The future of this, for example these possibiltiies.
1). Pay to play a preview of the full game, then pay for the full game.
2). Pay to have upgrades and new items either unlockable in the game itself or exclusive.
3). Pay different amounts to have different levels of online interaction in a game.
4). Pay to remove ads
5). Pay for an episode of a game which may include 5 missions
6). Pay-per-play, the more you play the more you pay
7). Having to pay for everything in the game, even after spending 60 dollars at Best Buy.
About ads. the future could be
1). Like TV, every 11 minutes a commercial airs before you can resume playing
2). Brand names everywhere, like you drive a car with a pepsi ad
3). Part of the screen space displays an ad
4). Ads on loading screens, or commercials where you have to watch the whole thing before you can play
If this all comes true then it may be time for Open Source games to rise and be the new kings of gameplay, as Open Source projects may be the only way to really enjoy games from then on. I imagine millions will jump on the bandwagon the more this starts to happen. Or pray that a developer can stop the madness.
Not surprising really. Consider the cost of a game, it has stayed fairly stable over many years. However, the work that must go into a game has increased dramatically. Cut scenes, high poly worlds, decent AI. One of my friends has just bought Mass Effect, and bugger me the depth is incredible. OK, so the bots aren’t exactly smart but it has a storyline good enough to keep me entranced just watching someone play. Good enough I go away wondering how things will play out.
These things take a lot of time, and therefore money.
Open source projects can never take away the core business. Games just cost too much and take too much time for that to happen.
I want to see more developer friendly games come out. Let fans make maps, missions and mods and you’ll see more money. Considering all next gen consoles can connect to the internet, allow users to upload and sell their own mods over a shop. I’m shocked that hasn’t already been done *waits for corrections *
Yeah, theres no way that open source is the future of any industry. Open source is absolutely incredible when done right. However, it doesnt support the coders. I certainly wouldnt make an incredible game for free if I knew I could charge people a hefty price for the intense gameplay.
Like IanC said, theres too much work, time, effort, and money going into game design to do it for free. Its just not reasonable.
@IanC: Half Life 2(and maybe counter strike) have made a huge deal of being able to do just that. If you own Half Life(or any other game with valve’s Source engine), you can create your own game with their engine… Thats as far as I know. I cant code, so while modding sounds like a blast, I dont have the knowledge to get into it at present.
Half Life 2 is also taking the pay-for-an-episode route, which i must say are worth the money
As for modding, Valve’s code isn’t the most well documented so you’d need to be at least a decent C++ programmer to work with it. A suggestion is to pick something like weapon_rpg and trace backward through the inheritance a few steps to figure out exactly what’s going on, and then try to use that to make your own weapon / mod a weapon. Hammer, the map editing tool, is pretty well documented and basically anyone with a brain and a few tutorials can figure out how to make maps with it, although it can be kind of quirky and frustrating to use at times
1). Pay to play a preview of the full game, then pay for the full game.
2). Pay to have upgrades and new items either unlockable in the game itself or exclusive.
3). Pay different amounts to have different levels of online interaction in a game.
4). Pay to remove ads
5). Pay for an episode of a game which may include 5 missions
6). Pay-per-play, the more you play the more you pay
7). Having to pay for everything in the game, even after spending 60 dollars at Best Buy.
About ads. the future could be
1). Like TV, every 11 minutes a commercial airs before you can resume playing
2). Brand names everywhere, like you drive a car with a pepsi ad
3). Part of the screen space displays an ad
4). Ads on loading screens, or commercials where you have to watch the whole thing before you can play
eh, that dont make sense, i preview a game so i dont waste my money buying it if i dont like it. now i have to pay for the preveiw!? no, no way man.
it depends… if there is only like 20 upgrades in the game then no i wouldnt, but if there was something around 200 with more coming out in the passing months, then maybe… just maybe…
hell no
they dont bother me that much, so no i wouldnt pay.
jazz jackrabbit did that, (its an old dos game) but im pretty sure the cd which included all the episodes sold better. plus that makes it diffcult to present a linear story, and damn near impossible to present a non linear story.
HELL NO!
no, no, no, you greedy pigs! i understand game development is tough, but it aint that god damn hard, your milking the free market economy, you would be worse than oil companies.
about the ads
no, i would stop playing games entirely
that could add realism to the game
thats just stupid, when im blowing up zombies in resident evil i dont want to see a tampon add leaping up in down in front of me.
an add on a loading screen may be okay… since i dont look at them anyway, but forced ads in game, no way.
man! what happened to games being entertaining!? do we really need to play a game about mario in nike’s and a coca-cola shirt eating a whopper while wearing a rolex watch!? cant these greedy pigs keep their feet out of something for once!? sooner or later they will realise, HEY! everyone uses toilet paper, lets stamp our logo on it so when people are wiping their ass, they can think, “hey, i could be eating a big mac right about now!” no better yet, lets just broadcast our ads straight into the toilet. you pop the lid, and the damn crapper tells you to go buy a ford.
i will consider the world a lost cause when, while im sleeping, my dream is interupted by a pepsi commercial. hey what did you dream about NJROTC? i dont know,… too many commercial interruptions. :rolleyes:
@NJROTC: dUDE, #6 IS Arcade. pop in your quarter or two, kill as many zombies or Area 51 mutants as you can, and then head out of the restaurant. Don’t tell me you’ve never played an arcade game!
Free play the enticement, pay to play the rest
I see this coming up more and more, as you register with a site, you can do X and Y, but to do Z you need to pay. It’s really here in the form of my racing game - I can play it, but to compete in many of the races you need Xbox Live. Also “beta” releases are opened up to the first 1000/10k people to register, but then the beta expires and you have to pay.
I think open source games should become big once there’s a centralize way of sharing models, textures, sound and midi. Then creaters can just pick what they want in there game, create a map and put everything together.
Who would like to create such a site ?
Once all this is done, perhaps it would be possable to make replacements and then make scripts that will convert maps and mods to work with an opensource game engine.
@NJROTC: dUDE, #6 IS Arcade. pop in your quarter or two, kill as many zombies or Area 51 mutants as you can, and then head out of the restaurant. Don’t tell me you’ve never played an arcade game!
yeah, ive played them, but not anymore. did you know, (mostly the shooters) you are suppose to lose at those games at least a set minimum number of times before you reach the end? i figured this out playing house of the dead 2,
now when i play this game i already cheat a little. i insert coins into both slots and double weild the pistols (it about the only way to do it, almost impossible with one). the advantages of light plastic weapons, no recoil, and almost instant reload time without much work really shows as i can usally mow down zombies like nothing… but wait… i thought it was a skill game! no its not kids, its a money game. found this out when i competely wiped out all the zombies on screen and still took a bite mark, this happened THREE TIMES. then you get put in the impossible reflex situation where you turn a corner and an a flying axe is already three inches from your face, unforseeable and unavoidable. but if you insert just two more coins…
bleh i hate the new arcade games. old ones like asteroids were okay. but for me to have to pay per play at home, the verdict is still:
Well paying-per-play at home I would object to. Especially if that pay-per-play new arcade game had all the stuff I listed in the first post:spin:
eh, that dont make sense, i preview a game so i dont waste my money buying it if i dont like it. now i have to pay for the preveiw!? no, no way man
This is already happening now, according to Gamespot, EA is going to release the full version of Spore’s creature editor (without the rest of the game and no apparent export to 3D programs) for 10 dollars and 10 Euros. (I’m not kidding about the Euros)
*