Latest Ubisoft DRM measure - all SP saves stored on a cloud server - by EvaUnit02
lost_soul on 25/2/2010 at 23:03
Quote Posted by dethtoll
As long as we're fantasizing completely impossible things, I'd like a private urinal.
Well, for one thing, a price that low would start to threaten the game rental and used game businesses. Why should Joe pay $14 to buy a used game from the local video store when he can buy it for $20? He is guaranteed not to have any trouble playing that brand new disk.
I come from a magical land of PC hardware. Competition here is fierce. As a result, I can buy a computer for under $500 that will perform most any task with its quad core processor and gigabytes of RAM.
When we have companies competing to provide a quality product at a low price, the consumer wins.
When we have greedy pigs trying to stop us from exercising our legal rights, prices will only increase.
Nameless Voice on 25/2/2010 at 23:04
Quote Posted by lost_soul
Games should cost $19.95 new at release.
Why?
They'd need to sell two and a half times as many games to make the same profit, in that case.
Even full-priced computer games are a relatively cheap form of entertainment when compared with other ways to spend your money; e.g. people can easily spend $50 on a night out, yet a computer game for that price should, hopefully, last a lot longer than a few hours.
Quote Posted by Harvester
I'm all for supporting developers and will buy games new if they are available for that reason, but I have had no problems at all with buying no longer available games like SS1, SS2 and Alice.
I already clearly stated that buying games that are no longer available second-hand is an exception to my earlier statement, as I see those as fair game for either buying second-hand or pirating.
june gloom on 25/2/2010 at 23:09
You come from a magical land alright, lost_soul.
Chade on 25/2/2010 at 23:14
Quote Posted by lost_soul
quality has already gone down ... [PC ports are] un-optimized, has lower resolution assets, and the like ...
... that has no relationship whatsover to my previous post ...
lost_soul on 25/2/2010 at 23:17
This is why I love gog.com. The older games are cheap, there's no DRM, and we are supporting the developers. Publishers should open a spot on their websites where you can buy games from years past for good prices. They would have made at least $70 from me in the past year alone.
lost_soul on 25/2/2010 at 23:21
Quote Posted by Chade
... that has no relationship whatsover to my previous post ...
Well, we frequently see people say that game production costs are increasing and that this is why games are going up in price. However, targeting multiple platforms has gotten *much* easier. We have cross-platform standards like OpenAL, OpenGL, etc.
Namdrol on 25/2/2010 at 23:26
Quote Posted by lost_soul
I wonder what kind of game you could build on a modern PC with 8 gigs of RAM and 1+GB of video memory?
ask Blizzard
Fafhrd on 26/2/2010 at 00:13
Quote Posted by Chade
I'd
love to see your evidence suggesting that lowering the price of a game will result in sales increasing by 100-150%! That's quite an incredible claim you've got there.
(
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/02/19/gabe-newell-valve-are-very-rich-its-awesome/) Gabe Newell's keynote from DICE last year. Specifically:
Quote:
A 10% reduction lead to 35% increase in amount of money which came in (i.e. Not just sales). 25% lead to a 245% increase. 50% lead to 320% increase. And 75% lead to 1470%.
There's also the idea that if you've got $60 to spend on games, and games cost $60, that's one game you can buy. Say, for example, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock 2 are all coming out at around the same time, and you've only budgeted $60 for games for that period. Under current prices, that's one of the three you can buy. If they were $20 you could buy all three.
lost_soul isn't talking completely out of his ass here.
Quote:
So what? It's the same with used cars
No it's not. A Certified used car benefits the manufacturer, a used car sold from a licensed dealership benefits the manufacturer, and used cars that are bought directly from the owner or from an independent dealer still require maintenance, in which case you're buying parts from the manufacturer, or from manufacturers licensed by the original manufacturer to make parts for their cars.
That's why EA, Sony, and some other publishers are adopting the 'free DLC for the original purchaser, anyone else has to pay' model.
Chade on 26/2/2010 at 00:37
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
A 10% reduction lead to 35% increase in amount of money which came in (i.e. Not just sales). 25% lead to a 245% increase. 50% lead to 320% increase. And 75% lead to 1470% ... lost_soul isn't talking completely out of his ass here.
Ok, now that's actually interesting.
It's worth pointing out, however, that Gabe is talking about prices during a specific sale event. I'm not sure how strongly this supports the idea that game should be cheaper in general, for several potential reasons:
1) A unit sold during a sale may come at the expense of a unit sold elsewhere, rather then increasing the total number of units sold overall.
2) The extra units sold may come from bargain hunters, who may purchase games because they are cheaper then normal, not because they are cheap. Making those price cuts permanent wouldn't change the behaviour of such bargain hunters.
3) A game that is normally $50, marked down to $30, and sitting next to a $50 game, looks like a good deal. A game that costs $30, sitting next to a $50 game, looks cheap.
Does anyone here have much experience in the retail world?
Phatose on 26/2/2010 at 01:06
The first one is very, very important.
If for example, you price a game at $60, sell 100k copies, drop it to $20 for a sale and sell a million, you've made more money then if you sold all 1.1million at $20.
The challenge is therefore that what he really needs to prove is that starting at $60 and lowering over time makes less money then starting at $20. I'd be very curious if there is anything even remotely approaching evidence for this, because it's counter intuitive, and more importantly the market would've already taken this approach if it worked that way. The 'greedy pigs' are out to make the most money after all, and simple stupidity won't explain it since the market is designed to cull the stupid.
