Games are too expensive and the industry would benefit from lower price points, reckons Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim director Todd Howard.
"I've thought for a long time that games are too expensive," he said, adding that "I don't put us in that category of course - for what we give you, for sixty bucks or however many 'quid' it is.
"That's a lot of money for entertainment, so I think the good news is that in certain markets - PC, iPhone, mobile - we can see prices coming down.
"But I do think industry-wide we would benefit from more games out at $19 or $29. I would try more games. Because I'm not going to try a game for $60. It's a tough decision.
"That's why people read reviews and previews, because it's not only a money decision, it's a time-investment decision. It's not like going to a movie."
Howard's comments echo those of Namco Bandai Partners VP Olivier Comte, who said in an interview he thinks the £40 price point is fair for developers but for the consumer it is simply too much.
"From September to December there are three new blockbusters every week, and consumers just can't afford to buy all that," he said. "I feel all the big video game companies need to join together in a worldwide summit to discuss the future of our industry. I think we have to pull our thoughts together."
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Comments
36 comments so far...
almanac2015 on 4 Aug '11 said:
I'd love cheaper games of course and it does seem unfair that a game like Skyrim that will last hundreds of hours will be as expensive as a game that lasts only 10 but that's the way the industry works. The reality is if games were made for a lower selling point the experience wouldn't be as good.
tmulford on 4 Aug '11 said:
Never going to offically happen while they can get away with a £40 street price. However, unofficially it is already happening with a lot of games. If you walk into a shop now you can get some very recent games for under £20, DiRT 3, Red Faction Armageddon, Dungeon Siege 3 and Duke Nukem Forever, as retailers are slashing prices to get stock off of the shelves. It's only the really big names, or games where supply is restricted to maintain a higher price point, that maintain a £40 shelf price for any length of time.
JakeyBaby on 4 Aug '11 said:
The man has a plan, two games for the price of one please!
c3dpo on 4 Aug '11 said:
Personally, I would prefer the devs and publishing houses develop games worth the current price!
Never had an issue paying 30-40 quid for a game, as I'm not the idiot who rushes out buys every release without researching it to see if it's worth it.
I blame the kids and fools who buy all the sub standard crap, with 4 hours crap game play.
And please dont put COD, BF etc into this as they offer those that enjoy them a very rich gaming experience that can span thousands of hours!
$14 or $19 bucks would have the industry no doubt in turmoil as nobody could re-coup the increasing development costs. I for one still wouldn't buy the crap even at $19!
Willypiggy on 4 Aug '11 said:
It all depends on where you buy really, I bought Duke balls of stell for 45 and now its about 25-30£, I also preordered AC:R, BF3, Skyrim and DE:HR for an average of about £22 compared to game which will charge £30-35. Hell, I spent £50 on getting Catherine imported and don't regret that but if I had spent 50 quid duke normal edition I would of been really mad. At the end of the day it's not just how good the title is that sets the price, its well it sells. Look at CoD, that's still like 35-40 quid for black ops despite the next game being out in a few months, brink went from £35 to about £13 on amazon within a month.
CrispyLog on 4 Aug '11 said:
He makes a good point. Plenty of people either go second-hand or wait until games drop in price before getting them, with only the big hitters getting bought straight away. But equally there's only so much free time and a lot of gamers want more games than they actually have time to play so a decrease in price will not encourage them to buy more.
Moribundman on 4 Aug '11 said:
I don't think £40 is an unreasonable price for a AAA retail title, especially with XBLA, PSN and most especially Steam sellind Indie/old titles at exactly the price point wee Todd is chasing...
zzBlckzz on 4 Aug '11 said:
This point is oh so valid in Australia, couple years ago the cheapest BRAND NEW price for MW2 was like 80 bucks (maybe cheaper in other shops but in my area that was cheapest) ! even now in some shops u see it for like 89-120 AU. This is complete bull**** imo, since not only is our dollar value higher than US now, but they still get games for like $60 US max and they actually complain ! Sure ebay and online is the way to go but come on seriously if im out shopping and i see a game i like i dont want to be like "oh no its 80 bucks ill just go home and order it" cause some times i want my game on the spot from retail ! meh online purchases till then but still like what he is saying....
corkscru74 on 4 Aug '11 said:
It's difficult to tell though. If you dropped the price from £40 to £20 and sold twice as many copies you'd be making the same amount (give or take the physical costs). I for one would buy more games on launch if the price was dropped. Instead I just buy 2 or 3 a year at full whack and then wait for the one's I'm not as bothered about to come down in price or buy pre-owned.
jim2wheels on 4 Aug '11 said:
I agree with and subscribe to CripsyLog and Corkscrew's posts. By xmas I'm only buying BF3, Batman and Uncharted 3 on day 1, the rest will have to form an orderly queue according to price reductions.
TheLastDodo on 4 Aug '11 said:
New IP's should be released at £24.99 or less.
If people have the choice of paying £40 for ex. Uncharted 3 or Shadows of the Damned, the majority will go for Uncharted 3 because Uncharted has a proven track record so to speak, while SotD (a damn fine game in its own right, BUY IT
) is a much riskier proposition for potential customers.
However if SotD was released at £24.99 then a lot more people would have given it a chance at launch instead of waiting six months for a hefty price cut (this is the most common reason I've read for people not buying SotD.)
In otherwords: Make new IP's earn their £40 price tag.
spam23 on 4 Aug '11 said:
I agree, just look at the apple app store, an app that was £5 made craploads more money when it went to £0.99.
zzBlckzz on 4 Aug '11 said:
This applies so badly in aus, games in retail stores near me sell for like average 80 bucks for a new game, some shops even as high as 120 bucks and people complain about 60 american dollars..... yea i know go online but still would like retail to go down to AT least the american/euro prices.
Albarn321 on 4 Aug '11 said:
"Willypiggy"]It all depends on where you buy really, I bought Duke balls of stell for 45 and now its about 25-30£, I also preordered AC:R, BF3, Skyrim and DE:HR for an average of about £22
Please share where you can pre-order those types of titles for around £22! Thanks.
kie_t on 4 Aug '11 said:
Generally speaking games are too expensive, and dropping the price to around £25 might not get as much profit, but I think it would sway a lot of people away from buying pre-owned or waiting ages for the price to drop, and increase the overall sales.
jon2mil on 4 Aug '11 said:
So basically Todd Howard is a God among game designers... <3
Yellow6 on 4 Aug '11 said:
I'm still waiting for the right price, then I intend to grab SotD.
Yellow6 on 4 Aug '11 said:
I'm still waiting for the right price, then I intend to grab SotD.
jim2wheels on 4 Aug '11 said:
It's down to £25 now. Well worth it, although I've yet to finish it.
BenThomasFoster on 4 Aug '11 said:
As brilliant as portal 2 was.. IT WAS NOT WORTH $60/£40. This is where likes of mass effect(multiple playthrough each 40 hours each, bethesda games (multiple playthroughs each infinite ammount of time) and COD (few day's worth of online play) come in and make their own.
Mastermue on 4 Aug '11 said:
There is another side here too. If games were sold at the lower price point it could ('could' being the operative word) encourage those who buy pirated games to get the legit product instead. It could ultimately improve the profits on pc games since those sales are hurt the most thanks to piracy and might get rid of the need for invasive DRM.
G00N3R on 4 Aug '11 said:
Finances aren't an issue for me, and I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of money. Time is my unit of scarce resource, so if I don't buy a game, its because I think its not worth my time. For example, I would not play the latest Duke if someone PAID ME, because that would eat into time I'd prefer to dedicate to much better games. I'd prefer if developers released better quality games, rather than cheaper games that are still crap.
Also ... "From September to December there are three new blockbusters every week" ... I must be missing something, September there is nothing (assuming I get Deus Ex on day 1, its possible I wait a week), October there is Batman, November there is Skyrim and Assassins Creed, December there is nothing. Even accounting for games that I have no interest in, but other people will consider blockbusters, like Battlefield and COD ... I doubt there's even 3 a month.
Tom tom tom on 4 Aug '11 said:
Is he trying to say a game with a campaign like mass effect or uncharted or halo should cost less? Quality is always much more important than quantity. Okay I get people might enjoy doing petty tasks in skyrim for an extra 200 hours but seriously for people who play through the storyline and nothing else will be disappointed. The story is always lacklustre and short and the sidequests seem pointless when linked with the story. I also really doubt it will have 300 hours worth of content, maybe 150. New Vegas was supposedly 150 hours and I did everything in 55 hours.
TheLastDodo on 4 Aug '11 said:
3 per week is stretching it but yeah you're missing quite a lot.
September: Resistance 3, Gears of War 3, Dead Island, FIFA 12, ICO/SOTC Collection, Child of Eden (PS3), Driver San Francisco, Warhammer 4000: Space Marine, God of War Collection v2, F1 2011, Madden 2012.
October: Rage, Dark Souls, Twisted Metal, Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Forza 4, PES 2012, Ratchet & Clank All 4 One, Dead Rising 2: Off The Record.
November: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, Assassins Creed Revalations, Uncharted 3, Halo CE, Saints Row 3, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, NFS: The Run, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Sonic Generations.
I haven't included any Wii, Kinect, PC or 3DS related games either (simply because I wouldn't know what counts as a big title.)
jim2wheels on 4 Aug '11 said:
Good work.
I've been selling off a few games in preparation for the onslaught. Deus Ex this month, Dead Island, Driver and Ico next month. Just need to get SotD and V8 finished in the next 3 weeks.
AJDarkstar on 4 Aug '11 said:
Cheaper games means more sales and less second hand purchases immeditely following release. If games were cheaper I might buy more, but then when would I write?
TheLastDodo on 4 Aug '11 said:
@jim2wheels:
Me too. I'm trying to finish LA Noire and SotD so I can trade em for Deus Ex but Limbo and Sly Trilogy keeps distracting me. Theres way too much these next few months. Thank god I got around £45 on gift card for Arkham City and Battlefield 3.
I also forgot about PSN/XBLA games too. From Dust, Amy, The Baconing, Trine 2, Journey, thats just off top of my head.
jim2wheels on 4 Aug '11 said:
Dust, Journey and Limbo are all on my list too (unsure about Amy, there's something about it
. Looks like we're gonna be playing way past 2am for the next few months!
*orders industrial sized coffee cannister*
ChongShin on 4 Aug '11 said:
"I don't put us in that category of course" - of course you don't, you flaming hypocrite.
Does he actually think that other developers do NOT think that their hard work and long nights isn't worth $60, but they charge it anyway? Of course they (generally, anyway) feel that it's worth the price tag. Howard The Duck can put up or shut up.
Wow. What arrogance. This guy has just lost a sale from me. Seriously.
liveswired on 4 Aug '11 said:
A 100 hour plus game like Skyrim is definitely worth its weight. That cannot be denied.
AegisK on 5 Aug '11 said:
If people are dumb enough to pay full price for Call of Duty then buy 4 map DLC for £10 a pop then the industry is going to charge stupid amounts of cash for cheap games. Hell, Acti spend more on advertising than they give their developers to make games.
budge on 5 Aug '11 said:
I'm still waiting for a price drop on White Knight Chronicles 2.
cam123 on 5 Aug '11 said:
Water's too expensive but rain isn't
ydmos on 6 Aug '11 said:
I'm not sure what to make of the Bethesda dude's comments, because I don't think $60 titles have anything to do with $19 - $29 titles. It kind of seems like he is saying that the market for premium, $60 titles is saturated and that developers should focus on making cheaper, smaller budget, smaller scale games instead - but coming from a guy working on a major upcoming premium title that seems like whining: "I wish I had less competition".
The way I understand the reality today is that, just like with other forms of entertainment, the funding/development/marketing/distribution machine is getting more refined and complex in order to reach more people and serve as a stable venue for ever increasing investment amounts, which will naturally increase the cost of making games as companies look for the best expansion balance of more games vs. bigger productions. So that machine finds the optimal risk level and refuses to move for anything else - today the easiest way to predict profits is to make a state-of-the-art graphics game with well understood gameplay mechanics and sell it at $60, it's a safe strategy that continues to support growth so why should it change?
Sure, there is the possibility that a different strategy (higher number of smaller budget games, at smaller price points) may fuel faster growth, but that isn't the concern of major publishers and developers today because the results are unpredictable, shifting gears is a risky proposition, and they're profitable now so why even think about it? It might even be irresponsible of them - akin to gambling with their investors' money.
That's why platforms like Steam are, at least in concept, so important; They allow new entrants and indie studios to reach a broad audience with drastically reduced investments in marketing and distribution. They reward experimentation and fuel innovation, while addressing the market's need for more $9, $19, and $29 games. Because I can tell you this much - over the past three or four months the best games I've played, hands down, have been $9 - $19 titles on Steam. And larger publishers/developers can focus on plucking new - and proven - concepts and scaling them up to major titles with a much more acceptable risk level.
Seems like a reasonable ecosystem to me. But then again what do I know, I don't even work in the industry. I just like games.
Yellow6 on 7 Aug '11 said:
sepewrath on 7 Aug '11 said:
Well not all games are created equally and the same way every TV doesn't cost the same, every bed, table or chair doesn't cost the same; not every game should. Some games should come out at 30 or 40 bucks, based on cost and consumer value. I can understand the reason for pricing standards, it keeps games like Call of Duty and Skyrim from costing 200 bucks. But publishers know some games could come in less and they would do better for themselves if they did.