Ubisoft has called on its fellow publishers to keep a close check on their development costs - so that game prices remain fair to consumers.
UK boss Rob Cooper said there was "no point spending more on products if... what the public pays for our wares becomes horrifically high".
Somebody shake the man's hand.
"Where once fuzzy pixels danced around on the screen, now we expect everything from the visuals and sound effects to the dialogue of our characters - along with the emotions they can portray - to be more finely tuned," he told MCV. "All of these touches increase the studio costs exponentially so we will all be looking at ways to trim them when we can.
"But there is no point spending more on our products if the profit margins evaporate to a trickle or the prices that the public have to pay for our wares become horrifically high."
Cooper added: "Smart publishers will also ensure they have found ways to delicately balance the risk of creating bold new IPs against established franchises - it is something Ubisoft has so far managed pretty well."
Wow: A publisher boss publicly saying he wants to look out for his consumers' wallets.
yeah MW2 i have still not bought out of protest to the redick price tag and tnh i probably wont buy it now after reading the shockingly short single player.
Gaming is probably cheaper than ever if you shop around. Did anyone really pay £55 for MW2? Maybe a few mums who don't know any better.
Even at full price, a decent game can last between 20 and 50 hours - more if it has good multiplayer/online features. Can't really say that about a movie on DVD can you?
I remember the SNES and Mega Drive days, when games were still about £40 (or more), had much lower production values and were rarely discounted. Personally I don't see any reason to complain about prices right now.
I've put of buying assassin's creed 2 for a good 3 months now and its still way above £35 at most retailers now, wtf!! Why is it multiplatform games which are medicore at best remain so expensive compared to outstanding exclusive games like uncharted 2? Ubisoft can blow me, they just seem to be money hungry, insecure whores!
If anything higher game prices will lead to less sales, but that is hardly rocket science... People will be a bit more careful about what they spend their money on, and wait until the games they "might" want to play drop in price, or simply rent it. Lovefilm has saved me a fortune in games last year, but I still bought games I knew I'd play far past a cost effective rental period. With higher prices I'll just add more to the list... they should realise that, surely?
Nice idea Ubisoft, but it does nothing to offset the frankly atrocious DRM announcement that was made yesterday. Even if someone were handing out legal copies of Ubisoft PC games for free on the corner of a street I wouldn't install it on my PC with that system in place. Go die in a ditch Ubisoft.
@Yersbluejohn:
Depends on which games and the quality thereof - some games are so poorly put together that it becomes a matter of "Just let me get through this as quickly as possibly" which defeats the whole purpose of gaming, IMO.
Also, off the top of my head I can't think of any single DVD that costs 55 quid. Hell, I can buy complete series of high production anime and TV shows for less than that in many instances, and once I own those DVDs I can watch them as many times as I want with or without company.
tbh I don't see why we are complaining about game prices. Back in the snes days I remember Donkey Kong Country being £60.00 when it was first released, oh but what a Christmas present it was!. Games were never discounted the way they are now and pre-owned games were very few and far between. I do think that £55.00 for MW 2 was a bit much considering it was basically just more of the same, no new engine etc.
tbh I don't see why we are complaining about game prices. Back in the snes days I remember Donkey Kong Country being £60.00 when it was first released, oh but what a Christmas present it was!. Games were never discounted the way they are now and pre-owned games were very few and far between. I do think that £55.00 for MW 2 was a bit much considering it was basically just more of the same, no new engine etc.
Hollow argument IMO. The games industry has grown so much larger since those early days, the tech has become far more advanced and far more mass produced thus lowering costs compared to the potential quality you can wring out of the tech. There is no single game I'm willing to pay 60 quid for, not unless it is a Collector's Edition and even then it's far from a given that I would buy it as opposed to a cheaper standard version.
yeah MW2 i have still not bought out of protest to the redick price tag and tnh i probably wont buy it now after reading the shockingly short single player.
When MW2 was released you could buy it cheaply. I got mine in Sainsbury's for £26. Makro had limited copies for £20 & Asda was £32.
Personally I dont have a problem with the price tag on games, been buying games for 30 years and the price tag is well under the inflation rate, think the most I payed for a game was £70 and that was Turok N64 (Activision was the publisher come to think of it? lol) but I'm one of the people who didnt think MW2 was over priced. One thing I would like to ask a Developer or Publisher is why p.c games are nearly half the price of console games? (and the industry has always been like this) Dont suppose CVG you could ask Ubisoft and post their response...
I think its often easy to make a snap judgement without looking into things more deeply. The costs for producing a game are high, first is manufacturing of the disc's manuals box etc. then the royalties to Sony/MS/Nintendo, then your staff & building costs plus day to day costs as well, before you even start producing the game. Its easy to see that DVD's are cheaper but in most cases they have already made a return on these before they get to retail market (I.E. films make money at the cinema while TV shows get paid per episode by TV stations) so the sale of DVD's is a secondary income which allows for lower prices. Added to the fact that while games have become more mainstream over the last few years, it still doesn't have the same market size of TV and DVD, which is virtually every home as opposed to 15-25% of the countries populations as with videogames.
When you look at the credits at the end of a Game nowadays its incredible how many people are involved in the Game making process. All of these people have salaries to be paid and there are other costs like R&D to take care of.
£40 - £50 for a brand new Game is good value for me, hopefully the Game would have multiple playthroughs and some MP which puts going to the cinema at £10 a pop into perspective.
£40 - £50 for a brand new Game is good value for me, hopefully the Game would have multiple playthroughs and some MP which puts going to the cinema at £10 a pop into perspective.
I've often thought the same. I may watch a film once or twice but alot of games I replay a few times over. For me £30-40 when I get 20-30 on average for games and up to 60+ hours for others is great value compaired to £8-10 for Films which are generally 2 hours or so.
Personally I dont have a problem with the price tag on games, been buying games for 30 years and the price tag is well under the inflation rate, think the most I payed for a game was £70 and that was Turok N64 (Activision was the publisher come to think of it? lol) but I'm one of the people who didnt think MW2 was over priced. One thing I would like to ask a Developer or Publisher is why p.c games are nearly half the price of console games? (and the industry has always been like this) Dont suppose CVG you could ask Ubisoft and post their response...
I've always said that when people scream that they want better and better looking games, that the development costs will go up and the price of the game at retail will soar. Seems like someone else has cottened onto that fact now.
Here's a tip - If your not happy paying prices for games you cant afford - Don't do it - stop whining about it and do a hobby you can afford or buy cheaper games - I don't complain because that sport car I want is too expensive for my budget - world full of whiners is what we have become, no one forces us to play games.
I think in general we are going to start seeing a divergence, particularly on consoles, between huge blockbuster titles (your MW2, Uncharted, Halo) and then the cutesy indie type games. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing though.
Activision aside I think most prices are fair. Back in the day Trials HD or any of the meatier titles on XBLA would easily be a full priced game.
I have played Trials and SSF2HD easily as much as any other game last year and they were a tenner each.
The reason why I don't forsee games getting any more expensive for the initial purchase is that the publishers can now make add-on sales. In that way I've easily paid twice the initial outlay on Halo 3 to keep up with the new content, all of which didn't come with manuals, discs or boxes to pay for.
This has made the game much more expensive overall but I don't think I would've have played the game anywhere near as long if not for fresh dlc.
One thing I would like to ask a Developer or Publisher is why p.c games are nearly half the price of console games?
Its because there are no license fee's or royalties to pay when you make a PC game as the market is pretty much a free for all. I don't know the actual prices but I think its about £7-9 per copy to be paid for selling a game on PS3/360/Wii etc. to go to Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo.
Depends on which games and the quality thereof - some games are so poorly put together that it becomes a matter of "Just let me get through this as quickly as possibly" which defeats the whole purpose of gaming, IMO.
Also, off the top of my head I can't think of any single DVD that costs 55 quid. Hell, I can buy complete series of high production anime and TV shows for less than that in many instances, and once I own those DVDs I can watch them as many times as I want with or without company.
You're right, you have to choose good games to get value, but you could say that about any type of product.
My thinking with DVDs was that they RRP at about £14 but last 2 hours, although you have a fair old point about TV box sets.
I would still say overall that there is great gaming value out there for those who look for it.
Since I'm getting Mass Effect 2 & Bioshock 2 for £30 each, I have no reason to complain with prices as they currently are. True, those are mega-blockbusters that will sell millions of copies, but even so. Smaller studios can't afford massive budgets anyway. As for MW2, the £55 tag was pure greed -- they knew it would sell the way it has, so they simply put the price up for the same reason Nintendo wouldn't put the Wii price down -- though there is a difference between not reducing a price tag and putting one up (as both parties are guilty of, even though most shops refused to pass the hike on to consumers).
Ubisoft spokesman: ?Hey game prices are a bit high! we don't like that" *Turns to PR lady, whispers* "Thats why we're removing content from the game, so we can release it as DLC and get more monies!1!11!!"
Anthing over £40 for me is a no buy. That is part of the reason I have never bought Rock Band or anything like that as much as I want to.
Most games that come out these days I am done and dusted with winthin a week or two. It is not worth over £40 for any game to me. This guy from UBI hit the nail on the head. It is not out fault if the company spends a lot of money on graphics rather than the gameplay or lenth of the game so we should not pay more.
As for MW2 well loads of people bought it so you can't blame them for putting the price up. Unless people don't buy overpriced games then it will never end. I can wait and get the game pre owned if I need to.
I think its often easy to make a snap judgement without looking into things more deeply. The costs for producing a game are high, first is manufacturing of the disc's manuals box etc. then the royalties to Sony/MS/Nintendo, then your staff & building costs plus day to day costs as well, before you even start producing the game. Its easy to see that DVD's are cheaper but in most cases they have already made a return on these before they get to retail market (I.E. films make money at the cinema while TV shows get paid per episode by TV stations) so the sale of DVD's is a secondary income which allows for lower prices. Added to the fact that while games have become more mainstream over the last few years, it still doesn't have the same market size of TV and DVD, which is virtually every home as opposed to 15-25% of the countries populations as with videogames.
To be quite blunt none of that is my problem. It's theirs. Instead of hiring AAA celebrities to do half an hour of dialogue or less they could hire talented though less well known voice actors to do the job. They could also opt to use licensed tech engines for an extra couple of years and wring as much out of it as they can before upgrading to a newer and expensive engine. The actual costs of manufacturing a CD was under 1.50 USD a piece back in the mid 1990s. I can only imagine that the cost of a single DVD is at least as inexpensive if not more so (I'd guess it's about 50 to 75 US cents per DVD disc) so that's a cop out. The cost of licenses and royalties, etc. again not my problem. If that's too expensive then here's an idea: Come up with new and original IPs that they don't have to pay another party for. As for staffing thanks to the electronic business world you no longer need offices all over the world in order to deal with national markets. Satellite offices that use local numbers which are directly plugged in to a central phone bank on the other side of the world do not have to cost a fortune (I know because the company I work for do this). This is just part of the list of things companies can do to keep costs down.
Here's a tip - If your not happy paying prices for games you cant afford - Don't do it - stop whining about it and do a hobby you can afford or buy cheaper games - I don't complain because that sport car I want is too expensive for my budget - world full of whiners is what we have become, no one forces us to play games.
Depends on which games and the quality thereof - some games are so poorly put together that it becomes a matter of "Just let me get through this as quickly as possibly" which defeats the whole purpose of gaming, IMO.
Also, off the top of my head I can't think of any single DVD that costs 55 quid. Hell, I can buy complete series of high production anime and TV shows for less than that in many instances, and once I own those DVDs I can watch them as many times as I want with or without company.
You're right, you have to choose good games to get value, but you could say that about any type of product.
My thinking with DVDs was that they RRP at about £14 but last 2 hours, although you have a fair old point about TV box sets.
I would still say overall that there is great gaming value out there for those who look for it.
Agreed. Online stores in particular offer some cracking deals, especially if you are willing to wait a few weeks or months (or jump on board the pre-order train). I'm generally okay with the current pricing of 25-28 quid for a high profile PC game and 30-37 quid for a high profile console game. Once we go beyond that it breaches my comfort purchase zone for games and further justification becomes necessary.
Anthing over £40 for me is a no buy. That is part of the reason I have never bought Rock Band or anything like that as much as I want to.
Most games that come out these days I am done and dusted with winthin a week or two. It is not worth over £40 for any game to me. This guy from UBI hit the nail on the head. It is not out fault if the company spends a lot of money on graphics rather than the gameplay or lenth of the game so we should not pay more.
As for MW2 well loads of people bought it so you can't blame them for putting the price up. Unless people don't buy overpriced games then it will never end. I can wait and get the game pre owned if I need to.
Activision is precisely who is to blame for the price hike. Who else bears the main responsibility? Did someone force them to hike up the price? No. The buck stops with them and they can suck a big one along with Ubisoft and 2K Games with their lousy treatment of customers.
High prices will never stop somebody buying an individual title. But as an adult with disposable income, I actually have to be fairly savvy in regards to how I can afford my hobby alongside other interests and living costs. MW2 would be a no-brainer for many, it may not be the type of game I desire right now. But with many people buying a single title at high cost it deprives the rest of the industry and other titles from having a chance to survive and succeed, it certainly discourages risk purchases, and must make the used games market even more desirable. It seems that titles have exceptionally short shelf lives most of the time, obviously not helped by annual sequel syndrome. I think big games should be more aware of how to make their sequels distinctive from the originals, beyond just bigger and better graphics. Team ICO were wise to create IPs with the same atmosphere that were distinctly separate. I can only think of a handful of titles that retain their value once a sequel arrives, especially if they contain a large multiplayer component, most of these being in the adventure or RPG category.
@ KFD, I miss your earlier eloquence. It seems getting a 360 made you more aggressively direct.
Either that or this DRM stuff.
DRM is the safer bet of the two options. But if you want eloquence, how about this: *ahem!* I find the deluded overtures of the pretentious, unwashed, undereducated, malignant, boorish, barbaric, ignoramus Neanderthal DRM supporters most distressing. Indeed, I find I am quite allergic to them.
who remembers the usual price of a Neo Geo cart? £70 was considered cheap, they were often upwards of £120 some were so rare they were hitting £700 to £1000
Ubisoft spokesman: ?Hey game prices are a bit high! we don't like that" *Turns to PR lady, whispers* "Thats why we're removing content from the game, so we can release it as DLC and get more monies!1!11!!"
I dont buy games at all over £35. If theres a PC version of a game I will try and get that version before any other system simply due to the lower cost. For me, 35 is the cut off point where I think new games should be priced. I dont get why publishers cant see that a marginal (to them) reduction in cost per unit equals an increased amount of unit sales. It worked for me with MW2. £45 for a pre order and an rrp of £55. I hadn't planned on buying it as it was £40 on steam, but I was in morrisons getting a sandwich and it was £26. For a new game, thats a bargin, so I bought a copy for me and one for the boss (on PS3). That was two sales gained through cheaper launch prices. Same goes for most of my friends. Straight down to the moggys. I've also pre-ordered bioshock 2 on steam due to it being under £30. I wouldn't have bothered if it were rrp price.
I dont buy games at all over £35. If theres a PC version of a game I will try and get that version before any other system simply due to the lower cost. For me, 35 is the cut off point where I think new games should be priced. I dont get why publishers cant see that a marginal (to them) reduction in cost per unit equals an increased amount of unit sales. It worked for me with MW2. £45 for a pre order and an rrp of £55. I hadn't planned on buying it as it was £40 on steam, but I was in morrisons getting a sandwich and it was £26. For a new game, thats a bargin, so I bought a copy for me and one for the boss (on PS3). That was two sales gained through cheaper launch prices. Same goes for most of my friends. Straight down to the moggys. I've also pre-ordered bioshock 2 on steam due to it being under £30. I wouldn't have bothered if it were rrp price.
Just so you know, even the Steam version of "Bioshock" currently requires Games For Windows LIVE to be installed on your PC to register and run it. Apparently it is also required to be logged in to GWFL even while you are logged in to Steam in order to save games although they may change this (yeah, like they were going to patch out DRM completely in "Bioshock 1" - three years later and it's still there). There seems to be some confusion on 2K's forum as to whether you can actually play and save games while being in "offline" status with GFWL by creating an offline account like you could do with "Batman: Arkham Asylum". Playing in offline mode removes your ability to play multiplayer for obvious reasons. Oh, and GFWL comes with a 15 installations limit which can't be reclaimed; once you run out you have to contact Microsoft, not 2K, to get another installation. There is also a SecuROM disc check which was advertised as not installing anything on your hard drive, yet apparently it does actually need to connect to the internet to carry out a date check before running the game and 2K's staff have been quiet about answering a repeatedly asked question as to whether or not SecuROM will be extracting the .exe file from online to play "Bioshock 2". Make of it what you will but to me it doesn't look promising. Whether this SecuROM will be parceled with the Steam version, I do not know, but this is likely a case of "Buyer beware".
If you still want to go through with the purchase that is your call, but I felt it was only fair to let you know ahead of time what you may be getting yourself in to with the PC version.
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DRM is the safer bet of the two options. But if you want eloquence, how about this: *ahem!* I find the deluded overtures of the pretentious, unwashed, undereducated, malignant, boorish, barbaric, ignoramus Neanderthal DRM supporters most distressing. Indeed, I find I am quite allergic to them. 
