CliffyB On GDC

[hal]

On the March 17th entry of his website, CliffyB, man-of-many-hats at Epic Games and self-ascribed attention whore, relives the brighter moments of the recent Game Developers Conference:


Getting punched in the face by a well known writer friend. Yes, I punched him first. In the arm. So his left hook instantly came up and clocked me. Split my lip and made my jaw sore. We're still friends. Mostly.
Getting slapped by another journalist friend. I think it was a friendly "we're in fourth grade you're a boy I'm a girl" sort of thing. I'm not quite sure.

In more recent commentary, CliffyB espouses the magical 19.99 pricepoint for new game software. Which we wholeheartedly endorse.

NO!

Videogames need to be CHEAPER! They need to get down to the $19.99 price point you fucking morons! Damn. I do decently here at my job and fifty bucks is still too much of a barrier for me to spend as an impulse buy on a game. But... twenty! Sign me up! Perhaps if we focused on figuring out ways of growing our audience and making our games more accessible we'd sell more units and finally arrive at the magical new price point instead of shooting ourselves in the damned foot by RAISING PRICES?

FOOLS!

Sign me up!

 

[TossMonkey]

I <B Cliffy.

 

[Bazzi]

Sign me up.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Me too!

 

[Mas]

Cliff B-Legend

 

[Selerox]

Smart words

Where do I sign?

 

[T2A`]

OMG I drive a Viper! I can't afford a $50 game!!1

I see his point, and it is good.

 

[RegularX]

So why wasn't UT2004 cheaper

 

[Selerox]

Bring back GT, all is forgiven...

So why wasn't UT2004 cheaper

I think the term used in the industry is "dumbass publisher".

 

[Sir_Brizz]

plus $50->$40 = A start.

 

[Zur]

So why wasn't UT2004 cheaper

Because Atari need money. There, I said it.

 

[Mas]

I got UT 2004 DVD Edition from www.play.com when it came out for £19.99 The normal price for UK games, is £35.00

 

[sweeny]

I got UT 2004 DVD Edition from www.play.com when it came out for £19.99 The normal price for UK games, is £35.00

as did I, I then got £7.50 back for UT2003 meaning i got it for £12.50 i think you will agree that is not bad for a new game.

 

[RegularX]

Honestly, I don't get the hubbub over the price of games.

Budget games do exist. There is a $20 price point.

Games haven't followed the norm of economic pressure for years now. Everyone is bitching that today's $50 game may cost $60 a year from now, but seem to forget that their future $60 will probably only be worth the same as $50 now.

And of course, we all want 40 hour single player games with eye dropping graphics and hours of replayable multiplayer for the same cost the the The Three Stooges game cost on the Amiga a decade ago.

 

[spineblaZe]

Pffft, I don't mind paying $50 for a quality game one bit. If it's good, it'll have a high replay value. Besides, game prices have stayed pretty steady for almost 20 years. I still remember paying $50 for NES games.

UT2K4 was a fantastic value at $40. It's a year later and I still play it daily.

 

[Sn4tcH]

The only way you could prevent this is direct distribution via the Internet. But did you like the way Valve did it? I don't think so! Too much control and power for a gaming company.(

Actually, I did like the way Valve did it... I got HL2 off of Steam, and it seemed like that was the only version that worked for awhile. Not only that but valve patches the game themselves, makes it easier on me having to find the stupid updates... but I have a lot of games to keep updated too. Stuff like D2D from fileplanet and Steam, that's the way to go by me...

As for Cliffy B... He's the man... plain and simple.

 

[JaFO]

Honestly, I don't get the hubbub over the price of games.

Budget games do exist. There is a $20 price point.

Sure they 'exist', but far too many are pure crap (*cough* Davilex *cough*) or simply outdated ...
I think 2 things need to happen :
- players should stop worrying about getting the 'latest' stuff and be prepared to lower their standards a bit.

- publishers should put a lot more efford in promoting these 'cheap' games (one rarely sees reviews of these 'budget'-games)

CliffyB has a definite point IMHO. Despite the money I earn(ed) I always had to think carefully about buying a €50+ game, but the games in the €20-range are bought almost on impulse.

I'm sure Unreal 2 would have scored better if they'd sold it as a 'budget'-game from the start. Then again some reviewers would still have complained that it 'sucked' anyway.

Games haven't followed the norm of economic pressure for years now. Everyone is bitching that today's $50 game may cost $60 a year from now, but seem to forget that their future $60 will probably only be worth the same as $50 now.

Definitely true. In fact I sort of remember paying ƒ 150 (+/- € 60) for Civ 1 ...
Add the enhanced grahpics/sounds of today's games and I'm tempted to say that games have become cheaper.

 

[RegularX]

Sure they 'exist', but far too many are pure crap (*cough* Davilex *cough*) or simply outdated ...
I think 2 things need to happen :
- players should stop worrying about getting the 'latest' stuff and be prepared to lower their standards a bit.

I dunno, two of my favorite purchases this year were Katamari and Alien Hominid. Both budget prices.

There are so many indie titles out there which are pretty darn good for $20 or less, but they don't have the marketing titles. I think the consumer needs to move some muscles and actually LOOK for games at the price point they're comfy with. I think people would be surprised at how much is out there.

And if someone is annoyed with the big publishers, there's no better way to show it than to throw dollars at the smaller houses.

Not to mention the wealth of games that hit the bargain bin. This is something I used to feel guilty about because I don't know if it helps the developers one squat (I'm guessing not at that point) - but these days I don't have enough time to catch up on all the games when they come out, so it's just lucky timing that I'm not paying full price.

I had a lengthy blog post about this, but it got wiped from a blackout ... basically there's a lot of chatter but I don't think it's as simple as "games should be cheaper" or "big publishers are being greedy". And to be really honest, I'm wary of Epic's views on this. I mean they are trying to sell a very expensive middleware platform to a lot of developers - they must hate the perception that games are getting more expensive to build. I think they've been making some valid points, but they also seem to be trying to whitewash it.

Look, do I want to pay $60 for a game I can beat in 6 hours? Of course not, though it sure seems like that's where the trend is going. So if you're trying to sell me a game that I can beat in an afternoon - I'd do something like Steam or games.yahoo. Screw the box and manual - let me download it for a weekend and then delete off my hard drive on Monday. I'm guess I can get it for a much more reasonable price that way.

Something like Hominid that I can play off and on for like, ever? Or Katamari that I don't care how fast I beat it because the darn game relaxes me? $20 is cheap for that.

If you've got something truly massive to show me - something one the scale of Zelda: OOT or on the scale of old school RPGs or it comes with a full IDE that I can make my own levels with ... then $50-$60 certainly makes sense (or possibly even more). anything in between those two, I'd expect in the $30-$50 range.

Mostly, instead of worrying about prices - I wish developers would worry about replayability. I miss games that stuck with you for months and months on end.