If it includes the money for commercials:
NO SHIT SHERLOCK[/SIZE]
and?
Too bad they only made a billion dollars of of it and an extra half a billion from DLC, not to mention the only thing they had to do was take away stuff like dedi servers and destroy the modding community of which I was part of for over 6 years. But yeah, money well spent for a 3 hour campaign game where I recognize half the scripts, textures, animations, FX, sounds, prefabs and models from the previous Call of Duty game.
Did I mention they destroyed Infinity Ward which has now basically lost all the lead developers behind the first games?
Activison doesn’t give a fuck, its not the quality of the last couple of CoD that sold it was the name.
People will eat up the next CoD just because it is CoD.
Capitalism as we know it is fundamentally flawed and is doomed to collapse. Oh well!
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Video games gave me erectile dysfunction
I wonder how
DLC sucks… why do I have to pay $15 to get several new maps in MW2?! I like game companies like Valve that spend time on games to make them as good as possible and instead of making DLC, adds new things in later like with TF2.
I’m not against paying for DLC, but I just never have. I stick to games like rFactor, or the source engine, where the modding capabilities are monstrous.
Thats where I get my ‘additional’ fix. Most games I buy retail and leave it at that.
I’m sorry, but very little of what you pay goes back to the developers
Earlier this year Xbox World 360 published where your money ends up. So apologies, but this will be in Pounds Sterling 
Total cost of a game: £50
Who gets what:
Retailers: £12.25 (the shop you buy it from. Cutting out of this is how they reduce prices. They make a return on pre-owned sales, which makes up for what they lose here)
Publisher: £22.25 (45% of the price goes back to pay staff, fund development, pay for commercials, with a tiny amount going back to the actual developers)
Distribution: £3.50 (getting it onto disc and onto the backs of lorries. Whether the game sells for a tenner or £50, this price stays the same)
Platform Holder: £6 (12% goes to Microsoft, or whoever made your console. They sell the consoles cheap and make the returns on games, and have done since the days of the NES)
Returns: £6 (covers returning and disposing of unsold copies of the game. Like distribution, this cost doesn’t change whatever the cost of the game)
These figures were given by the OnLive boss Steve Perlman, at the DICE summit in Las Vegas. Basically what he was getting at is how much can be saved from distribution and retailers by selling games digitally.
What interested me more is the tiny slice that ends up back with developers. Don’t let the 45% publisher slice fool you, the developers will get next to nothing back, which kind of kills the argument about how much they cost to make…
DLC isn’t that bad, I mean some people take it too far like 15$ for 3 maps but still. Fallout 3’s Point Lookout was worth it IMO. Its ongoing development that some companies charge for. Not everyone has as big of pockets as VALVe or can take as big of risks as them.
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It also covers advertsing, trade shows, admin, press events, building hire, staff wages, and a fiver for David Hayter every time he says ‘EA Sports - its in the game’
Hello game development company. Look at Valve. Improve.
Either way, the movie price difference has already been covered, but people are more willing to spend quite a bit of money on a 30 hour game, than they are on 2 hour long movie.
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Whether or not the price is justified by the development costs is irrelevant, they are still charging a lot of money for mediocre games.
That’s true, but it’s also not a “rip-off.” You’re paying a fair price for a product which you might be dissapointed by, but your satisfaction isn’t relevant to whether the price is fair.
Agreed. 
My tips to the industry in general:
- Stop making expensive games. It’s way too risky. Find a level of graphics that’s acceptable, stop filling up your game with unique voices by overpaid actors, and keep it simple.
- Use Digital Distribution, save money. Specifically make the digital version always cost less than the boxed version. (hey, you get the same either way)
But my main tip is one that goes to customers. Mainly: Pay what you think the game is worth. If it’s worth $50 to you, but it costs $60, screw it. Plenty of fish in the sea, and your clan can survive a month without you in their server. It probably sucks anyways, as you should assume from Yahtzee’s chart.
If one day, EVERY gamer on earth followed that rule, then publishers would have no choice but to cater to your interests.