How to fix the Gaming industry*

*Title continuation* How to fix the Gaming industry AND add value to games at the SAME TIME!

When you have a publicly traded company like EA for example who wants people to buy shares from them, the problem is that they need to hit a price quota for every quarter otherwise shareholders would sell off their stocks and/or not buy their stocks and that would diminish the company's value, this in turn would drive down the quality of games because smaller budgets = less quality games. And the problem we seem to be facing at this time in the gaming industry is that the original devs of most companies "Looking at you Capcom" are not making enough profit to sustain themselves with the amount of used games that are purchased at Gamestop, none of that Profit received is used to support the original devs and thats where DLC comes into play. The original goal of DLC was to add value to the game you have purchased but also to finally rack in some cash from the people who bought the game used.

Im not justifying DLC but you have to look at the root of the problem in order to fix it. Personally I think that original disk holders should get any and all DLC for free, this would cheapen the overall price of used games because people know that if they don't buy the new copy then they will most likely have to buy the DLC, this heightens the value of the original game purchased thus more copies of the original game will sell, this means bigger profits for the original devs.

I think that this idea would probably screw over the customer for the first year or 2 but as time rolls along, we will see more profit go towards the actual devs, we will see a huge decrease for the price of used games, and over all value of the original disk holder's game play experience will be increased. "And heck, they don't have to get rid of paid DLC for good, just keep adding more value DLC for original disk holders, and the used game owners will still most likely purchase it anyway".

OH and I FIRMLY believe that digital purchases SHOULD at least be $5-$10 cheaper, the price of convenience should be charged to the company in this case, NOT the customers.

I know Mass Effect 3 used this idea somewhat and that is what made me buy the game "new" on launch day.

I totally agree on the digital purchases being cheaper. Companies are so hell bent on the "digital revolution" but a lot of us aren't willing to embrace going full digital with the fact we pay $60 for something where if we don't like it, we're stuck with it and can't trade it back. I made a blog way back using New Super Luigi U as an example. You could download the game digitally for $20 but if you wanted a physical copy, you paid $10 more and had to wait a month. Some are opposed to the waiting for a physical copy. Personally, it's whatever game makers want to do. I totally agree on digital needs to be cheaper. Customers want incentive as to why a digital download is better. Draconian DRM restrictions are not the answer.

Also the pricing structure needs to be rethought. A lot of us don't want to pay $60 for something that only lasts five hours with no replay value. I give Sony credit for taking games like Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Puppeteer and the new Ratchet game and making them less. Sly and Puppeteer were only $40 and Ratchet's new game was only $30(?). None of these had online multiplayer and while not super long games, had a decent amount of playtime depending upon how much of a completionist you are. There really needs to be a pricing structure instead of all games being $60 no matter if they're a 10 hour distraction or 70 hour epic, it needs to be rethought.

Which brings me to the biggest thing publishers and developers need to do. WORK WITHIN A BUDGET!! We all know what happened with the recent Tomb Raider game. Despite selling 3 million units, it was considered a financial loss thanks to a ballooning budget where they needed to sell 6 million to break even. Games, despite companies best efforts do not appeal to a mass market like movies and the game industry needs to stop trying to operate like the film industry. We have a new gen of consoles with fancier graphics engines and the thing is, these games will be more expensive to make meaning companies are less willing to take risks. We don't need Hollywood celebs doing voices when there are good voice actors who work for less.

Also we seem to overlook the biggest issue when it comes to used games, the fact that a lot of games these days have little replay value. How many of us have played a game, finished it and said "well that was fun, but I don't want to play it again." Maybe companies instead of making all this DLC or tacked on multiplayer should focus on replayability. A personal example I like to use is I played Sonic Unleashed which most will tell you had these great high speed daytime stages everyone enjoyed, however it also had a lot of padding with the werehog, wandering around hub worlds, handing out hotdogs and collecting medals to progress. Sega claimed they did this because they wanted a 20 hour Sonic game and Sonic's day stages would've made the game too short. But then I played Sonic Colors and Generations, which have main stories that are much shorter, however I found myself wanting to replay those games more, finding alternate paths in stages, going for best times on leaderboards and so on. Sure a long game with a lot of content is good but if a game has high replay value, then it's more likely to stay out of the used bin.

The funniest thing about EA is, they hate used games and complain all the time about it hurting them yet, next time you're at Gamestop, look in the cheapo used bin. You know what's mostly in those bins? Well, besides Wii shovelware that is? EA sports games from past years. So many folks buy Madden or FIFA then the next year's roster update comes out and they trade it back only to get like $3 in trade in. My husband who loves the NHL games made a great point that instead of EA releasing a $60 roster update each year, release a new sports game like every 3 years or so and in between release like a $10 DLC pack with the roster update and any minor upgrades. Then there would be less old EA sports games in used bins and they'd make money off fans downloading the DLC. Of course EA would never do this despite the fact it would pay off for them in the long run.

i don't really think that giving away DLC is the solution to making big games (which are low margin already) more financially viable. the accounting for most publishers just doesn't add up. the purpose of DLC is to get higher profit margins and then to keep people hanging on to their copies instead of selling them off. publishers already experiment with how much they can give away and they've more or less settled on a few selective bonuses like preorder goodies or one brief (day one...) mission to early adopters. it really just comes down to budgets instead.

anyway, this whole topic revolves around the gaming industry being broken and i'm not sure that it is. i mean, there are big games with the benefits of that model (better technology) and there are smaller games with more creative freedom. people seem to be embracing the industry too. the PS4's week 1 sales match the first few months of PS3 sales, the XB1 launch is predicted to surpass the launch of the 360, and valve is looking to expand steam.

now, could it improve? yeah, i think the big budget gaming model could improve. however, it's not happening by lowering margins even more. i do think DLC is part of the solution though. i think far cry 3's blood dragon is one of the ways to go. it's made essentially like DLC in that the developer uses many of the same systems and builds with the same scope (if on a smaller scale). this makes it lower in cost and more profitable to the publisher. it's also significantly cheaper in price than far cry 3 while not exactly being just more far cry 3. this makes it valuable to the gamer.

The publishers will never EVER go along with giving away DLC, they will just do what they do now with GOTY editions for games. I also think they should lower the price on digital games,it's insane to pay full price even though they get way more profit because there is no middle man online and more money goes to them.

The annual shooters and sports games purchases are what's ruining the industry. Stop supporting that business and you'll have an instant fix.

I also don't subscribe to the notion that only big budget games are of value. Smaller budget niche games can be just as worthwhile, if not more so than blockbusters on occasion.

@TrooperManaic:

The ol' full-package with perks vs. spend more separately business model. I like it. Actually i remember, old games had artbook style inner manuals, hidden in-game goodies, and all sorts of little free incentives to promote the game on every level. This should be the REAL advertisement of a title. The commercials and wall promotions should be limited. Because someone is eventually going to pick up a nice looking and playing 3D title in this climate.

A well made game, with incentives isn't traded in as fast as an overall bland few hrs experience. The latter should only be on mobile devices where touchscreen controls are enough of a curve to master.

And yeah the greed and naivety about games, just like we've seen in Hollywood and see in modern tech is disappointingly stuck on this 'Too Big to Fail' way of thinking. How do thse guys not see that term as a complete myth? Whatever happened to "The bigger they are, The harder they fall?" Games are the LAST place anyone should be applying that level of greed. Rather they should be 'Too intricate to **** up'

Maybe it's just the shareholders who don't play video games, but think most of us consumers as confused or spoiled herds of sheep can be milked eventually if you just keep selling the snake-oil.

Thats were video games differ the most from everything else. They demand far more time, dedication and input, they're not half a year of shooting film or a few months in the recording studio with a few weeks of music video. Thats probably part of the reason why cutscenes are splashed far too much over them sometimes. Probably decisions from middle management rather than the design team. its to hide the fact, that unrealistic deadlines don't allow for the amount of game time they really want to program.

Although this is wishful thinking, it'd be nice if studios ended up as their own mini versions of valve, or as partners with limited obligations to publishers. Ok Maybe not with their own distribution system. ( Our computers already demonstrate not everyone can make a functional carbon copy of 'Steam') but if they made independent decisions that were healthier for the legacy of their games and work environments, it wouldn't feel like we were stuck with 'playable commercials' all the time.

The industry doesn't need fixing. Gaming has more variety than ever. There's a lot more to gaming than EA, Ubisoft and Activision.

As soon as you mentioned DLC, I was preparing my ranting reply, but what you're suggesting actually makes sense. The only reason the publishers could possibly have to stand against this idea would be their own hypocrisy. They whine about used games, but do nothing currently to combat this except to punish all the players with scams like online passes and season passes.

Your suggestion would add revenue to used sales without punishing(or even just inconveniencing) new buyers.

Ideally, digital distribution is the way to go. It's more convenient to download than to buy from a store, it's more convenient to never have to shop around to find the best price to sell your used games, and it puts more money in devs/publishers coffers etc. HOWEVER, in order for it to be worth it for gamers, digital distributed games need to cost significantly less money than retail games. If a game is $60 in stores I would need it to be around $40 in a digital store to make up for the fact that I wouldn't be able to sell the game used when I'm done with it. So games would need to be cut in price around 30% or so for gamers to embrace it.

There are far more problems with the games industry than just used games, but more money for devs/publishers and less for GameStop/EB Games is good for the industry and will help developers/publishers take bigger risks on new IP's etc.

No. If the used game market had anything to do with companies' profitability then just about every non-consumable industry should be insolvent! Resale is a part of every non-consumable industry (and some consumables too) and those companies are doing fine, despite strong used markets in their category (think art, cars, furniture, exercise equipment, copiers, ect.)

Capcom is having the same problems many Japanese game developers have - lack of risk taking, lack of innovation, slow adaptation of Western game design ideas, not making games around core competencies, brand fatigue and bad value propositions for consumers.

How many versions of Street Fighter 4 did Capcom make? It felt like the 90's all over again a la Street Fighter 2, but back then they didn't have DLC. Also, I remember DLC for Street Fighter 4 like characters being expensive relative to what you get (and other Capcom games mind you).

Secondly, every game does NOT need to be open world, 40 hours long, 3-D, released yearly, ect. I believe part of the problem some developers are facing is due to the scale of the games they are making. Look at Kingdoms of Alumar or the up-and-coming Metal Gear game. We haven't to see a new Contra, Castlevania, Mega Man, Resident Evil (traditional style), ect. in a while because I think sometimes developers try to make these titles more than what they were and burned a lot of cash. Then there are games like Dragon Quest that IMO need some modernization, or Final Fantasy 13, that sunk a ton of money into the graphics engine, but skimped on other features, like exploration. They need to figure out a few things they want to do with each game, do them very well, but not try to make the game expecting CoD like sales even if you have a CoD like budget, because that's rare.

Look how well Notch did with Minecraft. There's no reason a major developer couldn't have made that game, if they weren't publicly traded. The problem is most major game companies and publicly traded in America or Japan and those share holders want franchises milked and aren't patient with the ones that aren't profitable yet. This leads to the incredibly narrow focus to only "safe" and profitable games. Big developers don't want to change the formula too much because that could hurt sales. This is why we have the current stagnation in the industry, except for the indies.

Thank goodness for indies.

Of course the publishers will never do that because they know they can sell the DLC-

Also used games is not a bigger problem for game devs/publishers than for any other business who make products thats being sold 2nd hand. Its how the free market works and you cannot find any proof that the people who buy used, would buy new and not just pirate or obtain their games by other methods.

Exactly. They might actually but DLC if they like the game, which again makes them money