Gamasutra Interview with Brad Wardell on Impulse::Reactor Free-To-Play

Interesting. All I can say now is that I'm looking forward to Reactor.

Successfully updated karma reason!

In an age where you're used to spending only five, six bucks for a game, it's really hard to go back to the PC and pay 60 bucks for a game, especially if it's becoming increasingly loaded with features and content you'll never make use of.

Like what, the game itself?! I can't remember the last time I bought a video game and said, "Gee, look at all this content I don't need! Sure wish the game was half as long, with recycled content in place of new areas." In seriousness, I can only see a microtransaction based system ending badly. It just creates a lot of incentive for developers to chop content from the game before launch and sell it seperately (see: day 1 DLC, and DLC that is proven to be ALREADY ON THE GODDAMN DISK). In a perfect world, the cost of the base game and add-ons would end up costing what a full game would. In reality, we get overly short $50-60 games with $20-50 of DLC added on later. Also, things that used to be unlockables like costumes, secret characters, and such are now always sold seperately. Yeah, you don't have to buy any of it but that doesn't stop the feeling that a lot of it should have been part of the game to begin with.

citing friends who bought Oblivion on a console simply because they were sure that version would work correctly

Nope, console games are prone to major software bugs this generation. Now that they have a strong online component, console developers can now use that release-now-patch-later bs that bad PC devs have been getting away with for years. Fallout: New Vegas was the same buggy late-beta POS on consoles that it was on PC at release. Console games usually don't ship with game breaking bugs, but it's getting worse as more devs realize they can use their entire customer base as beta testers; and they'll pay for it!

Would be nice to be able to sell used PC games again though. Lots of digital games I bought, finished once, and have no intention of playing again. I don't even have a disc or box I can use as a coaster.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 2

In an age where you're used to spending only five, six bucks for a game, it's really hard to go back to the PC and pay 60 bucks for a game, especially if it's becoming increasingly loaded with features and content you'll never make use of.

Like what, the game itself?!

well, I personally have many games that support multiplayer, but on which I have never used multiplayer. That was the example listed, and I would certainly be willing to sacrifice that for a lower price. People who wouldn't can just pay for it.

I can't remember the last time I bought a video game and said, "Gee, look at all this content I don't need!

Maybe not, but I often open up a game, and confronted with a lot of options, must take a moment to discern which is the "real" game; the game as it is meant to be played and which I will find most enjoyable.

Sure wish the game was half as long, with recycled content in place of new areas."

That's not what's on the table here, at least with regards to Stardock's games. If some indy developer wants to go that route, that's their own prerogative, but I imagine market forces would very strongly discourage that behavior.

In seriousness, I can only see a microtransaction based system ending badly. It just creates a lot of incentive for developers to chop content from the game before launch and sell it seperately (see: day 1 DLC, and DLC that is proven to be ALREADY ON THE GODDAMN DISK).

Those sorts of developers already do that. Reactor neither prohibits nor encorages that behavior. It allows it, at most. (At least, according to information that's thus far been released).

In a perfect world, the cost of the base game and add-ons would end up costing what a full game would. In reality, we get overly short $50-60 games with $20-50 of DLC added on later.

Those sorts of games will be able to use Reactor, yes. They currently exist without it, and are supported by people with more money than sense. That doesn't cut into the market for games with deeper and richer experiences, and it doesn't invalidate the fundamental principles of capitalism. If a game is offered with a dearth of content for a high price, it will do worse than a game with a wealth of content for a low price. Obviously advertising/visibility, graphical sophistication, and other factors still play into this. But nonetheless, games are subject to market forces and everything will work itself out properly after a bit. This is what Brad was talking about in relation to the death of the $60 game. That market for high-priced games is going away, because cheaper games with a greater wealth of content are available. The huge AAA games are still hanging ont that model. And for them, it still mostly works. But increasingly, smaller studios are instead putting out cheaper products, or dying.
Even in the console world this is true, as we see Wii beating the more expensive consoles all around.

citing friends who bought Oblivion on a console simply because they were sure that version would work correctly

Nope, console games are prone to major software bugs this generation.

Yeah, but nobody really knew that yet when Oblivion launched. And it's still far less than on PCs, where people often must worry about whether or not their computer is able to play it, not merely whether the game itself has bugs (which I strongly suspect is what was meant.)

Successfully updated karma reason!

I was in sarcasm mode for much of that post if you missed it. However I do seriously believe that a push for a DLC-heavy sales model will never work out in the customers favour, which is why I had to poke fun at Brad. The game industry is not going to start a price war with itself; greedy DLC schemes will not get punished as hard as you seem to think. Not when everyone starts doing it. EA, Activision and such will set a price with their AAA titles for major DLC add-ons, and everyone else follows. Yes, smaller devs may try to buck the system with cheaper prices; but smaller devs barely register a blip on overall game sales.

I do agree with Brad that the $60 standard big publishers are trying to push on PC won't fly, but cutting games into DLC chunks just hides the cost and very likely ends up being worse. Here's a pretty plausible example:

Warcraft 7

Core game, single player campaign only - $30

Multiplayer access with 2 maps per game mode - $30

Skirmish mode - $5

Official Blizzard map packs $5-15

Official mini-campaign add-on packs $5-15

Map Editor and ability to play user-made content - $20

You justify it initally saying, "I'll just play the campaign, it's only $30." Then, "Hmm, I'd like to play the AI on non-scripted maps. I'll buy the skirimish mode add-on, it's only $5." Then, "Hmm, I'm bored with only 2 1v1 maps. I guess I'll buy Map Pack 1." Make fun of this if you want, but I see this as not only a plausible scenario but something fanboys would actually defend despite getting a horrible deal.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 4

I was in sarcasm mode for much of that post if you missed it. However I do seriously believe that a push for a DLC-heavy sales model will never work out in the customers favour, which is why I had to poke fun at Brad. The game industry is not going to start a price war with itself; greedy DLC schemes will not get punished as hard as you seem to think. Not when everyone starts doing it. EA, Activision and such will set a price with their AAA titles for major DLC add-ons, and everyone else follows. Yes, smaller devs may try to buck the system with cheaper prices; but smaller devs barely register a blip on overall game sales.

Except... smaller devs are already doing that, and are becoming a bigger blip every day. Sure, expensive games are the norm in a lot of ways right now, but they are already starting to be overpowered by little cell phone games and facebook games and cheap "indy" games. So your concern, while not illogical, appears to not be founded in reality.

I do agree with Brad that the $60 standard big publishers are trying to push on PC won't fly, but cutting games into DLC chunks just hides the cost and very likely ends up being worse. Here's a pretty plausible example:

Warcraft 7

Core game, single player campaign only - $30

Multiplayer access with 2 maps per game mode - $30

Skirmish mode - $5

Official Blizzard map packs $5-15

Official mini-campaign add-on packs $5-15

Map Editor and ability to play user-made content - $20

There won't be a Warcraft 7 like that. Maybe if they made a new Warcraft rigt now, or very soon, but it's not going to last that long. Especially at the rate that Blizzard makes new games. And they might try something like that. In which case they would turn many of their current fans against them and would be reviled. That even happened to some extent with splitting Starcraft campaign into pieces, even though each one is entirely worthy of being considered a full game. Furthermore, there's nothing explicitly wrong with this deal, assuming the base campaign is still solid (being, itself, worth $30) and the map packs and mini-campaigns contain enough content to warrant their cost. Though that multiplayer option is horribly tightfisted, at $30 and only 2 campaigns per game type; but the core idea is fine. If each individual component is worth the price, then the higher cost is justified. After all, that's significantly more content than a typical $60 game would have.

And even if Blizzard were to put out a whole lot of nothing, it doesn't really matter much. There will always be those who try to get the highest price they can for the least work, just as there will always be those who charge as little as they can.

You justify it initally saying, "I'll just play the campaign, it's only $30." Then, "Hmm, I'd like to play the AI on non-scripted maps. I'll buy the skirimish mode add-on, it's only $5." Then, "Hmm, I'm bored with only 2 1v1 maps. I guess I'll buy Map Pack 1." Make fun of this if you want, but I see this as not only a plausible scenario but something fanboys would actually defend despite getting a horrible deal.

I would purchase those components I intended to play, and no more. In this case, that would probably be none of them, but so it goes.

tl;dr: Saying "this could add up to a higher total cost" is pointless if it also adds up to a higher total content.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Splitting MP from SP is an idea doomed to epic failure. How do you make it work? Okay, the person who only wants SP can buy the base game and not pay for MP. Great for him. What about the person who only wants MP? Will he have to buy the base game + MP, thus paying more for 2 game modes when he's only interested in playing one? Or if MP is a separate "module" game and doesn't require the purchase of SP, how can you ever hope to do fair pricing? SP generally takes the most money to develop (more art assets, cutscenes, scripting, etc), but is the least replayable of the two. It doesn't make sense to charge more for SP than MP because MP can last a year and SP can be over in a day. But it doesn't make sense to make MP more expensive either because it's a comparatively small part of the whole game, even if it is the most replayable. But if you make them equal you're basically forced into the $25-30 price point because people who want both will cry foul if they have to pay more than $50-60 which is the standard price now. It's no-win for anyone.

Successfully updated karma reason!