Home Gaming THQ : Future Console Game Could Be Cheap, Even Free

THQ : Future Console Game Could Be Cheap, Even Free

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THQ boss Brian Farrell believes that console games will drop from their current $60 price points to a much more reasonable $30-$40, and may even become free to play. Before you put on your party pants, there’s a huge caveat.

Games will typically be stripped-down and shipped with less on-disc content than we get right now, with the option to download up to about $100’s worth of extra content. It’s a model they’ll be experimenting with next year with their release of MX Vs ATV, their popular off-road racing title.

"You might know we are the industry leader in off-road racing in gaming with our MXVs ATV brand," Farrell said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York. "In the past, we’ve seen that we bring the game out at $59.99 and it does reasonably well – around one million, or one million-and-a-half units.
"When we lower the price to a mass market price the thing really jumps… So what we’re doing this time is we’re coming out initially with a smaller game at a lower price point – the $29 to $39 range.”

"We’re then doing a download model for different modes, different tracks, different vehicles. It’s what we call a hybrid – it’s a bit of the microtransaction and DLC model.It does a couple of things: I’m a big believer in monetising under the curve, so we capture that $29 to $39 user no matter what, and a person that wants to spend $100 on the product can do so as well.

Finally adding : "I think that’s the future of gaming – whether it’s this model or a take on the free-to-play model. It’s where our industry is going and this is a very, very interesting experiment with one of our key brands."

What do you think? Would you be keen on paying less for games, but then having to empty a virtual wallet (of real money) to flesh out the game? I’m not exactly enamoured by the idea of millions of microtransactions myself, but it all depends on how it’s done. If the DLC amounts to superfluous add-ons, then I have no problems with the idea.

If, however, paying for DLC adds a competitive edge to multiplayer, or you have to buy the endings of single player games, then they can sod right off. I sincerely hope that THQ’s experiment doesn’t quite work out as well as planned, lest other publishers follow the same route. If THQ manages to pull in over $100 for a $60 game from most users, the size of Activision boss Bobby Kotick’s erection would likely block out the sun, possibly leading to another ice-age, and the end of civilisation as we know it.

Source : CVG

Last Updated: September 27, 2010

11 Comments

  1. Sir James

    September 27, 2010 at 13:07

    THQ is trolling gamers again, it’s best to just ignore them and to stop feeding them, by boycotting their games.

    Reply

  2. easy

    September 27, 2010 at 13:17

    so we go from $60 for the full experience to paying $130 for the same thing. except we have a choice to gimp our experience if so desired.

    sounds like a bargain…

    Reply

  3. al360

    September 27, 2010 at 13:32

    u know they gonna screw us so i say screw them before they can screw us and boycott and klaar

    Reply

  4. MadG

    September 27, 2010 at 13:49

    To some degree Im not completely against this. Typically Im not a hige fan of multiplayer online, and if it means I can knock of $20 for something that Im likely never going to use then great.
    However, I have a feeling that its more going to be in the case of something like oblivion, you’ll get the main story for $30, then get “adventure packs” for the side quests for each city and so on.

    Reply

  5. MadG

    September 27, 2010 at 13:50

    wheres that edit button…. hige =huge before that grammar nazi geoff finds my post

    Reply

  6. Geoffrey Tim

    September 27, 2010 at 13:53

    I’m watching you… :biggrin:

    Reply

  7. Milesh Bhana

    September 27, 2010 at 14:38

    Well, they’re trying with a racing game, so you’d be paying for a game with few tracks/cars. And you get to choose what tracks you’d like to get.

    the thing i hate about this is that when you do play on-line, there’s always at least 1 person that doesn’t have the track/map that you bought, and if you’re a nice person like me , you end up choosing something everyone has. So the same handful will get played ad nauseum.

    Probably not as big an issue for MX vs ATV, but if they did it with a bigger title, i’d find that annoying.

    Reply

  8. ewie

    September 27, 2010 at 15:16

    Seems almost like some MMO free to play versions, e.g.
    DDO and LOTRO recently, if they do this correctly e.g.
    release a game with one or 2 two tracks and say 20 or 30 cars, then get the rest later could work, but for how many games will this work, A few sport titles, some RPG and FPS. The rest could backfire, how many people loose interest in some games after playing only a few levels. How many people finish games.

    It could backfire a lot.

    Reply

  9. LordKhaan

    September 27, 2010 at 15:40

    if they do it like DDO and LOTRO then I think it will be great for the market, cause they will actually have to give you your money’s worth!
    If its a game that you can get through in half a day and you hated the game play, the music and so on, but you got it for free, your not really going to complain.
    If the game mechanics can keep me interested enough that I need to buy new content for it every couple of months, I have no issue spending the money on it assuming that the DLC’s arent costing an arm and a leg.
    I actually play DDO a lot, R350 gets you 5000 TP which roughly gets you 7 adventure packs. More than enough to get you through a months worth of play.

    Reply

  10. Fox1

    September 27, 2010 at 16:02

    If EA decides to this they can leave out Rooney and Torres from the next FIFA game :biggrin:

    Reply

  11. Christo Le Grange

    September 28, 2010 at 07:30

    …I giggled at the article picture yesterday, and today I saw it again and almost peed my pants from laughing…this one also put me in a coma for a while…
    http://yodawgpics.com/yo-dawg-pictures/popular/5923-house

    Reply

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