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Haruhiro Tsujimoto (Capcom President) has concerns over rising development costs and says that games (software) are too cheap

bender

What time is it?
Meanwhile in every fucking Capcom game

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I actually think Monster Hunter does DLC well. Monster Hunter gets meaningful content updates regularly for free that the entire userbase can enjoy. The DLC is cosmetics and music which helps support the free content and doesn't split the userbase.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
I actually think Monster Hunter does DLC well. Monster Hunter gets meaningful content updates regularly for free that the entire userbase can enjoy. The DLC is cosmetics and music which helps support the free content and doesn't split the userbase.

The point I'm making is that he's saying that they want games to sell for more while consistantly having hundreds of dollars worth of additional microtransactions, many of which are low effort.

I know not everyone buys in, but I bet you it's a fair amount.
 
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MadPanda

Banned
Sounds like prices are fine to me.

Dont fall for PR aimed at the public and suppliers (game studios). Just go by their earnings reports to see what they really feel and are performing. It's like grocery stores saying costs are going up and getting grilled by suppliers. Yet they are making record profits and margin.


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Exactly. They're low only in the world of ever increasing revenue and profits. If I made tens or hundreds of milions every year I'd be satisfied, even if it stayed the same for 5 years, but modern corpos and shareholders are not happy with that. They're just too greedy.
 

bender

What time is it?
The point I'm making is that he's saying that they want games to sell for more while consistantly having hundreds of dollars worth of additional microtransactions, many of which are low effort.

I know not everyone buys in, but I bet you it's a fair amount.

I guess I'm with him in that games need to be more expensive. And if making them more expensive akin to Monster Hunter's monetization practices is probably the best middle ground. The game gets continued support for everyone and is subsidized through optional content that doesn't segment the userbase. I'm not saying Capcom's methods are ideal, but in the grand scheme of things, their approach with Monster Hunter seems pretty fair.
 

Astral Dog

Member
Once these companies get a taste of success, greed kicks in and they figure the only way to squeeze more out of their customers is by gaslighting them into thinking that us purchasing games for ONLY $70 each is a generous deal.
Tbf, unless you are Nintendo, they don't actually sell every copy at $70 thats just the starting price and it tends to drop quickky

For example RE VILLAGE Gold wich a relatively "modern" game is listed at $40 on PS,without sales. They also have plenty of games selling at around$5 (or less)at times
Most of their counted sales aren't at the starting prices
 
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The game trade fair "Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 2023" opened on the 21st. On the 23rd, Haruhiro Tsujimoto (President of Capcom), chairman of the computer entertainment association (CESA), the game industry organization that sponsors the event, expressed his reaction, saying, ``Japanese games are being reconsidered.'' Regarding the increase in development costs, he raised the issue that ``the price of the game is too low.''

Translated with machine learning






He’s right, and having the same retail rice for all console games is silly. A can’t that cost 200 million should not be expected to have the same price as a game that cost 20 million to develop.
 
Great, Tsujimoto-san.

Price your next release at $150 and see how many copies it sells.

The price is dictated by the market and not the other way around.

He’s right, and having the same retail rice for all console games is silly. A can’t that cost 200 million should not be expected to have the same price as a game that cost 20 million to develop.

Er... all console games don't have the same price. There's a whole category of A and AA games that don't retail for $70.
 
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Hudo

Member
Can they please, for the love of God, make Mega Man Legends 3? I bought a 3DS for the game. Still waiting.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Exactly. They're low only in the world of ever increasing revenue and profits. If I made tens or hundreds of milions every year I'd be satisfied, even if it stayed the same for 5 years, but modern corpos and shareholders are not happy with that. They're just too greedy.
Yup.

And tech companies are even worse because they prey on gamers amped on digital downloads and mtx. Roblox is so rampant with ill-advised charges by kids all you got to do is fill out a refund ticket (whatever my bro did when his kid charged tons of money to a credit card) and he got the money back no questions asked. He said he didn't even have to talk to CSR or anything. And that refund was for mtx! try buying skins in FIFA or COD and trying to refund that.

Also, because covid boosted up a lot companies, it's reasonable for nontech companies to drop back to normal. Our company did. When covid happened, our company jumped a lot of sales because of at home hoarding. No different than tech companies getting a sales bump. The key difference is traditional manufacturers had big jumps in material costs, trucking company costs, port fees etc..... Any price increases we do are just trying to comp increased costs. Most of the peer companies in my industry even with price increases are back to 2018-2019 levels. My company hasnt even hit 2020 sales.

Gaming is different because it's digital product transfer, pretty sure e-store companies are charging the same 30% cut etc.... The increase in prices isn't to comp giant manufacturing costs or get back to precovid. Instead, its to profiteer even more to blow past covid highs. Thats why Capcom is doing 6 year record profits.

Aside from indies getting grilled with Unity fees, any big vidoe game company claiming they need to raise prices in desperation to counter costs is full of shit. at least be honest and state the usual PR like "we are adjusting prices to market dynamics" or some shit which basically means they are trying to maximize price and profit based on messing with pricing. As opposed to adjusting prices to counter spiking costs.
 
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Reaseru

Member
Software is too cheap, yet he wants to sell full AAA games on smartphones, where almost everyone in that market wants to play free to play games.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
He might be right but consumers aren't willing to pay much more. Imo graphic advances should stop here and the industry should now focus on efficiency so not only those improvement don't come at the cost of decent IQ and frame rate, but to also speed up development
 

Bkdk

Member
AAA games development is not sustainable, also for widely used game engines, unreal
And unity are only 2 obvious options, I do think cost for gaming will start to surge over the years. There is no way unreal and unity won’t speed up their price hikes.
 
He's right, games haven't really kept up with inflation.

For the value proposition, $/entertainment hr, hollywood artists seemed to have much higher budgets and paid better. Gaming devs are starting to realize how underpaid they are
 
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stickkidsam

Member
He’s right, and having the same retail rice for all console games is silly. A can’t that cost 200 million should not be expected to have the same price as a game that cost 20 million to develop.
Why not? Movies cost $20 or $30 when they come out even if there are major development cost differences.

Smaller studios might release their movies for $10 at launch, but it’s the same thing with gaming. Maybe instead of spending so much damn money on the cutting edge, larger studios should be allowed to focus on smaller scale stuff. Hell, at least stop the graphical warfare.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Sounds like prices are fine to me.

Dont fall for PR aimed at the public and suppliers (game studios). Just go by their earnings reports to see what they really feel and are performing. It's like grocery stores saying costs are going up and getting grilled by suppliers. Yet they are making record profits and margin.


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Thank you bro for this. I didn't know the numbers, but I could have sworn they were doing just fine. By the looks of this, they are doing better than ever. I hate corporations.
 
So many people make the mistake of seeing 'record profits' and not considering if those records are in nominal terms, or real terms. I make 10x the what the median salary was in 1971 yet my purchasing power is weaker and nothing makes this more clear than home prices.

Median income 1971: 10k
Median home price 1971: 25k

Median income 2021: 70k
Median home price 2021: 346k

I wish more people would stop and think about our currency more deeply. It's extremely important. Probably the most important issue of our time, possibly the most important issue that any generation has ever had to deal with at any time.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The gaming industry is following the cinema industry, with more and more megalomaniac projects, that costs hundreds of millions to make.
They spend so many resources on
pointless cutscenes and action set pieces. And hiring expensive Hollywood actors.
These companies let game production get out of control, then complain games are expensive to make.

Everything in the bolded is 100% okay. That is NOT the problem. The problem is corporations can't allow record profits to be good enough.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
So many people make the mistake of seeing 'record profits' and not considering if those records are in nominal terms, or real terms. I make 10x the what the median salary was in 1971 yet my purchasing power is weaker and nothing makes this more clear than home prices.

Median income 1971: 10k
Median home price 1971: 25k

Median income 2021: 70k
Median home price 2021: 346k

I wish more people would stop and think about our currency more deeply. It's extremely important. Probably the most important issue of our time, possibly the most important issue that any generation has ever had to deal with at any time.

That doesn't mean games should constantly go up in price every 5 years now. It would be a good idea to vary the cost of production for a game, but also and more importantly the price of the product. RE9 cool, set the price at $70. But Exoprimal should be $40.
 

Sakura

Member
So many people make the mistake of seeing 'record profits' and not considering if those records are in nominal terms, or real terms. I make 10x the what the median salary was in 1971 yet my purchasing power is weaker and nothing makes this more clear than home prices.

Median income 1971: 10k
Median home price 1971: 25k

Median income 2021: 70k
Median home price 2021: 346k

I wish more people would stop and think about our currency more deeply. It's extremely important. Probably the most important issue of our time, possibly the most important issue that any generation has ever had to deal with at any time.
If we were comparing Capcoms income today to 50 years ago, then yeah sure.
But we are just talking about the last few years here.
"10 consecutive fiscal years of operating profit growth" doesn't suggest to me they are having real issues with rising development costs vs the prices.

If we are talking about the economy in general and how expensive it is to buy a home today compared to the 70s or whenever, then yes, you are right, but that's not really relevant to the thread.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Maybe they should sell more $15 SF6 costumes that can only be used on your custom character in the custom character mode. Surely that is how they make good money.
 
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EDMIX

Member
Fuck off capcom, most of your games today are remakes

3 remakes?

So...you telling me Capcom put out 5 games and 3 are remakes or? Where the fuck do you guys get this weird shit from? lol


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Shit. using this fucking logic "mOzT" of what Atlus does is remakes, i mean Persona 3 is being remade, guess they make nothing else.

Most of what CDPR is Remakes, Witcher 1 is being remade...

Sir, I think you need to define to us what the fuck the term "most" means to you cause none of this is true even remotely
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
MAKE SHORTER GAMES. Shorter games = Less time making game = Lower development costs = lower game prices.
Literally any other publisher this would make sense. But this is Capcom you're harping on about here.
RE4R is 16 hours long for the main story
Street Fighter 6's campaign is 17 hours long
RE2 is 8 hours long.
Megaman 11 is 5 hours long.
RE7 and RE Village are 9 hours long

These are short games in comparison to everything else. So no, it's definitely not hyper expensive for them to produce. Capcom is just being greedy.
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
If I made tens or hundreds of milions every year I'd be satisfied, even if it stayed the same for 5 years, but modern corpos and shareholders are not happy with that.
And that's why more companies should go private like Valve. No shareholders, no worry.
 

GymWolf

Member
3 remakes?

So...you telling me Capcom put out 5 games and 3 are remakes or? Where the fuck do you guys get this weird shit from? lol


lol-laughing.gif


Shit. using this fucking logic "mOzT" of what Atlus does is remakes, i mean Persona 3 is being remade, guess they make nothing else.

Most of what CDPR is Remakes, Witcher 1 is being remade...

Sir, I think you need to define to us what the fuck the term "most" means to you cause none of this is true even remotely
Maybe don't cut half my post to prove a point.

Remakes AND same brand re-hash, maybe make 10 big original games that cost more because you have to create everything from scratch and maybe we can discuss about the price of games being too high (or not since they had a 10 dollars surplus recently and now i have to pay 80 fucking euros).


Oh and btw, where did i said that my point was only valid for capcom?
Most devs should shut the fuck up about gaming prices when they can't even deliver perfect products at launch and we have to wait for patches and shit.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Dear Capcom, I am more than happy to pay more than $100 for your future games on Playstation 5.
 

EDMIX

Member
Maybe don't cut half my post to prove a point.

Remakes AND same brand re-hash, maybe make 10 big original games that cost more because you have to create everything from scratch and maybe we can discuss about the price of games being too high (or not since they had a 10 dollars surplus recently and now i have to pay 80 fucking euros).


Oh and btw, where did i said that my point was only valid for capcom?
Most devs should shut the fuck up about gaming prices when they can't even deliver perfect products at launch and we have to wait for patches and shit.

nah, you just exaggerate too much man.

Trying to buzzwords like "rE-hAzH" doesn't change that those titles cost a lot to make and bring in a lot for Capcom to keep the lights on. They are right to be cautious of new IP and release them sparingly when they actually fucking have new ideas.

Let them cook

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I'd rather they focus and take seriously a new idea vs just doing 10 for no fucking reason or something, last time we had folks doing new IP just for lolz, took them 3 years post launch to figure out how to get Ai to drive cars and shoot =)

Not everyone needs to be cranking out new IP for giggles man, I like new shit too, but I also like working, quality, functional games. If Capcom doesn't want to make 10 new IP, I'd rather they allow those teams to focus on IP that are trusted and established and allow what ever new IPs they do have being made, to have the care and attention they deserve.

Sony and Ubisoft might be some of the only publishers in gaming even doing some wild shit like 10 new IP a generation and you guys rip those publishers to shreds when them titles flop lol.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
Don't buy it. Capcom games don't come across as projects that have excessive budgets.

MoHun uses previous gen tech and copy over a lot of old systems. - sells gangbusters
RE games are fairly short and linear, repetitve gameplay (not a diss!) with limited characters and variety in each entry. - sells well
SF doesn't seem like a particularly high budget affair either. - sells well

Then at the same time they're achieving record profits. I smell BS!
 
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dDoc

Member
I have two words for you -corporate suits.

Let's lock the original music of a game behind a paywall. Looking at you RE2.

Disgusting.

Having said that Capcom's games are cheaper than the Jimbo/Strauss price, for now.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
Gotta love that this asshole compares to an era when games were on expensive media and when the market was a fraction of the size for price justification. Moron, that is not how business works. When industries grow, competition drives higher quality at lower prices. This is especially rich coming from a company that is making a lot of money re-releasing old games.

I would like to know how much of the dev costs of games goes into the creation of bad content or simply a lot of repetitive content. Cut that before bitching about costs.

Note: I am day 1 on Dragons Dogma 2 on PC.
 

CuNi

Member
Games that I would gladly pay more for (like $80 or even $90) are the recent Baldurs Gate 3. Great game, insane replay value, and it delivers for hours on end even on the first play through.
Games that I don't even value at $60 is most of the trash that is released by so-called "AAA" Studios... Capcom is a good example of such a company, or Bungie, or Blizzard/Activision.
Their games are fun, don't get me wrong, but they are so full of predatory transactions, bug riddled, stuffed to the brim with low effort DLCs, they'd be worth $70 if all the stuff is offered for free after initial purchase.
You basically only get half a game on release, so I don't see a point to pay more than half the asked price for them.
 
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