Retail Price & Play Time -Versus- Indie Price & Play Time

[Koh]

Something I thought we could discuss for quite some time now. What do you guys think about the ratio of money spent versus time played in games these days?

Retail price games are often in the $60 range. Many, however, only give say, 4-7 hours of gameplay. However if you look at indie price games such as Terraria or Minecraft ($15 and $30 respectively), you get over 400+ hours of gameplay. One could argue the type of game influences that too, since these are open sandbox games. However, what about indie games in the same vein as retail games, such as the Binding of Isaac versus Legend of Zelda?

How do you feel on the money spent versus play time ratio?

Before anyone says this, I'll just say it now: "Who cares about the price? As long as you enjoy the game, the money wasn't wasted/money was well spent." This is true, but doesn't extend this discussion.

[psychospacecow]

When you get a major release game, it is either due to it being an extensive single player or a good multiplayer. The multiplayer lasts as long as you do, and the single lasts as long as there are options, which can be expanded further with mods. Its all in how you go about it.

[Kriven]

I tend not to spend my own money on games that will cost more than twenty dollars. That's pretty much my threshold for individual experiences isolated to a screen. Really, the time I'm going to spend with the game doesn't influence my decision all that much... I mean, mind-numbing grinding will make me more reluctant to purchase, which is why I don't get a whole lot of open-world games with lots of repetitive missions and sidequests...

time-wasted:money-spent is a bigger concern for me than time-playing:money-spent.

And as someone with fleeting hours of mortality, longer is not always better.

[Kosheh]

Have you ever beaten a modern videogame?
Have you ever watched the credits, and seen the hundreds of people that work on videogames now compared to the games of yesteryear?
Have you noticed many retail games try to maintain relatively high standards throughout the course of the gameplay - particularly American games, which do their best to maintain Hollywood-quality storylines, characters, and acting?
Have you also noticed that you see advertisements for those games on gaming websites, television, and magazines (lol)?
And most importantly - have you noticed that games are developed by smaller companies and then published by larger ones?

There's big companies putting big money behind their games to ensure that they're big successes in the marketplace. Retail games maintain a retail standard and therefore generally have retail prices.
When the advertising run and the purchase "boom" of that game ends, it's up to the company and/or retailers what to do with the remaining product - which is why you'll see price drops or clearanced games.

Most indie games have considerably less, well, everything to do in that regard when releasing a game. Most indie companies don't really have a huge legal department, human resource department, or a humongous facility to maintain - it's just a single floor of a building as opposed to a multiple-story complex belonging to one company. And most importantly, they'll self-publish their title, which is far less and in the end costs the consumer far less than a retail title.



That said, I'll generally be hesitant to buy a retail game at full price (or a used, uncommon game like, say Chrono Trigger or something) unless I know for sure that it'll keep me enthralled for hours on end. Sometimes there's exceptions with some uncertainty but then on some weird whim I end up playing the absolute hell out of it (like Disney Magical World; a game I thought was going to be a dopey few hours with my girlfriend - it ended up turning into dozens of questing and grinding and one of my favorite games that I've played in 2014)

And as someone with fleeting hours of mortality, longer is not always better.

I'm reading this as "well I'm gonna die at some point better spend my time playing GOOD games"

grind till i die #yolo

[Koh]

That's true, there is a lot more that goes behind retail games. I just can't remember the last time I actually bought a retail game for full price, lol. I still hear friends talking about getting day one releases and all that, but I'd rather wait for a sale.

[psychospacecow]

Last game I bought at retail price was Far Cry 3. I regret absolutely nothing.

[BullockDS]

For the 3DS, I'm fine paying the $30-40 retail price for games (except for Yoshi's New Island... wish I would've waited for a discount on that one).

For console games, however, I'm definitely more hesitant. Thank goodness most of the console games I've wanted happen to come out in time for my parents to buy them instead. (Yes, I'm a spoiled little crap.)

Last console game that I bought myself at retail price was Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I honestly love the game, so no regrets here. IMO, it's gotten too much of a bad rap recently.

[Sengir]

Retail price games are often in the $60 range. Many, however, only give say, 4-7 hours of gameplay. However if you look at indie price games such as Terraria or Minecraft ($15 and $30 respectively), you get over 400+ hours of gameplay.

I could hardly credit Minecraft with gameplay. Sandbox games don't have legitimate gameplay; they are toys. You can't buy a tub of Legos or box of little plastic army men and claim they have more hours of gameplay than a video game.

However, what about indie games in the same vein as retail games, such as the Binding of Isaac versus Legend of Zelda?

The Legend of Zelda may have cost the traditional 50 USD at launch compared to The Binding of Isaac's 5 USD (8 USD if you are including the expansion as the "whole game"), but The Legend of Zelda was a completely new game at the time; it expanded significantly on its predecessor (Adventure for the 2600), it had a monumental amount of content in an era of puzzle games and arcade games and basically created the genre.

The Binding of Isaac's price is low; it was developed by two guys with a much lower financial requirement than a team of professional developers (probably with families) living in a large Japanese city. The Binding of Isaac was programmed in Adobe Flash, which cuts development time by an enormous amount and has a massive amount of existing codebases plus online tutorials. The Legend of Zelda was programmed in Assembly on a 6502 in an age before you could Google for help. These all factor into the budget, not to mention Nintendo had cartridge production costs, marketing costs, transportation costs, shelf costs and enough to not only pay the developers, but to keep Nintendo profitable as a company.

[Koh]

I meant Zelda as a series rather than just the first game, but I understand the point. The companies have many other factors to consider that indie game developers don't. It's just a little weird that these cheap indie games happen to have more game time than many expensive retail games.

[Sengir]

It's just a little weird that these cheap indie games happen to have more game time than many expensive retail games.

Honestly, I can't think of many cheap indie games with long gameplay. Retro City Rampage, Legend of Grimrock and Guacamelee are all over 10 USD, but still don't have the same amount of gameplay as modern 3DS titles.

I mean if you're referring to gametime then of course indie games reign supreme, but when dealing with amount of gameplay they still fall quite short.

[psychospacecow]

I would say Bastion was pretty long.