The Impact Factor

Sticker Shock: No Man’s Sky, Value Assessments & the Need for Analog

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Abstract: Late last week developer Hello Games announced the release price for No Man’s Sky: $60. The news was met with resistance as many found the price to be too steep. This hesitation arose due to a history of price standardization as well as No Man’s Sky’s indie lineage. The way video games are priced, and the culture surrounding if a game is priced correctly, has huge room for improvement. A game’s cost shouldn’t be boiled down to only two factors: the type of team that made it and the infamous ‘ratio’ of dollars paid / hours played. Pricing should be analog, not binary. With proper justification game devs should be able to set their own price, free from the negative cognitive weight alternate price points elicit. Thankfully, we’re beginning to see that shift.

What would you pay to be a galactic pioneer? What is a fair price of traveling to 1:1 sized planetary bodies, or engaging in dramatic space battles against alien pirates? No Man’s Sky’s promises are lofty, but even if the game cannot fully live up to expectations Hello Games’ newest endeavor promises to be one of the most exciting titles this year. The release date announcement last week reignited a widespread fervor for No Man’s Sky. But that news was overshadowed by one key piece of information: No Man’s Sky would cost $60 at launch. Last week proved that you can give people an entire universe and they’ll still balk at the sight of a $60 price tag. Why did this happen?

Video game pricing, and if a game has earned its price tag, is a hot topic in the gaming. But it didn’t always used to be this way. By the time I was old enough to consider buying games for myself, game cost had been largely standardized. Aside from the rare exception or two, new games cost $50. That’s for a SNES game, an N64 game, a PS1 game. There were far less discussions about if a game had earned its $50 price tag simply because that’s what all games cost.  As the industry moved forward, however, several factors began to uproot the idea of a fixed cost for new games. The biggest among them was the rise of digital distribution. This brought with it not only budget-priced games (usually ~$15), but also the now standard digital sale events, like seasonal Steam sales or PSN Flash sales. No longer were games just $50 (now $60), they were also $15, or steeply discounted. A new pricing hierarchy emerged alongside the notion of a game’s monetary worth. It created a dogma of sorts—a set of expectations for what you would get at either of the discrete prices. $60 games were AAA experiences from a large team of individuals, replete with top-of-the-line graphics, a variety of game modes, huge worlds or bombastic campaigns. $15 games were indies: small teams of people making tight experiences with a limited scope but filled with new ideas. Paying a certain price for a game now was inherently associated with the type of experience should you expect, as well as the perceived amount of content within the game.

 

Yes, even Crash 2 had standard pricing.

No Man’s Sky comes from a long lineage of indie game development. The core members of Hello Games, the studio behind No Man’s Sky, is just 4 people. Hello Games have only released two previous titles, Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2: The Movie, both $15 downloadable digital games. Indie games. Even after the studio expanded to handle the gargantuan No Man’s Sky, the team is still comprised of only 15 individuals. Therefore, as ambitious as No Man’s Sky is, it was still an indie game. And indie games simply don’t cost $60.

 

Don't let Joe Danger set your pricing expectations for No Man's Sky.

A lot of this comes down to the discussion surrounding monetary value assessments in modern gaming. Like I alluded to earlier, the rise of a new pricing tier was the flash point for discussions surrounding a game’s worth. Generally speaking, the value assessment comes down to two things. First, whether the game is indie or AAA, as I described above. Second is one simple math equation: dollars paid divided by hours played. It’s an aspect of video game culture I absolutely despise. A game is only ‘worthy’ of its price tag if it fulfills some set dollar to hour ratio of the player. For example, I’ve observed that many individuals want a ratio of around $2/hour. That is, a $60 game should provide at least 30 hours of gameplay. I’ve seen others touting the $1/hour figure, demanding 60+ hours for their purchase to be worthwhile. Though less strict for indie and/or $15 games, this calculation is still widely used. I saw dozens of threads on how Gone Home was not worth $15 because you could finish the game in 2 hours. I have noticed that, to a certain extent, this ratio trumps the overall quality of hours played. 30 good hours in a game are generally valued higher than 3 exceptional hours.

Let’s look at this in the context of No Man’s Sky. What would you expect to pay? First and foremost, No Man’s Sky in an indie game, so according to dogma it cannot be $60. But the game is huge, with promises of limitless galactic travel, realistically sized planets, trading, gunplay, resource collection, upgrading equipment. It’s hard to imagine the game offers fewer than 30 hours of gameplay to those of whom No Man’s Sky appeals. Further, Sony has poured an undisclosed amount of money into Hello Games to complete No Man’s Sky. How does that affect cost? If we go by this binary pricing structure, however,  Hello Games would be hard-pressed to ask for more than $15-20. But No Man’s Sky doesn’t fit comfortably into the widely accepted rubric for game pricing. So where does that leave us?

From everything I've seen and heard, No Man's Sky promises
to be absolutely massive.

I would argue there should not be a set pricing structure. There is no one right answer to game cost. Perhaps most important from my perspective, monetary value assessments vary dramatically from person to person. I am a person who feels far more satisfied in my financial investment in a game when my experience is phenomenal, rather than just good, regardless of the numbers of hours played. Firewatch was a better purchase than Batman: Arkham Knight, even though ‘the  ratio’ is roughly $7/hour for the former and $1.80/hour for the latter. I did not walk out of a movie theater wishing that the exceptional It Follows cost me less because it was an hour shorter than Avengers: Age of Ultron. In that way, game pricing should not be dependent on just perceived classification (AAA or indie) or ‘the ratio.’ Pricing should be reflective of the gamers’ anticipated experience, developer value assessments, developer financial needs, and the broader ecosystem of gaming. It all comes down to rhetoric. If you justify the right cost for your game, you should be able to charge what you feel is fair. Unfortunately, with current pricing dogma comes with baggage.

 

Firewatch was more than worth its sticker price.

Games that stray away from conventional pricing have been shackled by negative connotations of the decision. It goes in both directions. If an indie charges ‘too much’ for their title, the developers are greedy and just trying to get rich quick. It can even work against the developer to charge less for their game, believe it or not. Back in the 1990s, games that cost less than $50 were ‘bargain.’ This could mean a number of different things, but usually consisted of being made from an unknown team, being derivative of another popular IP, or being a game that shipped with considerable problems. When a new game launched for $30, you knew it was something to avoid. The industry has largely moved past creating and releasing these kinds of games, but the cognitive and connotative weight still exists and still acts as a serious impediment to pricing flexibility. Take the latest Ratchet and Clank, for example. It’s releasing in a little over a month, a reboot of one of the most popular IPs on the PlayStation 2, from a AAA-sized team with a long pedigree of amazing games. But Insomniac decided to set the game’s price at $40 and the internet began questioning the decision. Did this mean that Insomniac and Sony are not confident in the game? Will it be a bargain experience? Obviously none of us can say if that will be the case, but the fact remains that games that exist outside of traditional pricing structures are viewed with reservation.

 

Just because Ratchet & Clank costs $40 doesn't mean
it will be a 'bargain' game.

But why can’t games exist in a much fuller spectrum of pricing options? Why can’t pricing be analog rather than discrete? Nowhere is it set in stone what a game should cost. Nor have we strictly defined what $1, $5, $20, $60 or even $100 games should be. It’s clear that video game pricing structure hasn’t caught up with changes to game development. Indie studios are no longer just three gals working out of their basement to make a short, mechanically simplistic game. Indies dominate the game landscape, with titles big and small, scope limited or broad, gameplay hours many or few, with 2 employees to 2 dozen. Similarly, AAAs are no longer the be-all end-all gaming experiences. AAAs are often content dense, but have become iterative rather than innovative. Further, video game enthusiasts are gradually moving away from physical disks as the digital revolution continues forward. As manufacturing and retail reliance diminish, one should expect the pricing dogma to dramatically shift. And what an exciting future that could be. What will be the new face of a $40 game?

 

Not the be-all end-all.

An important thing to remember for all video game enthusiasts is to not set yourself up for disappointment when it comes to a game’s monetary worth. It’s difficult, but I would urge you to separate yourself from the ingrained connotations of a game’s inherent value given its price. If a new game you’re excited for is asking for $30 instead of $20, work to decipher why. Be introspective about determining your monetary value assessment. It’s not wrong to agree with the $2/hour ratio, but search for your specific evidence that supports that conclusion. Value your anticipated experience rather than focusing on how a company may be attempting to swindle you. From personal experience, at least, removing the shackles of standardized pricing has been liberating. I’m free to discern my feelings about a game without having to worry if my hard-earned dollar went far enough. It’s a fantastic feeling.

Even as I write this, it’s clear that we’re starting to see gaming’s pricing ecosystem beginning to shift. It was just three years ago or so that we saw the rise of the $20 indie game. Games like Firewatch and Gone Home argued that what they bring to the table is worth more than the standard $15. They argued so well, in fact, that $20 is essentially the new standard price. Steam has allowed for the rise of $5-10 indies like Undertale. February had the $25 SUPERHOT, January the $40 The Witness. Last year there was the $30 SOMA. Exploring pricing options is an essential part of the industry’s continued growth, and I’m fascinated to see where we will end up.

 

Welcome to planet Impact Factor Gamma-1. Or something like that.

Is No Man’s Sky worth $60? There isn’t one right answer. A jury of your peers shouldn’t decide your answer, though. It’s up to you. Like any good scientist you should make observations, perform a self-assessment, synthesize your findings, and draw a conclusion based upon them. You might just discover liberation too. And, if you’re lucky, maybe even a solar system to call your own.