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Selling Lemons

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Re: Selling Lemons

#111

Post by mwkaufma »

somenameforme wrote: post #104
mwkaufma wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an independent gamedev: review-based storefronts (e.g. steam, egs, etc) select for the 1% of hits, but offers no pathway for the midrange -- everyone else gets lumped in with the slop.

It's definitely not just the 1%. Here [1] are some interesting data. 8.9% make $200k+, an additional 6.9% make $50k+. Exclude games under $10 and the median revenue of a game on Steam is around $17k. What's more relevant than that $$$ amount is the number of reviews that entails. That's sales in the thousands, which is more than sufficient to get that critical mass of reviews to start being recommended by their algor…

Account for labor + marketing (or if you have a publisher, clawbacks on advances), and those are failure numbers.

Re: Selling Lemons

#112

Post by somenameforme »

mwkaufma wrote: post #111
somenameforme wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not just the 1%. Here [1] are some interesting data. 8.9% make $200k+, an additional 6.9% make $50k+. Exclude games under $10 and the median revenue of a game on Steam is around $17k. What's more relevant than that $$$ amount is the number of reviews that entails. That's sales in the thousands, which is more than sufficient to get that critical mass of reviews to start being recommended by their algor…

Account for labor + marketing (or if you have a publisher, clawbacks on advances), and those are failure numbers.

Another datum they give is that 70% of published games are 'hobby projects' - no publisher and presumably little to no marketing and little no labor costs besides opportunity cost. The median revenue stats for publisher driven titles with an actual compensated team behind them are obviously going to be much higher.

Re: Selling Lemons

#113

Post by mwkaufma »

somenameforme wrote: post #112
mwkaufma wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Account for labor + marketing (or if you have a publisher, clawbacks on advances), and those are failure numbers.

Another datum they give is that 70% of published games are 'hobby projects' - no publisher and presumably little to no marketing and little no labor costs besides opportunity cost. The median revenue stats for publisher driven titles with an actual compensated team behind them are obviously going to be much higher.

"hobby project" as a label is a patronizing deflection.

Re: Selling Lemons

#114

Post by righthand »

rusk wrote: post #106
righthand wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Apples never made lemons if you completely ignore all their failures. What instantly springs to mind is the keyboard saga. Those laptops were lemons. Here are some more product failures, arguably listed there are plenty of lemons: https://qz.com/apples-12-worst-product-failures-of-all-time-... Not listed but I would absolutely list the screen nub a usability failure and I consider my work laptop and work phone…

> Brand capture is powerful but maybe only if you’re willing to eat the propaganda. Correct. The brand stays solid. The keyboard, the ribbon, there were a few citrus aspects to that generation but they rolled it back in the next generation. Crucially, it only affected a small (but vocal!) niche market so the brand remained solid. To be clear. I’m not making the case that Apple haven’t made mistakes or lemons, but tha…

I think you’re conflating lemons with “mid-range product”. Apple controls a lot of hardware, leaving competitors with a huge disadvantage. So the mid-range market aren’t ALL lemons as you’re implying.

> To be clear. I’m not making the case that Apple haven’t made mistakes or lemons, but

I think the rest of what you’re saying is just more if the propaganda.

Re: Selling Lemons

#115

Post by righthand »

rusk wrote: post #107
bitwize wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first 2006 Intel MacBook Pros had a bad batch somewhere. I knew a bunch of guys who bought one as soon as they came out, and within a week every single one of those MBPs was in the shop. I bought a $900 Compaq Athlon64 laptop. It still works today and never needed repairs.

These are all examples of lemon devices. Not of a lemon market.

Differentiating a lemon from a lemon-market is moving the goal posts.

Re: Selling Lemons

#116

Post by somenameforme »

mwkaufma wrote: post #113
somenameforme wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another datum they give is that 70% of published games are 'hobby projects' - no publisher and presumably little to no marketing and little no labor costs besides opportunity cost. The median revenue stats for publisher driven titles with an actual compensated team behind them are obviously going to be much higher.

"hobby project" as a label is a patronizing deflection.

No, it's relevant to your assertion. It's the term used by the infographic for, at the minimum, projects without a publisher. And it turns out that it's the overwhelming majority of games.

It's fairly safe to say that very near 100% of the chaff is going to qualify as a hobby project, but the great thing about development today is that hobby projects can also see basically unlimited success as well. For the obvious example - Minecraft was a hobby project by every possible definition of the term - no marketing, no publisher, single dev in his spare time after work - and it's one of the best selling games of all time. Lots of really great looking games today would also qualify as hobby projects. Advances in development tools/engines (and marketplaces) have really made some wild things possible.

Re: Selling Lemons

#117

Post by mwkaufma »

somenameforme wrote: post #116
mwkaufma wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"hobby project" as a label is a patronizing deflection.

No, it's relevant to your assertion. It's the term used by the infographic for, at the minimum, projects without a publisher. And it turns out that it's the overwhelming majority of games. It's fairly safe to say that very near 100% of the chaff is going to qualify as a hobby project, but the great thing about development today is that hobby projects can also see basically unlimited success as well. For the obvious e…

"It's the term used by the infographic for, at the minimum, projects without a publisher."

Term used by _whom_? Because nobody at DICE or GDC talks like that -- just peanut gallery blogs.

"And it turns out that it's the overwhelming majority of games."

Overwhelming majority... _of the way games are marketed_, not the reality of production. It's called "print the legend."

Re: Selling Lemons

#118

Post by BrenBarn »

a123b456c wrote: post #102
slg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't ironic, that is the whole point of a Market for Lemons, the inability to distinguish a good product from bad before purchase due to asymmetric information. That is why I think the author makes a mistake saying that it has no relation to enshittification. The ultimate problem here is that MZOO's incentive to maintain their level of quality isn't very strong. There is little preventing them from slowly make th…

Or it would take a strong base of reviews to establish a moat and the premium pricing that enables.

That seems doubtful given my impression of the number of fake reviews out there for even totally worthless "brands".

Re: Selling Lemons

#119

Post by BrenBarn »

I think I agree with pretty much everything in this article. The only thing is that I think if you agree with all this, you kind of have to take the next step and say, ". . . and therefore we must explicitly disincentivize the types of behavior that lead to this situation."

> The safest, smartest path is also the most mundane: keep the main thing the main thing.

But the thing is that it's not, now. I think it's harder to succeed doing that than it is to succeed by diving into the cesspool of grift, deception and meta-gaming that the article laments. We're not going to fix that by exhorting the good people to stay out; they're the ones who don't want to jump in anyway. The problem is the bad people who will gleefully jump in and contribute to that disaster, and it won't be fixed without action directed at making that jump more painful (or at least less pleasurable) for them.

Re: Selling Lemons

#120

Post by novaleaf »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #87
_kidlike wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't believe that Anker has not completely dominated the market... I almost always see other inferior brands when people pull out their powerbanks.

Anecdotally I've had a lot of problems with Anker products over the years. On two separate occasions my power banks died while I was travelling. I had a few Ravpower products that were at least as good. And now Ugreen seems to be producing good stuff. I don't think there is any stickiness here, and it's a cutthroat market. These things are all at a price point where there will never be a winner-takes-all.

same here regarding Anker powerbanks, and the bluetooth earbuds I got from them have all been disappointing: bad bluetooth compatibility, and waterproof levels far worse than advertised. I have had good luck with their chargers though, so still buy those.
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