Make cheaper games. Nobody is forcing you to make games that have too much content and take 600 hours to complete and often overstay their welcome.
It’s like how movies aren’t 1.5 hours anymore. They’re always 3 hour bloated nonsense that overstay their welcome. Make it cheaper by telling a better shorter story with less. More isn’t better.
I find myself going back to simpler games that don’t require hundreds of hours of buy in. Im a functioning adult I don’t have time to experience endless collection quests. There needs to be a “dad mode” in games that gets rid of all the fluff.
I found so many adorable little short games that are nonetheless amazing fun. Tinykin, cat quest, troll hunters, stray… none of those are over 10 hours, even if you achievement hunt. Maybe stray, since you have to beat it more than once.
Like they don’t have to be super long to be super good. And sometimes you only have the energy to play my little pony (actually fun and super quick because it’s made for small kids, and sometimes you just want something that takes 2 hours to get 100% on because that’s the mood…)
I normally prefer super long exploration games, but those get old. Especially when they are all filler content like run here run there kill 5 things then go back to the same place 6 more times for dumb little quests you could have done all at once if they just gave them to you… I like 100%, but man they often make that so very tedious.
Yea, I’m prepared for downvoted but this is why mobile games are so popular. That, a few good sessions of black ops 2/3 zombies. And I’m good. My kids do the fortnite thing.
You aren’t wrong. I freakin love mobile games, very addictive. I don’t play them anymore… bad habits form for me…
Roguelike games can have a similar appeal tho; turn it on, do a dive or two for 20-40 min, then come back next time.
Oh yea! Rogues are a must on my devices.
That’s one of the reasons I lost almost all interest in games.
It already costs an arm and a leg to stay somewhat on top of the hardware requirements, I can’t justify to myself also investing hundreds of hours into essentially busy work.
I don’t enjoy fetching Fred’s uncle’s magic shovel of doom from a stupid generic dungeon 4h away.
Maybe I’m weird, but I use games more like interactive movies. I want a story, not some artificial and ultimately pointless “challenge”.
Um…how are you going to get the rare diamond of Jesus to take back to the wizard who will fix your boat with a hole in it to continue on your quest to find who can tell you who killed you brother???
Horizon zero dawns story was good. I’d say armored core 6 isn’t a bad pick up and put down game since missions are kinda short. But mobile games are usually the easiest to access.
Definitely. I go back to older games all the time for similar reasons. I also enjoy a linear story that just has a focus and ends eventually.
I’m happy my kids like Halo 1-3 and 1v1 games. But man…fortnite is living in their heads rent free lol
Sure go for it, I already don’t buy games at $70. I’ll continue to not buy them higher than that. 👍
One or the other.
BG3 is a huge game with no dlc or extra purchases.
I’m fine with games like that being more, but if they’d have went like most games these days and done 2-3 dlcs, then the base game should be cheaper.
Like, buying bg3 was basically buying the “game of year” edition because the game had so much content
I get where he is coming from, but for every game with super high production value, I have probably played a lower budget game that had me hooked just the same. I get that the games are expensive to make, but if Baldur’s gate 3 has me as hooked as rim world then why would I pay more for Baldur’s gate?
Make whatever game you want and charge whatever you want for it. Ima just wait until it shows up on sale for $30 or less tho. Cuz I’m cheap… and patient.
Note that he’s calling for the base price to increase, while also getting rid of predatory monetization tactics:
“I don’t love the artificiality of pricing structures post retail,” Douse wrote. “Use the inflated base price to upsell a subscription, and use vague content promises to inflate ultimate editions to make the base price look better. It all seems a bit dangerous & disconnected from the community.”
I’d be fine with this combination. The problem comes when publishers want to increase the base price while also keeping loot boxes and the rest.
I’d also be fine with smaller games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less.
Yeah, meanwhile I’m still waiting for the BG3 to go on sale, i really want to play it because it seems fun and I like single player games with a lot of replayability, but my priorities prevent me from spending suck money on a video game
The nice thing about BG3 is that it isn’t going anywhere. In fact it’s getting a little extra polish the longer you wait (not that it needs it, just as a bonus).
BG3 was an excellent game a year ago, it’s an excellent game today, and I feel confident in saying it will be an excellent game for years to come.
It’s not some live service play every day for a chance to win a hat game. It isn’t an MMO where a year from now every will have moved on to new content. It isn’t a game with season passes and unrelated DLCs that screw up the balance or over gear your starting character or awkwardly take you out of the main game.
It’s just a solidly excellent game.
Let’s not forget, the gaming market is a lot larger today than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. That’s a lot more $60 games bring sold today than back in the 90s.
And there was a big decrease in per unit costs of production switching from cartridges to optical media. Not quite as much in the switch from optical media to downloading, but some.
Did they pass those savings on to customers?
Inflation ate it all. $60 in 2005 would be almost $100 now. Hell even from 2015, $60 would be $80 scaled for inflation.
The savings happened before 2005.
Also, software is a volume business. They have far more customers now to cover those costs. This is why a lot of tech doesn’t follow general inflation trends.
Or, you, know, if the market doesn’t support high budget games, then don’t make high budget games.
If they think this is bad, just wait until the tools to make games are further democratized. It’s already difficult to stay up with the latest hotness in the Indie scene and people are burned out on live service shenanigans.
What do you mean by “further democratized”? You can already just download Godot and make a game for free right now. Or are you talking about AI supposedly making it easier for people to make games?
I’m all for paying $80-$100 a game IF, REALLY BIG IF, LIKE REALLY FUCKING BIG IF, they’re as good or better than Baldur’s Gate 3. I like his ideas about how this has to happen if we want to eliminate predatory microtransactions, crappy “ultimate” editions, and all that shit.
I fully suspect that we won’t see the full effect BG3 has had for a few years. Games take too long to make for that to not be the case.
