The Jimquisition

[Myk JL 1,731]

Once upon a time a video like this would've appeared in The Escapist Thread.

....

But the escapist had screwed themselves over years ago with their changing their video player & downsizing.

It never felt appropriate for me to just make a thread about The Jimquisition until now.

And even then it still feels a little awkward because.... Oh, Hey! There is the wallpaper I use!.... By the process of elimination.

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

Now if only Title II Net Neutrality wasn't destroyed.

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

I feel bad for how 9 News attacked P Platers, but at the same time feel like P Platers might as well be Google Street View.

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

Emotions, eMotions, electronic Motions....

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

As much as I liked Extra Credits, Extra Credits has a way of defending or promoting AAA Games in a way that I'm uncertain if they're playing Spin Doctor or are just too calm.

I think my main problem with this Extra Credits video is they talk about how inflation hurts the game industry but fail to note that inflation has hurt gamers who live on minimum wage.

 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Myk JL

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I don't agree with the inflation argument. Sure inflation has been happening but wages have not been increasing at the same rate, at least for me it sure hasn't. There's alot of products that haven't gone up in price in over a decade. Milk, bread and eggs still cost the same as in 2006. Yes it's not a fair comparison of eggs to video game development but some things we are used to being a specific price.

On the other hand the price of a movie ticket has almost doubled since 2006, but ppl will still go to the movies. Once a movie ticket starts hitting the $20 mark I bet ppl will go to a hell of a lot less movies especially since everyone has to watch 30 minutes of trailers and commercials before the movie even starts as it is. But movies have something to offer a video game doesn't when it comes to piracy. If someone buys a movie ticket they buy an experience that won't happen again after a certain point in time. Being able to watch that movie in a theater with amazing sound and a giant screen. But a video game doesn't offer an experience like that to counter piracy. If someone pirates a game they have the same experience as the person that bought the game on release. The fact that going to a movie is something you can't recreate at home is why ppl pay the price of a ticket with current inflation rates. But if video games kept raising their prices then piracy would most like rise right along with it negating any extra profits they might have gotten from those higher prices. Mobile gaming has proved that the real cash cow is to get as many ppl playing the game as possible and then sell the microtransactions. 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

1 hour ago, Sledgstone said:

I don't agree with the inflation argument. Sure inflation has been happening but wages have not been increasing at the same rate, at least for me it sure hasn't. There's alot of products that haven't gone up in price in over a decade. Milk, bread and eggs still cost the same as in 2006. Yes it's not a fair comparison of eggs to video game development but some things we are used to being a specific price.

On the other hand the price of a movie ticket has almost doubled since 2006, but ppl will still go to the movies. Once a movie ticket starts hitting the $20 mark I bet ppl will go to a hell of a lot less movies especially since everyone has to watch 30 minutes of trailers and commercials before the movie even starts as it is. But movies have something to offer a video game doesn't when it comes to piracy. If someone buys a movie ticket they buy an experience that won't happen again after a certain point in time. Being able to watch that movie in a theater with amazing sound and a giant screen. But a video game doesn't offer an experience like that to counter piracy. If someone pirates a game they have the same experience as the person that bought the game on release. The fact that going to a movie is something you can't recreate at home is why ppl pay the price of a ticket with current inflation rates. But if video games kept raising their prices then piracy would most like rise right along with it negating any extra profits they might have gotten from those higher prices. Mobile gaming has proved that the real cash cow is to get as many ppl playing the game as possible and then sell the microtransactions. 

Counter point: Movie going hit a 22 year low in 2017. It has less to do with the pricing and more with the product though. Reboots, remakes, sequels. 

Games can't go up because of the frequency they need to come out now. Annual titles like COD have bred short attention spans. It's not like a car or a mattress that had a 5-10 year turn around. Plus you gotta pay for the console, and a yearly subscription to play most of the games. There is too much money going everywhere else. If they raised the prices, DLC and lootboxes wouldnt go away at this point so they dug their own grave.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I feel like I'm going the be the only one playing devil's advocate but I agree with the EC video, games shouldn't cost $60 anymore (and I wouldn't say they're playing Spin Doctor or that they're to calm, they're taking a rational approach to a subject that get gamers way to fucking angry every time it comes up (and no I don't agree with the inflation argument, I just generally think games should cost more based on what the employees in this industry make and what they have to go through to get said game out (they really need to be paid more but that's another subject for another time))). While I don't look forward to that time when games cost more than this it's a sad fact. Honestly I'm still surprised that they're still $60, I've been expecting a price hike for years. It's inevitable, it will happen once DLC/loot boxes stop paying the bills (and with the recent Battlefront 2 debacle it'll happen sooner than later). While Jim brings up a lot of great points sadly he seems to have no grasp about how things work in the industry.

Sadly I'm not going any further with this argument. Honestly I now enough about the industry to agree with the video (I have a degree in this, I've had to take classes that explain the overhead costs a studio has and how much money they actually get compared to the publisher. I literally had to make a business plan for a final in my Game Management class with a budget, you'd be fucking surprised how much a AAA game actually takes to make (and how much having a person with a degree in Business Management would help most developers out)) and I'll leave it at that.

Please note I'm not defending the industry for what it does I just agree that games should cost more, it's inevitable with everything else we buy so why shouldn't it hold true here.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

They probably should cost more, but they can't. If not enough people are willing to pay $100 for a game, then you cant sell it at that price or you don't have a business. That is where the problem lies. That's why EA is getting out of the liner story gaming business and focusing only on games they can monetize post launch. People can be convinced to pay $100-250 for a game if they get DLC and some art books and statues. Its interesting how that works... but most of the time those types of games need to be established series or have insane hype.

I could see myself paying $75 for a base game so long as its not bullshit. That's me though. The higher you go in price, mistakes and bombs are going to hurt more, and cost consumer confidence faster. No one is willing to take that chance yet. The same goes for consoles. They're always going to be limited until people are willing to pay $500. We live in a world where people get triggered over every small thing they perceive as getting taken advantage of over. And that sentiment becomes infectious on Reddit. Sometimes its jusitifed, but when its not, the results are terrible. (I watched my favorite game's expac get ruined over shit like this).

 

The thing I don't want to see is "early access" become the norm. I think that's a bunch of bullshit.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I honestly think $75 is a good price, it's a $15 hike that honestly anyone in today's work climate can afford (and I say this barely making ends meat each month). However, it's a price hike not everyone will agree with (I mean look at the fallout that happened when games initially went to $60, it was mind blowing how many people lost their shit over it (I was initially one of them but in the end it wasn't that bad, it just meant I bought less games over the year and made more attempts to research the game before I purchased it)). I mean I'm that guy that's willing to drop $200 or more on a game (fuck I spent $230 on the Stormblood expansion for FFXIV and I even dropped the $100+ to get the Horizon: Zero Dawn Collector's edition, a brand new IP that I actually believed in and was honestly blown away but how great of a game it is (and I still need to beat it)) that I feel will do well but honestly I'm one of the few.

Sadly a game price hike needs to be regulated and done without the consent of publishers but it will never happen because publishers want more money (as seen with EA's Battlefront bullshit) and this is why I sadly agree with your point that they won't rise because we all know what EA will price a game at (I could honestly see a new Battlefield being priced at $100+ without the Premium membership if they had their way). It's sad though because members of the actual development community are paid like shit if you're not an established name or studio (fuck most studios are lucky to get 5% royalty deal on sales (and this was back in 2010 when I was still in school, I'm sure shit isn't any better now) after their initial milestone payments). With the current infrastructure I wouldn't be surprised if the gaming industry ends up like our current movie and music industries (barely hanging on due to greed and archaic practices).

Early access needs to go but it won't. It's the only way indie and non-AAA games are being funded these days outside of Kickstarter. It's a shit practice but considering how well PUBG did with EA and how good Fortnite is doing in EA I don't see it going anywhere and wouldn't be surprised if more little known developers go down this path in the future (and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if AAA titles started doing this as well). I know I harp about the old days but I really miss them. I hate being an old jaded gamer and consumer, it sucks that my favorite hobby/past time went from being passion projects to being nothing more then publishers fighting for more money and releasing shit. This is pretty much the reason why I stick solely to FFXIV these days, its a great game and I'm willing to pay $86 or so for 6 months of game time (please note that's with extra, optional account shit. It normally costs $78) plus extra for Mogstation shit (like mounts, outfits, minions (pets), etc). Purchasing games now-a-days is like going to a casino, you never know when you're going to hit the jackpot and end up losing more than you win.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

It's really hard for me to accept games getting price increases when most games are now sold for 50% off within 3-5 months of release outside of Nintendo games. Battlefront 2 came out for $60, and 2 months later it was on sale for $25. Same with mass effect andromeda. Steam sales and humble bundles drop games even cheaper. I don't know about anyone else but it's desenstized me to the value of the games and their development costs. If games truly cost so much to make and should cost the consumer more to compensate then those same games shouldn't be dropping in price so substantially in such a short amount of time. It isn't just games that flop either. Other major games drop in price quite fast too. If games jump up to $75 a piece or more, I'll just wait for their price to drop back down to half again within 3-6 months of their release like i do now. way back in the day I remember games hardly ever going on sale for 50% off unless it was a door buster sale on black Friday. If games are going to cost more then they should be able to retain their value longer than what they do now.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I'm just going to point out that Battlefront 2 was a bad example, it's price drop was brought on entirely by the bad press it was getting for it's mishandling of loot boxes and EA's shady business practices. Steam always drops prices but those price drops are only for certain events (like the Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring sales. Generally most games stick to full price unless Valve decides to drop it (its generally not a publisher call when a business runs a sale)). Humble Bundle is a special case, almost all money for those sales goes towards charity if chosen to. Most publishers make very little to no money off of it (I know I place most of the money to charity when I buy a bundle, with very little going to the publishers and Humble Bundle itself) and this is by choice to try and improve their reputation to gamers.

Waiting isn't a bad thing, it's what most of our generation does now when it comes to buying games. As I said above I've been doing it since the $60 hike back in 2005 and I buy a lot less games now. If you don't want to pay full price that's your choice as a consumer but honestly a raise in prices is not uncalled for. There are plenty of gamers out there that will pay $75+ for a game and they'll do it day 1, a price hike would not hurt the industry as much as everyone thinks it will (it'll be a blow that's for sure but it won't kill it). With the shift to multiplayer only games now you won't see many games that will retain their value longer then you deem it to. Single player games are becoming non-existent now unless you're in the market for indie games (which are always reasonably priced) because, like DX pointed out, companies can't currently make their money back on a game thats's one and done with no DLC or map packs to keep money rolling in. Sadly the value of a game is what you deem it to be and it always will.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I guess this continues the argument.

[Myk JL 1,731]

Part of me was willing to defend games being priced at $90 even if they still contained micro transactions. But it just got up to the point for me where The Luxury I could afford became The Luxury I couldn't afford. And I emphasis The Luxury because me on PS Home even when compared to me on ESO was still considered a whale when compared to my online friends. I just became this billboard to all of my online friends who couldn't afford to spend money like me. And when I couldn't afford to be the whale I wanted to be I went cold turkey.

My thread, Defining your Games Hype Radar (over the years), is basically about this.

For all I know my online friends make the following in 1 day.

Federal Minimum Wage an hour $7.25

Hours X 8

Not counting taxes $58.00

On some level I'm trying to convince my online friends to buy a game brand new at over 1 day's worth of work. I know if I can't do that it might harm the games that I like. And publishers might take that as a sign that a game that I like is no longer worth making.

That's what I'm really angry about.

The scarier thing beyond that might be the idea that this argument could apply to the death of the American arcade industry. If only there were consumers to keep that alive I'd have a real social life.

_

Anyway here is the new EC, Jim Sterling, was talking about in this week's Jimquisition.

....

....

I unfortunately still agree with Jim Sterling.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

And now for the actual Jimquisition....

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

I think live services could work. But they're always done in a way where its based on micro-transactions in one game. Instead it should be monthly fees that could cover everything the publisher could do in online multi-player. Then again I'm not smart enough to prove how stupid I sound.

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

I did intentionally skip the previous Jimquisition due to how painful the singing was....

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I think Drift0r did a pretty good history of it.

90% if not more of our government in both parties are still from an old ass generation that grew up without meaningful technology outside of a car and black and white TV. It will probably be another 20-30 years before video games stop getting blamed. By that time there might be some new technological medium our generation will blame nonsensically.

[Myk JL 1,731]

On ‎3‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 0:04 AM, DeathscytheX said:

90% if not more of our government in both parties are still from an old ass generation that grew up without meaningful technology outside of a car and black and white TV. It will probably be another 20-30 years before video games stop getting blamed. By that time there might be some new technological medium our generation will blame nonsensically.

My guesses usually make me realize I look at too much hentai....

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

I still found Beyond Good & Evil overrated. So I doubt a sequel could be worse than the first.

[Myk JL 1,731]

 

I doubt Loot Boxes will ever go away....

[Myk JL 1,731]

Oh, no.... I'm going to miss out on the ESO version of Battle Royale. /Sarcasm

 

[Myk JL 1,731]

I wouldn't mind if some major publishers declared bankruptcy.