The Price of Grapes
True story, I once paid thirteen dollars for grapes. Despite their kingly price these grapes did nothing out of the ordinary, like solve twelfth degree polynomials or write bawdy limericks. Just your regular green seedless grapes, they were pretty much like every other grape I'd had before, tasty, but four dollars and fifty cents tasty at best. The pricing was not a function of improved quality, plumpness, or grapeliness, but simply a virtue of the fact that these grapes were being sold in one of those trendy, upscale locations with carpeted aisles, an olive bar, cheeses with names and tastes that would vex any mortal man's tongue, and articulate cashiers who somehow made working the register seem better than your job, and at some point a person sat down and deemed thirteen dollars a reasonable price for vine-based produce.
I suspect this person now works in the video game business.
I have a very expensive piece of electronic entertainment equipment in my living room, which so far I've largely put to the task of playing games not exponentially more complex than the sort of thing I can play on Yahoo Games for roughly 100% less. Aside from the aberration of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, to which I conceded what seems like a full month of breath and heartbeats, my Xbox 360 has largely been a vehicle for Xbox Live Arcade games. I'll play a little Saints Row here, a little Dead Rising there, the occasional sports game, but to date the appeal of games with a greater fun to cost ratio has been remarkably undeniable.
That's not to say that I have fewer traditional games that I am curious to play on my 360 versus previous consoles, but simply that the increase in price points on most of the software appears to have begun to cross some cost threshold for me. My willingness to impulse buy is apparently capped at a $49.99 and under price point, as I find myself far less interested in browsing the games section of my local Trade-In Headquarters, where apparently the phrase "hi" has been replaced with "where the hell are those trade-ins you promised us last time you darkened our doorstep?"
Even the Wii, which I had hoped would leverage their complete rehashing of Gamecube hardware into a sub-$200 price point, seems to have attached a fifty dollar profit fee, which Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, trotted out like some kind of selling point. As though, my big concern in buying my next system were that the company wouldn't keep enough of my money.
It's not that I don't see the potential of the so-called next-gen, but fundamentally they're just the same grapes I had last week with a higher price. I know all the arguments about higher development costs, and piracy, and combating lost revenues from used sales, and global warming, and apocalyptic prophecies from 16th century French poets, but what it ultimately comes down as a consumer are the same games with a new coat of paint for higher prices, and I feel like I've given my fill of blood to be sacrificed already on the altar corporate bloating. Besides, the budget alternatives across every system are just getting better, which is why all 3 major console manufacturers are implementing a plan to offer Xbox Live Arcade style options.
Not only are these games usually easier to manage, usually stored directly to the device and accessible with nothing more than a few flicks of the controller, but they are often better suited for brief and casual gaming sessions. That I can kill fifteen minutes by playing a few rounds of Pac-Man, or Marble Blast Ultra, or Geometry Wars without having to invest hours make them the far more popular option, particularly when my wife and son are present. These have become the family games that engage all three of us to varying degrees, and that's something unique to any console I've played before.
There's usually a paragraph around here where the writer champions an idealistic, utopian future where digital distribution becomes the norm, or independent game developers topple the hegemony of current publishing models, or the companies realize they've crossed a price threshold and pull back on their pricing structure. None of that will happen. Once the transition is complete and next-gen becomes this-gen, $60 games will be as ordinary as 2-ply toilet paper, the major publishers will continue to be the only games in town that can afford the rising development costs, and digital distribution will still be tightly controlled. The difference, if one comes about, will be a personal one for each of us.
Me, I don't pay more than seven-fifty for my grapes anymore.
- Elysium
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At a recent CTIA conference concluded a couple of weeks ago, a Verizon executive was asked why are they charging the whole $2+ for
a 30 sec ringtone. He responded, chuckling (and I guess imagining himself on the way to his bank), that they're able to charge because the people are willing to pay.
Ditto for games.
Xbox Live tag Gorilla800lbs
I find it hard to figure out exactly what problem people think they're fixing with digital distribution. I mean, you're just paying for a different set of infrastructure. Steam vs. the retail channel. Especially with the way they've cut back packaging these last few years, it doesn't make that much difference. All the other costs are still there and you get yet another frickin' middle-man involved. Yay.
I guess I'm happy with next-gen. Basically, I payed for the option to play both types of games on the same piece of hardware without having the BSOD and Graphics Card Madness mini-games involved every frickin' time I decide to go for the AAA titles.
I thought Xbox Live Arcade was pure genius. It won't sell systems, but it will put more hands on controllers by virtue of dragging Gramma into the living room to play her Yahoo games. Hexic is equivalent to standing on the street corner and handing out a taste. It took me some work to adjust to Bejeweled on the controller but now I can hardly play it on the PC.
Another thing it does is allow me to introduce my kids to retro games quickly and easily. Joust was and is a huge hit at my house. And my daughters decided who got to sleep on the top bunk last night with a knock-down, drag-out Streetfighter II battle.
And two words. Halo. Wars. Oh my Samuel-Jackson-word-diety-of-choice! I don't care if it looks like MechCommander, if they can just get the gameplay solid....
Duoae wrote:
It seems to have a different price structure, and is more able to support a variety of developers. I think you discount exactly how expensive the retail distribtuion method is. It's not that there is a middle-man, it's the number of them. Developer-publisher-purchasing retail materials-manufacturing-production-shipping-retail fees and upcharge-and all the man hours there involved.
"I think Elysium has the right of it" - Certis
The fact that a game like Defcon ($9.95 preorder) is bringing the Steam servers to their knees as players unlock it is testament to the power of digital distribution in getting niche games out there. How many people would play Defcon if it were a $19.95 budget CD-ROM title?
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Better question. In the retail market, how many people would even know it exists?
"I think Elysium has the right of it" - Certis
More than $49.99 also makes me think twice, but when you think that 22 years ago Atari was selling Chess for $40 for the 2600, it really doesn't seem as bad.
"All that time you waste dating and having sex could be better spent scouring the web for new game developer press releases." - Quintin_Stone
I keep thinking of getting a 360 just for the arcade games. The thought of paying a small fee to play Settlers of Catan with the GWJers makes me feel all warm inside. As for paying $60 for a game? If a bunch of GWJers are playing and I'm interested, sure, but I couldn't see doing that more than two or three times a year. Even now, I find it far easier to swallow $30 or a DS game than $50 for a PS2 game.
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LobsterMobster wrote:
I've been making much fewer impulse choices on the 60$ games. Gamefly has been my savior. Prey, Saints Row, Dead Rising all came and went. I enjoyed each one to its fullest (well Prey was up and down on the enjoyment part) and sent each back complete. Dead Rising may be the only one of those that I make the full purchase for if Im itching for it a few months from now.
Part of it has been necessary. I just can't afford to buy all the games I want. Titan Quest was the last full price game I bought and it was a mistake. Fun game but 2 weeks later I stopped playing. For me the bang-for-your-buck is not there if a $60 title isnt still bringing me back for that 3rd week and beyond (Oblivion was the last one do to that)
Joust and Geometry Wars are killer bang-for-buck. Dwarf Fortress is immesurable (there's a divide by zero error when I try to do the mental calculation
)
ThePolypusher
WAR - Dolz
Come to the dark side, and play them on your PC. Gaald and I (and some others) hook up on Brettspielwelt, and there are many many other options out there.
I guess there's an alure to a sitting on the couch experience, but to me its the laptop and TV model. My wife watches TV, I play Settlers on the laptop.
Nice piece Elysium. I do agree that this is all good, but I guess I'll hold out some optimism for a changing of the system over time. I know we're by definition a miniscule minority in our little world, but I really do think that "small" games like Defcon are where the world heads. Yes, there will always be monster blockbusters, just like there will always be blockbuster movies. With movies, a real change in distribution (DVDs and quality cable) created a real change in movie economics. So much so that Netflix is now going to sundance with a huge budget to just BUY movies before the studios do.
I think games are inching in the same direction. Just like movies, marketing remains the big battle.
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"In other news, Miyamoto pissed on my head, and gave me a forecast of rain." - *Le
I agree, but I don't really have a problem with it. Sure it would be nice for indies to be properly (read: massively) rewarded for their work, but that doesn't seem to stop great indie games from emerging. And it would be fair for some of the big gamedevs that shovel shalloware every year to NOT make a huge profit of it, but I quit thinking that Fairness is featured among the mysterious ways the Universe works.
My guess is that there are thresholds involved but not price related. One of them is the same "language" barrier that indies in the film and music industries stumble upon, which no amount of marketing will remove unless they allow Fluff(TM) to impregnate the product to a minimum standard degree. People will buy these indie games for a while because they are cheap and many are used to price being the sole valid criteria, but in the absence of said Fluff, eye candy and instant gratification, they'll go back to zombie mode. I think no overdose of Darwinia or Defcon will ever steer the public majority from the Cash Cow IP: Reloaded: Redux periodic eruptions, nor from the More Of The Same But Now More Similar avalanche. I lose zero to none sleep over it as long as I know where my grapes at "yo".
(A reference to Snakes On A Plane could not be included in the above post so here it is)
I used to work at EB. You are vastly understimating the costs of retail distribution. It costs money just to get your game placed on the eye-level shelf. Shipping of the game, package design, negotiation of product placement, design of in-store advertising (posters, stand-ups, etc), shipping of in-store advertising, dealing with unsold stock, contract negotiations, three different inventory systems (producer, distributor, retail store) ... the list goes on and on.
Electronic distribution does two important things: it makes distributing games like Armadillo Run possible, and it cuts distribution costs while delivering a better percentage of the profit to the game maker/distributor (depending on who is doing the electronic distribution). It's a win-win for everyone involved - the sooner we can cut out the retail chains, the better.
Think about it - what do you gain from shopping at a retail store? You can't return the game after it has been opened, so ... atmosphere?
Remember: this conversation is just between you and me ... and the NSA.
MaverickDago wrote:
It was funny reading this (yes I still read, I just don't speak up much anymore), because I was thinking the exact same thing.
Dead Rising was my last purchase, and I have to admit that it stung. As I normally do, I bought the game new, but after talking with my wife, we came to the conclusion that maybe it's time to set that aside and buy used games. I tried to do the right thing, but these things are just getting too expensive.
The last game I bought brand new and full price was Civ IV, but I knew it would take more than 15h to complete the game. In fact, it never ends! The agony!
There's just too much joy in skimming the bargain bin/e-bay looking for that one forgotten jewel to buy my games full-price.
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Koning_Floris, on my online 'skills': "Stinking is a skill too!"
You are never going to stop complaining about those grapes, are you? It's been at least five years.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
- Dr. Martin Luther King
Rule ? of business: Find out what people will pay for your product, and charge more.
We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all.
"What misconception traveled down the road and made you want to be here?"
I think your analogy is missing one key element, Elysium. You mention nothing of these grapes randomly spoiling or the bag that they are in bursting into flame if you leave it on the counter too long.
My Oblivion disk is still keeping moisture from frosty drinks off the wood of my desk. I don't care what market you are in. $60+ for nothing sucks.
Letters to the Internet
This happened a couple of times before. When CDs first came out, it was particularly bad... nearly all the games were $60, and I have a vague memory that Ultima something-or-other tried a $70 price point. (I could be wrong about that, it's been a LONG time and I wasn't paying attention that closely.) I didn't have access to the whole world then like I do now, but the local folks didn't care for this too much.
Basically, it's the old supply/demand thing; there's a high demand for games on the new systems, but not that many games yet. So they can charge an arm and a leg. As new titles are introduced, and volumes go up, you should see the prices descend back into the sub-$50 range. I think you'll see the average cost go up, but I believe they'll do that by not selling very many cheap/budget titles on the 360... nearly everything will be close to $50.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
I remember paying $55+ for PSOne games when it first came out. I agree with most posters here, maybe this speaks to some of the content in the last conference call. Developers and Marketers dont care that $60 is too much for US to pay for games because they are targeting the "teens with parents with money who buy them everything" demographic.
Since purchasing the 360 I have learned a few things about myself:
1. $60 is too much if I dont play it a LOT, and by lot I mean I have been playing Halo 2 for almost 2 years, talk about ROI.
2. $50-$55 is too much for a used game, I have all but stopped going to EB and GameStop. I just feel I am getting ripped off when they buy COD2 from me at $30, then charge me $55 for any decent used game.
3. $60 is too much for a port of a current gen game that is $20 less on older hardware, My gamertag is agnt47, yet I have not touched Hitman: Blood Money for this reason alone.
4. I am old and I like to complain about stuff costing too much. I am just going to wat for GoW, Halo 3, and GHII, as I expect that they will spend plenty of time in my 360. Right now, since I am cheap, the 360 is just a $400 Halo 2 machine, oh yeah XBLA rocks too.
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Halo 2 Stats
I wonder when the retailers/publishers are going to figure out that the explosion of the used game sales is a market driven sign that game prices are too high. Raising prices to try and offset lost revenue from used games is playing right into the used market's hands. The higher the new price the higher the price/margin for a used game.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
New games have been $50 bucks forever, no? So if they're $60 then that's inflation. I don't see the issue.
That said, I like the micro-transactions for smaller games / independent designers. Makes me want to buy the 360 just for that.
At least for me there's a difference in having an in-hand physical object. Say I'm going through some hardware issues on my current gaming PC, and I've purchased some downloaded games on that box. If I end up replacing some or most of the box, with games on CDs or DVDs, I can just reinstall, likely enough drop copies of the game save(s), and start up where I left off. With downloaded ones, I've now got the hassle of trying to get them back again without being taken as someone trying to scam the distributor.
And what if the hard drive on the old box just dies? I likely no longer have whatever saved key that proved that I had paid for the game. With physical media, the only loss is having to start fresh as I no longer have the game save(s).
Even though I'm confident that Steam has some means to handle these sorts of situations, I'm inherently less comfortable with the long-term usability of my gaming purchase when it's soley resident on my machine's hard drive.
"Gamers With Jobs will take over the world someday. I hope they're benevolent overlords." -- Bill Harris
Remember how much laser discs were in the late 80s? I recall my neighbor getting Top Gun for almost $75!!
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Croaker which digital distribution system are you talking about?
I know with Steam it's just a matter of entering your account email and password and you have access to all titles purchased no matte what system you are on.
I think this is probably a good thread to post my thoughts on XBLA.
I've been recently hounded for paying 800 MSbucks for Doom (a little over $10.00can). After all, is the game not free under GPL? Here's what you get when you buy doom for the 360: A perfect recreation of 1993's Doom, upgraded to 5.1 audio; Achievements; Headset support; a huge amount of very convenient opponents/co-op buddies.
It's that last bit that makes it worthwhile for me. Sure you can download the latest Jdoom with all the fancy lighting updates and texture packs, but in the end it's still a hassle tracking someone down to play with. I guess going with the grapes analogy: Sure they are expensive grapes, but they are better than other grapes and they are... well, easy to share with your friends I guess. I'm as clumsy with analogies as a fish with a banana.
You can't do this!
Of course I can, I'm Will Wright, bitch! - The Simpsons Game
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None of them and all of them. What I was talking about is a perception.
A game in hand on CD or DVD means it's mine. I can reinstall, try it on another system, sell it, and so on as it's real property. Something that's "only" on the machine means (perception-wise) that it's not nearly as "real" or as flexible.
I'm not arguing that this hasn't solved technically, it's a comfort issue. Unless they make it straightforward to burn your own CDs/DVDs that then have all the same properties as a purchased game, it's likely that there's this wall that'll be stopping some from buying downloaded software
"Gamers With Jobs will take over the world someday. I hope they're benevolent overlords." -- Bill Harris
I used to work at Microsoft. And not as a grunt either. What's your point?
Since I know enough to use the term "retail channel", I have a pretty good idea of what it costs to put software on the shelf, thank you very much. From what I read here you must think those inter-tubes are robust enough to take anything and the good fairies will handle any issues. I beg to differ.
I never said retail was a great thing, but electronic distribution has huge costs as well. Particularly in the large scale. And if you think you're solving the problems of the retail channel with it then I'd like you to point out exactly how.
You go on about marketing materials? Have you ever priced a marquee banner ad on 1Up or IGN? Heck, even Ctrl+Alt+Del or PvP? And you're still dealing with print ads and other marketing pieces. Or did you think the rental market and other forms of distribution were going to just up and vanish? The percentage of various different things will shift, but all you really get to skip is the actual packaging materials. Not the design or any of the rest of the work with coming up with stuff like that- just the packaging itself. You still have to have the manuals written and laid out (they still exist, just now they're PDF's instead of paper). You still have to have art collateral and all the copyright stuff and branding laid out and negotiated for that and all the marketing stuff, too. All the online "presence" crap still has to happen, too.
Contract negotiations, etc all still have to happen thanks to the publishers and the online distribution channel. I'm sure you don't think you don't have to do that for Steam or even XboxLive? You'll have more than enough to keep the lawyers busy. Yes, you don't have shelf placement provisions. They're replaced by things like server uptime requirements and etc.
Inventory management etc is replaced with the enthralling fun of managing and supporting an online payment gateway. Unless you're a mom-and-pop and can just run through PayPal, this is a nightmare. Actually, even in the small scale this is a nightmare. There's a reason even large entities like Penny Arcade run through services like ThinkGeek. Unless you're Amazon this is an insane overhead.
Then add the explicit costs. Things like extra cost to the game company to license the technology, hardware, download software/infrastructure, technical customer support, billing/payment/accounting fun, security for both the download technology and the game download once it's downloaded, etc.
Then we have to take into account all the added costs intrinsic to using the system. The cost of the countless hours of CharlieFoxtrot to both the customer and the company managing accounts, downloading the software, and managing access in the face of technical difficulties and hacking. Not to mention the flat ongoing costs of bandwidth and connectivity for both the distributor and the customer. And the cost of stability - as croaker points out, having to go through all that again if something goes wrong doesn't even compare to the ease of dealing with traditional media.
Oh, and please remember the whole world doesn't work like it does here when it comes to internet connectivity/hardware/ISP protocols - international distribution is another can of worms. If you've got to market and distribute a game to Region 2 or 3 you're in a whole 'nother realm.
Those costs either flat don't exist or were long made more efficient and amortized out in the retail space. Inertia is a powerful force in the market. And I don't think the cost of printing the box, unsold merchandise, my gas money, and a bit of the shipping on physical marketing collateral make enough of a difference when contrasted with online's new and rather expensive ballgame. I think you know this or you wouldn't have added your little "depends on who's doing it" caveat.
Sure, in the indie space it makes some sense in the short term. And I'd love to "cut the retail chains". But this isn't the way to do it as of yet. Digital distribution's got a LOOONNNGGG way to go before it can decently compete with picking a box up off the shelf, going home and slapping it in the computer and going straight to the opening rounds of the BSOD Shuffle from the point of view of many customers. Especially as long as copy protection/security is in the state it's in. And it's got light years before it's going to be able to go up against doing it with the ease of use of even the worst console game.
Duoae wrote:
I'm the exact opposite. My downloaded titles get archived on my file server, with the serial. Practically all, if not all, of the downloaded software I have is easy to download. I really only archive it to remind me what I have and as protection should the company go belly-up. CDs on the other hand are prone to damage or misplacement. Getting a replacement disc for one you've inadvertently scratched might be an option. Highly improbably for one that is lost. In fact when I get something on physical media, the first thing I do is make an ISO from it.
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Women can't be in the same room with me without abandoning men forever - rabbit
I was initially very much of Croaker's mindset. What I found afterwards is that after installation my discs pile up on a spindle on my desk, get lost in drawers, or get scratched due to inevitable carelessness. Steam is honestly the ideal solution for me and if it's a choice between retail or Steam I'll pick Steam every time.
I haven't tried any other digital distro programs though, so I can't comment on them.
That does bring me to my one issue with digital distro. I'm not a huge fan of having excessive amounts of processes running on my system. Having to launch distro software in order to play each game would be a bit of a turnoff if it really takes off.
You can't do this!
Of course I can, I'm Will Wright, bitch! - The Simpsons Game
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Xfire/Xbox Live: StylezXP
So far that seems to be a Steam only thing. All my single-off download software doesn't require any authentication checks (I have a lot of shareware utilities and misc. programs that are download only). The only other distribution service I've used is Stardock's Stardock Central for Wincustomize. It's just an easy to use download frontend but doesn't have be running for your programs to work.
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Women can't be in the same room with me without abandoning men forever - rabbit
I have to disagree with MomGAmer. I'd say digital distribution is far cheaper and is absolutely the future. I don't see games being 100% digitally distributed anytime soon, but I do see it as when and not if.
AS far as $60 games well I think the older you get the more you notice that the companies are just selling you the same crap with a new coat of paint. And so the real 'new' games are few and far between. You also tend to find out what you like and don't like more. And whether you get the game launch day or a month or two after matters less. So the end result is you're more selective aka you're out of the target demographic for videogame publishers.
Of course some folks have more money as they get older and just buy whatever just because they can. Not sure if those folks help or hurt.