Trend towards linearity (CYOA->RPG)

[Wooz]

what you call a quality game isn't what everyone else would call a quality game.

Quality isn' relative. You're talking about different game genres. MW2 is a great action game, and an absolute star in its genre.

I can imagine basing the pricetag around the length of a game though, but that concept is still very abstract since one person could spend hundreds of hours with a game before they consider themselves being done while another could be satisfied with 20-30 hours.

And you'd imagine people forking out more money to see a 3 hour long film instead of a 1,5h one?

Depends on the content, I guess. MW2 is short, but has a lot going on. There's literally masses of content, and the levels are masterfuly done.

The new Wolfenstein, however... still an FPS, some interesting ideas, but fell flat on its face.

 

[Wooz]

what you call a quality game isn't what everyone else would call a quality game.

Quality isn' relative. You're talking about different game genres. MW2 is a great action game, and an absolute star in its genre.

I can imagine basing the pricetag around the length of a game though, but that concept is still very abstract since one person could spend hundreds of hours with a game before they consider themselves being done while another could be satisfied with 20-30 hours.

And you'd imagine people forking out more money to see a 3 hour long film instead of a 1,5h one?

Depends on the content, I guess. MW2 is short, but has a lot going on. There's literally masses of content, and the levels are masterfuly done.

The new Wolfenstein, however... still an FPS, some interesting ideas, but fell flat on its face.

 

[aenemic]

depends on what you mean by quality. production quality or entertainment quality. while you're absolutely right about MW2 being a high quality game in the sense of well executed production, I still think the game was pretty crappy even though it was definitely worth playing through twice. so the total playtime I got out of it was pretty much 2-3 days. that does not equal quality entertainment in my book. so yes, it's relative.

and by your reasoning, price tags should pretty much be based on production costs, right? well I wouldn't want to pay the equivalent of a luxurious car for MW2, but judgning by the production quality of the game, that's what'd it'd be worth.

and no, I generally don't like movies so I don't really want to pay to watch them at all.

 

[Wooz]

that does not equal quality entertainment in my book. so yes, it's relative.

Uh. No. "The entertainment provided by this game is not comparable to the quality of its production" is what I gather you're trying to say. Fine. That doesn't mean the thing's production quality value is relative.

and by your reasoning, price tags should pretty much be based on production costs, right? well I wouldn't want to pay the equivalent of a luxurious car for MW2, but judgning by the production quality of the game, that's what'd it'd be worth.

It certainly falls into the 'luxurious car' price range for video games? Most games in Polandia cost about 35$. MW2 for PC costs about 50$. The PS3 prices are evidently higher.

But to answer your question.

and by your reasoning, price tags should pretty much be based on production costs, right?

They... are? Most of the time. What did you think they were based on?

 

[aenemic]

that does not equal quality entertainment in my book. so yes, it's relative.

Uh. No. "The entertainment provided by this game is not comparable to the quality of its production" is what I gather you're trying to say. Fine. That doesn't mean the thing's production quality value is relative.

it's still just a matter of how you use the word "quality", but alright. let's take that a step further then - who decides what's really good production quality then? here we can use Dragon Age as a perfect example - most people seem to think that game is beautiful and has great voice acting, which would mean good production quality, right? well, I happen to find the character models horrible, graphics very boring in general and most of the voice acting no more than mediocre. and let's compare that to Risen, a game that obviously had a smaller budget. the character models are pretty horrible there too, but I liked the graphics and voice acting of that game alot more. it was much more consistent and created a much better atmosphere in my opinion.

so the only way to narrow it down is to simply look at the production costs. which, according to you, game prices are already based upon. then why do all games cost pretty much the same?

I'm just saying that all this is way too abstract to really put into use, and thus having similar price tags on all games seems the most reasonable solution to me.

but feel free to explain more in-depth how you think quality should affect prices. maybe I just don't understand.

 

[stirfry247]

I think the profit motive plays a large part, but that doesn't explain why you can't have a small, dedicated number of fans. In the market for cars, there are Hondas for the masses, and Porsches for the elite. Why doesn't the video game market have a similar elite segment?

I think Spiderweb software does a great job for a small developer. They made series like Gene Forge and Avernum. The graphics are incredibly dated but the games are pretty open and non linear. They cater to a niche market but are still going strong after years of work.

 

[Sorrow]

Their graphics aren't incredibly dated - lots of older games and games using older technology (yeah, including some C=64 games) look much much better. They are simply hideous, especially the character avatars and the interface.

Personally, I have never bought and I will never buy any of their games unless they are going to drastically lower their prices to match the quality of the non-text part of their games or they'll hire a decent artist to make them look like a professional commercial product.
Seriously, these games look so bad that they make me want to puke. And it has nothing to do with technology.
I mean, look at this shit. It's fucking disgusting.
The avatars...
The fucking interface...
Oh god, no! It's raping my eyes!

 

[aenemic]

Their graphics aren't incredibly dated - lots of older games and games using older technology (yeah, including some C=64 games) look much much better. They are simply hideous, especially the character avatars and the interface.

Personally, I have never bought and I will never buy any of their games unless they are going to drastically lower their prices to match the quality of the non-text part of their games or they'll hire a decent artist to make them look like a professional commercial product.
Seriously, these games look so bad that they make me want to puke. And it has nothing to do with technology.
I mean, look at this shit. It's fucking disgusting.
The avatars...
The fucking interface...
Oh god, no! It's raping my eyes!

I kind of have to agree here.

I've been interested in trying some of their games, but truth be told I think they look too hideous to be bothered. and this is coming from someone who thinks Fallout and Baldur's Gate are some of the most beautiful games ever made.

the problem is, like said above, the lack of any real artistic input. they're reusing all their graphics anyways, so simply hiring someone to make their graphics just a little bit more pleasant to the eye shouldn't cost too much - they don't need to do it for every new game.

 

[Starseeker]

Wow, you guys are picky, or am I just that old school that graphics like that doesn't bother me.

 

[Sorrow]

I've played several hours of Geneforge, Avernum and Nethergate (Nethergate is probably the only Vogel's game that has semi-decent graphics). They were pretty playable, though not good enough to make me crave to play them like Fallout, PST and other good games did. I have found a lot of freeware games much more playable (and much less ugly).
I remember having a pretty good time with Exile II demo when I was a kid, though.

My main problem with them is their price. I can't see myself buying any of them for more than 5$ - graphics are completely unprofessional, same for the sound effects, etc.

Avernum/Geneforge series games cost 25-28$ each. Seriously does Jeff Vogel even notice how his games look?
They are charging for their old, hideous, games more than the price of great old classics like Fallout and half-decent great looking classics like BG/BG2 and ID/ID2.
And the worst looking parts of the game are the ones that are easiest to make - the interface and character portraits.

 

[Starseeker]

LOL, like I said, that doesn't bother me at all. I certainly wouldn't call that grotesque, but isn't that the point? It's all about personal taste. Seriously, I don't find that picture "disgusting". I guess I am old school in that way.

 

[Arr0nax]

If the quality RPG is produced for a niche market, which it likely is, but has the same or higher production costs than other games, it has every reason to be more expensive.

Not really. In fact if someone wished to take up the task, a "good RPG" from NMA's standard could be produced and reach a price tag clearly inferior to those currently applied in the industry.

Main reason, this niche market has other expectations than current blockbusters in terms of graphics, and doesn't need that much of a PR budget. So you can cut a LOT of costs in these areas.

Second reason, with Open-Source technologies, you can basically reunite all the components needed for a game, i.e. graphics engine (Ogre), physics engine (Bullet), GUI system, network library, for no cost at all.
Which means, all the hard work has already been done and is disponible for free.
Which means, you would only need a very reduced development team (2-3 developpers), and focus the core of your team on art (50% of the work), mechanics definition and story-telling.

As a kind of reminder, a team of 12 people developped Arcanum in 2 years. That's ridiculously small compared to big players in the industry like Bethesda. And they didn't use any of the "conveniences" listed above, they coded everything by themselve.

So no, in the car analogy, our RPG would more be the Lada.

 

[Sorrow]

Amen to that. As long as the art/mechanics/story-telling guys do a good work, I'm willing to accept a game on very limited tech level (C=64 Laser Squad-style graphics, for example).

A special edition with an old-school 80s-style box and a thick manual a clothmap and other goodies would be mandatory, though.
As much as I hate paying much for games alone (i.e. modern indie cRPGs/modern strategic games), I'd be willing to pay as much for the original Fallout/Baldur's Gate/PST for a decent collectors item.

 

[Wooz]

Which means, all the hard work has already been done and is disponible for free.

Very funny.

 

[Sorrow]

Yeah. It's probably still a lot harder than modding and modding is a lot of hard work.
Personally, I find the part where I have to focus on learning programming beyond cin and cout to be an insurmountable obstacle.

 

[Arr0nax]

Which means, all the hard work has already been done and is disponible for free.

Very funny.

It may be funny to you, yet the guys behind Torchlight, who are professionals, knew that's it's something to be taken seriously.
If you bother to ask yourself how they did to pull out such a quality production game, in ONE YEAR, with a team of 25 people at its maximum, the answers are there.
-Open-Source 3D engine
-No PR budget

Yet torchlight is already light-years ahead of what a hard-core RPG player could ask in terms of graphic workload. Cut back on the artist team, put the workforce on dialogue writing and story-telling, and here is your quality RPG.

 

[Sorrow]

They still had to work hard.

 

[Arr0nax]

It's true, I'm talking about professionals here, not a amateur modding enterprise.
They definitely had experience, since they are part of the team who did Diablo. But it's just a proof-of-concept about what we can expect in the future in terms of price regarding quality.
The precedent is set : 30$ for a game isn't an unreachable dream, it's already happening. And it's still bloody profitable.

 

[Sorrow]

Professionals still have to work hard. They just get better results from their work. I think that rarity of developers is the real problem now.

Also, Torchlight is for 20$, not 30$. IIRC, AoD will be 25$ which is less than newest Vogel's "masterpieces".

 

[Sander]

Not really. In fact if someone wished to take up the task, a "good RPG" from NMA's standard could be produced and reach a price tag clearly inferior to those currently applied in the industry.

Main reason, this niche market has other expectations than current blockbusters in terms of graphics, and doesn't need that much of a PR budget. So you can cut a LOT of costs in these areas.

Second reason, with Open-Source technologies, you can basically reunite all the components needed for a game, i.e. graphics engine (Ogre), physics engine (Bullet), GUI system, network library, for no cost at all.
Which means, all the hard work has already been done and is disponible for free.
Which means, you would only need a very reduced development team (2-3 developpers), and focus the core of your team on art (50% of the work), mechanics definition and story-telling.

As a kind of reminder, a team of 12 people developped Arcanum in 2 years. That's ridiculously small compared to big players in the industry like Bethesda. And they didn't use any of the "conveniences" listed above, they coded everything by themselve.

So no, in the car analogy, our RPG would more be the Lada.

So, which part of "but has the same or higher production costs than other games" did you not understand?