It’s sickening, and there is no defense possible for the kind of abusive practices that are best characterized by a game like Star Wars Battlefront 2, currently caught in the midst of a backlash thanks to its egregious monetization (although EA and DICE have currently paused microtransactions for now). This is, truly, the end game of western AAA that Nintendo tried to warn against years ago- more sophisticated hardware, a never ending arms race for better looking and more technically sophisticated games, rising costs, studio closures, publisher buyouts, games bombing even after selling millions, and a race to the bottom in trying to monetize a userbase.

"There is no defense possible for the kind of abusive practices that are best characterized by a game like Star Wars Battlefront 2, currently caught in the midst of a backlash thanks to its egregious monetization."

But look, I can almost understand why publishers are doing what they are doing- games are getting more and more expensive to make as time goes on, and the user base they sell to is not expanding linearly with their costs. Unless users are happy with mid tier AA games like Persona 5 and NieR Automata (which, by the way, I am- they are among the two best games of this year; the problem is, most of the larger audience wouldn’t be happy with anything less than the latest graphics telling an ‘epic’ story), this arms race is not going to end.

What do publishers do, then? Of course they have no choice but to try and leverage as much revenue from the base they do have as possible, right? And hence, we get this nonsense.  But I have a compromise- a compromise for publishers. Raise the price of games. Raise it to $80.

Now, many of you either blanched at reading that sentence, or got really angry, or closed this article in disgust. If you’re still reading, let me explain- video games have cost $60 since 2005 now, when the Xbox 360 first came on to the scene. Development costs have risen exponentially since, and this is without factoring in inflation over the last 12 years. Put simply, we are paying far less relative to purchasing parity and development costs now than we ever have before. We are ignoring the average rate of inflation (which has been roughly 2.4% on average annually in the US for the last ten years), and not accounting for how steeply costs have risen with the advent of the HD consoles- of course it’s financially unviable for developers to sell a game at $60 and leave it at that. Right?

"Video games have cost $60 since 2005 now, when the Xbox 360 first came on to the scene. Development costs have risen exponentially since, and this is without factoring in inflation over the last 12 years."

Okay, so raise the cost to $80. Do it- but that comes with the understanding that if these publishers do, they will not shoehorn any of your other bullshit into the game. No microtransactions, no lootboxes, no car passes, online passes, piecemeal DLC, none of that. Feel free to sell expansions and content packs if they want to- but no more nickel and diming, no more exploiting their consumers, no more taking us for a ride, no more devaluing their own game and the work of their developers. We pay them $80, once- and that extra $20 you get per copy is an insurance we pay to ensure that they don’t continue to ruin our games.

What do publishers get out of this? Why would they go for a one time cost (admittedly an increased one) rather than recurrent purchasing and revenue? Because my belief truly is that it will balance out for them in the end. Look, by charging $80 upfront, they get an extra $20 from everyone who buys the game- rather than getting $60 from everyone who buys the game, and then $30 for the Season Pass from a fraction of that userbase (or recurrent spending on microtransactions from an even smaller pool of the people who bought the game). Recurrent spending spreads out the revenues over time, sure- so more stability in income in terms of your financial statements. But in the end, by ensuring an additional $20 from every purchaser, you are still in the end getting the same amount of money (just upfront). Hell, since they are getting an extra $20 from everyone who buys the game, they might even earn more in the end. There- there’s the benefit for them.

It’s not just that, either- they avoid the intangibles this way, too. No bad PR, no backlash, no negative publicity, no disenchanted developers, no brand devaluation. And if this leads to a net increase in their total revenues (which, maybe? It’s unclear if it might), then maybe they even feel bolder in terms of making less homogenized games, trying out different things, not just putting a different variation of the same thing to the market once a year, every year.

"Those additional $20 per game will sting- but think of them as an insurance policy we pay to ensure that the specter of abusive monetization is kept away from our games forever."

Now, to be very clear, I am not asking for every game to be $80- only the ones that feel it necessary to nickel and dime a customer to achieve profitability and growth. If your game is so expensive that you don’t see how it will make money without you shoehorning in microtransactions and lootboxes or exploitative season passes- well, don’t. Charge $80 once, and be done with it. Games that right now can afford to be single player titles without inane monetization policies, like Wolfenstein, The Evil Within, Prey, Persona 5, and NieR Automata– these titles, too, should remain $60. If they can be profitable at $60 now, they will have no problem being profitable at $60 then (and, in fact, by being at a slightly lower price point, they will even induce people to pick them up by looking better value in comparison to $80 games).

I also don’t want this to mean the end of meaningful post launch add-on content- if The Witcher 3 charges me $80, I don’t want it to mean CDPR can’t sell an Expansion Pass with Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone additionally, because that is meaningful add-on content that earns the extra money (after the base game has already earned the $80 to begin with). Ditto for Horizon or Mario Kart, which both have had great post launch DLC support, too.

But that’s as much leeway as I am willing to give. So, publishers- here’s a compromise. Stop ruining our games (and the games your developers spend years of their lives working on). Stop nickel and diming your customers. Stop feeding the spiral that will inevitably lead to a crash of the AAA market. Just stop- instead, charge us $80 per game, once, upfront. There- you made your extra money honestly, without having to resort to scam your players. As for us, the players, the people who play games? Those additional $20 per game will sting- but think of them as an insurance policy we pay to ensure that the specter of abusive monetization is kept away from our games forever.

It’s not a win-win situation- but it’s the only fix to this goddamn mess that I can see for the time being.

Bethesda Game Studios Montreal is apparently working on a “bleeding-edge AAA freemium game” according to a job listing for a Game Performance Manager.

The listing itself states that, “In this role, you will work with game team to envision, evolve, and operate monetization strategies, targeting the intersection of revenue generation goals and quality player experience.

“Ideally, you will have experience defining and operating online game business models, and have a deep understanding of player interactions with those models, both at the individual and community levels.”

Interestingly, there’s another listing for a Back-End Programmer which talks about Unreal/Unity engine. Could either of these two engines be used for development? Either way, Bethesda Game Studios Montreal is working on something different and it’s separate from the other big unannounced games that Bethesda has.

Bethesda’s E3 presser will be on June 11th, 9 AM PT and it’s already teased some mysterious games. What are you hoping to see? Let us know in the comments.

Sony is known for adopting small indie developers, and providing them with the necessary funds, resources and support to finish their game while sometimes expanding on its initial concept. At the same time, the PlayStation 4’s lineup isn’t empty on AAA titles as well, with first-party franchises getting new releases, such as Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, or even third-party.

Inside PlayStation were lucky enough to sit down with PlayStation executive Jim Ryan, and ask him about his own person opinion regarding people judgement towards Sony’s relatively excessive attention to indies. He responded with: “At the end of the day, it’s just about great games. We don’t discriminate between something that’s a AAA or something that’s an indie. If something’s a great game, then it gets focus, attention, and love.”

No one can deny that Sony’s attention to indies have benefited them and their console, since if you take Hello Games and No Man’s Sky as an example, Sony managed to support them throughout the development process, turning their project into something much bigger than it was expected.

When asked by Games Industry International if, with the number of indie studios now working on PS4 titles, if there would be a disappearance in the divide between indie and blockbuster titles, Ahmad stated, “I don’t see a divide. I see a continuum of one person creating a game and an enormous corporation creating a game. They’re just games.

“The tag is useful because I think it kind of bundles up a revolution that’s happened over the last few years, and the revolution has, I guess, three main legs. You’ve got digital distribution, you’ve got games everywhere and you’ve got better tools, and all of that has facilitated this explosion in the number of developers. I think it’s allowed more people to make games than ever before, and some of them are going to move on and do bigger things. They’re going to work with larger teams to do bigger things, and of course some of those teams will get bigger and bigger.

“So right now I think what we’re seeing is the birth of a new wave of next generation developers. Some of them will stay small, and I’m really pleased that we’re helping evolve PlayStation to a point where we’re as accommodating to the smallest developers as we are the largest. And the thing is we’ve done this in the past, so for example Minis was really, really good for smaller developers.

“PlayStation Mobile has also helped in some respects as well. And going back into the distant mists of time you’ve got Parappa The Rapper, Ico, Super Stardust HD. We’ve always dealt with this level of developer, it just wasn’t always as easy as we’ve made it [now], and we’re going to make it easier and easier. So yes, hopefully in a few years time no one will be talking about indie in relation to games. They’ll just be talking about games, and it will be just as valid to have made something coming from a small developer as from a large.”

The PlayStation 4 will be launching on November 15th in North America and November 29th in Europe.

Speaking to Games Industry International, chief product officer Paul Della Bitta, formerly senior director of global community development and eSports at Blizzard, stated that, “AAA to us is really an identifier for quality. With the advent of mobile and social games, some gamers are starting to associate free-to-play with games that don’t have the depth or overall quality level that was expected of a PC or console title of the past.

“This is a game that you would have happily paid $60 for at retail. We’re just trying to take advantage of the free-to-play model, but we want people to have the same expectation of quality they would if they went and bought a $60 console game at the store.”

As of now, everything is in place for development. “The challenge is execution. But we feel like we built the right team to where we can execute on product,” said Della Bitta.