The other big step is Micropayments.
The app store is the biggest advocate of it, people are happy to spend £1 to get some digits changed on a database, times that by a few hundred thousand and your product is profitable.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 12:35, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

Likewise in the Video Games industry
People are paying the standard £40 for games (or more in the case of Guitar Hero) and then are forced to spend money on the latest downloads via microtransactions.

Games are basically being released unfinished, add a few levels which in development terms is a half hour job, charge an extra fiver and hey presto - extra cash.

Looking further into the future, throw in faster and simpler ways of spending hard cash (perhaps tied in with this controversial new I.D. system the government are proposing) and well this whole microtransaction thing will go through the roof.
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 12:49, Reply)

Although I agree that games are being released unfinished...
... I think it's unfair to say 'extra' levels are part of that, they generaly are used to keep the game in the limelight and also it covers the costs of servers for multiplayer.

You're right about Guitar Hero/Rockband, it's a fantastic buisness model, those toy instriments must cost pennys to produce, they basicly haven't changed much since the first version, so R&D costs are way down. In fact, aside the pretty graphics, nothing has changed at all.

I understand that it would cost a bit of money to get the notes down in the right place for the verious songs; that they can't automate that propperly, but they must make a fortune.

Plus there is the laughable Bass/Guitar being the same thing.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 13:00, Reply)

The levels I refer to
Are part of COD: World at War on the Xbox live, where there are no servers to maintain. There have been 3 map packs at £5 a pop so far, on top of a game that in some places on released retailed at 50 smackaroonies.

I agree there is a lot of truth in these map packs keeping the game fresh and in the limelight, but I think the main purpose is to make as much money as possible, for as little effort as possible. I would argue that map making these days takes very little effort once the original code is put in place. I actually made and put into the community a number of maps for TFC and Counter-strike, albeit using the fairly easy to use WorldCraft.

Anyhoos, I really think this is the future, and with the costs of "good" games going up, I think we will see a lessening in quality and content in favour of downloadable microtransactions. A Marketing type would point out that this offers infinite possibilities for the one game, but I would say this puts possibly an infinite cost on the games!
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 13:26, Reply)