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If we don't start to stand up now and speak out against it, it will only get worse.

Mad-A
Honored Guest
The fact that these games are charging 40-50 dollars for games that only last 2-3 hours is insane. If we keep paying for it, it will only continue or get worse. We need to stand as a community and express the displeasure together. I love Oculus, I'm here to support them until the end, but I can't keep buying these games for that much and being done in one dang day!
72 REPLIES 72

Anonymous
Not applicable
Good grief. Not this old chestnut again. People seem to think that every single flat game is 50+ hours long. This is complete bollocks. The average play through time of games that aren't Elder Scrolls/Fallout/[insert name of other open world game here] is around 5 or 6 hours and has been for the last 10 years or so.

In fact the play through time of games changed when the 360 and PS3 were released because budgets of these games sky rocketed once 720p became a thing. In fact, developers and publishers tacked on online multiplayer to all of these games so that the majority of idiots buying these things didn't realise what they were doing.

Now if you were talking about the majority of games on Steam being glorified tech demos that are only a few hours long I could understand where you're coming from...but the vast majority of single player games in the Oculus Store that are full price are long enough to justify that full price point.

50+ hour games like GTA, Skyrim, Fallout etc are exceptions, not the average.

CrashFu
Consultant

BeastyBaiter said:

Regardless, the complaint is not that games cost $50+, it's that VR exclusives at that price are not anywhere near the same quality of a non-VR exclusive of the same price. That is a perfectly legitimate concern. I understand that we are a tiny minority. Steam claims we are less than 0.5% of total PC gamers and that includes Vive and OSVR users. Paying a bit more is certainly expected but that doesn't mean we should accept $50 2 hour tech demos using an off the shelf game engine. There is a lot of middle ground there.


By WHAT metric are you comparing awe-inspiring, fully-immersive, emotionally-impactive, innovatively-designed VR experiences to regular old formulaic video games that has VR coming up so short for you?

I'm starting to think that "gamers" should just have their VR licenses revoked altogether.  Every time I've sat a gamer down with my Rift, they just sit stone-still, staring straight ahead without motion, and rush through the game levels like they're doing a speed-run.   Of course the magic and wonderment of the immersive VR experience is lost on them, they barely even notice it's in 3D!  

Also, your estimates of the typical VR game's length seems to halve every time you estimate it, and it wasn't very realistic to start with.  Why are you speed-running VR games and then complaining that they're too short?  For that matter, why are you trying to play VR games like they're regular old PC games in the first place?

Ugh, gamers.
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

SerVitor
Expert Protege
^^^ wow at that hate filled post.  From a poster of the week no less lol.

The point about VR and non VR games.   I've already paid my £500 ish for the headset etc to experience games in VR so why do i have to pay a premium on top for the software?  Is there extra coding involved?


I think because its still a fledgling new market you will still see premium prices...rightly or wrongly.  So i can understand why prices are high.  

However, I dont agree with the whole "its an experience" so therefore "£30 or £40 is fair for 2 or 3 hour of VR experience"  No sorry it is not.   

Considering how easy (in comparison to how much work goes into some proper non vr games) it is to put together a VR experience and then charge a premium rate for it ....unity+some premade assets...optimize for VR headsets ..slap in a 2 hour story and bobs your uncle.....  Sometimes makes me think that there is no QA or QC on the oculus store at all. hrm lol.

But anyway

The problem the OP and Beasty has in this thread is that sadly they have not received a proper  well thought rational counter to their argument.

Telling someone to save money, wait for a flash sale etc or just basically bitch at them for being a gamer lol doesnt address the argument at all... it just makes the forum look bad....and immature.  


i5-4690k 16 gig Ram Win 7 64bit 8 gig ZOTAC AMP EDITION GTX1080

Sharpfish
Heroic Explorer
My main problem with high prices on DIGITAL DOWNLOAD only stuff is there's zero resale value. Call the OP names and cast aspersions on his character/earning ability all you like but sorry, the reality is many many people won't feel able to buy $40 "VR" games (that are very short) for too long, some of us are very savvy with money and can add up that over time you could blow $1000 on software, be done with it in a month and then have no options to even recoup some of that cost by selling the old games on amazon/ebay (for usually less than half price). Not gonna get into the rights and wrongs of reselling and how the devs feel hard done by by it, but the facts are that for years 'reselling' used games has been a major factor in why the industry is so successful in the first place!

If we can't sell used games, we can't so readily make 'game cash' to spend on new games, esp as its a cash sink with no end. Especially as  most of them don't have demos, and especially as most of them are more like experiences than games or long / value worthy titles. Yeah the VR market sells less, but the other way to look at it is there's less competition for your game too, and better pricing would enable far more sales (duh) so it would even out anyway. AGAIN especially as there's no reselling ability! 

Look at the uproar when Xbox 1 said 'no used games' then had to change their policy! It really does matter to people, and as we can't do that so easily on Digital (well not oculus anyway) of course some people are going to worry about spending so much.

As for 'why did you buy rift then' - in my case I bought it primarily to create with/develop which brings me more fun than just playing other people's stuff anyway so I'm kind of ok. But if certain games had cheaper prices, or even demos, (the climb for example) then I'd have probably bought it already. As it stands thats one sale they didn't get as I have no idea if its worth that much without trying it first and can't resell if I don't like it.

Don't get all self righteous/fanboyish/protective of oculus about this, this is a reality for at least half the VR users and its pretty clear the pricing is a bit off on some titles. Lone echo at £25 was just about right (pre-order price) esp as echo arena was free anyway. I'm sure it shifted way more copies at that price than if it was £40.

Also I don't even like to think of 'games' in the traditional context alongside VR, though many do, but yeah VR if done well should be about something you buy, then can reuse/revisit many times (so there's your value) but I don't see much of that about yet (nor does the hardware really allow that feeling to fully develop - there's very little of this so called 'presence' just yet in gen 1 VR unless I just got used to it... I think we're gonna need much higher FOV and  resolution before VR software starts to have an inherent "other world" value, where its worth every penny just to plug-in to those places. At the moment the vast majority of VR games are centred around one or two VR centric "gimmicks" with very little replayability (other than competitive games), very little realism. Most of it as about as VR as tom and jerry... until the cartoon worlds start to die the true value/meaning of Virtual Reality won't be there, the high prices on some very short games doesn't add up just yet.

That said, VR is currently a luxury, not a right.. I knew this going in so I don't start threads about it or go on about it much but it is a factor. And as for sales, when? We missed out the big summer sale after the rift sale so gotta wait a year for the climb to be reduced again? hmmm... I may have moved to another HMD by then!?
EX DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/PSVR2 | Currently Quest Pro (PCVR) | VR developer
RTX 3080 FE / 12900k / Windows 11 Pro

nalex66
MVP
MVP
Oculus has been doing the same four seasonal sales as Steam, so we should see an Autumn sale in the next couple months. 

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3.


Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Considering most of the console and pc games are becomming shorter and shorter with them focusing on multiplayer which to me seems like  a cop out.
Im looking at you Call of Duty and For Honor!

Many of these games are 6-8 hours max barring your rp ganes like the witcher 3 which was amazing and the fallout series.

That said I dont mind 35-40 for a 4-6 hour interacting experiance because VR is so much more immersive then stareing at a screen a few feet from your face.
WAAAGH!

Anonymous
Not applicable
You won't have to wait a year for the next sale, don't be ridiculous lol

And I still don't know what Oculus-funded games people are talking about that cost $40 and only have a couple of hours play through time.

Most of their games average 5-6 hours worth of content, some have twice that.

cybernettr
Superstar
 I think part of the problem is seeing how quickly you can rush through a game -- "Oh, I finished this game in only two or three hours, therefore it's a rip off" -- rather than considering the replay value of a game.  If you games detail is so stunning that every time you revisit it you notice new things, then it doesn't really only provide 2 to 3 hours of value, does it?  People are trying to see how quickly they can "beat" a game rather than actually experiencing it, and then complaining that it isn't long enough.  Was the original Star Wars just a two hour film or did it become a 40 year phenomenon?  Plus, how much of a value would you put on "creative" games like Minecraft or even Medium or Quill? 

Zenbane
MVP
MVP


 I think part of the problem is seeing how quickly you can rush through a game -- "Oh, I finished this game in only two or three hours, therefore it's a rip off" -- rather than considering the replay value of a game.  If you games detail is so stunning that every time you revisit it you notice new things, then it doesn't really only provide 2 to 3 hours of value, does it?  People are trying to see how quickly they can "beat" a game rather than actually experiencing it, and then complaining that it isn't long enough.  Was the original Star Wars just a two hour film or did it become a 40 year phenomenon?  Plus, how much of a value would you put on "creative" games like Minecraft or even Medium or Quill? 


Completely agree. Plus, people keep "speed playing" and ignoring the entirety of the content.

The example I use most lately is, Robinson the Journey. I read on multiple outlets (here, reddit, youtube), that it was a 4 hour game. But I bought it anyway at full price. The 4-hour gaming estimate turned out to only be true if you speed play through the main story and literally ignore everything else the game offers.

I still haven't found the last few unlocks, and I'm over 12 hours in to the game. Plus, the side quests are fantastic and should not be skipped by anyone who is concerned about pricing (or anyone who enjoys gaming).

BeastyBaiter
Superstar
Reselling games has never been a concern for me. Don't think I've ever done that. Come to think of it, I don't think I've bought a physical game disk since 2011 (skyrim) and even that was an oddity. I did it only because going to the store and buying it would be quicker than downloading. 😄 

What I've always tried to do is get games worth playing. I don't buy garbage games only good for a couple hours regardless of price. In my view, any game worth playing is worth spending some time with. I go for deep gameplay, not shallow throw away stuff. And I will pay a hefty premium for such gameplay. I bought a $400 VR headset for that very reason, to enhance my experience playing flight sims which I'd already spent hundreds on in joysticks and addons. I've been very happy with VR so far in that regard.

Going back to the core issue, the games on offer that are VR exclusive tend to be those 2 hour games that I wouldn't download for free. And both OH and steam think $25+ is a fair price for them. Maybe they are right, but I won't buy them regardless. Fortunately, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I have found a few early access games (something I normally avoid like the plague) that show some promise and hopefully Skyrim + Fallout VR will inject some life into the VR game market.

And I agree that normal pricing should follow here because there is less competition. Just looking at RTS's, there are dozens made this year alone for 2d screens. I've seen a grand total of one RTS for VR using touch controllers. It looks like a terrible game to me, but it has zero competition. Nothing like a good ole' monopoly to make a pile of garbage profitable.