Gaming
GTA publisher unveils complex entertainment per-hour pricing algorithm
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, has spoken out on video game pricing, a divisive issue. The executive believes a simple algorithm can calculate this, but its efficacy is unclear.
In the company’s Q2 2024 earnings call (thanks, eXputer), Zelnick was asked about media industry subscription price increases. The executive replied that it has “nothing to do with our business” and explained how much value consumers get for their game purchases:
“The algorithm for pricing entertainment properties is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is the per-hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that the customer perceives in ownership if the title is owned, not rented, or subscribed to. That applies to all entertainment vehicles. By that standard, our frontline prices are still very low due to our many engagement hours.”
This one required multiple readings, but Zelnick clarifies: “High engagement value. I think consumers have a great price-to-value opportunity in the industry. That doesn’t mean the industry wants pricing power. However, it offers great value.”
Zelnick seems to be saying that a customer’s perceived value of owning a game like Grand Theft Auto is proportional to how eagerly they anticipate it and how deeply they engage with it after release. That metric shows his point and some agreement. For instance, we’ve spent hundreds of hours on PS4’s 2019 Civilization VI, which can be replayed endlessly. If we knew that, paying more upfront wouldn’t seem so burdensome, but there’s a catch.
Zelnick concludes: “We aim to provide more value than we charge. Business price increases have been rare. After generations, certain frontline products’ $70 price increase was the first in years. I believe we offer great value to consumers.”
How do you view Zelnick’s entertainment pricing philosophy? Given Grand Theft Auto V’s entertainment value, would you pay more for the next GTA?
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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