News - Half of PC gamers wait for sales to buy their games says survey

[directhex]

i wonder if this is why a lot of new AAA games are now being released at £50 instead of the £30 - £35 a few years back. Half price sale anyone?!

Or perhaps the other big publishers realised that the likes of EA/Activision are getting away with charging £50 - £60 for their AAA games because of hype/high demand to play the latest iteration of a gaming series and certain demographics of gamers are prepared to pay that sort of price to keep pace with their peers.

Or maybe games are really ****ing expensive to make.

If a game costs low 9 figures to develop/market (let's say $100M), a Steam copy is $60, you make $42 in revenue after Valve's cut, that means you're looking at 2.4 million units at full price before breaking even. If people wait until it's half price before buying, then you're at 5M units to break even. Remember how Square Enix said Tomb Raider was a flop for only selling 3.4M units? And Hitman Absolution only sold 3.6M? This is why those numbers seem insane. Because developing games costs nine figures, making 3M+ units "a flop" financially.

The bigger question, then, is why not make cheaper games? Because that's what we demand, as consumers. Would you accept it if, say, Dragon Age 3 had the same graphical quality as DA1, when it shipped, to save costs?

[shaithis]

I try not to pay more than 20quid per game and can normally get on release day for that price. You cannot resell PC games so I feel that's a fair price, especially when the publishers are happy to sell at that price point or even less in certain regions....and that's before we even mention the obligatory DLC.

I do think that things need to change and that a lot of money is wasted in development and we have seen some changes where more companies are shedding workforce and doing things the naughty dog way....work on one title at a time and make it as good as possible, rather than spreading yourself thin and having to hire people who aren't up to the demands of such large budget productions.

I think one of the recent things I have noticed highlights a bit of greed as well.......a lot of companies have been out-sourcing ports, I expect that is quite expensive. Now they have a unified architecture to develop for next gen, they should not need to out-source XBO/PS4/PC ports as the work is minimal for them to do in-house ports.....Yet, PS4/XBO games are more expensive than anything else. Funny that.

[kalniel]

Or maybe games are really ****ing expensive to make.

If a game costs low 9 figures to develop/market (let's say $100M), a Steam copy is $60, you make $42 in revenue after Valve's cut, that means you're looking at 2.4 million units at full price before breaking even. If people wait until it's half price before buying, then you're at 5M units to break even. Remember how Square Enix said Tomb Raider was a flop for only selling 3.4M units? And Hitman Absolution only sold 3.6M? This is why those numbers seem insane. Because developing games costs nine figures, making 3M+ units "a flop" financially.

The bigger question, then, is why not make cheaper games? Because that's what we demand, as consumers. Would you accept it if, say, Dragon Age 3 had the same graphical quality as DA1, when it shipped, to save costs?

I agree. And we get both hi-fi and lo-fi games. Ubi developed an engine to enable lower cost 2d games and we've got the excellent (and cheap) Child of light out of it. It's nice to have the choice.

I think one of the recent things I have noticed highlights a bit of greed as well.......a lot of companies have been out-sourcing ports, I expect that is quite expensive. Now they have a unified architecture to develop for next gen, they should not need to out-source XBO/PS4/PC ports as the work is minimal for them to do in-house ports.....Yet, PS4/XBO games are more expensive than anything else. Funny that.

Greed would represent itself as higher margin and ultimately profit, but I'm not seeing everyone jump to invest in the shares of games companies. Maybe the license costs of the new gen consoles are higher...

[crossy]

I think £30 is the upper limit of what should be acceptable for a PC game on release day, this isn't the 90s where there was significantly less people able to buy games; the market has grown, significantly, and they have gotten greedy trying to make more profit from it. Just Cause 2 comes to mind as a game that got it right, years after release it was still a top seller because it had the correct price for its age. Things like Call of Duty stay above other games release price years after release which is ridiculous and needs to stop.

Please get this carved on tablets of stone and sent to EA, Activision (x2 for them!) and Ubisoft.

I agree utterly. And no it doesn't bother me one whit that JC2's graphics are lousy compared to CoD:Ghosts. I've logged a LOT more hours in JC2 because it was good value for money. SRIII also.

[Noxvayl]

*for the sake of my own sanity: I have used quotes to address general issues I have, not specific arguments made by those posters*

I honestly can't be asked to change it now that I have edited it to be only tangentially addressing each quote...

Most indie developers charge a reasonable price for their games. Usually <£10 or just above.

But then again if big companies charged little for their games indie developers will feel like they need to charge even less for their games.

Both sides have positives and negatives. Cheaper big name games is better for all of us, but then it may start eating and pushing into the indie developer market. But then if charges are static at £30-40, it gives room to breathe for indie devs but then people will only end up buying a few games.


Another issue is, if things go "cheaper", guess what, people are going to overspend and probably full up their game lists with games they probably have no intention of playing.

Too cheap = overloaded market full of cheap games. A mess, with some good games lost under the sheer weight of the "cheapy game market". That is another disadvantage you have to look out for.


Take a look at the Steam marketplace, I think they are Greenlighting way too many games which means a mass flood of games. Will most be good quality? I doubt it. Some of the quality games I know for indie devs are lost under the masses. That result listing is going to get bigger and bigger. Ugh.

I go back to what I think is a crucial point, the market has grown well above the point where millions of sales are rare and yet as profits soar so do prices... At what point does the publisher accept their mistake and not blame consumers for it? I don't see it happening and they are trying their best to rig the market in their favour.

If they continue at the rate they are going, like the music industry did, then they will add fuel to the piracy problem they so vehemently dislike. You can't keep telling people that digital goods have a limited supply because you treat them the same as physical goods, the cognitive dissonance can't continue.

Or maybe games are really ****ing expensive to make.

If a game costs low 9 figures to develop/market (let's say $100M), a Steam copy is $60, you make $42 in revenue after Valve's cut, that means you're looking at 2.4 million units at full price before breaking even. If people wait until it's half price before buying, then you're at 5M units to break even. Remember how Square Enix said Tomb Raider was a flop for only selling 3.4M units? And Hitman Absolution only sold 3.6M? This is why those numbers seem insane. Because developing games costs nine figures, making 3M+ units "a flop" financially.

The bigger question, then, is why not make cheaper games? Because that's what we demand, as consumers. Would you accept it if, say, Dragon Age 3 had the same graphical quality as DA1, when it shipped, to save costs?

Nope, but I don't play that game. I'll use Call of Duty as an example because I stopped playing it after number 4, which was actually number 3 for PC games and the spiritual successor to 2 because of the same people working on it, but I digress. Activision has taken what was a franchise I loved and turned it into something I detest; they did so by over extending themselves and bringing in multiple development teams to work on one game which diluted the quality of the game while at the same time increasing the quantity (those are self evident to me). So they increase supply of a product and decrease quality and then raise prices at the same time... Market dynamics can't accommodate this, yet they strive for it and then blame us for pirating content we don't value as highly as they do. I stick my fingers up to them and pay for content worth my time and money, others do differently but they probably feel similar.

I don't want them to cut costs, I want them to stop over charging for content they create. Just because they spend big money on the content doesn't mean it is worth big money to consumers; it is their responsibility to sort out how much they spend on making a game and try to get their practice to work in the market; it is not our job as consumers to just cough up the money they charge for their content, which is what seems to be happening with PC games edging closer to console prices.

I think that the market is saturated, to the point where I spend lots of time looking at games and not playing them. I have had to come up with a better way of screening the games that I do pay for and also a way to decide which games get what amount of time I have. My problem, yes, but publishers can get stuffed if they think I am going to spend time filtering the amount of gaming content I consume and then just accept whatever they create as being worth what they think it is worth to me, they can jump off a bridge.

I try not to pay more than 20quid per game and can normally get on release day for that price. You cannot resell PC games so I feel that's a fair price, especially when the publishers are happy to sell at that price point or even less in certain regions....and that's before we even mention the obligatory DLC.

I do think that things need to change and that a lot of money is wasted in development and we have seen some changes where more companies are shedding workforce and doing things the naughty dog way....work on one title at a time and make it as good as possible, rather than spreading yourself thin and having to hire people who aren't up to the demands of such large budget productions.

I think one of the recent things I have noticed highlights a bit of greed as well.......a lot of companies have been out-sourcing ports, I expect that is quite expensive. Now they have a unified architecture to develop for next gen, they should not need to out-source XBO/PS4/PC ports as the work is minimal for them to do in-house ports.....Yet, PS4/XBO games are more expensive than anything else. Funny that.

I've had access to the making of the Double Fine Adventure and also visited Microsoft Studios in Guildford, unfortunately didn't get to meet Peter Molyneux because he had an interview that day 9before he left, I should add). What I have seen of the working of the industry is that they have no idea why more people doesn't = better productivity. As the studio gets bigger they get carried away with getting people to do things they think we want but actually find we aren't willing to pay for, so they try again. Publishers failing is not translating to useful information to use for the next attempt, and the market is responding with revolts of all kinds (piracy, Kickstarter and me only buying games in sales).

I have yet to spend more than £10 on a game for longer than I care to figure out. At no point have I had to sacrifice the quality and diversity of games I play. I find I am playing better, more enjoyable, games now than I did in 2007-2010. The market has changed and the publishers are either changing in ways we dislike or not adapting well enough and slowly going under. Unfortunately the bigger publishers benefit from smaller ones going down when they raid their portfolios and talent. It doesn't translate into games we enjoy playing though, and hence the anger I feel towards the industry giants like EA, Ubisoft and Activision and the contrasting love I have for games like The Banner Saga, Gunpoint, Mark of The Ninja and more than I care to list here.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________


I guess the point I am making is that we are talking about symptoms of an industry here. Symptoms that need to be addressed and that can only be done by the industry, not the consumers. I don't want to regulate to get it right, but it is proving to be a fight the industry want to make with their insitance on DRM and lobbying for draconian laws that make life harder for consumers. We are fighting back, and make no mistakes about this being a fight, and I think we are winning with gog.com as our crown jewel. CD Project Red is doing a stellar job of giving us what we want, how we want it and for the price we want it, and I buy everything I can through them as a result.

I am fighting my corner, and I expect every gamer to fight theirs. The industry is fighting its corner but is finding the war of attrition to be a drain on them... I feel we can hold out longer and they need to wake up and smell the roses.

[Myss_tree]

"A 'core' gamer, probably heavy"

Yes, he looks pretty heavy. Too much time in front of a computer, not enough exercise.

Yes ...
Why use the term "A core gamer, probably heavy" when the more suitable term is "sad f***"

[SineWave]

Damn, if you want to game properly you do have to wait for a while until all the bugs have been taken care of. I wouldn't buy a new game that's just come out, ever. I'm not fond of bugs and having to wait for updates. Developers these days tend to release games too soon, as is true with all other things.. 'let's release it already and take care of the bugs later". Thank you but no thank you. I want a product that works.

[Crowl]

I think that the conclusion of that survey is looking at this in the wrong way, plenty of these purchases at sale prices are not people waiting till they drop in price as much as it is people being tempted into buying something in a steam sale that they would not otherwise buy at all.

Unless a game has really crashed and burned then you do not tend to see really big discounts in a steam sale until they are a year or more old and if a game has done really badly it is most often due to it being a poor console port, riddled with bugs or simply a terrible game, so hardly the fault of gamers if it didn't sell.

If there is a game I know I am going to want to play right away then I'll pay full price or put in a late'ish preorder for the small discount you get for doing that, but those games tend to be ones where I already know they will have great longevity and I will still get my money's worth from them.

[Noli]

Isn't this just the same as the movie industry now? Watch a film when it's *just* released at the cinema - pay about £18. Watch it when it's *just* come out on blu-ray, pay £15. Watch it on DVD, pay £10. Watch it on sky, netflix etc, pay £5. Watch it when it goes out on a free to air channel, pay £0.

The value of the games depreciates rapidly after release. It's all about selling the hype on release. The sales are their way of making £££ when a game is on downwards or in stagnant sales. So what? If it doesn't work for them, they shouldn't do it. But it does. The number of gamers who spent money and never played the games, just because it's on sale, well that's money they got which they wouldn't have without the slashed sale prices. So are they really losing money? Cry me a river...

[Chance Jackson]

Some games I just gotta have right now! and I will pay full for but do you know how many unplayed and underplayed games I have due to these sales that I probably never would have bought at all at full price? It mind boggling to me PC game developers and publishers have nothing to complain about

[KeyboardDemon]

Digital distribution reduces prices and therefore digitally downloaded games should be cheaper which doesn't always seem to be the case so when it comes to buying new games I end up picking my games carefully in the same way Crowl does or swapping games I got in Humble Bundle packages that I already have for games that I want. I have also bought a lot of games on eBay as these often work out cheaper than sales prices.

It does occur to me that people are buying games at lower prices because it is too easy to find cheaper places to buy games now, sites like Green Man Gaming, Gamefly, Amazon and even eBay are making it easier for people to get the games they want at a better price than the SRP from the publishers, if games were cheaper then people wouldn't shop around as much.

[MrRockliffe]

Digital distribution reduces prices and therefore digitally downloaded games should be cheaper which doesn't always seem to be the case so when it comes to buying new games I end up picking my games carefully in the same way Crowl does or swapping games I got in Humble Bundle packages that I already have for games that I want. I have also bought a lot of games on eBay as these often work out cheaper than sales prices.

It does occur to me that people are buying games at lower prices because it is too easy to find cheaper places to buy games now, sites like Green Man Gaming, Gamefly, Amazon and even eBay are making it easier for people to get the games they want at a better price than the SRP from the publishers, if games were cheaper then people wouldn't shop around as much.

Distribution may not cost as much, but you now have to fund the servers etc that you download the games from. I'd imagine it's still mighty cheaper, however.

[eugenius]

The "problem" with PC gaming is that the game developers want us to buy the console version.

[bombinho]

The thing about the sales is that now often a game with 50% discount costs as much as I used to pay in the game shop for a brand new title. So why would I (and should I) pay twice the amount for something that often turns out to be almost a demo and only gets half decent playable after buying all available DLCs/ season pass etc.?

Don't get me wrong. I love DLCs if they add to the game. Like Borderlands 1/2 I do not regret any penny spent on the DLCs. But certain publishers now make it almost impossible to enjoy their games without paying to win (or not pay extra and feel like a virtual punchbag). In specific a 2 letter one comes up my mind. I used to rip the games out their hands. Nowadays I quite often find that their games not even work at all if bought early. Not to mention that they are often asking astronomical sums for those alpha versions.

I am afraid, I must be terrible "old style" asking for normal prices and working games. I am now that old, that I totally forgot when my wages had doubled.

[AlmightyJoygasm]

If its a game I'm really looking forward to, then ill pay full price on day one. However, for games I just want to try, ill wait for the steam sale. Bagged a ton of games last xmas - haven't played most of em yet, but I dont mind as it cost me next to nothing.

Best
AJ