Entitled gamers, corrupt press and greedy publishers
- Thread starter patsu
- Start date
I guess I look at the whole always online thing pragmatically, the same way I look at the no used game thing.
Publishers build what they think will sell, they restrict sales or play in order to in their opinion increase income, I have no problem with anything they do as long as there is full disclosure, and I can factor it into my purchase decision.
I almost never play Diablo with anyone else, wasn't a big selling point for me, but I'll live with the always online cost to play the game, my choice, if I couldn't live with that I wouldn't have bought it.
The Sim City issues are a little more complicated because EA/Maxis screwed up with the servers and if they choose to insist on online only play then they have an obligation to provide the service.
I happen to know many of the SimCity team, and I have probably more info than most of the internet, and while it was an appallingly messed up launch, I don't believe there was any malicious intent or for that matter intent to deceive.
Publishers build what they think will sell, they restrict sales or play in order to in their opinion increase income, I have no problem with anything they do as long as there is full disclosure, and I can factor it into my purchase decision.
I almost never play Diablo with anyone else, wasn't a big selling point for me, but I'll live with the always online cost to play the game, my choice, if I couldn't live with that I wouldn't have bought it.
The Sim City issues are a little more complicated because EA/Maxis screwed up with the servers and if they choose to insist on online only play then they have an obligation to provide the service.
I happen to know many of the SimCity team, and I have probably more info than most of the internet, and while it was an appallingly messed up launch, I don't believe there was any malicious intent or for that matter intent to deceive.
Sure but it's not entirely false, the simulation does transmit state to the servers, but it's extremely latency insensitive as in you could do it once a week, they did choose a very aggressive maximum time for the DC.
It's unclear to me if Lucy was misinformed on the details or stretching the truth, she isn't a technical person. I guess experience with large companies is to err on the side of incompetence rather than maliciousness, since that's what I've largely observed from the inside.
Transmitting state is not even remotely like performing simulations and certainly doesn't prevent the code from being used offline with infrequent connects for "state" transmissions. What's more, when you play a private game there is no need for any state transmission as you're not connected to any multiplayer scenario. I don't see how anyone can let slide as "misinformed" or "not entirely false" such claims. They knew the always online was DRM. They knew it could run without servers. In fact I'll wager there are multiple server-less versions within EA/Maxis used for testing, etc.
They just didn't have the balls to say they're so paranoid about piracy (please read Super Meat Boy dev's comments on this) that they won't let anyone play it without a constant connection.
Ironically - and as a direct result of EA/Maxis' lies (uh would you prefer "misrepresentations"?) - I'll wager it will wind up as one of the most pirated games of 2013.
The only problem with this is that even good games fail to make money. Another thread mentioned how Hitman Absolution and Sleeping Dogs lost money. I played Hitman and really liked it, and I'm playing Sleeping Dogs now as well and also really like it. That's not enough anymore apparently as they still lost money. I think the answer is much simpler really, there are simply not enough paying core gamers out there to support the games available.
You do realize that, across all markets, the vast majority of new products don't make money, right?
That's business and especially so in entertainment / media. Don't know much about Sleeping Dogs, but Hitman got bad reviews - a bit like Waterworld (Movie with Kevin Costner), just because you spend a lot to make it doesn't mean it's going to be good.
So how well has that worked out for video game companies this past generation? There are new gaming consumers available today, rather than spend all money on just catering to the "core", they would be better served shifting some resources and going after other gaming markets. If 70% of your products don't make money then sorry, it makes no business sense to continue operating that way, as evidenced by the carnage of dead companies left behind this gen.
Again, take the movie business. 70% may lose money, but the other 30% (probably more like 20%) make that and then some. IMHO the biggest problem in both businesses is mismanagement and lack of innovation. Sure, there are guaranteed blockbusters (battlefield, CoD, etc.) but management (publishers) seem to feel more comfortable with a reboot of The Brady Bunch than something more risky and potentially more profitable. It's not a new story.
Indeed, many of the companies do focus a majority of their resources on "other gaming markets" like consoles, iPad, etc. In fact, I would have to guess that the amount of development going into strictly-PC gaming is minuscule by comparison.
I would have to guess that many problems stem from unrealistic expectations of publishers (along with their paranoia and board-excuses for missing targets owing to piracy rather than lukewarm products) tends to smother innovative developers. That's why more and more indy games are taking hold.
As to that, what kind of overhead/G&A structure gets levied on a developer once they become part of a big publisher? Is it realistic? Are the publishers bloated and passing the buck to the teams they "manage"? That would be my guess. Development cost is direct materials + labor + OH/GA. I'd really like to know that last bit of the equation since that's what the publishers skim for their offices, salaries and all that critical mentoring they give to their developers
Maybe they're money losers because they have a corporate structure that doesn't fit the market and needs to evolve.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-27-ea-drm-is-a-failed-dead-end-strategy
According to EA, DRM is bad and SimCity doesn't have DRM. It's an MMO instead.
So don't worry people, we'll no longer have DRM from EA published games. We'll just have lots and lots of MMOs.
According to EA, DRM is bad and SimCity doesn't have DRM. It's an MMO instead.
So don't worry people, we'll no longer have DRM from EA published games. We'll just have lots and lots of MMOs.
In the movie business innovation comes from the willingness of the participants to try something new and the financiers to be willing to fund it all. In the games business that part is the same but there is the added handicap of the console hardware which stifles innovation. You can only do so much when you are working with ancient console hardware. It's not uncommon to have people throw around ideas in a meeting only to be met with "The hardware can't do that yet". It's not like developers aren't willing to try new stuff, but if they can't figure out how to make hardware from the cretaceous period actually do it then the idea gets shelved. I'm sure others still in the business can confirm this, how often does a new product start with lofty plans and expectations, but then cut after cut is made to get it to work on current hardware and in the end the resultant product isn't all that different than other games currently available.
I think this is only just scratching the surface right now, I expect non core gaming related products and services to explode over the next decade. The amount of untapped non core gaming revenue out there waiting to be grabbed is absurd.
Piracy is a very real problem, but I've learned to not bother discussing that on forums anymore. I'll say this much, even on my personal websites that I run for my business which sell digital content, I get massive sales spikes everytime a big file sharing site goes down. That's how I found out for example about Megaupload being taken down, not from news articles but because my sales that day went through the roof. Likewise when Pirate Bay had a brief outage, when Oron was taken out, etc, every single huge sales spike on my sales graph is tied to some piracy related site being taken down. But I digress, I've learned by now that no one on forums thinks that rampant stealing has any effect on sales so I'm not gonna argue this one any further.
As to that, what kind of overhead/G&A structure gets levied on a developer once they become part of a big publisher? Is it realistic? Are the publishers bloated and passing the buck to the teams they "manage"? That would be my guess. Development cost is direct materials + labor + OH/GA. I'd really like to know that last bit of the equation since that's what the publishers skim for their offices, salaries and all that critical mentoring they give to their developers
Maybe they're money losers because they have a corporate structure that doesn't fit the market and needs to evolve.
Overhead is a very real problem, but that's what comes with multi million dollar products. The movie business is the same, there are so many hands in the pie. This is why there is a resurgence in the Indy scene, or smaller shops taking hold once again. But where do you cut? Spend less money on advertising? Ask the devs to crunch more but pay them less? Refuse to pay the console owners cut? Refuse to pay the publishers cut? Don't pay office space and have everyone work from home? I mean really, what do you do?
Silent_Buddha
Legend
You can already see this in action. EA (among others) for example investing heavily in browser based gaming.
The rise of popularity in funding F2P games by the large publishers. If you already know that people are going to pirate your game, then make a F2P version of it. And then make sure to have microtransactions to get more money from paying customers than they would have paid if you had released the game the traditional way. MMORPGs paved the way for this business model, but it's been so successful that many single player games are moving this direction as well, with token online MMO gameplay to distract from the reality that it really is just a single player game with microtransactions.
I imagine the pubs and developers are also looking at Kinect and PS4 with included camera and trying to think of ways to get the masses of casual gamers (who greatly outnumber core gamers) to buy their products. As well, you can see some companies (Disney) trying to replicate the runaway success that Activision has had with the Toy based Skylanders.
Yup I've seen that as well. I know a couple of independent film producers. When they first started out they had a decent stream of revenue. As they become more well known and their popularity increased, their revenue took a nosedive. It matched up with the increased pirating of their material on filesharing and torrenting sites. The hit was large enough that they were both in danger of going out of business despite their material being orders of magnitude more popular than it was previously. As soon as they hired a firm to track their product everywhere it popped up on filesharing and torrenting sites and started issuing DMCA takedown notices, their revenue skyrocketed as those people had no other option but to pay if they wanted to watch it. Now their business is quite healthy again.
Not that it surprised me very much. I've known lots of people that pirate things even when they could legitimately purchase it. They try to defend themselves by saying they would buy it if it was good. But then rarely do that. As they rave about how fantastic this movie was or that album was or how great this game was that they couldn't stop playing for hours an hours on end. And then never buy any of those things. I make them feel as guilty as I can by pointing out how much of a hypocrite they are, which gets them to buy stuff for a week or two, and then back to pirating they go.
It's why I always laugh anytime I see a report or claim that piracy is beneficial to content creators.
Regards,
SB
I don't pirate, period. The few things I've torrented or used Megaupload links for were ones I already owned with stupid ass DRM that prevented me from ripping to my iPad to watch on a plane.
Why is Steam such a success if piracy is so crazy? Why can't steam-style DRM with an offline mode work for PC games in general? With encryption what it is today, enforcing a 30 day signature check online would be simple and would allow consumers who literally pay for everything they watch and play to have the ability to watch and play them when and where they want.
It's the lack of that ability that drives people like me to the likes of Megaupload. I assure you one person like me spends more on media than 100 average pirates steal, likely more that 1000. Yet I pay the price...unless, of course, I say f*ck these greedy ass corporations and decide to pirate in exasperation.
The logic of screwing over your best customers by trying to nail down piracy for days 0-180 after release is just counter-productive.
Why is Steam such a success if piracy is so crazy? Why can't steam-style DRM with an offline mode work for PC games in general? With encryption what it is today, enforcing a 30 day signature check online would be simple and would allow consumers who literally pay for everything they watch and play to have the ability to watch and play them when and where they want.
It's the lack of that ability that drives people like me to the likes of Megaupload. I assure you one person like me spends more on media than 100 average pirates steal, likely more that 1000. Yet I pay the price...unless, of course, I say f*ck these greedy ass corporations and decide to pirate in exasperation.
The logic of screwing over your best customers by trying to nail down piracy for days 0-180 after release is just counter-productive.
True, but you run a very different business from video games. I don't think piracy being a huge issue with one kind of business automatically means it is with another.
Well, don't buy games that require a constant internet connection then? What is the problem?
Really? You don't see the problem that more and more games are moving in this direction? Would you like the prospect of being stuck playing World of Goo in 2015 because all the latest games are anti-traveler?
I'm telling you, always on DRM will promote piracy among demographics that heretofore had not considered it.
If people will not buy non-online-DRM games then they will not get made. If publishers see that no-DRM games get 50% more sales than DRM games then they would not make DRM games. The problem is that online-DRM games seem to sell more.
That's only true in a fair market with suitable competition and/or consumer education. Take the latest Sim City. Chances are a lot of buyers had no idea what they were getting themselves in for, but even if they dislike the always online component, the choice is play with always online or don't play at all - there's no competing product to pick instead. It's like they can buy VirtualCity instead and show EA that DRM cost them the custom.
People often accept highly disagreeable compromises instead of forcing the issue. If the games people want to play had DRM tacked on, people will not unite as consumers and boycott the products until they are changed, but they'll instead buy and grumble. Very few people will go without a beloved FIFA or COD on principal.
People often accept highly disagreeable compromises instead of forcing the issue. If the games people want to play had DRM tacked on, people will not unite as consumers and boycott the products until they are changed, but they'll instead buy and grumble. Very few people will go without a beloved FIFA or COD on principal.
Yes, I'm sure Ubisoft backtracked because they are such damn nice folks ...
There are shitloads of games you can buy that do not have DRM.
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