Slashdot Mirror
Industry Asks Gamers To Pay More
Last week we mentioned a Guardian post about secondhand games, with some industry commentary that the secondhand market was lowering the innovation expectations of developers. Today, the Gamers With Jobs: Press Pass reacts to the whining of the poor underpaid developers: "The always candid David Jaffe wrote: 'You know what? Why the **** should we even try anymore?' while Epic's CliffyB noted: 'What other entertainment medium that's mass market is at $60 a pop?' Cliffy would seem to have the right of it. The used market for DVDs, or CDs is relatively small. Why? Presumably because getting a five dollar discount on a fifteen dollar DVD is not as enticing as thirty dollars off of a sixty dollar game; when it's only five bucks, the natural desire to buy something perfect and new will, in most cases, outweigh thriftiness. While I certainly sympathize with Mr. Jaffe's frustration on this matter, his concerns are a result of working for an industry which refuses to intelligently adapt to a changing marketplace."
The price of games has hardly changed at all since 1987. For the past ~20 years, games have been sold for $50 apiece.
Meanwhile, the cost to make said games has gone up dramatically (the largest game I worked on had a development and marketting budget of $40M dollars, compared to development and marketting budgets of <500K in 1987). That's not even mentioning the fact that the $50 people paid for in 1987 is worth (conservatively) $74 in today's dollar.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
If he doesn't have the money to buy games, there is no loss for him pirating them. He wouldn't have purchased the game either way. Can't complain about losing revenue if there was none to be had in the first place, right?
It's like sex, except I'm having it!