"Gamers aren't overcharged, they're undercharged"; New study claims games are too cheap.

[IKnight]

According to one New York analytical company, games are too cheap for the hours of entertainment that they provide. KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Evan Wingren wrote in a note to clients on Sunday,

Quote

"Gamers aren't overcharged, they're undercharged (and we're gamers). … This saga has been a perfect storm for overreaction as it involves EA, Star Wars, reddit , and certain purist gaming journalists/outlets who dislike MTX," Wingren wrote."

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So how was this 'found out'?

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The analyst estimated cost per hour for a typical "Star Wars Battlefront II" player. He said if a gamer spent $60 for the game, an additional $20 per month for loot micro-transaction boxes and played around 2.5 hours a day for one year, it comes out to roughly 40 cents per hour of entertainment. This compares to an estimated 60 cents to 65 cents per hour for pay television, 80 cents per hour for a movie rental and more than $3 per hour for a movie watched in a theater, according to the firm's analysis.

"If you take a step back and look at the data, an hour of video game content is still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment," he wrote. "Quantitative analysis shows that video game publishers are actually charging gamers at a relatively inexpensive rate, and should probably raise prices."

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The analyst instead reiterated his overweight ratings for Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard and Take-Two with price targets of $134, $78 and $144 respectively.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/20/gamers-overreacting-on-ea-star-wars-game-firms-should-raise-prices.html

[WereCat]

Cost/hour ? Please...

[Herman Mcpootis]

in related news: prices of games have suddenly doubled and game companies everywhere are adding more microtransactions into games

[IKnight]

Just now, WereCat said:

Cost/hour on a game? Please...

Yeah exactly. And this study claims that people play games for 2 hours per day. I somehow doubt this, considering most people have responsibilities; jobs, school, kids.... 

[AlTech]

Just now, IKnight said:

Yeah exactly. And this study claims that people play games for 2 hours per day. I somehow doubt this, considering most people have responsibilities; jobs, school, kids.... 

It's also assuming people play the same game every day for 2 hours.

 

I can promise you I never play the same game every day let alone for 2 hours.

[plsno]

So if games are too cheap then raise the box price. Borderline p2w stuff is terrible in a game you're paying for. 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Overworked and underpaid devs, I can see that.

 

But say for other games like cuphead or dark souls. Do you really spend that $1/hour with enjoyment or agony? 

[Volbet]

While an argument could be made that video games aren't too expensive, this is not the argument for it. 

 

Essentially, the writer is comparing mediums that aren't comparable in the manner he does it. 

Movies (be they rental, bought or theater movies) are completed products. You pay and you get the full experience. 

With lootboxes and microtransactions you're cut off from various parts of the medium. It's comparable to paying $8 for a movie ticket and they being told that you have to pay an additional $5 in order to not have some scenes removed. 

 

I do understand that there are different ways of implementing microtransactions and that it can be done well. This criticism is aimed at the models that either are pay-to-win or are bordering on being so. 

[Princess Luna]

Please don't even spread this bullshit of a study around, not to mention it only even considers the $ life of New York residents, as if the rest of the world was that well paid.

[BlueCrazii]

23 minutes ago, herman mcpootis said:

in related news: prices of games have suddenly doubled and game companies everywhere are adding more microtransactions into games

Sounds like a EA Dick move

[samcool55]

There are multiple F2P games where i spend more than 100 hours on. So basically cost per hour = 0

This kind of math can't be applied to reality, at all but hey i'm just a random person on the internet...

 

 

[Prysin]

36 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Cost/hour ? Please...

and what kinda pleb plays just 2.5 hours a day? fucking casuals

[FloRolf]

According to this one Steam survey website, I currently paid around 10€/h of game play. I guess that's okay-ish? 

[cluelessgenius]

 i love this. its not that maybe tv subscription or movie tickets are way too expensive and need to go down no games are too cheap. its if the gas compnany saw that my electricity price went up and now they are like "but everyone else gets more money. we are way to cheap" no youre not. the value of a service should not be measured by its competition but by the quality of that service. im not that big of a gamer anymore but i swear to god if they get more expensive still and this trend of micro transactions keeps on ill go straight back to the good old days of ripping and cracking

[leadeater]

47 minutes ago, IKnight said:

According to one New York analytical company, games are too cheap for the hours of entertainment that they provide.*

*Study funded by game publishers.

 

Yep would never have guessed that was going to be the conclusion.

[IKnight]

39 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Please don't even spread this bullshit of a study around, not to mention it only even considers the $ life of New York residents, as if the rest of the world was that well paid.

Steam game prices are adjusted to region though, so it's still kinda relevant. 

 

15 minutes ago, cluelessgenius said:

 i love this. its not that maybe tv subscription or movie tickets are way too expensive and need to go down no games are too cheap. its if the gas compnany saw that my electricity price went up and now they are like "but everyone else gets more money. we are way to cheap" no youre not. the value of a service should not be measured by its competition but by the quality of that service. im not that big of a gamer anymore but i swear to god if they get more expensive still and this trend of micro transactions keeps on ill go straight back to the good old days of ripping and cracking

Yeah, I agree with this fully. Profit margins for entertainment services are massive. I personally think that even games are still too expensive. 

[Wanaknow]

in this comparison we could argue books are way under-priced as well. 

[TOMPPIX]

then raise the price of the games. i have nothing against that.

[Ryujin2003]

45 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Please don't even spread this bullshit of a study around, not to mention it only even considers the $ life of New York residents, as if the rest of the world was that well paid.

I would use the word study in a very loose context.... Like, non educational, no actual scientific measurement, click bait type of study.

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

*Study funded by game publishers.

 

Yep would never have guessed that was going to be the conclusion.

Not even surprised...

 

 

//Continuing but not related to quotes//

 

I'm not necessarily buying games for the hours of pure entertainment, I but for the story and experience. Some games I play a lot, like Diablo, Civilization, Warframe, Rainbow Six, The Division, Ghost Recon, Mass Effect... Some games are once and done, like Part Hard, Alien, (and a bunch of others I've long forgotten)...

 

If I paid more than 60 a game, if stop buying them from the publishers. Everything would be HumbleBundle or another similar site.

 

And they do charge more than 60 bucks. For my Ubisoft games, I've always purchased the Gold version that has the season pass, so that's already 80... Plus a couple skins because hey, why not...

But buying a game doesn't mean hours of play on the same game .. I purchased Mass Effect Andromeda. . Still haven't gotten through the first plant. I think 80 bucks more more than fair for something I cannot get internet like the others. 120, never would've bought it to begin with.

 

I think good indie games are the future.

[suicidalfranco]

games should cost 120$, have MT, have DLCs, come with season passes who give stuff that is not part of the DLC, the MT should focus on p2w content, and the game should be released yearly and servers shut down 2 years after the release of the game.

Now that's a business model that should work.

[Space Reptile]

Did EA commission this study? 

[sinkesnnj]

Americans are such a masters of marketing and spinning things back and forth. I like how this sounds like they are threatening consumers to settle down and stop this massive outrage or they will increase prices.

Comparing it with other ways of entertainment is dumb. Gaming popularity comes exactly from having lower prices. I'd like to see how many gamers would commit to a 200$ SWBF2. 

 

lower price => more popular

higher price => less popular

[cluelessgenius]

6 minutes ago, IKnight said:

 

Yeah, I agree with this fully. Profit margins for entertainment services are massive. I personally think that even games are still too expensive. 

i mean games used to be like 20 bucks in the early days and then went up to 50 now its 80 if you dont want to feel like youre playing a cut down version. i get the argument that developing games has become more complex than in the good old age of empires but that a problem with the development of development tools imo. if its too hard to make these games then find a way to make it easier to make these games and dont jack up the price. 

then there is this whole dlc thing thats been going on lately (well a couple of years at this point). in the early days those were called expansion packs and sold maybe 1-2 years after game and usually changed the whole game. e.g. c&c generals had the zero hour and it wasnt just 3 more tanks it meant completely new fractions and a total overhaul of the game. where now you download a dlc for lets say borderlands and theyre like heres 4 more mission in this spare level we had lying around. im sick and tired of having to go for the "game of the year"- edition because that contains like 13 dlcs wich are basically worth one at most. 

free games also freak me out. games like world of tanks where yes its free but we are pretty much only letting you play for free so you can be cannon fodder who the way superior paying customers with their golden spinning rims having ass tanks.

 

sorry this turned into a rant. all i at least want is have a pay barrier first like a selling price and then no extra cost after that. and if youre worried about running servers then lets go back to the good old days where gamers yould host their own servers so the developer doesnt have to keep the lights on

[MyName13]

I completely approve this, increase the prices

[Taf the Ghost]

There is an interesting discussion to be had about games stalling out at $60USD, for the most part, as their point-of-sale price. I'm pretty sure we were setting $60USD as the price point for AAA games around 2005? Obviously, we had the Plastic Instruments boom in the 2000s, which went for a whole lot more.  Next-gen graphics takes a lot of people to create compared to the previous days, but that cost has increased while the sticker price has been stationary.

 

This explains all of the bundles + on-disc DLC and the like. But that most definitely isn't the argument here. Sticker Price Shock is clearly an issue that the game industry has run into and are trying to find ways to deal with it. I can appreciate that problem.

 

However, don't pull BS stuff like this. Games have always been incredibly cheap on a Cost/Hour basis. The entire Final Fantasy series is based around killing 40 hours of your life with each iteration. And Kojima wants you to spend that much time watching cut scenes!