How much do you think coders and artists get paid per year? We don't all make Carmack salaries alas
neliz said:
I'm not sure about the indie side to be honest maybe they get a free pass, don't know for sure.
Sony charging editors for PSN?
- Thread starter liolio
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How much do you think coders and artists get paid per year? We don't all make Carmack salaries alas
I'm not sure about the indie side to be honest maybe they get a free pass, don't know for sure.
How much do you think coders and artists get paid per year? We don't all make Carmack salaries alas
Yes but how many copies of demo get downloaded ? And how many of those sold the game ?
The PS3 team members probably get pulled for other reasons (or a combination of reasons), I don't think the bandwidth cost is the key driver. If it's simple math, then the lowering of devkit cost would have the opposite effect.
If it's a good demo and/or the game is good, the bandwidth cost should be recoverable. Otherwise, people just end up wasting more MS's bandwidth for nothing. Cross platform games still sell proportionally well (or almost equal on both platforms) -- regardless of how much demo bandwidth gets used. The basic problem is: Do you have a good demo or good game ?
Yup we are. I'm actually surprised this one took that long to leak, but looks like it's public knowledge now
So which angle to use here, well 2 developers on the PS3 title is only something like 2% of the resources since the PS3 is very hard to develop for and requires alot of manpower.
Or
Developers moved from the PS3 to another platform will just make the PS3 version even worse than it usually is and there is no need for a demo then. I mean it will cost you alot of money and people wont buy it anyway.
Or
Release the Demo on the 360, PS3 owners will be able to save time and your precious money if the Demo is bad, if not, well prepare for a costly succes.
Or
Believe in your product, see it as marketing and congratulate yourself for the millions of downloads that will result in a million seller because you have a great product.
If this is a problem, show it to the world, stop releasing demos for the PS3. Dont offer DLC´s on PSN, make a statement, if you dare loose the money. Until then, it´s just one side bitching about loosing money, which by all means they should, but don´t expect consumers to cry.
Amazing mentality... first you nail Sony to the "right" position, then spin the whole world around until the picture fits.
Is this same logic according to which it's good to have a difficult system, because developers will have more fun over the whole ten years?
Or is this the same Sony that encourages developers to run wild with game sizes, to justify the existence of their overpriced media?
Honestly, I don't understand what amount of nice black front panels and lifestyle ads has created this loyal following. I got into console gaming via a PS2 too - but probably mine wasn't properly sprayed with Kool-aid at the plant.
I care about me and I want all sorts of content in PSN. Yes I want my demos and videos as well as so many others like me. Not only stuff I can buy/pay the publisher.
And if the cost and effort of "advertising" surpasses the gain from it there is an obvious reduced incentive to provide the PSN with that content. And we want content. If demos and videos are "useless" from the consumer's point of view then its like expecting no complaints or any dissatisfaction if the only thing available at PSN were the limited things we can buy.
It is not only about the things we pay for.
It is still a service providing us, except from complete products to buy from, with information we demand to get. And that information comes in the form of demos and videos.
ShadowRunner
Veteran
I really dont get why its such a big deal.
Personally i would rather have the odd bit of content not apear on PSN if it means PSN stays free. if it comes to the point were they really are losing too much content then sony can reduce or remove the fee and the consumer woud be none the wiser. If on the other hand they still get content at a level they are happy with and make some money for a change aswell then the descision will have been a good one.
Its easy to say sony made another goof in the eyes of armchair analysts but those people dont have the figures at hant to even make an informed judgement. Saying something is a stupid decision is stupid in itself if the context in which the discision was made is not known.
Wait and see. If we still get the content we think we should be provided from a free service then this has been a good move. If not sony can try something else.
Personally i would rather have the odd bit of content not apear on PSN if it means PSN stays free. if it comes to the point were they really are losing too much content then sony can reduce or remove the fee and the consumer woud be none the wiser. If on the other hand they still get content at a level they are happy with and make some money for a change aswell then the descision will have been a good one.
Its easy to say sony made another goof in the eyes of armchair analysts but those people dont have the figures at hant to even make an informed judgement. Saying something is a stupid decision is stupid in itself if the context in which the discision was made is not known.
Wait and see. If we still get the content we think we should be provided from a free service then this has been a good move. If not sony can try something else.
I understand why publishers would be annoyed, but I think the effect on users will not even be measurable. Sure, they could pull devs off a project to pay for bandwidth, or they could just buy 2 less TV ads. Or, you know, redirect some revenue from their in game advertising...
In the case of actual sold content, if you can't cover that 16 cents in your 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 or whatever dollar price point, you have bigger fish to fry.
I think Publishers have just been spoiled by the existence of Xbox Live, and PC based services like FileShack and FilePlanet which host their marketing materials for free and pay for the bandwidth by charging users a membership, plus ad revenue. God forbid they should be made responsible for the hosting of their own content? Imagine that! Publishers spending money on publishing!
In the case of actual sold content, if you can't cover that 16 cents in your 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 or whatever dollar price point, you have bigger fish to fry.
I think Publishers have just been spoiled by the existence of Xbox Live, and PC based services like FileShack and FilePlanet which host their marketing materials for free and pay for the bandwidth by charging users a membership, plus ad revenue. God forbid they should be made responsible for the hosting of their own content? Imagine that! Publishers spending money on publishing!
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Sure and that'll be a good justification in another 5 dollar per title hike in the cost to purchase games.
Either way can't blame Sony for doing this. If they want to keep it free they have to charge something. Bandwidth and servers aren't cheap to maintain or pay for.
At the end of the day those costs WILL be passed on to the consumer. It's just it's all hidden fee's rather than the upfront front fees of Xbox Live. In the end the consumer pays for it either way.
Unless, of course, there's no way to recoup the fees for PS3 games. For example if a PS3 game ended up always costing 5 dollars more than the X360 version...
Regards,
SB
Everything costs money...I don't see this a big deal, just a long as the cost is predictable and controllable. When a publisher or anyone for that matter want to advertise anything, they have a budget. They allocate the budget. If once it's done, it's done.
Now, it's not clear if this is possible or not on the PSN. I mean no business want to do business where they can't easily plan out / estimate a fix budget. Maybe that's where the confusion, it's not they've have to pay for it.
Now, it's not clear if this is possible or not on the PSN. I mean no business want to do business where they can't easily plan out / estimate a fix budget. Maybe that's where the confusion, it's not they've have to pay for it.
Let me swipe a quote from the article to create an example of consequence:
"For instance, were the 4 million Resident Evil 5 demos announced last week split evenly between Xbox Live and PSN users, Capcom would have been charged more than $300,000 for distributing the 942MB download. "
I'll go with those numbers. Now look at it from the publishers point of view. They put out dozens of games every year, and for every 10 game demos they put on PS3 it may cost them 3 million dollars. When you look at a number like that in terms of say Killzone 2 budget, then it seems like a paltry figure. But in reality, you can develop an entirely new Wii game for that amount of money. Or, you can port two existing good candidate games to the Wii. Now if I'm sitting in a board room someplace having a meeting on costs, I would have to ask, why not skip 10 demos and/or dlc on the PS3 and try using that money to crack the Wii market?
You can argue some lost PS3 sales due to no demo and/or dlc. But maybe the additional Wii sales more than compensate for the loss, and as a bonus you now have a footprint in a new market. Would be interesting to test that theory I'd say. Plus you can compensate for lost dlc sales by inking a dlc exclusivity deal with the other console maker to make up for lost PS3 sales. Basically, even if you have no intention of releasing a PS3 version of a given dlc, make Microsoft think that you are, and get them to fork out some cash so they can claim 'exclusive dlc'. Then you end up being paid to make the dlc, you save the money you would have spent on bandwidth with Sony, and you can crack the Wii market. It's win-win-win all around.
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inefficient
Veteran
$0.16 per GB is perfectly reasonable.
If only 0.27% or (1 of every 370 people) bought your game based on the demo, you would make your money back. This is assuming your demo is a full 1GB and you are selling a retail game.
The same math applies to smaller PSN download only games. If you put up a 200MB demo for for a $10 game you still only need about 0.28% of the demo players to buy the game to make your money back.
Publishers SHOULD foot the bill for their advertising. Not the consumers. I don't know why people are complaining about this.
If only 0.27% or (1 of every 370 people) bought your game based on the demo, you would make your money back. This is assuming your demo is a full 1GB and you are selling a retail game.
The same math applies to smaller PSN download only games. If you put up a 200MB demo for for a $10 game you still only need about 0.28% of the demo players to buy the game to make your money back.
Publishers SHOULD foot the bill for their advertising. Not the consumers. I don't know why people are complaining about this.
Looks like the people who don't like it are those that like the 360 & the ones that don't think it's a big deal are the ones that like the PS3. Straight down party lines. Personally, I think it was bound to happen for a network that makes the whole service free for the consumer. I think there are positives & negatives for both, but Sony may not like the kind of attention it's getting now that it's in the public eye.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
If I were a PSN users I would maybe be a little annoyed if this ment delayed content (i.e. let the 360 get it first so multiplatform users get the 360 copy) or worse, no content. Every dime counts (as you will see below). And a natural concern of those who want the platforms online presence to grow it is a horrible idea to be second fiddle when you are already in a hole. Not to mention at $0.16/GB Sony isn't exactly selling bandwidth at cost to Publishers.
1M 1GB downloads * $0.16/GB = $160,000.00
Including payroll taxes and whatnot that is 2 quality developers right there, maybe 3 depending on the size/budgets of the studio and here it is located. Of course *PS3* developers may be more expensive than your average developer, and more valuable.
One of the points of demos is exposure to all sorts of titles, traditional and non-traditional. Essentially it is another penalty against games that go cross grain. It is bad enough that dev costs and marketing are though the roof. You look at the PC model where this software thrives and it is because the overhead is very low. Distribution online is free because the services have adds and are also, you guessed it, in most case free.
My different perspective is most games suck... and we surely don't see eye to eye on many titles. That would rather see digital distribution be the equalizer that allows more unique content for more unique people than be funneled back into the same-old-same-old.
If Sony thinks thi they are stupid. Sony needs demos. If they think taxing demos benefits users or aids them in competiting online then they are clueless. Better online content is a compelling reason for purchase, discouraging such or hindering your service impacts the impression of your product.
It is always a bad demo, poor markeing, etc
Repeat after me: Highway robbery.
Not even! You are assuming incorrectly that the game maker gets $60 of every sale. Once you consider the retail cut, marketing, the publisher cut, repaying the publisher for financing the project...A look at press clippings of pubs supporting the PS3 has a lot of red. Margins are right right now and even if 1-in-10 who download your demo buy the game you now have added $1.70 to the cost of each title sold. Sell a million titles that is $1.7M.
How PS3 many games do you think have a surplus $1.7M...
Yeah, we all work for free! Weeeeee!
Actually a long term, successful business model has shown demos can be supported quite well through 3rd party advertising. There is no reason the publisher, consumer, or platform holder should foot the bill if they developed a profitable strategy with mindshare. Further it would be much, much cheaper for pubs to have their own servers and bypass Sony, which was supposedly one of the benefits of PSN and faults with Live.
Anyhow even if the usual suspects were right, if I am in Sony's shoes and want to generate mindshare and momentum and make PSN a viable selling point over and above Live I would be positoning the platform in a way to encourage premium and unique content to differentiate. Have less content and getting stuff later and leave a more-bad flavor in your mouth compared to competing platforms isn't the way to generate the sort of loyalty Sony formerly had from many dev houses. Of course Sony isn't playing to win developers but instead to stop the gushing blood.
It really doesn't need to be this way though. You look at long-standing demo sites and free services like Xfire on the PC and you realize there are other means. Quality floats to the top and by its merits is successful. The problem is when your strategy requires you to float an ambitious non-exhistant platform with zero users and the initial offering is essentially subsidized until it can become compelling... if it ever does. Moves like this make it just another hurdle to reach that goal. The irony is that this may discourage some bad games not to do demos, and in turn they may see higher sales. But this isn't a good thing for the platform or users.
specwarGP2
Regular
Publishers should and will eat this fee as a cost of doing business on PS3. The user base is now ~20m? That's too big of a market to ignore.
If the bandwidth fee was so onerous, publishers wouldn't release demos at all. Games with a pedigree don't need a demo, but newer IP... a good demo can help sell a lot of copies IMO. The demo of Dead Rising totally sold me on the game.
Remember this is for ALL content on PSN. Not just free content like demos, but also paid content like map packs, etc. I think it's a little one-sided to think this only effects publishers wanting put out free demos.
Tommy McClain
Now if you were a PSN user and PS3 owner(?) you might notice that the Second fiddle thing is something PS3 users have been used to very early on. Do you think that a delayed demo will "hurt" when there has been delayed games and inferior games as well. It´s the least of my worries.
And again, why should any user complain about this?, would i like to pay 50$ pr year for this or rather have the publishers pick up the bill, me paying for a publishers demo so that i can try his game and maybe buy it?? Easy choice. Again, i would worry if it actually meant something important.
They can add 16 cent pr GB on pay for content and not loose a dime.
It doesn't work that way.
I would gladly pay $1 per demo or something like that to cover the cost - it's still better than the gamble of a demo-less $60 game.
However, users have grown accustomed to the (false) sense of entitlement to free demos - just as with free multiplayer - while neither is actually free to provide. So you can't afford to charge for demos, and publishers will have to eat it up.
