6 ms·

Aren't Oculus games typically $20-50? The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version a

• nuclearcookie 5y ago
  What would you consider a fair price for a game? Are you talking about games in general or just games on Oculus?
  • rychco 5y ago
    I’m definitely a minority in this regard, but I completely support increasing the price of games across the board. Development is more expensive & involves more people now. The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years? One additional problem is that everybody wants to cash in on subscriptions and micro transactions for continuous money, even when you’ve already paid “full” price.
    • CivBase 5y ago
      > The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years? Not really. $60 is an introductory price, but most games at that price launch with at least one $80+ special edition and are supplemented with $40+ of post-launch content with much higher margins than the original game. And that's before considering some of the more contentious monetization practices like micro-transactions and "loot boxes". In many cases devs and publishers slash the initial price of a game shortly after launch (usually a year or two) to increase player counts, because more players generally means more sales of post-launch content. And that's something else nobody ever seems to bring up when discussing the stagnant price of video games - the ever-increasing sales volumes. The cost of producing additional copies of a game is negligible, especially with the rise of digital distribution, so each copy sold after breaking even is pure profit. Since there is basically no production cost, developers (in theory, at least) dump part of their profit into the development of their next title. This allows them to stay competitive and results in skyrocketing budgets. The high budgets are a sign of a successful industry, not a struggling one. Despite the increasing budgets and seemingly stagnant launch prices, video game developers are more profitable than ever. It's because they are selling more copies than ever and have figured out plenty of ways to bring in extra revenue after the initial sale. If you ask me, things should go the opposite direction. A huge selection of cheap, high-quality indie titles have affected the relative value of "AAA" titles, to the point where I rarely consider spending full price on a game launched at $60. Either way, the industry has recently been dipping its toes in the water with a new $70 shelf price. We'll see if it sticks.
    • freeflight 5y ago
      > I’m definitely a minority in this regard, but I completely support increasing the price of games across the board. Development is more expensive & involves more people now. But that’s only one half of the story. The other is how tools, assets, hardware, knowledge and training have become much more affordable, streamlined and widespread. What used to be a somewhat niche industry with barely any formal entry ways, is now a massively formalized industry dwarfing even Hollywood. Just the publishing side alone saw a massive falling of gates with the emergence of the indie scene. IMHO there are very real economies of scale effects to this.
    • NovaS1X 5y ago
      I don't know if I agree with this. Not that you're wrong but I don't think it's the full picture. 15 years ago games were still largely physical. That $60 included the physical games, cases, manuals, distribution, warehousing, etc. These days everything being digital companies don't have to pay that anymore. Sure there's a commission you have to pay on Steam/EGS but I highly doubt it's close to what having a physical distribution method cost. So the way the $60 pie is split up today is totally different, and I imagine a much, much larger portion of that goes to the developers.
  • ethbr0 5y ago
    The problem with selling games is that they depreciate -- because Facebook doesn't control competition. The benefit of ads is that ad space appreciates -- because Facebook controls supply, and revenue follows inflation and demand. So as GP alluded to, this can be summarized as Facebook saying "We'd like to have bigger future profit margins on VR."
• vlunkr 5y ago
  Or, in a worst case scenario, they will be free, with ads, and the ecosystem will turn into a trash fire like the mobile game market did.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • Humdeee 5y ago
    The micro transaction and "pay to not wait" model is just an overall terrible experience. Mobile gaming has solidified itself as watching a series of software timers count down.
    • vlunkr 5y ago
      Yeah, it's sad. I would like to play mobile games, but every time I check it out it's the same thing. There's an initial cool gameplay idea that's fun for ~1 hour that is then stretched into eternity, which makes it ultimately unsatisfying.
  • sixothree 5y ago
    Seems inevitable.
• jnwatson 5y ago
  How is $20 high? I'm continually amazed how much fun a $20 game can provide. For the price of a movie ticket and a coke, you can get a dozen hours of entertainment. That seems like a pretty good deal to me. And the $60 are AAA games where you'd easily get 30-40 hours worth. These have budgets of ~$70 million; they have to make their money back somehow. One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that it is a closed system; you can only buy from a single provider. You're much more likely to find sales on VR games on Steam. Video games on Steam are the best ROI for entertainment period, right up there with a good pair of hiking boots.
  • Duralias 5y ago
    A 20$ VR game is usually (if it is linear) about 3-6 hours long. "Superhot VR" (25$) 2-3 hours, if you are a completionist, about 6 hours. "Star wars: Tales from the galaxy's edge" (25$) 2-3 hours, if you are a completionist, about 4 hours. I think the longest single player VR game that exists now is "The Walking dead: saints & sinners" (40$) which is around 11-14 hours long, but it is barely linear, it is more like a fallout/far cry game but with far less interesting locations. Completionist have played it for 30 hours in total.
    • recursive 5y ago
      I'm at least 10 hours in on beat saber, and I feel like I'm just getting started.
      • oehpr 5y ago
        You are just getting started. I've only now felt like I've hit the wall, and I'm at about 300 hours.
        • NovaS1X 5y ago
          What rank? I've felt a huge difference in competition at 2500+. 10k to 5k wasn't bad, but the moment 2500-3000 and consistent 300pp plays just to maintain it hit I felt the burn.
• phkahler 5y ago
  >> The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version and a "discount with ads" version. How do you go into a shared VR environment and have ads appear for one user and not another? I'm on-board with "just make everyone pay for apps" but it's very hard to decide what's going to be worth $30. My favorite VR game is free, but I went ahead and paid for the optional content (non functional) because I want to support the developers.
• deleted 5y ago
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• whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  There isn't any point chasing customers like yourself. If it was even $10-$20 you'd probably be saying it should be $5, if it was $5 you'd say it should be 0.99c We've seen this all before with the iOS App Store and the end game is just everything free with intrusive ads.
  • cgriswald 5y ago
    That's not a customer problem. That's a platform problem. On a platform where ads are allowed developers stop being developers and start being eyeball farmers and their products suffer for it. The point in chasing customers like me is that I won't watch ads, but I will spend money, even $20+ for an iOS game. Streaming services have figured this out and offer ad-free versions. Some iOS developers will allow you to pay for a game to remove ads. (The problem on iOS is there is no easy way to determine which games are like this, or to filter based on things like this in search.)