You know when you did the combo meal analogy all I could wonder is why don't companies offer DLC for free when you buy a new game. Then I thought... oh wait Valve already does that (or did that) with Team Fortress 2. You bought the game and then they kept expanding on it for free. You basically felt like you got the best value in the world. And once that system started to dwindle they switched it to F2P with hats.
Why don't more companies do stuff like this? From my limited knowledge of games sells the best way for a developer and publisher to get money is when you buy a game new. They get more of the profit and if you buy it from their service (Origin, Steam and the like) they get a much bigger share. So why not offer any existing and future DLC free when you buy new from their service? And whenever new DLC comes out for a game just drop the price of a game by just a small fraction so people think they are getting a better deal.
It seems like people would buy the thing in droves when it first comes out on your service. And then every time a new DLC pack would come out you would experience a small bump in sales.
I don't know how well this would work, but it seems a better idea then selling everything piecemeal. I mean I love Bioware games but I NEVER buy them new anymore. I wait until the price drops by a whole lot so that I can use that extra money to buy the DLC. And even then I rarely buy all the DLC. So it used to be I would buy a Bioware game for 60 bucks. But now EA is lucky if I pay them 30 bucks to play a Bioware game.
A huge difference is that Valve is a private company and EA is public.
Public companies only care about major shareholders, employees and customers are far down the list of concern. In an ideal world decisions that harm customers and employees would punish the shareholders by decreasing the stock price. In reality stock price is mostly coupled to quarterly earning reports so anything that increases the number on the reports is fair game regardless of the long term consequences.
With a private company usually the founder is in charge and it is "his baby". Until the dollar signs take over his brain he actually has some integrity about his decisions and cares about his reputation.
About the only "good" public company I can think of is Costco but that will probably change now that the founder retired from CEO. Hopefully he will keep tabs on his successor and has influence over policy decisions.
Really, lets examine this closely. TF2 has microtransactions and did so before it went F2P. Even after TF2 went F2P valve does not provide servers, what do you think their margins are on those microtransactions? Valve is just as ruthless but less transparent.
I wouldn't say they're less transparent, I'd say they're better about keeping their needs out of the way of players' experiences. As the article said, the perception of being satisfied/ripped off is a powerful thing; with EA&others on one hand you have always-online DRM, and/or hidden malware-like measures such as securom, that are only 'out of the way' until the moment they decide to pop up, wreck your machine, disable your antivirus, etc. With Valve on the other side, the controls and measures are upfront but unintrusive, while using the limited-window sales to give an incentive to impulse buy in exchange for amazing prices.
hentropy said:
You don't get it. Businesses never do badly because of business practices, it's ALWAYS external factors. Like PIRACY and USED GAMES. This is the reason why EA is doing badly. PIRACY and USED GAMES. Until Congress kills torrents and Gamestop we're going to keep losing money. Steam does well because they came first and have trendy marketing. It just means we have to spend more money on marketers and time machines.
I was literally seconds from launching a bile-spewing raging response at this before it finally clicked this was a joke >_<. Been reading too much EA-spammer/apologist rhetoric recently I guess.
Then again, I should have known better something was up the second I saw your avatar.
His point has nothing to do with the drive to make money. The point is that Valve is much more interested in doing it without alienating their costumer base. I think it is a valid consideration.
They have done exactly the same thing as EA. They sold a game with microtransactions that enabled you to gets items at quicker pace than you could have done by scraping unwanted items and crafting.
MoltenSilver said:
I wouldn't say they're less transparent, I'd say they're better about keeping their needs out of the way of players' experiences. As the article said, the perception of being satisfied/ripped off is a powerful thing; with EA&others on one hand you have always-online DRM, and/or hidden malware-like measures such as securom, that are only 'out of the way' until the moment they decide to pop up, wreck your machine, disable your antivirus, etc. With Valve on the other side, the controls and measures are upfront but unintrusive, while using the limited-window sales to give an incentive to impulse buy in exchange for amazing prices.
I was referring to that fact that EA have to publish there figures but Valve as an LLC doesn't have to. Also Steam and origin work in exactly the same fashion, the only difference is that origin has less social network features.
That analogy with the fast food restaurant leaves a bit to be desired; EA would introduce Napkins with their new kind of Food which is a combination of Spaghetti and tacos.
And with EA, i'd fear that they would devise new way to make it more and more difficult to eat their food without dousing my entire shirt in sauce in order to sell more napkins.
And i'd probably be right.
So EA isn't extragreedy and despises the Customerbase, they're merely inept. And have been for two decades now.
At this Point, what does it matter?
The Probability that you buy a Product from EA and find something in it that might be rather unfortunately implementet or whatever you want to call it is very high.
Most product from EA will have something rather undesireable in it. People should get tired of this enduring ineptitude, if it isn't a deep hatred for their customers.
Buying games from EA isn't a very good Investment. Regardless of the Reasons you think EA has for doing what they're doing, you should stop keeping them afloat.
I still think it's greed, or rather, the quest for absolute control over their information.
But it's also "cluelessness" in the sense that if they weren't chasing absolute control, they could make more money and secure more trust from their paying customers.
Consider the goals from the publisher's side of things: EA (and Blizzard) is trying to train the market into accepting Always-Online DRM, just as Steam trained users to accept Online-DRM before them.
The rest of the groundwork is laid already...price-gouging DLC on a drip-line, near-free self-advertisement on a closed system, even the threat of loss to encourage users to stay attached to the system. The one remaining key to total-control is getting the market to accept Always-Online DRM.
I could do a whole treatise on the matter of control, and how consumers have been ceding control (both practically and legally) to publishers in the last decade, but I'll just leave it at that.
I think several people in this thread are missing the point. When EA nickle and dime you you feel cheated, because EA makes no attempt to disguise their contempt for their customers. On the other hand, when Valve nickle and dime you, you feel like you have received a series of bargains because Valve's publicity is not run by a bunch of drooling morons.
I could do a whole treatise on the matter of control, and how consumers have been ceding control (both practically and legally) to publishers in the last decade, but I'll just leave it at that.
Well, you did make me interested... But the fact that steam is easily put up with by most people is probably telling enough.
Still, I'd kind of like to hear a bit more about how 'consumers have been ceding control (both practically and legally) to publishers in the last decade.'
This is true so much.
I actually really like the new season pass model.
Dlc's sucks, but it's something that won't go away and while i pay for something that i actually don't get right away, what i do get and like is the feeling of having the complete game, no matter what the developer is going to make in dlc in the future, i will always have the complete game.
Although it's not really important nowadays, because i never buy AAA games on release anymore.60 bucks for 8 hours of fun is just not worth it.
This just means our foe is Wheatley rather than SHODAN.
Arguably malice would be preferable, you can make a deal with the devil to avoid mutually assured destruction, but an idiot will drive the flaming train right off the cliff at full speed, adamant that they are doing the right thing even as they plunge everyone to their doom.
hentropy said:
Steam does well because they came first and have trendy marketing.
Steam wasn't the first to offer games they sell for download and they in fact have NO marketing.
They have no TV ads, no magazine ads, no internet banner ads, no pre-roll ads.
They depend almost entirely on their reputation spreading by word of mouth. They have a website where they promote things and fun youtube videos but you have to seek them out. Their "meet the team" videos entirely depended on everyone who would watch them to track them down.
Steam didn't buy their reputation from a marketing firm to be artificially created...
We (the gaming culture) don't exactly help with the launch-window issue; We will heap scorn on anything that doesn't meet a deadline, even if such a deadline is laughably unrealistic.
Except that if anyone in the gaming industry (be it a company or a fan) should have learned anything by now, it's that scorn from gamers doesn't mean jack squat. Gamers will ***** to no ends about something they heard a new game is going to do, then make it a best seller when it comes out anyway. EA could have delayed Sim City for months if they needed to, it would have had minimal impact on their initial sales. In fact, arguably it would have helped their sales, since I'm sure that there are tons of people who specifically aren't buying Sim City because of the server issues. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other. They stand to lose customers either way, but they opted for the option that will make it harder to win them back in the future.
But then it's painfully obvious that the whole game is going to cost you $120 ($60 + $60) and the last half is for the smallest little things.
Games generally cost less than movies to make, so WHY DO PUBLISHERS WANT TO CHARGE x15 AS MUCH!!?!?
It's like a person who sells water from a well trying to convince ten-in-a-thousand to pay $100 for a measly glass of water while another 1000 go thirsty, rather than just charging $1 each to the 1100.
It's madness when Publishers have an infinite supply of product, they can make as many copies of their game as they like.
$60 base price may not have increased much over the years. But when you got a $60 game it was expected to be a major purchase, now single-player games are usually so short with little to no replay value. Very few have any multiplayer that will hold the critical number of people to have a sustainable community. Once the number of players dips below a certain level, then those who are still playing find it harder and harder to get a match... so less play it... making it harder to get a match.
The price is wrong. Steam sale prices, those are right. Gog's multibuy deals, those are right.
We (the gaming culture) don't exactly help with the launch-window issue; We will heap scorn on anything that doesn't meet a deadline, even if such a deadline is laughably unrealistic.
Well, you did make me interested... But the fact that steam is easily put up with by most people is probably telling enough.
Still, I'd kind of like to hear a bit more about how 'consumers have been ceding control (both practically and legally) to publishers in the last decade.'
I did have a much larger post typed up, but opted for a summary-comment when I realized how long it was.
(That, and most of it was rather tangential to the topic at hand anyway.)
This isn't the first time AAA Publishers have had to train the market to accept something that isn't necessarily beneficial (or in some cases, malevolent) to consumers.
-DLC for example. Remember Horse Armor? Bethesda took a lot of flak over that, even though it was actually well within their rights to sell access to content already on a purchased disc. We don't seem to have as much issue with the concept of DLC today. Even though on-disc DLC and Day 1 DLC remain contested, they're obviously successful enough to warrant continued usage.
The point to take from this: "DLC" was a dirty word once, and consumers HAD to be eased into the concept over time. Digital distribution is so important, it leads into my point...
Steam has eased a substantial chunk of the PC market into accepting Online-DRM.
I hopefully shouldn't have to elaborate on that accomplishment much; Steam's success speaks for itself.
But Steam started out as a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE service with a very bad rap. The only people I knew who used it, did so because they had to for Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike Source. (In fact, I only started using Steam because my retail copy of Left4Dead required it)
Today, some companies (EA, Blizzard, perhaps Ubisoft) see the next logical step is going from "Periodic DRM" to "Always-Online DRM", and whoever can manage to train the market to accept this first will be in a powerful position indeed.
Once that happens, you can bet others will eventually adopt the same model, if only to compete.
(just as Origin is aping Steam)
Steam has also introduced a powerful concept previously rejected by the gaming public: The threat of loss.
If you violate, nay, if you even CONTEST the rules of the service, you risk being banned, and losing your purchases.
In the US, there are no securities for when a digital distribution system fails, save market reaction.
It's not hard to see how powerful this threat is: An EULA carries real weight when there's a banhammer hanging over the user's entire library; the threat increasing proportional to the user's investment/library size.
(and with Steam sales encouraging users to expand their libraries...it's insidiously genius)
There are a few legal landmark cases over the point of demarcation.
That is, where ownership and rights of data begins/ends (Blizzard vs Glider, Autodesk vs Vernor) and it's partly on these rulings that lends incredible legal power to Publishers.
But only if they have the proper environment to wield such power.
Always Online DRM systems provide that environment; since everything in the game is run and monitored through their system, there is no loophole, or practical hurdle standing the way of enforcement.
In simpler terms: Legally, (as a result of those rulings) the publisher has total power over the consumer's experiences and "rights" (an inaccurate word, but I for better) so long as a game is, IN PRACTICE, sold as a service, rather than a product.
I cannot overstate the enormity of this. It changes EVERYTHING. This is the "Holy Grail" for AAA Publishers.
Previous business models had to rely on pleasing the customer more since there was no way to enforce those silly shrink-wrap licenses on physical goods.
They were essentially products in practice, even if they were legally licenses and thus services.
Always Online DRM not only provides practical security for Publishers, but Legal security as well.
It completes the puzzle; answers the question publishers have been poised with for decades: "How do we enforce our EULAs?"
While this is great news for publishers, it also polarizes the relationship between customer and publisher even further, but I'm getting to that.
Given the lack of pro-consumer interest for gaming by the US government, this basically gives Publishers total control over the relationship, once initiated. With the relatively recent addition of the ability for such companies to remove the end user's right to class-action-suits, and forcing the matter through arbitration, the very concept of even the simplest securities for the consumer in the US is an utter joke.
Result: The consumer's only decision in all of this is to accept or reject the Publisher's offer entirely; there is no middle ground unless the publisher wills it. Anyone can see how this fosters distrust.
That's my take on the subject as I understand it, and why I don't see as the result of mere cluelessness, but a lengthy plan with great risk involved.
I think that if the market becomes too polarized in Supply or Demand's favor, it destabilizes on account of trust (or lack thereof) and collapses. I am not a devout doomsayer predicting the next "Gaming Crash", but if there were a reason for such a thing to occur again, it will unquestionably be due to distrust causing the collapse of the AAA publishers.
Right now, as a paying customer who does not pirate, I find it increasingly difficult to trust these companies at all.
AAA publishers are pushing ahead, trying to reach that "holy grail" of service-centrality before the rest of the market starts (rightly) rejecting them outright.
This is admittedly a shot in the dark, but I think that's their real motivator, and why we keep seeing these head-slappingly stupid money-grabs and control-schemes being established DESPITE these same companies losing ground year after year.
It's about how the cost of production is covered by the consumer. Not only are there more people who enjoy movies, but it's possible to see a lot more of them. You can watch hundreds of movies a year, so they can make a lot of money at low prices. But games, even today, take more time to get through, so you can only really justify a couple of dozen purchases a year, so the games industry must charge more per purchase. Steam sales trick people into buying games they'll rarely/never play, but even then I doubt many people buy a game a day, while it's quite possible to see a movie every day.
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