The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
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big games get delayed, a lot
And yet so many of them still suck at launch.
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Fun facts incoming!
Cost of "Mario 64" on release = $59.99
Development budget for Mario 64 = ~$1.56milInflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91milCost of "Elden Ring" on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elder Ring = $100mil-200milMario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elder Ring units sold = ~28milThese details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven't changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we've seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in "real money value" over time.
It's completely unsustainable and the very reason the "business types" get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
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Why would you want to pay $70 for a pay to win game at all?
Or $100 , s some people are predicting
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Huh? For £70 I'm getting -
- Huge open world
- Very fun and emergent gameplay
- Likely a world with multiple competing systems and subsystems to play with
- Incredibly detailed world to get lost and immersed in
- Given the RDR2 writing, likely a really well written story
But you've decided to latch onto one aspect of the previous game (the Online mode) to try to be as contrarian as possible?
I sure as heck will pay £70 for the above. And so will many millions of others. Sorry if that does a poo on your hate-train.
Well, to be fair, you don’t know you’re getting it for that. As far as I’ve seen, they haven’t announced the release price yet. And a lot of studios are hoping that Rockstar will take the fall for being the first $100 game so publishers can start charging used console prices for AAA games from then on.
Either way though, I won’t be paying anything for it.
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They are all from players who are against things Rockstar did with GTA and what it represents for the industry. But they are not representative of the whole market.
The article is right about the impact for small studios. On the timeline for the game I'm working on, we have a prediction for GTA VI release with a big question mark and we hope to avoid it.
The problem is not that all players will spend $100 on the game. The problem is that the majority of the press coverage, Steam traffic, streamer time, etc. will focus on the topic. Even if there is bad press around GTA, that's still attention that is not on other games.
I really didn't know what to expect with this article. That being said, the industry holding their breath on GTA 6 is a bit much, to say the least.
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If your game can't even complete with a game nobody knows anything about and doesn't even have a set release date, maybe your game just fucking sucks?
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Fun facts incoming!
Cost of "Mario 64" on release = $59.99
Development budget for Mario 64 = ~$1.56milInflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91milCost of "Elden Ring" on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elder Ring = $100mil-200milMario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elder Ring units sold = ~28milThese details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven't changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we've seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in "real money value" over time.
It's completely unsustainable and the very reason the "business types" get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
Cartridge manufacturing and distribution was hella expensive back then and that took a big bite on any sales.
Digital storefronts do take as well their lion share though, but that's on sales.
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Fun facts incoming!
Cost of "Mario 64" on release = $59.99
Development budget for Mario 64 = ~$1.56milInflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91milCost of "Elden Ring" on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elder Ring = $100mil-200milMario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elder Ring units sold = ~28milThese details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven't changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we've seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in "real money value" over time.
It's completely unsustainable and the very reason the "business types" get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs.
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Take your console exclusive bullshit and shove it up your ass. I'll play it when it's on PC. And only on PC.
I'll go a step further and say only when it's been vetted and discounted on PC.
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Was the $100 price ever confirmed? I thought it was just rumored?
The only thing Rockstar has ever officially released about the game is the teaser trailer. Everything else is pure speculation and rumormilling.
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All they ever did was riff on popular movies, and they were already scraping the bottom of the bin on that with 5. What popular movies in recent times has 6 even got to be inspired by?
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It did. I've been a GTA player since the first one kn PS1.
I've bought every GTA game.
I have zero interest in GTA6.
Same here. GTAV, while I liked it, was a minor disappointment for me and I burned out on it. Plus after seeing how GTA Online went and how greedy they got with it, I'm just not interested in Take Two/Rockstar games anymore.
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If your game can't even complete with a game nobody knows anything about and doesn't even have a set release date, maybe your game just fucking sucks?
I do wanna point out that one of the Horizon games (I believe the second) got pretty screwed by releasing within a week of Elden Ring and didn't suck. Publishers big and small do need to be careful to not release within a time frame of absolutely massive releases such as Elden Ring and, inevitably, GTA6.
Even if the game doesn't let you play on release day, I'm willing to bet my kidney that it'll sell millions of copies and nothing big will be released within a month of it
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And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs.
If you like bigger games, and plenty do, them charging a higher price for it up front makes it more likely that they're made sustainably. If a game costs $100M to make, the difference between breaking even on $70 versus $60 is hundreds of thousands of additional customers.
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Was the $100 price ever confirmed? I thought it was just rumored?
Gaming industry pundits are gooning so hard for the prospect of $100.00 standard games they keep parroting this out
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And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs.
I simply chose two big, well known, and beloved titles for the same of expediency.
This problem is not unique to big budget games.
Indie devs are getting screwed too. You saying that you've found great games for $30-40 from indie devs isn't an argument against more sustainable pricing like you think it is.
If the dev budget for the indie game was 5% of the AAA game but the price was 50% then you've literally just helped prove my point
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Cartridge manufacturing and distribution was hella expensive back then and that took a big bite on any sales.
Digital storefronts do take as well their lion share though, but that's on sales.
While that may be true, the costs and budgets we're dealing with today are orders of magnitude higher than they were back then. Physical product manufacturing doesn't even come close to making up the difference when you factor in digital storefront costs.
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If your game can't even complete with a game nobody knows anything about and doesn't even have a set release date, maybe your game just fucking sucks?
Release timing is always a critical thing to think about, whether you're talking about games, movies, TV series, or toys.
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Huh? For £70 I'm getting -
- Huge open world
- Very fun and emergent gameplay
- Likely a world with multiple competing systems and subsystems to play with
- Incredibly detailed world to get lost and immersed in
- Given the RDR2 writing, likely a really well written story
But you've decided to latch onto one aspect of the previous game (the Online mode) to try to be as contrarian as possible?
I sure as heck will pay £70 for the above. And so will many millions of others. Sorry if that does a poo on your hate-train.
Huh? For £70 I’m getting
Based on what? You don't actually know until it gets released. Sure, past history and reputation are certainly things to factor in, but we've seen plenty of major gaming companies shit the bed, despite their reputations.
Wait until it launches and the reviews come in.
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Take your console exclusive bullshit and shove it up your ass. I'll play it when it's on PC. And only on PC.
And only on PC
That's going to be a long wait my friend.
