Game companies continuosly lowering their quality standards.

First came the "eco-cases" with less or lower quality plastic. Now they got rid of manual / inserts. Of course the whole argument of being "green" does not mean a cheaper retail price. They're worried about the "planet" and manufacturing costs, but as their quality gets lower, it doesn't mean they want less profit. What is next?

Vs.

Can you spot the difference?​

This is not a discussion about manuals really. It's about how much valuable is their product. Game companies are constantly lowering their standards, transforming their products to an almost piracy product. The whole point of buying an original product it to having something worth it. Owning a good quality product, not something cheap and lazy. Forza Horizon was released in Brazil for 149,00 Reais. The piracy, basicly the same thing (a game disc and a cover) probably costs 10,00 Reais.

Why would someone buy the original if there's nothing really different about it? I'm not saying the original should cost 10,00 Reais, i'm saying the original must have something making the 149,00 Reais pricetag worthwhile. And i honestly can't see that.

 

This whole console generation has been horrible for game collectors. This whole "going green" thing is just a way to trick people into letting them get away with giving you a worse product.

 

I know manual are not important nowadays, but they can be replaced for something else. Why not a small comic about the game story? A small book with artwork of the game? A game poster? Promo leaflets (like they did in the 80's and 90's)? It's not like there shortage of content during a game development or in the game industry.

Instead of being distant of the "piracy quality", they're getting closer. Quality wise, not price obviously.

 

After reading the comic that came with SF X Tekken, which was basically on par with a 10-year-old's story about SF and Tekken characters fighting with better artwork, I'm wary of letting any game company include a comic ever again.

 

Atlus wants to talk to you

 

I've been waiting for this for a long time. I never liked manuals. Most of the time the art is bad, the content is bad, and their condition is another thing that can devalue a game. Since the 32-bit era EVERY game has had the space to spare to give on-screen instructions and/or display high resolution images with instructions, or even interactive gameplay training. I agree that the consumer should not be eating the rising manufacturing costs, but to me owning games isn't about extras, it's about paying the due amount for a game. I think the increased bottom line should at least in part be passed back to the developer's contract so they can budget to make better games.

 

I went back yesterday and flipped through some of my old Working Design games, and it struck me how special their packaging was. I've also been playing a lot of Buck Rogers in Countdown to Doomsday and that thing comes with a fucking book.

I miss the days when companies took pride in their packaging. At least my imported Sonic Generations collector's edition looks swank.

 

Lately, the due amount for a game can be discussed as well. Sometimes you actually end up buying half a game for full price, then have spend a extra $10 or $20 dollars for DLC to "complete it".

I imagine a new videogame crash is almost imminent. Casual gamers are just that. They'll lose interest very fast. Actual gamers, the ones that always spent money with games, won't like the way the market is going. Steam is a good example of this, where you can buy digital versions of games for cheap prices. I don't like digital distribution, but you can't deny it's better paying cheap for a digital file than paying full price for a sub-par physical copy. Videogame companies still think the customers will pay retail prices for a lazy ass product.

Specially Japanese releases. They were always top quality.

 

As far as supplementary materials go, no console releases have ever compared to 80s/early 90s PC simulators, which usually came with a huge manual full of stuff that didn't really have that much to do with the game, it was just interesting to read, for example, X-Wing had some short story called The Farlander Papers. Even as late as 1998 Grand Prix Legends came with a pretty big book about 60s F1.

 

On the flip side I can't believe the price some companies want you to pay for limited edition stuff. One in particular, the Resident Evil 6 Collectors Edition, costs £120! That's three times the price of the game alone. I literally could not believe how much Capcom want you to pay for some trinkets; with some games you get a steel book, an art book, soundtrack all for an extra £15, but Capcom want £80 for a hoodie, an art book (which in all fairness is pretty high quality) and a few medallions. I just can not justify the price no matter the manufacturing costs, for that sort of price range I'd be expecting a console let alone a few bits and bobs I'm probably never going to use.

 

I think it's more complex than that. Today's production costs are much higher and is a lot more programming/recording/design to be done than back in the day, but of course companies can't just develop a game over 10 years instead of 2 years. Eveything needs to be finished relatively faster and costs increase a lot. Nowadays no AAA-game has a budget under 1 million $ and in order to maximize profit, companies are seeking cuts in other branches of the production process.

Back in the 90's, the era of great packaging and superb extras (like Super Nintendo), buying a game was pretty much the only way to play it. Nowadays there are tons of alternatives that companies have to compete with, such as piracy. Ironically, in order to stay competitive, they don't choose to offer more than a pirated version but they offer you exactly that. The reason for this being that most consumers are already accustomed to missing out on any extra content but the movie/game itself. Lots of people already love to pay for nothing but a license that loses its value the moment you pay it, so what's the big deal in paying for a shitty yet tangible product? It's still a better deal than Steam, so I suppose if people like to pay for Steam they'll be more than happy with shitty broken Xbox cases without a manual for the same price.

Just like in the book, music and movie market, however, there are still premium products for people who value it. Unfortunately, one does not always have the possibility to get a premium version of a product because, which is the reason why I dislike the entire development of download-markets and so on. It's a disgrace to our culture, it deducts the value and appreciation for the art of the product. It seems unavoidable, however, until physical media is finally pushed in a "connoisseur" type of corner where the market consits of nothing but people who want high-quality, thereby elevating the general quality of available physical media to a high-quality level. We can already see this with vinyl... nobody but fanatics buy brand-new vinyl these days, everyone else goes with piracy or ripoff downloads. I see games in evitably develop into the same direction.

 

$1 million? Are you shitting me? That will get you a tenth of a video game these days. I'd like to know about the Super Nintendo games with great extras, I remember pretty much all of them just coming with a cheap-ass manual and nothing else.

 

Boo-hoo, my number was too low. That doesn't change the point I was trying to make.

Super Nintendo games in Europe sometimes came with guidebooks. In Japan there were games with audio CD's, stickers, figures, bonus comics and so on... but again, the companies could charge very high prices, way too high for today's market. Imagine someone releasing a regular game with nothing but an audio CD as an extra in a paper box on cartridge for $80 (like Cotton 100% for Super Famicom in 1993) while there's a download-version available for $39. Nobody would buy the box, it'd rot forever in the niche hardcore collector's market. So why bother? The profit margin on the paper version may be $25. The profit margin on the download would be $39 and sells better. If I was the CEO, I'd know what to do.

 

The vinyl market was hurt by hardware as much as it was hurt by things like piracy and alternative media formats. Things like modern CDJs single handedly destroyed the need for vinyl turntables as nowadays they can beatmatch just as good as a regular turntable. This elevates the need to even own vinyl as DJs can do just as good of a job with CDs or MP3s and still get good results. Not only that but they don't need to lug big record boxes around with them wherever they go, the only technical thing that a vinyl turntable has over CDs/MP3s these days besides audio quality is scratching.

 

I am not buying new games if theres no manuals as i like haveing the manual just incase for the buttions controlls.

 

Just what I said... nobody but fans buy vinyl these days. Pretty much the same applies to movies, but to a lesser extent because BluRay players are still a lot more common than turntables. But I hardly know people of my age who go out and buy a BluRay if they want to watch a movie. 90% download or stream it. I think the market for most media will slowly transform into a similar model... some physical premium products for fans, but the majority will either be low-quality that barely serves its purpose or just a download. Consumers are idiots - they don't care if they're being ripped off. They like to sit down and minimize their movements... thereby increasing companies' profits.

 

When I buy physical copies I like them to be complete with all of the extras. There used to be a time when my games were a cherished thing and I'd take great care of even the shittest game and then about a decade ago I really just didn't give a fuck any more and mistreated everything, even having discs laying loose getting scratched etc and so in a way I'm grateful I'm getting less as I have less to ruin, or worse - maintain.

Even for my physical copies, I sure as shit ain't going to collect LE and standard versions of games, I'll just get the one which on balance has the most digital content but least physical presence as I don't have muchy space. The artsy fartsy crap you usually get with LE's don't get used as people want to keep their resale value. If you are stupid enough to use LE items they tend to fall apart 5 minutes later anyway. It is worse when LE's seem more common than standard versions. Have you ever seen a standard version of Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days for example? Limited to what... 500,000 copies? Ha!

I don't even care about buying different coloured versions of consoles so I have one of each flavour (though Maziora... that is pure win!) or worse standard coloured items with a transfer / sticker on them LOL.

Anyhow, whatever paperwork they replace the manual with, they could also replace with a PDF, hence no comic etc.

When I buy digital copies, I tend to avoid the 'collectors edition's as I really couldn't care for the PDF nor do I want to pay extra for it. Also they usally include the soundtrack. I'd rather buy and enjoy the game first and if I like the soundtrack, then and only then will I buy it. I don't feel like paying extra for something which might not suit my taste.

 

"Collector's editions" of games have got to be the most hilariously misnamed things ever: nobody wants to pay extra for a used copy with overpriced plastic crap like some shitty figure included. The amount of SF4 collector's editions with the garbage figures cluttering store shelves for three years is a very funny visual.

 

@LeGIt
Thing is, this is not about limited editions but about the decline in quality of ordinary releases. Limited editions are always created for the amount of potential customers who anticipate a game so much that they'd pay even more than $50 for it. But because you can hardly sell the same product to them for $80, they make it a different version and put some stuff in it. This probably pays off less in hard dollars but is more likely to benefit the reputation, image and trademark value of the franchise in the future (i.e. there can't be a new Halo-game without a crazy limited version).

But premium products aside, normal products become shittier. I do argue if that even makes a difference these days, though. Apparently disc versions are getting closer to download version, just look at all the patches... what's the difference in a final version on disc and a download that's being updated all the time? So what's the point in buying the game on disc? Most of the time you don't get a satisfactory physical product, sometimes you can't even sell it because of online keys and the list goes on. What can we do about it? I'm not buying any of that shit... I fucking hate it and won't support it. Some of today's games do appeal to me, but not enough to make me throw money out the window for a worthless download.

 

Do you know what, Johnny? It's only games made for the US market that have these cheap as shit boxes. All my US 360 games and BluRays have cheap a fuck boxes. All my Asian and Japanese stuff use real quality boxes. I also blame EA for the no manual bull shit. Mass Effect 3 had no manual to keep everything green. BULL SHIT! The game had about 5 flyers in it! No manual but a load of crap that I had no interest in. So what if people don't read the manual. I want it. I paid for it. Yes, Jonny, you are right. Things are just cheap shit these days, especially the American versions however I put that down to Americans wanting everything for next to nothing. Companies have to make back their cuts somewhere I guess. I just hope the trend of using cheap ass boxes or boxes with plastic cut out of them doesn't reach it's way over here.