You, good sir, are both a gentleman and a scholar. Huzzah!
In theory, non-open world single player games would be better off episodic, so consumers feel like there’s less of a risk when they’re uncertain and you can potentially get more money long term out of hardcore fans. But when you look at stats like how demos affect sales and how many people actually finish games, it’s no surprise that nobody really wants to go experimenting in that area.
I don’t know, seems like a bunch of the “sky is falling” nonsense. Are some 60$ single player games going to fail? Yes, yes they are. There are too many games. 60$, 30$, 15$, 5$, F2P, single player, PVE, PVP, too many games. You can have a pretty decent game, maybe even a great game, and just fail.
We’re no longer in a market where you can play all the must play games. All the once in a lifetime, generation defining games, there’s not enough time to play them. Not if you have a job. Probably not even if you don’t have a job. Some of those “You must play this game”, they take hundreds of hours to go through. F2P games, they’re designed to take forever.
There’s just not enough time for all the games to make it. If they’re “expensive”, probably even worse, since you can probably find a less expensive older or F2P game that’s kinda the same (Agents of Mayhem looks similar to Warframe to me, enough that I’m not going to “trade”).
Wow lots of Agents of Mayhem talk still going on in here! Yeah I have to agree that the open world is probably one of my least favorites. It is like the dry saltine of open worlds games.
My 34 ish hours spent with it, I’d give it a 7 outta 10, so I am pretty much in line with the metacritic average.
Tom listed what he liked and gave it 5 stars, its his opinion. Sometimes our tastes and his just aren’t going to match up.
Don’t tell Paradox that, I’d be broke!
I get it now, you get off on not being part of the mainstream. Keep flying your flag. By yourself. Secure in your superiority field.
That’s how it works at restaurants, too.
I read the back cover of this book, it seemed great, then I read the reviews and everyone liked it! Great book! I can say that for myself with total confidence!
I will almost never buy a single player game at full retail unless that game is made by nintendo.I’d rather wait a few months and get it at 30 bucks.
I rarely buy single player games these days as I much prefer coop experiences. I like the idea of a big sprawling single player game, but I never end up playing them much. These days I’ll generally just get SP games on sales since that way I don’t feel bad if I never really play them much.
I read this too quickly yesterday, and couldn’t quite parse your meaning. I assumed an error in writing.
Now today, I tried again, and I must give you props for saving the surprise until the final word. Nice. :)
Everyone be sure to get their $60 refund for Discourse as necessary. Shame the way people will charge money for free open source software.
Maybe all games should also be free and open source?
Just like restaurants and auto dealerships.
C’mon man, you have to admit that was a little bit funny. :)
Tom isn’t always “right” about what’s awesome. News at 11!
Seriously. Where’s the sense of humour @wumpus? I lurve Discourse and still found the joke clever and hilarious.
I don’t think I’ve bought a game full price since… Mass Effect 3. That was 5 years ago. (Correction: I bought ME:A full price this year T_T). That $60 price point (translated to $90 in New Zealand) is simply a market determined price point. Publishers would want it to be set in stones but it isn’t.
When a newish game can go for at least half that, and there is always pressure to go even further down during sales of various virtual storefronts (only UBI, Betheseda and 2K, with AAA+ catagloue to justify, are willing to resist the downward pressure), only the very best game deserves that US$60 price point. Hell I got Witcher 3 GOTY for what, ~US$20, and that was what, 2 years old game. And I still don’t have time to play that.
The deluge of indie games means that there are so many good games to choose from, at fractions of the US$60 those big publishers are asking. Nowadays I can never justifty paying “full price” myself.
I for one rejoice at the death of $60 gaming. It is good for consumers.
Except the “death of the $60 single-player game” has nothing to do with discounts, which aren’t nearly as relevant to console games (which was the original topic, since we’re talking about NPD charts here) as they are to PC games.
It’s also been argued numerous times, for many years now, that the constant deep discounts we see on PC are far more harmful for the games industry than they are “good for consumers.” When customers are conditioned to wait for any and every game to be on sale for $5 or less, games sell worse, which is particularly bad for smaller developers that don’t get the benefit of releasing on multiple platforms and selling any number of copies at a $60 base price. Constant sales also drive more games (including single-player games) to adopt microtransaction models and loot crates, which absolutely are not better for customers.
You mean greedy publishers trying to milk as much money out of us with new and novel ways to psychologically manipulate players? The thriving indie game industry shows that there is an alternative to that model. You don’t have to have a big publisher backing in order to develop good games that is still profitable to the developers.
Sure, Xcom 3 will still need a big team. Me and a lot of people are probably still willing to pay US$60 for that on day 1. But there are plenty of other games to choose from. From yesteryear’s AAA+ GOTY to indie offering, at various price points. That is a Good Thing™.
In point of fact I’d say $60 dollar games are largely already dead and have been replaced by $90 games that you buy in two pieces.