EA Games Raises Prices for Next Gen Games

refraxion

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I'm not surprised, the corporate greed is strong with that one! Gotta keep the shareholders happy and the CEO in a nice yacht.
 
Go to Amazon UK, Watch Dogs, Killzone, Destiny, Assassin's Creed, inFamous, Call of Duty Ghosts, and etc. are all preoders for £54.99 on the PS4 and Xbox One.

Go to Amazon US, the preorder prices for those same games are all $60 US currency.
 
not surprising that prices went up, the amount of increase is STAGGERING though....
 
I don't understand why the cost would go up. PC games have better graphics and cost less. So to say that the graphics (which is usually why) is the reason the development cost go up, is absurd.
 
Someone also saying they are doing this with their PC games in India. The prices have skyrocketed. The speculation is this move was to prevent western gamers from using VPN clients to buy from the India Origin.

So EA is now not only fighting against pirates but they are fighting against people who want to pay for their games as well.
 
Sucks for EA. Don't see too many of their games "flying off shelves" at that price. I remember back when I was a kid, when Strider and Sword of Vermillion had been released for the Genesis they were locally priced at $79.99. Although I was lucky enough to get them for my birthday I did notice they sat on the shelves for a while until their price dropped. I would expect the same to happen to some if not most of the EA titles if they come out at a $80'ish pricepoint.
 
The prices will come down pretty sharpish when sales suffer. It's what happens every gen, people will just wait for price drops and sales.
 
It's simply EA being opportunistic. The pool of games available at next-gen consoles' launch will be low. People will need games to play on those new consoles. It will be a seller's market, and it is by no means surprising to see EA taking this opportunity to fuck the customer.

Not sure if the EA Defence Force will charge in here since they generally hang out in the PC forum, but people need to realise that EA might not be "evil" but it is easily the most anti-consumer gaming company right now and people need to stop defending and validating its cock-in-your-wallet business practices.
 
Steam has ridiculous prices too for Aussies and other counties. This is hardly an EA only move. But i'm sure they will get blamed for all of it.
 
do you guys really believe an article from some crap website?

I've seen it on other sites, too. It could have been just rehashing and repeating the same rumor from the original site, I don't know. But, there are others saying the same thing.
 
I remember buying some SNES games for 60 bucks new shortly after they came out, and to think how small the teams were back then... I dunno guys, inflation and the fact that these games take longer to produce with tons more people... it always surprises me how INEXPENSIVE they cost when I think about it. I guess becuase they sell at a higher volume now than before might be the reason they haven't kept in pace with other media?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/
http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle

this one is also neat:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/VG_inflation_chart.png
 
I remember buying some SNES games for 60 bucks new shortly after they came out, and to think how small the teams were back then... I dunno guys, inflation and the fact that these games take longer to produce with tons more people... it always surprises me how INEXPENSIVE they cost when I think about it. I guess becuase they sell at a higher volume now than before might be the reason they haven't kept in pace with other media?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/
http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle

this one is also neat:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/VG_inflation_chart.png

Compared to Movies and music, all of them (dvds/music/games) have hovered around the same general price point.

Blu Rays have went down to what most dvds cost, not hard at all to find them for $15 or under minus the usual 20-30price for brand new ones.
 
Anyone else remember Neo Geo game prices? Quit yer bitchin! :D

60-70 is about normal at times. If the market doesn't accept it, it will start falling as usual. But, $70 games are nothing new.
 
Anyone else remember Neo Geo game prices? Quit yer bitchin! :D

60-70 is about normal at times. If the market doesn't accept it, it will start falling as usual. But, $70 games are nothing new.

Again, I remember N64 games costing up to $100 in Canada. Sucked back then too.
 
Lemme get this straight

The next generation of games have finally reached nigh universally streamlined programming for x86 systems (PC, XBONE, PS4), developer tools have never been more readily available, and the porting process will be virtually eliminated

and they bump up the cost of games by almost 40%?

Either EA is really stepping up the quality with bigger budgets and better talent, or EA is just totally scum
 
Lemme get this straight

The next generation of games have finally reached nigh universally streamlined programming for x86 systems (PC, XBONE, PS4), developer tools have never been more readily available, and the porting process will be virtually eliminated

and they bump up the cost of games by almost 40%?

Either EA is really stepping up the quality with bigger budgets and better talent, or EA is just totally scum
The single largest cost is paying employees, and AAA games are taking more people than ever.
 
The single largest cost is paying employees, and AAA games are taking more people than ever.

Yes and no. I mean, Unreal Engine 4, for example, handles lighting and shadows automatically and is designed to drasticly reduce the amount of time spent on the basics, like visual affects, and it supposed to be easy enough to work with that graphics artists can put together a game prototype in days.

Of course, EA seems to want to stay away from stuff that makes sense.
 
Yes and no. I mean, Unreal Engine 4, for example, handles lighting and shadows automatically and is designed to drasticly reduce the amount of time spent on the basics, like visual affects, and it supposed to be easy enough to work with that graphics artists can put together a game prototype in days.

Of course, EA seems to want to stay away from stuff that makes sense.
Yeah but EA is using Frostbite 3 for everything, not UE4. I don't really know technically how they compare in terms of feature set, but I know that Frostbite reportedly has a pretty complex tool chain, which is why there is no mod support for it. I like Frostbite a lot though, it's a pretty solid engine, so I won't knock them for that. But yes, it does depend somewhat on what tools and engine you are using. Still, games like Mass Effect, Battlefield, Dragon Age, etc are going to require large teams - especially RPGs like Dragon Age.
 
Yeah but EA is using Frostbite 3 for everything, not UE4. I don't really know technically how they compare in terms of feature set, but I know that Frostbite reportedly has a pretty complex tool chain, which is why there is no mod support for it. I like Frostbite a lot though, it's a pretty solid engine, so I won't knock them for that. But yes, it does depend somewhat on what tools and engine you are using. Still, games like Mass Effect, Battlefield, Dragon Age, etc are going to require large teams - especially RPGs like Dragon Age.

All because EA is stubborn. Now, their CEO did step down and was replaced, but they can't just change development on a whim, either. Maybe they'll consider other game engines in a year or so.

EA, if you want to make a good game, stop with the cost/profit analysis. You're the reason Dragon Age 2 sucked so bad, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive you for that.
 
Frostbite should cut down on costs if anything, assuming it is not abnormally hard to develop with. As the engine is owned by EA they don't have to pay much if any licensing fees. Likewise, they have a bunch of teams developing on one engine rather than multiple. The map editor or whatever they showed in that recent video looked a lot like Cryengine 3's map editor as well. I doubt it is abnormally hard to develop for.
 
[citation needed]
Do you really need a citation that the largest part of development costs is paying teams that range from 20 to hundreds of people a salary, at a cost of ~40k to ~100k per person, for multiple years?
 
Do you really need a citation that the largest part of development costs is paying teams that range from 20 to hundreds of people a salary, at a cost of ~40k to ~100k per person, for multiple years?

Marketting can use up even more of the budget, surprisingly.
 
Marketting can use up even more of the budget, surprisingly.
Fair point, but I don't really consider "marketing" part of the development costs. Technically speaking you don't "need" to market the game, lots of developers get by on word of mouth.
 
Fair point, but I don't really consider "marketing" part of the development costs. Technically speaking you don't "need" to market the game, lots of developers get by on word of mouth.

Mmmm... it seems to be the inverse to the size of the publisher/developer. Word of mouth made Deadly Premonition and Minecraft but it's not going to save the next COD or CIV game.
 
Fair point, but I don't really consider "marketing" part of the development costs. Technically speaking you don't "need" to market the game, lots of developers get by on word of mouth.

It's the Hollywoodization of the gaming industry. Everything needs to be big, and with lots of explosions / slow motion. Gotta hype and show trailers non-stop on TV.
 
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