Here's something I was thinking about while driving to work the other day:
How much of the game did your $80 pay for ?
Did you pay for the texturing of someones nose, or a whole level, or the AI behind the bird that just flew past ?
Programmers/Artists:
What did you do today for that $80 (without breaking confidentiality) ?
Consumers:
What do you think your $80 is worth ?
then again, maybe it's not interesting to anyone else...
I would say that $80 pays for about the time it takes to like you say Zaph, paint the nose texture on a single character.
An interesting way of looking at things for sure - makes one think, there better be alot of $80 to pay for your final product [:D]
Then from a consumer perspective like anything you pay money for, you expect it to work! whether its a BBQ or a computer game. The trouble is with games is that ots not expected to simply work, but to be excellent and the best at what it does.
If you think about that for a second its a big ask, and a huge challenge in itself.
From a consumer?s point of view, I feel that a game needs to either give me about a week of solid addiction (as in something so fun that I can?t stop playing it, but finish it about a week later ? like Max Payne for example), or a few months of occasional but continually fun game play (as in something that?s fun to spend a few hours a week playing over several months ? like a Final Fantasy type game). If I buy a game and either don?t get completely addicted or don?t come back every now and again, I think the game was a failure.
From a developers point of view, well, I don?t really understand where your coming from (obviously I?ve never worked in the industry). I suppose working all day every day on a game would make me feel like the game should be sold for about $10000 a copy?
Consumers/gamers want a heck of a lot for their $80, especially if it's a PC game. I guess what I want out of my $80 is at least over 15 hours of an enjoyable single player game, a great engine, fantastic art, online multiplayer modes, and modability.. That is quite a lot, and it sure as heck is going to be tough to offer all that with nextgen games at the same price, but that seems to be where the bar is at the moment..
As for where my $80 went, I'm sure most of it went straight into the pockets of the publisher and the retailer, and maybe a tiny sum to the developer [;)] I'm sure it probably did pay for something really small like texturing a nose.
This sounds like a Serva to me.