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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

The Box of Empty Promises 64

Posted by Zonk from the charging-for-the-extras dept.
Grimwell.com has a feature up discussing the content selling that publishers like Sony Online and Microsoft have been announcing of late. Xbox Live micro-sales and the purchasing of in-game items in Everquest II may have an adverse affect on the playing field for the average gamer. From the article: "Games are becoming too much about money. Thats a real no brainer statement and I know it. The video gaming industry is where the money is at these days, besting Hollywood and the record industry without even trying. Nor have they really built up a public industry equivalent to the machines that grind out more traditional forms of entertainment. Oh, that's coming, and EA is quickly becoming the MGM of the old film studio system, but the public recognition of the machine that drives the gaming industry is nothing when compared to film, television, and radio."
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The Box of Empty Promises More

The Box of Empty Promises

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  • Mini games (Score:2, Interesting)

    by raminator ( 635306 )
    What happened to those games that you were supposed to be able to download straight to the Xbox?

  • History repeats itself... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:19PM (#12502033) Journal
    I recall reading the same 'all about money' thing regarding the collectable card games of the last decade or so - MTG. Still, I've yet to see anything that can change the balance in the 'twitch' games that dominate Xbox Live. Perhaps this would occur in the sports games, though, where you can buy a better player to sub in. Still, I think most tournaments and most players would stick to straight vanilla games.

    • Re:History repeats itself... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by servognome ( 738846 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:45PM (#12502297)
      I recall reading the same 'all about money' thing regarding the collectable card games of the last decade or so - MTG. Still, I think most tournaments and most players would stick to straight vanilla games

      This brings up a good point, there is a difference between casual and competitive. I had older cards that weren't balanced which I could use in causal play, however, in competitive play those cards were banned, so they were useless.

      Microsoft/Sony can sell all the toys they want so long as they are kept out of competitive play. All it will do is change the gameplay experience for those who buy it. Those who buy it will have more fun, but it won't decrease the level of fun for you. In a twitch game like Halo, maybe you could buy extra weapons or vehicles, so long as those things are kept out of PvP there is no imbalance.

  • Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tprime ( 673835 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:20PM (#12502044)
    What did you expect to happen??

    -Around 18 minutes out of every hour of radio is spent on commercials
    -The average hourlong TV show only truly breaks 40 minutes of content (I know, I TiVo through the commercials) -Movies innundate you with ads slideshowing prior to the ads for future movies. Those ads now lead you into movies with an incredible amount of product placement ads. -Video games give advertisers a unique opportunity to let people actually buy the product when the advertisement is fresh in their minds. It is the logical conclusion to the cycle, and it is only going to get worse.
    • Only 18 minutes on the radio? You haven't tried to listen to our local stations, then... it's more like 18 minutes of CONTENT around here.

      I don't think it's fair to compare these forms of media to video games, though, because with this, it gives the player a choice that's not there with TV commercials... As long as there's a choice between earning the +5 Sword of Smiting by defeating the Black Knight and buying one from the developer for $4.99, I don't see it as a problem. Now if the ONLY way to get i
      • It is fair to compare the media types. You are paying for a portion of the content in TV, Radio and Movies. Part of the newest "microcontent" ideas is to get you started playing the game and then give you the option to play the "Black Knight Conflict" scenario for an additional $4.99.
        • You know, I'd go for that too. If I could buy levels for $2-4 apiece (longer levels worth more), I'd go for it. It would be fun to have the new experiences from the expansion packs without having to buy 4 levels + random assorted junk that I don't like for another 30 clams. Of course that'll never happen because they just got $30 and only had to design 4 levels (which would take considerably more work than designing 10 new weapons or whatever else they put in the expansion).
      • Now if the ONLY way to get it is to pay the $4.99, I'll stop playing on the spot.

        Most likely what you will see items sold for aesthetics rather than gameplay. You can get a +5 sword of smiting from the black knight, but you can only get a +5 sword of energy for $4.99. Functionally they could be the same, only the sword of energy has cool electrical sparks on the blade.
    • As for TV, broadcasters (including cablecasters and narrowcasters) are allowed 16 minutes of commercials per hour. So, by the time you factor in the opening and closing credits, yes, about 40-42 minutes of content.

      I remember learning about scriptwriting from old Star Trek books I had when I was a teen ("Making of Star Trek" and "Trouble With Tribbles"), and learning that when Trek was made, 8 minutes (or less?) per hour were allowed for commercials. Somehow the fact that over 25% of airtime is no longer
      • The second season of "24" started out with an advertisement-free episode.

        It was sponsored by Ford, and had (if memory serves) a 5-minute commercial at the beginning and end.

        That was 2 years ago. Today, they could do another advertisement-free episode to kick things off, but do product placement instead. This week's episode had Chloe mentioning how Cisco networks are 'self-repairing', for instance (not that this is a particularly intelligent way of promoting Cisco, but you get the idea).

  • How uninsightful (Score:2, Insightful)

    by reidbold ( 55120 )
    This article is less informative and insightful than the comments on slashdot regarding the announcements of pay for play content.

  • Better By Sony (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:21PM (#12502052)
    The trade of virtual items has gone on and will continue to go on whether authorized by the game companies or not.

    It should be _better_ for the game when companies like Sony actually begin selling in-game items, money, and bonuses.

    On games where players themselves are the providers of goods for sale, there is a huge business in "farming" items and coin for resale. So not only do you have players with real money able to buy things (rather than earn them), but you also have the contention for resources due to all the farmers.

    If game company provides the virtual goods, that essentially undercuts any player-farmed trade. That is definitely an improvement.
    • I completely agree, and I'm sick of fan boys who think it'll ruin the purity of the game. Playing 20 hours a day sorta does that as well; if someone has more money than time then let them spend real money for ingame power; sounds like smart business to me plus it'd undercut fraudulent selling.

  • Had this before (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    We've had this discussion before. Video games are now something everyone enjoys. And just like movies and music there is a divide between blockbuster crap that makes a shitton of money and real quality stuff that is only for the people who care.

    Art house movie theatres, local garage bands, independently published books. That is where the quality is. And now that all the vast consumer sheep buy video games the real money is in selling crap games like this to them. The hardcore gamers who actually give two s
    • Except when you roll your ball of Katamari stuff over a McDonald's sign, past the giant Taco Bell, down Chevrolet Blvd.
    • Having seen many Art-house movies and heard many small scale bands , i can honestly say they both have nearly as much rubbish as hollywood and the music industry(plenty of good stuff too though).
      A hell of alot of great freebooks though and rarely have i come across a load of tripe( i mainly read referance).

      Blockbuster games can be crap and can be good , don't tar them all with the same brush , each thing needs judged individualy. I have played alot of small scale games that are awfull as i have good ones.

  • I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:26PM (#12502095) Homepage
    the original implosion of the videogame industry. The stars are all aligned for a second coming. Counter to what everyone keeps claiming about how it is going to grow and grow, and EA shall rule with small incremental updates to the same titles year after year... this is exactly what caused the bubble to burst last time. Flooded market, too many consoles, crap to good game ratio too high, and greedy companies looking to cash in on the boom... check, check, check, and check.

    With all of the losses in hardware and set to grow higher with the next round, no real innovation in the next gen except for possibly the Revolution (ooh, online pay gaming and wireless controller standard!), and this notion that the same tired videogames will continue to sell after GTA 9, NFL 2k28, and the rest of the current market, I don't think so!
    • Just out of curiosity when was this, the early 80s? I don't remember this ever happening.
    • Flooded market, too many consoles, crap to good game ratio too high, and greedy companies looking to cash in on the boom... check, check, check, and check. There's a huge difference between the conditions of the early eighties and today. Back then, you had a vast number of competing platforms (consoles and computers) instead of the select few you have today, and the quality of the games are exponentially greater than any games released in the early eighties. What triggered the crash back then was the extre
      • Say what you will but this is almost exactly like before... see your missing a big point here. There will be the PSOne, PS2, GBA, GBA SP, GC, XBX, DS, Ngage, PS3, XBX 360, PC's, and even Cell Phones all still viable consoles, all having for the most part the exact same releases with about 6-10 exclusive titles per year. Here is the real problem for the average "gamer" you read about the TOP games in your particualr interest and you know what is good and what isn't so unconsciously when you go to buy a game

    • Re:I guess most are too young to remember... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by servognome ( 738846 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @04:09PM (#12502582)
      crap to good game ratio too high

      Uncheck, the last year has had alot of great titles, moreso than in previous years. Probably a dozen or more big name games that lived up to the hype (or did at least good job)

      and this notion that the same tired videogames will continue to sell after GTA 9, NFL 2k28, and the rest of the current market, I don't think so!

      The Madden Franchise is like 15 years old, how many Mario and Zelda games have there been?

      The environment is different now, you have a generation that has grown up with video games, consoles are now being treated as entertainment platforms rather than game players (ie people in Japan bought PS2s for the DVD funtionality), and multiple and mature genres that cater to many interests (as opposed to almost pure "action" titles available in the past).

      The video game industry may decline, but it won't collapse completely.
      • Uncheck, the last year has had alot of great titles, moreso than in previous years. Probably a dozen or more big name games that lived up to the hype (or did at least good job)

        A dozen out of how many games released last year? Well over 100 games get released a year, so slightly more than 10% of 100 being in the "living up to hype" section is not really helping your argument.

        The crap to good ratio is pretty horrid out there, right now, especially on the PS2. The Xbox is catching up to the PS2 in crap

        • A dozen out of how many games released last year? Well over 100 games get released a year, so slightly more than 10% of 100 being in the "living up to hype" section is not really helping your argument.

          There always has and always will be a large portion of games that are bad. What caused the collapse of video games in the past was the big name games that were atrocious, that caused players to be jaded, and bottom lines to suffer horribly (ie Pac-man & ET).
          Those 10% of games "living up to the hype" pro
    • That's what you WOULD think, but the environment is completely different. The original crash was because in those days the game market was very specialized. Games were either children's toys or for the people who played space invaders in the arcade for hours. These are the same people who own every system and every quality game today. Nowadays gaming is no longer a niche and everyone plays games. So it's profitable to make tons of crap games because tons of crap people will buy them. The movie industry hasn
    • ...no real innovation in the next gen...

      The Cell Processor [wikipedia.org] doesn't count?

      Doug

      • What does the Cell do for the user? Can anyone tell the difference between a system powered by a Cell vs. one driven by a standard multicore chip?

        Innovation in this context means from the user's point of view and more polygons or more accurate physics aren't innovative from that point of view.
      • No, it really doesn't. This coming from a huge hardware guy... this is exactly what I mean. This is where Nintendo has it right and things will come full circle (no xbox pun intended) back to Nintendo once the dust settles on this round of consoles.

        The cell is a cool piece of hardware, but it means nothing to games... it means a lot to Sony who is going to make the cell a part of their products and force a line of consumers into it and a whole product line around it. Again, this is totally missing the main
  • Arcade games with a buy-in continue started this a long time ago. Then again, the real kudos went to those who did best on a single quarter. Usually the game will reset your score or make you ineligible for the high score leaderboard. With a little care, the games purchased content could be for "fun only" and not for "tournament legal."

    Also, the free "promo only" items we get for pre-purchasing games are often great to start with, but won't last after a couple levels. So it's not the concept of micropu
  • Worse comes to worse, we'll always have games like Deanimator [cmu.edu] from people who aren't only about money... so chill.

  • What I want to know is (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Acy James Stapp ( 1005 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:57PM (#12502454)
    If the industry is bigger than Hollywood, where are all the limos, drugs, and groupies? Where's the money at?

    Good link at http://grumpygamer.com/5378171 [grumpygamer.com]
    Quote: "The 2004 domestic Video and Computer Game Industry is estimated to be around $10B. This is a slightly misleading figure because it includes the sales of the console machines, in addition to the sales of the software, but we'll go with it.

    The domestic US box office is estimated to be around $9B for 2004, and this is where the myth starts to take life. The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office. DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B. VHS sales and rentals for 2003 was $6.4B. VHS sales are declining fast, but most of that will just shift over to DVDs, which brings the grand total for non-box office movie sales to over $20B, twice the figure for the entire game industry."

    • If the industry is bigger than Hollywood, where are all the limos, drugs, and groupies? Where's the money at?

      Have you ever been to an EA press event, or E3 for that matter? It doesn't come close to Hollywood in a traditional sense, but EA spends a small nation's GDP worth to fly out journalists for its events(on top of all the stuff they serve the guests, lodging, etc) and then E3 is a huge money sink in the spaces, the lights, the booth babes, etc. The ratio of dollars spent on advertising to all money

  • Since when were any Xbox Live transactions "micro" sized? All I've seen are PGR track packs for £4 or so and obscure Japanese dance tracks by unknown Japanese dance artists for DDR at £4.99 a pop. That's the price of a PC game on the "Sold Out" range. Hardly "micro".
    • Yes...exactly...correct...right.

      That is why they are talking about 'micro' payments in the NEXT generation of the Xbox.

      So, their idea of micro is sub $5.00 (or whatever that converts to in currencies throughout the world.)

      This is something they are adding, not something they are doing now.
  • Empty promises? Game companies acting like rampaging lucre-beasts? Selling access to fairly gimmicky and short-lived bit-content, like "tricked out vehicles" to make friends drool while they watch you play some racing game? (That's paraphrasing, fairly maliciously, a quote from some X-Box exec I read, excited about his new, precious revenue source.)

    I don't think it'll last, and I'd accelerate the process if I could. If I had the money, I'd love to produce this commercial and see if I could get it inser
  • Personally, I think that after I shell out $50 for a game, and, in the case EverQuest II, pay $15 a month (I am actually a WoW subscriber), I do not want people to be able to obtain the "uber" new sword without going through all of the work that I did. If they are a casual gamer, fine, but they still should have to go through the same work that I did. I feel cheated in a way when the things I worked very hard for are dynamically generated and sold by a corporation (Sony).
    • For what it's worth, that's not how it works. Sony isn't manufactuering the goods for sale. Much like eBay doesn't actually manufactuer anything, it's just there to serve as the facilitator for two seperate parties conducting a transaction.
      Now, I know you can argue that they do manufactuer the items, as its their game, but it's not like some make it sound. You don't give them $5, and they load up an uber sword and send it to you. A player finds uber sword in the game, lists it for auction, you buy it,
  • HA!

    I wrote a paper similar to this for a class about 3 weeks ago.

    Nice to see I'm not the only one out there who picked up on this.
  • ...read the article title and immediately think of the Phantom console?
  • games have always been about money.

    maybe when you and i were kids, we couldn't see that among the cool new games.

    and please don't trivialize buying "virtual" items unless you also do the same for any "virtual" objects aka computer code/games/software/music/video.

    if you don't want to participate (welcome to the club) then don't but don't try the bullshit fallacious argument that only stupid people would buy "virtual" items.

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