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Aaron wrote:But don't the low sales of PC games cause the publishers to hike up the price to get the budget back?
~Psychotic~ wrote:It won't get your voice heard by the people over at Electronic Arts or Actiblizzion.
Dae wrote:~Psychotic~ wrote:It won't get your voice heard by the people over at Electronic Arts or Actiblizzion.
It doesn't reallymatter for me I just wanted to express my opinion.
Dae wrote:More and more often here, on YouTube and many other sites, I hear a dispute about pirating games for PCs. The reason is that game devs now blame players for downloading games instead of buying, and that, as they think, is the reason of PC discrediting itself as a gaming platform.
I'm not really following the gaming market, but I've got my simple opinion: f-ck off with your yelping!
Economics theory says: a too high price on the oligopolistic market creates a black market.
The computer game market is a perfect example of an oligopoly — there are like ten major players for the whole world: EA, Eidos/SCi, Activision, Microsoft, etc. The pirating of games on the computer game market is a perfect example of a black market.
In other words, if you, game developer/producer, want to defeat pirating and get higher profits for selling games — cut your prices. $50+ for a game is absolutely & undoubtedly over the top.
In other words:
— now, with price $50/piece you need to sell 200k copies to get 10 mln $.
— with price $15/piece you'd need to sell 700k copies to get 10 mln $. But I'm pretty sure you'd sell more than 700k copies because the consumer will be happier to buy a decent game for such price, and there will be a lot of "random purchases", when people buy because they like the cover. I don't think a lot of people spend $50 on a game, without reading anything about it in the internet beforehand.
Additionally, 700k players are more profitable than 200k players, because
— 700k players could spread a word about your awesome game to more people, than 200k players
— 700k players will recognize your brand name (brand name price goes up, higher stock prices, hint hint) + better start for other games
— 700k players may generate more fun for themselves — multiplayer, mods etc. That will attract a lot of new buyers
— there will more diehard fans among those 700k players, they will buy more of your T-shirts, god damn it!
High costs? Bullshit. Learn to reduce your costs. And risks.
Optimize game engines, so you don't have to spend a lot of time on them. Nokia cooperated with Sony to make Symbian OS for their camera/smartphones, and I must say it's a great OS. Not necessarily that you share work with competitors, maybe among the departments — would be good too.
The gaming market has reached the level when it becomes harder to improve graphics significantly because there is a limit of technological possibilities of console, and PC parts make smaller steps of improvement (I bought Nvidia 8800 a year ago, it's still considered good, I won't buy some high-end video-card to get 5 more frames per second). In addition, HL2 graphics is still considered good — while HL2 was released 4 years ago, in 2004. Noone considered Deus Ex graphics good in 2004.
Besides that, the gamers will be fine about not-absolutely-astonishing graphics if your game is beautiful ("beautiful" and "good graphics" isn't the same thing) and playable.
Reduce your risks. High risks = harder to get investments. it's a common rule in the economics. How do you reduce risks? Make less "average" titles, make less sucky continuations (like Deus Ex 2, for example). The producers should reduce pressure on the developers. Also, you suck when you try to make a "mass" game with as dumb story as possible. The masses aren't as dumb as you might think.
Fire your marketing departments (also, cost cutting! ;-D). Listen to gamers, simple as that.
That's my opinion.
Dae wrote:Aaron wrote:But don't the low sales of PC games cause the publishers to hike up the price to get the budget back?
pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => etc.
one leads to another, endless loop
If the publishers are interested in breaking this loop, they've gotta make the first step. (But they don't seem to be!)
We, the as all the customers, can do nothing about that. If I stopped downloading games and started buying all of them, if all people on our forum did the same — it'd still be a drop in the bucket, because dozens of millions of people all over the world would keep downloading the games nevertheless.
The only solution is to lower the prices, improve the quality and optimize costs. The producers don't do that because they act in a monopolistic collusion. Instead, they waste money on anti-piracy campaigns. And then blame us for downloading.
Dae wrote:The only solution is to lower the prices, improve the quality and optimize costs. The producers don't do that because they act in a monopolistic collusion.
James wrote:Of course I do I'm living the dream!!!!
DJ wrote:wat dream
Chloe wrote:me, ofc
Chloe wrote:Btw, if you have pirated a game, you can't play online.
Steam?
Chloe wrote:Cause of pirating, Game developpers will stop make games for PCs lol ;[
DeathMaster wrote:I believe that the money they put into anti-piracy campaigns would be enough to develop a kickass copy protection software.
James wrote:Steam?
Did you accidently mention this lol, you can pirate games and use their shortcuts on steam but lol no chance you can play the games online unless you go to dodgy non-VAC Russian servers.
Dae wrote:every kickass copy protection software will eventually be cracked
•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.
~Psychotic~ wrote:•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.
I always hated those though, because it gives other people with money more of an advantage. They don't earn it through skill, they just go online and buy the item.
James wrote:Of course I do I'm living the dream!!!!
DJ wrote:wat dream
Chloe wrote:me, ofc
~Psychotic~ wrote:•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.
I always hated those though, because it gives other people with money more of an advantage. They don't earn it through skill, they just go online and buy the item.
Not everyone can afford to do that, or is so cheap as to go and do that.
Business Week wrote:<...>The most aggressive price cut has come in China, where Microsoft says 95% of Office installations have been pirated. Since it began testing a $29 offer in China last September, sales have soared more than 800%.
The Escapist wrote:Activision revealed last week that it will be charging £54.99 (roughly $90) for the standard edition of Modern Warfare 2 in the U.K., a substantial increase over the usual price point for major game releases. High development costs and a weak British currency were blamed for the hike but Pachter says the reality is something entirely different.
Psychotic wrote:"Pachter thinks the question of whether this is fair is "a difficult one" to answer. Games, he explained, are cheaper to buy today but contain better graphics, gameplay and online functionality."
WHAT? YOU FUCKING COCK SUCKER. Maybe YOU can afford $120 for a video game but not everyone wants to pay that much. And furthermore:
"My guess is that this is a one-time test for Activision, and that they will re-think the strategy after seeing if it angers consumers," offered Pachter. "If there is no consumer backlash, I think we may see higher pricing on other games, regardless of the GBP/USD translation rate."
What a fucking money-hungry douche-bag. Fucking pricks wouldn't have gotten where they were today if it wasn't for us. WHO DO THEY THINK PAYS THEIR FUCKING BILLS? Not that bum down the street, no the CONSUMERS do, the people who BUY THEIR FUCKING PRODUCTS. I guess these dumbasses have never heard about recessions and what they mean. I can barely pay to fucking live and learn let alone eat and play games.
Fucking megalomaniacs.