How do you feel about paying $60.00 for almost every game you purchase? It’s a bit strenuous eh? Well keep hope alive because according to EA Canada Senior Producer Jason DeLong, things might change for the better, and soon.
Speaking to GI, DeLong explained what he thinks will take place in 2010 and beyond, how he thinks software prices might be reduced and the decisions that must be made to keep gamers playing but having not to break the bank while enjoying their favorite pass-time.
“I think that we’re going to start to see – maybe not in the next year, but in the near future – games go down the route of smaller upfront experiences and lower prices at the beginning,” he said “and then the ability to extend the game through episodic material or future feature material. I think that’s a direction we’re probably heading in.”
“Games are getting more expensive, and times are tough, and it’s getting harder to purchase every game you want,” he continued. “So, how can we keep people playing and offer them more but not have to make them break the bank? Its going to be an interesting creative problem for us to solve.”
I don’t mind paying less for games, but I’m not sure it’ll be easy for me to warm up to “smaller upfront experiences,” don’t know about you but the fact that some developers intensionally keep content out of a game that they know should have been part of the package, but then releases it later as “DLC” gets to me sometimes; and for the record, I don’t like the new “download only” trend that’ll inevitably takeover. Call me old school but I just love to feel the hard copy of a game, and shelve them like a good old collector; and don’t think I’m old either, 27yrs is prime youth my child, prime youth : ).
I never did get why games jumped from $50 last gen to $60 this gen. when it first happened i just figured they were that much because the games and systems were brand new and the game prices usually drop overtime, but they didn’t. I remember when ps2 first came out seeing games for $70