Nintendo America Boss Takes Swipe at App Store Prices
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Well, I see the issue here. Right now the gaming industry acts as a cartel and conspires to keep prices high to maximize profits. The cost of a game to develop in no way influances it's price, as game prices are set at $60 new. A lack of direct competition between products pretty much ensures that nobody lowers prices to try and undercut anyone else, which would start a cycle of companies setting prices as low as they can while still coming out ahead (which is how things are supposed to work) rather than resulting in these huge explosions
of profit. The industry relies on a deception that a high price for a game is nessicary to offset development costs (which I won't get into again), but at the same time you'll notice that the development costs have little to do with the price as I pointed out. For some games it might make sense that they need to attach a $60 price tag, but for others developed for a fraction of the price of a "Call Of Duty" that makes little sense.
The thing is that the rising App/Cell Phone market developed seperatly from the rest of the gaming industry. The guys involved in that really aren't part of the cartel, and are thus not playing by the set rules. Being forced to compete with these guys would mean other gaming businesses having to lower prices, and they of course don't like that.
In a lot of places in the world, in a situation like this a cartel or the equivilent would horribly murder the competition. "unfortunatly" given that the gaming industry is facing these issues almost entirely in the first world makes this impractical. What's more those kinds of actions done without goverment approval (officially or not) would bring the kind of attention they don't want. Right now I think the only reason why the game industry acts the way it does is because the goverment(s) have yet to think they are a big enough problem. Legal technicalities or not, if the goverment ever paid attention to the business aspects here it would be viewed just like it is with the gas companies as the gaming industry is doing pretty much the same things.
To explain the violence aspects (for people going "WTF") look at it like the diamond business or whatever. All the guys owning diamond mines conspire to limit the number of diamonds coming onto the market to prevent it from being flooded, keep the mining cheap, and similar things. This way everyone makes the most profit. If some guy decides he's going to treat his workers better, and make up the differance by putting more diamonds on the market at one time at a lower price, the other diamond businessmen are going to object, and since the core of the business is generally in the third world (Africa and the like) they are liable to just use their great wealth to get a bunch of dudes with guns to come in, kill off all the guy's workers, and then torture him and his family to death in a horrible fashion to set an example for anyone else coming into the business to play by the agreed upon Cartel rules.
In this case however, while there are millions upon millions of dollars involved, the nature of the games industry makes it so that Nintendo can't do much to enforce the agreed on policies to a rising competitor/sub market, or at least not directly. I suspect as time goes on we might see quite a bit of legal manuvering if you see cell phone/app type games becoming too good and costing the rest of the industry money/threatening the existing status quo. Of course in the end I think as they become bigger this sub market is most likely to just sell out and become another member of the "cartel"..
Also for the record the reason why you don't see much in the way of attacks on things like STEAM is that it plays by the rules more or less. Steam puts it's new games up for the same exact price as what they retail for usually. Those super deals you see are typically on older or less successful games, where the price would be dropping anyway. What's more being digital there are no packaging or distribution costs involved, so the level of profit has always been much higher since none of those savings are routinely passed on to the consumer. The STEAM sales pretty much show what digitally downloaded games SHOULD cost even new, and should give you an idea as to how inflated the regular prices are.
Understand also that "Abandonware" has been a thorn in the industry's side for a while, liscenses are expensive to maintain, and when they fall and the game is no longer for sale, it becomes fair game for people to put up as a free download. Services like Steam allow them to effectively keep their products in circulation for a fairly low cost, and help to cut out their "losses" to Abandonware sites.
of profit. The industry relies on a deception that a high price for a game is nessicary to offset development costs (which I won't get into again), but at the same time you'll notice that the development costs have little to do with the price as I pointed out. For some games it might make sense that they need to attach a $60 price tag, but for others developed for a fraction of the price of a "Call Of Duty" that makes little sense.
The thing is that the rising App/Cell Phone market developed seperatly from the rest of the gaming industry. The guys involved in that really aren't part of the cartel, and are thus not playing by the set rules. Being forced to compete with these guys would mean other gaming businesses having to lower prices, and they of course don't like that.
In a lot of places in the world, in a situation like this a cartel or the equivilent would horribly murder the competition. "unfortunatly" given that the gaming industry is facing these issues almost entirely in the first world makes this impractical. What's more those kinds of actions done without goverment approval (officially or not) would bring the kind of attention they don't want. Right now I think the only reason why the game industry acts the way it does is because the goverment(s) have yet to think they are a big enough problem. Legal technicalities or not, if the goverment ever paid attention to the business aspects here it would be viewed just like it is with the gas companies as the gaming industry is doing pretty much the same things.
To explain the violence aspects (for people going "WTF") look at it like the diamond business or whatever. All the guys owning diamond mines conspire to limit the number of diamonds coming onto the market to prevent it from being flooded, keep the mining cheap, and similar things. This way everyone makes the most profit. If some guy decides he's going to treat his workers better, and make up the differance by putting more diamonds on the market at one time at a lower price, the other diamond businessmen are going to object, and since the core of the business is generally in the third world (Africa and the like) they are liable to just use their great wealth to get a bunch of dudes with guns to come in, kill off all the guy's workers, and then torture him and his family to death in a horrible fashion to set an example for anyone else coming into the business to play by the agreed upon Cartel rules.
In this case however, while there are millions upon millions of dollars involved, the nature of the games industry makes it so that Nintendo can't do much to enforce the agreed on policies to a rising competitor/sub market, or at least not directly. I suspect as time goes on we might see quite a bit of legal manuvering if you see cell phone/app type games becoming too good and costing the rest of the industry money/threatening the existing status quo. Of course in the end I think as they become bigger this sub market is most likely to just sell out and become another member of the "cartel"..
Also for the record the reason why you don't see much in the way of attacks on things like STEAM is that it plays by the rules more or less. Steam puts it's new games up for the same exact price as what they retail for usually. Those super deals you see are typically on older or less successful games, where the price would be dropping anyway. What's more being digital there are no packaging or distribution costs involved, so the level of profit has always been much higher since none of those savings are routinely passed on to the consumer. The STEAM sales pretty much show what digitally downloaded games SHOULD cost even new, and should give you an idea as to how inflated the regular prices are.
Understand also that "Abandonware" has been a thorn in the industry's side for a while, liscenses are expensive to maintain, and when they fall and the game is no longer for sale, it becomes fair game for people to put up as a free download. Services like Steam allow them to effectively keep their products in circulation for a fairly low cost, and help to cut out their "losses" to Abandonware sites.
I'd like to think that getting some money for a game is a lot better than getting no money for a game. I mean really, if something is only 6 bucks, why bother pirating? If it is 60$, then it might be worth the time it takes to find something to download for free.
wait...nintendo is getting out nintendoed?
lol so they qq about it.
nice.
lol so they qq about it.
nice.
lol niceeSamwise137 said:
I personally believe we're heading towards another gaming market crash, and unless the larger companies are willing to trim themselves to fit a leaner market they're going to be left behind. The app based games are in my opinion the first beginnings of this.
People seem to be worried about the quality of the product when they really should be more interested in the quality of the GAME.
People seem to be worried about the quality of the product when they really should be more interested in the quality of the GAME.
psrdirector said:
Read what I wrote in it's entirety, first paragraph in paticular.
Your correct in certain cases that the price tags make sense in cases where the game has seen a massive development cost. However, with less expensive games this is not the case. The problem being that there is fundementally no differance between a game that cost 3 million dollars to make, and one that cost 30 million dollars to make, since they both wind up retailing for $60.00.
As I actually said, in some cases what you see going on makes sense. In most others, that isn't really the case. Your also not considering the amount of money spent on things like packaging and distribution which is huge. By doing digital those costs are no longer present, yet a digital download and buying a physical copy wind up costing the same thing. Part of the point here is that that money being saved could be used to lower the price of downloadable games, when instead it's pocketed for profit. This is also one of the reasons why the price on digital games can be lowered for those sales, the cost is simply lower. This is to say nothing of lower prices bringing in more legitimate sales, especially when it comes to online platforms where the cost to get the product to the store and on a shelf doesn't exist. People are more likely to risk spending $6 or $10 on a game that might suck, than on a game that costs $60 and might suck. One of the big problems with the gaming industry is that they hold their cards close to their chest, yet if you buy a product you don't like you can't retrn it (IRL or online), I think the risk is one of the things holding the industry back to be honest.
There is nothing "paranoid" about what I'm saying, I'm just being brutally straighforward about the whole thing.
Your wrong simply because your making the assumption that the prices are set based on the costs involved, that is not true, as the development cost of a game has no bearing on it's price at the time of release, as the prices are standardized. A game being developed for $1 million and one being developed for $100 million are both being sold for the same price. If the prices varied based on the development cost of the games, and there was direct competition between products, then there would be some validity to what your saying, but that's not the case.psrdirector said:
Likewise, when STEAM gets a game, it sells for exactly the same amount as games being packaged and distributed to stores. The cost to the this distribution platform is less,
and you would expect that to influance the prices to begin with, but it does not.
The problem with your arguement is that your making assumptions that just don't apply here. Yes there is a set development cost that needs to be recouped in order to make a profit. However that development cost is not universal, yet prices are.
Given the very low overhead on Steam, they are doubtlessly making a profit off of those sales, it's just not the monsterous one that would be made from selling the same product at full price. Now granted, the sheer amount of money being made at full price DOES allow the costs to be recouped faster and actual profit to be generated, but it's hardly nessicary, it comes from a desire for massive paydays, not due to any real need or for the business to be viable. They are charging what we've shown we will pay so far, so why change anything?
I honestly believe that the iPhone / Android phones are going to cause a crap load of headaches for companies like Nintendo in the hand held market. There are a multitude of reasons that people will choose to game on the go via their phone vs a handheld game console and price is just one of those reasons. You also have convenience, more attractive features (mp3, video, apps etc) and other miscellaneous reasons. Even the benefit of having a dedicated D-pad and buttons is no longer exclusive to gaming consoles anymore with the announcement of the Xperia that will be running on Android. The customer base of your hand held consoles like the DS and 3DS now will boil down to mostly hardcore Nintendo fans and children.
I know for me personally when I want to game on the go my Droid Incredible has more than enough available for it to keep me more than entertained. I can listen to books on mp3, read digital comics, surf the web, watch movies or T.V. shows I've downloaded, play emulators, or simply play quality games off the marketplace like Angry Birds, Zenonia or Zenonia 2, Game Dev Story, Guns and Glory etc. Paying 200-300 for another console to tote around plus 30+ dollars per game just seems pointless.
I know for me personally when I want to game on the go my Droid Incredible has more than enough available for it to keep me more than entertained. I can listen to books on mp3, read digital comics, surf the web, watch movies or T.V. shows I've downloaded, play emulators, or simply play quality games off the marketplace like Angry Birds, Zenonia or Zenonia 2, Game Dev Story, Guns and Glory etc. Paying 200-300 for another console to tote around plus 30+ dollars per game just seems pointless.
The only reason you'd make any statement against a "disposable" game is if YOUR OWN disposable games wind up in land fills. You also would down-talk digital distribution if that was pretty much the one thing about modern gaming you DON'T do very well.
This also sounds like an attempt to push Nintendo's own weakness (reliance on physical packages and all those issues) on an opponent who doesn't share them (a 100% digital platform that doesn't even have a slot for external media that actually DOES get disposed, as in, physically thrown into a bin).
At the end of it, however, all of this is stuff I'd expect Reggie to say. That tends to mean the signal doesn't hold any information. Much like a Hanna Montana DS adventure.
This also sounds like an attempt to push Nintendo's own weakness (reliance on physical packages and all those issues) on an opponent who doesn't share them (a 100% digital platform that doesn't even have a slot for external media that actually DOES get disposed, as in, physically thrown into a bin).
At the end of it, however, all of this is stuff I'd expect Reggie to say. That tends to mean the signal doesn't hold any information. Much like a Hanna Montana DS adventure.
You're right Nintendo, game's shouldn't be disposable, they should be milked over and over again until they are so ridiculously spent that the main characters have no meaning and are simply templates for "generic hero"
He is just worried because the newest smart phones are more powerful than the wii...and it will be hard to justify paying $50 for the new super mario when you can get better games on your cell phone for less than $5.
...And games are disposable; most people don't replay games...if they did, then old gamers would never buy games because they would be too busy replaying the old titles. How many people are still playing GTA:SA? It was a huge seller and it costed $60 new...did that prevent it from becoming disposable?
...And games are disposable; most people don't replay games...if they did, then old gamers would never buy games because they would be too busy replaying the old titles. How many people are still playing GTA:SA? It was a huge seller and it costed $60 new...did that prevent it from becoming disposable?