5 star games

#1

Quote:
1. Is there a place for a luxury brand of games?

2. What would be the design considerations for such games?

#1: You would be amazed by what the word Luxury is able to convince people to spend money on.

#2:
This is a original concept and had me thinking for some time.

One could not define it as a extra high quality of graphics and the full use of every graphical FX possible. Or Amazing top quality sound FX, voice actor work, all that BIG-Game Studio stuff to fit the category of Luxury.

Also, Packing the game with endless hours of content, no matter what the quality is, can not be the solution, even non Luxury extra long to play games end up boring the game player.

Complexity of game mechanics, and game design dont truly meet Luxury.

We have the fact that we do not have Luxury books, music, movies, as a clue to show us how to define a Luxury computer game. So we consider what Real Luxury may actually stand for, clues gleaned from the filth rich people who enjoy constantly telling us what it means!

A Luxury computer game would need proprietary computer systems to run it on. The content would need to be much more interactive then anything in design use today (yet not as complex to use). The game play would need to be designed for shorts bursts of game play without expecting a long time commitment( like a book, you pick it up -read, put it down for days and come back later), yet be very fun every single time it is used( unlike book, movie and standard poor people computer game that get old after time and repeated usage).

Thats is the only computer game definition i see fitting for the Luxury title.

EDIT: for the Luxury of it.

#2 What kind of game would you play that cost $100? $250? $1000?

I'm in the middle of a large multi-touch surface project. It's a table that's 5 feet by 3 feet. Each game for it has to be custom created for my table. This is a personal luxury.

I just returned from Japan and visited a "virtual reality" room. All of the games had the same concept, so I'll just describe one. First, you buy a starter pack of cards ($5). These cards include various futuristic military units. You pay $5 for the arcade game (4 other people play at the same time). You place a few of these cards on the surface and move them around with your hands. This moves them on the battlefield. There are controls to the side to activate various abilities of the cards. When you encounter another player, it goes up on a giagantic screen and the battle is fought there. After a while, you pay $3 to continue. Also, you can pay $3 to buy booster packs. Without the cards, this is $14+ per hour, a very expensive entertainment in my book.

I would argue that we do have luxury books and movies. At least I have to pay about 50% more to see an art-house movie. And I've bought technical books with 100 pages that cost $75.

But the real question is does anybody *WANT* a luxury game? Enthusiasts can get 1000s of hours out of a $40 game or a $15/month game.

But I guess that returns me to my first question:

What kind of game would you play that cost $100? $250? $1000?

#3 As William stated, there are "luxury" examples of other forms of entertainment. In addition I would add comics and graphic novels to the book category. For the luxury of pictures with your story you pay about 30 cents a page, as opposed to 4 or 5 for a normal paperback. You can also go watch a movie at the IMAX, or in 3D for almost double the price of a normal ticket. Still, he difference between games and other forms of entertainment (movies, books, music, etc...) is that there isn't standard hardware for delivery. The biggest advancement since the printing press, besides pictures, is the digital book, but you are still only reading words. Movies have advanced tremendously in fidelity since the early days, but you still go to a movie theater, which is only now moving to a digital format. You can also watch them at home, but there is a standard in presentation whether it is blu-ray or dvd.

Computers comprise of differing levels of components that span the range of computing power. Game designers try to maximize performance for the most common hardware configurations. Imagine we are looking at a bell curve, with 10% on the low and high end of computer hardware, and 80% in the middle. Right now game designers are trying to capture as much as they can to the left of the center of the curve, and all of the right, probably about 60-70% of gamers. What if a game designer targeted the top 10%? If you designed a game only for those people who buy the $4000 - $7000 game machines, could you be profitable? Limiting the hardware you are programming for to only the highest end, could you create a game that outshines the best we have today?

#4 "What kind of game would you play that cost $100? $250? $1000?"

I don't know. That is the question I'm trying to answer. I think there is one to be made, I'm just not sure what it would be like.

#5 If I could play a game that game me a truly unique experience, I might consider it.

Let's say it's a mystery game. It would have to generate a mystery for me to solve that only I would experience. The story should evolve based upon my actions with the computer scripting up new areas, people, and motivations as time goes on.

I might pay $250 to experience that game.

#6 Steel Battalion - $200 (originally)

Rock Band - $150 (originally)

DJ Hero - $130 (originally)

To me, these are all 5 star games and it seems the cost + additional hardware affect that opinion. You see even higher price tags for advanced simulators that can cost anywhere between $500 and $10K. Those are definitely "luxury" items. Sure, I can play Forza for $60 on a console...or I can pay $5000 to get the full simulator setup with multiple monitors, force feedback, surround sound, pedals, stick shift, wheel, etc etc.