There is not a single game that wouldn't be better value priced at 2/3 the cost of a retail game, and made available for download instead.
I'm all for premium priced content, and quite willing to pay for it, but it can be (and should be) cheaper than retail. Retail is a clunky, old, expensive way of selling games.
There is not a single game that wouldn't be better value priced at 2/3 the cost of a retail game, and made available for download instead.
I'm all for premium priced content, and quite willing to pay for it, but it can be (and should be) cheaper than retail. Retail is a clunky, old, expensive way of selling games.
But going digital only is a terrible idea. You don't own the content you download, you simply own a license to play it, and you can't resell it, trade it, etc.
I'm glad Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are doing both retail and digital, one supplements the other. Remember the PSP Go? That sold extremely well didn't it?
And what if the company goes out of business? The digital store would go away too. Not to mention the dangers of hackers getting into your account. After the whole PSN fiasco, I'm seriously considering deleting my Steam account.
And I'd much rather own my games fully, thank you very much.
To answer the original question, unless they want to lose money, no. You pay the same amount for advertising/promoting something that's $2 or something that's $200. While you may bring in more people to purchase your product, unless the amount of people exponentially increases, you'd make more money selling the $60 game than the $10 game. That being said, I would like to see publishers promote less expensive games on platforms like PSN or WiiWare if only so that it doesn't seem like the only options for buying video games are either $60 console games or $1 iOS games.
There is not a single game that wouldn't be better value priced at 2/3 the cost of a retail game, and made available for download instead.
I'm all for premium priced content, and quite willing to pay for it, but it can be (and should be) cheaper than retail. Retail is a clunky, old, expensive way of selling games.
But going digital only is a terrible idea. You don't own the content you download, you simply own a license to play it, and you can't resell it, trade it, etc.
I'm glad Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are doing both retail and digital, one supplements the other. Remember the PSP Go? That sold extremely well didn't it?
And what if the company goes out of business? The digital store would go away too. Not to mention the dangers of hackers getting into your account. After the whole PSN fiasco, I'm seriously considering deleting my Steam account.
And I'd much rather own my games fully, thank you very much.
Good thing the industry doesn't agree with you, then.
To answer the original question, unless they want to lose money, no. You pay the same amount for advertising/promoting something that's $2 or something that's $200. While you may bring in more people to purchase your product, unless the amount of people exponentially increases, you'd make more money selling the $60 game than the $10 game.
The reason retail games are so expensive (relatively) is because the cost of making them is substantially higher. The margins remain roughly proportional to $1 games.
For an idea of where publishers think content should cost, look at the iOS games that have also had retail releases. Final Fantasy III is $20 on the iOS App store, not $60 (this is Australian I'm quoting) on release for the DS. Sid Meier's Pirates! Is $5, not $50 as the Wii release was at launch. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is $20 - modern releases in that franchse are usually around the $100, if they're released at all. Civilization Revolution is $17, not $50 on the DS, and not $80+ on the HD consoles.
So publishers can still see a return on investment in releasing stuff on iOS. It just costs them far less to do so, so the consumer sees many of the savings.
So you think not fully owning your games is a good thing? Places like GameStop would go out of business.
Retail isn't going anywhere. There is still a large percentage of people without high-speed internet. We are a long way from going fully digital. iTunes hasn't killed CD's. Netflix hasn't killed DVDs. It may happen eventually, but there are too many things holding the transition back, namely the number of people without internet.
So you think not fully owning your games is a good thing? Places like GameStop would go out of business.
Bingo. And since GameStop isn't in Australia, I couldn't care less if it went out of business. I certainly wouldn't mind most Australian games retailers going out of business.
Retail isn't going anywhere. There is still a large percentage of people without high-speed internet. We are a long way from going fully digital. iTunes hasn't killed CD's. Netflix hasn't killed DVDs. It may happen eventually, but there are too many things holding the transition back, namely the number of people without internet.
According to who? You? I'm not sure what credentials you have, but analysts (proper analysts, not Michael Patcher) do expect movies, music and games to continue to go digital.
Completely? No. But then some people still buy vinyl - there will always be laggards. Entertainment retail will be all gone in between 10-20 years, depending on which type of entertainment. Most people I know stopped buying CD's a long time ago, and music retailers are slowly disappearing. HMVs all over the world are closing down.
Movies are a bigger sized download, so it's going to take a while longer for broadband infrastructure to support it, but the likes of Netflix and iTunes will bite deep into movie retailers. Already movie rental stores are struggling, and this is in Australia, where we don't even have Netflix.
Games will be the last to go, but games retailers will go.
See, the thing is, the people that make music, movies and games want retail to die. Retailers are truly obnoxious to do business with and if there's a way to cut them out (and they're an expensive link in the distribution chain), then smart businesses will look for ways to do so. Already there's the likes of Chillingo, PopCap and Paradox Interactive whose revenue comes almost entirely from digital downloads.
"So you think not fully owning your games is a good thing? You're just paying for a license, which is non-transferrable, meaning you can't sell, trade, or lend your digital games."
And:
"Not everyone has internet. The market would end up even more segmented than it already is. People with no internet connections wouldn't be able to play any games, since they'd all be digital."
My point is, stop looking at things so black and white. There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only. In the days before the internet, nobody cared about this stuff; people bought what they wanted. Now you're making it seem like it's a life or death situation if retail doesn't die out.
Let's imagine a scenario where retail does completely die out, and every form of entertainment is now digital-only. People who don't have the internet would be left out. People who have old computers would be left out. People who are poor would be left out.
"So you think not fully owning your games is a good thing? You're just paying for a license, which is non-transferrable, meaning you can't sell, trade, or lend your digital games."
Because we've already had this debate plenty of times before on this forum. Not everyone is paranoid. In fact, most people are not paranoid.
It's also a good thing that you can't trade or sell your games. Trading and selling games is exactly why so many good publishers and developers are struggling or going out of business, because they're getting no finanical benefit from their products. The sooner that stuff goes, the better.
"Not everyone has internet. The market would end up even more segmented than it already is. People with no internet connections wouldn't be able to play any games, since they'd all be digital."
Not everyone has a CD player either. So vinyl still has a market. Doesn't mean its an especially big one, nor is anyone bending over backwards to supply that market.
And seriously, the number of people who want to play games but have no access to Internet connections is going to be negligable in 10-20 years. It's a moot point.
My point is, stop looking at things so black and white. There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only. In the days before the internet, nobody cared about this stuff; people bought what they wanted. Now you're making it seem like it's a life or death situation if retail doesn't die out.
I would absolutely hate if download-only games was the future. For one there's the issue of DRM that companies shove in our faces. They're so afraid of pirates and hackers that they make legitimate customers pay for stupid "online passes".
Second, there's the problem with trading and reselling games you don't want anymore. What am I supposed to do if I'm bored with a game? Delete it? No. I'd rather take it to a store and get SOME money back.
Services like OnLive are a good idea, since it doesn't require any up-to-date hardware to run the games. Everything is streamed from the central server. But then there's the issue with connection speeds, AND download caps that ISP's are implementing.
My point is, stop looking at things so black and white. There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only. In the days before the internet, nobody cared about this stuff; people bought what they wanted. Now you're making it seem like it's a life or death situation if retail doesn't die out.
Uh huh, according to who, you? You just keep making statements without anything to back them up. Retail is going to have a small, if not non-existant, role in the future. It's a good thing, it means publishers will be more profitable, which means gamers will get more games.
If I'm wrong, give me a business case for the survival of retail. One that doesn't rely on the one per cent of gamers that doesn't have access to the Internet, and so still needs retail to play games at all.
There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only.
Weren't you the one who just said companies SHOULD go digital-only?
No. I was saying that games shouldn't be so expensive. Look at DVD's. You don't see movie studios charging $70 for a DVD, even though movies are much more expensive to make than games.
My point is, stop looking at things so black and white. There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only. In the days before the internet, nobody cared about this stuff; people bought what they wanted. Now you're making it seem like it's a life or death situation if retail doesn't die out.
Uh huh, according to who, you? You just keep making statements without anything to back them up. Retail is going to have a small, if not non-existant, role in the future. It's a good thing, it means publishers will be more profitable, which means gamers will get more games.
If I'm wrong, give me a business case for the survival of retail. One that doesn't rely on the one per cent of gamers that doesn't have access to the Internet, and so still needs retail to play games at all.
I would absolutely hate it if download-only gaming was the future. For one there's the issue of DRM that companies shove in our faces. They're so afraid of pirates and hackers that they make legitimate customers pay for stupid "online passes".
Second, there's the problem with trading and reselling games you don't want anymore. What am I supposed to do if I'm bored with a game? Delete it? No. I'd rather take it to a store and get SOME money back.
Services like OnLive are a good idea, since it doesn't require any up-to-date hardware to run the games. Everything is streamed from the central server. But then there's the issue with connection speeds, AND download caps that ISP's are implementing.
Download caps... THAT will be a major issue for many customers.
There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only.
Weren't you the one who just said companies SHOULD go digital-only?
No. I was saying that games shouldn't be so expensive. Look at DVD's. You don't see movie studios charging $70 for a DVD, even though movies are much more expensive to make than games.
Actually, they're not. Games can cost as much as the biggest Hollywood blockbusters to make now.
I would absolutely hate it if download-only gaming was the future. For one there's the issue of DRM that companies shove in our faces. They're so afraid of pirates and hackers that they make legitimate customers pay for stupid "online passes".
Second, there's the problem with trading and reselling games you don't want anymore. What am I supposed to do if I'm bored with a game? Delete it? No. I'd rather take it to a store and get SOME money back.
Services like OnLive are a good idea, since it doesn't require any up-to-date hardware to run the games. Everything is streamed from the central server. But then there's the issue with connection speeds, AND download caps that ISP's are implementing.
Get my point?
I said business case, not your personal opinion. Your personal opinion doesn't count for a whole lot - you're one consumer. Now what about the other hundred million or so?
There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only.
Weren't you the one who just said companies SHOULD go digital-only?
No. I was saying that games shouldn't be so expensive. Look at DVD's. You don't see movie studios charging $70 for a DVD, even though movies are much more expensive to make than games.
Actually, they're not. Games can cost as much as the biggest Hollywood blockbusters to make now.
Ok, so why are games so overpriced then? Movie studios know that selling a DVD for $60 would be financial suicide.
This is why I wait to buy new games... They get cheaper quicker these days (thanks to online retailers such as Amazon) I'd never pay $60 for any kind of game... $50 at the most...
There is room for both retail and digital. It doesn't all have to go digital-only.
Weren't you the one who just said companies SHOULD go digital-only?
No. I was saying that games shouldn't be so expensive. Look at DVD's. You don't see movie studios charging $70 for a DVD, even though movies are much more expensive to make than games.
Actually, they're not. Games can cost as much as the biggest Hollywood blockbusters to make now.
Ok, so why are games so overpriced then? Movie studios know that selling a DVD for $60 would be financial suicide.
Why are games overpriced? On a Dollar-to-hours entertainment basis they're better value than almost anything (books might just pip games, depending on the book or game). It's movies that are overpriced.
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