[woundingchaney]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

Threre is no point in comparing things in terms of hours of enjoyment. Someone can buy a book for 5x less and get a lot more value out of it. Game's worth needs to be evaluated disregarding its price and the ammount of time it takes to finish it. A "value for money" criterion should be replaced with "value for time". If all games costed nothing the question which should be asked is whether any of them are worth anything.

Typically I view a game as a dollar for entertainment hour ratio. If I play a game 40 hours and invest 60 in the game then Im only spending 1.5 dollars per entertainment hour. Which realistically is a rather good deal considering the cost of various other forms of entertainment.

[poopypoo]

weird, i agree with green.pixel about something. i think games' merit should generally be debated on a value vs time comparison, too. this opinion is chiefly in regards to reviewing games. however, where we disagree is in the absolutism. you can't NEVER judge games based on price unless you have infinite monies. ultimately, when you're in the shop and the various summer dlc bundles roll through, at least some part of you probably SHOULD be thinking, hmm, how long will I really enjoy HORSE ARMOR? maybe this wholly new continent for game XX for $5 will have better odds of panning out. given the deplorable state of dlc reviews this seems a vital step... not always revealing the best choice but often wise.

We only bought civ v this summer; gods+kings plus all the dlc. G+K is a really nifty expansion. The game would be better with more attwntion spent on the AI than the miserable new espionage system, but... at least the religion system feels quite exciting for one or two games, and restores a lot of the proper feel of ancient civilizations.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

Threre is no point in comparing things in terms of hours of enjoyment.

Well then choose any unit of value that makes sense to you. I don't always use hours either. It could be the uniqueness or the thrill of the experience, quality of the story etc. Whatever metric you use the point still stands.

I got Witcher on Steam for like $10. I grossly underpaid for that. However I was a dolt and paid $60 for Diablo 3. What these sales do is seriously reduce buyer's remorse but thanks to them I've paid a pittance for games that are worth much more than the sale price. EA has a point that these sales are damaging to fair value pricing especially for good titles.

[poopypoo]

trinibwoy, i gotta disagree. think, it's only been in the last few years that a game was worth more than $1.99 a couple months after release. I think summer sales and the like have done a lot to speed up the embrace of digital distros like Steam, which in turn has had a net effect of increasing overall publisher takehome $. With no respite from $40 game prices, a lot of people like myself would still be buying boxed titles deeply discounted from amazon etc. How much do you think EA made from $3.99 boxed copies of Crysis?

[poopypoo]

I would admit, though, for the best games, prices could probably average higher. The Sims prices are outrageously high, but if you wanna play the Sims, what are ya gonna do?

[trinibwoy]

Yeah I guess we'll disagree cause I see nothing wrong with paying $40 for a game I don't understand the thinking that games should be worth $5 and $10. That's less than I spend on lunch! It seems to me that Steam has bred a feeling of entitlement to great games at a pittance.

[Malo]

Steam sales are just opportunistic savings on older games that weren't considered purchasing upon release. Either due to financial constraints at the time, or subjective judgement of worth.

[Pete]

Speaking of value for playtime, Steam's Quakecon sale has Morrowind and Oblivion GotY Editions at $7 each.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Malo

Steam sales are just opportunistic savings on older games that weren't considered purchasing upon release. Either due to financial constraints at the time, or subjective judgement of worth.

Yeah for sure, the only PC games I've paid "full price" for recently are BC2, BF3 and D3. I'm still working on titles from 2007 over here so the depreciation curve works out great.

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

EA has a point that these sales are damaging to fair value pricing especially for good titles.

And a week after they've said that, they've used the same tactics they think are damaging on their own store. Valve disagress with them- http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rty-accusation. And they have gone on record multiple times before that they sell more normal priced stuff after a big sale than they do before it.

Someone who bought The Witcher for $10 could have pre-ordered the sequel at 5x that price because they liked it and wanted to play the sequel day one and support the developers at full price.

I hope you realise that people end up spending more money as a whole when there are sales, and they don't stop doing regular purchases because sales exist. If the system didn't work, developers and publishers wouldn't participate.

Originally Posted by Malo

Since when was popularity tied to quality? That goes against the entire teen pop culture.

This is from Arthur Schopenhauer's essay "On Books and Reading":

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whateever may be engaging the attention of the general public at an particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Which for gaming can become:

The art of not playing is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at an particular time. When some FPS or TPS, or RPG, or MMORPG is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who designs games for fools always finds a large public.

One can never play too little of bad, or too much of good games: bad games are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to play what is good one must make it a condition never to play what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

[MfA]

It's developers which decide to go for the short term profits, some of the big ones could easily stick to their guns and try to build a high quality brand image ... but then they see the short term profits and they don't. Their choice ... should Valve save them from themselves by denying less famous developers one of the best tools to get attention?

I'm pretty sure discounted Witcher sales helped boost Witcher 2.

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by MfA

It's developers which decide to go for the short term profits, some of the big ones could easily stick to their guns and try to build a high quality brand image ... but then they see the short term profits and they don't.

Words "EA" and "long term" clash pretty often - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=128.

[Rodéric]

It's basic stuff.
Sell a product for a high price first, then drop it as time pass so that people who didn't want to purchase it at the original price get a chance, continue until all the people interested in your product have purchased it, done.
In essence that means original customers paid a premium for early access.

It's better to get a little money rather than none at all, hence why dropping price with time makes sense.

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

It's basic stuff.
Sell a product for a high price first, then drop it as time pass so that people who didn't want to purchase it at the original price get a chance, continue until all the people interested in your product have purchased it, done.
In essence that means original customers paid a premium for early access.

It's better to get a little money rather than none at all, hence why dropping price with time makes sense.

This isn't actually basic stuff. This is slightly advanced stuff that did not used to be possible with physical retail. When you have physical products to sell you cannot sell them for as high of prices when maximizing profit. This is because of storage costs and manufacturing costs etc... Sure pre-orders still worked well b/c then you knew how many to produce, but you still had to aim lower on the cost curve. Now with digital distribution a company can mine out all the consumer surplus bit by bit since storage costs are not tied to how many you sell. You don't get residual products no one wants you have to deal with or sell super cheap either. They get instant tracking of the consumers changes in purchasing with price and whether they get the sequels after buying the prequels etc. It is all fairly fancy.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

Someone who bought The Witcher for $10 could have pre-ordered the sequel at 5x that price because they liked it and wanted to play the sequel day one and support the developers at full price.

I hope you realise that people end up spending more money as a whole when there are sales, and they don't stop doing regular purchases because sales exist. If the system didn't work, developers and publishers wouldn't participate.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying sale prices dont increase sales or generate revenue. All I said was that I don't get the mentality that games $40 or $50 games are overpriced. A big part of that is due to these amazing Steam sales.

Originally Posted by Sxotty

When you have physical products to sell you cannot sell them for as high of prices when maximizing profit. This is because of storage costs and manufacturing costs etc... Sure pre-orders still worked well b/c then you knew how many to produce, but you still had to aim lower on the cost curve. Now with digital distribution a company can mine out all the consumer surplus bit by bit since storage costs are not tied to how many you sell. You don't get residual products no one wants you have to deal with or sell super cheap either. They get instant tracking of the consumers changes in purchasing with price and whether they get the sequels after buying the prequels etc. It is all fairly fancy.

Yep, great point.

[Rodéric]

The huge advantage of software is that duplication is inexpensive, you don't have inventories and you can change prices at a moment notice (if selling online), indeed.

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

All I said was that I don't get the mentality that games $40 or $50 games are overpriced.

Do you think that a game would earn more money by launching at say $30 instead of $50? Has any publisher tried that experiment?

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

Do you think that a game would earn more money by launching at say $30 instead of $50? Has any publisher tried that experiment?

Well first of all I'm looking at it more from a value to the customer angle. There's no way a good game is "worth" only 10 bucks. I'm not that concerned with the corporate profit maximization that you're focused on.

In terms of profits I have idea what the ideal price is but the current model looks good. Collectors editions and launch prices maximize income from fans, impulse buyers and the hype machine. Lower prices later on grab another huge swath of the market for another surge in revenue.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

Do you think that a game would earn more money by launching at say $30 instead of $50? Has any publisher tried that experiment?

Possibly but that ignores a simple economic fact.

At any given price point there are likely to be people interested in buying that.

So...
...at 150 USD there's W amount of people
...at 100 USD there's X (which includes all of the above) amount of people
...at 50 USD there's Y (which includes all of the above) amount of people
...at 25 USD there's Z (which includes all of the above) amount of people

If you sell at 25 USD, you're likely to not make as much money as if you sold at 50 USD and then in a few months sold it at 25 USD.

It's quite possible that you could make more money by selling it intially at 100 USD, then 50, then 25. But at 100 USD you may not get enough purchasers to keep your company afloat for very long.

In the past, the fixed cost of physical media, packaging, shipping and handling, and retailer inventory meant you couldn't quickly address changes in buying habits.

Steam and digital distribution in general, allow a developer (if they so choose) to quickly reduce prices once the people willing to pay 50 or 60 USD becomes a trickle. They can then easily go to 20% off or 25% off. Eventually going all the way down to 66-75% off. Perhaps even 90% off eventually.

By the time they get to the 66-75% off range, chances are they've made their developement costs back already and now it's mostly profit. At the full price of 50 or 60 USD they are likely still recouping development costs for your average title, while blockbusters will likely recoup all costs during that initial buying frenzy. Average and little advertised products may not start to make a profit until the 20-50% off phase.

If they all started at a lower price that just means it'll take that much longer before they recoup their initial investment and start making a profit. And if they run out of potential buyers, the original developers may never see a dime as the publishers keep reducing the price to try to get new buyers in an attempt to recoup their initial advance to the developers to make the title in the first place.

Regards,
SB

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Well first of all I'm looking at it more from a value to the customer angle.

So do I. I was thinking that if a game can earn more money that way it benefits both players and developers. Even if it makes the same ammount of money (it can make significantly more), twice as many people are playing the game and potentially twice as many future customers. If I were a dev, I would rather have my game sell 1M copies at $25 than 500K at $50.

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

There's no way a good game is "worth" only 10 bucks.

Not every game should cost $50-60 on release. In others parts of the world, it's more ridiculous because of the currency conversions and purchase powering parity and income percentage.

There are great games that are free, although they don't have much of a presentation (roguelikes). Also, mods.

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

If I play a game 40 hours and invest 60 in the game then Im only spending 1.5 dollars per entertainment hour.

Well, there are games with 40+ if not 100+ hours of nothing but mostly grind. From my perspective they are worthless even if you could get them for $1. The biggest problem is, the majority of people have shitty taste and will buy games purely because of the shininess, marketing hype, worthless game ciriticism, brand name or all of this things together.

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

If you sell at 25 USD, you're likely to not make as much money as if you sold at 50 USD and then in a few months sold it at 25 USD.

If they all started at a lower price that just means it'll take that much longer before they recoup their initial investment and start making a profit.

See the case of Mirror's Edge. It was around $20 six months after the PC release. If it was released at $25/$30 then a lot more people would have probably bought it. EA missed the time window to significantly increase sales based on different pricing strategy.

[Rodéric]

Why are you all neglecting the *quality* of entertainement ?
Dividing the price by the length is not nearly enough to approximate.

The usual understanding of the phenomenom is that:
As desire increases, satisfaction once fullfilled will increase.
A satisfied desire drops the value of whatever was desired significantly (fullfilement).

So if you want ice cream for a while and get one, you'll be deeply satisfied, now if you take a second you'll not be nearly as much as with the first, and if you take a third it will be even lower.

I'd guess that we have so many similar games that we are quite satisfied and it takes a lot to make us purchase a new product, as we don't really want any more that much, but still hope for the odd flavour that will give us the same satisfaction as the first we got.
Basically games aren't rare enough ;p (some genre are though, not seen an X-Wing in a long while )

By the way, that's basic psychology or socio-psychology, I did study both a little, and I'm suprised not more of you know of it...

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by green.pixel

See the case of Mirror's Edge. It was around $20 six months after the PC release. If it was released at $25/$30 then a lot more people would have probably bought it. EA missed the time window to significantly increase sales based on different pricing strategy.

It is possible that you could miss the PR bump by having the price to high initially or that you could create a backlash against your game. That is why they launch at 50-60 instead of trying to sell at 100 first and coming down. If they did 100 then a few people would still buy it, but many would get super angry and say company X is terrible I won't buy from them ever!!! In addition if a game requires/needs/benefits from a large community due to multiplayer then launching at a high price can damage the ability to create a community. I would say that a game like Quake Wars that was trying to edge into a very crowded marketplace with minimal name recognition would be an example of that. Selling for $30 to begin with could drastically help.

If you are talking Skyrim or something like that then there is no real reason to do so though.

[green.pixel]

[poopypoo]

Hehe.... what do ya wanna bet Origin's Mac launch starts with... a SALE!! It's a long-established methid of gaining market share. EA's just mad Valve thought of it first!

[Grall]

I'm not betting against that.

Sales and big exclusive titles = the way you dominate.