Early Access, toxicity, and the issues we face with modern gaming

Be it ARK: Scorched Earth, No Man’s Sky, or the general criticisms gaming fans leverage, far too often the human element is left out of the discussion.

[eldingo]

Another thing that also ties into everything in the article is how much the publisher will ask game devs to monetize the game such as with microtransactions and cosmetic dlc and how that ties into a players outlook on a game and its devs.

[stimm16]

Absolutely. But the whole publisher vs developer thing is definitely a can of worms on its own.

[kevnb]

Meh

[Rachel_Alucard]

I would honestly rather pay $70 for a game if it meant that micro-transactions and Day 1 DLC was absent from the game then spend $10 less and have things cut out to even it out. Most games I've seen tend to release around $40-$50 extra in content thats either behind a season pass or released separately. The publishers ideal spending is around $100 from everyone who buys the game as evidenced by Peter Moore, and these price points show that.

[iceman06]

Depending on the game, I would agree. I don't really care one way or another about skins and such. But, maps, levels, extra story content....yeah I'd definitely pony up for that kind of content instead of it getting parsed as DLC and micros.

[s45gr32]

Raising game prices is not the solution just ask Australian gamers if they want to pay $110-$120.00 Australian dollars or the Japanese gamers paying $110-120 yen for their games. Remember, videogames are sold globally not locally. PC gamers have proven time and again that competitive pricing is the way to go. We need retail stores to compete again, to end $60.00 for every game. Is time to have games being sold at different prices .Is time for game companies to downsize their teams and to make games locally. Picture call of duty with game artists in Canada, game testers in Japan, game designers in England, game marketers in the US. That is for Call of Duty, do you see the issues.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Taxes, Minimum wage, and Transportation affect the cost of things like games and many other products due to the high PPP - Purchasing power parity these cause.

Reasons that causes a high PPP that apply to australia (don't have information on Japan):

Population - Australia doesn't have a huge population, but it is quite isolated. It requires significant infrastructure to distribute for little potential gain, so distribution is very expensive. While a country like Finland might have a much smaller population, it can easily share some distribution infrastructure with nearby nations. Australia, being an island, lacks this luxury

High transportation costs - Australia is far away from the bulk of the developed world, and things simply are more expensive to ship there.

High taxes - business shift these costs on the consumer, which mean higher prices. Australia has a high effective corporate tax rate - 24.3%, the US has 12.1%, less than half.

Everything else is also more expensive. While petrol is roughly the same (although I haven't checked in a while), the price of food, vehicles, office space, real estate, accommodation and almost everything else is significantly higher. This drives the price up by increasing costs and increasing consumer expectations of price, meaning they are willing to pay more

The minimum AND AVERAGE wage are much higher. Not only is the minimum wage higher than much of the rest of the world, the average wage is also, more importantly, much higher. While the average US household income is about $45 000, the average Australian household income is around $80 000. In some states, the average personal income is over 70k.

Also: why are transportation costs important for online purchases, you may wonder? It's because the opportunity costs for consumers increases - the only reason somebody doesn't buy something is because they think they can get something else that's better for their money. Think of it like this: if all fruit except apples got very expensive, the price of apples would increase too because people would now want them more.

[s45gr32]

I am sorry but the biggest issue is one game is made in 5 or 6 different countries. It will be best to make games in one country, it lowers the costs of game developing plus no more issue with different languages, time zones, or different work cultures. The second issue is lack of communication between gamer and game developer. When it comes to Early Access, the game developer must have open 24/7 communication with the gamer. After all, the gamer is funding the game.Downsize the team to just 100 or 50 employees to save costs but to prevent economies of scale. Is easier to manage a small game development team than a giant mess of a team. Really why get 50 videogame artists, 100 game testers. Too many cooks in one kitchen.