Jimquisition: Breaking the Bones of Business

[Vault101]

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

and guess who suffers? (its not the pirates or the company)

 

[Nurb]

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

and guess who suffers? (its not the pirates or the company)

Paying customers have been suffering for 8 years as things have only gotten worse. The sooner they go bankrupt the better.

 

[Matthewmagic]

*Raises hand* Umm I've been saying this since DlC replaced expansion packs. Hell even Wows subscription service is a bit much. And don't even get me started on xbox live, paying to have twelve year olds scream racail epithets in my ear. I have bought dlc for one game only, that is Arkham City. Usually if I'm really excited about a game I'll just wait for the greatest hits version with all the dlc already apart of the game to hit, ya know, the full fucking game.

Games are too damn expensive for this kind of shit. It is too the point where I pirate every game and if I like it enough I'll buy the full version. Why should I pay full price for a half finished game.

This is why I only buy games that I KNOW will provide me a good value for its money. I gauge value by "how much money per hour" and compare it to movies. Right now, my most played game on steam is FO:NV. I bought it for $10 with all of its expansions and now have 108 hours put into it. that is less than 10 cents per hour. That is RIDICULOUSLY good. Also, second place is FTL at 74 hours. Again, about 10 cents per hour. Anything more than that and i'm hard pressed to buy it.

I have sunk a ridiculous amount of time into fallout new vegas. I'm currently getting my moneys worth out of far cry 3. FTL is a great game, really frustrating. Here is the catch though, I don't think I would care much for any of the games mentioned thus far if I had to buy the zorton ship for 2.00. Or was denied Power Armour training until I payed 5.00.

 

[Matthewmagic]

Honestly guys, Piracy. Fucking with these companys money is the only thing they understand.

Pirating their products gives them a fairly valid reason to act like douche-bags, don't be a part of the problem.

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

I'm not piracy's biggest fan, but just for once I want people too use it instead of a boycott. It makes perfect sense to me, you don't if you don't have to buy something too enjoy it, and the create is actively screwing over it's paying customers, why not screw them harder, with their own sand paper dildo?

I want too see this backfire in a big way. I am honestly of the opinion (with all the industry insight I really do not have to be fair) that if it doesn't we will have bigger problems.

 

[Matthewmagic]

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

and guess who suffers? (its not the pirates or the company)

I don't think that is fair. We live in a capitalist society and if theft catches on in the way it has with video games it is because the pricing model is royally fucked. I will not buy a game for 60 dollars if I don't think I will spend at least twenty hours on the game. Most games these days last eight hours, if you are lucky. The industry has two possible responses too this. Make the games so inexpensive that people don't consider piracy(though some always will). Or make the means for getting the game so awesome that piracy seems like a worse service(like steam is doing right now). Just raising the price on consumers will only drive more into piracy. We saw this with music, and we saw this with movies. It wasn't until someone came up with a better option that people stopped.

Considering how few demos are put out these days, it is hard to believe that people are paying 60 dollars for games they know nothing about.

 

[WarpZone]

The "whales and long tails" theory of mobile game monetization predicts that 20% of a free-to-play game's revenue comes from people who spend money like it's water (the "whales,") while the majority of your revenue comes from ordinary users who buy a few things things multiple times over the entire lifetime of the product. (This forms a "long tail" on the graph showing money-per-user spent over time.)

So what happens when the economy takes a nose-dive like the one we're in right now? The middle class spend less. Whales become a bigger percentage of the overall market share because they're the only ones with any money for discretionary spending, and they have no concept of how much they spend or what real-world prices are like, so they're perfectly willing to drop 200 bucks or more on something like Angry Birds.

(Hell, spending a lot is a status symbol for these people. You could probably make a mobile game that just puts a sign above your avatar's head saying how much you spent on the game, and watch those numbers go up and up and up as the Whales try to outspend each other for bragging rights!)

I don't have access to any sales figures, so I can't prove this theory. I could be totally wrong. But if the rich people who can readily afford these bullshit prices ever become more than 50% of the total market, well... EA's bullshit starts to make economic sense at that point.

What else are they gonna do? Make it up in volume? In THIS economy?

The Whales are the only people who can afford to buy several titles at $60 each and then spend an arbitrary amount more on top of it for in-game purchases. So if EA is making that their de-facto business model, they must expect everyone else to just stop buying their games altogether.

Fortunately, as this video points out, there are signs that it's NOT profitable when that happens, no matter how much you gouge.

So, bye bye, Old Guard! Have fun creating the most expensive games on the planet on 20% of the market share!

 

[likalaruku]

I fell you man, we all do. I sincerely doubt anyone will defend the industry practices against this video, unless they're trolls who are really good at lying to themselves.

Speaking of mobile games, the Playbook is a sad story right now. For the past 3 days, all of the new games have been aimed at babies & toddlers, & they're not even by the same person. Who in Jim's name lets a sobering infant play with a pricey fragile tablet? Dammit Blackberry, how about a little quality control?

 

[MercurySteam]

I don't understand how they changed the weapon crafting mechanic in DS3 to be able to get more money. Can you think of another way it would work without resources to craft weapons? Even then I can't see myself buying extra resources with my money, I'll just play the game more.

 

[schwitz]

I couldn't agree more.

Saddest part about this is, I'm studying to go into this industry. In my last year of university for Games and Entertainment Design so hopefully there's still some left by the time I get there.

 

[Zulnam]

I gotta say, when Jim first came on the Escapist, I loathed him. Now I feel he's kind of the Chomsky of the gaming world.

This is by far your best episode, Jim. Good job.

 

[Epona]

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

and guess who suffers? (its not the pirates or the company)

If it's not hurting the company why are they claiming that it does and they use that to justify even more anti-consumer bullshit? Piracy is a scapegoat, entertainment industries have always been anti-consumer and they will use any excuse they can to justify anti-consumer behavior. If I am not mistaken, the entire reason the First Sale Doctrine exists is because book publishers were trying to control distribution of books after they sold them.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

I don't understand how they changed the weapon crafting mechanic in DS3 to be able to get more money. Can you think of another way it would work without resources to craft weapons? Even then I can't see myself buying extra resources with my money, I'll just play the game more.

It's because of the mobile version of the game, see they want EVERYBODY to beable to play wit h EVERYBODY ELSE
and to make this fair for those people who for whatever reason want to play a mobile phone version of a console game they want to make it easier for them to play, never mind the fact it fucks over the console people royally, i hope they change their minds and keep that micro transaction shit to phones, or better yet fuck over xbox by giving them "exclusivity" it would serve those fuckers right to the 9's i tell you what( by those fuckers i mean microsoft, though some xbox players are royal fuckheads in no mistake)

 

[MercurySteam]

I don't understand how they changed the weapon crafting mechanic in DS3 to be able to get more money. Can you think of another way it would work without resources to craft weapons? Even then I can't see myself buying extra resources with my money, I'll just play the game more.

It's because of the mobile version of the game, see they want EVERYBODY to beable to play wit h EVERYBODY ELSE
and to make this fair for those people who for whatever reason want to play a mobile phone version of a console game they want to make it easier for them to play, never mind the fact it fucks over the console people royally, i hope they change their minds and keep that micro transaction shit to phones, or better yet fuck over xbox by giving them "exclusivity" it would serve those fuckers right to the 9's i tell you what( by those fuckers i mean microsoft, though some xbox players are royal fuckheads in no mistake)

Uh, you know your post makes no sense right? What mobile version of a console game? What exclusivity? And I'm actually one of the 'fuckheads' that own an Xbox 360 but I'll let that slide since it seems you can even form an argument properly.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

I don't understand how they changed the weapon crafting mechanic in DS3 to be able to get more money. Can you think of another way it would work without resources to craft weapons? Even then I can't see myself buying extra resources with my money, I'll just play the game more.

It's because of the mobile version of the game, see they want EVERYBODY to beable to play wit h EVERYBODY ELSE
and to make this fair for those people who for whatever reason want to play a mobile phone version of a console game they want to make it easier for them to play, never mind the fact it fucks over the console people royally, i hope they change their minds and keep that micro transaction shit to phones, or better yet fuck over xbox by giving them "exclusivity" it would serve those fuckers right to the 9's i tell you what( by those fuckers i mean microsoft, though some xbox players are royal fuckheads in no mistake)

Uh, you know your post makes no sense right? What mobile version of a console game? What exclusivity? And I'm actually one of the 'fuckheads' that own an Xbox 360 but I'll let that slide since it seems you can even form an argument properly.

By exclusivity I mean Microsofts rampant use of those kinds of contracts with developers, see all the dlc for skyrim for what I mean there. as for the mobile thing they have or are making a mobile version of dead space 3 which is the only reason for the micro transaction nonsense to begin with in this game, its in one of the dev blogs or maybe it was on kotaku I forget which but they explained that's why the micro trans. as to the fuckhead thing I mean the screaming assholes who spew nothing but racial epithets and act like total asshats to everybody who isn't their "bro" which is why I started that particular statement with SOME of those Xbox owners, not all of them

 

[JWAN]

Well, if its really that offensive to people you could just NOT buy into the game. I got the season pass for Borderlands 2 and I feel like an idiot because whats the point of expansions if you can't level up past 50. So I will just not make that mistake again.
Everyone here is capable of NOT buying a game.
Even if you skip the "midnight release" with all of the fancy swag they hand out you can send more of a message than buying the game on midnight release and then crying about the DLC later.
I respect your opinion but we will have to change our approach if you want the companies (like EA/Square Enix) to change theirs. It would take about 500,000 people to NOT buy the game right away to even show up on the radars of the companies that pull this crap but surely you can make them wait 8 measly weeks, make them sweat a bit. OR you could buy the base game right away and say "Fuck off" to the season pass and the DLC.

What it comes down to is the buying side of the equation needs to make the move here because we all know that companies are built to make money in the most efficient way possible, that's why they exist. They are good at making money.

 

[JWAN]

Not really, if they weren't doing such openly greedy crap and screwing gamers so much, I'd have some sympathy for them. But now I want to see pirates really hit these big publishers hard just for a little payback.

and guess who suffers? (its not the pirates or the company)

If it's not hurting the company why are they claiming that it does and they use that to justify even more anti-consumer bullshit? Piracy is a scapegoat, entertainment industries have always been anti-consumer and they will use any excuse they can to justify anti-consumer behavior. If I am not mistaken, the entire reason the First Sale Doctrine exists is because book publishers were trying to control distribution of books after they sold them.

Entertainment industries are very pro consumer just like any other industry, thats how they make money, that's how companies grow to the size of EA, Square Enix, (whoever makes those farming sim games). Consumers give them money and if the companies cease to be entertaining or they start treating consumers like crap they lose money.
Of course, if you have a bunch of new, naive consumers (Grandparents for example), who keep buying movie/TV/cartoon based cash-in games ("Harry Potter XIV", "WWE Barbie Horse Smackdown Adventure 37") and they keep making money from farting out those games then they wont change.
Piracy does "hurt" the company but it really FUCKS the legal consumers who just want to play a game without having to enter in 50 digit security codes and answer what their favorite colored balloon is (because my favorite balloon color changes every 3 weeks because I am a simple man).

Piracy is one of those things that people think is going to "send a message" to companies, and that message is "MOAR SECURITY WILL FIX EVERYTHING" not, "WE SHOULD STOP BEING STUPID GITS". If you truly believe that an industry is being a bunch of stupid gits then why would you believe that they will be able to pick up the message your sending them? They won't. Even "Smart" industries wont. They chase sales numbers. More piracy = more security = more time wasted on failcurity = wasted time on everything else= higher costs = fucked legal consumers = more piracy = MORE security = more time wasted on failcurity = wasted time. It's a never ending loop that can ONLY get worse for the average gamers.

 

[NSGrendel]

I agree. I find myself getting sick of gaming and the industry more and more. I'm getting Dead Space 3 because like you, as much as I dislike EA's practices, I genuinely enjoy the series. I am getting Bioshock Infinite because I love the look of it. Beyond that though? I look at most developers and most games and I don't see an enjoyable game, I see for the lack of a better description, a bunch of politicians trying to see what they can claw from us.

If the self styled "discerning gamers" keep buying and promoting their products, you're part of the problem. Vote with your wallet and buy more independent games...

 

[Legion]

At this point I want to see the industry crash again. Maybe then publishers will get it through their thick skulls that the way they do business only hurts the industry.

Or they'll just take the massive profits they've already made, give the industry and its supporters the finger and walk away cackling into the shadows, leaving an absolute trainwreck in their wake.

Never underestimate the cowardess of big business when the chips are well and truly down.

I could see Microsoft and Sony doing that as they have their fingers in many pies and the fate of the video game industry wouldn't hurt them a whole lot, but companies like EA, Activision, Sega, Capcom, and Nintendo who's sole source of profit is video games, they'll have to learn to adapt to survive or die and any of them that don't won't be missed. And any of these businesses that are out to make money want to continue to make money.

The sad thing is, if it did happen they'd blame it on us, not them. They'd complain about gamers lack of support, or entitlement and so on. Then complain about how they needed things like DLC and micro-transactions to afford to make games profitable so that they can make more.

Hell, they have pretty much tried using these excuses to justify their greed already. Completely ignoring the fact that countless decent games have been made without tacking on multiplayer, adding DLC or micro-transactions.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

At this point I want to see the industry crash again. Maybe then publishers will get it through their thick skulls that the way they do business only hurts the industry.

Or they'll just take the massive profits they've already made, give the industry and its supporters the finger and walk away cackling into the shadows, leaving an absolute trainwreck in their wake.

Never underestimate the cowardess of big business when the chips are well and truly down.

I could see Microsoft and Sony doing that as they have their fingers in many pies and the fate of the video game industry wouldn't hurt them a whole lot, but companies like EA, Activision, Sega, Capcom, and Nintendo who's sole source of profit is video games, they'll have to learn to adapt to survive or die and any of them that don't won't be missed. And any of these businesses that are out to make money want to continue to make money.

The sad thing is, if it did happen they'd blame it on us, not them. They'd complain about gamers lack of support, or entitlement and so on. Then complain about how they needed things like DLC and micro-transactions to afford to make games profitable so that they can make more.

Hell, they have pretty much tried using these excuses to justify their greed already. Completely ignoring the fact that countless decent games have been made without tacking on multiplayer, adding DLC or micro-transactions.

Yep, it'll be a frosty day in hell before they'll admit to being in the wrong.

 

[Comrade_Beric]

You didn't say it! You sack of $%&*! Why the fuck did you cut off my ending? I've never had to pay you before to get the rest of my conte... oh. Well played, Senior Sterling.