[Davros]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Yeah, I agree. But until physical sales are no longer relevant it's an unfortunate situation we have to live with.

Oh, you poor naive soul, I remember just before dd became a reality saying the same thing to people who were saying "since there are no duplicating and manufacturing costs games would be cheaper"

[hoho]

Originally Posted by Davros

Oh, you poor naive soul, I remember just before dd became a reality saying the same thing to people who were saying "since there are no duplicating and manufacturing costs games would be cheaper"

When was the last time a relatively big-named game retailed at <$30? Quite a few have done that on DD.


Also, isn't it so that compared to DD only a tiny fraction of the end-user paid price reaches publishers-developers? They'd likely get higher margins from a DD at half the price vs retail.

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by hoho

When was the last time a relatively big-named game retailed at <$30? Quite a few have done that on DD.

On the other hand, Skyrim was $10 more than Oblivion (which had no DDL option). EA has most of their PC games at $60 now. Dead Space 1 was $40 at retail, Dead Space 2 was $60 DDL.

I can remember a few of the new-ish 10% off launch "sales", but I'm not sure that games are becoming cheaper overall. PC retail barely exists anymore but prices are being determined by the console retail prices instead of DDL cost reduction. The smaller publishers and the self-publishers do seem willing to experiment with lower pricing. The giant publishers probably have studied their pricing and believe that they aren't losing sales - people will pay for their game brands.

[sonix666]

I recently started buying retail again instead of digital. Not because I like a hard medium, just because the launch prices in retail channels over here can vary from 10 to 20 EUR cheaper than any digital medium. And that's quite steep.

[Rodéric]

Physical product is often cheaper that DD, which tells you how wrong this world is.

[pcchen]

Another problem with Steam's DD is that Steam uses the US price for Taiwan market, and that means it's much more expensive than normal retail price here.

For example, Skyrim is US$59.95 on Steam at release. At the same time, the street price for a physical media version (Windows version, console versions are generally more expensive) is about US$45 here, and that's a US$15 difference.

EA's Origin does have a local store selling at local price, so there shouldn't be a price difference. However, physical retail channels often sell a little cheaper than MSRP, so DD is still a little more expensive.

[hoho]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

Physical product is often cheaper that DD

This highly depends on where you buy the physical product.

Steam does have some regions with half-decent prices. For example I know that stuff in Russia costs a TON less than everywhere else and according to their own words Russia is now one of their biggest markets in Europe.

[Davros]

its a global store open to everyone
"hello how much is skyrim"
"it depends where do you live"
"england"
"that will be $50"
"oops did i say england, I meant taiwan"
"oh, in that case its $45"
"no not taiwan i mean ethiopia"
"$20"

[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by Davros

its a global store open to everyone
"hello how much is skyrim"
"it depends where do you live"
"england"
"that will be $50"
"oops did i say england, I meant taiwan"
"oh, in that case its $45"
"no not taiwan i mean ethiopia"
"$20"

Yes that sounds a lot like "Depends... How much money you got ?"
That's illegal in my country BTW, why should it be legal on Earth ?
Whomever you are, wherever you are, virtual goods should cost the same price.

[pcchen]

Only if it's that simple. For example, many countries have different tax laws. VAT in Europe is generally much higher than other places, and that certainly going to make a difference in price. Processing fees can also be different in different countries. Other than VAT and processing fees, there are also different laws need to comply. Some countries require every game to be filed for examination (for age rating, for example), while some don't. Should you amortize the cost or not?

Cost problems aside, the basic economy rule is: you set the price to get maximum profit, not according to your cost or something. There's no rule saying because something is cheaper to make it should be sold cheaper.

I don't really care if Steam wants to continue its "the same price everywhere" policy (and apparently they do have a different price for some larger markets). As long as I can buy games from physical retail channels cheaper I'll continue to do that. It's, as I said, Steam's problem, not mine.

[Rodéric]

Ok, same price before taxes ;p

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

Ok, same price before taxes ;p

That still doesn't work as you have to take into account the local economy and average wage.

Why is that important because it all factors into the cost of doing business in that country.

If you have to pay a minimum wage monkey to sell the game that's going to already start putting lower boundaries on what you can charge. If you have to pay a lease for a store location that's going to add to it. Utilities, more added cost. Are you required to pay unemployment tax? Business licence? Business taxes? Social Security taxes? Are businesses required to pay into a government run health care system?

In the US you have to take all of those into account. And with my state having a 9 USD minimum wage for high school monkies working at game stores that already sets the labor bar pretty high. And unemployment tax (employer paid versus worked paid) is based off the minimum wage.

Lets go to that third world country. Is their labor as expensive? Are business taxes as expensive? Do they have to pay social security taxes? Is leasing store space as expensive? Utilities? Highly unlikely. Hence cost of doing business is signficantly cheaper in those countries and hence goods can be sold cheaper even if the cost to manufacture (physical goods) or margins (software) remain the same.

One way I've found to gauge the relative economic state of a country is to look at the price of prepared food (restaurants and the like), and compare that to other countries/regions. It's not foolproof as some countries have to import more food than others, but it gives a nice ballpark from which you can guage how thing will generally be priced there relative to other countries.

Just because Product X sells for Y in the US while it sells for W in some other country does not mean that the return on investment is higher in the US just because that third world country is paying less (when local currency is exchanged for US currency, which also obfuscates the true value of a product in various countries).

As to Retail vs. DD. Publishers set the price of games, not Steam. And Steam is only allowed to charge MSRP for games, they can't discount that without publisher approval. Retail stores (etail as well) can discount to their hearts content. If they want to eat into their margins they can. If they want to use it as a loss leader to attract customers to their store, they can. Hence why you see many retail stores heavily discount (and thus eat into their margins) in order to attract customers who would otherwise buy online or digitally.

EA owning Origin basically gets to do whatever they want with their product prices (as long as the product is published by EA), but even they are unlikely to risk angering retail outlets by pricing lower than them at launch. Although pricing themselves relative to the retail conditions in foreign countries could be seen as them using it as a competitive advange. [1] disallow Steam from deviating from the US retail price. [2] on Origin, price relative to the local retail market and not the US price. [3] Profit and artificially make Steam appear less attractive.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

@ pchen @ budda, valid points, but this is a store that is based in the u.s pays u.s taxes, has u.s costs, pays u.s wages
their costs dont suddenly lower (or higher) just because the customer comes from a low tax country (or any other metric that applies to a physcical local store)

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Davros

@ pchen @ budda, valid points, but this is a store that is based in the u.s pays u.s taxes, has u.s costs, pays u.s wages
their costs dont suddenly lower (or higher) just because the customer comes from a low tax country (or any other metric that applies to a physcical local store)

The taxes they pay, the infrastructure they use (datacenter's/bandwidth/etc.), any regional offices they may have, etc. will all play a part. As well as any government restrictions on doing business in said country. Unlike the US and EU, many of the 3rd world countries can be highly protectionist and actively attempt to protect local businesses and economies. You can't do business in a country without first getting approval from that countries govenment to do business in that country. At least not legally. Although direct imports/exports can skirt some of that to a degree, but you risk governement seizures of unapproved products at customs in those cases.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

but they arnt doing business in that country, they are in the u.s the only way a governent could stop dd would be to block the website

[pcchen]

Originally Posted by Davros

but they arnt doing business in that country, they are in the u.s the only way a governent could stop dd would be to block the website

Unless you don't want to do business with customers in the said country (in early days you can see a lot of that happening, and for a more recent example, iTunes Music Store still doesn't exist in Taiwan), you'll want to do a lot of legal works in order to sell something in large quantities in a country, virtual or not.

And, yes, this is all about expanding into new markets. If you think your goods are only going to be popular in the US, then of course you don't have to bother with foreign markets. However, with China becomes the second largest economy, and Russia rising quickly, etc. many business do want to expand their market. As long as the price is profitable and enough to cover the fixed cost, it's worth doing.

Now we go back to see why there are regional price differentiation. Since the best price is which maximizes the profit, so, in theory, the price should be determined by demand curve and supply curve. In the case of virtual goods, supply can be seen as infinite (i.e. the supply curve is basically flat), so all you need to do is to find out the "optimal" price such that

"number of customers for the given price" X "price - per unit cost"

is maximized. Apparently, the "number of customers" for a price bracket will be very different country by country.

If we live in an ideal world where everyone uses the same currency and there is no trade barrier and CPI is the same everywhere, then it makes sense to have the same price everywhere. Unfortunately, our world is still far from that and from the current situation of Euro zone we are probably not going to be near that status anytime soon.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Davros

but they arnt doing business in that country, they are in the u.s the only way a governent could stop dd would be to block the website

As pcchen already touched on. The location of your business is irrelevant. If you wish to legally sell product in any country you must get approval of that countries government.

Again small scale import/export of goods by private buyers can skirt this issue, but it isn't uncommon for goods obtained this way to get seized at customs by governement agencies of those countries if they do not wish that product to be sold in their country.

Any large scale business will inevitably have to gain goverment approval before goods may be legally sold to their citizens.

Hence if you look at large online e-tailers, you can often find lists of goods they can and cannot sell (ship) to your country. Smaller shops will try to sneak under the radar through personal import/export. It's why black market sales of goods and products is still big in many countries.

Regards,
SB

[AlStrong]

Picked up the weekend deal for Deus Ex (Augmented Edition) + all the DLC for just over $20.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

Picked up the weekend deal for Deus Ex (Augmented Edition) + all the DLC for just over $20.

It's an excellent deal. I was suprised the game didn't receive much more awards than it did.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll repeat it, DD prices are always higher for me than retail. I only buy DD when it's on sale and mostly they just match whatever it's selling in stores over here with the exception of those Summer/Winter sales.

[swaaye]

I wouldn't be surprised if Deus Ex's cyberpunk setting isn't popular enough to get the same attention as other genres. It's not fantasy. It's not a coop military shooter. Etc.

I beat it and liked it a lot but I'm a sci-fi nut.

[AlStrong]

What should I pick for AA mode? Auto-detect chose MLAA.

Actually, is there a guide on the graphics settings? Not sure if I should waste ms with soft shadows, DOF on high, or SSAO on high.

[Davros]

Originally Posted by pcchen

, iTunes Music Store still doesn't exist in Taiwan),

It doesnt need to exist in Taiwan, it exists in the u.s or if you like in cyberspace are you saying you cannot access the itunes store from Taiwan ? what happens when you try ???
If I or my company (if I had one) setup a web site in the u.k selling downloadable games I made I cant believe i have to get permission from the tiawanese goverment to sell something to someone in Taiwan, from my point of view why would I care what country a customer lives in (except to offer the games in local currency or provide localizations)

Again small scale import/export of goods by private buyers can skirt this issue, but it isn't uncommon for goods obtained this way to get seized at customs by governement agencies of those countries if they do not wish that product to be sold in their country.

There are no customs with direct download (remember we arnt talking about physical goods here, we are talking about bytes, hence all the conditions that would make the product have a different price Dependant on location dont apply)

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

What should I pick for AA mode? Auto-detect chose MLAA.

Actually, is there a guide on the graphics settings? Not sure if I should waste ms with soft shadows, DOF on high, or SSAO on high.

None of the AA is ideal so go with whatever you prefer. I believe the MLAA option is only allowed with DX11 so that may be why it gets autoselected (if you are in DX11 mode). If you want something better, the universal SMAA inject that's around the net might be interesting.

Other stuff is also personal preference. If you have to read about it in a guide to notice it, you might be wasting your time.

[Davros]

Is alstrong using a nv card does it have an option to apply nv's version of post process aa
like the way ccc has an option to apply mlaa to any game ?

[AlStrong]

AMD GPU