Miral said:
Considering that Valve get a percentage of anything sold via Steam, they must be swimming in large piles of money by now. (Maybe that's part of the reason why they're in no hurry to release HL2:E3...)
Exactly, they must be indeed having champagne baths in their solid-gold jacuzzis. And they deserve it, IMHO. They are the only ones, who deserve it. But I don't think they are resting on their laurels either, that's not the Valve kinda way, I think they are working on stuff right now as we speak, but, you now, they are not the sort who spoil us with information all the time. No, they just
hint. Go read this weeks article on Detective Freeman, it explains it all, how the Valve wonder-factory works.
Valve is doing it the right way. I wonder when the rest of the bunch will fall in line. Valve is customer oriented, they really know how to talk to us gamers, they speak our language. Hell, they themselves are gamers. They know what we want, what we like to play or what we
would like to play if they've made it. They support, care for a develop extra stuff for games long after other companies would've thrown it to the bargain bin or discontinue support[footnote]Just look at Half-Life! That game is 12 fucking years old and they still support it![/footnote]. They listen to feedback and the wishes of the community. They
care about us[footnote]Even if they don't, they are doing one hell of a job pretending they do...[/footnote]! They work
for the players, and not just living off them as the others do. Most importantly, they price their games fairly, or at least try to, and they regularly have these totally insane sales, like the Holiday Sale. They are raking in enormous piles of cash, yet they are not a fucking profit oriented steamroller.
Which reminds me...
BloodSquirrel said:
My personal answer to saving game companies?
Compete and win. If game companies are going under, it means that the market is too crowded, and the amount of money that gamers are willing to spend can not support the current number of companies. Some of the less successful ones are just going to have to die. It sucks for you if they happen to make your personal favorite niche game, but it's unreasonable to expect those games to be made if there aren't enough gamers willing to put up the money to fund them
I disagree. While I accept, that the customer base has only a limited amount of money to spend on games, I don't think that natural selection, "let only the strongest survive" way is for the good of the industry.
I'd rather go with
symbiosis. You said it too, that people only have a set amount of money to spend on video games. If every studio were to cut the prices, the people could actually buy
more games! I think you know, that most people don't actually
buy video games because of the price, right? They rather torrent the shit out of them, because they
can't or won't afford to buy them. Not everyone can afford to spend $60 on a few hours of entertainment, in reality, most people just won't do it even if they could, because that's a fucking lot of money, even if the feeling of having the original game, the jewel case, the support and the online multiplayer ability is in the price (you don't get those in the pirated copy). If the price of something is greater than the estimated value of that something for the customer, they won't buy it. What the big companies try to do is to balance this by huge marketing campaigns to raise that estimated value to the level of the pricetag. When the dazzled customers buy their shit, then realize they've been had, that doesn't concern the companies anymore, since the customers already did what they've been indoctrinated to do,
they payed. Then the scammed customer realizes he is left with a $60 piece of crap, they won't be too happy. They'll try to like it, they'll try to enjoy it, because "Goddamit, I payed $60 for this! I
need to like it!", but the damage is done. One thing is for certain, that customer will think twice before buying anything from that company from now on.
Exploitation works only in the short-term. It brings in huge profits on the expense of the customer base. The disillusioned customers will discontinue buying their games, the customer base will shrink, so they need to raise the prices and cut budgets even more to sustain the profits. That only results in shittier and more expensive games, until no one will buy them. It's called hunting/farming to extinction. But
symbiosis on the other hand, is maintainable. When there are many good developers releasing good games for an affordable price, the customers can buy many games and every developer will get their share.
Take a look at Valve, they had the balls to
lower the price of a game by 75% and they still had a fucking
1470% increase in sales on that game alone (according to
THIS INTERVIEW). That means that (if I calculated correctly) more than
1100 percent more people bought that single game, than when it was sold at full price! HOLY SHIT! That means the customer/player base grew eleven-fold over the period of the sale. Are you reading this? 11 times more people, who never bought that game before, suddenly decided to pay up. For this, in the middle ages, Valve would've been burned for witchcraft.
Now, based on this, it's not too far fetched to estimate, that if the rest of the publishers would lover their prices by, say, 50%, their revenues would rise by at least 300%, given that the games are of high quality and that people want to play them. And the people do want to play them, because, and now hold onto something, the global piracy rate is above 90%! That means, for every copy sold, there is at least 9 torrented. So the potential customer base is there, obviously. Wouldn't it be rational to lower the prices, so they would be able and willing to buy those games?
But not just the games, the platforms too. There are huge crowds of people, who really wanna play a certain game, but can't, because they don't own the platform to play it on, like a certain console. Buying a console is a much harder decision than buying a single game. It's very naive to think, that everyone will just go buy the console if they spot a great platform-only game or games. Take me for example. I'd really like to play Heavy Rain when it comes out, but I don't own a PS3. Now, the PS3 console costs a lot, that alone would deter me from buying it, but I don't even have a TV, or a couch for that matter, nor a room to fit all that into. I live in a small apartment, but I do have a brutal gaming rig (for reviewing PC games, that's what I do). Even if I had that kind of money, I simply wouldn't buy all that stuff, because I don't have the free space, and it's too much hassle for one game anyway (there are no other PS3 only titles I really want). Now, I know at least 11 other people who has the
exact same problem as me, and God know how many are there around the world. I would, however, most certainly buy the PC version. You see the problem here? Some other people only have a certain console and no gaming PC for example, so they can't play PC-only titles, same predicament but from the other side (I admit, gaming PCs cost more). Now, we are lost revenue to the makers of these games. Even if there are some people who own every gaming platform or willing to buy them, I'm dead certain that there are far too many people who just can't or won't bother buying other platforms for a game or some games.
My solution: why not have only one platform? Let the huge console and PC companies join forces and develop a single, robust system, that is in every way designed to run video games. It will be easy on the customers since they won't need to choose between them and miss the good games on the other platforms (very few people can afford all the platforms nowadays), and far much easier on the developers, since they only need to learn one system to develop to. Alternatively, port every game to every system. I know it's expensive, but if, using the real-life example of Valve above, they price the games to be affordable, they would rake in huge profits regardless.
Also, let's make peace between developers. The more diversity, the more ideas and potential the industry has, the better games could be made. Nowadays, the video game world is shrinking, small studios are bought or shut down by big ones, great ideas and concepts go down the drain, and for what? Market share? Fuck that! Using the above examples, every can get their share, and still be alive and well. More diverse games, more awesome ides and concepts, more happy gamers. Thats symbiosis for you. If you do stuff for the customers and each other, the better the world will become.
