Jimquisition: Videogames Are A Luxury
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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That might be subjective to player views, and over-generalizing the game industry as a whole. You could argue that a sequel to one game (Dragon Age II) is a dumbed-down version of the prequel (Dragon Age: Origins), but one player might prefer the "console" style version of that game-world over the PC RPG version of the predecessor. I know I felt like this when I looked at "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" after "Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind" as I saw IV a dumbed down sequel to III. But does this make IV bad? No, I really enjoy playing the copy I have on Steam, along with the more simple "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim."nodlimax said:
As for the generalization, there are still new games being made that aren't sequels. Last year we got "Bastion," "Dark Souls," and "Hard Reset." Two of them action-RPGs with different difficulty levels and game-worlds, while the other is an FPS that allows us to shoot giant, bulky robots to tiny bits (now only if they made 'Michael Bay' as a final boss to that game).
@Jim Sterling: Sounds more like a repeat of the past few episodes and a bit defensive, but overall an episode with a good message. I think developers and publishers could encourage more sales for their products if they reduced the price or provided options to get the game at a cheaper price. Actually, I always wondered why don't publishers open their own store that allows them to accept and sell used versions of their game?
Great video. Only question: do I get a writing credit? 
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.374224-Games-are-a-luxury-item-So
I kid, but that is two weeks in a row where the topic has come straight from the forums. A special thanks line in the credits might be a good idea for videos like that.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.374224-Games-are-a-luxury-item-So
I kid, but that is two weeks in a row where the topic has come straight from the forums. A special thanks line in the credits might be a good idea for videos like that.
Don't get your hopes up. In the years that I've been here, I've posted several topics hours, even days before they posted them as news and yet I've never once received credit. I even brought it up a time or two and said they have no obligation to do so etc.Owyn_Merrilin said:
That's all fair, but that isn't [what I think] is the key point of "games are a luxury."
Games are a luxury is a reply to people who try to make game pricing et. al. into a moral issue. Evil, selfish, greedy and the like are null terms in this case. No one is dying from the lack of games, no one is forced into a life of crime to acquire games and games aren't being made for pennies by 3rd-world children.
Games are a luxury is a reply to people who try to make game pricing et. al. into a moral issue. Evil, selfish, greedy and the like are null terms in this case. No one is dying from the lack of games, no one is forced into a life of crime to acquire games and games aren't being made for pennies by 3rd-world children.
News items are different from an editorial column, though. The Escapist gets most of their news sources from the same places any user who finds it first would be likely to. An opinion piece is more original writing. I'm not really complaining anyway, I just find it funny.Eri said:
I just don't agree with Jim this week. On many occasions I think he is correct but not this week. And that's because this episode seemed to be a rant of omission rather than a in depth look at the problem.
I am for:
used games
the termination of online passes
servers being available for the life of a console
milking of the DLC model
I do agree that games are a luxury item in so far as that it isn't a necessity of life. I also think that early adoption of games is a luxury. But I think that the $60 for a new (release) game isn't a bad thing. Here in Canada, games were typically $70 or more on release 10 to 20 years ago. I was pleased when games started showing up for $59.99 regularly. Considering the increase in development costs and such, I don't find it unreasonable. I also find it funny that anyone with a console or gaming level PC would dare complain that any game costs too much. If you can buy a console, you can afford games for it.
The truth is I pay what I think a game is worth. If I find $60 too much then I simply wait. He brought up Dragon Age. The Ultimate Edition with all the DLC is now on sale for $20 brand new and $15 dollars used at my local game shop. Sure it isn't the newest game on the market, but its still a great game.
What I find problematic is the dishonesty within the industry. On disc DLC has no business existing. Tacked on multiplayer for the sake of encouraging early adoption sales as well as server shutdowns are horrible. There is no excuse for either from a consumers point of view. For this reason I have stopped buying new EA games amongst others altogether. I pick up their games used if I still have to get something like Mass Effect 3 to finish the story.
I am for:
used games
the termination of online passes
servers being available for the life of a console
milking of the DLC model
I do agree that games are a luxury item in so far as that it isn't a necessity of life. I also think that early adoption of games is a luxury. But I think that the $60 for a new (release) game isn't a bad thing. Here in Canada, games were typically $70 or more on release 10 to 20 years ago. I was pleased when games started showing up for $59.99 regularly. Considering the increase in development costs and such, I don't find it unreasonable. I also find it funny that anyone with a console or gaming level PC would dare complain that any game costs too much. If you can buy a console, you can afford games for it.
The truth is I pay what I think a game is worth. If I find $60 too much then I simply wait. He brought up Dragon Age. The Ultimate Edition with all the DLC is now on sale for $20 brand new and $15 dollars used at my local game shop. Sure it isn't the newest game on the market, but its still a great game.
What I find problematic is the dishonesty within the industry. On disc DLC has no business existing. Tacked on multiplayer for the sake of encouraging early adoption sales as well as server shutdowns are horrible. There is no excuse for either from a consumers point of view. For this reason I have stopped buying new EA games amongst others altogether. I pick up their games used if I still have to get something like Mass Effect 3 to finish the story.
jimquisition's point that games are indeed luxury products is... well... its a good point
and the 'logic' that "if poor people can't afford games, we don't care, because our products are lxuries" is so silly. I mean, people not buying your product is bad. You want people to buy your product.
you might sell a 100K units of a game at 60$ a pop - but if you sell 200K units at 40$ each you've made a lot more money.
and the 'logic' that "if poor people can't afford games, we don't care, because our products are lxuries" is so silly. I mean, people not buying your product is bad. You want people to buy your product.
you might sell a 100K units of a game at 60$ a pop - but if you sell 200K units at 40$ each you've made a lot more money.
Retailers wanted nothing to do with games, game consoles or computers during that period. One game, ET for the Atari 2600 was so overprinted that they buried the extra copies in the desert because the market was dead and there was no way they were ever going to sell them.trollpwner said:
In order for Nintendo to sell the NES they had to lie to retailers and tell them that their product was a toy, that is where the little robot came from. They named it Nintendo Entertainment System to make it seem more like a VCR and the front loading tapes were designed to that end. Most of the space inside those "tapes" was wasted.
It can happen again if people just stop buying.
The videogame industry effectively died until the birth of the NES several years later. Not good. Very bad.trollpwner said:
That's why I am always at least a year behind most video games, except Skyrim and ME3. I simply can't afford to buy games at full price, so I have to wait until they are on sale for cheaper. I would love to have Uncharted 3 and a number of high profile games but they are not getting my money because I just can't afford it. Although, last christmas I did get six games for 30 bucks off of Steam. That was a nice deal. Steam is the only reason I own as many games as I do. I only just now got Arkham city for 15 dollars lol.
When my budget got tighter, videogames were indeed first to go. Now I emulate the experience by watching let's plays on YouTube. And playing LoL.
I also put some money into the Humble Indie Bundles mostly because I like to see them continue doing that, even if I only care for like one of the games in the bundle. ^^
The last new game I bought was the latest Zelda, and I kinda regretted it. I got hit with the Zelda fatigue it seems. (Or maybe that swordplay wasn't such a great idea after all)
Anyway, yeah, the industry is kinda making a mess right now, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out, even if it ends up being unpleasant for everyone.
I also put some money into the Humble Indie Bundles mostly because I like to see them continue doing that, even if I only care for like one of the games in the bundle. ^^
The last new game I bought was the latest Zelda, and I kinda regretted it. I got hit with the Zelda fatigue it seems. (Or maybe that swordplay wasn't such a great idea after all)
Anyway, yeah, the industry is kinda making a mess right now, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out, even if it ends up being unpleasant for everyone.
I think he was saying it sucked so bad that they could have tried giving it away for free and most copies would have still wound up in a landfill somewhere -- which is true, there's a reason that and Superman 64 are always the top two games on any list of the worst games of all time.Crono1973 said:
Honestly, the problem the first time around was a market oversaturated with crap, not so much price. It's why Nintendo was so strict with their licensing policies in the NES days; consumer confidence was low, and that Nintendo Seal of Approval actually meant something.
That's not to say greed run amok wasn't the reason that it crashed last time, it just took the form of obscene amounts of shovelware moreso than obscene pricing.
Once again, Jim brings the righteous truth.
Are video games a luxury? Yep.
Do publishers have every legal and ethical right to charge what they please for games? Of course.
Are we seeing an industry that is suffering because the AAA-game pricing model is (barring a few exceptions) fixed at $60 USD (even more for AUS and I don't know how much it is in Europe/Japan/anywhere else)? Absolutely.
Pricing models need to change. I paid 1 measly U.S. dollar for Fruit Ninja on iOS. Mathematically, the amount of enjoyment I should have would be 1/60 of the enjoyment I would experience from any given AAA-game purchased at release. But I know that I have received MORE entertainment and enjoyment from Fruit Ninja than I would recieve from DOZENS of day-one AAA games I could have (but didn't) purchase.
If publishers aren't careful, the AAA industry could collapse. Only indie games, casual games, and the AAA games that are guaranteed big money-makers (like COD, Assassin's Creed, etc.) will remain. And then stagnation and franchise fatigue will rob those games of their fun, and then...wait, now I sound like a end-of-the-world doomsayer on a slippery slope, so I'll just stop there.
Still, it's definitely a cause for concern regarding the health of the AAA industry.
Are video games a luxury? Yep.
Do publishers have every legal and ethical right to charge what they please for games? Of course.
Are we seeing an industry that is suffering because the AAA-game pricing model is (barring a few exceptions) fixed at $60 USD (even more for AUS and I don't know how much it is in Europe/Japan/anywhere else)? Absolutely.
Pricing models need to change. I paid 1 measly U.S. dollar for Fruit Ninja on iOS. Mathematically, the amount of enjoyment I should have would be 1/60 of the enjoyment I would experience from any given AAA-game purchased at release. But I know that I have received MORE entertainment and enjoyment from Fruit Ninja than I would recieve from DOZENS of day-one AAA games I could have (but didn't) purchase.
If publishers aren't careful, the AAA industry could collapse. Only indie games, casual games, and the AAA games that are guaranteed big money-makers (like COD, Assassin's Creed, etc.) will remain. And then stagnation and franchise fatigue will rob those games of their fun, and then...wait, now I sound like a end-of-the-world doomsayer on a slippery slope, so I'll just stop there.
Still, it's definitely a cause for concern regarding the health of the AAA industry.