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CliffyB Wants Cheaper Games

by Chris Remo, Dec 02, 2005 10:15am PST
Related Topics – CliffyB

We've been hearing a lot of talk about ballooning costs of development, larger teams, longer development cycles, more difficult coding and asset creation, and other factors that will basically result in higher price points on games in the coming generation. The first wave of that has already hit us, with a standard $60 price point for major third party Xbox 360 games, a pricing strategy that may very well end up being used across the board. Publishers usually give maddeningly generic answers to queries about the situation, such as this response by EA's Tammy Schachter when questioned about the $10 difference between the company's current-gen and Xbox 360 ports of games: "We believe that premium titles command premium pricing. These are deep, rich, complex games." Epic's outspoken designer Clifford Bleszinski, currently working on anticipated Xbox 360 title Gears of War, has a different opinion about the whole thing, however. "I think video game prices need to go down," he said. "Fifty dollars is far too much for an impulse buy. Sixty dollars is completely out of the question." Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences president Joseph Olin points out that in the late 80s and early 90s, cartridge-based games were frequently priced higher than we pay for our games today. That doesn't really change CliffyB's mind.

"What other entertainment medium that's mass market is at $60 a pop?" said Cliff Bleszinski. ... So he doesn't want $60. He doesn't want $50. "I would kill to have a [top-quality] game that's jam-packed with an amazing story and amazing moments and four hours long and costs 20 bucks." He said it's possible, if only the industry cut costs by making games shorter and sweeter, but that too many gamers and publishers demand 20-hour games that are filled with the padding of having gamers repeat the same tasks again and again.
For my part, I could not possibly agree with that statement more. It's nice when there's a lot of meat to a game, but quite simply most of the time I do not find myself able to complete games if I actually want to maintain a broad and diverse familiarity with games in general, which is something I try to do. Some don't like the idea of paying the same price for shorter games, but if it really does cost so much more to fund longer development cycles (which I'm sure it does), then it should be true the other way around. Make shorter games that cost less to make, and sell them for less. Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine that Gears of War is going to hit the sub-$50 (it certainly won't be $20) price point CliffyB is advocating, as epic is not publishing the title. Let's just hope somebody takes his statements to heart.


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56 Threads* | 257 Comments
  • #139
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    By: alexthegreat2 x
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    This whole business of measuring games in terms of length needs to stop; I'm much more interested in breadth.

    I can finish a game of civ4 in less than two hours, does that mean it's a short game with no content? No - there is enough replay and varying options that I can also play a monster 40 hour game if I want.

    Half life 2 was like this to a much lesser degree; The attention to detail in the art and architecture was incredible, a whole world there and it's replayability isn't too bad either. The multiplayer also helps expand the game a lot. Doom 3 could have been this way if the world was a bit less static and if there had been viable multiplayer.

    On the other hand we have games like Fable, Max Payne (2 especially) which have a very linear experience and zero replay or alternate play options. These games are fun while I'm playing them but they really don't provide any entertainment outside of that single experience. Still, they can be very worth the money!

    Assigning an arbitrary cost to games is ridiculous; There is no set price that all games should be set to. Some games are worth 50$ others 20$ still others 70$. Why limit yourself to one price point and one type of game?

    As an aside, part of the reason the DS is going to be a huge success is the quality of game you get for 20-30$.
    Dec 02, 2005 1:01pm PST

    Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

  • #105
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    By: nudel x
    Reply
    So long as there's an expansion pack for good games that I want more of I think it's a fine idea. Then I can sample more games and I don't have to spend all weekend finishing them when, actually, I've kinda had enough but I want to see the end. Plus the total cost of a $20 game plus a $15 or $20 expansion pack is still less than the current game price and would give, say, 8 hours of game which is about right for a full game.

    Obviously the 4 and 8 hour times aren't fixed in this argument. I don't know why so many people are latching on to them and saying it's bad value when they're just ideas/approximations. Full price games vary massively in length and so would these theoretical cheaper games.

    Only issue would be how long it takes for the expansion(s) to come out but, hey, you'd effectively be getting the first part of the game earlier so it's all good.

    I've had some games for over a year now that I haven't even loaded because I haven't had time. Part of that is because I'm not playing games as often as I used to but a lot of it is because, unlike when I was a kid, there's just too many good games out these days to play them all.
    Dec 02, 2005 12:25pm PST
  • #81
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    By: maddy x
    Reply
    I think the games industry pricing situation is due to what has been a somewhat slow but inexorable change in what goes into a game. Historically, the cost of game development was heavily front-loaded on the engineering side. Once you had built all your game systems, you could pump out levels at a relatively small incremental cost. Think about a game like Doom where the tech was totally revolutionary, but it wasn't so hard to make a level (albeit harder to make a good level). With this arrangement, it made sense to add more content (levels) to games to make the value proposition more reasonable to the buyer (over 50 levels!) even though most of the cost wasn't in content generation, but in engineering.

    These days, things have changed pretty dramatically. Content is becoming harder and harder to create. The incremental cost of adding a creature / weapon / level is no longer relatively small compared to the initial engineering outlay, but everyone is still applying the same value proposition to game buying.

    For all you non-technical designers out there, feel free to augment the word "engineering" up there with "and core gameplay design" as it's still the same argument.
    Dec 02, 2005 12:05pm PST