I Don’t Trust $60 Games

cageymaru

cageymaru

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I Don’t Trust $60 Games.
http://www.dsogaming.com/articles/i-dont-trust-60-games/#more-93830

I find that as more time goes on and the more commercialized the gaming industry becomes, we see a decline in quality from the Developers/Publishers we once trusted with our hard earned dollars. This poses a question to our budding and veteran gamers: Are the games we play really about joy and entertainment, or like Disney have they also fallen from their graces devolving into nothing more than a profit machine?

I had been thinking about writing this article for some time now and as I saw more and more disappointments from developers big and small, my frustration with the industry grew.


I long stopped trusting the industry as it seems to me that $60 games have the same QC as Early Access games. It's like major publishers lowered their standards to the Indie development stage. What do you think?
 
Yeah, I only pay 60 dollars for games like Skyrim, the new Fallouts & the Witcher, games that I know will give me a lot of millage. Screw paying 60 dollars for a 10-20 hours of Content.
 
Just another No Man's Sky hate article.

I paid $60 for NMS and I have no regrets. I also didn't follow the hype. I read an article about it and watched the initial trailer and liked what I saw and had a blast when it was released, and the Foundation update just made it better. I'm looking forward to what else they'll do with it.
 
I hate paid beta/Kickstarter - I don't mind paid early access so much. Paid Beta almost seems like a con job - your paying to help someone test out their product, although I do realize the state most games ship in anyway and the prevalence of Day 0 patches, it's not really any different from 1.0 release... Early access, your just paying extra for the privilege of jumping on the game early, but it's still the same release game. Kickstarter/Beta - the final release could be different from what you paid for (sometimes significantly so). I think similarly about "season passes" - where you are pre-paying for DLC content that hasn't even been outlined yet.

That being said, I admit I'm skeptical of a $60+ release game as well, and haven't paid in a while (with few exceptions). I don't think this is a discussion about ~if~ games are worth $60 - games are worth whatever you can get someone to pay for them. I've paid a lot more than $60 all in for some subscription MMOs (and for the most part, have well gotten my money's worth). On the flip side, I've picked up some "AAA" games for <$20 and considered it money thrown down the drain. It's all a matter of what you enjoy. There are a lot of games that I've picked up later on, and thought, you know, had I known more about this game (trial/demo, I don't care to watch other people play on Youtube or watch corporate-released trailers full of bullshots), I absolutely would have paid $60+ for it.

a) The price will come down soon - either Steam/Origin Sale (PC) or second hand (console). Lately prices have been dropping within a handful of weeks.
b) There is almost always a huge patch(or patches), and commonly performance problems in the first few weeks
c) Day 1 DLC and Season Passes drive me nuts, I'd just as soon wait for the GOTY edition
d) Games with mod support are often quite transformed once the community gets engaged, but that takes some time

Really, I think it just comes down to, most of what is released as "AAA" I'm just not that interested in. There are only so many times that a Call of Duty or Final Fantasy or Assassin's Creed can get released that I can stay excited for, especially when for the online shooters, where it's more or less the same game, just new maps and guns.
 
It's been going on a long time. I remember the initial release of Fallout 2. Buggy as all hell, including a number of game breakers, and load times that were so long I would study or read amidst loading screens. Slowly but surely patched and a superb game finally at that point, but yeah.
 
Kind of why I still miss the C64 days of gaming.

Gameplay had to be good because the graphics (as good as they were for the day) just couldn't sell a title.

Now they use tons of pretty pictures to sell a game and hardly even mention gameplay (or lack thereof).

Now I tend to look for Steam sales and lots of commentary by average gamers before I buy anything.
 
There are a few games I'd pay $60 for.

However, with the exchange rate in Canada right now, they've jacked up the prices for new games to $80 ($90 with tax).

There are no games that I would pay $90 for.

So I wait for Steam sales and pick them up when they drop under $30 CAD.
 
No Man's Sky was only disappointing to people who bought the hype hook line and sinker. The way they were talking about the game and everything they were promising should have been enough to make people wary, on top of all the previews that didn't really show what they were promising. People need to learn to pay attention instead of 100% buying the hype every single time. Most big disappointments have warning signs that couldn't be clearer if they the developers put 100' neon signs on their officers advertising the potential problems. $60 games are fine, pre-ordering is fine, if people pay attention.
 
It's not that I don't trust $60 games, but I just wait for a couple years now before I buy (single player) games so I can get their fully polished patched versions for 15 dollars or less. I just got Arkham Knight recently, turns out it's pretty good.
 
I would say for me personally 60$ titles often miss the forest for the trees. There's often good logistical reasons for the high price tag. The massive marketing and development budgets. Unfortunately to make sure they hit quota now most publishing houses require certain check boxes to be filled which cuts into developers time spent with a game and freedom of creativity.

Off the top of my head recently titles like that -

"Battlefront" - was 60$ lack any depth of content, no single player no creativity.
"The Division" - a boring nothing grind, literally built to kill time.
"Destiny" nearly Identical to Division.

All that said I paid $60 for Dark Souls 3 and I got no complaints. Truth is I don't trust any game at any price anymore though. I always read reviews and ask around before buying anything new.
 
Boggy101 said:
It's not that I don't trust $60 games, but I just wait for a couple years now before I buy (single player) games so I can get their fully polished patched versions for 15 dollars or less. I just got Arkham Knight recently, turns out it's pretty good.
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I do the same. I don't buy games for full price because I've got a ton of games I've never even played, and because I want all the bugs to be worked out, and I want to know that it's a good game. When new games come out, a lot of times the hype drives reviews toward the positive. Then, weeks or months later, the truth comes out. So I don't really trust $60 games.
 
KamelRed said:
I think No Man's Sky is a shitty game but I'm not going to let it color my outlook on the industry as a whole.
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Absolutely what this guy said. Recently bought The Last Guardian and Watchdogs 2 recently at full price. No regrets at all. Great games.
 
I just wish they would stop the DLC nonsense and sell us the $100 game already. I completely understand that $60 doesn't go as far as it did 20 years ago, which means your "AAA" game needs to sell 4 million copies just to break even when you could get away with selling a tenth that many copies in the past.

Instead of breaking to game up into pieces to recoup costs and make a little profit for the next game, just give it to us all at once and charge what you need. Most of the adults will understand, and the rest will come around to the reality of the situation when they realize they were already paying $100-$120 total for a game after factoring in all the DLC. Maybe at that point we will actually start to see quality creep back into initial releases when already tight budgets on time and money are no longer stretched so thin.
 
Armenius said:
I just wish they would stop the DLC nonsense and sell us the $100 game already. I completely understand that $60 doesn't go as far as it did 20 years ago, which means your "AAA" game needs to sell 4 million copies just to break even when you could get away with selling a tenth that many copies in the past.

Instead of breaking to game up into pieces to recoup costs and make a little profit for the next game, just give it to us all at once and charge what you need. Most of the adults will understand, and the rest will come around to the reality of the situation when they realize they were already paying $100-$120 total for a game after factoring in all the DLC. Maybe at that point we will actually start to see quality creep back into initial releases when already tight budgets on time and money are no longer stretched so thin.
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Don't they do this already? Most games nowadays I see $60, $80, and $100 versions of games which I prefer. For instance, I recently bought Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition entirely because I wanted to play the campaigns. I don't give a shit about the multiplayer and will likely never play it, so I don't want to pay for extra maps and shit for a game mode I won't use.

What I REALLY wish they'd do for games like that and for instance others like Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 which is to sell the Singleplayer campaigns completely separate at a lower price for those of us who only enjoy the campaigns. Even if it's a $20 or even $10 difference to be able to enjoy the campaign I would much rather pay that than for instance $60 or $80 in the case of Infinite Warfare for multiplayer included which I will not play.
 
I rarely pay full price for games anymore (Nvidia gaming bundles and Steam sales)...but the rare exceptions are games I consider masterpeices that have never let me down- Dark Souls series, Witcher and Elder Scrolls comes to mind...
 
The only thing I trust anymore are Steam Holiday sales, which by their very nature has gotten the entire online gaming outlets to offer them as well. That is the best way I know how not to get ripped off plus get entire games with dlc all patched up for reasonable prices. Early access allows those that can't wait to get in right away but at least they know it going forward.
 
zamardii12 said:
Don't they do this already? Most games nowadays I see $60, $80, and $100 versions of games which I prefer. For instance, I recently bought Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition entirely because I wanted to play the campaigns. I don't give a shit about the multiplayer and will likely never play it, so I don't want to pay for extra maps and shit for a game mode I won't use.

What I REALLY wish they'd do for games like that and for instance others like Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 which is to sell the Singleplayer campaigns completely separate at a lower price for those of us who only enjoy the campaigns. Even if it's a $20 or even $10 difference to be able to enjoy the campaign I would much rather pay that than for instance $60 or $80 in the case of Infinite Warfare for multiplayer included which I will not play.
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In the case of Infinite Warfare you were paying $60 for IW and $20 for MW Remastered. The $100 versions include a season pass, which is a contract that promises future premium content. In the case of the latter what I'm saying is to do away with all of that nonsense and give us the full game at once at the full price instead of waiting on promises that you'll get all the content 6 months after release, possibly from a contracted development team that had nothing to do with the original game.
 
Armenius said:
In the case of Infinite Warfare you were paying $60 for IW and $20 for MW Remastered. The $100 versions include a season pass, which is a contract that promises future premium content. In the case of the latter what I'm saying is to do away with all of that nonsense and give us the full game at once at the full price instead of waiting on promises that you'll get all the content 6 months after release, possibly from a contracted development team that had nothing to do with the original game.
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There is absolutely no way that the market can support every game being $100. That alone would kill the AAA market. I guarantee you that those premium editions sell significantly less than the base $60 models. There is a reason you see stores stock a lot more of the normal editions of games than the premium ones.
 
I learned a big secret about $60 games - The console versions have resell value. Just play your videogames on console so any time you end up with a game you regret then you can just flip it to get 90% of your money back. It's not the pc version but it's way less risk.
 
Derangel said:
There is absolutely no way that the market can support every game being $100. That alone would kill the AAA market. I guarantee you that those premium editions sell significantly less than the base $60 models. There is a reason you see stores stock a lot more of the normal editions of games than the premium ones.
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If it were the only option then of course there would be a market adjustment period. The fact is we have been lucky so far that game prices have been unaffected by inflation, but publishers are still seeing the rising costs and are passing it on to the consumer in one way or another. That includes the churning out of annual sequels that have the quality of a Call of Duty with a 3-4 hour single player campaign and broken multiplayer.
 
Let me drop a truth bomb on this thread. Those of you that have been paying attention have already heard this gospel, but lemme repeat.

The expected full price for a video game in today's market is $45. Not $60, sure as fuck not $79.99, LOL ata G$ tbh brah fam lmao k thx. Tell me, what new releases have not had a deal where they could be had for "50% off" "buy 2 get 1 free" or just straight up "<$45"? Hardly any. I bought BF1 from a cd key site for $45, then a week later it was on a black friday deal for $40, on any given platform. Its all part of plan. The people that pay full retail are like shoppers who buy a car without haggling. Free bonus checks.

If you are paying more than $45 for a title, even a AAA one, you're getting ripped off. If it was $60 it better be for a season pass or more preferably "all DLC" included.

I'd also like to point out I didn't read the article, hell I didn't even finish reading the title.

Merry Christmas.
 
There is way too much nostalgia blinders on with these discussions.

If people actually went back to the "good old days" and combed through a complete list of what was released you'd find so much forgotten junk, along with some infamous bad releases that some people may have even heard of and referred to this day.

Objectively the "big" releases now have much more resources going into them on development alone (sans marketing, so need to bring up that false narrative) and it goes up on average year to year. A lot of "indies" now are basically bigger than the "big developers" back in the day.
 
Armenius said:
The non-entitled ones, yes.
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What do you mean "non-entitled"? Is it really entitled to wait for the game price to drop, or to buy it from a source that sells legitimate keys for less than $60 at launch?
 
w35t said:
Wait PC gamers are still paying $60 for games?
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If the game is out and i want to play it. Yes. I paid $60 for BF1 and its well worth it, i paid $60 for DooM and that was well worth it. Same with GTA and Fallout. Dont buy shitty over hyped games that you know are going to suck. Why wait months to save $10-$20 when i really want to play the game now?
 
There is no fucking reason on God's green Earth to pay anywhere more than $40 for a game, if even that. Then again, my friends and I agree on this part, and if we really want a game, we wait it out (usually a month or two is all it takes). Often, we find that said super-hyped game wasn't all it was inflated to be and we save even more money.
 
jeremyshaw said:
There is no fucking reason on God's green Earth to pay anywhere more than $40 for a game, if even that. Then again, my friends and I agree on this part, and if we really want a game, we wait it out (usually a month or two is all it takes). Often, we find that said super-hyped game wasn't all it was inflated to be and we save even more money.
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I'm still waiting for Pillars of Eternity to drop below $15. ;)
 
I don't trust any game on Steam it's on there to make money basically.....
It's very labor intensive to make a game today.....labor never equals the amount a game is worth if
you don't have the time to play the game. Unless you are a total vegetable or something.
I think it's great Steam has 1000s of games but I think they should streamline them for quality.
I guess Millennials and younger generations are all on smart phones anyway and PCs are Generation X.
 
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I waited until Fallout 4 and Doom were available for less than $40.

Only game that will get $60 from me is Mass Effect Andromeda.
 
The Best game I played all year is Pokemon Go!!!! and that was Free.

The last Best MMO I played was Planetside 2 and was Free also.
 
IMO, some of what PC gamers are paying goes back to the old (controversial) statement that Cliffy B made. Gamers savvy enough to have good video cards and to keep their machines up to snuff tend to know how to pirate games. That IS mostly true, but it also assumes that gamers also have no concept of right and wrong...or at least no respect for copyright law.
Toss a little bit of morality and social conscious into the mix and we can now hold out for Steam sales, exploit exchange rates on CDKeys, or buy/sell keys that come bundled with hardware. We're a resourceful bunch and there are plenty of legal ways to save money on PC games.
As far as retail prices go, I'm willing to drop full price here and there if it's a game I don't want to wait for. I mean, what's $10 in the long run? That's the cost of lunch. If I don't feel like waiting around a few months and/or I don't see a great deal on CDKeys, I'll bite.
 
braamer said:
What do you mean "non-entitled"? Is it really entitled to wait for the game price to drop, or to buy it from a source that sells legitimate keys for less than $60 at launch?
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Your statement says you will never buy a game for $60 on PC. Which says to me that as a PC gamer you should never have to pay full price for a game. That is the very definition of being entitled. That is different than what you say, here. If you can find a deal then that is just taking advantage of the current market.
 
jeremyshaw said:
There is no fucking reason on God's green Earth to pay anywhere more than $40 for a game, if even that. Then again, my friends and I agree on this part, and if we really want a game, we wait it out (usually a month or two is all it takes). Often, we find that said super-hyped game wasn't all it was inflated to be and we save even more money.
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Thats why you wait like a week after release to see if it lived up to the hype. If it does, then i buy it full price, if it doesnt then ill wait to see if they fix it and lower the price or not but it at all. No way am i going to wait months to save $20, im not that cheap. Also with steam refunds you can return a full priced game.
 
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