The crew realize how prickly gamers are getting. Lootboxes may make them complain, but it won’t stop them from paying. Exclusive DLC? That seems to be a bridge too far.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Due to technical issues, this week’s podcast won’t be posted. See you next week.
No really, we’re on hiatus — the next podcast will be recorded at E3, and published on June 18. See you in two weeks!
Gigaom had a great writeup about how Grand Theft Auto IV marks the end of “next generation” as we know it, stating, in more words or less, the game is a failure. GTA: San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies during its time on the shelf while GTA IV has sold roughly 9 million copies as of June 7th.
Granted, the game is still on the shelves and will still get sales, but the mass of “hardcore gamers” have had their fill and either purchased it or will not. The end result? A huge tapering of sales numbers for the graphically impressive game. Take-Two spent USD $100 million to develop the game which had great opening sales records but has gone down drastically since.
Imagine the title gains them USD $30.00 per sale in profit (considering distributors get the game for roughly USD $45 to $48.00 USD), taking into account shipping of the product, marketing and all the materials that go into producing a copy, they’d have to sell a large quanity of game titles to break even, which I think they have done.
Nobody is in this industry to break even. A block buster title should make block buster profits, right? Else, why bother to spend the 100-million when a Wii title can double or triple the profits with six months of development?
I have Left 4 Dead and Left for Dead 2 100% completed.