The hate on Anthem

Generally the value of something is established by competition. If you are getting a product for a specific value, you will compare it against other similar products. Comparing the cost of a movie against the cost of a video game because they both provide hours of entertainment makes no sense. The expectation is not really hard to predict, if you pay attention to your competition. Like most companies do in order to become successful.

You are taking products out of context, normalizing them against an arbitrary time value and then establishing what turns out to be an arbitrary cost. That is not how the value of something is established, you are evaluating Anthem in a bubble ignoring competition, which makes no sense in a free market characterized by competition. The reason why many felt cheated by Anthem is because they have played other games that sold for the same amount and received far more enjoyment out of it. Whether it was 1, 10, 100 hours is irrelevant, because they are comparing against enjoyment of similar games. For example lets say Anthem provides someone with 300 hours of entertainment, yet that same person plays the Division and it provides them 1000 hours of entertainment. By that metric, the inferred value of the Division for that person against Anthem is significantly greater.

You cant normalize all types of entertainment with some equation of hours of entertainment because that is not how people establish value. If we were to measure everything by hours of entertainment and we were to use the lowest common denominator, then we would have to use Netflix. The average person spends 40 hours a month (10 hours a week) using the streaming service and the basic streaming plan is $8.99. Therefore if a you pay more than 45 cents for a movie ticket, then there is absolutely no reason why you should ever think you overpaid for a movie. That means that no one should ever feel like they wasted their money watching or buying a movie. After all netflix provides you an hour of entertainment for less than a quarter.

/r/AnthemTheGame Thread Parent