Re:The lessons of Bulletstorm and the problem with price-points
by Dylan16807 on Saturday May 31, 2014 @03:00PM
(#7826905)
Most games are still 1-2 players.
The ability to update a game later means that QA can be less thorough, this makes things cheaper.
Versatility in mediums? Having the choice between download and DVD is much cheaper than any cartridge. Or wait you're talking about platforms? There have always been multiplatform games. And being multiplatform means you expand your audience perhaps 50% while using the same art assets and a lot of the same code; that doesn't make a game's price higher at all. The amount of code you can share keeps rising, too.
So while games are prettier and more complicated, with art and animation getting crazily expensive, talking about convenience features like translations and downloads and patches is a red herring.
The ability to update a game later means that QA can be less thorough, this makes things cheaper.
Versatility in mediums? Having the choice between download and DVD is much cheaper than any cartridge. Or wait you're talking about platforms? There have always been multiplatform games. And being multiplatform means you expand your audience perhaps 50% while using the same art assets and a lot of the same code; that doesn't make a game's price higher at all. The amount of code you can share keeps rising, too.
So while games are prettier and more complicated, with art and animation getting crazily expensive, talking about convenience features like translations and downloads and patches is a red herring.