Do you think games are getting too expensive

[Brian Boru]

Is it more difficult to reach the "right" people or is it more difficult to reach enough people

You're talking about advertising, which is only one aspect of marketing—and fyi I have no experience with TV ads, radio and magazine were as far as we tried offline, and not in any major way. Broadcast TV is mostly for branding anyway, and so the purview of the biggest boys.

A to your Q is 'the right people', but for the right price. It's easy to reach large numbers, there was/is a fallacy among novice marketers that the more people you reach, the better—but the result is nearly always excessive server costs from all the traffic, with very little of it turning into profitable action… so a money loser.

Better to reach 1,000 people who are your main target audience, than a million who are not. Problem is that those with such demographic segmentation charge thru the nose to use it, so again it's a RoI question.

 

[Konquerah]

You're talking about advertising, which is only one aspect of marketing—and fyi I have no experience with TV ads, radio and magazine were as far as we tried offline, and not in any major way. Broadcast TV is mostly for branding anyway, and so the purview of the biggest boys.

A to your Q is 'the right people', but for the right price. It's easy to reach large numbers, there was/is a fallacy among novice marketers that the more people you reach, the better—but the result is nearly always excessive server costs from all the traffic, with very little of it turning into profitable action… so a money loser.

Better to reach 1,000 people who are your main target audience, than a million who are not. Problem is that those with such demographic segmentation charge thru the nose to use it, so again it's a RoI question.

What is your experience within marketing out of curiosity?

Would reaching a million people with the potential to convert more than 1,000 than your target audience as a whole be not beneficial as well?

 

[JarlBSoD]

Counting for inflation since, lets say the 80s, I'd say games should probably cost more. Is it annoying to pay 70eur for a game that 20 years ago would have cost 45-50? Maybe but seeing as i tend to compare games to other activities I'd rather pay 70 for a game and get 30-infinite, amount of houers out if it than going going to a fancy dinner for example. What i do get realy annoyed about is when a company (EA) release a game for 70 Euros and it turns out to be a shitty mess (Many EA Games).

 

[Colif]

if you know EA games are bad, why keep buying them? I stopped years ago. They aren't going to get any better, that should be obvious now.

I can't think of any other product that can released broken and the people who buy it accept it, and in some cases mod the product to make it work...

No wonder head of Unity wants to get in on the profits. He was the one who started the loot box problem to begin with. EA are to blame for a lot of bad things... why keep buying their stuff. Oh I know, its the devs they buy and discard if the profits drop or don't match FIFA

 

[JarlBSoD]

if you know EA games are bad, why keep buying them? I stopped years ago. They aren't going to get any better, that should be obvious now.

I can't think of any other product that can released broken and the people who buy it accept it, and in some cases mod the product to make it work...

No wonder head of Unity wants to get in on the profits. He was the one who started the loot box problem to begin with. EA are to blame for a lot of bad things... why keep buying their stuff. Oh I know, its the devs they buy and discard if the profits drop or don't match FIFA

I havnt bought an EA game since... uhm Andromeda I think. I did get the subscription thing for about a month to test BF2042 though, so glad i didn't pay to buy that piece of .....

To be fair, i don't buy that many new games these days, not because i think they are to expencive but because there realy isn't that much interesting happening and when it finally does (Like bg3) the games tend to last me long enough till my next anticipated thing shows up. I still stumble sometimes like with Diablo 4 but i still consider getting my moneys worth out of that game. The campaing was good, got a toon to lvl 80 ish so.

Passing upp on starfield for now, Bethesda realy has to get me realy interested before i buy any of their games again, kinda tired of their "release half finnished mess and let modders fix it" atitude. But i will probably buy Elderscrolls 6.

 

[Johnway]

Passing upp on starfield for now, Bethesda realy has to get me realy interested before i buy any of their games again, kinda tired of their "release half finnished mess and let modders fix it" atitude. But i will probably buy Elderscrolls 6.

if any bethesda has taught me anything. Wait. There's a GOTY with all the DLC some years down the line. once it has matured, reap the rewards!

That said, i've not been paying too much attention to starfield as its unlikely i can run it with my 1070. I should upgrade, but since its good enough to run all the games i bought, i can safely wait a while.

 

[JarlBSoD]

if any bethesda has taught me anything. Wait. There's a GOTY with all the DLC some years down the line. once it has matured, reap the rewards!

That said, i've not been paying too much attention to starfield as its unlikely i can run it with my 1070. I should upgrade, but since its good enough to run all the games i bought, i can safely wait a while.

Thing with starfield is that it dosn't realy appeal to me enough to realy care, sure it would probably be fun for a while but more in the sence of " i have 2 h to kill maybe bugg out in SF for a bit" rather than how i play skyrim wich is live the game for 300h at a time.

 

[Brian Boru]

What is your experience within marketing

Casual study within overall big biz learning, then hands-on as an online small biz co-owner for 25 years.

Would reaching a million people with the potential to convert more than 1,000 than your target audience as a whole be not beneficial as well?

Depends on what it would cost to reach the million, handle all their traffic and inquiries, and the margin on each conversion. The other main advantage of fine-grained targeting is a much bigger probability of creating repeat customers.

I havnt bought an EA game since...

For me it was C&C Remastered 3 years ago, with which they did an excellent job. Guy in charge must've got whacked tho for showing up the rest of EA's operation, cos there's been no word on the obvious follow-up(s).

 

[JarlBSoD]

For me it was C&C Remastered 3 years ago, with which they did an excellent job. Guy in charge must've got whacked tho for showing up the rest of EA's operation, cos there's been no word on the obvious follow-up(s).

Danm him for making EA look good!

 

[Smellincoffee]

I never buy games new, but I know what EA wants for DLC is absurd. Sims 4 expansion packs cost more than full games did 20 years ago.

 

[Zloth]

A $40 DLC!?!?

 

[Brian Boru]

Sims 4 expansion packs

So far, total price of all Sims 4 add-ons at MSRP is $1064,45 / £974.35
So yeah, wait for a sale.

A $40 DLC!?!?

Yep, all the big ones are $40!

 

[Smellincoffee]

A $40 DLC!?!?

Yep. Expansions are 40, game packs are 30, stuff packs are 20, kits are 5.

 

[Zloth]

Expansions are different than DLCs! Well... in my (kinda old) dictionary, anyway. An expansion will have a story that's at least half the size of the original game's, and probably some new game mechanics as well. Witcher 3's Blood & Wine I would call an expansion. Heart of Stone probably would be, too, though it's much closer to my border. Charging $40 for one of those seems a little high, but only a little. I would expect them to be in the $30-35 range (about half the cost of the original base game).

 

[Brian Boru]

about half the cost of the original base game

Sims 4 base game is free.

Back to your drawing board!

 

[Zloth]

Sims 4 base game is free.

I don't like Sims 4. Thus, it is not a video game and does not count. QED.

 

[GamingBets]

I have just been looking at both steam and epic.
On epic mortal combat 1 premium edition STARTING at £84.
EA sports fc 24 STARTING at £89.

What do you think about the prices of some games , regardless of weather you are rich , poor , working or retired i think we are reaching a point where we say no to the asking price of some games. The only problem is that sales are world wide so for every 100 people who say no to the price 1,000 will buy regardless.

Whats the most you have paid for a game on any format

You would have thought with the new age of digital downloads they would become somewhat cheaper but seems games cost even more now days.

 

[Smellincoffee]

You would have thought with the new age of digital downloads they would become somewhat cheaper but seems games cost even more now days.

Not to defend EA (bleaagh!), but in the case of the sports games it probably has something to do with licensing the pro teams. Maybe they're hiking things up on their end as well.

 

[Brian Boru]

in the case of the sports games it probably has something to do with licensing the pro teams

It does indeed:

Electronic Arts may be dropping the FIFA license for one simple reason: it costs too much

FIFA reportedly wants more than double what it was previously charging for videogame license rights, and EA isn't interested.

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