Quote Originally Posted by TonyTheTiger View Post
"Adversary" is commonly used to mean "opponent." It often comes up among lawyers who, outside of being on opposite sides of a case, may have absolutely no bad blood between them. Same with athletes. When the Giants and Broncos play each other, the Manning brothers are adversaries as far as that football game goes. And of course a "sweet spot" is possible. It happens all the time. I'm sure a supermarket would love to be able to charge $100 for a loaf of bread and a buyer would love to get it for free. They find a sweet spot where the store makes a nice profit and the buyer gets it for a fair price. This is the foundation of pretty much every transaction ever.

And the reason I pointed to all those insiders is twofold. First, to establish that the argument over the industry's health started on their end. They're the ones who complained about money or lack thereof. They started it. So it's not like I just woke up one day and independently decided games cost too much to make. The idea that such is the case was deliberately put in my head by the people on the inside who keep bitching about the struggles they face staying afloat in today's market. Well, if they keep complaining about their difficulties doing business then they should expect people to question if there's something their doing wrong that's making it so hard for them to do business. I don't recall that ever happening before this past generation where so many people in the industry would air so many grievances regarding the cost factor on their end. It's clearly coming from somewhere. Something is causing them to bring it up so often. If everything really is peachy why are the insiders complaining as much as they are? And if there is something wrong, why are they exempt from being held responsible for their own problems? Why is it on everyone else to change so they can stay afloat? Again, this isn't me pulling anything out of my ass. I'm just responding to what the industry has been telling me.

And second, to demonstrate that even if you assert that the industry is perfectly fine, it's not a slam dunk. The quotes I linked to may not be 100% dispositive but I think it's good evidence that it's at least controversial. Certainly not something that was made up whole cloth by disgruntled consumers and forum posters. You said it yourself. The business knows what it's doing better than us. Well, if that's the case then the only thing people like us really have to go on are statements from the business or representatives of it. So if Cliffy B. comes out and says that games cost too much to make there are only three options. Either he's correct, he's mistaken, or he's lying. So which is it?
As a lawyer myself, I have never called or thought about someone as an adversary in a case unless there was some kind of negative feeling attached to it. I think when lawyers represent different sides in a dispute and don't have any kind of bitter feelings, they simply call it the "other side" or the plaintiff or defendant rather than an opponent or adversary. As for the sports analogy, it's not a friendly rivalry at all when two teams get together, regardless of the blood relations between the two quarterbacks. I certainly don't think of most businesses as my adversary as a consumer and I don't think that our interests are inherently in conflict. Indeed, just like most video game publishers want to keep making games, I want to keep buying and playing them.

As for the sweet spot, I believe what you are referring to is really supply and demand and market pricing. It's never a perfect compromise. I often pay more than I think I should for certain goods and I'm certain retailers sell them to me for far less than they think they should be able to. It's not a sweet spot so much as an acceptance on both sides that you can't get everything you want. The use of new revenue streams in video games is exactly the same thing. I personally don't like DLC, but I understand that it helps pay the development costs of the big budget games I love and want. I would love it if games were all $10 or even free, but I know that I am buying products from large publishers that have a certain cost to create and a certain risk to the investors in those companies and therefore, I understand that games will cost more. Heck, I've been paying between $30 and $60 for games since the early 1980s, so adjusted for inflation it really isn't that bad compared to other consumer goods.

As for the comments from industry insiders, it's certainly true that some of them have complained about spiraling budgets. The same has been true in the film industry and television and every other creative industry. These same complaints cropped up in the 90s with PC gaming and in the early 2000s with the transition to more sandbox gaming and persistent 3D environments. Where I haven't seen these complaints is from successful large companies that make these big budget games. I think what you are really reacting to is that there is just more video game industry coverage available to the general public now than there was before, so the complaints seem stronger and more numerous.

The fact that some companies are pursuing these alternate revenue streams is not a complaint that games cost too much to develop, it's a recognition of the fact that they understand that as budgets continue to increase, retail prices have less flexibility and they need to seek other means of generating additional profit. You might think that the calls for an end to used sales or season passes and DLC are complaints (and frankly maybe some of the spokespeople for publishers have not been the most adept at explaining why these things are necessary), but in my mind it just shows that the industry is run by smart people who are creative enough to come up with solutions to the realities of the economics. The people financing hundreds of millions of dollars for games like COD and GTA to be developed expect a substantial profit for the risk they are undertaking and frankly, it's not the kind of situation where the public is going to be super receptive to scaled back games at this point, at least not on console platforms. As such, the industry will continue to evolve and while there may be some bumps along the way, I just don't see any signs that the industry is headed for a collapse or that budgets will be reigned in going forward.