How much will No Man's Sky cost?

What do you know? We still know nothing about the 'game'; the hype is still soaring skyhigh, why would they want to stop that by letting us know that there's actually nothing to do except fly to planets with different colour palettes?
Well, and the space battles and mining and trading, other than that nothing. Oh and land battles with hostile creatures and the robot overlords protecting them.
 
This is the NMS thread of the hour so I guess I'll just post this here as well in regards to people's expectations versus what Hello Games has shown.

If you pay attention to how Murray has phrased things, it becomes apparent we've already seen much more of NMS than Hello Games ever wanted us to see before its launch. A lot of that has probably been Sony's doing. Hello Games originally wanted NMS to launch with less fanfare and hype than it has currently gained. Murray has referenced the first person survival games that kind of just appeared on Steam out of nowhere and got popular. This also leads me to believe Hello Games is still deliberately hiding significant details about the game's systems, where any publisher launching a AAA game would have given us incredibly in-depth previews and shown us all the menu screens at this point. Sony may be hyping the hell out of NMS, but Hello Games apparently doesn't want it to be anticipated in quite the same way as a AAA game at this point.

Some have taken this to mean NMS is going to be less than what is currently anticipated. Personally I think that really means it could go either way. How much did we know about Elite Dangerous in the months leading up to its release? I ask because right now we have still seen basically nothing regarding how the in-game economy will work in NMS, how you'll buy ships, the menu screen where you'll buy and sell commodities, the table of elements, etc. Murray has just mentioned those systems in passing but he seems to want to keep them all mysterious so people can just discover all that stuff when the game actually comes out. That could either mean he's just being mysterious and those things are actually really well-designed, or that we'll be disappointed.

Another odd little tidbit -- almost every planet Hello Games has shown us has been a lush world filled with life, but Murray has said multiple times that 90% of the planets in the game will be lifeless rocks or deserts. Of the 10% that do have life, only 10% of those will be the lush worlds we see in the videos teeming with complex life. So really we've been seeing almost nothing but the 1% most interesting planets so far, if Murray is to be believed. I can't remember where he says the number of planets each system will have but I think the maximum was around a dozen, so it might be that every system or almost every system will have one planet with some life on it. Edit: I actually just remembered something else -- the universe we're seeing in some of the trailers isn't the one that will be in the final game. Murray did say that Hello Games plans to sort of "re-roll" the algorithm and procedural generation upon launch, so maybe the spread or proportion of planets will be different in the final version of the game.



They already said the game will have no quests at all. You'll never see an objective screen or whatever. There's literally just the players, the world, and things going on in the world having repercussions.

So, instead of a quest, you may just come upon two factions fighting and decide to get involved, and have the results carry on from there. One side might become hostile, the other friendly. Maybe there will be other details they haven't shared with us yet, but Hello Games already confirmed there won't actually be any "quests" in the conventional sense.

Very insightful post.
 
I would not personally pay $60 for this game based on what I have seen of it thus far and how I feel about games that have some similarities to it that are already available in some capacity.

That said, everyone's financial situation is different. Some people would pay $60 for Journey, some people wouldn't pay $5. Ultimately it's the consumer's hard-earned money and it's totally within their right to have their own expectations for games of each price range, and if a given game doesn't meet those expectations, they are not at all obligated to buy the game no matter the circumstances of the developer or the company behind the game.
 
I would not personally pay $60 for this game based on what I have seen of it thus far and how I feel about games that have some similarities to it that are already available in some capacity.

That said, everyone's financial situation is different. Some people would pay $60 for Journey, some people wouldn't pay $5. Ultimately it's the consumer's hard-earned money and it's totally within their right to have their own expectations for games of each price range, and if a given game doesn't meet those expectations, they are not at all obligated to buy the game no matter the circumstances of the developer or the company behind the game.

Agreed, and want to add another layer. Those consumers can have expectations but when they make those public and speak with a demanding tone of what the game should be priced with weak reasoning when asked to elaborate, they should be ready for the negative responses.
 
Yeah this will cost between 45 and 55€ at launch. It will then drop quickly in the coming months on console retail (there is retail day one right?).

I think it'll be worth waiting to see if the game delivers what they said it would do : an exploration game that makes you want to explore lots of planets because the mechanics and the atmosphere are worth it. A game with which you want to come back regularly because it works. If it's too basic then it's a prototype or an experimental game and people will complain about a high price range. It must be a complete experience with some kind of scale (that is allowed because of a big budget, therefore they need to sell many games and/or at a high price)

Kevin-Hart-What-GIF.gif


Why wouldn't it be $60? The scale of the game is massive. This isn't some little 6 hour game.

Since when a game's price is related to its length ?

edit : and actually it may turns out as a 3, or 6, or 8 hours game
 
Obviously, indie or not shouldn't matter for pricing. Hell the game's budget shouldn't matter, only what you're able to make with it.

That said, I don't see this game having that much cobtebt as people expect it to have. Ì suspect you will visit tons of places that are only slight variations of each other, from fauna to landscapes. I am also not convinced there is all that much to do. Naming creatures, collecting resources and spaceflight/fighting. That may be enough on its own, I just don't expect to be blown away by this as much as everyone else.

60$ is still fair though. We, the customers decide what we think is worthy of our money. If you have fun for 20 hours with 60$, then that's not all that bad. I've paid a lot more for a lot less.
 
Since forever internet forums were a thing and people equated both.

I'd actually say that game length has never been the only and exclusive factor to judge worth, and the criterias have also dynamically changed over time. Like f.ex. production value has become a bigger factor over the years, something NMS has very little of compared to a game like f.ex. GTA V. I'm not saying that's what NMS should be judged on though.
 
Really hate the whole "It's an Indie game, so shouldn't cost anywhere near $40-$60" way of thinking, it's just stupid.

If games like The Witness and NMS offer enough content and quality, then why shouldn't they charge that amount ?

These Indie devs work just as hard, if not harder than the big studios, due to their small size, and sometimes put in a lot of their own money into these games, so it's pretty disrespectful when morons on the internet complain about a game costing $40, which is $20 cheaper than a full price game.
 
Agreed, and want to add another layer. Those consumers can have expectations but when they make those public and speak with a demanding tone of what the game should be priced with weak reasoning when asked to elaborate, they should be ready for the negative responses.

Yup. By that same token, the people who get mad at those who are more frugal with their video-game money for not immediately dumping $40 on things like The Witness and The Talos Principle and claim they are the reason these games aren't successful/these developers are going out of business should be equally criticized. It's not the consumer's problem that the developer is having money troubles, if they don't find the game compelling for the price, then they have every right not to buy it.
 
I'd be comfortable with a $60 price point if the team has executed the game well and there are no game breaking technical issues. It's an ambitious concept and pretty fantastic technology.

That doesn't mean I'm going to buy it at that price mind you. I'm just not that interested in NMS.
 
NMS SHOULD be $60.

Idk why the hell you would think it would be anything less.

Hello Games are a very small team and this game didn't require the man-hours required for a standard AAA game for example. My point is this game was probably cheaper to make than a AAA and should be priced accordingly.

I think the game should be $40 at the most
 
Yup. By that same token, the people who get mad at those who are more frugal with their video-game money for not immediately dumping $40 on things like The Witness and The Talos Principle and claim they are the reason these games aren't successful/these developers are going out of business should be equally criticized. It's not the consumer's problem that the developer is having money troubles, if they don't find the game compelling for the price, then they have every right not to buy it.
Considering those both games sold very well, the price isn't an issue for many. Thus it shifts from those games' prices, which is proven to be a good price point, to the person and their issue with the price.

And yes, I'd argue it is the consumer's problem, especially in regards to indie games. There's a certain mindset regarding indie games and their typical pricing, that games in the last few years have tried to break and expand beyond.

Remember, it's not like indie games were originally all different prices and then the market and sales showed that $15-$20 is the best price. Indie games were introduced to mainstream audiences at that price, thanks to XBLA, and never really expanded beyond that range till the last few years.

Now more indie games are being priced in the $25-$40 range. People's perspective of price and value needs to grow with the times just like the games are growing and expanding.
 
Hello Games are a very small team and this game didn't require the man-hours required for a standard AAA game for example. My point is this game was probably cheaper to make than a AAA and should be priced accordingly.

I think the game should be $40 at the most

Most companies price based on value provided not inputs.
 
Hello Games are a very small team and this game didn't require the man-hours required for a standard AAA game for example. My point is this game was probably cheaper to make than a AAA and should be priced accordingly.

I think the game should be $40 at the most
Let's be honest, the average people isn't thinking of budget or team size when browsing Steam or PSN or whatnot. They're thinking in terms of content and presentation.

And why shouldn't developers be allowed to price a game what they feel it's worth? If No Man's Sky can rival a AAA game in terms of depth and content (and really, that's a wide range when we're looking at $60 "AAA" games), why shouldn't Hello Games feel justified in pricing their game at $60?

Going by your scale, how much should Divinity Original Sin cost?
40 developer studio, ~ $4 million budget

Or The Witness?
11 developer team, ~ $6 million budget
 
Is there a popular indie game that was released at full retail AAA price and was popularly received? This game has no narrative outside giving you a simple premise and a much lighter production than the average $60 game
 
Is there a popular indie game that was released at full retail AAA price and was popularly received?
Never happened. No Man's Sky would be breaking new ground if it was $60. The closest are $40 games like Talos Principle, Divinity, and The Witness, which have all sold very well. And Talos and Divinity are $50 on PS4
 
My issue isn't people who don't think this game is worth 60 dollars. To me it seems it will launch at 40 and it isn't worth that to me....but then again a lot of AAA games aren't either. But the notion that an "indie" game cant be worth 60 or even 40 is beyond stupid.
 
"way too much for an indie title" is so fucking baffling

It's simply the stigma that's arisen from the idea of an indie studio. It isn't as black and white as "Smaller Team = Lower Quality".

People need to learn that bigger isn't always better. Id rather have a well made "indie" game than an overproduced, unfinished, buggy AAA game provided I have an initial interest in the game to begin with.
 
Reading this thread, I can't help but feel that the new recent influx of members has dramatically lowered the quality and knowledge of the average GAFer.

Lots of clueless posts in here with so little thought put into them that they're a waste of time to read and scoff at, let alone seriously reply to. There has to be at least some knowledge/intelligence or there's simply no basis for a fruitful discussion.


edit: putting IMO behind a stupid post doesn't make it less stupid.
 
It can be worth 60 if there is more depth to the gameplay that we haven't seen yet. But based on what they have shown so far I think 30-40 is a fair price point.
 
Considering those both games sold very well, the price isn't an issue for many. Thus it shifts from those games' prices, which is proven to be a good price point, to the person and their issue with the price.

And yes, I'd argue it is the consumer's problem, especially in regards to indie games. There's a certain mindset regarding indie games and their typical pricing, that games in the last few years have tried to break and expand beyond.

Remember, it's not like indie games were originally all different prices and then the market and sales showed that $15-$20 is the best price. Indie games were introduced to mainstream audiences at that price, thanks to XBLA, and never really expanded beyond that range till the last few years.

Now more indie games are being priced in the $25-$40 range. People's perspective of price and value needs to grow with the times just like the games are growing and expanding.

Sorry, I don't think I was clear enough in my original post. I agree with what you say, I just think that it's not the consumer's problem if the developer is having money troubles. They shouldn't feel obligated to buy the game because of the developer's financial situation if they don't feel the game is priced correctly for what it is.
 
It certainly looks like there is a lot of content but let's remember this is 10 people making this. They aren't magicians, an hour of their work day is not worth 10 hours of another developers. they have been at it for a few years but it's not like those 300 to 500 man teams that make triple A games sit on their asses and do nothing during the two to three years they take to develop a game and yet they deliver them for 60 dollars. People who think there is going to be tons of art assets and original content may be disappointed. I actually think it's a great question why people feel they would be justified asking 60 dollars when SOMA, transistor, and many other games come is at much lower prices and do quite well. I actually think 60 dollars would be greedy based on their probable development costs and the amount of marketing Sony has given them and what I expect their sales will be.
 
The notion that game price should be tied to development costs is one of the stupidest things to creep up here recently. That somehow "AAA" development bloat is a legitimate justification for a higher price point than the quality of content delivered from a consumer perspective. That's insane.
 
I'm really surprised by the people saying $60. From what I've seen even though it's procedural and "infinite", the amount of content (not just a randomized tweak to existing content) doesn't seem to justify $60. It's made by a really small team, so I'd imagine the cost to produce it probably pails in comparison to some AAA games. I think it will be $20-$30.
 
After seeing The Witness for $40, I'm scared NMS will be $60. Way too much for an indie title. Even $40 is too much.

$20-$30 will be a sweet spot for me.

Be afraid. 100% chance of $60.

I'm really surprised by the people saying $60. From what I've seen even though it's procedural and "infinite", the amount of content (not just a randomized tweak to existing content) doesn't seem to justify $60. It's made by a really small team, so I'd imagine the cost to produce it probably pails in comparison to some AAA games. I think it will be $20-$30.

A small team, but in development for years. Think of how much time it's been since it was announced, let alone the development time prior to the announcement., and we still have months to go. Gotta pay those salaries.
 
It certainly looks like there is a lot of content but let's remember this is 10 people making this. They aren't magicians, an hour of their work day is not worth 10 hours of another developers. they have been at it for a few years but it's not like those 300 to 500 man teams that make triple A games sit on their asses and do nothing during the two to three years they take to develop a game and yet they deliver them for 60 dollars. People who think there is going to be tons of art assets and original content may be disappointed. I actually think it's a great question why people feel they would be justified asking 60 dollars when SOMA, transistor, and many other games come is at much lower prices and do quite well. I actually think 60 dollars would be greedy based on their probable development costs and the amount of marketing Sony has given them and what I expect their sales will be.

Sean Murray already estimated (probably over a year ago admittedly) the initial download for NMS is only going to be around 5GB. That's the size of all the art assets and other things they actually crafted for the game.

To compare however, Elite: Dangerous, a similar game with graphics much closer to a AAA game, is only around 8GB.
The notion that game price should be tied to development costs is one of the stupidest things to creep up here recently. That somehow "AAA" development bloat is a legitimate justification for a higher price point than the quality of content delivered from a consumer perspective. That's insane.

And yet here we are with games like Titanfall that launched at $60.

I'm not saying those high budgets are a legitimate justification for the higher prices of AAA games. I'm just saying that's probably a big factor behind game prices in the real world.

Most posts in this thread seem to be talking about how much money No Man's Sky should cost when the question in the (admittedly bad) OP was how much it will cost. People seem to be completely overlooking the costs involved in making art assets, recording voice acting, and buying TV commercial time. That's one of the huge differences between AAA games and indie games, and is probably a huge reason why big publishers think they can/should charge $60 for games. Those things have relatively little to do with the actual gameplay of a video game, but that's how it is. What you actually play in a game isn't the only or probably even the biggest determiner of its cost.
 
I'm really surprised by the people saying $60. From what I've seen even though it's procedural and "infinite", the amount of content (not just a randomized tweak to existing content) doesn't seem to justify $60. It's made by a really small team, so I'd imagine the cost to produce it probably pails in comparison to some AAA games. I think it will be $20-$30.
You realize that procedural is a lot harder than randomized, right? Randomized is merely random collection of pre-made level chunks or enemy parts/armor/weapons, etc.

Procedural makes new things based on formulas and algorithms, so for example, planets. Each planets is unique based on variables like the distance from a system's suns. The distance from the sun then affects the composition of that planet's atmosphere, which in turn affects what kind of creatures can live there and what the color of the sky is based of the light through the atmosphere and the climate and the type of trees and the shape of the leaves on those trees and so on
 
I'd drop $60+ For a physical CE with flight stick, art book, and badass model ship for PS4.

I think $40 download would be in the sweet spot for sales.
 
Okay, real question... if Hello Games were to have a publisher like Activision or Sony Computer Entertainment publish it, would you still question it's price? Or is it the knowledge of how small the dev team is what is bothering everyone?
 
Okay, real question... if Hello Games were to have a publisher like Activision or Sony Computer Entertainment publish it, would you still question it's price? Or is it the knowledge of how small the dev team is what is bothering everyone?
Isn't Sony publishing it?
 
Judging by this thread, every Ubisoft game should be priced at $200+ considering how dozens of teams work on them.
 
This is the NMS thread of the hour so I guess I'll just post this here as well in regards to people's expectations versus what Hello Games has shown.

If you pay attention to how Murray has phrased things, it becomes apparent we've already seen much more of NMS than Hello Games ever wanted us to see before its launch. A lot of that has probably been Sony's doing. Hello Games originally wanted NMS to launch with less fanfare and hype than it has currently gained. Murray has referenced the first person survival games that kind of just appeared on Steam out of nowhere and got popular. This also leads me to believe Hello Games is still deliberately hiding significant details about the game's systems, where any publisher launching a AAA game would have given us incredibly in-depth previews and shown us all the menu screens at this point. Sony may be hyping the hell out of NMS, but Hello Games apparently doesn't want it to be anticipated in quite the same way as a AAA game at this point.

Some have taken this to mean NMS is going to be less than what is currently anticipated. Personally I think that really means it could go either way. How much did we know about Elite Dangerous in the months leading up to its release? I ask because right now we have still seen basically nothing regarding how the in-game economy will work in NMS, how you'll buy ships, the menu screen where you'll buy and sell commodities, the table of elements, etc. Murray has just mentioned those systems in passing but he seems to want to keep them all mysterious so people can just discover all that stuff when the game actually comes out. That could either mean he's just being mysterious and those things are actually really well-designed, or that we'll be disappointed.

Another odd little tidbit -- almost every planet Hello Games has shown us has been a lush world filled with life, but Murray has said multiple times that 90% of the planets in the game will be lifeless rocks or deserts. Of the 10% that do have life, only 10% of those will be the lush worlds we see in the videos teeming with complex life. So really we've been seeing almost nothing but the 1% most interesting planets so far, if Murray is to be believed. I can't remember where he says the number of planets each system will have but I think the maximum was around a dozen, so it might be that every system or almost every system will have one planet with some life on it. Edit: I actually just remembered something else -- the universe we're seeing in some of the trailers isn't the one that will be in the final game. Murray did say that Hello Games plans to sort of "re-roll" the algorithm and procedural generation upon launch, so maybe the spread or proportion of planets will be different in the final version of the game.



They already said the game will have no quests at all. You'll never see an objective screen or whatever. There's literally just the players, the world, and things going on in the world having repercussions.

So, instead of a quest, you may just come upon two factions fighting and decide to get involved, and have the results carry on from there. One side might become hostile, the other friendly. Maybe there will be other details they haven't shared with us yet, but Hello Games already confirmed there won't actually be any "quests" in the conventional sense.

I didn't know this and I'm now expecting a lot of disappointed people when they find out the majority of planets are just rocks and don't contain life forms.
 
Hello Games are a very small team and this game didn't require the man-hours required for a standard AAA game for example. My point is this game was probably cheaper to make than a AAA and should be priced accordingly.

I think the game should be $40 at the most

This is stupid.

They are the first developer to make an algorithm for a universe on a... universal scale.

Seriously. I mean. Do you even.
 
Unless the game changed or there's a lot we don't know. It's not $60. I question anyone who even thinks that. It will fall hard at that price point.
 
This is the NMS thread of the hour so I guess I'll just post this here as well in regards to people's expectations versus what Hello Games has shown.

If you pay attention to how Murray has phrased things, it becomes apparent we've already seen much more of NMS than Hello Games ever wanted us to see before its launch. A lot of that has probably been Sony's doing. Hello Games originally wanted NMS to launch with less fanfare and hype than it has currently gained. Murray has referenced the first person survival games that kind of just appeared on Steam out of nowhere and got popular. This also leads me to believe Hello Games is still deliberately hiding significant details about the game's systems, where any publisher launching a AAA game would have given us incredibly in-depth previews and shown us all the menu screens at this point. Sony may be hyping the hell out of NMS, but Hello Games apparently doesn't want it to be anticipated in quite the same way as a AAA game at this point.

That's because as Murray has said dozens of times the game is about the sense of discovery, and thus spoiling all the systems and such in the grotesque detail you're suggesting here would not work for it, since most AAA games are nothing like No Man's Sky. And yet still, we know an obscene amount of detail about the game, enough to fill a small book at this point. Releasing the table of elements for No Man's Sky would be equivalent of releasing the item list on FF. Nobody goes into that much detail prior to release unless they're really fucking daft at marketing. And we still know a bunch of elements - Raegon-214, Oxycen, Cb, and a bunch more I forget the names of.

Murray is not hiding anything, there's no big disagreement with Sony on how much the game should be hyped.

It's a game about the joy of discovery, and thus being overly explicit is counterproductive to the game NMS is. It's really that simple.

That could either mean he's just being mysterious and those things are actually really well-designed, or that we'll be disappointed.

Some will be disappointed, others will not be. Like every game ever made.


Another odd little tidbit -- almost every planet Hello Games has shown us has been a lush world filled with life, but Murray has said multiple times that 90% of the planets in the game will be lifeless rocks or deserts. Of the 10% that do have life, only 10% of those will be the lush worlds we see in the videos teeming with complex life. So really we've been seeing almost nothing but the 1% most interesting planets so far, if Murray is to be believed. I can't remember where he says the number of planets each system will have but I think the maximum was around a dozen, so it might be that every system or almost every system will have one planet with some life on it. Edit: I actually just remembered something else -- the universe we're seeing in some of the trailers isn't the one that will be in the final game. Murray did say that Hello Games plans to sort of "re-roll" the algorithm and procedural generation upon launch, so maybe the spread or proportion of planets will be different in the final version of the game.

That's not really odd. You wouldn't show your slowest moments for any game, since that stuff doesn't wash well in trailers and playable demos.
 
Could not agree more with Amir0x above. I am digging the 'old school' feel this is trying to capture with imagination and discovery.

Judging by this thread, every Ubisoft game should be priced at $200+ considering how dozens of teams work on them.

Uncharted 4, $150. 400 people at one time touched it's development.
 
It's hard to say, really. I think for $40 they'd get a bunch of extra people interested due to the lower price compared to AAA, so they could benefit from either strategy.
 
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