This game will underperform. The first game was bought on the promise of Fallout New Vegas levels of greatness. It was so underwhelming that a large portion are not playing the 2nd game.
Part of it is honestly going to be from inflation (since new games have routinely been $70); but what they don't understand is that the price point for games has been $60 for mass consumption for a reason. Most people will never think your game is worth $80 on launch generally, no matter how much money you put into it.
You should probably just stop putting hundreds of millions of dollars into your bloated game development; but none of these corporate developers want to do that.
I got limited time to reply so this will be a short and messy:
inflation yes, but audience size also bigger than ever. No one asks you to spend 50+ million per game, learn to manage small teams on projects and sell it at below 60 from the get and you will see more success.
Gamers are not not buying games. They're waiting for 75% off.
Old games meant the price covered everything you ever got, so the products needed to be far more robust than the complete shitshows many companies throw out now. Paradox released a new DLC about a month ago and so far are up to patch 17 of the new update fixing things and there's still so much shit that either doesn't work properly because it's broken, or simply hasn't been updated to work with the new 4.0 revamp of the game. There are multiple threads on the PDX forum and Reddit sub about these things and all it does it paint a picture of an extremely substandard product shipped way too fucking early yet still full priced.
Luckily for many the new DLCs get cracked fast so at least they don't have to pay for their whole game to repeatedly break over the first few weeks and months of a new update.
I don't disagree with this, and moreover, I would argue that substandard product is still the same evidence of the effects of inflation. The only way around the effects of inflation is to have the largest corporations built the cheapest possible product at the largest possible scale.
Fundamentally, I still think these companies need to lower the size of the product (shrinkflation), but I don't think that's a problem because of the bloat that is already in games.
Inflation means nothing versus what people think your product is worth. Unlike "required" markets like food or gas, games are a hobby. If someone is getting priced out they will just stop buying shit. And if you can't afford to keep making the product without charging too much for people to buy it, that's called a failed business/market and history is littered with them.
Very few games have shown themselves to be worth the price increase whatsoever. In fact, most of them launch with so many MTX and battle passes that they should be fucking F2P. If we aren't getting more bang for our increased buck, with all the numerous tech advances and ease of access the industry has now, then why are they demanding absurd amounts more?
The inflation thing would hold a lot more power if every game didn't launch with 2+ extra editions that sometimes double the cost, plus a few expected DLC payments later and a bunch of nickle and dimed addons. So for what used to cost us 60$ for all of it, they are actually trying to sell for well over a hundred and just hiding the additional cost like a contract salesman (first month 1$!). Sure you can skip most of that, but now you are getting loss content compared to what a game used to just have by expectation.
So without even getting into the bloated cost problem, its a complete farce of their raw greed to even dare ask for more money without cutting back on all their other milking nonsense.
Inflation means nothing versus what people think your product is worth
That's not true. Inflation is the increase in currency supply causing price rises. If the Cantillon Effect is in play, and the general population is getting the benefits of inflation last, then the price rises will hurt them because of the lost purchasing power. If we frame the value of games per working hour, or energy used by the consumer, we should see the fact that the consumer will need to work more to purchase a game.
if you can't afford to keep making the product without charging too much for people to buy it, that's called a failed business/market and history is littered with them.
This I 100% agree with. The benefit of the entertainment industry is that you don't need large capital investments to get people to consume your entertainment. They can cut costs, the industry is just refusing to because there is so much bloat that a lot of people are going to lose careers if they do, despite the fact that they should lose their careers because they are unnecessary.
why are they demanding absurd amounts more? ... So without even getting into the bloated cost problem, its a complete farce of their raw greed to even dare ask for more money without cutting back on all their other milking nonsense.
Capital investors from the financial markets who know nothing about entertainment or games, and are demanding arbitrary growth and revenue targets out of complete ignorance.
I have an argument that Corporations are actually Socialist Legal Fictions designed create a wealth distribution scheme using finance as a weapon against itself, and that this shit doesn't happen as much with fully private businesses (which is why those are taxed so aggressively and given no legal protections).
Inflation is the increase in currency supply causing price rises
I meant the inflation argument. Everyone can say "games cost more because inflation!" all they want, but if the product isn't registering as worth more money then it doesn't matter if it relatively costs the same.
Just like McDonald's learned earlier this year, wages haven't kept up with inflation so the argument means nothing to the common man who the increasing cost just ends up more expensive, period.
I agree. I'd go even further and say McDonald's has a more justifiable problem because their business model only works at maximum scale, so they must take aggressive cost cutting measures to maintain profit (by automating everything and hiring less people).
For video games it's about spending less time rendering walls that the player character will never access. It's a much easier effort to just not waste time on stuff that won't actually facilitate the player's enjoyment.
For video games it's about spending less time rendering walls that the player character will never access.
The problem here is, while you aren't wrong, is that games mostly aren't priced based on the effort/quality or even the product as a whole. The majority of major industry games will be full priced (60/70/80) no matter fucking what, from cheap anime license shit to top prized IPs and everything in between. Even the Indie market has roughly the same problem with the 10-15$ and 20-30$ price point.
This is because its the "norm" and they are simply pricing with the trend to maximize, regardless of what they put in investment or time wise nor what you can expect to get out of it. They want to get paid, sometimes deservedly so, and the product is sold to reflect that mindset first and the consumer second.
If AAA companies slashed their budgets by like 50%, they still wouldn't lower the price they are trying to sell for even if they realistically should. Instead they are caught up in a war similar to the old one where Sony saw Microsoft charged for online play and decided they could too and added a sub for no additional gain, followed by Nintendo in the next generation doing the same (albeit a lot cheaper, 20$ a year instead of like 12$ a month for the other two).
So they are all watching each other, waiting for the first guy to pull the trigger and take all the heat, then they will all try to slip in once the controversy becomes normalized. Its all about what they can get away with, the actual product and its investment is secondary to determining what they will sell for.
If Price's Law holds up, even 10% is generous, with a sufficiently large enough corporate headcount.
So if you take something like Rockstar Games with about 6000 employees, you're looking at about 77 people actually actively working to complete a game.
Among everything else we already know about the industry, this alone should be critical evidence for anyone who thinks these decisions are not ideologically driven. These people don't give a shit about making money, they care about manufacturing consent. The first Outer Worlds was a shit commie game for retards that fucking no one bought. It basically killed Obsidian as a solo entity. Somehow, however, it gets the nod for a sequel.
These corporations are being funded by other corporate entities like Blackrock. They don't care if you like the price, or even if you buy the game or not. The Board of Directors already made bank.
While I did enjoy the original Outer Worlds, it was definitely a cut down experience in comparison to say Oblivion or Fallout. Are they making a bigger game this time around to justify that price tag?
The original was so mid that nobody cared in the slightest when it came out and even those who played it barely cared to remember it. If it didn't have a name easily confused with a much more beloved, space game, Outer Wilds, it likely would be completely forgotten. Who was asking for a sequel?
Shit I am still mad that I had a companion slot wasted on an idiotic fucking lesbian whose entire personal quest was "I am so fucking autistic you need to visit every single location in the game to help me set up a date with some girl we met once."
I don't want to make apologies for it, but a lot of things will go through a price bump because of the inflation we've seen since 2020. The value of the dollar dropped by more than half in that time frame. Almost everything eventually will price bump to catch up with it.
Luxury goods for poor people are the last thing that should get a price jump. These games are not competing with other games now, they are competing with food and rent. Games will always lose that competition. It's only once the economy stabilizes for a decade that the prices should actually go up. This will become evident as even more big games just fail. The extra profits will not materialize because people just can't afford their bullshit.
I remember the first one, it wasn't worth the price tag back then. Really quite disappointing. As for the second, deep deep sale in a few years maybe, if at all.
they couldn't PAY ME to play their pozzed trash
so asking 80$ in addition to the game being gay and negrified is simply just asking to go broke
This game will underperform. The first game was bought on the promise of Fallout New Vegas levels of greatness. It was so underwhelming that a large portion are not playing the 2nd game.
Part of it is honestly going to be from inflation (since new games have routinely been $70); but what they don't understand is that the price point for games has been $60 for mass consumption for a reason. Most people will never think your game is worth $80 on launch generally, no matter how much money you put into it.
You should probably just stop putting hundreds of millions of dollars into your bloated game development; but none of these corporate developers want to do that.
I got limited time to reply so this will be a short and messy:
inflation yes, but audience size also bigger than ever. No one asks you to spend 50+ million per game, learn to manage small teams on projects and sell it at below 60 from the get and you will see more success.
Gamers are not not buying games. They're waiting for 75% off.
I agree with that
Old games meant the price covered everything you ever got, so the products needed to be far more robust than the complete shitshows many companies throw out now. Paradox released a new DLC about a month ago and so far are up to patch 17 of the new update fixing things and there's still so much shit that either doesn't work properly because it's broken, or simply hasn't been updated to work with the new 4.0 revamp of the game. There are multiple threads on the PDX forum and Reddit sub about these things and all it does it paint a picture of an extremely substandard product shipped way too fucking early yet still full priced.
Luckily for many the new DLCs get cracked fast so at least they don't have to pay for their whole game to repeatedly break over the first few weeks and months of a new update.
I don't disagree with this, and moreover, I would argue that substandard product is still the same evidence of the effects of inflation. The only way around the effects of inflation is to have the largest corporations built the cheapest possible product at the largest possible scale.
Fundamentally, I still think these companies need to lower the size of the product (shrinkflation), but I don't think that's a problem because of the bloat that is already in games.
Inflation means nothing versus what people think your product is worth. Unlike "required" markets like food or gas, games are a hobby. If someone is getting priced out they will just stop buying shit. And if you can't afford to keep making the product without charging too much for people to buy it, that's called a failed business/market and history is littered with them.
Very few games have shown themselves to be worth the price increase whatsoever. In fact, most of them launch with so many MTX and battle passes that they should be fucking F2P. If we aren't getting more bang for our increased buck, with all the numerous tech advances and ease of access the industry has now, then why are they demanding absurd amounts more?
The inflation thing would hold a lot more power if every game didn't launch with 2+ extra editions that sometimes double the cost, plus a few expected DLC payments later and a bunch of nickle and dimed addons. So for what used to cost us 60$ for all of it, they are actually trying to sell for well over a hundred and just hiding the additional cost like a contract salesman (first month 1$!). Sure you can skip most of that, but now you are getting loss content compared to what a game used to just have by expectation.
So without even getting into the bloated cost problem, its a complete farce of their raw greed to even dare ask for more money without cutting back on all their other milking nonsense.
When you think about it, the inflation argument is just Labor Theory of Value in a fiat funny money wrapper.
Keynesianism is a socialist monetary scheme, that is why it requires permanent inflation.
Deflation in normal. Deflationary pressures (like technological advancement, increases in efficiency, and careful consumer spending) are good.
That's not true. Inflation is the increase in currency supply causing price rises. If the Cantillon Effect is in play, and the general population is getting the benefits of inflation last, then the price rises will hurt them because of the lost purchasing power. If we frame the value of games per working hour, or energy used by the consumer, we should see the fact that the consumer will need to work more to purchase a game.
This I 100% agree with. The benefit of the entertainment industry is that you don't need large capital investments to get people to consume your entertainment. They can cut costs, the industry is just refusing to because there is so much bloat that a lot of people are going to lose careers if they do, despite the fact that they should lose their careers because they are unnecessary.
Capital investors from the financial markets who know nothing about entertainment or games, and are demanding arbitrary growth and revenue targets out of complete ignorance.
I have an argument that Corporations are actually Socialist Legal Fictions designed create a wealth distribution scheme using finance as a weapon against itself, and that this shit doesn't happen as much with fully private businesses (which is why those are taxed so aggressively and given no legal protections).
I meant the inflation argument. Everyone can say "games cost more because inflation!" all they want, but if the product isn't registering as worth more money then it doesn't matter if it relatively costs the same.
Just like McDonald's learned earlier this year, wages haven't kept up with inflation so the argument means nothing to the common man who the increasing cost just ends up more expensive, period.
I agree. I'd go even further and say McDonald's has a more justifiable problem because their business model only works at maximum scale, so they must take aggressive cost cutting measures to maintain profit (by automating everything and hiring less people).
For video games it's about spending less time rendering walls that the player character will never access. It's a much easier effort to just not waste time on stuff that won't actually facilitate the player's enjoyment.
The problem here is, while you aren't wrong, is that games mostly aren't priced based on the effort/quality or even the product as a whole. The majority of major industry games will be full priced (60/70/80) no matter fucking what, from cheap anime license shit to top prized IPs and everything in between. Even the Indie market has roughly the same problem with the 10-15$ and 20-30$ price point.
This is because its the "norm" and they are simply pricing with the trend to maximize, regardless of what they put in investment or time wise nor what you can expect to get out of it. They want to get paid, sometimes deservedly so, and the product is sold to reflect that mindset first and the consumer second.
If AAA companies slashed their budgets by like 50%, they still wouldn't lower the price they are trying to sell for even if they realistically should. Instead they are caught up in a war similar to the old one where Sony saw Microsoft charged for online play and decided they could too and added a sub for no additional gain, followed by Nintendo in the next generation doing the same (albeit a lot cheaper, 20$ a year instead of like 12$ a month for the other two).
So they are all watching each other, waiting for the first guy to pull the trigger and take all the heat, then they will all try to slip in once the controversy becomes normalized. Its all about what they can get away with, the actual product and its investment is secondary to determining what they will sell for.
I assume they're trying to make up part of what they lost from Avowed. At least they're going gull on anti-capitalist messaging
I wonder if they took a bath on it or if Xbox did
50% of a games budget is marketing. 40% is to the bloated staff. Only 10% probably makes it to the coders.
But.. these days, game companies outsource as much as possible to jeets anways..
If Price's Law holds up, even 10% is generous, with a sufficiently large enough corporate headcount.
So if you take something like Rockstar Games with about 6000 employees, you're looking at about 77 people actually actively working to complete a game.
Among everything else we already know about the industry, this alone should be critical evidence for anyone who thinks these decisions are not ideologically driven. These people don't give a shit about making money, they care about manufacturing consent. The first Outer Worlds was a shit commie game for retards that fucking no one bought. It basically killed Obsidian as a solo entity. Somehow, however, it gets the nod for a sequel.
These corporations are being funded by other corporate entities like Blackrock. They don't care if you like the price, or even if you buy the game or not. The Board of Directors already made bank.
Another $80 saved.
B-b-but Game Pass!!!
I wouldn't even be surprised. They don't games to be owned ever.
While I did enjoy the original Outer Worlds, it was definitely a cut down experience in comparison to say Oblivion or Fallout. Are they making a bigger game this time around to justify that price tag?
Same, enjoyed the original well enough, wanted to support the Fallout 1/2/NV developers, but it was pretty small. I'll hold of on it.
New games usually aren't good enough to justify not just playing old games from years ago.
I'll wait for the sub 20 dollar DLC free version on GOG in a few years
It will probably be bigger, since they can utilize a lot more technology to procedurally develop it.
I suspect that a lot of dialogue trees are now being AI-written, and possibly AI-voiced.
Woke as fuck trash for 120 bucks? Pay you to get preached at by THE MESSAGE? how about you go fuck yourself with a rusty knife.
I'll wait for reviews, and if they come back positive I'll wait a few years until it's 75% off during a random steam sale.
The original was so mid that nobody cared in the slightest when it came out and even those who played it barely cared to remember it. If it didn't have a name easily confused with a much more beloved, space game, Outer Wilds, it likely would be completely forgotten. Who was asking for a sequel?
Shit I am still mad that I had a companion slot wasted on an idiotic fucking lesbian whose entire personal quest was "I am so fucking autistic you need to visit every single location in the game to help me set up a date with some girl we met once."
I don't want to make apologies for it, but a lot of things will go through a price bump because of the inflation we've seen since 2020. The value of the dollar dropped by more than half in that time frame. Almost everything eventually will price bump to catch up with it.
Luxury goods for poor people are the last thing that should get a price jump. These games are not competing with other games now, they are competing with food and rent. Games will always lose that competition. It's only once the economy stabilizes for a decade that the prices should actually go up. This will become evident as even more big games just fail. The extra profits will not materialize because people just can't afford their bullshit.
I remember the first one, it wasn't worth the price tag back then. Really quite disappointing. As for the second, deep deep sale in a few years maybe, if at all.