You Hate, We Love
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
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I have to agree with this in some respects. We think we deserve inexpensive access to large amounts of games. Honestly, playing games casually isn't very expensive, but yes there's money involved the more involved you are. As an example, several of my friends in college played the Warhammer 40k table-top game. Y'know, with all the figures and painting and whatnot. And even though I wanted to join in with my own army, I simply didn't have the money to buy a significant force, nor the extra time to build and paint them properly. So as much as I wanted to play, I simply couldn't afford it. But it's not like I deserved to play. I'm not entitled to inexpensive WH40K models. So in the end, I just used other's armies and played a little.FloodOne said:
I guess the point is that if a hobby is too expensive, should we really blame the hobby?
I have a not one problem with any of those things...except cosplay...and that's only when it's done wrong. When you almost barely recognize who they're supposed to be or they just look nasty...they're doing it wrong.
I'm sorry but that is the most ridiculous comparison I have ever heard. I think it's actually ridiculous no matter how you look at it. To compare funding treatment for a disease that kills millions to DRM is crazy. Even if you ignored that. The comparison still breaks down. They don't release something that kills patients because it also decreases X number of symptoms. Developers just find something they think will work, and force it on their paying customers, then say sorry and release a patch when they find customers can't play the game they paid for (yeah, looking at you SecureROM).Seldon2639 said:
I just...I don't...I can't comprehend how you can be okay with this. I'll borrow somebody else's example: If you buy a car new, you get the doors and tires, but if you trade it in, the next person to buy it is going to have to get a new set of tires and doors? Isn't that preposterous?! What makes game publishers so special, that they get to give the free market the middle finger. And if you try to assert that this is just another part of the free market system, no, this is arm wrestling with the Invisible Hand. The scary part, is that they could win.FloodOne said:
While I do not paper my walls with $20 bills, I am by no means poor, but money is not the root of the issue. My problem is the permanence of games, and the belief that I am somehow harming them by buying used. The latter is insulting to me, but all my arguments for it go off on tangents, so I will let it rest. However, if, 100 years from now, someone unearths a working Playstation (the original) and a copy of Valkyrie Profile, they will be able to play a complete and full game. If they found instead, Call of Duty: Black Ops, (or any of the next bastard offspring from this business plan*) they would instead have a gimped and possibly unplayable game. If you have the disc, and you have the console, you should have the game. That is what we've had for years, and to suggest that getting less is okay should be an affront to gamers.
As you have closed your post casting aspersions on my spending power, I shall do in kind for the games industry:
If they need to wring the market for every cent it has to stay profitable, maybe they should examine their content quality.
*Well, looking at that, it will probably take a few iterations for the system to devolve into cutting core features, but I want to put it in terms that care weight, rather than suppositions that could be written off as too far-sighted.
I won't be the first to say it but by God i'm going to. I HATED this article!
HA!
*self satisfied expression*
HA!
*self satisfied expression*
I would argue that this could be getting into apples and oranges. While Warhammer may be justifiably expensive, videogames may not. (Not saying that either is fact, but that is how I feel). Also, when you buy the models, you can play the game, you do not need updates from the people manufacturers to enjoy the game as it is now. (such things are provided, but they are the essence of DLC, you don't need them, but they'll certainly enhance the experience)rsvp42 said:
If we were to achieve true parity of the analogies, when you went to borrow some of your friend's figures, you would only be able to have a certain amount (while the game might not be unplayable, you will certainly enjoy it less), and to fill out the rest of your army, you would need to purchase some from the manufacturer. Or perhaps your units wouldn't be able to utilize certain skills until you bought a certification from the Warhammer people. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Doesn't it?
As to entitlement, I'm not saying it needs to be cheap, I will (grudgingly) pay $60* for a great game, but what floods the market these days is assembly-line produced experiences, meant to be ingested like popcorn and expelled in time for the sequel. They make games practically designed for the used market, and then get pissed off when you buy them used. In fact, in light of this design philosophy, project Ten-dollar seems like a scam. And even if the game is a worthwhile experience, it's so riddled with flaws that it prevents it from being a full-price purchase (eg: Final Fantasy XIII or Bayonetta). The only (current) game I've played in the last year that I enjoyed entirely was Red Dead Redemption (although I haven't tried multiplayer)...oh, and Prototype.
*With regards to the standard $60 price-point: How can Super Street Figher IV and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift sell profitably at $40? Because they're re-releases of games that are already profitable. If companies took a policy of slashing prices after they'd made it to the black on a game (and maybe tossed in some DLC for good measure), they'd probably get a nice boost in sales. See, it's 2:50 am, I'm half-asleep, and I've already come up with a better business plan than "Milk your customer for all their worth."
What the games industry really needs is transparency. I can't tell you whether a sixty dollar price point is fair, because I don't know where those profits are going, or how the money was spent in the development of a game. But right now, all I have is my gut, and my gut says it isn't worth it.
Personally, I think those mass-produced, unassembled, unpainted figures should be a lot cheaper, but that's just me. To be certain, I'm not sure what's right. On the one hand, I'd love to fight for lower prices when I think something is too expensive, but I feel like I'm just complaining and causing myself grief when I could just chill out and learn to live with it. I think it's important to be an engaged and informed consumer, but maybe I'm just jaded. I'd prefer to take an effective course of action.Mysnomer said:
As for the analogy, I was comparing the hobbies as a whole, not specifically the issue of DLC. Games Workshop has their own ways to nickle-and-dime people, I'm sure. I agree that $60 for a game is a little too steep in most cases, but I actually don't buy a lot of games, so I think I have a different attitude towards the issue. This summer, I bought Starcraft 2 and Dragon Quest 9 (the latter of which was only $40, I think) and that was 6 months after the last purchase I made. I can't remember the last time I ever bought a crappy game. I usually know I'll like something beforehand, but maybe you've had less enjoyable experiences. I will agree that they should probably stop being so aggressive against used games. They need to add benefits to buying new without taking away anything from the used option.
As for your last point under the asterisk, don't companies already do that? Prices typically go down the longer a game has been on the shelves. Sometimes they even accelerate that with the "greatest hits" titles that go to $20 later on. Granted, that tends to be much later in a game's life and usually all your friends will have played it and moved on, but that's the incentive to buy new.
I've seen people put so much time and effort into their cosplay costumes it's mind-boggling and hoenstly, without cosplay I wouldn't have met some of the most amazing people in this world that I've met through cons nor would I be putting forth the effort of actually sitting down and learning to sew, a skill that would have come in handy ages ago.
I didn't get it. Was this article straight or sarcastic? I don't know! It starts up looking quite sarcastic then it looks straight then it looks sarcastic and it is ridiculous, because if it is sarcastic it is doing a bad job at it, and if it is straight it is doing a bad job at it as well.
Maybe there was miscommunication here. Steve Butts mustn't have read the whole memo, the part where it said.
"Yes, we want you to defend DRM seriously, really!"
Maybe there was miscommunication here. Steve Butts mustn't have read the whole memo, the part where it said.
"Yes, we want you to defend DRM seriously, really!"
Whoa whoa whoa. LARPers are below cosplayers. Just dressing up in costume is less nerdy than dressing up in costume and hitting each other with foam swords. I mean, on Halloween practically everyone cosplays. Right? Right?
Sorry, but I do think this article was poorly executed. Perhaps it was a problem of too many authors, but it seems very disjointed. The DRM article seems to be entirely tongue-in-cheek, but the others are played straight. While either approach is fine, they don't work in the same piece. We end up with four articles saying why (apparently) much-hated things are actually good, and a starting article saying that something which everyone hates should in fact be hated because it sucks.
Collectively, it just doesn't work.
Collectively, it just doesn't work.