? Is it because a good game doesn't deserve what it's worth?? Is a games worth solely defined by if it was released by a big publisher / dev group instead of a small group of people that were dedicated to their game?

[JackStraw]

You people don't even know what indie means. Pseudogamers.

[johndoe11211]

This game is worth the full price of a new game regardless of what anyone thinks. I have seen broken games with shorter play time and less replay value release for $60 with an additional $40 in day 1 DLC and the gaming community does not bat a damn eye and pay it happily and make those games billion dollar sellers. Not because an indie studio made it means it's not worth full price. What matters is the scope, size, quality and value of the game.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed. Have many not considered that Max Payne was done by a independent team of 11 people at Remedy?

Folks need to get that not being owned by a publisher or owning the IP to your work doesn't some how make your title lessor.

Witcher III is a indie game...CDPR owns the IP and they are not owned by anyone.

Hellblade is being done by a team that isn't owned and they are self publishing and the IP is theirs......

I don't get why EA, Ubisoft, etc publishing a title some how make it worth something more and deemed $60.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Now...what if I told you that was Sony's new big AAA new IP coming to PS4? Is it now worth $60?

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Now...we saw very little of both games. We know both are open world and of high quality.

I don't understand or get why somehow hearing the team isn't owned and owns the IP...now means the title must be sold for less LOL, as if some how that has anything to do with the over quality of the game.

I agree with you 100%, we've seen so many games come out at full price with broken features or just out right bad.

I don't like the idea of a big publisher, a commercial and a magazine cover now equals full price.

How about, deep, creative, new concepts?

The fact that people are even asking for this game to be cheap sickens me. Why? Why should a team charge LESS for concept that is literally 1 of a kind?

If EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc came with this same concept, I 100% feel NO ONE would be questioning the price, yet like this....its a independent team and now they must not charge for such a thing.

I'll gladly pay full price for this game as its easily my top 5 most wanted game this whole GEN, not just this year...THE WHOLE GEN! At the end of the day, who cares how big the team is, if they are owned, if the publisher owns the IP etc.

At one point LBP was a indie game and Media Molecue was independent team....

Had Sony not bought the IP and the team, I assure you many might question even LBP at full price, yet millions bought the game and it went on to be an amazing success.

Lets stop selling our developers short...

A great concept, deserves full price.

[johndoe11211]

"don't get why EA, Ubisoft, etc publishing a title some how make it worth something more and deemed $60."

100% agreed.Do you know what the heart wrenching fact is concerning that statement, most of the games made by those devs are NOT worth the $60 we pay for them and yet we pay it year after year without thinking twice.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@Johndoe- agreed. Mind you, most times I feel $60 is worth it for most games, but many, many times, we spot some games trying to pass off as full price experiences.

ie MP only titles. Nothing wrong with MP only too as I've spent lots of my gaming life playing them, just titles that release with 1 feature yet try to make it seem as if its worth $60.

Yes...some might feel that way, they might ONLY play MP and thats completely fine, what about those that play only MP and are tired of paying for a feature they never play?

I don't play the single player in BF games.. I mean I tried with Bad Company but I just couldn't since then ever BF I just skip the SP and I'm there for MP only.

Now...I feel they are clearly not spending all that time and money on the SP, then just make the damn game $40 for the MP, $40 for the SP....$60 for both together.

Everyone one wins.

They would rather put in any damn SP JUST as a bullet point to sell you a "complete" game at full price.

Even if its just a killing gallery thats been copy and pasted to justify full price. I mean....put them separate and lets see just how many are really buying COD or BF for its story lol

[wsoutlaw87]

"Worth" is subjective as is scope quality and value. You cant make game prices off of that. They will charge whatever they think is a good price and then I will decide if the price is less than how much it is worth to me, thats it. All Ive really seen is that its a procedurally generated huge map to explore with some small gameplay elements to it. Being from a very small team and being what it is I can't imagine it costing more than 30$ but it also doesn't seem like my kind of game.

[iceman06]

While you are correct that "worth" is subjective, as we as consumers determine "worth", the two of your other qualities are not. Scope is not a subjective thing. It can be quantified and compared against the next thing. Now, it might not have the "scope" that you were wishing. But, nonetheless it can be put to an objective set of numbers and compared. Also, every product has in itself an inherent or intrinsic value (otherwise it wouldn't be produced and marketed). What happens is that the value changes as the consumer reacts to the pricing attached to it. (do they or don't they buy it.) Thus, causing the value to shift below or above the price. (this is why we see certain game rapidly placed on sale...the intrinsic value didn't hold in the market).

[wsoutlaw87]

now you're just manipulating your definitions to fit your idea that you can define a objective quantification of "scope" or "value". Go a head and do a blanket quantification of no man's sky's scope compared to every other game out there. What aspects are you going to use to determine the scope of the project. You would have to consider the different types of scope a game has. Is it just how expansive the map is? Is it the level of storytelling? detail? realism? A lot of those would have to come down to opinion, so, its subjective. Of course the scope of 2 things can objectively be compared, but that is only possible when they are directly comparable quantitatively, and video games are not. Maybe you think having an algorithm make a really big map gives it a larger scope, I disagree. Subjective. So ill be waiting to see your scope numbers and explanations.

With value you are getting into a philosophical discussion of an intrinsic value. Your explanation of the intrinsic value not holding is incorrect as that just wouldn't be an intrinsic value. Value as referred to by the guy I was responding to, is just used to desribe worth on a macro level. An unreleased game holds no definable intrinsic value and would then come back to things like "fun" which are entirely objective. The games market value will just be what the demand curve at any moment suggests. You can not say some unreleased, not yet priced game, has more value than any other game. Also just to prove your whole argument wrong, the definition of value almost always uses "worth", which by your own words, "you are correct that "worth" is subjective". But hey, nice try.

[wraith4912]

I'd pay $60 if the damn thing would release this year like they said it was. It might've had a chance if Hello Games spent as much time finishing it as they have bragging and showing it off.

[Takwin]

If it is $60, it will be seen as a ripoff or failure by many people, regardless of that position being justified.

I *personally* think $60 is too much and would not buy it. $20 would be an insane steal and I would preorder it without any other information.

So somewhere between absolute immediate preorder and definite no-buy is probably $30-$40.

[_-EDMIX-_]

why?

[iceman06]

While you might be correct that the equilibrium price (where sales of a product are maximized) of 430-$40 might be the best, why would a company start selling at that price? I'm not defending any company so much as exploring the economics of the practice. It makes more sense, as a company, to release the product and let the market determine it's value. (unless it cost an insane amount to produce) So, it will probably release it a typically higher price point (and the company will make bigger profit margins while selling less product) and then drift further down toward that price that you spoke of. (where the sales of the game will drive more units and though there is less profit per purchase the overall profits will offset this)
I am not willing to say a game doesn't have a value of $60. Thus, you won't hear me saying that it's a "ripoff". For my wallet, your price is absolutely great. However, most companies are NOT interested in my value assessment. They want the sum total of consumers. Some of whom are willing and able to pay that $60.

[1nsomniac]

What!! How are you people coming to that figure exactly?

I was about to say id like it to be £10 but it'll prob be £15. Then all you people are calling it at a fully fledged game with a full published RRP?

You do realise it's from a tiny Indy team that is all procedurally generated. Meaning very few assets with a large algorithm database that randomly applies those assets together in random order. It's technically interesting but other than testing the algorithm works there's not all that much to it.

Your insane if you think it's over £20!

[PSIN4MANT]

Source?

[1nsomniac]

Source to what? You've seen the game, you've heard the devs explain how it works. They've even said the the vast majority of there time is spent just testing it works & then altering the algorithm if needed.. I'm not sure what you're not following. They've already explained this live on stage.

How much & what content do you people think this game contains? I think people are getting lost in the promoted scale of the game. It's procedurally generated. That's how it works. Sony marketing has sure done a good job on this one.

[PSIN4MANT]

@1nsomniac so what you're saying is you have none, you're just assuming based off of what devs have said. saying "there's not all that much to it. " is a blanket statement.

You have no idea how much actual work went into the creation of the game, therefore have no idea how much it has cost to develop.

I figured you were just pulling nonsense out of thin air.

[tinynuggins]

"you're just assuming based off of what devs have said. saying "

That's a pretty solid source. Doesn't get any better than information from the games developers.

[Spotie]

The hell are you even talking about? NONE of that has any bearing on the game's worth.

[1nsomniac]

Really? How does the games content not have any bearing on its price???

[1nsomniac]

It's common sense I still don't get what you don't understand..

[Spotie]

Just how much work went into programming those algorithms? Exactly what does their testing entail? How complicated is it? How many man-hours does it take?

I'm waiting on common sense from you, but all I hear is entitlement. Surely sequels should cost less than their predecessors, since they're built on assets from the previous entries, right?

What does team size have to do with anything? And if we're talking content, there's potentially all the content in the galaxy inside this game. Yes, pay $20 or pounds or whatever for all that.

Since there's not all that much to it, and since it's so damn easy, when can we exact your galaxy-sized, procedurally-generated game to come out?

[ZaWarudo]

My insane?

[wsoutlaw87]

lol all your replys to him are just defensive and dont make any sense. Its a procedurally generated game, with very little shown on what you actually do during a gameplay session. I could understand more emergent gameplay opportunities if it wasnt basicly a sp game. If you guys think this game took the amount of man hours as a game from a huge team that took 3 years to make, you are crazy. The tech is very impressive, and I would gladly buy the game at somewhere around 30$. Nothing for you guys who are hyped about this to get defensive about.

[Chaosdreams]

It's hard to put a value on a game when we haven't seen the full product. We've caught glimpses of what could be done, but really, there's always the chance that of those trillion planets, a bunch of them look slightly similar, or what have you.

No Man's Sky is on my radar, and I have a feeling it will be great.

That being said, the concept of the game, I'm not sure is something I would shell out $79.99 (in Canada) towards. I don't see games at $60 anymore...

If there's more to the game than I've heard, the value goes up. As of now, I'd say No Man's Sky sits between $30 to $40 in value.

Now, if they were to put it at full value, I would expect it to be the physical release, but digital needs to be less money. There's no excuse for why it's same if not more expensive (in almost all games we see now a days.)

[SquidBuck]

You do understand that the scope of this game is bigger than any other we have ever seen. That justifies $60 to me.

[Chaosdreams]

I've learned to judge a game when it's out. I'm sure it'll be awesome, but anything we discuss right now is circumstantial. We could find out there were technical difficulties or what have you.

Large games don't necessarily mean a lot to do.

[PlayableGamez]

I am not paying $60 for no man sky's...
You PS fandudes are gullible enough to do that, I am not. I haven't even seen anything that makes this game worth full retail price...

[Yetter]

Can't believe how many people are willing to put up 60$ for this game. I never for a second thought it would cost 60$

[tinynuggins]

It's a lot of talk right now. I see a lot of people defending a potential $60.00 price tag which is concerning. I'm hoping it's all fanboy talk. If the game is really $60.00 it's going to flop, which is sad because it has potential. Look, Ori is my favorite game this year but not a chance I would have given it a shot for 40 dollars let along 60. Price the game accordingly and your game will do well. No Man's Sky is a $20.00 game. you're pushing it at $24.99. IMO

[Yetter]

couldn't agree more about Ori. Absolutely loved it, 30.00 would have been the max I'd pay for it

[SquidBuck]

Why not pay $60, the scope of this game is massive! Bigger than any game ever made.

[FITgamer]

I doubt it's $60. Probably $25-$30. Which is fair price from what we've seen and knowing how much time could be spend playing the game.

[assdan]

I've been almost positive that this game would be more than $20 since it was first announced. $40 is a perfectly justifiable price, but I'm not quite sure about $60, and this is coming from someone whose REALLY excited about this game. There's a few reasons why. Sean Murray has come out and said that the game will likely take somewhere between 40-100 hours to "beat" (get to the center of the galaxy. While this is a lot of content length-wise, and you can continue playing the game even after that quite easily, what does that time consist of? The entire time, you'll be taking down space stations, fighting pirates, discovering new species, flying, and mining/buying resources so you can upgrade your equipment, and delve deeper into it. While I'm sure I'll love doing this, and it will be a great way to relax, the time I spend on this game isn't "worth" as much as time spent on Uncharted for example. Uncharted 4 will probably have a 15 hour campaign, and that alone is almost enough to justify the $60 price tag because you're getting an great story, an really tight gaming experience, and high polish and great graphics. With no man's sky you aren't getting that. It doesn't have great graphics (they're ok, but nothing special), and I'd assume that it won't be incredibly polished just because of the size of the dev team.
SO given that, and the fact that the game will get redundant at points, I don't know if this game is really worth $60.

[Rimeskeem]

A game with an entire universe to explore and you guys don't want to pay more the 30$?

That is pathetic

[Seafort]

Yes a universe that wasn't created by the developer but a procedurally generated algorithm.

I'll pay £15-20 but no more.

I don't really care if you aren't happy with my decision but I don't feel the game warrants a premium price no matter how many galaxies are procedurally generated.

[Wedge19]

I've always been under the impression that this will be a full $60 release, and then if it's lower, I'll just end up pleasantly surprised.

[Subaruwrx]

Publishers charge $60 for a new game because they know that some gamers (quite a lot of us actually if it's a popular ip) are impatient and absolutely must buy a game as soon as it releases. Most games,even if they're successful,will receive a substantial discount within weeks of release. That said, one could argue most games aren't worth $60 simply due to the fact that they can't maintain their retail value for more than a few weeks. So, if No Mans Sky releases at retail price higher than the gamers in general are willing to pay, it will soon be discounted.

[iceman06]

This is EXACTLY correct. It really doesn't matter what we WANT a game's price to be. What matters is are we collectively willing to pay that price. If so, then the price will likely stand as long as we are willing to pay it. If not, then the price will fall. The only REAL issue, if there's no physical release, is how fast will it fall. Retail games have shown that 4 week $20 price cut. However, I haven't seen as many digital games go the same. In the end, I guess it will be up to Hello Games and Sony to figure all of this out. Now, can we just get a release date?

[StrayaKNT]

I'm hoping a ps plus release. Don't want to waste my money, gameplay doesn't look that great so far I fear it will get boring quick.

[Summons75]

Should be no higher than 20 bucks, if it is I'll wait for a sale or for it to be free on Ps+

[lemoncake]

People went out and bought the order for full price so I see no reason for them not to put this out at full price initially, it will still sell especially if it launches this holiday making it the only real new ps4 exclusive at that time.

[Spotie]

Persona and Disgaea say hi.

[Donnywho]

How about a procedurally generated price based on what we're willing to believe?

[BABY-JEDI]

It's as valuable as you want it to be. I think it will be priceless. But only gaming history will tell.

[DougLord]

How much does a rogue like go for on the Google Play Store? They have 10 programmers? They should be able to make good $$ at under $20.