GOG Boss: "Heavy Discounts Are Bad for Gamers"

[RhombusHatesYou]

This idea of "eroding value" is a problem, too. To insist that selling a game for less than $60 erodes its value begs the question -- who says the game is "worth $60" to begin with?

That's sort of what he's getting at. His point is that a lower regular price is healthier for both gamers and the industry than having stupidly high regular prices and shift most of your units during during heavily discounted sales.

That doesn't line up with his claims that it "damages the long-term value of games."

I can easily agree that a lower price is better than the price yo-yoing. It keeps things more consistent and accessible to us lowly customers, and we all know that big sales are there push on-the-fencers into an impulse buy... but damaging the value of a game?

Value is more than financial worth... but I'll get to that in a minute.

The more people decide that a game is only worth purchasing on sale the less a game is perceived as being worth it's regular sticker price... That's just regular market action - if the consumer disagrees with the manu-distro-retailer cycle on their claimed worth than that product is going to have a fucking hard time moving at regular price. That's business, you deal with it or you go broke.

Viranimus' post on consumer conditioning pretty much covers what happens when consumers are conditioned to wait for sales even on products they do agree with the claimed financial worth. Read it if you haven't already.

However, as a gamer, games should have a value to you beyond financial worth, either positive or negative. Certainly you can (try and) assign a financial worth to express these values but it's not the same thing.

Let's be honest here... when people say a game isn't worth the sticker price they're doing a detailed financial breakdown of the costs the developer, publisher, distributor, retailer and any associated sundries to get the game onto the shelf, they're making a somewhat arbitrary decision based on how they valued the experience (or value what they expect would be the experience) playing the game and expressing it as a financial worth.

So, more enjoyment = more satisfaction with claimed financial worth, yes? Just go with me here, it's yes.

Then we can look back and question the value of impulse buys that are never played. They may still have a financial worth but what's their value as games? To get a bit Zen, is an unplayed game still a game or just the potential to be a game?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Holy crap. A boss who isn't discussing monetary profit as an argument? Who's saying that buying 5 games on sale tends to devalue the game itself, rather than the transaction? That people who buy five games for $5 are less inclined to appreciate those games, because they were an impulse buy, a junk buy, rather than finding a game at 50-60% off of it's usual price, and therefore psychologically hold less weight to us?

It's all that Socialism they grew up in.

 

[Snotnarok]

That should be a hint that every game made shouldn't cost 60+ bucks. They need to learn to value games.

But the thing is that games costing $60 is not the issue. Games are cheaper to buy now then they ever have been in the past and yet the price to make them has only gone up over the years. The issue at hand is that when one company gives such large discounts it hurts the sales of all games. When you combine this with the issue that game companies cant lower prices unless they want to go out of business it creates a very serious issue.

Yes, yes it is an issue of games costing 60USD or more, because when you see a game that's a short 5-6 hours of gameplay and no real replayability or any multiplayer then why would someone willingly spend a lot of money on it?

Look at Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, big games over the 20 hour mark and replayability. Then look at Asuras Wrath, 5-6 hours long, no real gameplay. Which one is a better value? Why would you go to the shorter game with less of a reason to replay it for the same cost? It's a fine game but it's so short.

Look at the Orange Box a bunch of games with varying levels of replayability, full games for 60 at launch, now it's dirt cheap.

Sonic Generations understood this and launched at 30-40 to appeal to more people.

 

[weirdee]

We are at an impasse here, because in addition to GOG doing things like steam does anyway, gamers are already trained to think that games are not at reasonable prices anyway, and are unwilling to put down money for them not only because of steam sales, but because of the numerous times they have been ripped off in the first place. Cheap games that are either bad or short ARE accurately priced, and I don't feel any worse off for trying them because they didn't sell them for that much anyway.

Because these businesses are loosely governed by an internal culture of what is acceptable, and I mean LOOSELY, without any sort of regulation besides parental guidance ratings, the law here is mostly about what makes money, and you will never get people to agree to something unless you have leverage in that area.

 

[Dastardly]

Viranimus' post on consumer conditioning pretty much covers what happens when consumers are conditioned to wait for sales even on products they do agree with the claimed financial worth. Read it if you haven't already.

Will do, but speaking about this concept itself -- the idea that sales are pushing the price of games down artificially low -- I'm not seeing it here.

Let's say Product A is being sold for $100, and people think it's too much. Maybe most people would buy it for $75, but not $100. And then a sale comes around that puts Product A at $50.

Obviously, after that point, nearly no one is going to pay the full $100 because they already widely believed it was too high. But it's not farfetched to believe that people would still buy it at $75, because we're not in a closed system.

Big sale, lots of people buy, and those people talk to others. Other people gain interest, and you didn't just move a few extra copies, you expanded your sales territory. At that point, any sale is a gain anyway.

But even then, for this to be problematic in any way whatsoever, it would have to be demonstrated that the value of a game is somehow being reduced so far that it actually makes it harder to produce and sell games -- basically, a price crash that is further than the market can bear. That has not been demonstrated, and in fact the opposite is being seen.

Lord of the Rings Online goes free to play, and triples its revenue. How? Lowering the "gate price" to zero, and just charging "per ride" gets them waaaaaaay more customers. The guy that wasn't willing to spend $15 a month, but would have spent $5? Now he's a customer! Before, he represented $0, and now he represents $5.

In doing this, did the game get "worse?" Did the company behind it go broke? No. So obviously the crazy-low price of "free" isn't a problem.

Make no mistake, financial value is exactly what this guy was talking about. It's an article about pricing. He's making the same complaints small, local grocery stores make when they can't compete with Wal-Mart's prices, and they're just as invalid.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

"If a gamer buys a game he or she doesn't want just because it's on sale, they're being trained to make bad purchases, and they're also learning that games aren't valuable. We all know gamers who spend more every month on games than they want to, just because there were too many games that were discounted too deeply. That's not good for anyone."

Oh wow. I think we all know that some in the industry are full of contempt for the glorified lab rats who call themselves gamers (and that's not counting the journalists!). But it's still weird to hear someone talking about their audience with such obvious condescension. I'll buy whatever I want. Go to hell.

Kids know dick. I watch them in my arcades. They stand like laboratory rats hitting the feeder bar to get food pellets. As long as they pump in quarters, who gives a shit, right? - Rambourg (wasn't it? eh, I don't remember)

Party on Wayne.

 

[subtlefuge]

Bad for the game industry =/= Bad for gamers.

At the point we are at now, it could be quite the opposite. Most of the big companies could use a little time for introspection. It would probably be best if they did this before the next console generation brings us the $80 USD price point.

Edit: Rambourg might not sound so full of shit if he wasn't yelling his points from the bottom of a bargain bin. Valve may be the Walmart of game distribution, but at least they've never insulted my intelligence half a dozen times in a single nonsense rant.

 

[mattaui]

At least he does make the point that a lower initial price point might help with sales. After getting burned more than a few times on $60 games, I've resolved to wait for sales for most titles now.

Yes, I've made the game purchase of shame a time or two, when something shiny was cheap and I just had to jump on it. That's money those developers would never have gotten from me otherwise, so I'm sure they're happy to get it.

What I do want to do is preserve the value of electronic entertainment, which even at $60 has increased considerably less over the last two decades than most other prices.

 

[Artemicion]

You know, GOG just had a deal where if you registered on their site, you'd get a free copy of Fallout.

So I dunno what he's going on about.

 

[Scow2]

You know, GOG just had a deal where if you registered on their site, you'd get a free copy of Fallout.

So I dunno what he's going on about.

It's slightly different: Fallout is pretty much abandonware. Interplay is pretty much dead, Black Isle is buried, and the developers are somewhere else. However, it's also a classic game, and by offering it for Free, it became a sign-up incentive/loyalty reward.

Steam, on the other hand, has declared all games to be equal in value, and that value is "Shovelware". A game with a multi-million dollar budget and the dedicated hours of hundreds of employees is given the same amount of respect as a small studio's cheap cash-in on a particular genre - "FIVE DOLLAH! BUY IT RIGHT HERE ON STEAM SALE!"

Sure, you can gauge Quality of the game by knowing that millions of other people also bought the game and found it good, but, honestly, I have a problem with the whole "Oh well: I bought it cheap. If it turns out bad, I'm just short a few bucks. If it turns out good... yay me?" No investment, no return, and no meaning.

You can't really get more than your money's worth from a game - if you bought it cheap, you're cheating yourself.

 

[James Raynor]

It's not bad for the industry, if anything it helps promote it. Sure some companies put out subpar games, but you aren't paying full price for them and they might be able to use the money you give them to make a good game.

 

[Alphalpha]

I'm very picky about what I buy on Steam, even during the major sales. I actually find I often feel guilty for having paid so little for games of such high quality that I've enjoyed so much (Bastion, Orcs Must Die!, and Magicka, to name a few).

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I have never spent an ass-load of money buying games that are one sale. I image that it feels rather like that feeling of eating to much.

 

[Doom972]

He's assuming a lot about consumers. Even if a game costs $0.99 on Steam, I still check it thoroughly before buying (I have 24 hours, what's the rush?).
These deals allowed me to buy games I wasn't really sure I'd like. For example: Alpha Protocol had a very interesting concept, but it got bad reviews that said it was buggy and broken. One day it was on Steam's daily deal for $2.00 (I would've bought it for more). I got it and I was pleasantly surprised by how good this game is and so was my friend and many other people who got the game that day.
Sales gives some of us a chance to take a risk with unfamiliar games, so we don't only buy the ones we're 100% sure about. I would never have bought some of these games if they weren't on sale.
I'm not a customer of GOG and after a statement like that, I don't feel like becoming one.

 

[Eamar]

Yeah, I'm not too keen on his attitude towards gamers. Sure, I've made my fair share of impulse buys due to sales (of all sorts of products, not just games) and some of them haven't been the best decisions ever. However, I am capable of realising when I can't afford to spend my money. Hell, I've passed up massive savings on games I really wanted on Steam in the past because I just didn't have any spare money at the time. We're not just trained monkeys.

Also, I dislike the assumption that impulse buys = A Bad Thing. As many others have already said, there have been so many great games I wouldn't have discovered if it hadn't been for Steam sales. It doesn't have to be all bad for the developers either- I for one have fallen in love with discounted games and immediately rushed out to buy the sequels/prequels/random other games by the same developer at full price. If your product's good in the first place, think of it as free publicity.

He does have a point about fair initial prices though.

 

[Griffolion]

they'll just accuse distributors of "not selling their games properly"!

It's piracy's fault. Damn those pirates. Damn them all to Sweden.

What you executed there, it has been seen.

 

[Epona]

Right now Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning is on sale for $40.19, that's 33% off. I hope no one buys it, it's bad for the industry...didn't ya know? It's also bad for gamers so if you buy it for $20 off, you will be shooting yourself in the foot. If you can't help yourself and must save some money (you dirty thief), it on sale on Steam.

[/sarcasm]

 

[subtlefuge]

You know, GOG just had a deal where if you registered on their site, you'd get a free copy of Fallout.

So I dunno what he's going on about.

It's slightly different: Fallout is pretty much abandonware. Interplay is pretty much dead, Black Isle is buried, and the developers are somewhere else. However, it's also a classic game, and by offering it for Free, it became a sign-up incentive/loyalty reward.

There is no substantive difference between getting a 5 year old game for a few dollars and getting a 15 year old game for free.

 

[Thoric485]

I think it would be wiser for them to tout fair pricing, instead of bashing heavy discounting.

Makes it less likely to be misunderstood.

 

[Scow2]

I think part of the problem is also gamers with large enough libraries to actually be able to dismiss entire games as wastes of money: When you have to spend actual money on your games, you're more likely to spend the effort trying to get your money out of the deal instead of ragequit or dismiss it on first impressions.

It's what happened to Yahtzee with his venerated "Classic" games of Silent Hill 2, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Red Faction, and Shadows of the Colossus. When you buy a game for full value, you're going to play it for its full worth and then some, because you've invested money in the game, whether its good, mediocre, or outright terrible. If it's good, you learn to appreciate all it did right, and still draw enjoyment from playing an awesome game. If it's mediocre, you will come to learn to love what the game did right, and overlook the mediocritizing flaws of game. If its bad, you will have reason to hate it, and be able to say clearly what it did wrong. However, ALL of them will have more value, and be a better experience.