The problem with their conclusions is that they are assuming that they could have sold more copies than that at $60 a pop. A lot of those people buying used or renting the game are probably doing so because they couldn't afford the full $60 price tag.
I also see this as touching on the issue of the $60 price tag itself, since your looking at the fact that ALL games have the same price tag when released. This comes down to industry corruption and price fixing (which is illegal in the US, as many of us should know from the gas scandals).
Okay granted, the dev costs are huge, but honestly I do not think that Dead Space cost as much to develop as other games with a lot more content, like say Fallout 3 (or pick any other longer title that also had a lot of unique art designs and such to it). Thus when looking at a relatively short game I don't think developers should be wondering why they sold so few overpriced copies at $60 a pop rather than other products that provided much more game play and content (and let's be honest Fallout 3 is a game in which you can invest hundreds of hours even without the DLC).
So basically if I was them I'd consider pricing games like Dead Space for like $30 a pop (which is what many people will probably spend to buy it used).
Plus consider that Dead Space was also very easy to program comparitively speaking. In general it's a very linear third person shooter (albeit a very atmospheric one). It recycled an existing engine that was purchused to use rather than being developed from the ground up (in general I feel there is no excuse to charge top dollar for game using an engine like GRAW, Havok, Unreal, or anything else since the majority of the work comes from those products and people recycle and modify that code specifically because it's cheaper and easier than making one's own engine totally from scratch). Of course this same thing can be said about games like Fallout 3.
But basically if you churn out a linear shooter that is primarily an art project using someone else's engine, and which can last as little as 12 hours for many players, don't be surprised if people don't go running to spend $60 for instead of waiting for it to drop in price or get it used. As cool as a game might look, people aren't stupid.
See, I think that video game companies are not only corrupt, greedy, and lazy nowadays, but have also gotten too corperate and listen to marketing people a bit much. Thus the players are being handled like a group of sheep-like consumers far more than they used to be. Truthfully it isn't working quite as well as many people might think on paper (with marketing guys justifying their jobs). By all means, spend $10 million on advertising, but in the end no matter how awesome your game looks, I'm still going to generally wait for it to drop in price (or get it used) if it's only 12 hours long.
There is no way anyone should have expected Dead Space to be accepted at the same entry price as a Grand Theft Auto IV or Fallout 3.
>>>----Therumancer--->
