EA is Trying To Kill the Video Game Industry (read about their evil plan inside)

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From xboxaddict.com

Uh-oh, prepare to dig deep if an Xbox 2 or PS3 lurks high on your shopping list - EA’s vice president Jeff Brown has warned that developing games for the new consoles could cost up to 200 percent more than current titles, something that is bound to be reflected in the retail price for individual games.

Speaking to BBC News Online, he explained: "The transition [to new consoles] is a very painful process for every game developer." He then added in very poetic terms: "We look at the transition like a forest fire. It makes the healthy trees stronger, but burns away the weeds."

Shakespeare eat your heart out.

Although the subject of pricing is still some way from discussion - hell, we don’t even know when the consoles will be ready - Brown’s early words will hardly install optimism amongst gamers already loathe at forking out 40 quid for a game.

Another concern from the rising development costs is the inevitable adverse effect on the types of games made, with companies eschewing originality in favour of lower risk franchises and licenses. A quick glance at the All-Formats Top 20 already shows that movie spin-offs and franchise sequels command the vast majority of sales, with EA undisputed kings of the crop.

Brown confessed: "The franchise strategy is good for the company, investors and consumers as this is a hit-driven business."

However, he did explain that the high costs makes it imperative that developers make good games, so as to reduce the risk of failure. "It is good for the consumer," he said, "as video games cost a lot of money to make and have a high price at retail. If you buy three or four games a year, you don’t want to make a mistake."

Finally, the interview finished on the subject of Brit publisher/developer Eidos’ ’for sale’ status, a company that has been strongly linked with EA.

"I’m not going to tell you that we are not in the hunt for talent, but I would not make any assumptions," he said, leaving us none the wiser just to what the situation is between the two publishers currently.


All I have to say is what a crock!

200 percent? That means your next video game purchase will cost between $100-$120.

Are you willing to pay that much? Is anyone?

I highly doubt EA's alledged "development costs" have a damn thing to do about this forthcoming price hike.

Instead, it is the sheer greed of giant, monopolistic publishers like EA to wring every last dime out of video game buyers.

A perfect example is EA versus ESPN (SEGA) and theitr respective football games.

Let's see, $20 for ESPN and full retail for EA? I bought ESPN Football as a statement in the hopes it will convince other publishers to lower their game prices.

EA has become a fat, bloated pig of a company and it sickens me to see them already talking about jacking prices for games on systems not even to market yet.

Can you imagine this happening and a game being priced on sale for $50 being considered a bargain in the future???? Is this the future of the CC and TRU sales?

This really has the chance, if it happens, of leading to a video game crash on the scale of the one witnessed in the 1980's and could send the industry into a spiral for years to come.

Weigh in here with your thoughts and hopefully send a message to EA in the process that we won't tolerate this garbage.
 
video game sales are one of the highest grossing sales in the us in way of entertainment. this is just there excuse to make games for the next next gen console to cost 69.99 and up. and console will cost 500 brand new the day they drop. just a thought hold me to nothing I say.
 
Calm down he said the developing costs..I could see games go up to $80 for AAA quality titles. IT's true, games take a lot of time to develop now, you have to pay a lot of people for a lot of hard work. The more graphics capibilities improve the more people it takes to make them look good, coders and artists.
 
movie's cost a lot to develop as well and they do not cost near as much as games.

Also EA just bought Criterion. They need to shut the hell up. They already set the industry back by doing that
 
no way will you ever see games for as much as $100-120. Games have been at or around the same price since the early 90's. If anything, they've gone down, remember paying $69.99 for new N64 games? I do.
 
He never says that prices to consumers will go up, just that costs to developers will go up. He might just mean that they need to be more careful with picking their projects and sell more of each game.
 
Maybe some of you are too young to remember the good ol days when nearly every game was great! However, none of them were $49.99 usually. If my memory serves me right, Chrono Trigger MSRP $80, Street Fighter II Champion Edition (SNES) $75, Earthbound $69.99 (or was it 89.99?). Anyway, it was not that long ago either that many you probably had a N64? Remember the prices of games for that system? $69.99 was very common even on crap titles.

Does not really bother me if they raise prices. For my PS2 I have averaged a little over half a game per year (FFX, Disgaea, La Pucelle). Going to be exactly 1 per year coming this next week :)

I payed $50 or more for all those games and would do it again. Only system where I have alot of games for (not counting my SNES and N64) is Gamecube. Although only about 10 of them are open and the rest are still sealed.

But if all those new systems and games are online pay-to-play proprietary servers count me out. I won't be buying any of them. I like the Gameube/Nintendo Methodolgy of LAN support and setting up my own servers. This way I can play in 10 years.

Neo Geo Games anyone :) $180+ per game back in the day, although there was a different reason for that. I remember begging my mom for the Neo Geo Gold System @ somewhere around MSRP of $700. Almost got her to get one too. But she chickened out. Good ol mom. She knows best.


Chris
 
[quote name='zewone']I say this is guy is full of it. I'm sure the games aren't going to cost $100+. EA always has there head up there ass.[/quote]

Their, first of all.

And, i don't think they can up the MSRP on new game very much from what they are now, a lot of people won't even spend 30 on a new game let alond 60-70 maybe even 100 dollars? I could see back in the day when the games were on expensive cartridges, but for a damn DVD? I am sure EA would be the ones to say that though.
 
Movies don't cost a lot on DVD because they already made one run in the movie theaters. It is very, very different from the VG industry.

Imagine only being able to play Halo 2 in arcades for the first 8 months it was out. Then it comes to Xbox, with extras. I know Halo is not suited to arcades, but you see my point.

Although movies are a bit different. They cost a lot because a) they have massive special effects b) big stars or c) both. The compartively cheap dramas and comedies average out the cost for a big production studio like say, New Line Cinema. For every Lord of the Rings, there are 30 "Sleepless in Seattle" type flicks.

It all works out, plus the established pricing scheme set by VHS. But I'm sure you all have noticed special editions that cost significantly more than the normal $15 DVD. There are a lot more of them now.
 
Plus, if any of you have ever worked in an interactive project, you would know just how labor intensive it is. these artists and programmers work massive hours so jerks on the gamefaqs boards (not here, mind you) can dismiss a year of work with "It suxors!"

Add on the cost of 3d development- the software cost, upgrades, motion capture, voice acting, and asset management. On a massive project you need people to organize, so that staff is added. Money starts to add up really quick. I just paid $850 to upgrade my 3d software. not easy to swallow.

3d has got to be one of the toughest, complex media to work in. Now make it interactive and bug free? Whoo, I don't mind paying $50 for Halo 2, or even Riddick.

but then again, that's why we have this site, isn't it?

:whistle2:b
 
Dude, the guy is saying the cost of DEVELOPMENT is going to go up 200%. That doesn't mean that exact cost is going to be passed on to the consumer. Games easily cost over 1000% more to develop than they did in the days of the 2600, but do the games cost %1000 more? In fact it's probobly more like 100x the cost for developing a big title.

The guy is just saying what he sees as a general trend, it's not SUPER EA CONSPIRACY TO MAKE GAME DEVELOPMENT COST MORE. If anything, it's the fault of the console makers and consumers. How many of you bought Final Fantasy X? Now how many of you bought a small budget PC game? Blame yourself or god, not EA alone.
 
How did EA set the industry back by buying Criterion? By still selling Renderware to other companies? Or by dumping massive amounts of money into Burnout 3 and making what will no doubt be an insanely good game?
 
Yeah right like this will happen. NeoGeo showed that people will not pay a ton of money for games, and Saturn and 3DO showed that the giant launch price point won't work either.
 
Games for the new systems will probably be $59.99 when the system is first released, and then they'll drop to $49.99 once there's enough of a user base. They know they'll never sell enough copies of games if they're priced any higher than that.
 
As far as I can see, he's talking about development costs, not the retail price. Stop screaming.

And even if EA decided to charge more, nobody's forcing you to pay more. Buy from another publisher unless you think EA's games are worth the extra.

What an inane subject! I'm sure at the last EA board meeting the CEO explained that since the company's making hundreds of millions a year (or whatever) from the video game industry, they need to kill that industry.

Next week on CAG: wal-mart giving away all their stores as prizes in a new promotion.
 
[quote name='eldad9']As far as I can see, he's talking about development costs, not the retail price. Stop screaming.

[/quote]

I see nothing to suggest otherwise.

At all.
 
[quote name='CaseyRyback']movie's cost a lot to develop as well and they do not cost near as much as games.

Also EA just bought Criterion. They need to shut the hell up. They already set the industry back by doing that[/quote]
A lot more people see movies than play a video game. And a movie lasts at most 4 hours. A game is very very very short if it only lasts four hours. And movies also have a lot of different ways to reach consumers, whereas video games have only one, maybe two.
 
I only buy EA games when they go Greatest Hits... hehe, they aren't even getting $19.99 from me b/c then I buy them used LOL. This guy can charge extra if he wants, I just won't buy them. Actually, I kinda hope that he runs EA to the ground.
 
as long as people buy them at the price....then they can price it that high... .but every console had game mad expensive when the system first came out.. and it always lowers.... nintendo games at a point were 59.99
 
[quote name='rajchakrabarti']as long as people buy them at the price....then they can price it that high... .but every console had game mad expensive when the system first came out.. and it always lowers.... nintendo games at a point were 59.99[/quote]

Carts are expensive to manufacture. Discs are cheap.
Development costs rise as the hardware and games become more complex, but it may be offset by the ever-increasing market for games.
 
The only game I remember costing that much was FF3(6) on SNES for $69.99. Chrono Trigger didn't cost that much like you have it.
 
EA released Madden 2005 with 2 editions. The regular edition is 49.99. The "special" edition had some old Madden games from 16-bit & 32-bit systems and some other extra content. The "special" edition is 59.99 and is selling equal to or, in some instances, greater than the regular edition. This seems to lend some credence to this argument as this looks like EA is testing the waters. Don't be surprised if the cost is eventually passed on to us. Any thoughts?
 
Phantasy Star IV is $99.99 when it first came out. I believe Virtua Racing for Genesis was the same price.

Let's not even go to the Neo Geo market.
 
I find it funny on how fast now a days game prices clip really fast. EA is upset that they spent way too much money on the Catwoman game and watch it fall in price over a month from 49.99 to 19.99. If they do start pumping up their prices to the 59.99 range then you will see a lot more companies like D3 publishing budget titles that will sell, and the market will then turn to crap as a slew of horrible games come and sell buket loads. This in turn would kill all the giant companies that spent the 200% more on games, as they can't sell games and we have another 80's mess of gaming generation. Flooding the market with crappy games = death of an industry. Then we will have to wait a till 2010 when Nintendo will save it again...but that is just nightmare I had...
 
Nice bunch of stupid excuses you have. OH NOES! They want to make money to keep their business going, they must be selfish conservatives!

I so love that mindless liberal comeback...

Even though EVERYONE IN THE BUSINESS (I specially remember Microsoft saying games will cost $200 million to make) IS SAYING GAME DEVELOPMENT COSTS WILL GO UP. EVEN WHEN GAME COMPANIES ARE DYING LEFT AND RIGHT.

No matter when companies do, it's always wrong because the mindless liberals gotta whine and scream, huh?

If you really gotta find the problem, try looking to the people who pirate. If no one pirated, there would be alot more money...
 
[quote name='Tromack'][quote name='CaseyRyback']movie's cost a lot to develop as well and they do not cost near as much as games.

Also EA just bought Criterion. They need to shut the hell up. They already set the industry back by doing that[/quote]
A lot more people see movies than play a video game. And a movie lasts at most 4 hours. A game is very very very short if it only lasts four hours. And movies also have a lot of different ways to reach consumers, whereas video games have only one, maybe two.[/quote]

The average direct to home video project has a budget substantially great than the typical high-end game project and has an equally limited distribution channel. The game industry has a long running self-fulfilling prophecy which bases pricing on expected sales potential but at the same time constrains that potential by imposing the higher price. If you consider the installed base of the PS2 and do the math the $50 games is not justified.
 
First of all, ignore every price you ever paid in the era of mask ROM cartridges. The cost of those ROMs was orders of magnitude greater than the optical discs used today. Consider this page which give the size of many PS2 games.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/casey.miller/HD Loader Compatibility.htm

None of them comes close to filling a single DVD and very few go beyond the needs of a single layer. Media cost is a tiny fraction of what it once was in this industry while at the same time the installed base of the leading system has been greater with each generation.

Likewise, this article isn't being honest about the tremendous improvements in the tool sets. Types of animation that was very difficult when the PS1 first appeared are now trivial. Audience expectations have risen as well but the fact remains that a small studio targeting the bargain priced sector can deliver a level of quality once associated with the AAA titles.
 
[quote name='Monkey Spitty Pie']Nice bunch of stupid excuses you have. OH NOES! They want to make money to keep their business going, they must be selfish conservatives!

I so love that mindless liberal comeback...

Even though EVERYONE IN THE BUSINESS (I specially remember Microsoft saying games will cost $200 million to make) IS SAYING GAME DEVELOPMENT COSTS WILL GO UP. EVEN WHEN GAME COMPANIES ARE DYING LEFT AND RIGHT.

No matter when companies do, it's always wrong because the mindless liberals gotta whine and scream, huh?

If you really gotta find the problem, try looking to the people who pirate. If no one pirated, there would be alot more money...[/quote]

Is piracy a problem? Absolutely. Is it the only reason a POTENTIAL price increase is being discussed? Of course not. Their is a fine balance between a needed increase for merchandise price to remain profitable and attempting to charge a ridiculous premium. It seems that EA is wanting to see how far they can push it. By the way, making it known that you're not willing to be screwed over can hardly be considered "mindless liberal comeback". Also, Monkey Spitty Pie, if that is indeed your real name, you should probably check your syntax-"No matter when companies do...".
 
:roll: One company baited downloaders, and found that for every 1 game sold, 2 million people try to download it.

That of course, is from the PC world, and doesn't take into account people who buy the game later, but why buy if you already have it?
 
And I'm calling your excuses 'mindless' because you can't seem to understand the basic concept of meeting your ends...

They are saying these things because prices of games will rise up to possibly as much as $200 million, (when, games now, cost 7 million, and 92% of games made lose money?) and now you fools are saying there's some sort of conspiracy going on?!

When a begger tries to make money, do we say he's trying to kill someone?! It's about as stupid as what you're doing. You hated companies from the start, and your mindless shows from your attitude, and your actions.
 
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