Read more.Quote:
The install codes are taken from cheaper markets' boxed copies and sold on in the west.
Printable View
Read more.Quote:
The install codes are taken from cheaper markets' boxed copies and sold on in the west.
*** edit *** The link is working now.
In the article it says:
This to me, sounds a lot like they are blaming the symptoms and not considering the cause. Take a look at the Game.co.uk website and this week's top PC downloads.Quote:
The widespread PC code stripping means that some consumers are being stung by region-locked game codes that do not work whilst publishers and retailers are losing money. These factors combine to have a negative effect on the gaming industry.
http://i.minus.com/jbcY9lND4fiEo9.png
The average game price comes to £32.34 and it is hard to understand why games released 12 months ago are still retailing at £39.99 when they still have bugs that were present on day one of release, or even why games would retail at very specific price points. Clearly the pricing is completely arbitrarily decided and is no reflection on development time or costs, or even quality.
At the end of the day the people that are looking for cheaper keys are people that feel that they are not getting a good return on their money when they buy games at full price, it would be great to see a publisher start to release AAA titles at more affordable price points to see if that has any impact on sales figures. I know I am very tempted to get Gauntlet at that price and I most likely wouldn't be looking for cheap keys should I decide to get it.
Though I haven't used such services as far as I am aware, I think that there should be global pricing and not region-specific, so as a result everywhere should be able to get the lower price.
My mate picked up the new Need for Speed: Most Wanted on a re-seller site, and after installing, found out the key was Russian, which meant Russian-language only (something that wasn't mentioned at the point of sale). He spoke to Origin CS, and the guy he spoke to explained what had happened.
As the CS agent put it, "At least vroom vroom is the same in any language!".
Now I've got coke all over my works laptop! You shouldn't be funny over peoples dinner times!Quote:
Originally Posted by MaverickWill
Wow, this is news?
Pretty much every game I have bought outside of steam sales and humblebundle in the last 3 years has been from key sellers and with the issue of "Russian keys" it isn't hard to figure out the keys are from cheaper regions.
It's how you buy pre-orders for £20 (most recent was Dead Rising 3 pre-order for £16!). I am surprised more people aren't clued in as the sites and prices are mentioned quite often all over the internet.
Check out the indexer allkeyshop.com to get an idea of how many are selling them and they don't even index everyone.
I've bought a few games via this method including Elder Scrolls Online. Considering that sometimes this may work out nearly half the price of buying in the UK what do they expect to happen?
If EA etc are happy to make a profit from a game at the price they charge the Far East then perhaps they shouldn't be fleecing the rest of the world then? I can understand some differences due to local taxes but the 'base cost' of the game should be same/similar worldwide.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaverickWill
Any legitimate cd key site would specify is one is region locked or not so hopefully your mate looked more closely next time :P.
I use cdkey resellers, I refuse to pay £35 on amazon or £40+ on steam for a pc game port or a basic pc game.... it should be back to the old days of £20.
Alas, as someone who rarely buys/plays games this is in fact news to me! Glad to see the "global economy" working it's magic ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by shaithis
Another example of how big business fail to keep pace with a changing world, to some extent the internet has broken down borders yet big business still cling onto outdated thinking to protect their revenue.
Different pricing and different release dates are a throw back to the days before digital media, it's about time they wake up to the fact that people aren't going to pay different prices or wait until something is available in their country just because that model works for them.
To be fair if i was to buy from a local game store or online and have it delivered a new game would cost around £40-50 i have used these websites occasionally and paid anything from £25-30 for a brand new game your just not getting the disk and case but why pay more ?
If they are that worried about it maybe they should as somebody has already said have a single GLOBAL price!
Hmm my last reply vanished (or is in some other phantom thread of the same title).
I'm surprised this is news as well - there have been several threads discussing it on Hexus over the last few years. Consensus seems to be that most resellers refund if the game is region locked, but also Hexus users are aware of the possible long-term impact (publishers moving to consoles) but don't care because most people are only concerned about short-term.
Single global price is hard because purchasing power of different regions varies greatly - a high price has a lower relative affordability barrier in the west than poorer parts for example. Pricing games according to market affordability is in line with how every other product is priced more or less - they are a business after all. But if the market becomes globalised then it's more or less inevitable that we'll end up with a global price - which means a cheaper game for us, and more expensive for asia regions - that means games will end up being tailored more for those regions (who have more numbers after all) and we'll bemoan the lack of traditional (western) PC games.
And the answer to that is of course kickstarted games where users fund the development up front. That comes with it's own drawbacks, such as possibly having to accept a quite different quality of game than we're used to, but a lot of people are OK with that.
It's utter rubbish to claim that this is harming the gaming industry. It's the same tired old argument they always use about piracy. But the reality is, the prices they're asking in the UK are too high and people aren't willing to pay them. Only a few of the people who use these cdkey reseller sites would have paid full price for the product. Most simply wouldn't have bought the game at all.
I Went to buy Sims 4 on launch upon logging into Origin Store the basic version was £49.99 (...? WTH), so i went down Asda to buy the retail edition and it was £37.99 so begrudgingly i picked it up went to the counter and was told it was out of stock. So after i got home I checked the prices on amazon, Play etc and in the end found a CD key site and ended up buying the limited edition version for £26. I received the key instantly, punched it into my origin account and downloaded the game. Ignoring the fact that i went to all this hassle for the Sims...i walked away with a much better deal because of: a) EA's Greed and b) Luck with Asda being out of stock.
Well depends what you mean by harm. If deciding to focus on consoles rather than PCs is harm then it might be, but I agree with your point below.Quote:
Originally Posted by Numenor
The latter part of that is certainly true. I don't know where the recent expectation of value has come from - possibly linked to the 'people buy games in sales' shocker ;) but in the past, games were more expensive in real terms than they are today still.Quote:
But the reality is, the prices they're asking in the UK are too high and people aren't willing to pay them.
I think that's the relevant point - yes, it does screw up their sales intelligence (wow - lots of people in asia like our games, lets ask them what they want in our next game.) but like the sales thing, they need to work out what it's actually saying.Quote:
Only a few of the people who use these cdkey reseller sites would have paid full price for the product. Most simply wouldn't have bought the game at all.
But how many people pirate your game, where do they live and how much are you charging in their region?Quote:
Originally Posted by Numenor
If you're charging £50 over and above everywhere else, there's all the data EA and whoever else needs to combat most piracy!!
Knowing so little about it beyond their existence, I've never used key sites myself (though I would be interested if it's actually legal and cheaper and fits my region), but I did get bought Titanfall and the purchaser used a key site. My game was in Russian and I had to use the seller's instructions to hax it into Angliyskiy, whereupon it worked until the next game update and I haven't played TF since... it being a crap game also didn't help!! :D
For me at least, games (at least the BASE game) lasted a LOT longer than they do today. Some of the games I have recently purchased have had 3-5 hour campaigns. Others (like BF4) have had multiple expansions at £12 per expansion or so....and that is what makes myself (and a lot of others I presume) re-evaluate the value of a title.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
That is the same type of thinking that big business has, that the world is divided into different regions when it's not, the purchasing power, affordability and the other types of outdated models may have worked when they dictated the terms of availability.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Capitalism dictates the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged, the sad thing is big business don't like it when the public uses this same system. If people can get something cheaper they will, if a product isn't available they use a service where it is, that's whats called market forces, it's just that big business don't like the idea that they have lost control of the market.
Yeah, it's the opposite for me - games like Strike Commander, Wing Commander weren't all that long, while I'm nowhere near finished Divinity:Original sin yet I'm coming up to 100hours, Skyrim is double that. Diablo 3 at least double that!Quote:
Originally Posted by shaithis
Then how come the living costs are so different, or the wages?Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
You're only considering the effect on the rich people (us), not the poorer. That ignores the fact there are regions that can't afford games priced at the global mean, so to support AAA game development you'd be pricing large swathes of people out of the market. That smaller market may then require higher prices again, so you could end up just making the western price the global price.Quote:
Capitalism dictates the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged, the sad thing is big business don't like it when the public uses this same system. If people can get something cheaper they will, if a product isn't available they use a service where it is, that's whats called market forces, it's just that big business don't like the idea that they have lost control of the market.
Or you make the Asian prices the normal level, which would reduce copyright theft and possibly increase sales - the smaller margins made up by greater sales. It might also improve the image of the gaming industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Well you see the games companies love capitalism when it benefits them, but when people try to use it for their own gain they hate it. Lets face it if the game is cheaper in China and you can get it not region locked then your going to buy it from China. The people selling these codes are just doing what you would expect from a capitalist society. Because lets face it when you buy a game from a shop or Steam you just buying it from a reseller.
The games industry needs to learn a lesson here, and not act like children when people find a way to save money. I hate buying new games, mostly because the last 10 games I played only 1 of them was bug free and 2 of them I might get some replay from. When a big game like Skyrim is so bug riddled it becomes impossible to complete then you tend not to want to pay full price games. Recently been playing Dead Rising 3, crashed worse than a drink pensioner, But with digital distribution you cannot return a defective product your stuck paying cash for a game that has had no quality testing. In the end after about 4 hours of searching I found that DR3 need GFX drivers that are 6 months old. I'm like WTF a games company that isn't using new drivers to test games is never getting my money again. They have admitted they screwed up and recommend old driver, and nvidia have admitted there is a problem, but haven't fixed it in their new drivers. So with Clusterfecks, like Dead Rising 3 no wonder the consumer is loosing confidence in the games industry even consoles games are hitting a point where they are released without testing, and tough you have to wait for a patch.
I remember the days when you would buy a game and it worked, you might get the odd hardware specific glitch, but nothing to game breaking. Now it seems game breaking bugs are to be expected and suck it up because you paid for a defective product, you have to live with it.
The games industry is probably the only industry where they sell you an unfinished product that hasn't been properly tested and you have no way of getting your money back when you not happy with it. Imagine buying a car and you can only do 30mph in it until they fix and patch the bugs in the engine. You would be taking it back to the dealer and demanding your money back.
It's not copyright theft, it's capitalism, basically people can buy the games cheaper in another country so that's what they are doing, because the resellers can buy them cheaper.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
The study we linked to on here a while back suggested price isn't the reason people pirate, so lowering the price wouldn't have an effect on that. Increasing sales is quite possible though for those who don't play a game at x price but might at y (steam sale effect).Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
Would that be enough to offset the losses? No. Otherwise they'd all do it. Many have experimented with it and the conclusion seems to be (evidenced by their ongoing practise of non- bargain prices) that it doesn't work. There are people at the top of their fields working for these companies and they've a responsibility to their shareholders to make returns so ignoring a solution that would be better is not in anyone's interests.
What does seem to work in the West at least is having a premium initial price for the early adopters, allowing room for 'sales' later on.
I wasn't implying that selling the codes was copyright theft - that is incidental - but the companies are complaining about a practice they are encouraging by variable pricing - a situation they have created.Quote:
Originally Posted by gstrange42
I accept (referring to Kalniel's post) that companies have to maximise the return on investment, but that is failing in the regional pricing model (or else they wouldn\'t be complaining, so they need to find an equitable solution where code ripping isn\'t worth it but they boost the ROI. Not easy, which is why they went for the "easy" option which has had the reported outcome.
Because unlike digital media that is controlled or dictated by geographical location, the fact is publishers & copyright holders are trying to make the physical world model fit a digital age world, then they cry when it doesn't work out for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Yet other studies show the opposite, who to believe ?Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Surely if they don't like it they could implement stronger region locks.
Might not solve it, ie you could use a Chinese steam account and bounce your internet connect, but more hoops to jump through would stop many.
With most developers being in the west, this is going to be unsustainable. The cost of living is much higher, and I highly doubt that any additional sales will make up the difference, given how high games sales currently are anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
Copyright *infringement*Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
To the extent of making up the difference in income? I'd be very, very surprised.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
But apart from a few publishers, the industry has an excellent image. Games get sold in sales very quickly when it's economic to do so, most games are well priced for the cost:entertainment ratio, developer support is excellent compared to a few years back, tons of new ideas surface thanks to indie developers....Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
It's *nothing* to do with a physical media model. It's to do with maximising your return as fast as possible, and allowing that to happen in markets where the cost of living is much lower as well. Some income is better than no income.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
I honestly don't think many people in this thread realise how much a modern game costs when you factor in software, staff, work offices and so on...Games are already at a low price for the hours they give, given how many people are involved in their development. They're often high risk investments too, with entire studios shutting after a single failing title.
Most games are not made by companies like EA who can bankroll franchises forever.
As for piracy - reducing prices only works to a point. Sure, there are some people who will always be in the next bracket down, that's inevitable, but this mentality of constantly pushing the price through the floor so everyone can access it immediately is crazy. The economics of it just don't work. Titles can take years to make, with hundreds of highly skilled people being involved in them.
It's all well and good you guys banging on about lowering the price even more, but I've seen first hand how fine the margins can be on titles and how long it takes for them to 'pay back' their investment. I hear the same from friends of mine - after they spent 20 quid in a taxi after emptying their wallet on a night out. There are very few games that are priced unreasonably these days. You even get to keep what you've brought forever.
You have a fair point there Agent, I wasn't really thinking of all that but instead that in most cases I wouldn't personally pay the kinds of prices that new releases tend to ask. I'm usually happy enough to wait a few years if necessary for games I may be interested in to be on sale at a much lower price anyway.
Which is the same as every other product on earth :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Output
There is a certain, very expensive wine I like, but I simply can't afford to buy it on a regular basis. So I buy a cheaper bottle from Tesco that costs next to nothing, but isn't a million miles away from it.
When you ask people to apply this to games, they seem to lose their head. When it's a physical product, people are more than happy to self bargain. Make it digital and everyone feels entitled to it and will try to justify why they should have it in every way conceivable.
Games are not cheap to make, nor maintain, and I'm not even going to get started on support. The amount of hours that most people will need to work to enjoy a title isn't huge. Even when I was in a minimum wage retail job as a teenager, I could buy a top game without too much issue from a single days pay. I would have without a doubt, spent more than a days pay out on a weekend.
You normally don't need to wait years though - most games drop fast these days!
True, but in that particular case I was thinking of games that release later editions with all DLC included, by which time you can usually be sure whether any more DLC is likely to come out for it (and then be included with the rest of the DLC in a subsequent edition) or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
It's the publishers fault for asking high prices for 'downloads' shouldn't they be cheaper since it's digital and not physical copies? so less overheads
Rigging the market to rip people off in particular geographical areas is what is wrong.
The games publishers created a monster and now that the monster has turned on them they are not happy. I don't know if the point of the new article was to win sympathy for the games publishers, if it was, it failed to do that with me.
Damn, why didn't I think of this brilliant business idea!
This is how I feel too. I usually buy my keys from random sites. But I never buy the Russian ones that require vpn activation. I'm pretty sure I've never had any region restriction problems...Quote:
Originally Posted by KeyboardDemon
I don't think it's right that nearly every game comes out at within a certain price range. They definitely don't all deserve to be there. I'm tired of being burned. I can't live with paying 30+ pound for a game when it's not that good, and can't even be sold on to get some of the money back after I realise it's no good. Lack of demos these days also makes it hard to know beforehand. The key stores seem to price things much better. And not necessarily because they're cheaper, but because they have more variation in the prices, based on demand for each game. They lower game prices after they've been out for a while as well. I don't think it's right for games to be retailing at full price when they've been out for quite a while, especially when they're going to bring the next installment out within a year or two, and especially when the demand isn't all that strong. But I'll happily pay full price for, and sometimes even preorder something that I have a lot of faith in. Unfortuneately there's only a very small amount of game series' that have my trust like that. I think it's a pretty common feeling with people.
If the game industry would focus more on quality over quantity like it used to, I think it would get our trust back and should see more money coming in over all. It's sickening, the rate that they keep pushing games out these days. Just one more generic clone, cash grabber after the other. Steam needs to get some quality control going on all those indie games as well. What a mess that is! We're swarmed with a sea of crap games. It's getting tougher and tougher to find the good ones amongst them. Our wallets can only take so much of this...
If it's nothing to do with physical media model in a digital world then why change prices and release dates, fact is publishers think they can get away with say a 30% mark up in some markets and only %10 in others. When people paying the %30 mark up find out it's cheaper somewhere else they will buy it from the cheapest source, it's simple economics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
If a wholesaler (developer) charges £10 for something, a shop (publisher) would expect to make some money from selling the product. If one shop charges £15 and another charges £12 who is the customer going to buy the product from ? That is the way capitalism works, market forces dictate the price. The sad thing is big business hasn't woken upto the fact that the internet and digital media is a single market, they still try to enforce the physical media model that could be split into separate markets into a single market economy.
So we are supposed to feel sorry for these people because they are using a business model that no longer works ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
I would agree with you there, i don't think a race to the bottom is they way to go. If a region/country can't afford to buy media at the "global price" then they simply go without, or face the legal consequences of copyright infringement. Maybe eventually the regions and countries where they can't afford to pay the "global price" for goods will see the people having a high enough standard of living to be able to afford the "global price"Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Except it's not take the stock market for instance, or the commodities markets. We don't have price variations based on where the trade is made, market forces dictate the price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
As already noted, overheads aren't necessarily lower, certainly not significantly. Most of the cost of a game isn't in it's packaging.Quote:
Originally Posted by csgohan4
But what about discounting the cost for those areas that have less disposable income?Quote:
Originally Posted by wasabi
They don't :p I've seen Dragon Age 3 for £40, Divinity Original Sin for £30 and Guantlet for £15. All at release prices. You can chose a cheaper game if you like, or a more expensive one that cost more to make, we have the choice :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ZaO
Yeah, demos don't help though it seems. Always wait for reviews.Quote:
They definitely don't all deserve to be there. I'm tired of being burned. I can't live with paying 30+ pound for a game when it's not that good, and can't even be sold on to get some of the money back after I realise it's no good. Lack of demos these days also makes it hard to know beforehand.
They do. The games we get now are supremely high quality compared to what we used to get. Don't forget that we got bad games back in the day as well!Quote:
If the game industry would focus more on quality over quantity like it used to, I think it would get our trust back and should see more money coming in over all.
I'd argue the opposite really. Back then we got gazillions of sequels, often even using the same game engine. And people loved it. How many TSR games where there? IE games? Ultimas? Where as today we get gems like Botanincula, Child of Light, The Witcher and so on.Quote:
It's sickening, the rate that they keep pushing games out these days. Just one more generic clone, cash grabber after the other.
Ah so now you want to increase the budget and reduce choice? I'm confused :pQuote:
Steam needs to get some quality control going on all those indie games as well. What a mess that is! We're swarmed with a sea of crap games. It's getting tougher and tougher to find the good ones amongst them. Our wallets can only take so much of this...
True, but the same thing applies to why they charge differently in different markets in the first place. A bit like petrol stations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
The single global market certainly results in that, but that's only bad news for people in poorer regions.Quote:
If a wholesaler (developer) charges £10 for something, a shop (publisher) would expect to make some money from selling the product. If one shop charges £15 and another charges £12 who is the customer going to buy the product from ? That is the way capitalism works, market forces dictate the price. The sad thing is big business hasn't woken upto the fact that the internet and digital media is a single market, they still try to enforce the physical media model that could be split into separate markets into a single market economy.
Not at all - they will do just fine by jumping to markets which are profitable. PC gamers are the ones we should feel sorry for.Quote:
So we are supposed to feel sorry for these people because they are using a business model that no longer works ?
Completely agree, and we can only hope. Of course, that will massively drive up the price of goods we in the west take for granted, because we've taken advantage of cheap labour in other parts of the world, but that's for the better.Quote:
Maybe eventually the regions and countries where they can't afford to pay the "global price" for goods will see the people having a high enough standard of living to be able to afford the "global price"
I was referring to the original article which quoted a spokesperson from the industry saying that the practice was harming the image of the gaming industry. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
But there have ben reports on HEXUS about dubious practices by some in the gaming industry - but then with any industry there will be the good and 'less good'.
I've not used the key sites at all but did used to use the trick of buying games from Origin Mexico that was very much cheaper than buying them on the UK store (even after currency conversion and fees). Unfortunately EA have closed that loophole now (as they moved the mexico store to USD) so may well consider a key site next time.
Because they have a captive market. Imagine for a moment that we could teleport petrol into your car, petrol stations would no longer be able to vary their prices based on what people are willing to pay in that area. Eventually they would come up with a pricing model that would keep revenues the same, they wouldn't sell regional cars that only worked with petrol from the correct region just to protect the pre-teleporting petrol model, or because certain regions couldn't afford the going price of petrol.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
And the same applies if we follow the petrol model, some people can afford to run a car, some people have to use other means.Quote:
The single global market certainly results in that, but that's only bad news for people in poorer regions.
Some people could buy a game at full price, some people would have to wait for a sale, or buy it second hand.
Not sure why we should feel sorry for PC gamers, the only thing i can think of is they are being asked to jump through hoops because companies are using an outdated business model.Quote:
Not at all - they will do just fine by jumping to markets which are profitable. PC gamers are the ones we should feel sorry for.
If higher prices result in a better quality of living in other parts of the world then all the better, as long as the higher cost/profits do result in people not being treated like slaves.Quote:
Completely agree, and we can only hope. Of course, that will massively drive up the price of goods we in the west take for granted, because we've taken advantage of cheap labour in other parts of the world, but that's for the better.
Thisa is simply "Globalisation" of the games industry. The retailers are complaining about increased competition from overseas businesses as they simply can't compete.
Just like region locking is a tool designed to help "Price Fixing", a practice which is illegal in any other industry.
Yeh, the 30-40 quid standard price range is what I'm on about. It's definitely a thing. Even more so on consoles where it's £40-£50 (or more for digital games. Playstation store has a lot of digital games at £55-£60 for some strange reason). Sure there are some games that are cheaper. Usually the arcade style ones, like Gauntlet. But the prices are so standardised for new releases. And they don't drop soon enough to reflect the review scores and demand for the game. It doesn't matter what anyone says about this. Fact is, if a game doesn't have a great reputation (from low scores or any other reasons), people will not be willing to pay the standard full retail price for it (especially not after it's been out for months and months). And they will go somewhere to find it cheaper.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Demos don't help? I don't know what affect they have on sales (would depend whether your game sucks or not I suppose. That's kinda the point of a demo - to let you know). But it doesn't make any difference to me and I'm not interested in stats there. I don't even know if my computer will play a game well without a demo to try it out, seeing as it's a budget machine right now. So I can't just go straight into buying a game, as listed hardware "requirements" are always very dodgey. A demo definitely helps with the decision to buy a game with me. Maybe I'm the minority (that would really surprise me), but that's my reasons for wanting demos right there.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
There's always been plenty of crap games around, I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Maybe true. But it never used to be a standard thing to have a sequel every year. I've watched that one phase its way in. It's seems like they're trying to make every game series into a yearly installment thing now. You just can't do that with certain games. A year isn't long enough. They're just trying to milk as much cash as possible. All this ridiulous dlc stuff just adds to it. They gotta make money to live and make more games, I know that. But I don't like the way they go about it. I miss when they used to spend a few years making an awesome game. Then when it came out, it would sell tonnes of copies and everyone would love it (the game would hold its value for a lot longer too). They really earned the money just through putting out a proper game that they worked really hard on (Gta and Mgs games come to mind). I will choose to pay full price for great games like that (I would actually feel bad finding an extra cheap way of doing it).Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
I just want quality control on steam. I don't know exactly how it should be done. But it just reminds me of walking through an Asian street where you've got shops all down both sides, then loads of random market setups, and people yelling at you asking you to buy their cheap "copy watch" crap or whatever. It's just a complete mess. How many of us really want the Copy Watch? Most of us would feel like we wasted our money soon after purchase. Maybe Steam just needs a good rating system to push the crap to the bottom or something. I dunno. I just wish there wasn't a sea of crap to swim through when looking for good games :PQuote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
The tonnes of copies of old games is a bit misleading - I was quite shocked to discover that my old classic games like Wing Commaner 2, which I held as amazing games and selling well enough for big budget sequels, didn't actually sell in anything like the numbers a modern game does. The market was a lot smaller back then, and games were much cheaper to make, so £45 a game (which equates to much more than that today) was about right. Now games are much cheaper to buy but much more expensive to make, so the 10-100 fold increase in sales is kind of necessary.
Or like mentioned, you develop low budget games and aim for smaller audiences. Child of Light was something like £13 on release. It's not an arcade game, nor is it an indie.
I know what you mean about how to find good games.. that's where forums like this come in :D
As has already been mentioned, I think the main reason that people use these sites isn't just to save some money, but as a way of trying to protect themselves, as so many games today are released with numerous bugs.
It used to be that when a game was released there wasn't the option of "instant" fixes, so they had to make sure that they worked first time. This is something that needs to return, as people are fed up acting as beta testers.
I know the graphics on a lot of the games are great these days, but personally I would rather sacrifice some graphical content for the sake of better / more gameplay.
I've been reading through the posts on this thread and I am finding some of the issues to be quite confusing. First there's the issue of what is being sold, ie. the product itself and then there's the distribution of said product, and finally the costs that go into producing the product. I don't really know which way round to tackle it, but I think I will do it in the order I have listed it here so, product, distribution and costs.
Unlike traditional manufacturing, there is only one product that is actually 'made' or developed, in other words the studio only has that one game/title. They don't produce a stack of things, what they produce is an IP, and we buy it we are not buying the game or IP but we are paying for the right to access/use it.
Distribution, increasingly this is being done digitally, so we are looking at a virtual product that's being shipped using a virtual distribution structure.
Finally the costs, this is everything from producing the original concept work, the actual game development costs, the marketing, bribes and backhanders to the press (allegedly - lol) and other publicity materials costs etc...
Things I agree with.
1. The developers earn the right to get paid, they might love what they do, but they need to eat while they do it and I wouldn't want to take that away from them.
2. The publishers have a right to profit in return for taking the risk of backing and then launching a title that could potentially fail and cost the publisher a small fortune.
3. The end users should be offered a fair price that allows both previous conditions to be met without being charged a disproportionate price for the title that they are buying.
Things that confuse me.
We have been talking about the costs of sale and margin, how much more does it cost for a title to be downloaded by 10,000 people then it does for that same title to be downloaded by 5,000 people?
How does that cost of downloading 10,000 copies of the game compare to printing and distributing 10,000 copies on physical media in cases with printed inserts and a printed flyer to advertise the season pass or some next title?
In my mind it costs the same to run a server or servers that are being used to download many copies of a title or just a few copies, but this is one of the areas where I am confused. I can understand that if a truck can carry 1,000 physical copies and 10,000 copies need to be sent then it will cost 10 times as much to send them, but in my mind when I download Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel from Steam it won't cost Steam any more money than it has already paid to facilitate the download made by the person before me or the one that downloads it after me. Am I wright or wrong to think this?
So finally we have the costs, yes it costs a lot to produce the game, I do believe that COD:MW3 racked up development costs of over $20 million, I also know that they racked up $775 million of sales in 5 days but not every game will break records like COD:MW3 did, so that's not the best example but I've picked it deliberately because this is one of the titles that people often refer to when they say they feel they are being ripped off by games publishers, first the game, then the associated season pass and expansion packs etc...
As I understand it, the Producer will set a budget and timeline so that the end product can be published at a particular date and within costs if all goes to plan, they would have estimated or projected how many people will buy that game and then said they would sell it at a specific price point because that's the price point that games sell at and no other reason then based on their projections they will expect certain profits which will be calculated by their expectations of unit sales multiplied by price and gross profits will be worked out as total sales volume minus costs and not on a sale by sale basis. If that's correct then the Cost of sale doesn't get calculated in the same way it would if they were producing actual products with real parts and materials like gaming keyboards or graphics cards for example. Which is why I said that pricing is arbritarily set, there's no rhyme or reason to having games at the price they expect to sell at, they could set that point anywhere they want, but for some reason most games seem to come out at around £30 to £40 in the UK, or $40 to $60 in USA and Canada. I think the real issue with people stripping codes is not that publishers are losing out in volume of sales, it's more that it messes with their calculations for specific region and upsets the apple cart, so to speak.
In my post at the start of the thread I posted the top 20 PC download games from Game.co.uk and showed how in the top 20 selling games the average price is £32.34, there will always be a few Gauntlets in the top 20 that help bring the price down just as there will be a few Elder Scrolls Online that push the price up, what I don't understand is why 6 out of 20 titles retail for £39.99 or why there are only 4 titles under £20 or why Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare costs twice the price of Gauntlet? While I can as a consumer see why a Mercedes E class costs more than a Vauxhall Astra, or why Heinz beans costs more than the white label brand, not why a game that looks like it will be more fun than another game would sell at half the price of the other game or why a 12 month old title that's still full of bugs would cost nearly 3 times more than the cheapest game in the list.
What I want to see is games being published where the pricing is a reflection of what the end user should expect from the game, a game that offers 200 hours or quality, immersive game play that shouts for repeated plays should cost more than a game that offers a mediocre 12 hours experience and yet often they will both come out at the same price, IMHO.
Development costs are meaningless without a breakdown of exactly where the money was spent and whether each cost was justifiable and/or whether there was a cheaper alternative.
Lets take the $20m COD:MW3 budget. Seriously, it's not a lot more than a map-pack and model re-skin of the previous version. Go back to when companies weren't so greedy and allowed end-users to create skins and maps and MW3 could have been made by a handful of enthusiasts in their spare time (and the source code from the previous instalments).
Yet $20m reportedly. Greed? Wasted money? Probably both.
Think that's a good example - same product, different branding/marketing expense.Quote:
Originally Posted by KeyboardDemon
But some people in the thread might be interested to know Steam now has a bit more customisation over what you see, and DG2 just came out at £18.49 (full, non-offer price) :D Good games really are cheap these days.
The sites, like simplyCDkeys (I used for BF4) will probably force the price down in the more expensive markets.
I didn't have the Russian language problem, I know someone who did however.
Because a product has to reflect the cost of living in the area you're selling it in. The cost of many products is vastly different in eastern countries compared to here. The same system applies to digital media - you cost it relative to your audience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
This is *nothing* to do with the cost of *physical* media. It's economics, not distribution.
Release dates: Marketing and tie-in deals. That new Mario Brothers game - millions in marketing costs. Those new toys that tie in with the release of the game at McDonalds? In production 6 months ago, ready to fit into the marketing slot they just paid a fortune for.
The world doesn't work around games, and release dates are often dictated by other factors.
Random fact: A certain, large digital distribution company (you can figure it out ;)) I was working with a few years ago told us what dates we couldn't have. The reason? Server overloading / issues when distributing. They also didn't like to release more than one 'big' title on the same day for this, and marketing space within the software reasons.
Yes, they can. That's capitalism for you. You can't work in a job and a society that's capitalist in nature, and then complain about the games industry doing the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
You're complaining about the system, not games.
Absolutely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
The problem is that many of the games you're talking about are developed in the higher income areas (namely, the west). If you then strip that income away when it comes to the sales of the item, you end up with a system that has significantly less money in it and in some cases, it becomes unsustainable. This is *bad* for development.
Take a mobile game at $2.99.
In the US, the lowest minimum (non-tipped) wage is in Georgia at $5.15 an hour. That's not even an hour of work to buy it.
In India, it's "Varied from 118 rupees ($2.18) per day in Bihar to 185 rupees ($3.40) per day in Haryana" (Wikipedia). This means you could work an entire day, and you still would not be able to buy it.
Now extrapolate those figures to your yearly amounts. Do you still market the game at $2.99 in India?
No. You reduce to cost to suit the wage there. Income from there is better than no income. This does not mean you're being ripped off, this means that the company can get a higher return from its product and continue development by utilizing multiple territories.
Do you know what would happen if you dropped the cost to that of India?
You'd have no game. It wouldn't exist. Not until we can use labour in cheap counties to make games of the same quality, anyway.
See above - market forces can only dictate price to the point of it being sustainable, if you want new products. If a company can't make their development cost back (and a profit), the market can't dictate the price, as the product would not longer exist to dictate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
My word. This is nothing to do with the physical media model. In fact - post some evidence please. If you're so sure on this, show me evidence that this is related to physical media.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
"Big business"?! Again - What?!
Steam made an estimated $1 billion in revenues in 2010. One. Billion. Dollars.
Go and look up the financial data for the older physical publishers, even at their prime (I'll give you a hint - it's pitiful in comparison).
"Big Business" is big for a reason - they're getting sales ;)
I'm sorry Corky, but that is absurd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
The business model is the best it's ever been.
Games sales have smashed music sales.
They smashed film sales.
They were getting close to smashing both combined - I've no idea if they have or not.
Games are the highest revenue generating area in the entertainment sector.
PC games sales have been increasing year on year.
PC game sales have overtaken consoles: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasoneva...keep-fighting/
And you are claiming this business model no longer works? :eek:
It's been done. It doesn't work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
If you don't sell it there legally, someone will sell it illegally. If you sell it legally, then it has to be a at a price point that is suitable for that market.
This is tried and tested. It's been done for years in many areas of the entertainment industry.
As for the consequences.....mmmm.....yeah, good luck with that in those regions. The US has been putting a lot of pressure on some countries, but it's had very limited success.
In an ideal world, yes. Everyone should have fair lives. But this doesn't really help people trying to sell their games now, does it? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
Eh?Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
I was replying (and quoted) the "I'm usually happy enough to wait a few years if necessary for games I may be interested in to be on sale at a much lower price anyway".
If you can't afford a product, you wait for it to drop to an affordable point, or you don't buy it. The other options are illegal, of course. I'm not sure what there is to disagree with there.
Funny that because i thought a product had to reflect the costs involved in making it, why bother selling it in a country if you are going to be losing money ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
In exceptional circumstance, the norm is that there is no tie-in deals, toys being made 6 months before, etc, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
But it's OK for them to complain about it when the public uses that same system against them ? Or for them to manipulate the market to their advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
And that is my problem how ? You don't hear people in markets saying "oh best not buy those cheap ones, because it may become unsustainable, or it's bad for the producer."Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
You want evidence for what is a well known fact, that publishers charge different prices based on were they are selling a game, even when that game has no physical media ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Those have nothing to do with the business model, those are sales numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
So you are saying it's OK to sell your product at a loss to stop people from pirating it ? Except it doesn't stop people pirating it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
I wish all business had the same view on theft.
And that is my problem how ? We live in a capitalist economy, the strong survive the weak perish.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
According to which law? There's no relation in the slightest for most products - you can buy the same product under a value label as you can under a branded one and pay more for example. See just about anything from Apple or B&O for tech equivalents.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
All sorts of reasons, from brand awareness, to providing more wordwide buzz or even simply more players in the world that your premium customers can play with for multiplayer. But in this case it's more likely that getting some money is still better than getting no money, provided your costs were first met by other buyers.Quote:
why bother selling it in a country if you are going to be losing money ?
So not the same product then. If you are selling product under a "value label" you have changed the product, the actual item may not have changed, but the labeling has, the advertising has, R&D costs, and probably many other things have changed to enable you to offer it at a lower price.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Selling the a product at a higher cost isn't going to mean no sales.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Subsidising one market with higher cost in another is a broken business model, when the market paying higher prices is able to acquire access to the cheaper market you are forced into a situation where you either have to lower of raise prices. It's exactly what is happening as stated in the article, people are buying more products from the cheaper market.
I have started making my own value judgements on games and reviews, I might take it a step further when reviewing games I like on Steam by posting how much I think the game is worth, but if I read a review and decide that a game is worth say £10 then I will wait to find it at £10 or not buy it at all. If I saw it for £12 I might decide to pay the extra but I wouldn't stretch to £15 even if the original was £39.99. If more of us made decisions on that basis then publishers would be forced to look at their business models or they will start to lose money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
If I can't find the game I want at the price I want to pay in the usual channels then I will look at those cheaper markets and buy from them. I think the only pre-orders I will get from now will be those that I have acquired through free offers or giveaway promotions, seeing as I have about 4 or 5 pre-order titles that have gone well beyond release and I have still yet to play them.
Since when?Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
The markup on certain products in the tech industry is sky high. For example, look at the BOM cost of the iPhone with the most flash memory and compare it to its sale price.
Two things:Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
I've already covered that point more than once now - some money is better than no money. Brand awareness. Capturing that market segment. Marketing deals locally.
Angry Birds was free - how much in merchandise was made worldwide? About 30% of Rovios income in 2012, although you can find higher figures the year after: http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/07/an...nt-of-revenue/
You're not losing money. Distributing a game digitally is easy, as long as you have the legalities in place. It's effectively 'free' money once you minus the costs. Most game business models from games developed in the west, only really target the west and certain, limited eastern counties.
Take COD for example: http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/18/582...y-online-china
One of the biggest games in the west, yet is very difficult to sell in China. As a result, you don't factor in the sales from China in your marketing forecasts as they will be so low, it's pointless.
Just think about that for a second. A population of ~1.3 Billion and you can't factor in sales from there as the culture is so different.
This concept applies to a *huge* amount of western made games. As a result, the only sensible thing you can do to keep brand identity, merchandise sales, and gain *some* income is to release it legally there at a suitable price point.
If you don't, the people that want it will obtain it illegally.
Yet you're totally ignoring marketing, which is one of the biggest reasons for different release dates. Also, different release dates are rarely on smaller titles, only some (and even then, limited) triple A titles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
And what about localisation? Translation and QA for each region is expensive.
Validation? Different regions have different legal issues. PEGI certification vs local version for example.
Of course they can complain, in the same way you are. However, you're justification is mostly that you want it cheaper - fair enough. Their justification is that things like this *really* hurt development.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
You like games right? The ones that you'll buy on the cheap from regions that will barely make a return for the company?Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
You'd like to keep playing those games, right?
Then understand the development costs, cycles and why price differentiation happens. At the moment you're staying largely ignorant to it and trying to argue a single point: You want it cheaper, so screw all of the other factors.
That's all well and good, but if the quality of these games was to start dropping as a result, you'd then complain about that.
If everything became F2P and you paid by the level / weapon, you'd complain about that.
Ermm, yes you do. Quite often.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
Take the fishing industry - over the last decade the sales of sustainable fish has rocketed. Supermarkets, shops and restaurants make a big deal of it, and for good reason.
Games are a finite commodity. Just because the distribution is mostly digital, it doesn't change the huge underlying costs of them. If you stip income away, then they can become unsustainable.
No - you've claimed that the price difference is because of the physical media model, when it's not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
The separation of market segments is covered several times in my posts now, but you just seem to be ignoring it and keep going on about this 'physical media model' being the reason.Quote:
they still try to enforce the physical media model that could be split into separate markets into a single market economy.
Ironically, the costs of distributing the physical media is tiny, so I'm not even sure how you're trying to link the two here. You simply do not seem to understand how games are distributed and sold.
Right. And you do realise that sales are the key economic driving force behind almost every business model? Certainly any within the games industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
If the business model is failing, like you're claiming, sales would not be on the rise. Constantly. For the last goodness knows how many years. They would be dropping.
In fact, this is another claim by you which simply isn't backed up by sales, industry movement, or any article I can find. Could you explain how this model is failing exactly? With figures to back it up. At the moment you're just claiming the model is bad, with not a single thing to back it up.
You're not selling at a loss, if the sales from those people are not included in economic forecasts - which is what happens!Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
And I never claimed it did. Offering the product for sale though will certainly help reduce piracy and can *only* help sales.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
You can never stop piracy.
Apart from it's not theft. It's copyright infringement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
Like the games industry segmenting different markets to stay strong?Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
That to one side, it's a cold view to have. Where do you draw the line? What about the real people at the end of those jobs that might perish?
Your idea clearly doesn't work as nothing could have subsidies. If our society was a pure capitalist one, where the weak always perished, we would be a lot worse off.
So you're saying the margin is the same and only the costs differ? That's really not the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
Most people do make decisions on what they can afford. After all, if they couldn't afford it, they wouldn't buy it and sales wouldn't be so high. Their price point is just higher than yours.Quote:
Originally Posted by KeyboardDemon
Why do you think publishers would look at their business model when sales are through the roof? The current one of slowly decreasing cost / sales is working well and games are very fairly priced.
Tell you what, go to some investors and tell them you have this great new product that you are going to sell for less than it costs you to make, and then watch as they wet themselves laughing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
What you consider a high markup doesn't take into account R&D, marketing, testing, etc, etc.
Sure a company can charge more than the bottom line if they have a captive market and people are willing to pay, but to start selling products to one market but not another for less than it costs to make them is a fast road to bankruptcy.
Yet you've still failed to address why the reverse doesn't apply, if some money is better then no money why not sell it for a higher price. Sell less copies with a higher likelihood of copyright infringement that you can actively do something about ? Why not raise brand awareness with advertising. It seems to me you are basically saying because people can't afford, or are not buying our product we should sell it at a loss, something most sane people and investors would laugh at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
At the moment you are not losing money because you are clinging to a broken business model and are trying any method you can to keep doing it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
You are using one market to subsides another and then crying foul when people use your bad business model against you.
So marketing can only be done in one region at a time ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Translations and localisation are normally done long before a game ships.
Validation is normally done on mass before a game ships so they know if they have to make changes to the core game.
There is no complaining or justifications coming from me, i am merely pointing out how trying to force a physical world business model into a digital world doesn't work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Sorry but when did i say i want it cheaper ? IIRC i have just pointed out that the business model being used is broken, if people take advantage of this broken business model to their own advantage the only people to blame are the people enforcing that business model.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
So games are like fish now ? One resource can be exhausted, but we aren't going to wake up one morning to find there are no more games to catch, there was a time and there still are developers that don't require millions to make a game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
So they are not trying to segment their market so they can charge different prices then ? Like how their market were naturally segmented in the days before digital media.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
True but you have still failed to convince me, much in the same way as you have failed to address any of the point i have raised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Sales mean nothing, i could sell a single product for a million pounds that cost me a fiver.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Or using your model sell a million products for a pound that cost me a fiver to make, I'll let you decide what my investors would be most happy about.
If you want a fact to backup my claim that it's a bad business model you just need to re-read the article, people are buying game codes from regions where the game is cheaper.
But you are using one market to subsidies another, so you are artificially lowering your price in markets that there is a higher likelihood of piracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
But you did say high prices cause more people to pirate. If you can't stop it why bother if higher prices cause more of it, after all the reverse is also true lower prices cause less.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Semantics, maybe you should bring that up with the copyright holders who frequently refer to copyright infringement as theft.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Like the games industry crying foul when their old world business model is failing to work in the new world, so they enforce draconian measures in their attempts to protect the way they want to do business.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
So should we subsidies failing industries, products, and ways of thinking all because they refuse to adapt to a changing world ?
Many are running in debt, complaining about multiple-millions of unit sales as "not enough" etc. So, I think there is a fair amount of evidence to point to them needing to look at their business model.Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
Tarnishing the gaming industry as a whole, as a trying to hold onto a bad business model though just isn't true. In general the industry is quite healthy.Quote:
Originally Posted by shaithis
The way people in this thread are talking, the entire industry is in collapse.
Very simplistic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Corky34
It costs a given amount to develop a game regardless of the numbers sold. So the investment prospectus would define how that investment can be recouped before a profit is made. It might say " sell one copy for the whole amount" - that would get investors laughing.
More likely it will be - sell n thousand at a 'premium' price - that covers the cost - any sales after that are pure proft - regardless of the selling price.
A similar model existed in the airline industry. It used to be said that if a or Virgin sold all the seats in first class and busines class, that covered the overall cost of the flight and anything sold in economy was the profit. In practice there is a mix, but only a percentage of seats in each cabin have to be sold for the flight to break even.
Steam and Origin stop this problem obviously when buying direct from them. So it is where I buy most of my games from, unless it is a free to play like World of Tanks.
When I do buy games and software from ebay and amazon market place, I'm always very careful. I read the small print, and the reviews, not just that item but of the seller in general. Sometimes there is a workaround the region specific, but these are rare these days.
It's normally fairly obvious to spot a lot of knock off price games, if you like cheap games, but also a gamble it's perfect for you, but don't moan when it doesn't work! Otherwise stick to more conventional retailers.
Or stick to the cheap suppliers that you know and trust or have heard of through recommendations from trusted sources/friends.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlSomething