Why rampant video game sales are bad for players • Hacker News Board

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#41

Post by chii » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 3:31 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #21

Brashman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stops people from signing up as a Patron right before a game is released? Or put another way, what's the benefit of signing up as a Patron ahead of time?

Well one way you could do it is require a three month minimum which limits how many "blockbuster" games you can play but has staged/unlimited access to the rest of the catalogue. Bigger packages/loyal customers get access to more games. The trick here is to get the customer on the subscription for long enough to even out the volatility of financing new games, especially for more original games that aren't baggaged by…

the price point of $20 is a bit steep for such a subscription. Perhaps $10 a month, and that seems to be stretching it. I think a lot of gamers are young and therefore cash-strapped.

Netflix style gaming rentals have been tried before - i don't think they succeeded much tbh.

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#42

Post by chii » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 3:34 AM UTC

wonderzombie wrote: post #30

This is the problem with assuming humans are all rational, utility I maximizing machines. When a game like Skyrim comes out, I don't care that it'll be $45 instead of $60 in some months. My friends are playing it, the Internet is playing it, people are making memes. I picked $45 as an example price on purpose, because games which are brand new (according to my anecdata as someone who couldn't stop refreshing Steam in…

The author of the blog is making, imho, the classic mistake that the music industry makes when calculating potential revenue.

He makes this quote:

> If just half of the players who buy the game during a 50%-off sale would have bought the game at full price if that was their only option, we'd already have a wash. What fraction of sale-waiting players fall into this category? I suspect way more than half. The picture gets even worse for 75%-off sales.

Which is a plain wrong assumption. The buyers of a 50% sale would hardly contain any who would've bought it at 100% price. Those who would've bought at 100% price have _already_ purchased! This is the same reasoning that music industry counts lost sales in - if they pirated it, then they _must_ also would have purchased at 100% price had piracy been prevented, because the media is so rock solid that it's assumed that the acquisition is going to happen no matter what, just the route to it!

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#43

Post by chii » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 3:42 AM UTC

mentos wrote: post #25

> This waiting game is likely decimating your player base and critical mass at launch by spreading new players out over time. And your fans, who are silly enough to buy the game at launch and waste money, get to participate in a weaker, smaller player community. It seems like part of the problem is that some of his games (MMOs?) need a player base to realize their potential. In which case I wouldn't consider these mu…

while it's logical to argue that an MMO style game benefits from a freemium model, i rather argue that a freemium model destroys the craft by turning game design decisions into business decisions (that is, whether you morph your game design/mechanic so that you can extract more money). This is a terrible trend i m seeing recently with many games (and especially true of mobile games).

I rather pay a $15 subscription and play a game designed without fremium in mind, than pay $15 in In-App-Purchases.

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#44

Post by mentos » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 4:51 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #43

mentos wrote: post #25

> This waiting game is likely decimating your player base and critical mass at launch by spreading new players out over time. And your fans, who are silly enough to buy the game at launch and waste money, get to participate in a weaker, smaller player community. It seems like part of the problem is that some of his games (MMOs?) need a player base to realize their potential. In which case I wouldn't consider these mu…

while it's logical to argue that an MMO style game benefits from a freemium model, i rather argue that a freemium model destroys the craft by turning game design decisions into business decisions (that is, whether you morph your game design/mechanic so that you can extract more money). This is a terrible trend i m seeing recently with many games (and especially true of mobile games). I rather pay a $15 subscription a…

Well I think a lot of subscription MMOs are already compromised by the fact that they have an incentive to keep you around paying. This makes for a lot of the 'level grind' you see in MMOs.

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#45

Post by WalterSear » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 4:59 AM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #32

WalterSear wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't have bought 90% of the games I have if I hadn't been introduced to them in some kind of sale or bundle.

What point are you trying to make? That you only brought them because they were on sale, or that you only knew to buy them because they were being promoted through what happens to be a sale?

Both. That my money wasn't and wouldn't be on the table otherwise.

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#46

Post by kevin_bauer » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 8:21 AM UTC

"Hell, No!, Never! ... or so, were my first thoughts, because aren't we brainwashed into thinking that's the way how the market works?

But on second thought: maybe he isn't so of the tangent. How many games did i buy, but never played, even never touched, just they were on sale? And how many games, which i really, really wanted to try did i never buy, because i thought : "Aww i could buy three for the price of this one! So let's wait for the inevitable sales-offer.", just to loose interest, because i was occupied otherwise and a half year later already new games were flooding the market.

So it boils down to price, time and satisfaction! Maybe this is another triangle where you can move just on the axis, and never have all together.

The most limiting factor is time. You can only play one game at a time and if it produces satisfaction you probably would be willing to pay a higher price.

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#47

Post by fat0wl » Thu, Jan 16, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

chipsy wrote: post #10

When Jason Rohrer says something, it's invariably couched in zero-sum sacrificial thinking. The principle is embedded deep in his games, as well as his lifestyle, and by inverting that viewpoint it's easy to find flaws in his arguments. With respect to this idea, it models the game as a magical artifact of worship that grows more valuable simply by being older, and then reasons backwards to "this rewards the true fan…

yea the upwards pricing model has this strange assumption that indie games will get a cult following, whereas in reality there are not a ton that have much replay value.

i consider Fez to be one of the better indie games I've encountered. it cost a few bucks, probly wouldnt have bought it if it were more. after playing for a while i thought it was aesthetically pleasing but after realizing the task of the game & how id have to decipher these things it kindof seemed like the conclusion was already mentally within reach & playing it out would be sortof laborious.

the reason high price tags fit high-budget games is they make the missions nuanced enough that even if the game is a flop there is enough variation to keep you entertained, as a lot of manpower went into the features of the engine

i like the concept of indie games but i'm too skeptical to get one with a high price tag only to find that its focused around 1-2 core tasks and therefore barely worth the value whereas full-featured studio games have probably already dropped to the same price or below. prices are relative, its a competitive market

i'm all for ingenuity & creativity but any realist will note that lots of indie games are lacking in this as well

Re: Why rampant video game sales are bad for players

#48

Post by lawtguy » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 2:49 AM UTC

The reason Steam does sales is because they make more money: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/24/less-is-more-gabe.... From the article, they expected that cutting Counter-Strike by 75% would result in 4 times the number of people buying it, thus being revenue neutral. Instead 160 people bought it for every person that regularly did, this increasing the revenue by 40x!

He's right about charging less in alpha and beta: those players are taking a bigger risk and for a multiplayer game he needs to build critical mass. But after the game is launched, Valve's results show that sales make you more money, not less.