Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says "almost all games should cost more at a base level" because they cost so much to make
Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says "almost all games should cost more at a base level" because they cost so much to make
Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael Douse has reopened the topic of video game pricing, commenting that prices …
Make cheaper games. Nobody is forcing you to make games that have too much content and take 600 hours to complete and often overstay their welcome.
It's like how movies aren't 1.5 hours anymore. They're always 3 hour bloated nonsense that overstay their welcome. Make it cheaper by telling a better shorter story with less. More isn't better.
I find myself going back to simpler games that don't require hundreds of hours of buy in. Im a functioning adult I don't have time to experience endless collection quests. There needs to be a "dad mode" in games that gets rid of all the fluff.
I found so many adorable little short games that are nonetheless amazing fun. Tinykin, cat quest, troll hunters, stray… none of those are over 10 hours, even if you achievement hunt. Maybe stray, since you have to beat it more than once.
Like they don’t have to be super long to be super good. And sometimes you only have the energy to play my little pony (actually fun and super quick because it’s made for small kids, and sometimes you just want something that takes 2 hours to get 100% on because that’s the mood..)
I normally prefer super long exploration games, but those get old. Especially when they are all filler content like run here run there kill 5 things then go back to the same place 6 more times for dumb little quests you could have done all at once if they just gave them to you… I like 100%, but man they often make that so very tedious.
That's one of the reasons I lost almost all interest in games.
It already costs an arm and a leg to stay somewhat on top of the hardware requirements, I can't justify to myself also investing hundreds of hours into essentially busy work.
I don't enjoy fetching Fred's uncle's magic shovel of doom from a stupid generic dungeon 4h away.
Maybe I'm weird, but I use games more like interactive movies. I want a story, not some artificial and ultimately pointless "challenge".
One or the other.
BG3 is a huge game with no dlc or extra purchases.
I'm fine with games like that being more, but if they'd have went like most games these days and done 2-3 dlcs, then the base game should be cheaper.
Like, buying bg3 was basically buying the "game of year" edition because the game had so much content
Provide me with a complete experience out-of-the-box as an end-user (you know how it should be done, developers - it’s the way things were before the PS3/XBox 360 era), don’t try to nickel & dime me with ‘micro-transactions’ or ‘battle passes’, or scam me with multiple ‘expansions’ every year.. and then, and only then, we can talk.
$60 USD in 2000 is worth about $110 now; so there’s room to negotiate - but it needs to be in good faith, and I don’t trust publishers to do so currently.
It also has to be fully functional offline. I don't want to be locked out because someone's login server is down.
That's where I am at. Want more money? Release a full complete game. BG3 honestly I could pay 100 for and feel content. RDR2 same deal. Those are complete games, and are worth it.
This Ubisoft trash coming out? 20. Tops.
I've never regretted buying a game full price less than BG3. My baseless rule of thumb for value is that $1 should get you an hour of fun and I've got like 400 hours in that game
Line must go up MFer
Corporations are beholden to their shareholders, yes - but the issue is more down to the fact that we seem to have forgotten that shareholders have the intellect of a toddler.. give them free reign and they’ll eat pure sugar for dinner and then complain about a tummy ache.
The line can still go up by delivering quality experiences (as mentioned elsewhere: BG3, RDR2 & hopefully GTA6); by taking care of your stakeholders (which includes employees and customers), it results in higher long-term returns for everyone.
But again, shareholders are toddlers and the current system is giving them free reign.
Sure go for it, I already don't buy games at $70. I'll continue to not buy them higher than that. 👍
I get where he is coming from, but for every game with super high production value, I have probably played a lower budget game that had me hooked just the same. I get that the games are expensive to make, but if Baldur’s gate 3 has me as hooked as rim world then why would I pay more for Baldur’s gate?
Make whatever game you want and charge whatever you want for it. Ima just wait until it shows up on sale for $30 or less tho. Cuz I’m cheap… and patient.
And have limited time and every game asks for all of it now
Yeah, meanwhile I'm still waiting for the BG3 to go on sale, i really want to play it because it seems fun and I like single player games with a lot of replayability, but my priorities prevent me from spending suck money on a video game
The nice thing about BG3 is that it isn't going anywhere. In fact it's getting a little extra polish the longer you wait (not that it needs it, just as a bonus).
BG3 was an excellent game a year ago, it's an excellent game today, and I feel confident in saying it will be an excellent game for years to come.
It's not some live service play every day for a chance to win a hat game. It isn't an MMO where a year from now every will have moved on to new content. It isn't a game with season passes and unrelated DLCs that screw up the balance or over gear your starting character or awkwardly take you out of the main game.
It's just a solidly excellent game.
Note that he's calling for the base price to increase, while also getting rid of predatory monetization tactics:
"I don't love the artificiality of pricing structures post retail," Douse wrote. "Use the inflated base price to upsell a subscription, and use vague content promises to inflate ultimate editions to make the base price look better. It all seems a bit dangerous & disconnected from the community."
I'd be fine with this combination. The problem comes when publishers want to increase the base price while also keeping loot boxes and the rest.
I'd also be fine with smaller games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less.
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make cheaper games
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if your game is any good, it will sell millions of copies, giving you way more than you put in
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pay ceos less and devs more, so they make the games better and more efficiently
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Let's not forget, the gaming market is a lot larger today than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. That's a lot more $60 games bring sold today than back in the 90s.
And there was a big decrease in per unit costs of production switching from cartridges to optical media. Not quite as much in the switch from optical media to downloading, but some.
Did they pass those savings on to customers?
I feel there is absolutely a space for games that push boundaries at a higher price point. Games that push a, frankly, ridiculous level of graphics fidelity, games that have a genuine branching narrative on a demanding scale, games with handcrafted worlds that dwarf other games, new technology in general. Just anything that needs an inordinate amount of work when compared to the average game.
But that isn't most games. You can make a pretty good game out of your garage on a shoestring budget (or even for free, if you cut costs) these days. The real cost of making a game isn't rising, major studios are just bloated beyond belief and just making a profit isn't enough for the leeches.
For bg3 in particular; they had average (around 100mil) AAA dev costs afaik, but for some stupid reason they had (a guesstimated) 200mil ad budget! They seriously do not need even 1 million to get their game in front of the targeted audience, that's so insanely excessive.
If they think this is bad, just wait until the tools to make games are further democratized. It's already difficult to stay up with the latest hotness in the Indie scene and people are burned out on live service shenanigans.
What do you mean by "further democratized"? You can already just download Godot and make a game for free right now. Or are you talking about AI supposedly making it easier for people to make games?
I'm all for paying $80-$100 a game IF, REALLY BIG IF, LIKE REALLY FUCKING BIG IF, they're as good or better than Baldur's Gate 3. I like his ideas about how this has to happen if we want to eliminate predatory microtransactions, crappy "ultimate" editions, and all that shit.
I fully suspect that we won't see the full effect BG3 has had for a few years. Games take too long to make for that to not be the case.