Protest the increment in price by Milestone interactive for video games

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True. Im not attributing this rise to mere dev/infra costs. Thats secondary. Obv the popularity of Fifa games is the primary reason.

But I dont understand why people expect prices to come down. They wont. Studios are getting more ambitious. Budgets are getting bigger. Games are only going to get expensive.

Call of Duty gets put out with that same content each year and lots of marketing. Sells well don't it at a godammned price.
 
quixand said:
First Steam doesn't care about your purchasing Power It's 60 Dollars around the world. For Everyone. Origin India brought Mass Effect3 and BF3 at "Indian" rates, so be thankful.
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While I agree about what you are trying to say for the online only model, Steam does not charge $60 all over the world. Check this out
/us « SteamPrices.com

The Australians are the most badly affected, they pay around $90 for a new game. Somewhat better but still very bad in Europe where most games are sold in equal Euros as Dollars without conversion. Russia usually pays the least. Yes we have "enjoyed" special pricing for new games, but the value of $60 is different for us than for John Smith in Iowa, isn't it? I think Origin is a step in the right direction, digital distribution with Indian prices.
 
Sure its different, but by how much?
What else would you be able to buy for 60 bucks?

It'd be interesting to know how much ppl shell out for an Imax ticket or atleast top cinemas. Or Cable, Internet and Cell phone plans. I know a few but nearly not enough.

And how much % of their salary does that comprise.

I'm going out on a limb here and going to say that a wider diaspora (purchasing power wise) of people play video games in US, EU, APAC and not everyone can afford multiple purchases of $60 games which is why used games businesses like Gamestop have flourished and they had the good sense of making it work.
 
The problem with pricing an online game like Battlefield so high is that if enough people don't buy it, it is not as much fun for people who do actually do. If they stick to this pricing scheme, most people would stick to vanilla BF3 even when BF4 comes out rather than what most people did with BF:BC2. Most people moved on to BF3 pretty fast. In that case, at least the base version of BF3 was available for Rs999/-, the old BF:BC2 price.
As for the primarily single player games- they will just start getting pirated more.
 
So to cut down piracy EA should reduce prices every time?

EA will come out with games dependent more and more on their servers, to combat piracy.

If somebody steals from your house you put security measures not buy less expensive stuff do you?

Look at the new Most Wanted, dependent on Autolog. FIFA is being dealt with in the same manner where FIFA 12 players will be carrying their stats etc into FIFA 13. What's stopping them from slowly phasing out offline play?

They will still make money because tons of thousands of people have better internet connections, now a basic amenity. And they have the willingness to buy games.
 
quixand you make gud points.

But you forgot the future of gaming will be free to play. With games like warface and BL:R coming (not to forget dota, lol) there are more avenues for people who want online play to go to and enjoy without high expenses. There is even fifa online and NFS world. All free. Why would people pay more for these games then. The companies will finally be the ones to suffer.
 
No I put that down already, F2p will be more popular, not pinch our pockets and be awesome at the same time. How it will sustain is not exactly the problem of the end customer at the moment. I guess its like internet, we will have more and more ISP like entities ala Steam, GoG, Onlive, PS+ but subscriptions, microtransactions will bring in a part of the moneys.

In fact I was checking out BL:R yesterday it looks awesome!! TF2 has certainly left a good precedent.
 
The most played game on Steam right now is a F2P title, Dota2. And it's a closed beta. That's not to say AAA single player titles will die out, it's just that I will wait for the Steam sale to pick them up.
 
I prefer buying games priced around 1000 rupees. Haven't bough ME3 or any other single player games recently, unless they go on steam sales @<750 (<500 preferred) rupees.

A good example of pricing a game is Metro 2033. Looks better than AAA titles and the gameplay, story telling is top notch too. IMO it gets recommended every now and then due to the price for such quality game.
 
@quixand
The purchasing power argument is not irrelevant. Rs. 1700/- is not a trivial amount in India, however you may look at it. Most people will definitely think twice before making an impulse purchase at this price-point. I am sure I wont be buying anything at this price unless it is some game/developer that I really care about (like Witcher, Portal etc.) Many others will simply postpone the purchase until the prices come down.

Now, the Steam argument is that because of Steam, prices come down much sooner after release. No point arguing that Steam sells games at $60, because anyone who has used Steam for more than 6 months should know better than to buy games at full price(Steam sales). This is true not just for steam. GMG, Amazon and GG are sometimes matching/beating steam sales.

This is completely ignoring the torrents and/or pirated discs you can buy off the streets for Rs 40 per DVD. Most people in India would just go back to that. India has never really been a big market for games. Whatever money they used to make here was probably just pocket-change compared to their established markets. That is why they used to never bother about marketing or releasing games on-time here in India. EA though, seems like it is really serious about India. They have seriously spent on marketing their games here and releasing them on-time. So, obviously, they are expecting some return on their investments now (which is fine, btw).

I agree with you regarding the GaaS thing. A lot of publishers would like to go towards that. But, they would need franchises with insane popularity (like Battlefield, CoD, Diablo etc.) to pull this off. If a game, brand new to the market from less known studio tries to pull this off, then would be seriously disappointed. Plus, running servers of this scale is NOT cheap. And they need to make sure the service uptime/quality is always there, otherwise they will piss off a LOT of their paying customers. Just look at Blizz and error 37. They have been sued/fined in Korea, have investigations against them in France and Germany. Plus, the publishers have to spend on CS reps, network teams etc. to support these services. GaaS has its advantages, but it comes with serious costs. The publishers will look at each title and see which would be worth investing so much on.
 
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Agreed with every bit.

1700 is not a tiny amount. It pinches my pocket too. You'll probably have to shelve aside another game purchase. Or maybe not watch 1-2 movies. Is that such a big deal? For your favourite game? (generalized)

And of course purchasing power is relevant. I meant Steam prices are typically at 60USD at launch time. Buying it 6 months down the line is just smart, non impulsive buying.

I wrote that because I don't know if Steam brings games at a reduced rate for different countries at launch time like EA origin does. Need to check that link.

F2P infra, revenues agreed. Priorities will be different for some time.
 
pretttt said:
@quixandThe purchasing power argument is not irrelevant. Rs. 1700/- is not a trivial amount in India, however you may look at it. Most people will definitely think twice before making an impulse purchase at this price-point. I am sure I wont be buying anything at this price unless it is some game/developer that I really care about (like Witcher, Portal etc.) Many others will simply postpone the purchase until the prices come down.
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Amen to that. CD PROJECKT RED is one developer I love due to these reasons.

A full-fledged Premium edition for ~1499/-; chew on that CoD lovers, has a nascent multi-player / arcade section, has released all extra content free of charge and collaborated with GoG and STEAM to make its games available at insanely discounted rates --> 24.99$ for the Witcher 2: EE on STEAM in the recent Summer Sale.

I have a small game collection and most of it is impulse buy, even serious purchases are like one title in ~2 -->3 months. Simply because I do not have the time to enjoy all the titles that are released. With such prices [~1500/- and above on EA titles] I will simply have to consider postponing the purchase of a shooter title.

quixand said:
1700 is not a tiny amount. It pinches my pocket too. You'll probably have to shelve aside another game purchase. Or maybe not watch 1-2 movies. Is that such a big deal? For your favourite game? (generalized)
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No impulse buying means lesser revenue for INDIE developers friend, do remember that.

I pirated BASTION but bought in this STEAM Summer Sale, it was unplanned but I thought the devs. deserve this, not a lot of us [Indian's] think in this way and locking into services like EA-centric ORIGIN is detrimental to this overall.

This is just my theory but I feel EA India in a bid to improve its ORIGIN numbers wants to choke its channel-partners, because the revenue from the latter has to be shared while it keeps the whole pie in the former's sale. Just a bad justification because a lot of us are very often deprived of decent internet connections and this forces us to wait with a physical copy that provides a half-baked experience.

I think they should have learnt something from the UPlay! fiasco.
 
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Again quoting sale prices is not going to help here. We are talking about launch date prices.

Steam does bring the prices down but quite some time after launch.

What's Max Payne 3 selling at these days on Steam. I'm guessing full Retail.

Edit: yep full retail.

Also witcher 2 sale numbers were not Upto the devs expectations.

If you remember they came out with a statement last year how piracy had affected their multi million dollar selling game.

Its after that they have repackaged Witcher 2 and sold it this year. Its a great game btw.
 
quixand said:
What's Max Payne 3 selling at these days on Steam. I'm guessing full Retail.
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Summer Sale undercut that as well as physical copies are going for ~699/- on flipkart.com, imagine if eXpress Interactive also decides to upset its own pricing taking a leaf out of Milestone's book.

Leaves us in a bad place doesn't it.

P.S. -- launch price was a palatable ~999/- [from flipkart] so I do not think that holds.
 
Those are wrt Steam digital prices. That example was to show how Steam takes time to bring down prices. Why bring Flipkart and physical discs here?
 
ALPHA17 said:
No impulse buying means lesser revenue for INDIE developers friend, do remember that.

I pirated BASTION but bought in this STEAM Summer Sale, it was unplanned but I thought the devs. deserve this, not a lot of us [Indian's] think in this way and locking into services like EA-centric ORIGIN is detrimental to this overall.
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No impulse buying, more money for better games.

Indie games don't cost a bomb anyways.

And that wasn't an impulse buy if you had already tried it out.

Incidentally I bought Bastion off steam too, still haven't played it, should have saved that money.

MW3 cost a lot. I don't know why I bought it. I love BF3.
MW3 turned out to be the default goto game.

It does not break, MP servers are always available, players are always available, never had any lag, it connects without any hassle, there's no waiting time.

Its bang for buck. I've reached level 40 and have put in more time than BF3.

its TDK v Avengers. One has substance the other pure arcadey fun.
 
quixand said:
Those are wrt Steam digital prices. That example was to show how Steam takes time to bring down prices. Why bring Flipkart and physical discs here?
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That just shows that if there are options, like decently priced physical discs people will buy them instead of buying from an online store.

quixand said:
No impulse buying, more money for better games.

MW3 cost a lot. I don't know why I bought it. I love BF3.

It does not break, MP servers are always available, players are always available, never had any lag, it connects without any hassle, there's no waiting time.
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Expensive games do not mean better games, Frozen Synapse and DEFCON are games that flew under the RADR but when I found about them I bought them [ironically on STEAM].

I use STEAM to play Shogun 2 and other TOTAL WAR titles, unfortunately they do not have India-centri servers, some matches are fun while the rest are either laggy OR I am playing against a juvenile delinquent whose vocabulary is restricted to "Kill-A-n00b... !&)!$&(@$)!*)!$*)!$)".

Also played The Dawn of War series using STEAM but that was Co-Op campaign mode with a known friend, so had a lot more fun [and it was cheaper on-street].

So a lot depends on the game, the services offered in conjunction and more importantly how the distribution agency views the market, in India BattleField 3 and Counter Strike are big whilst TOTAL WAR is not so known it shows that we enthusiasts suffer.
 
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