What is your alternative, andy? That every game stays at 60 dollars forever and everyone who can't afford that is screwed and anyone who thinks the game isn't worth that just doesn't buy the game at all?
Positech Games Boss Calls For An End To Deep-Discount Sales
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Pretty rare for me to pay full price on a AAA title, unless it's something I've been looking forward to for months. Most recently, I picked up Bravely Default and Final Fantasy X HD. 60 bucks isn't a reasonable price for AAA anymore, if you ask me. I've been leaning towards games at 30-40 bucks for anything new. It's a comfortable price for the content.
That said, if I get the chance to buy a game from a small-time developer that I like and respect, yeah, I try to go full price. So long as it's reasonably priced. 15 to 30 is acceptable, but at the same time, you can't blame people for taking advantage of steam sales. I've often bought multi-packs of titles when on sale for gifting to friends. Sales create exposure and brings in people who might have never bought the game in the first place.
That said, if I get the chance to buy a game from a small-time developer that I like and respect, yeah, I try to go full price. So long as it's reasonably priced. 15 to 30 is acceptable, but at the same time, you can't blame people for taking advantage of steam sales. I've often bought multi-packs of titles when on sale for gifting to friends. Sales create exposure and brings in people who might have never bought the game in the first place.
Checklist:
There's always the "fad factor", or that "water cooler factor" developers love to bang on about.
Truth is: Some kids want to be the cool guys who are playing the latest shit now.
That fad mentality drives early adopters today just as it did before and it's not likely to ever go away.
It's just the social pressures associated with being a kid: We all felt them and indulged in our ignorant whiny demands.
(some of us still do even grown up, sadly)
But I could see a strong reason for why "launch booms" (that initial surge of money and popularity a game enjoys before it's quickly smothered by the zeitgeist) are weakening by proportion:
The average age of gamers is increasing. A larger proportion of of us are growing up and dealing with the real cost of living. With that experience comes frugality. I used to buy on launch and pre-order, now, I wait because the market has moved towards a "Devil may care" attitude with their launches. Which brings me to my next point:
The process that will kill launch booms isn't sales: it's shitty launch booms (Battlefield 4) and Bait-n-Switch schemes (Aliens: Colonial Marines). Those are the forces that drive gamers away from launches because it makes them (rightly) paranoid. Yes, even children, because nobody rages at disappointment more than a child.
If you want to continue to benefit from bigger launch booms, don't try to yank the consumer around on launch.
Build a reputation for giving good value and quality out of the gate, not three or six or ten months from launch or only with the additional purchase of Day 1 DLC.
And if you manage to nab some networking buzz from your good launch, Sales will multiply your revenue in the long run, because those are what bring people on board who would not have paid otherwise, but have a passing interest (and the better you do on launch, the more word-of-mouth provides to create that passing interest)
"Selling based on quality".
Funny, that's the same argument I hear when publishers go to justify price-gouging "less-for-more" schemes like freemium models, and Day 1 DLC.
As for addressing the point personally: I hate spending money on stuff I don't use.
I have less free time and money available now than I did even just a few years ago, so I prefer to maximize their usage in the long run. Sales help me stymie loss due to opportunity and keep me in the game market. But hey, if you don't want my money at all, I can take it elsewhere.
I can say that, because the majority of games are sold "As Is", meaning that consumers don't set the terms or time of any sale.
And don't give me this "The distributors have us by the balls, we have NO CHOICE!" bullshit.
You have the privilege of working in a digitally distributable market so protected by copyright that the consumer has no real rights except the ability to accept or reject your offer. (at least in my country, which is a major part of the game market, if not the biggest)
Furthermore, self-publishing has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER OR EASIER IN THE HISTORY OF GAMING.
The cost of entry is incredibly low; I can point to SEVERAL developers (TINY developers) who self-publish in addition to distributing through the regular mass-market channels. They do just fine.
Ultimately, it's YOU (or your publisher) who have the final say on what you charge for your game.
So stop pointing your finger at the consumer, because it seriously looks like "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! STOP BUYING INTO SALES SO I CAN MAKE MORE MONEY FOR NO EFFORT!"
Here's a reminder of what "value" actually is in this context: "What you pay VS What you get out of it."
Raising the cost of a product only raises its value if you also threaten the consumer with a greater loss (which itself is a risky proposition and potentially illegal). This scenario also logically assumes previous investment, which doesn't cover the scenario you're describing.
So, assuming no previous investment, any new investment must be based on something else: Like, the merits of the game?
Oh, but you discarded that possibility by assuming that everyone buys games just to have them, not play them.
Which means your proof for the effect you're decrying is the effect itself, not a cause.
Circular logic.
The only motivator you provide is that the sales make the games so cheap, why not buy them?
No, the real question is why SHOULD they buy them?
I see cheap crap for sale all the time that I don't buy. Everyone does. Even you do.
Like say, in the checkout counter at Walmart. They have these cheap, shitty LED "laser" pointers.
For 2 bucks, one of those would provide me with a sum of entertainment, so why don't I buy one when I check out?
Maybe, just MAYBE because I, and most people that go through that checkout aisle, don't want a shitty LED not-laser pointer?
And maybe this assumption of yours is...wrong?
Well, if that assumption is wrong, then what is devaluing the game?
Nothing. Yeah, absolutely nothing. How?
Cost, from the consumer's perspective, is just a barrier to entry when the product is the same regardless of what the initial cost is (which, incidentally, is why software piracy is a problem in the first place).
Thus, it makes more financial sense for a consumer to wait for a sale.
But as a producer, you're the one who sets the price for your product (we've been over this); all consumers can do is respond to that price. So the first thing you need to get through your head is that we are not beholden to you.
So if you don't think you can make as much money without the sale, well, that's just admission of what you really think your game is worth, proof in practice. Either you devalued your game from your previous expectations, or you're feeling the effects of competition (probably both).
But here's the good part: Lowering the cost RAISES the value of the product to the consumer because, and this will blow your mind, the consumer that buys and drops the game is the least likely person to have bought your game at all.
That's called "selling on the margin", and it's by far, the biggest advantage economics offers.
Otherwise, it's all just mindless greed and mistrust; a market could go nowhere.
Periodically (slowly) lowering your prices over time, with the occasional sale generates what I informally call "Second Press" sales. There's evidence out there that shows how such sales benefit producers.
And yes, I concede that it's possible to under-price games (or any good) too much, but as long as you're making a profit per unit even during a sale, you're doing your job, and gamers are doing theirs.
Filler is filler, and it has existed since the dawn of video gaming; before Steam Sales, before digital distribution.
You call it "spoiled". I'll call it what it really is: "Progress".
Ehh...I can see it happening, but in reality, I doubt it.Cliffski's Blog said:
There's always the "fad factor", or that "water cooler factor" developers love to bang on about.
Truth is: Some kids want to be the cool guys who are playing the latest shit now.
That fad mentality drives early adopters today just as it did before and it's not likely to ever go away.
It's just the social pressures associated with being a kid: We all felt them and indulged in our ignorant whiny demands.
(some of us still do even grown up, sadly)
But I could see a strong reason for why "launch booms" (that initial surge of money and popularity a game enjoys before it's quickly smothered by the zeitgeist) are weakening by proportion:
The average age of gamers is increasing. A larger proportion of of us are growing up and dealing with the real cost of living. With that experience comes frugality. I used to buy on launch and pre-order, now, I wait because the market has moved towards a "Devil may care" attitude with their launches. Which brings me to my next point:
The process that will kill launch booms isn't sales: it's shitty launch booms (Battlefield 4) and Bait-n-Switch schemes (Aliens: Colonial Marines). Those are the forces that drive gamers away from launches because it makes them (rightly) paranoid. Yes, even children, because nobody rages at disappointment more than a child.
If you want to continue to benefit from bigger launch booms, don't try to yank the consumer around on launch.
Build a reputation for giving good value and quality out of the gate, not three or six or ten months from launch or only with the additional purchase of Day 1 DLC.
And if you manage to nab some networking buzz from your good launch, Sales will multiply your revenue in the long run, because those are what bring people on board who would not have paid otherwise, but have a passing interest (and the better you do on launch, the more word-of-mouth provides to create that passing interest)
Well if you're going to argue via insinuations, know that the knife cuts both ways.
"Selling based on quality".
Funny, that's the same argument I hear when publishers go to justify price-gouging "less-for-more" schemes like freemium models, and Day 1 DLC.
As for addressing the point personally: I hate spending money on stuff I don't use.
I have less free time and money available now than I did even just a few years ago, so I prefer to maximize their usage in the long run. Sales help me stymie loss due to opportunity and keep me in the game market. But hey, if you don't want my money at all, I can take it elsewhere.
This is a problem purely on SUPPLY'S END, not DEMAND'S.
I can say that, because the majority of games are sold "As Is", meaning that consumers don't set the terms or time of any sale.
And don't give me this "The distributors have us by the balls, we have NO CHOICE!" bullshit.
You have the privilege of working in a digitally distributable market so protected by copyright that the consumer has no real rights except the ability to accept or reject your offer. (at least in my country, which is a major part of the game market, if not the biggest)
Furthermore, self-publishing has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER OR EASIER IN THE HISTORY OF GAMING.
The cost of entry is incredibly low; I can point to SEVERAL developers (TINY developers) who self-publish in addition to distributing through the regular mass-market channels. They do just fine.
Ultimately, it's YOU (or your publisher) who have the final say on what you charge for your game.
So stop pointing your finger at the consumer, because it seriously looks like "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! STOP BUYING INTO SALES SO I CAN MAKE MORE MONEY FOR NO EFFORT!"
OK, stop right there.
Here's a reminder of what "value" actually is in this context: "What you pay VS What you get out of it."
Raising the cost of a product only raises its value if you also threaten the consumer with a greater loss (which itself is a risky proposition and potentially illegal). This scenario also logically assumes previous investment, which doesn't cover the scenario you're describing.
So, assuming no previous investment, any new investment must be based on something else: Like, the merits of the game?
Oh, but you discarded that possibility by assuming that everyone buys games just to have them, not play them.
Which means your proof for the effect you're decrying is the effect itself, not a cause.
Circular logic.
The only motivator you provide is that the sales make the games so cheap, why not buy them?
No, the real question is why SHOULD they buy them?
I see cheap crap for sale all the time that I don't buy. Everyone does. Even you do.
Like say, in the checkout counter at Walmart. They have these cheap, shitty LED "laser" pointers.
For 2 bucks, one of those would provide me with a sum of entertainment, so why don't I buy one when I check out?
Maybe, just MAYBE because I, and most people that go through that checkout aisle, don't want a shitty LED not-laser pointer?
And maybe this assumption of yours is...wrong?
Well, if that assumption is wrong, then what is devaluing the game?
Nothing. Yeah, absolutely nothing. How?
Cost, from the consumer's perspective, is just a barrier to entry when the product is the same regardless of what the initial cost is (which, incidentally, is why software piracy is a problem in the first place).
Thus, it makes more financial sense for a consumer to wait for a sale.
But as a producer, you're the one who sets the price for your product (we've been over this); all consumers can do is respond to that price. So the first thing you need to get through your head is that we are not beholden to you.
So if you don't think you can make as much money without the sale, well, that's just admission of what you really think your game is worth, proof in practice. Either you devalued your game from your previous expectations, or you're feeling the effects of competition (probably both).
But here's the good part: Lowering the cost RAISES the value of the product to the consumer because, and this will blow your mind, the consumer that buys and drops the game is the least likely person to have bought your game at all.
That's called "selling on the margin", and it's by far, the biggest advantage economics offers.
Otherwise, it's all just mindless greed and mistrust; a market could go nowhere.
Periodically (slowly) lowering your prices over time, with the occasional sale generates what I informally call "Second Press" sales. There's evidence out there that shows how such sales benefit producers.
And yes, I concede that it's possible to under-price games (or any good) too much, but as long as you're making a profit per unit even during a sale, you're doing your job, and gamers are doing theirs.
You just contradicted your previous point by admission.
If the initial experience is boring, it's boring regardless of what the ending is or how much the game costs.
Filler is filler, and it has existed since the dawn of video gaming; before Steam Sales, before digital distribution.
Based on what I read, no, I think you don't understand.
And yet, without fail, every year the monetary value of the gaming industry has only grown since the NES days.Andy Chalk said:
You call it "spoiled". I'll call it what it really is: "Progress".
Basic economic concept: Price discrimination.
To those who have the money to spend on getting a game there and then, will spend money on a game they are interested in.
Those who are interested but cannot or are not willing to pay said price for a game... won't buy the game. However if they wait a few months, and are willing to, then this acts as a discrimination mechanic so that you can sell the game at varying prices to different customers, and sell more copies of the game than you otherwise would have.
My Supermarket does this with cooked chickens. They sell them for £5 all day, and then an hour before closing they half the price to £2.50. This is rather fucking simple economics... just because they lower the price of the chicken doesn't de-value the chicken for the rest of the shopping time, but its a method to sell extra stock than you otherwise would, if the chicken was always £5, however every chicken sold at £5 has extra profit for the Supermarket (for anyone who isn't savvy, or can afford to splash money around, which my student self can't).
To those who have the money to spend on getting a game there and then, will spend money on a game they are interested in.
Those who are interested but cannot or are not willing to pay said price for a game... won't buy the game. However if they wait a few months, and are willing to, then this acts as a discrimination mechanic so that you can sell the game at varying prices to different customers, and sell more copies of the game than you otherwise would have.
My Supermarket does this with cooked chickens. They sell them for £5 all day, and then an hour before closing they half the price to £2.50. This is rather fucking simple economics... just because they lower the price of the chicken doesn't de-value the chicken for the rest of the shopping time, but its a method to sell extra stock than you otherwise would, if the chicken was always £5, however every chicken sold at £5 has extra profit for the Supermarket (for anyone who isn't savvy, or can afford to splash money around, which my student self can't).
Well I'm on a very low income and I'd hardly be able to play games without these massive discounts. I'm not a pirate tho, I just wouldn't play these games at all. There's an awful lot of content around these days, a lot of it free, and I just gravitate towards the cheaper stuff. I'd never pay 60 dollars to play Mirror's Edge, I just can't afford it and frankly it doesn't look like my type of thing. But charge me a dollar for it? Sure, what the hell, I'll see what the fuss is about.
I have a bunch of unplayed games on my Steam list, but what that means to me right now is not that I've wasted money buying stuff I don't play: it means I always have something to play, even if I have to install 2 or 3 games I don't like before I find something interesting. The connection between buying games and playing them has been severed but I have no problem with that. Oddly I even find I'm ok buying things that I don't have a powerful enough pc to play right now (if they're cheap enough) because I know they're adding to a content stream that I'll indulge in the future.
I have a bunch of unplayed games on my Steam list, but what that means to me right now is not that I've wasted money buying stuff I don't play: it means I always have something to play, even if I have to install 2 or 3 games I don't like before I find something interesting. The connection between buying games and playing them has been severed but I have no problem with that. Oddly I even find I'm ok buying things that I don't have a powerful enough pc to play right now (if they're cheap enough) because I know they're adding to a content stream that I'll indulge in the future.
And the market was much smaller and hardly anyone bought it. If the game even reached 20,000 legit sales at that price, I'd be surprised. I'm sure the copy-from-friend casual piracy spread was much higher though.Andy Chalk said:
Heck we can take Neo Geo AES, which was "competing" on the same market as the NES and later the SNES, with a big list of arcade hit games. Heck it predates the SNES by years and was the strongest console until at least the playstation, or even Dreamcast.
But the games could cost as much as $500 each(not adjusted for inflation), though most of them were in the $200-350 range, and the console cost $650(not adjusted for inflation).
Of course the number of buyers was quite low, and it never achieved much market share. It was just too damn expensive.
Just because games were put to market for that high prices doesn't mean they were ever worth that, or that they sold well. Even the most critically acclaimed ones. Neo Geo and its games are now expensive collectibles because they're rare, not because most of them were broken or discarded, there just never were that many sold to begin with.
On the other hand I remember the Dungeons of Dredmor devs announcing they'd hit over $1 million in revenue during the humble bundle sale they were a part of, just from humble bundle sales. (Or maybe I misunderstood and that was the entire bundle's revenue, not just DoDs).
Oh and there was a news article in Sweden recently, Notch, the founder of Mojang, maker of Minecraft has over 2 billion SEK(about $311 million), that's in his private bank account, after all taxes paid. For a reasonably priced indie title.
Regarding the "affordability" issue... I work for a living, I make more than I need to support myself and my dependants. I could easily afford a full-priced AAA game every month without sacrificing anything else in the process. It's not about how much you CAN pay, it's about how much you're WILLING to pay. It's a matter of trust. I find it very hard to justify paying £40 for a new AAA game upon release when I fear that I may very well regret the purchase. This wasn't always the case.
EDIT: Of course a lot of gamers don't work or have more expenses than I do. They might have financial issues that I don't. If a single AAA game is a luxury purchase for you though, it doesn't really change my point. Most people are not going to shell out that money if they don't trust that it will be well-spent.
EDIT: Of course a lot of gamers don't work or have more expenses than I do. They might have financial issues that I don't. If a single AAA game is a luxury purchase for you though, it doesn't really change my point. Most people are not going to shell out that money if they don't trust that it will be well-spent.
What I pay for games is based off my personal "value" for each game. If I buy a game on a steam sale its only because its a game that I would never pay launch price for and thus without the sale would have never have bought at all. I do buy games at launch prices but only games I'm excited about and that list only consists of a few IPs.
If this guy doesn't want $10 from me that's fine but he was never gonna get $60 from me. Do we have to remind him that a $10 digital copy costs the developer next to nothing? I also see these sales as the best form of anti-piracy...so there is that.
Devaluing games...well something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it right?
Say 10 people represent the whole of the gaming community, Now a developer launches "game X", those 10 gamers see the game and are spread out on a scale that goes from full price to zero dollars based on what they think of "game X", even if the game is good, 3 people will pay $60, 2 will only pay $40, 2 will only pay $20, 2 will pay only $5, and 1 does not want it at all. Over time with progressive sales and price drops there is $310 to be made off "game X', does he really want to limit himself to only making $180 at the same time saying it makes "game X" more valuable...Just bad business IMO.
If this guy doesn't want $10 from me that's fine but he was never gonna get $60 from me. Do we have to remind him that a $10 digital copy costs the developer next to nothing? I also see these sales as the best form of anti-piracy...so there is that.
Devaluing games...well something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it right?
Say 10 people represent the whole of the gaming community, Now a developer launches "game X", those 10 gamers see the game and are spread out on a scale that goes from full price to zero dollars based on what they think of "game X", even if the game is good, 3 people will pay $60, 2 will only pay $40, 2 will only pay $20, 2 will pay only $5, and 1 does not want it at all. Over time with progressive sales and price drops there is $310 to be made off "game X', does he really want to limit himself to only making $180 at the same time saying it makes "game X" more valuable...Just bad business IMO.
The quality of new release games very rarely justifies their bloated $60 price tag, but there are still plenty of idiots in the world who will pick up the latest game with mountains of marketing and hype behind it. Case in point, last night at a LAN party I saw a guy with an X-Bone with copies of both COD Ghosts and Titanfall, two games I wouldn't play if you gave them to me for free because they're lazy mediocre FPS games with less effort put into them than an excel spreadsheet. Meanwhile a nostalgia classic goes on sale and people buy it in droves because very often the quality was there when it was new and said quality still holds up today at its vastly reduced price. Even better, younger gamers who aren't complete idiots will get a taste of what gaming was like in their dad's generation.
All of this is a large hypothetical with no numbers to back it up. Volume also carries the cross of lost potential income. And your argument also either ignores my point of the affect on small time studios entirely or assumes that indie titles and Triple A titles get the same kinds of units sold. We know the Triple A games sell way more on a daily deal. Probably more than the release week of an indie title. Triple A games also go on sale a lot less and still sell well on Steam. On the Top Sellers list right now South Park and the Stick of Truth is $60 and still in the top ten. LUFTRAUSERS came out this week and is only in the top 40. Towerfall came out last week and isn't even in the top 100 anymore and that game had critical acclaim backing it.Cerebrawl said:
My point is that the theory of gamers who only buy games on deep discount sales hurting indie devs and small time studios isn't far-fetched at all.
You started the bulk of your point with this:
and that's where it deviated from my argument entirely. Indie titles would be called a decent success reaching 100k in sales over the course of a month. 100k in sales for a triple A titles happens many times faster. You're debate only considers $50 releases. It doesn't scale to include indies and as such isn't a complete argument.
It also has zero backing. It's just a huge unsupported assumption.AzrealMaximillion said:
The exact numbers weren't the point. The point is that you sell significantly more copies with a staggered pricing model and make significantly more profit. It also most definitely does scale to include indies, why wouldn't it? If indie pricepoints are release at $10, make X sales, sale for $5 make 4x sales and then sale for $2.50 and make 10x sales, it's scaled perfectly.AzrealMaximillion said:
Fact of the matter is that sales are also massive promotional opportunities for little indies with small marketing budgets, bundles too since then you can piggyback on more known titles being tossed in with your game as well and make sales that you would never ever have gotten. I've got a whole host of games I've gotten as bycatch in bundles that I don't even intend to play, those devs wouldn't have gotten a cent from me if not for the bundle, even at 90% off.
Bottom line: It isn't hurting the indie devs, it's getting them more sales/revenue/profit than ever before.
Well he's right, anyone who buys a game on sale will have it devalued to them. They won't play it as much, they won't persevere as much when they run into difficult challenges and they won't apprieciate that...
Hold on...
I bought Dark Souls on a Steam Sale, which I consider the best game I've ever played...
Well what this guy's talking a load of crap isn't he?
Hold on...
I bought Dark Souls on a Steam Sale, which I consider the best game I've ever played...
Well what this guy's talking a load of crap isn't he?
I know; buying things because they're cheap...
I guess I should also stop buying bananas - Fairtrade or not, because then I'm seeing a banana as a commodity -, bread - because bread's really cheap around here - and stop drinking water, because most of the rest of the world has to pay a ton for water, and I'll just see it as a useless commodity.
Just like all those things, games are marketed as products. They may be art, but the whole point of making them is to make some money back, unless it's some kind of freeware personal project, or something along those lines - just like a painter trying to sell art.
... And, of course, publishers need money. So do the developers; if the publishers don't get money, they can't fund the developers, who in turn probably won't eat that night if they don't get funded and thus can't do their job. Publishers are often painted as evil corporations, but they're not. And publishers wantmoney, because they're in business.
...Positech. Nice name. Never buying anything from them; they sound crazy.
I guess I should also stop buying bananas - Fairtrade or not, because then I'm seeing a banana as a commodity -, bread - because bread's really cheap around here - and stop drinking water, because most of the rest of the world has to pay a ton for water, and I'll just see it as a useless commodity.
Just like all those things, games are marketed as products. They may be art, but the whole point of making them is to make some money back, unless it's some kind of freeware personal project, or something along those lines - just like a painter trying to sell art.
... And, of course, publishers need money. So do the developers; if the publishers don't get money, they can't fund the developers, who in turn probably won't eat that night if they don't get funded and thus can't do their job. Publishers are often painted as evil corporations, but they're not. And publishers wantmoney, because they're in business.
...Positech. Nice name. Never buying anything from them; they sound crazy.
I do get what he's saying, just by using my own habits as a case study.
I have a library of nearing 600 games, and I've only played less than a third of them. It's gotten to the point where I don't want to buy ANY games anymore because I have too many to play. The only reason I do anymore is because they are super cheap. A game isn't worth buying anymore until it's in the $5-$7.50 range because games have been so devalued to me. It's better to wait for a sale and play one of those 600 games than it is to buy a game at full price.
All that said, he's the head of a company, and a fucking moron. The Steam sales generate multiple times the profits that a game normally sells for when it hits 75% off, and for those that play the game, it generates hype for any sequels or other projects the team is working on. I got Sanctum a few years back, and I ended up buying it many times over for friends, as well as paying full price for Sanctum 2 and the season pass the moment it launched, all because I felt like I got too good of a deal when I bought the first game. I am now slightly interested in Goat Simulator not because sandboxing a goat sounds fun, but because Coffee Stain is working on it.
I have a library of nearing 600 games, and I've only played less than a third of them. It's gotten to the point where I don't want to buy ANY games anymore because I have too many to play. The only reason I do anymore is because they are super cheap. A game isn't worth buying anymore until it's in the $5-$7.50 range because games have been so devalued to me. It's better to wait for a sale and play one of those 600 games than it is to buy a game at full price.
All that said, he's the head of a company, and a fucking moron. The Steam sales generate multiple times the profits that a game normally sells for when it hits 75% off, and for those that play the game, it generates hype for any sequels or other projects the team is working on. I got Sanctum a few years back, and I ended up buying it many times over for friends, as well as paying full price for Sanctum 2 and the season pass the moment it launched, all because I felt like I got too good of a deal when I bought the first game. I am now slightly interested in Goat Simulator not because sandboxing a goat sounds fun, but because Coffee Stain is working on it.
This is one of my primary sticking points on the matter.Vivi22 said:
I've argued, ad nauseam, on how and why these "sales ruin the industry" assertions are, for the most part[footnote]But not all of them.[/footnote], bullshit and often demonstrate a lack of perspective on the part of the party making the assertion. Some of my common points have been brought up in this thread already. Others have not. (I don't plan to repeat them yet another damn time, so we'll leave it at that.) But, the one you've bought up is the biggest counterpoint of them all.
Virtually every negative claim and argument on the matter; that I've come across anyway; has been based almost entirely on assumptions and speculation. Yet, claims to the positive have a wealth of quantifiable evidence and data supporting them. From all corners of the industry; from the biggest of the triple-As to the smallest of the indies.
If Mr. Harris or others like him are willing and able to provide some proof of their assertions, then I'm willing to give their claims some merit.
Until then, they're all bullshitters who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
The only indie devs I ever hear complaining about this are the indie devs that try and over-sell their "indie" games for 30-40 on Steam. I bought both Papers, Please and Starbound at full price, because I heard they were great games and I wanted to play them. I really don't think you have legions of gamers waiting for sales for games that look really good and ones that they want to play- sales are good at allowing gamers who might have interest in a certain game but don't want to take the leap at face price a chance to buy it and try it out for much cheaper. But people who really want the big new open-world RPG or something aren't usually going to wait 6 months after release for a sale to play it.
It just smacks of developer greed and whining when instead of adapting to the new business environment, they just kick and scream about how low prices are always bad and hurt the industry when the industry, especially the indie games industry, is growing pretty rapidly and becoming more and more profitable.
It just smacks of developer greed and whining when instead of adapting to the new business environment, they just kick and scream about how low prices are always bad and hurt the industry when the industry, especially the indie games industry, is growing pretty rapidly and becoming more and more profitable.
I'm not offering any iron-clad answers. I'm just saying that it's a discussion worth having. I don't think there's any chance we'll deviate from the path we're on now, and we'll have to deal with whatever consequences arise, be it a gutting of the industry or an unprecedented bounty of gaming for all.Racecarlock said:
I would like to see a greater appreciation for the value of games, for the work that goes into them, and for the need of the people who make them to earn a decent living off of them. We're in a really weird place right now: Guys like Notch and Garry Newman can make millions from indie oddities, while an artist or a coder who worked on BioShock Infinite has virtually no job security. And no, we don't owe anyone a job or an income, but if we want the kind of gaming experiences we've come to take for granted, we have to be willing to pay for them - and that requires a respect for their true worth.
That's not necessarily related directly to Steam sales or Humble Bundles - a lot of developers would no doubt say they're very empowering - but people seem too eager to say "these games aren't worth full price" when the truth is they just don't want to pay that much.
I feel that this is a clear-cut case of Darwinian business, Andy. It's not that the sales are a bad thing, but where the wind is blowing due to the economic structure overall versus the manner in which a game does or does not appeal to the user. We're not being hooked OR crooked except by someone calling foul when he should be considering his alternatives. Or to put it more succinctly, it's adapt or die, and right now I don't see happy times for this fellow. However, even if he has any valid point to his argument at all, hope is not lost. The industry may shift and flux, but I will not entertain notions of doom and gloom while there is still oodles of money to be made in this field for those who know how.Andy Chalk said:
True worth? What is true worth?Andy Chalk said:
This is the true problem with the games industry, where two hour experiences like COD and open world games with countless hours of gameplay can have the same price for no reason.
AND it also allows developers on early access on steam to charge 30 dollars for unfinished games that may never get finished.
Even if you were somehow going to destroy sales, consumers are always going to be able to not buy the game, much as developers would prefer otherwise.
Same with movies, music, and food. There's a reason fast food isn't priced at 90 dolllars a burger. Because no one is going to pay 90 dollars for a burger if it's from a fast food chain. There's a reason people can rent movies and buy movies on DVD, sometimes in bargain bins. Some people don't want to pay full price to see a crap movie. There's a reason it costs more to go to the london philharmoic orchestra than it does to go to a local garage band concert.
I don't know what this "True Worth" thing is, but it sounds like bullshit.