Your previous post had some good points and was organized, erm, well enough to follow.
This one held my attention for about 30 seconds before I stopped trying to sort through it and find the underlying points in your lists. It’s a mess man.
So I’m gonna just respond to the closer:
Because “earn-able” currency isn’t just unprofitable, its draw being a F2P multiplayer game with the generous suite of current (and eventual) gameplay freedoms means it’s also more than likely capable of turning negative profits too.
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Reach was a title that launched in a different era of games, when games released as an all in one package. It cost an estimated $100mil to make and turned around and made $200mil it’s first day and $350mil it’s first month with additional “merchandise”, most likely more than that with DLC and continued sales (but also cost to support the game with further development). Regardless, this was the way games were made because they could turn a profit this way.
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I can’t find any info at all about the MCC’s sales or initial development costs (we’ll circle back to that), which means it was most likely not a commercial success. Paired with the abysmal launch of this title, it was quite honestly a shock when 343 really went all out on the post-release development of this title. Now given the initial development of this title and the star power behind just the H2A cutscenes alone, this wasn’t a cheap game to put together, and it was one that was meant to hold us over until Halo 5. Which means that it was supposed to be a one and done deal, most likely banking on Halo 5’s sales and lootbox system to turn a profit where MCC lost it. This gets even grittier when it wasn’t a one and done deal due to half the game being unplayable for a little less than a year, compensated with plans that were never supposed to be planned, then followed a few years later by a complete revamp and overhaul of the title (and newly/old included titles for that matter) that brought you this “free” ability to unlock cosmetics was introduced. I see no reality where continued MCC development (development after 7 years since release, before and well after the flagship Halo 5 was no longer supported) was in any way profitable. The game’s sales might have broke even at best when it was brought to PC, but MCC’s continued and generous development was most likely a result of: Halo 5’s microtransaction monetization methods.
Which leads us to:
Halo Infinite. A game with an estimated $500mil development cost. 5 times that of Reach, with a consumer price tag that was shared with that game. Let’s assume for one minute that we know the population on launch day: 400k players (150k players on PC was about right, so let’s say there was 250k on Xbox as the numbers seem bigger there on MCC). Assuming 95% of these players purchased the standard campaign, that nets $22.8mil, tacking on an additional 5% $3.4mil for the collectors addition buyers, that’s a tidy $26.2mil in just game profits. I’m not sure how to go about quantifying the promotional gear (Razer, Seagate, limited edition Console), but let’s just be generous and add an additional $25mil to that figure bringing our total sales to $51.2mil.
My assumptions are most likely wayyy off, they seem far too small compared to even Reach’s sales but I was even being generous, all 400k players did not drop $60, because I’m one of them who didn’t. But when compared to Reach’s $100mil cost and initial $250mil profit, a $500mil cost is not a price that can be overcome with a $60 base game alone, which is why monetization is implemented in the F2P model.
F2P attracts more players than a boxed model does due to accessibility of a zero cost for entry, and due to the fact there isn’t any gatekeeping on the gameplay experience it’s easier to keep players interested in the game. Due to the influx of players, and freedoms within the gameplay model, there are greater chances they’ll spend money on cosmetics which is why this monetization model exists.
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With much larger production costs, the Reach boxed model is no longer profitable and acts as a small subsection of actual overall profits.
MCC was not a profitable endeavor by any stretch due to a wide variety of reasons, 343 was lucky if by the end of its unintended 7 year post launch development it broke even at all and most likely only sustained the development and received the praise it did due to Halo 5’s successful loot box monetization.
In order for Infinite to be profitable (and in turn successful for players’ sakes and its own sake), neither of the previous games are good models to look towards for generalized inspiration. They can still teach us lessons to some degree, but in this case it’s a complete misunderstanding of financial reality.
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Lowering the prices and/or doing away with the FOMO store in place of a catalogue would be a good solution.
Personally I’d like it to go a step further and incorporate a Steam style community marketplace, players selling and buying store items between each other, with 343 taking a small percentage of the sale. The FOMO feeling with the store goes away even with circulating/limited time items when these items are available all the time. Only downside is that rarer items (early access things) become relatively expensive due to their limited nature. But regardless, players will always have the ability to buy any of these items even if they’re no longer officially available.
