Topic: Cliff Bleszinski says things.

[Soren]

Mostly microtransactions, justifying them, and how we have no right to complain on the interwebs. We're only allowed to vote with our money. So shut up. Seriously.


http://dudehugespeaks.tumblr.com/post/44243746261/nickels-dimes-and-quarters

Every console game MUST have a steady stream of DLC because, otherwise, guess what? It becomes traded in, or it’s just rented.

Sounds legit.

Remember, if everyone bought their games used there would be no more games.

Mind. Blown.

[shingi_70]

Dude is speaking the truth. I say a post on Gonintedo with  similar tidbits.
http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=197181

“Activision didn’t expect much from Wii U sales of Black Ops 2, but they
sure didn’t expect it to be that abysmal.  Activision gave Wii U owners the best
version of Blops 2 with Off TV features, and Nintendo fans didn’t support it. 
It’s easy for Nintendo fans to trash publishers for not giving them ports, but
publishers have wisened up.  They realize Nintendo fans are all talk.  Nintendo
fans are vocal with their mouths, but when it’s time to open their wallets,
they’ll spend that $60 on New Super Mario Bros instead.”

 
 

[Kytim89]

Here are the main Nintendo game series that I would be willing to pay full price for when released:

• Super Mario Brothers
• Super Smash Brothers
• Metroid
• Legend of Zelda

The rest of my budget would go to any and all quality third party games that choose to be on the Wii U and 3DS.

[Guitar Smasher]

Every console game MUST have a steady stream of DLC because, otherwise, guess what? It becomes traded in, or it’s just rented.

Or you could provide more replay value in your games.  People will hold on to their games if they know they'll be revisiting them in the future.  Artificially stretching out demand for your game through DLC will only reduce the initial value of your product, which could be maximized by actually aiming to create a "classic".

Remember, if everyone bought their games used there would be no more games.

Can't have a used sale without having an original new sale.  The onus isn't on consumers to support the game industry, the onus is on companies to make products which actually resonate with consumers.  This industry is ultimately going to continue destroying itself until it starts shifting the blame for their woes from their consumers to themselves.

[SixthAngel]

Dude is speaking the truth. I say a post on Gonintedo with  similar tidbits.
http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=197181

“Activision didn’t expect much from Wii U sales of Black Ops 2, but they
sure didn’t expect it to be that abysmal.  Activision gave Wii U owners the best
version of Blops 2 with Off TV features, and Nintendo fans didn’t support it. 
It’s easy for Nintendo fans to trash publishers for not giving them ports, but
publishers have wisened up.  They realize Nintendo fans are all talk.  Nintendo
fans are vocal with their mouths, but when it’s time to open their wallets,
they’ll spend that $60 on New Super Mario Bros instead.”

1. The source of this is the first post of a random wordpress blog.
 
2. WTF does this have to do with Cliffy B. Also, his a port of a last gen game to a new console and no one buys a new console for a game they can get on old consoles.

Now about the actual post.

Cliffy B. has been working in the industry too long to not believe its trends are the way things must go. He worked at Epic where their games were just the advertising for their engine.
The dude is too deep into the industry to have any sort of objective opinion. His defense of Origin being **** is that Steam was **** 7 YEARS AGO.

Its also funny how he says "the average guy that buys Madden and GTA every year".besides the fact that it entirely ignores the Wii userbase by describing everyone who buys games as dudebros yet he doesn't realize that most everyone who gets involved in f2p DOESN'T BUY THINGS. F2p cares about the "whales", or the very few people that spend a **** load of money on worthless crap.  F2p games don't give a **** about the random guy who might play it, they care about the small, small minority that spends hundreds of dollars on the game.

Also

Remember, if everyone bought their games used there would be no more games.

Mind. Blown.

No one will ever buy a game new again, everyone will just buy it used.

[Shaymin]

I tried to figure out the logic behind "if everyone buys used games, there's no more video games."


I spontaneously grew the beard in my avatar as a result.

[Soren]

...yet he doesn't realize that most everyone who gets involved in f2p DOESN'T BUY THINGS. F2p cares about the "whales", or the very few people that spend a **** load of money on worthless crap.  F2p games don't give a **** about the random guy who might play it, they care about the small, small minority that spends hundreds of dollars on the game.

I disagree. Developers(specially those still new to F2P, who firmly believe you must pay money to play our game) pay lots of attention to people who play F2P games without spending a single cent. It's just not positive. They can't wait to stick a paywall in there, or make the "free" experience of the game as short and unsatisfying as possible. It gets to the point that they don't see them as potential customers, but more as moochers. So their thought is "I'm going to remind you every second of the game that if you don't give us money then you suck and your experience will suck" instead of trying to woo me into giving you my money.




Also. It's hilarious that Cliffy B. tells people to stop hating on EA for acting like a free market business out to make as much cash as possible and then immediately turn around and hate on Gamestop for acting...


...


...like a free market business out to make as much cash as possible.

[Pixelated Pixies]

I have to agree with Guitar Smasher.
 
Trade ins support the types of gamers who are crucial for the industry's long term success, the gamers who buy games on a monthly or even weekly basis. Trade ins contribute to their next purchase. On the flip side, the person who picks up that pre-owned copy in all likelihood wasn't going to be convinced to buy it brand new at full price anyway. Trade ins, therefore, fund new purchases while also keeping those who are more price sensitive in the market (therefore retaining a potential customer, as oppose to pricing them out).

[ThePerm]

it wasnt so much that black ops 2 had the best version....it had choppiness and lag issues according to 80%  of reviewers


how well did zombiu sell? if zombi u sold really well then that throws Cliffy's summation out of the water. If someone had just bought a $350 console and wanted 2 games on the system they would pick the exclusive new game over the sequel port.

[SixthAngel]

Developers(specially those still new to F2P, who firmly believe you must pay money to play our game) pay lots of attention to people who play F2P games without spending a single cent. It's just not positive. They can't wait to stick a paywall in there, or make the "free" experience of the game as short and unsatisfying as possible. It gets to the point that they don't see them as potential customers, but more as moochers. So their thought is "I'm going to remind you every second of the game that if you don't give us money then you suck and your experience will suck" instead of trying to woo me into giving you my money.

I see what you're saying and I agree with you. A lot of companies go beyond not giving a **** into actually hating the players that aren't actively shoving money at them.  It really explains the "used games are as bad as piracy" **** I see and that Cliffy seems to believe but is smart enough to not say outright.

[BranDonk Kong]

If every single person that bought a Wii U got BLOPS 2 it would have sold, what, 1 million copies? If everyone with a PS3 or 360 bought it it would have sold what, 60 million on PS3 and 360 each? Neither of these happened. COD 2 (not BLOPS 2) sold less than 2 million total LTD on XBox 360. COD 2 on 360 didn't have any competition, either. There was no Mario game. No Nintendo Land. No Halo.

[shingi_70]

I think pubs a re going to be in for a rather rude awakening when we see this happen to the PS4/nextbox as well. Barring any crazy subsidy plan that moves units like crazy im expecting both to be slow in moving units and hurt by the PS3/360 Marketshare.

[pokepal148]

Dude is speaking the truth. I say a post on Gonintedo with  similar tidbits.
http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=197181

“Activision didn’t expect much from Wii U sales of Black Ops 2, but they
sure didn’t expect it to be that abysmal.  Activision gave Wii U owners the best
version of Blops 2 with Off TV features, and Nintendo fans didn’t support it. 
It’s easy for Nintendo fans to trash publishers for not giving them ports, but
publishers have wisened up.  They realize Nintendo fans are all talk.  Nintendo
fans are vocal with their mouths, but when it’s time to open their wallets,
they’ll spend that $60 on New Super Mario Bros instead.”

 
 

nobody tried to advertise that, if it wernt for rfn i woldnt know it had off tv play

[SixthAngel]

Dude is speaking the truth. I say a post on Gonintedo with  similar tidbits.
http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=197181

“Activision didn’t expect much from Wii U sales of Black Ops 2, but they
sure didn’t expect it to be that abysmal.  Activision gave Wii U owners the best
version of Blops 2 with Off TV features, and Nintendo fans didn’t support it. 
It’s easy for Nintendo fans to trash publishers for not giving them ports, but
publishers have wisened up.  They realize Nintendo fans are all talk.  Nintendo
fans are vocal with their mouths, but when it’s time to open their wallets,
they’ll spend that $60 on New Super Mario Bros instead.”

 
 

nobody tried to advertise that, if it wernt for rfn i woldnt know it had off tv play

Stop quoting that story, it is bullshit like I said earlier. Gonintendo even has this as the first line now
"UPDATE - This story turned out to be completely false. We can go back to being grumpy about other Wii U-related items!"

[marty]

@ guitar smasher & soren
I pretty much agree with your statements about GS and the used-game market. 


I don't know how CB can say "vote with your dollar" and then cry when gamers, who have "voted with their dollars", turn around and want some of those dollars back.  Hey, guess what someone selling a game back to the store is?  "I don't want to keep this game or play it ever again."  Sounds like a pretty reasonable vote.  CB just doesn't want to hear it, which seems oddly hypocritical.  Maybe the industry should focus more on making games people want to keep, since there is a secondary market that thrives because the industry does make so many games people just never want to touch again, instead of crying about it all the time?


If continuous DLC and transactions are the way to keep gamers from selling THIER games, or "voting with their dollars," as Cliffy encourages, how can he then claim that games are cheaper now then they've ever been?  Especially when sequels, most often, resemble full priced map/cutscene packs which cost $10-$20 a decade ago as opposed to $60 now.  If the price of a not-full game is $60 today and the price of a full game from 20 years ago was $50 and you want to pretend that both products are equivalent you could say that games now are cheaper.  It's not really true, but it could be in some cases.


As far a development costs go: no one is holding a gun to your head to make $100M games.  Also, to suggest that it costs $100M to make games is a flat out lie.  Ask Notch how much it cost to make Minecraft or Nintendo how much it cost to make NSMBWii, Wii Fit, Mario Kart... etc.  since all those games have sold better than anything ol' cliffy has done.  Maybe the industry should focus less on ramping up development costs to make games that people "vote with their dollars" against and start focusing on games people actually want to keep.  I enjoyed not playing Gears of War 1/2/3 on my Wii, they system with the cheapest development cost and the largest install base this generation because, "this is an industry" and "business" and "free market" apparently have nothing to do with keeping costs down and selling games to people.  All those things really mean is that developers should get to do whatever the **** they want: make games customers hate after a month, increase development costs for no reason, ship incomplete games that need to be patched before people buy them-- and if gamers "vote with their dollars" in a free market, cry about it.

[TJ Spyke]

Please dont use crap like Minecraft as an example. It's not even a game, and he relies on the consumer to do all the work. No creativity on his end and he has not shown any talent for actual games yet.

[marty]

It's software.  It has a lot in common with games and it's definitely not productivity/development/office software.  It's on pc/mac/game console.  It also cost less than $100M to make.  It's also sold more than anything cliffy b has done. 
Wether it's "game" enough is rightfully debatable-- but so are most "games" as far as I'm concerned.
It being good or creative doesn't really factor into the raw figures of how much something cost nor how much money it has made... but are still valid opinions to hold, just not worth dwelling on in this tread, probably.

[Stogi]

That dude that made legos was actually trying to replace cement.

[Oblivion]

Please dont use crap like Minecraft as an example. It's not even a game, and he relies on the consumer to do all the work. No creativity on his end and he has not shown any talent for actual games yet.

Um, wat

[broodwars]

If continuous DLC and transactions are the way to keep gamers from selling THIER games, or "voting with their dollars," as Cliffy encourages, how can he then claim that games are cheaper now then they've ever been?  Especially when sequels, most often, resemble full priced map/cutscene packs which cost $10-$20 a decade ago as opposed to $60 now.  If the price of a not-full game is $60 today and the price of a full game from 20 years ago was $50 and you want to pretend that both products are equivalent you could say that games now are cheaper.  It's not really true, but it could be in some cases.

I've already said this on a recent NFR podcast, but dude I remember buying $90 N64 games (Ogre Battle 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, etc.) and my parents buying $70+ NES/SNES games when I was a kid.  And that's without taking into account inflation.  Of course there were heavy production costs to cartridge games, but regardless I remember paying far more for games than we do now.  Hell, we actually have "free"->$20 games now that can be more fully-featured than the full-priced games we grew up with.  I'd even argue some $10-$15 DLC packs (like the Mass Effect, Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, & Skyrim DLC) have more content than some full games I played when I was a kid.

I'll agree with Bleszinski on another thing: if you want a developer to make more games, you need to buy their games new, where they actually see a return on their investment. You're free to buy Used if you wish (and I certainly have in the past), but at the same time you pretty much lose your right to whine when that developer makes future games for the people who actually buy them.

[marty]

@ broodwars
I think it's disingenuous to try and compare game prices across decades when the content and context of gaming has changed in that time.  CB makes claims that arcade games operate similarly to dlc and microtransactions when that's clearly a lie.  If you put $0.25 in an arcade game, you didn't own that arcade game, you just got to play for a little bit and if you could keep playing if a)you were good at the game OR b)wanted to put another $0.25 in.  You didn't have to plunk down $60.00 or buy a console or tv or anything--you just paid the cost of a play and got to play.  Simple.  I don't remember any NES game costing more than $50 (I seem to remember toys R us selling a lot of games for around $30-35) but I do remember $60 N64 games.  The games weren't cheap, but I felt a lot better dropping money on SMB3 and OoT than I have on anything in the last 10 years, too.


Yes, only new game sales effect the bottom line of publishers but every used game is a customer saying "I'd rather have some of the money I spent on this new game back than keep this game."  If someone plays a game and immediately sells it--that says something about the quality of the game: this game is not a keeper.  Why would people pay full price for a game that no one wants to keep?  Why do developers keep making games people don't want to hold on to?  And if most people are going to get rid of their games, why do developers keep pumping more and more resources into games?  Most of the games they are making are ALREADY DISPOSABLE-- but they keep making the same disposable games and cry about bad sales and the second hand market as if it's not their fault.  The solution isn't: cry about used game sales, it's: stop making games people don't want to keep.

[Fatty The Hutt]

I felt a lot better dropping money on SMB3 and OoT than I have on anything in the last 10 years, too.

Hyperbole Alert! Are you an IanSane dupe account? 

If someone plays a game and immediately sells it--that says something about the quality of the game: this game is not a keeper.  Why would people pay full price for a game that no one wants to keep?  Why do developers keep making games people don't want to hold on to?  And if most people are going to get rid of their games, why do developers keep pumping more and more resources into games?  Most of the games they are making are ALREADY DISPOSABLE...

I think you're making a rebuttable presumption here. It is just as arguable that people would want to keep the games but their desire to play a volume of games, right when they come out, outweighs their desire to keep (unless, of course, they are independently wealthy, like me.) If folks didn't have the option of a fast-trade back for maximum credit value, the situation might be different. Also, if games weren't all priced so high to begin with, more sales may occur anyway. Publishers could decide to test-out volume sales, like Costco, by lowering new-release prices to, say, $34.99 across the board. It worked back in the day when Batman (1989) was the first VHS to sell for $20.

[broodwars]

Yes, only new game sales effect the bottom line of publishers but every used game is a customer saying "I'd rather have some of the money I spent on this new game back than keep this game."  If someone plays a game and immediately sells it--that says something about the quality of the game: this game is not a keeper.  Why would people pay full price for a game that no one wants to keep?  Why do developers keep making games people don't want to hold on to?  And if most people are going to get rid of their games, why do developers keep pumping more and more resources into games?  Most of the games they are making are ALREADY DISPOSABLE-- but they keep making the same disposable games and cry about bad sales and the second hand market as if it's not their fault.  The solution isn't: cry about used game sales, it's: stop making games people don't want to keep.

Just because someone trades in a game, that does not necessarily mean that they were dissatisfied with it. Likewise, keeping a game doesn't necessarily mean that it provided some endless value. When I traded Fallout 3 in, does that mean that Bethesda "didn't do their job" in providing some fantastic experience worth my money? **** no (though there were tons of bugs). It's a 100+ hour game, and I had my fill and would never play it again.  I buy games for the experience they provide me when I buy them, and if I decide I want to hold onto them beyond that, fine.  If not, they served their purpose, and there's nothing wrong with that.

For all your bragging about Nintendo, I own 12 Wii retail games, only 4 of which were published by Nintendo. I've gotten rid of all the other Nintendo-published Wii games I've purchased.  So as far as I'm concerned, Nintendo's failed to make much of anything in the past generation I wanted to keep, yet I'm not going to say their games weren't worth the money for the time I had them.  And not every game I've kept on my 65-game PS3 retail collection is a flawless classic. I just like playing them from time to time.

[marty]

I think you're making a rebuttable presumption here. It is just as arguable that people would want to keep the games but their desire to play a volume of games, right when they come out, outweighs their desire to keep (unless, of course, they are independently wealthy, like me.) If folks didn't have the option of a fast-trade back for maximum credit value, the situation might be different. Also, if games weren't all priced so high to begin with, more sales may occur anyway. Publishers could decide to test-out volume sales, like Costco, by lowering new-release prices to, say, $34.99 across the board. It worked back in the day when Batman (1989) was the first VHS to sell for $20.

The number of flops the industry produces as well as the number of developers that go tits-up every year does speak volumes about the disparity between what gamers spending habits actually are and what the industry wants/pretends gamers buying habits to be.  You bring up a point on pricing that I think is valid.  But that point does reinforce my sentiment that, at $60 a pop, most games just aren't worth holding onto.  The success of the secondary market is entirely reliant on this belief.  Yeah, some games are only worth $10 or $20 and part of the value of a $60 disc is the ability to turn around and sell it before it further loses its value.  Cliffy is just dumb to suggest that things will be better for the industry if they destroy the free-market that gamers, including himself, support.

[Ian Sane]

I'm not dumb.  A company like EA or Activision has this big group of stockholders that want annual profit increases to raise their stock.  Thus they look for any way to make more money.  That's where DLC and microtransactions come from.  They now have the infrastructure to do it, so they're doing it.  They'll point at used game sales or piracy or whatever as some justification because it's not a consumer friendly idea and they have to explain it away with some excuse.  They couldn't say "yeah we're trying to squeeze every cent out of you we can" or not comment on it at all.  If used games were illegal and piracy somehow didn't exist Cliffy B would be spouting some other bullshit excuse to justify it.  They're doing it because they can because the goal is to make as much money as they can.

Look at the music or film industry.  They always talk about "licences" to use stuff intead of any actual ownership and they act all pissy about people playing their stereo loud enough that other people who didn't pay for the song can hear it or watching a DVD with friends where only YOU paid for it.  Do you expect anything different from the videogame industry, particularly since the software industry talks about licences and such instead of ownership and games are software?  If they could charge you a dollar for every minute of play and 50 cents for every minute you aren't they would.

They will try to take as much of your money as they can.  Microtransactions exist because enough people are willing to put up with it to make it worthwhile.  They will push as hard as they can unless there is enough pushback that they don't benefit from it.