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Why don't we have one game title a generation (with yearly DLC)?
DHS Odium
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I couldn't think of a better term, and I'm not crazy about my thread title. I've been thinking about this since playing a ton of Burnout Paradise recently, why don't game companies come out with a single retail game in a generation, and have "sequels" be download only to extend sales of the original title, while making money on the DLC?
To an extent, some games do this already. GTA4, will we see a GTA5 this console generation, or will they continue with their new stories through DLC? Burnout Paradise has been similar (though there was Burnout Revenge earlier in the lifecycle), they have provided a ton of support, and I think their game still sells well because of this, and people hold on to their copy. It's a big middle finger to Gamestop though, because if I have paid DLC for a retail game, I'm not going to sell that game making that purchased content useless.
I'm imagining like, you buy Madden Xbox 720 version, which comes out at launch or the first year. Each year then they sell updated rosters, new gameplay additions, maybe better animations and textures, that all interface and run on the backbone of the disc version. This cuts down on packaging and retail space (which digital titles do anyway), but keeps a version of the game in store shelves, and prolongs it's life. Now, the issue is whether in the long run you end up making more money by selling one retail game + DLC over the average 5 years of a console, or if you make more selling a new $60 title each year until the next system.
I think in a lot of cases people would be more likely to purchase the updated features each year, not including those who already buy a new Madden each year like clockwork. So, you could buy one Call of Duty disc, and then later with sequels decide if you want to get the Modern version, or WWII version, or both. With reduced prices, it's an extra incentive. We'll have such large storage spaces next gen, I don't think it would be that big an issue. It's a way to bridge the gap between digital only, which won't fully happen next gen, and the retail space.
EDIT: I'm imagining lower costs to developer and publisher through this, they get to work more on content rather than a whole new game or engine, this would lead to more actual game in a shorter period of time, and cut out shipping and packaging, just like digital only benefits.
To an extent, some games do this already. GTA4, will we see a GTA5 this console generation, or will they continue with their new stories through DLC? Burnout Paradise has been similar (though there was Burnout Revenge earlier in the lifecycle), they have provided a ton of support, and I think their game still sells well because of this, and people hold on to their copy. It's a big middle finger to Gamestop though, because if I have paid DLC for a retail game, I'm not going to sell that game making that purchased content useless.
I'm imagining like, you buy Madden Xbox 720 version, which comes out at launch or the first year. Each year then they sell updated rosters, new gameplay additions, maybe better animations and textures, that all interface and run on the backbone of the disc version. This cuts down on packaging and retail space (which digital titles do anyway), but keeps a version of the game in store shelves, and prolongs it's life. Now, the issue is whether in the long run you end up making more money by selling one retail game + DLC over the average 5 years of a console, or if you make more selling a new $60 title each year until the next system.
I think in a lot of cases people would be more likely to purchase the updated features each year, not including those who already buy a new Madden each year like clockwork. So, you could buy one Call of Duty disc, and then later with sequels decide if you want to get the Modern version, or WWII version, or both. With reduced prices, it's an extra incentive. We'll have such large storage spaces next gen, I don't think it would be that big an issue. It's a way to bridge the gap between digital only, which won't fully happen next gen, and the retail space.
EDIT: I'm imagining lower costs to developer and publisher through this, they get to work more on content rather than a whole new game or engine, this would lead to more actual game in a shorter period of time, and cut out shipping and packaging, just like digital only benefits.
Wii U: DHS-Odium // Live: DHS Odium // PSN: DHSOdium // Steam: dhsykes // 3DS: 0318-6615-5294
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Now, what you've proposed can be one of many workable market strategies, but why should the entire industry comply to a single model? Several different distribution models exits, some work better than others. Right now, consumers respond to the roughly yearly sequel release for their preferred platform.
Furthermore, creating new, slightly improved sequels as stand-alone games allows new market penetration after the first game has been mostly forgotten by the general consumer market, not to mention the all-too important shelf space.
Your model might make more sense a little further down the road, when digital distribution becomes more mainstream, but right now, I think you're understimating the power of the largely game-illiterate parent going into a game store to buy a new shiny disc for junior. How does your model respond to them?
And of course it would all be cel shaded so it doesn't get long in the tooth as quick as other games.
With internet connectivity becoming more mainstream, along with prominent ads on systems dashboards, instructions within the game, and commercials, I think parents and regular consumers would get the idea. Plus it saves them repeat visits to the store, even better for the holidays, like Steam, you could pre-load a sequel and play the second it's released, or for parents, purchase and "hide" a game on the system. At Christmas, the kid turns it on and unwraps his digital games and plays right away.
I agree not every dev house would do it, but I would like to see more. Though I understand the potential problems and pitfalls, there hasn't really been a case where it's been tested. The only thing I can think of is Burnout Paradise (or GTA4 DLC), doesn't that still sell pretty well?
Furthermore, only a fraction of the userbase for each console, even the 360, has their system hooked up and online. You'd be narrowing your market too much for it to be viable.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
It is ingrained into our consciousness to physically buy a new game rather than merely upgrade the content with DLC. It does not yet feel the same, feel satisfactory, to pay $40-60 for a download that runs from the same disc/icon it did last year.
It lowers costs in terms of packaging, true, but might it also lower sales? As was said, what about the people who have no clue and just buy the newest shiny thing? What about the collectors?
What about public perception that you are getting something so new that it requires a new disc, regardless of whether that is actually the case?
Look at Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero. One is pushing DLC and the other is pushing new boxes into people's hands. I understand they do not exist in a vacuum and many other factors influence their popularity, but which do you think will enjoy higher sales/profitability?
Console connectivity to the Internet is still really low. Even on the 360, which I think most people would agree has been the loudest screamer for getting its users online—there aren't too many figures made available, but the last I'd heard it was only about 50 percent of 360 owners that had ever taken the console online once.
This topic is actually being played out in a way with the Rock Band / Guitar Hero debate; one is predominantly DLC-based, and the other is predominantly disc-based sequels. But that brings me to another sticking point: In order for this DLC-hub approach to work, you have to have a modular kind of game design. Rock Band works great, because it's really just a jukebox that you're plugging songs into. GTA4 creates new campaigns and missions around the same hub city. But I don't think that works for a lot of other types of games.
Like I said, it's not that your idea isn't workable, it's just that, at this point in time, there is incentive to have shiny new items on store shelves at all times. Also, there's nothing to say that a single franchise couldn't do BOTH. Have a new shiny box available for newcomers to a series, which includes the latest up-to-date version of the game (sorta like the Orange Box), as well as make the expansions available.
One thing I don't think you realize is that there is a lot of improvements that can be made to a game "within a generation". Your model would force developers to keep having to update an outdated game engine when they would be better served to just start over from scratch.
Basically: There's nothing wrong with your model, in theory, but that shouldn't stop other developers from selling however they feel they can.
That's like a triple whammy.
It has the negatives of both physical distribution and digital distribution. So I have the negative of physical distro by having to go out and buy the game I don't care about, and the negative of digital distro by having to sit and wait for it to download and use up 8 gigs of space because the physical copy I bought isn't the game I want. To top it off I have to buy a game I don't care about to get the one that I do care about.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
But people are right here, it would only work for specific game types, and I guess these are already being tried, like Burnout and GTA, games with open worlds where content can be added to, like Fallout, or Shivering Isles on Oblivion - that took me as long as the base game I think, and was more fun.
I'd like to see stats for these kinds of things - RB2 and GH are a prime example, I can't believe I didn't think of that. In some cases, it absolutely comes out to being more profitable, this is anecdotal so it means nothing, but I have a friend who has bought like 200 songs for RB2, that right there made them more money than if they just sold a RB3 disc to him like what the GH series is doing. But I know he isn't the norm, and I imagine there are a lot of people who don't purchase the DLC.
That's another thing - in RB you just buy exactly the songs you want, but with GH people are still likely to go "ooh, this edition has those three songs I love, I need to buy it!"
You can often sell the entire package based on a small amount of content, rather than letting people get away with picking and choosing. Bad for consumers perhaps, but possibly more profitable for devs.
Like Sporky put so well above, a lot of it is really down to public perception.
This model might work that way. See an old[er] title that you didn't pick up, and it's like a gallon of gas, why the hell not? And then you get it home and notice, hey I can buy the sequels for a reduced rate as digital expansion packs. The publishers get to fight Gamestop in the price senstive portion of the market AND essentially use those sales as direct advertising for more recent titles.
Pricing strategy in gaming seems incredible uncreative, and if I had any faith in corporations to generate profit by providing value as opposed to repeatedly raping consumers as hard as possible I'd be very excited about a coming shakeup to the status quo. Instead I forsee much more forceful rape as they futiley attempt to preserve the status quo.
Because it costs anywhere between $15 million to $50 million (or more) to make and market a videogame, and videogames only have 1 outlet (for the most part) to make that money back.
Movies are built with similar budgets, anywhere from $10 million to sometimes scraping the $100 million mark of course, but then they're released to theatres, then to dollar theatres, then to DVD. Games have one shot.
To make matters worse, the market for games are far, far, far smaller than that of movies. Not only is the market for cinema ginormous, but the market for at-home movies is also ginormous and these two markets absolutely positively dwarf the meager 50 million some odd combined install bases of the 360 and PS3. There are fewer people there to pay money for the product.
It's not about the production cost of the disc itself. It's about the production cost of the game, and the movie, and the means by which they have to make that money.
Also, games aren't "$60 or bust." Like anything, it's about supply and demand. Some games will retain their original MSRP for forever (like Mario Kart DS or something probably). But we often see price drops for games that don't do great, fairly quickly. Some games drop $10 or $20 or $30 after a couple of months. So a $60 game might be $50 or $40 or $30 or $20 after a few months. Other very popular games will price drop much more slowly, like COD Modern Warfare. Also, we get "greatest hit" type things, and so there are a few good old 360 or PS3 games you can get for $20. Which brings me to my next point - you mention "5 year old DVDs for $4." Well, show me a 360 game that is 5 years old; you can't, because the oldest 360 game is something like 3 or 4 years old at most. So even if you find the oldest current gen game it's not going to be as old as the $4 dvd you found at 5 years old.
Finally, I should mention that not all games really are $60 or bust. Some games have smaller budgets, and thus smaller MSRP up front. They are fewer and further between on the HD systems but they're there.
Now, you do have somewhat of a point in that games might need more price flexibility and that it's reflected in the Used market. But we could go on and on about that topic for days.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
...all of which is a sunk cost at the point where you're printing discs three to five years after the game was initially released; publishers just decide not to do so, because they don't believe they can get retailers to carry the product for the low prices it would have to sell for to match the current level of demand. You hinted at this a bit yourself by indicating that the market is simply LARGER for movies. This is true - more people who wander by a bin of $4 movies will have an interest in the basic format, and the means to play it. As a counterpoint however I don't think demand is all that high for Tremors 2, but I can still find it in a Safeway. I'd think if you can sell that (for $9 in this case) you could move some older games in decent quantity too - you'd just have to choose the titles carefully.
I still think there's potential money to be made, not to metion the potential for market growth, by selling older games at a severely reduced price in specific limited settings. It would also be nice (and a solid strategic move) to emphasive consistent console backwards compatability to enhance this strategy. Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, name a classic name from last generation - the money invested in created that software is generating approximately zero profit right now (except possibly via its franchise name), but could have the same appeal as cheap DVDs to impulse buying gamers.
Anyway, I agree that there needs to be more of a range or price flexibility but at the same time, publishers need people to buy stuff new, and it sorta/kinda has to be expensive at this point in time.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Ultimately, for this generation at least, the digital shelfspace is far too unnoticed for this to be even remotely viable. Every person who has their box connected to ze interwebs, and downloads content, ALREADY buys stuff at retail. Combined with all the people who don't buy stuff on Live, or don't even have their boxes connected to the internet, who ALSO buy stuff at retail, and it just makes WAAAAY more sense to just sell a new box in stores, especially if they're going to have to go to the store at some point to get the initial version anyway (demonstrating that they're retail shoppers).
Games like Oblivion on the 360 for example, that game is ancient now (relatively), but if Bethesda reprinted it for 5 bucks brand new, imagine how many people would jump on the bandwagon. In a way, it's a solution to the one-shot sales problem that games have; by making sure your game stays relevant by decreasing the price steadily, you end up with more sales in the end. Then after people have bought your 5 dollar game, they may be compelled to pay for extra DLC if they like it. Profitability is still there, you just need to exploit all possible avenues to gain as much as you can.
This is, in a roundabout fashion, the answer to the OP's question. The reason why stuff like this doesn't happen, aside from internet connectivity of most game machines still being abysmally low, is that devs and publishers want to take the most opportunistic release route. This, ideally, would mean a simultaneous digital and retail release, coupled with regular DLC and price drops, until the game has made enough money to cover costs and then some.
Basically what I'm saying is that the game needs to stay in the public eye, and at this point in time the best way to do that is through retail channels. Why else would Bethesda, for example, release retail compilations of the Fallout 3 DLC. This is why digital distro sequels and content are still thin on the ground, and why they will continue to be so until connectivity and communications infrastructure become ubiquitous enough that everyone has the capacity to download Gears of War 3 rather than buy it on disc.
They have already started...so if I had a 10 gb cap and had to download a 8 gb expansion...
I know a number of people who do. However, its a lot easier to work on your movie backlog as well.
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EDIT: The reason I have this backlog? Ultra-cheap movies and games. Target clearance absolutely murders me.