Over on ihobo.com and on gamesbrief.com, my counter-argument to Nicholas Lovell’s claims that the pricing of PC games will trend towards zero. Here’s an extract:
What a AAA fixed price game can deliver to players is (potentially, at least) a substantially deeper game experience than is possible in free-to-play, where getting a minimum viable product to market is a near-requirement, preventing the inclusion of more advanced features of the game world. If something like Grand Theft Auto IV or Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag had been financed on a free-to-play model, they would have been impossible – only the economics of fixed price premium console games justifies the astronomical development budgets. This isn’t even an exceptional case: look at cinema. Digital distribution has reduced the marginal cost in the film industry in just the same way as it has in games, but people still go to the movies and pay a fixed price to do so. This is because blockbuster movies – just like blockbuster games – are made on a high budget in order to ensure that cachet attaches to the resulting brand.
You’re welcome to comment in either place – it’s likely to be a noisy discussion on the Gamesbrief site, but a more quiet, intimate affair on ihobo.com I should think.
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